Author: Emelia Hutchinson

It’s over! Show day ran smoothly, well guided by our stage manager Chloe. Despite a couple of fumbles and mistakes this was definitely the best the Sherby Lems have ever performed. The audience laughed in all of the right, and some rather unexpected, places! During the day the cast took feedback well and worked quickly and efficiently to correct mistakes and were incredibly patient when the stage manager and I were checking sound levels. Due to selling out we invited some people to come and watch our dress rehearsal. This allowed the cast to get a feel for an audience without the pressure of being assessed and certainly gave them the confidence to pull of the performance in the way that they did!

It’s been a pleasure and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for Sherbet Lemon Theatre. Hopefully, it’ll be sweet!

 

E.H.

Well! Show day has come and gone. I like to think that the day ran very smoothly and  show itself went very well, by this point what we really needed was an audience and they certainly helped with the overall atmosphere of the piece. Of course there are things about the piece which I would like to change and add. Within the arts industry those with disabilities are under-represented and under-employed. Within The Truth About Bedtime… I was keen to address these issues by including verbatim passages about how those with visual impairments dream and how those with other physical disabilities experience sleep. The main challenge of this of course would not be gathering the information, rather it would be catering the performance to be accessible to those who had provided us with the information. At the beginning of the process it was a part of the show most of us were keen to include. However, as we went further and further into the process we began to realise that, cost wise, it might not be as easy as we would have liked. As a very physical show at times we would not want those with visual impairments to feel disregarded throughout our show, with their views represented but their experience at the performance disregarded. Arts Council England stated in their Making a Shift Report (2018) that discrimination and exclusion faced by those with disabilities is ‘deep rooted and systemic and therefore require long term focus to change’ (Arts Council England, 2018). As a theatre maker this is something I am personally very interested in addressing and creating an arts environment where those who are differently abled feel valued as both creators and consumers of theatre and art. Despite this, inclusion is a difficult and expensive task, before beginning to conduct interviews with those with visual impairments we wanted to know the exact cost of having the performance audio described. It transpired that this process would cost at least £500 meaning that at this moment, with limited funds it was a part of the show we were unfortunately unable to add. In future development for The Truth About Bedtime… I would like to focus our fundraising efforts on being able to audio describe the show in order to make it accessible to the visually impaired, as I feel their voice is one which is missing from the production.

 

E.H.

 

Arts Council England (2018) Making a Shift Report. Arts Council England. Available from https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/publication/making-a-shift [accessed 24/05/2018].

We don’t get enough sleep anymore! With technology, social media and general anxieties getting in the way of our precious, precious sleep, here at Sherbet Lemon Theatre we were keen to delve deeper into this issue. Welcome to Sherbet Lemon theatre and our debut performance The Truth About Bedtime... Over the past fourteen weeks we have worked tirelessly (pardon the pun) to create this performance about sleep. Our inspiration came relatively early into the process in and amongst discussions about the fundamentals of what it means to be a human. It was surprising to us that sleep, as a basic requirement for survival, is experienced so differently by each and every person with experiences both sweet, and sour! This influenced another of our key decisions, the decision to use verbatim theatre. We were keen to hear how sleep affected people of all different ages, genders and ethnicities. The resulting performance will hopefully enlighten you to what really goes on when you switch off for the night!

 

E.H.

 

This past Thursday (April 26th) together with our fellow theatre company, Bleeding Edge we each presented to each other a work in progress of our performances in order to give each other effective critical feedback. First they presented their performance: Inka and we followed with The Truth About Bedtime…

It’s been a highly effective to get detailed and critical feedback from Bleeding Edge and since discussing it as a company we have decided that it is feedback we are keen to add into our performance and already we are seeing the effects of this work in progress ahead of our showback to those who gave us sections of verbatim.

 

The showback came at a time when we were all beginning to lack confidence with our performance and the feedback from Bleeding Edge has given us so much to work on and improve. Similarly, the feedback we gave to Bleeding Edge has given them a lot to work on.

As two companies it has been important to both groups that we maintain a strong working relationship. They have been such a valuable asset throughout our creative process ad know exactly how to compliment and criticise in equal measure. I’m certain the Bleeding Edge are a company we will continue to have a strong relationship with should we decide to continue.

(Regan, 2018)

 

E.H.

 

Works Cited.

Regan, M. (2018) Inka [photograph]. Lincoln.

Regan, M. (2018) Insomnia [photograph]. Lincoln.

As previously mentioned we as a group have a lot of inspirations. Most of the theatre we have seen, especially in the last few months has inspired us. And I just thought I’d quickly go into detail about how exactly we’ve been inspired by these other Theatre Companies.

Firstly, Partus (2017), by Third Angel. The first show of the year and the one which has stuck with us for the longest. Partus, used verbatim theatre to tell women’s stories about pregnancy and birth. Those of us who saw it were hugely inspired by it in particular the way it managed to create a warm and welcoming atmosphere. We’ve decided to incorporate this welcoming feel by greeting our audience members at the door and welcoming them into the space with a cup of hot chocolate or herbal tea. We also decided to take Partus as an inspiration when deciding to cap our audience. This was an important decision for us as a group and made us truly question which was more important: the money we could potentially make, or our artistic vision? In the end we decided to go for artistic vision. Meaning that we’ve chosen to cap our audience at 80 allowing for an intimate and homely feel within the performance.

The Audit (2018). It’s a fantastic thing to be able to see the work of our lecturers. Proto-type are a company with very different artistic aims and visions to Sherbet Lemon theatre, however, we have still managed to find inspiration in their work. Particularly when placing a narrative into our story. Much like in The Audit we wanted our narrative to seem like a natural addition to frame our piece, rather than something which was shoehorned in at the final minute just to make the piece seem a bit more coherent. As The Truth Bedtime… is not a strictly narrative driven piece of work, we still felt that we needed a narrative in order for the audience to sympathise and feel invested in our performance.

Finally, Education, Education, Education (2018) was a show we all saw when we were feeling a tad deflated, we were at the part of the process where everything was beginning to feel like a bit of a struggle and this was exactly what we needed to perk ourselves up! Out of all the shows we have seen Education, Education, Education is easily the production which is most similar to ours with a blend of humour and serious moments, it was really important to show us that what we wanted to achieve was actually attainable. Particularly their use of pop culture references and how seamlessly they blended into the production without feeling forced. Their branding as a company, namely their spotify playlist is another idea which we decided we wanted to use within our performance.

 

E.H.

 

Works Cited.

Proto-Type (2018) The Audit [live performance]. Performed by Proto-Type. Lincoln: Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, 13 March.

Third Angel (2017) Partus [live performance]. Performed by Third Angel. Lincoln: Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, 18 October.

Wardrobe Ensemble (2018) Education, Education, Education [live performance]. Performed by The Wardrobe Ensemble. Lincoln: Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, 16 March.