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!
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.
Cups
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.
Now that fundraising is over and we have entered the final few days before our show, it seems appropriate to evaluate the success of our campaigns. Attached below is a document outlining the locations in which we ran our competitions, with a break down of time spent there and how much money was raised. This has allowed me to examine the success of our competitions in the various locations (also within the document attached) and reflect upon how I could improve in the future.
When we analyse the statistics given it appears approaching our friends through parties and societies was in fact on average the most successful way to raise funds. These statistics show they raised almost £4 more that the university locations in relation to the time spent there and amount of people fundraising. It would realistically make sense for this to be the case as we were targeting our personal friends within these locations, who are more likely to donate when asked. We can also see the next most successful approaches came from our friends and family and setting up in Lincoln Performing Arts Centre. This would again make sense as we were asking those wanting to support their family and those aware of the need for fundraising on the Theatre Company module. By targeting those who would be most willing to donate to our cause, we were able to obtain the most funds from the people and locations we were familiar with.
Going forward, this would be something I would focus on should we choose to take the performance and my role as fundraiser further. Although I am aware we can’t ask our friends and family for money forever, this process has taught me that by targeting people who are invested in and understanding of both the arts and our company, we can optimise the amount of funds we can raise for future productions.
I’d like to think it went quite well. As we would like to have an intimate atmosphere for The Truth About Bedtime…, our staging required to reflect that intimacy. So, our director requested we do not perform in proscenium arch and have our audience closer to the performance area. As stage manager, I am responsible for ensuring that any production ideas can come to life on stage so I had to confirm with Martin, LPAC stage manager, that flattening the auditorium would be possible in order to achieve an intimate atmosphere. This was confirmed, with fair warning that it would take up to two hours out of our scheduled time in the LPAC auditorium. I’m sure you can imagine that this was quite daunting as we only had four hours scheduled for a tech rehearsal, so we liaised that we would flatten the back end of the auditorium seating as that doesn’t take long at all, and we would still be able to fulfil our technical requirements in the space for our tech rehearsal.
Based on this information, I then created a schedule for tech day so I could ensure that our time in the space was used productively, and so that everyone knew what they were doing. Take a look at the schedule on the link below:
When we first arrived I reaffirmed the staging requirements of the production with the technicians that we were working with. I was then advised that the previous vision of the audience facing the back of the auditorium would take even more unnecessary time out of tech rehearsal as we would have refocus all of the lights when we could still have the same intimate feel if we were positioned on the stage. The more I work as stage manager the more I realise that “communication is the main focus of the stage manager’s role” (Maccoy, 2014, 39). Therefore, I discussed this with our director and set designer and we decided it would be for the best to switch the position of our original staging as it would still have the same desired effect, and would be easier to tech.
The entirety of the tech rehearsal ran smoothly, all company members sticking to their assigned tasks for the duration. Earlier in the week, I organised a meeting with our set designer, Amanda, to ensure the assembling of the set can run as smoothly as possible. We decided it would be best to assign three people to assemble and dissemble the set. Upon discussion, we decided that Amanda would do it as she has designed the set and knows it very well, and Ellie (dramaturg) and Hayley (producer) as they are some of the company members who do not have specific duties on tech day and they showed an interest in the preparation of set. Having three people that are in charge of set assembling ensures a smooth and quick process. The three people who are in charge of set can now get it up in around 15 minutes which is important not just for the show at LPAC but for the future and tour-ability of the show, proving we can adapt to various get in times.
As I was extremely busy on tech day, our technical designer Chloe Denby, took photos on our behalf, here are some now:
The set only takes 15 minutes between 3 people to assemble!Alex, the LPAC technician and I, programming the lighting on tech day
Of course flattening out the LPAC auditorium space is going to take up a large part of our get in, which was daunting as this could be detrimental to the chance of a dress run on the show day. So, I discussed with the LPAC technicians if there would be any chance of a few of us coming into the auditorium Friday evening to flatten the space then, in order to take it out of our get in time. Once this was agreed I got in contact with the stage manager of Thinkbox Theatre to come in after their get out for for their show. We then agreed that once Thinkbox were coming to the end of their get out, we would have the chance to enter and flatten the space ready for our show on Monday.
From now until show day ,
C.M.
Works Cited:
Denby, C. (2018) Blue Lighting State.
Denby, C. (2018) Pink and Blue Lighting State.
Maccoy, P. (2014) Essentials of Stage Management. London: A&C Black.
The Truth About Bedtime… is a devised performance, combining verbatim theatre with physical sections. The show tells the story of many different people who have remained anonymous and exhibits how differently we, as humans, experience sleep.
Oxford Dictionaries defines sleep as “a condition of body and mind which typically recurs for several hours every night, in which the nervous system is inactive, the eyes closed, the postural muscles relaxed, and consciousness practically suspended” (Oxford Dictionaries, undated). Our sleep is made up of five stages which repeat throughout the night to create the sleep cycle. Each individual stage of this cycle has different effects on your body. For example, in stage one “the eyes move slowly and muscle activity slows” (Tuck, 2018), whereas in REM sleep (rapid eye movement) your eyes move rapidly from side to side and your body is paralysed.
The Truth About Bedtime… is rooted in verbatim theatre. Sherbet Lemon Theatre have gathered stories from over twenty-five people and these accounts are at the centre of the show, as words are physicalised in order to both show and tell the audience how sleep can vary. The verbatim theatre focuses particularly on sleep disorders, ranging from lucid dreaming to sleep paralysis. These sleep disorders have a tremendous impact on the day-to-day life of sufferers and “researchers have linked sleep-related illnesses to hypertension, stroke, congestive heart failure, depression, and an overall decreased quality of life” (The London Sleep Centre, undated).
The combination of emotive verbatim theatre and high-energy, comedic scenes has resulted in a show that exhibits the light and shade of our sleep, the sweet and sour, if you will. This is not a show about us, this is a show about you.
