FMP: Final Reflection

R&D
How I developed ideas throughout the process. What surprised me?
Beginning the FMP process was a very creatively stop and start based endeavour. We started
working on the script with base level read throughs with every member of the cast able to
create their own concise ideas of how to interpret certain scenes. However, most of the
initial creative process was made up devising non-script-based scenes in order to practice
working with more outlandish ideas and macabre concepts based in realism. As we got
further through the rehearsal weeks, we worked more and more with the scenes set out
within the script and focused distinctly on experimenting with putting the different scenes in
different contexts as to further the absurdist anthology concept. What I found really
interesting was how incorporating different theatrical elements and techniques really kick
started the devising process each week and caused people to come up with new and
different ways to work around scenes and make more interesting and investing
performances.

What problems did I encounter? How did I overcome them?

I think the main issue within the R&D phase of FMP is becoming comfortable enough with
the people you devise with to fully commit to your devising and performances. Due to this,
our director Scott took time at the beginning of the rehearsal days during the early weeks of
FMP to play collaborative theatre games in order to build up a level of trust and
understanding within the group.

What did I learn?

Throughout the process we experimented with various different theatre techniques,
primarily in order to consider what we could include in our final performance. Some of the
concepts we included were general movement techniques like lifts and coordinated unison.
Whereas, during the theory work for FMP we learnt how to create and develop a portfolio
website, for now just to demonstrate and frame all of the theory work and effort we’ve put
into the FMP project. Perhaps some day however these skills will help us create our own
professional portfolio.

What did I succeed at?

I believe I worked best at implementing the kind of tonality and concepts that our director
Scott Hurran was trying to introduce into devised scenes, during the early weeks of FMP the
entire cast was trying to establish a tone and atmosphere for the show, during this stage I
think I was really able to thrive as a creative and create scenes that I could be proud of and
that which could be well implemented into the show itself. As well as this, I think I did well
to create my own portfolio website, paying close attention to how it could be easy to
navigate and find extensive information about my process during FMP.
What were my areas of development?
I think the best way I developed during the R&D phase was creating a more productive
theory work schedule for myself as well as working better in an ensemble. I believe I was
able manage my time for theory far better in these past few months than at any other time
during the course, due to this I have been able to complete my work to a high standard at a
reasonable rate while still having time to relax and rest, mainly by scheduling my time well in
a day by day fashion and deciding what I want to accomplish during each day. I have also
worked well as an ensemble member during this project seeing as by establishing a sense of
trust early on in the process everyone was able to care for each other person in the
ensemble’s needs and create a worth while piece of work by incorporating everyone to their
full potential and becoming more than the sum of our parts.

Rehearsal Phase
I really enjoyed working with our director Scott Hurran during our FMP. He not only brough a
far more advanced professional atmosphere than anything we’ve worked on before this
point, but he also made sure to implement a sense of community and safety in the rehearsal
room in order to make sure everyone still felt comfortable enough to engage themselves as
performers and have time to rest. I also enjoyed working with our movement director
Deepraj Singh seeing as his main goal as a creative was to make sure everyone in the room
was adapted to the space and comfortable with what they were being asked to do, I think
this is an important circumstance for a rehearsal room seeing as it always helps to create a
more involved and active performance as well as keeping everyone in the rehearsal room
happy and included.
I personally found it important to take breaks from the room during rehearsal, always taking
time outside of the room to reduce stress. Additionally, I think being well rested and fed
before and after rehearsals is incredibly useful and will supply you with a better work ethic
and attitude. Personally I found it slightly challenging to rehearse properly when people
weren’t necessarily focused on their own work, but due to how involved and overwhelming
the process got I think it was understandable that people often got distracted, I think more
of an issue arose when others in the rehearsal room weren’t understanding of this issue,
instead choosing to chastise or encourage this issue rather than just moving on to the
progress that was more sorely needed. I think we more or less overcame this issue over the
process of rehearsal by learning to understand how each and everyone’s creative process
works and allowing people to take their own time to relax and rest as long as it didn’t
actively contradict and holt the progress being made to the devising process.
I think a key moment during our rehearsal was when many elements of the show that may
have been absent from a lot of our rehearsals such as a soundtrack, lighting, and advanced
props were finally implemented during tech. I think this revitalised a sense of energy in most
peoples’ ideals around the show and added enthusiasm to their performances. I personally
found it really helped me understand the atmosphere and spectacle of the show and
convinced me to match that in my performance. As well as this I think it really elevated the
prospect of the show for everyone involved.
I think this journey has helped me understand how I work better as a devising creative, with
my prospects as a writer at hand I think this may be a very important skill later in my career.
We worked a lot on devising during this unit due to how open ended the script was,
therefore, we had to spend a lot of our rehearsal time deciding what the script and its
overarching elements meant to us, by working in the dramaturgical sense, we have created a
lot more of a personal piece to us as both people as well as creatives. As well as this, I know
this factor may be in a more short-term prospect, but I believe the group I have been
working with have become a lot closer as both people and creatives and will certainly work a
lot better together as theatre makers next year seeing as we may now be a lot more
comfortable in our respective and collective creative processes. Something I thought was
interesting was how much more laid back this tech process was to the other tech processes
I’ve done on other shows. Now this could be due to the fact that the stage management and
creative team knew they were working with a less experienced group of people, but I believe
that that is not only not the case in many circumstances and would also not affect the
prospects and ambitions of the crew. I think its more likely that this is because we were
working with less advanced and hard to deal with staging, the more open stage led to a lot
more of an easy working space.

