unit 12 - evaluation

Introduction

On Thursday 16th May, the 'girls' group and I had our performance day. I started off the day by going through a cue to cue tech of my show. I was really worried during this tech because I was taking out and putting in light/sound cues last minuet. I believe that this was because of poor planning. I wasn't able to get all my sound cues in on time because there were a few I had to make myself. I also had more ideas on how tom make the lighting more effective for my piece. Even though my lighting and  sound cues were written down in the script that I gave to Vadim (our technical director) the ideas were not communicated well enough when it came to teching my show. We had a quick run-through before teching the girls and I began to get nervous so i was messing up on the lines order. This may not have been a big set back for people working in groups because the other group members could improvise around the mistake, but for me it was quite a big set back because the other people's lines were already prerecorded. To fix this I spent my free time (while the girls were going over their tech) learning the lines to all my duologues so that Vadim would know how to place my sound cues effectively. 

Matinee

(when I talk about times, in this section, I am referring to this video)

 In my opinion the matinee show went very well, even though there were a few mistakes made by the technical team. After I finished my first performance I realised that I rushed a lot of my lines in the first two scenes. For the first scene it may have been because I was trying to flow with the music so quite a few of my lines were lost in that first scene. If I had more time to prepare this I would spend more time working on my diction so that I was able to do it in a way that doesn't look like I am trying to force it. I also think that my rushing of lines was due to nerves also because before starting my first run I thought I wasn't prepared because I didn't know all my lines. Most of the feedback I got from after the performance was good but I did get some feedback on my directorial choices, for example: my choice of having a no lighting changes when the ending interview happened.

Another thing that people were questioning me about is my choice of using the bandanna. The audience was not sure why I decided to use it. After watching the recording back I also had some feedback of my own.

What Went Well

I think that there were a lot of things that went well during my matinee performance. For example I used the stage space effectively, even though I had such a bare stage. I know I used the space effectively because I was able to engage with every single part of the audience. I also got more good feedback such as, my voice was able to fill the space and I was being complimented on the amount of lines I learned and how I was able to repeat what I had rehearsed.

Would be better if...

There were a few minor mistakes both on my part and the technical part. To begin with, on my part, I stumbled on my words quite a bit in the first two scenes. For example, in between 6:48 - 7:03 I forgot my lines for a second because my phone called my sister during the performance and I had to listen to her voicemail while giving my lines so it was a little awkward for me. I also found that I was pacing a lot during this performance. I think I did this to make sure I was engaging with each part of the the audience. I also had problems with tech, mostly missing or moving audio/light cues. These included:

•  playing this sound cue at 15:20 instead of 9:14 
•  he also forgot to play these sounds: 

1. this one at 10:26
2. this one at 12:54
3. this one at 33:03

This made my piece stretch out a little because of awkward pauses. I think this problem could have been avoided with better communication between actor (me) and technical director (Vadim), but I also think it would have been a more effective solution to supply Vadim with an technical assistant. This solution would have been possible if I had more time to talk to other members of the tech team.

In-between shows

We didn't have much time in the theatre to run through our shows so I spent my free time running my lines so that I could remember them during the run in the evening. I also wanted to readjust my first monologue so that the pauses were more prominent so, this would make the monologue look less rushed and the audience would be able to pick up a lot more information. When we were able to get into the stage space I had to make some readjustments to my sound and light cues such as take out some transition audio cues and also make sure other lighting cues were added, for example at the end of Scene 3 - Apparently  Vadim prematurely put on the lights for Scene 4. I felt that it seemed weird because The Virus was still talking about being in the night scene ("lady of the night in fishnet tights").

Evening show

The evening show was much better than the matinee. I kept on receiving good reviews from audience members. I believe that it was the compliments and constructive criticism from the previous audience that fuelled my energy for the evening performance. Since I was able to learn my lines and nuances I was able to come out on stage confidently knowing exactly what I had planned to do.

What went well

I thought that the evening show was one of the best shows I have done through out this course. I was able to keep the audience engaged through  out the piece, I was able to fill the space with my voice and I was able to talk to the audience since I wasn't feeling as nervous. I feel that this gave the impression that I was looking for, being able to tell this story as if it were my own. This means that I achieved one of the goals that I set out to achieve at the start of this unit, which was to make the performance minimalist but also real.

Even Better If...

One thing I would do to make my play more effective is to calm down with the pacing. Watching over the pieces again i feel like I paced to distract the audience from the bare stage. At some points this strategy was good because it helped me engage with the whole audience. At other times it seemed misplaced, as if I was compensating for something else, which kind of took away from the power in the words. For this reason I am happy that our technical director missed a light cue because at 10:09 (where the spotlight was supposed to change), the spotlight forced me to stay centre stage and talk to the audience from one point while still using the same emotion to carry my character across. We did miss a few sound cues but it was fine because I had learned those lines just in case.

Overall I believe that my final performance was a huge success. I was able to effectively use my research to build my characters from  scratch (because I had not previously seen the show). The skills I picked up over the course, including (but not limited to) emotional memory and spatial awareness, really helped out in the overall quality of my piece. So, to conclude, I believe that this course has helped me to produce such an incredible piece of theatre and taught me a multitude of skills to take into the acting industry.