Creating the Company

The success of a theatre company is infinitely difficult to measure. There are so many ways that a theatre company can consider themselves successful: ticket sales, profit, strength of the message conveyed to the audience. In the case of Real Eyes Theatre, I believe that our success can be defined as our creation of a performance that encapsulates both our intended message and our initial objectives as a company.

Arts Council England (ACE) measure the strength and value of a theatre company through key factors such as vision and artistic policy. ACE claim that a successful company should ensure that ‘every aspect of [their] activity contributes to achieving [their] artistic aspirations’ (2016). Through this guidance we formed our company ethos and mission statement, which would summarise our goals as a company as well as guide any future artistic decisions.

Our statement that ‘working as an ensemble we create playful and inspiring devised work that places honest storytelling at its heart’ (Real Eyes Theatre, 2016), was key in establishing the work dynamic between the group. Though we each had our own established roles within the company, myself as both a performer and assistant stage manager, we saw that it was key for everyone to be fully aware of the company’s actions and communication was vital. This reduced the potential for tension to a minimum. Whereas our desire to produce ‘honest storytelling’ was a dictating factor in the creation of our debut show, Memoir of A Forgotten Past (Real Eyes Theatre, 2016).

Creating the Show

Initial ideas for the show were based around the idea of connectivity and the influence of technology in everyday life. We hoped to create a performance discussing the positive and negative influences technology has had on our lives. However we struggled to demonstrate this playfully and without coming across as though we were lecturing the audience.

After we struggled with that idea, we decided to turn our research around and instead look at life before technology. We placed research as a high priority as we wanted to create a performance that reflected the truth of the past, using this truth to explore how though life has changed, there are certain fundamentals that remain the same. Michael Rosen is quoted to have said that ‘the arts are a means by which we can investigate and understand the past and the present, our world and our feelings’ (Arts Council England, 2013), which I believe is wholly appropriate to our hopes for Memoir of a Forgotten Past. The creation of our tagline: ‘Smile, Wave, Connect’ helped us focus these aims. This focused our research down to the basics of human connection and guided us to explore the ways our interactions may have changed over time or, as we often found, they have remained the same.

In our exploration of the past, we split up into pairs to explore how each different decade over the last hundred years has brought about new changes and new developments, noting important events and technological developments. After this research, it became clear that we would have to narrow our focus down to a strict number of decades in order to do any of them justice. With nine performers in the group it seemed only logical to select three decades, in which three actors were based and each decade should be thirty years apart in order for sufficient changes to have occurred. It was through this breakdown that we settled on the idea of situating our performance in each of the selected decades with subtle links between each. The decades we settles on were the 1950’s, 1980’s and 2010’s.

 

Creating the Characters

Having selected our chosen performance eras, we designated three actors to each decade so that we could split off once more in order to learn about our decade in more detail returning to the ‘honest storytelling’ motivations of the company. I was chosen to be part of the 50’s. Extensive research and discussion led us to possible relevant topics of conversation that could take place as well as applying each of the characters an appropriate name from the decade; this helped my character become Harriet Taylor.

As a company, we spent a lengthy section of the process developing script and characters. Once decades had been assigned and initial research completed we wrote our opening scenes for each decade in our trios before showing back to the rest of the company. We then worked as a full company to develop the scenes and characters through improvisations and hot seating. This meant that, not only were we fully informed of our characters enabling us to portray them more convincingly, but also that we were able to form scenes and connections between characters more effectively.

As tool for character development we each devised a short character profile for our character that could be shared as part of marketing strategy, giving the audience an early insight into the characters. This was made easier by employing Stanislavski’s technique that requires the actor to have the ‘capacity for belief, to inhibit the universe created by the stage’ (Choral Journal, 2011, 24). With careful consideration of a character’s motivations and history, I found it easier to embody the character effectively, making her a more three-dimensional creation. The exercise of actioning our scripts which was set by our directors also helped with this part of the process. Actioning involves applying verbs to each line of text, or where appropriate, that ‘each express an action between characters and can define the impulse under each sentence’ (Caldarone and Lloyd Williams, 2004, xviii). This gave me a fuller understanding of the character of Hattie, helping me form her personality more truthfully.

 

Creating Our Voice

Though the story was of our own creation, as a company we felt it was important to weave real voices into the performance somehow. In order to do this we chose to include the theatrical technique of verbatim; ‘Verbatim Theatre provides a platform for diverse, authentic voices, unheard in popular media’ (Anderson and Wilkinson, 2007, 154). By adding unscripted, unprompted opinions and thoughts into the performance we were able to stay true to our mission statement’s declaration for honesty.

We conducted interviews with various friends and family members, being careful to select a range of generations with conversation topics ranging from technological advancements to their meeting with their significant other. This provided a breadth of information that we were able to choose from and use as inspiration for our own story. However though we liked the different qualities of various recording devices, this did pose a challenge for me in the editing and cleaning up of the sound to ensure the clearest possible listening for the audience. It was also important to not edit the recording further than necessary as we wanted it to ‘capture the experience, feelings and encounters of real people’ (Taylor, 2013, 379), in keeping with the original ethos of the company.