Production Week
Moving into the Egg/Tech
I’ve previously mentioned how the process of introducing more technical aspects of the
show really brough new energy into the rehearsal process. However due to the little time we
had to work on the show in tech, we were not able to work on more acting based aspects of
the show. We only had a certain amount of time to work through the technical and physical
ques of the show in the auditorium, what I’m really pleased about was how morale was kept
strong through this long and often tedious process. Being in the theatre for production week
was very beneficial for us as a group due to the strict rules taking away peoples’ phones and
consequently engaging a lot more focus in the room.
Some stronger issues that arose were how individuals were present behind stage, however
over the time of developing habits and routines before the show, people were able to
prioritise keeping quite and still in the wings during performances and rehearsals. I also
believe that seeing the spectacle of the laid-out show may have overwhelmed many
members of the cast due to how much of a larger and more dramatic scale we were now
working on. However, I believe we were able to overcome this issue due to how much time
we’d spent getting used to the Egg as a theatre. One thing I think was a difficult but
necessary process chevroned by director Scott was spending a rehearsal session looking
through every transition, focusing on where everyone would be backstage stage, this really
helped to make every transition smooth and effective, as well as clearing any routes for
people going through quick changes and quick scene-based turn overs.

Dress Rehearsal
Due to time restrictions, we were only able to do one dress rehearsal to our heads of course,
year 2s and the second half of our year group which they then reciprocated by doing a dress
rehearsal of their show in the same day. I think this dress was fairly effective for deciding
definitively what we wanted the show to be. Something I didn’t enjoy early on was that the
entire audience was brought in before we had time to set all props and move to first
positions, I think this immediately killed a certain sense of atmosphere from the show.
As for my main scenes in the show, I think that I got my worst reception from “Teacher 1”
compared to what it would achieve in later performances. There were multiple aspects to
this: first of all, I believe that that scene was written for a possibly older audience due to the
kind of humour and narrative elements it has, so as it was in this sense mainly performed to
a younger audience, it didn’t get to much reception but I was still okay with what it
achieved; there was also a few lines and a technical ques missed during this performance of
the scene, This was handled very well by the tech team and due to how well choreographed
the rest of the scene is, I didn’t even notice the missed dialogue, let alone did the audience;
my biggest issue on stage was trying to eat a dry sandwich with a dry throat, I took to large
of a bite which lead to me almost choking on stage, I was okay by the end of the process but
I believe this issue may have led to a flat performance due to lack of focus as well as me not
being loud enough for some of the audience to hear. As a consequence, I took smaller bites
of the sandwich in consequent performances.
Additionally, My scene “Pouring and Sipping” went astoundingly well. Our director Scott
pointed out to me that the high audience reception during this scene lead to stronger
characterisation and an over all better performance, therefore, in later performances I
portrayed my characterisation as stronger overall but kept in mind that just because the
reception for the scene changes, it shouldn’t effect or more poignantly down play my
performance, I knew that I couldn’t rely fully on a receptive audience to take me through
that performance.
As for the ensemble context, we mainly had issues in a technical sense, with the occasional
missed que and wrong timing, I personally hit my head on the lower lighting arrangements a
few times during the dress, however I think I handled it well and didn’t let any of these
obstructions effect my performance. As well as this I think we had a few occasions where
there were obstructions in the wings where people blocked walkways, but as previously
mentioned, this was addressed afterword in tech. Overall I think we got some great
reactions from the show despite the occasional faults, even when admitting that most of the
audience were supportive of seeing their friends in the performance.

