Category: Creative Designer

Hello!

We did it! Our performance ‘The Truth About Bedtime…’ premiered on 21^st May at Lincoln Performing Arts . I am completely overwhelmed with the response we received from our audience during and after our show. Our piece being described as “imaginative, thoughtful and assured piece of work” (Jordan, 2018). Since the show, we have received numerous of compliments from audience members, who especially enjoyed the sweetness of our performance. Which was important to us as a company as we believe laughter is an important part of life.

Preparation on show day consisted of checking all the props and costumes were in good condition and had not been worn down during any recent rehearsals. Luckily, I only had to go over the ‘EYE’ ball again in order to make sure this was clear to the audience members.

During the performance, everything ran smoothly, except one of the balls used in our REM scene fell out of our props bucket earlier on in the performance and therefore was not in the correct place when it came to REM. Luckily, it had just rolled one foot away and was still easily accessible by the cast member that required it. All we can do to ensure it does not happen again is be careful when removing other props from the bucket, but unfortunately, these things do and will happen. However, this did not effect the show and the cast members remained calm and did not draw any unncessary attention.

If I had more time, I would ensure that costume was properly fitted for each cast members, in order to make sure they were safe and allowed us to move and feel comfortable. As some pyjamas were slightly to long on some legs, which may have looked untidy to certain audience members.

Overall, I am extremely proud of every member of our company and feel privilege to be a part of Sherbet Lemon Theatre and able to work with such amazing and creative women.

I hope this will not be the end of Sherbet Lemon Theatre and The Truth About Bedtime…

A big thank you to everyone who has supported our company so far.

L.F.

 

Works Cited

Jordan, A. (2018) The Truth….[Email]. Sent to A. Mason, C. Denby, C. Mckay, E. Hutchinson, E. Liddle, E. Round, L. Farrell, 22 May.

 

Figures

Opening Number:           Sired, K. (2018) Sherbet Lemon Theatre: The Truth About Bedtime. Available from https://www.facebook.com/pg/KSIREDPHOTOGRAPHY/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1817093908311824 [accessed 24 May   2018].

Sandman Sheet:               Sired, K. (2018) Sherbet Lemon Theatre: The Truth About Bedtime. Available from https://www.facebook.com/pg/KSIREDPHOTOGRAPHY/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1817093908311824 [accessed 24 May 2018].

Exercise Scene:                 Sired, K. (2018) Sherbet Lemon Theatre: The Truth About Bedtime. Available from https://www.facebook.com/pg/KSIREDPHOTOGRAPHY/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1817093908311824 [accessed 24 May 2018].

Sherby Lems:                     Sired, K. (2018) Sherbet Lemon Theatre: The Truth About Bedtime. Available from https://www.facebook.com/pg/KSIREDPHOTOGRAPHY/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1817093908311824 [accessed 24 May 2018].

Hi, everyone! I hope everyone is doing well and are looking forward to the premiere of ‘The Truth About Bedtime…’ in just two days time!

We want to ensure that our audience will be relaxed and will feel included in our performance, as they enter the auditorium we are going to greet, chat and serve digestive biscuits and hot chocolate, as “hot chocolate, is a well-known mood booster” (White, 2014). We are also going serve camomile tea for our dairy, gluten free and vegan audience. Arts Council England strive to make sure art is available “for everyone” (Arts Council England, 2018). Therefore, we want to make sure that we include everyone from our audience and that they all will have the opportunity to relax and engage with all cast members. Including everyone in our performance was important our company, and so was attracting people who do not often attend theatre. Our theatre space is designed to not look like a typical theatre, and allow more wheelchair accessibility in our space, for us to reach out to a wider audience.

Performing in Lincoln Performing Arts Centre means that we are able to contact their café bar, zing, and borrow a hot water boiler, which will help us ensure that our process and pre-set will run as smoothly as possible. This also means that I have been in contact with zing café manager and were asked to fill in a food safety disclaimer form, which can be found in our technical documents. I also need to make the audience aware of any allergy information regarding the hot drinks and biscuits. Therefore,  I have created an allergy advice notice that will be clearly displayed in the serving area and will make sure that the cast members involved in serving the hot chocolate and biscuits are aware of the notices and the allergy information themselves to help answer any inquiries. We will also add stickers of our company logo onto the cups we will be using, which will hopefully make the audience, remembers the company more, and make them feel more included in our piece.

If we decide to continue ‘The Truth About Bedtime…’ after university and still want to serve hot drinks beforehand, I think it may be best for our company to invest in our own hot water boiler, as some places may not be able to borrow us one, having our own will ensure we keep the performance consistent. I found one available on amazon for £39.99.

 

L.F

 

Works Cited

Amazon (2018) Oypla Electrical 10L Catering Hot Water Boiler Tea Urn Coffee. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oypla-Electrical-Catering-Boiler-Coffee/dp/B00IEA0LFC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1527160828&sr=8-3&keywords=hot+water+dispensers+catering [accessed on 19 May 2018].

Arts Council England (2018) Our five goals for arts and culture. Available from https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/about-us/our-mission-and-strategy-0 [accessed on 19 May 2018].