Another source of inspiration was Zest Theatre’s Thrive (2015). Their form of playful storytelling combined with audience interaction was highly reflective of the style we wanted to create. This formed the idea of passing out envelopes to the audience asking them to write down what had made them smile that day. We felt this helped set the tone of our performance as well as allowing the audience the chance to contribute to their own experience.

 

Creating the Technical

As well as the afore mentioned sound editing role I undertook, I also had many other responsibilities towards the creation of Memoir of A Forgotten Past. My main role was ensuring that our stage manager, Kerry, had everything under control, sharing the technical requirements of the piece. In order to share responsibility, she took on management and design of the lighting for the performance and I was placed in charge of sound and projection. Though there had been a few elements of projection from early stages in the creative process, we decide to use this technology to a greater extent in the final few weeks of rehearsals. The presence of, what we termed, ‘real voices’, were crucial to the storytelling quality of the show though we didn’t want the audience staring at blank space whilst listening to the voices as this could disconnect them from the piece. However we also didn’t want any action to be distracting from the video as that would reduce the impact of the words. We eventually settled on the idea of projecting related photo based videos in conjunction with the words of the verbatim, here is an example of one such video I created:

https://youtu.be/kecrtgK6mQ4

Other projections were used to demonstrate the differences between the decades on stage, such as this recreation of a housewife tutorial video which was projected at the same time as the modern character of Rach played violent video games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWFNLEgzQuA

 

Another part of my job was checking in with the Producer and other group members to ensure that the rest of the technical or non-performance aspects were being fulfilled. This resulted in me aiding with the creation of a higher quality logo, as the original appeared to blur on some social media accounts, and assisting in the creation of both the posters and flyers. Though the design was decided as a group, I worked closely with the marketing team, lending them my photoshop experience to ensure that the final image was an accurate representation of the design concept. I also aided the rest of the company in fundraising practises such as our 80’s themed movie night and 50’s themed bake sale. The great success of both as fundraising ventures and marketing events can largely be attributed to the company’s great co-operation and communication skills which was important as both of these events, particularly the 80’s night, were our introduction to the public as a unified company.

Perhaps one of the more technically challenging aspects of my job revolved around the creation and control over the Q lab file. Q lab was the sole operating system for the show, ensuring that Kerry was able to easily operate the show from the tech box alone. We worked closely together to ensure that the cues were all programmed as simply as possible to allow for a smoothly running show.

Throughout the process I also work in close proximity with Fleur, our producer, to ensure frequent and appropriate rehearsals were scheduled. I also took notes at any of the production meetings we had in order to establish which jobs had been done and which still needed further engagement.

 

Completion of the Creative Process

As a company, I believe one of our greatest strengths is communication. By working so closely together in every aspect of the formation of both company and show, we reduced any tensions that arose and those that did we were able to subdue quickly and effectively. Clearly defined job roles made sure that every job was undertaken fully, yet the willingness to assist other group members and an open communication network allowed for us to act as a cohesive unit.

Upon reflection, I have thoroughly enjoyed being part of Real Eyes Theatre and I believe that Memoir of a Forgotten Past is a truly touching and effective show that remains true to our company’s ethos and aims.

 

Works Cited

Anderson, M and Wilkinson, L. (2007) A Resurgence of Verbatim Theatre: Authenticity, Empathy and Transformation. Australasian Drama Studies, 50, 153-169. 

Arts Council England (2013) Great Art and Culture for Everyone: 10 Year Strategic Framework. Manchester: Arts Council England.

Arts Council England (2016) Self-Evaluation Framework: Artistic Policy/ Statement. [online] England: Arts Council England. Available from http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160204101926/http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/selfevaluation/framework/artistic-aspirations-and-programme/artistic-policystatement/ [Accessed 20 May 2016].

Caldarone, M. and Lloyd-Williams, M. (2004) Actions: The Actors’ Thesaurus. London: Nick Hern Books Limited.

Choral Journal (2011) The Acting Principles of Konstantin Stanislavski. Choral Journal, 52(5) 22-26.

Crow, P. (2016) Memoir of a Forgotten Past. Lincoln: Lincoln School of Fine and Performing Arts. Available fromhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/61839232@N02/albums/72157668692081575/with/27056236172/ [Accessed 24 May 2016].

Real Eyes Theatre (2016) About Us: Mission Statement. [online] Lincoln: Real Eyes Theatre. Available from https://realeyestheatre.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/about-us/mission-statement/ [Accessed 22 May 2016].

Real Eyes Theatre (2016) Memoir of a Forgotten Past. [performance] Jessica Greaves and Jessica Martin (dirs.) Real Eyes Theatre. Lincoln: Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, 21 May.

Taylor, L. (2013) Voice, Body and the Transmission of the Real in Documentary Theatre. Contemporary Theatre Review, 23(3) 368-379.

Turner, D. (2016) Memoir of a Forgotten Past Photo Shoot. Lincoln: Real Eyes Theatre.

Zest Theatre (2015) Thrive. [performance] Toby Ealden (dir.) Zest Theatre. Lincoln: Lincoln Drill Hall, 10 November.