Performance 1
One thing that was very interesting to me during the first show was that overall, we had the
least audience reception for the overall show. But I personally got some of the best reactions
I got from any of my performances in the two days. I believe this show really put the overall
performance into perspective for most of the cast seeing as we did the best that we had
done so far in our scene transitions with everyone traveling smoothly backstage. In
comparison to the dress, I really enjoyed getting to be a part of a very successful audience
lead in where every member of the cast was in first position for the audience entering the
auditorium, I think it worked far better to establish the tone.
During my scenes in this run, we had a much better display of “Teacher 1” that flowed
better, had fully correct dialogue and tech ques and was received as being way funnier and
interesting by the audience. I’m really happy with how this scene functions in the show in
the context of this run seeing as it established the less expositional and large-scale tone that
could have led on from “Stan”. While performing this scene I could feel it being a lot calmer
and more sedated which invited the audience back into the fun and interoperative
atmosphere. I also tried to incorporate new character elements into my performance,
playing around with a Hugh Grant like line delivery. One of the only issues I faced during this
run was still eating part of a sandwich, however I took a smaller bite of the food this time
which made the problem much more easy to deal with.
“Pouring and Sipping” still got a strong reaction of laughs that continued elevating my
performance and continued to make my performance easier to portray despite it still being
quite silly and confusing. I had a less slick entrance, but I don’t think this had to much of an
impact on the audience seeing as its still quite a downtrodden moment that isn’t shoved to
far in the perceivers’ face.

Performance 2
I think this show was the best received overall, there were lots of laughs and tears and
additional positive comments given post show. The ensemble worked incredibly well with
the notes from previous shows about movement through the wings and backstage being
implemented well, I personally don’t think it had ever been so easy to navigate the off-stage
areas. There was a moment near the end of the show however when many members of the
cast were whispering amongst each other with little to no regard to those on stage. Me and
Charlotte were able to put and end to this event quickly by moving everyone to the foie to
tell them about the issue, I am still rather upset at this attitude behind stage especially
seeing as it was so late in the game, but I think I can chock it up to end of show jitters rather
than a lack of respect for the performing actors.
During this show, I still got a large reception mainly from the humour of “Teacher 1”. The
scene ran incredibly smoothly during this run with the best sandwich eating performance I
think I performed out of any of the shows. This was the best utility of the soundtrack we had
with at least me and Evie reacting to the songs being played as diegetic sound in the
background to fully implement the atmosphere. I even think the dynamic that me and
Charlotte had in this version of the scene was possibly the best that it ever had been, the
notes on delivery speed and eye contact that audience members had given to us really
helped improve the dynamic.
This may have been the least reaction I could hear during “Pouring and Sipping” throughout
each of the scene’s performances. This may have taken away from the characterisation, but I
think by this point I’d found out a better way to fuel the characterisation and keep the spirit
up during the scene by practicing the scene in front of a mirror, I focused on carrying the
energy from the fun I was personally finding through the scene.

Conclusion
Overall, I think this show has been a great benefit to all involved, it has been exciting and
enthralling throughout all rehearsals. I believe we have all become better at adapting to new
spaces, keeping spirits up and developing rehearsal-based routines to keep energy reserved
when performing. I think there have been moments of turmoil between members of the
cast and creative team, but we’ve all taken these occasions on the shoulder and kept
working through. Well done to everyone involved.