White, D. (2014) 5 Healthy Reasons to Drink Hot Chocolate. Womanitely, 18 December. Available from https://womanitely.com/healthy-reasons-drink-hot-chocolate/ [accessed on 19^th May 2018].

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Cups: McConnell, H. (2018) Sherbet Lemon Cups [Image]. [Accessed on 19th May].

I’ve mention costume in my last few posts, but my role also includes sourcing all props used throughout our productions. Within theatre this role is usually known as ‘Property Mistress/Master’. It is suggested that in theatre “we often underappreciate stage props and prop design” (Todd, 2012).

I recently watched a production called, ‘Education Education Education’ at Lincoln Performing Arts Centre. I was inspired by how much the production relied on props to convey the narrative and personality of each character. There was a scene where the actors were playing teachers in a staff room and each character held a prop, such as a newspaper, clipboard and a tea mug. Each prop was used subtly, not to distract the audience or steal the attention, but help the audience understand the group dynamic. The clipboard helped to convey, that the character, had a more authoritative role.

In our upcoming production ‘The Truth About Bedtime’ we rely heavily on props because “props assist imagination and play” (Todd, 2012). Throughout our production props help enhance the energy and fun throughout the scenes. As Sherbet Lemon Theatre, we like to offer a little bit of sweet and sour. Props really support us in delivering that sweetness and laughter that we hope to provide our audience.

 

This photo is from our exercise scene, in which I sourced neon sweatbands for, they help to reinforce the fun and energy we hope this scene provides.

The role also involves clear communication with our Stage Manager, Director, Set Designer and Producer. Developing good working relationships will maintain continuity throughout our devising process.

As we have a lot of props it is vital that they fit in with our set. This is to ensure the performance area does not look messy when the audience are entering, and also to ensure the safety of performers and audience, so that they do not trip over anything. Therefore, all our props will either be on the performer themselves or in a laundry basket, that fits into our set, ready for the performer to collect when needed.

L.F.

Works Cited

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

Todd, B. (2012) Time to give props to theatre props. The Guardian, 15 May. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2012/may/15/theatre-props-stage [accessed on 18 April 2018].

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Exercise Scene Rehearsal : Sherbet Lemon Theatre (2018) Exercise Scene [image]. Available from  https://www.instagram.com/p/BgMpY8FhQ53/?taken-by=sherbetlemontheatre [accessed 18 April 2018].

Our show ‘The Truth About Bedtime…’, will consist of verbatim theatre. “Verbatim theatre is a form of documentary theatre which is based on the spoken words of real people” (Drama Online, undated).

Sleep is for everyone and everyone needs sleep in order to survive. Yet, everyone has different experiences of sleep, it is personal. This meant we are able to speak with everyone and anyone and involve their words and their experiences within our performance. Simply using our own words, would mean we could not have reached into a wider range of sleep experiences, as within our company we are all women, all students and all roughly the same age and therefore we would not be representing sleep issues as widely as they are. I have never realised how complicated sleep is, I have a fairly good relationship with sleep, although I never truly understand why I need sleep, so this process has taught myself a lot and made me realise and become more understanding to other peoples issues regarding sleep.

As a performer, I have the responsibility to learn and deliver the verbatim speeches we are collecting. This does require great focus, as in order to be truthful to the people who have helped us, we will need to make sure we understand the meaning of what they are saying. This will help ensure that our delivery will be as truthful as possible, therefore we must also must include the ‘um’ and ‘ah’ from every person, to indicate they thought process, possible nervousness and even regular speaking, which will reflect on severity of the verbatim sections of our production, The Truth About Bedtime… 

L.F

Works Cited.

Drama online (undated) Verbatim theatre. Drama Online. Available from http://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/genres/verbatim-theatre-iid-2551 [accessed 20 April 2018].

Hello Everyone! The Sherby Lems have been busy networking and getting our name heard.

On international women’s day, 8/10 members of Sherbet Lemon Theatre attended women in the arts [WITA] in Lincoln. It was an event dedicated to show casing creative women and their talents, as well as allowing the chance for women to network and talk about their work. Which was a great opportunity to experience more arts as “arts and culture enrich our lives. They fire our imaginations, challenge, inspire, educate and entertain us” (Arts Council England, 2018). It also gave us the opportunity to advertise our own show and company to a wider audience and gain support from other women working in the industry.

We built a relationship with the women who run and work at WITA, and they opnely share our rehearsal photos on their social media, or our call outs and are even willing to take part in our verbatim research themselves.

The ladies at WITA have definitly provided us with more confidence about being open and not holding back which will contribute to the overall success of our show.

 

 

Works Cited

Arts Council England (2018) Great Art and Culture for Everyone. Arts Council England. Available from https://issuu.com/artscouncilengland/docs/ac_10year_strategy_text_aw_for__pdf/1?ff=true&e=9197550/32114813 [accessed on 9 April 2018].

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WITA:  Sherbet Lemon Theatre (2018) Exercise Scene [image]. Available from https://www.instagram.com/p/BgEsgr0h2tp/?taken-by=sherbetlemontheatre [accessed 9 April 2018].