As I got given the part in Chris' piece I was eager to get the work started as when his piece was introduced he did state that it would may be based off our own ideas and concepts, in other words devising. We immediately got to work with collating ideas to possibly have in the performance. The ideas we had put together were a person who was bullied by his friends and blamed by his parents, another was compared to siblings and forgotten, another idea of having an abusive father and finally someone who was going through a dilemma whether to have an abortion. As the script got written over the weekend by Chris, we got started with the script reading and blocking straight away and in my opinion, I think that Chris was a very efficient Director as he had everything planned and when. His timeline for the key components were: March 13th - Learn Lines, April 17th - Collate all costumes, April 19th - collate all props, April 24th - Tech Set up.
During the whole rehearsal process, we had covered each scene by detail which allowed all the key components to be completed. However, implications arose when Chris fell ill. Although this was the case, because Chris had aligned everything in place and made sure that we knew everything that needed to be done on our own, he had prepared us for even a situation that may have occurred. He constantly kept in touch with us during rehearsals and when ideas were put forward, he always had matter of opinion and considered our thoughts first. Although at some points felt weak at first without him, as a group, we still worked together by attending, collating our costume and props and managed to still get enough rehearsal time in to make sure that the scenes were in top shape. This was due to the fact that we had memorized all our lines by the dedicated date and performed our first show case and managed to get feedback from our peers (this was when Chris was healthy). This allowed us to fix loose ends and improve various points such as vocal range and so on and so forth shown in one of the other labels in Unit 12.
Performance day had arrived and all of the actor's were ready. We had a performance at 2pm for the college to watch and one at 7pm for family an friends to watch. The 2pm show overall was okay. This is due to the technical system not going in the right direction as it began malfunctioning during the first performance of Kieran's piece of 'A Donkey's War.' This then led to during our performance feeling weak as it was heavily based on the technical system. The performance also started when I was not even on stage yet leading to the beginning losing its overall effect. In addition, the system cued lights much slower than usual but no matter what problem occurred, every actor worked together to help one another's production feel complete. However, the 2pm performance acted as a lesson for all of us to be prepared to continue to act to the best of our abilities even if the technical system does malfunction and to never depend on it as emergencies like these can expose if the actors if they stay in character or not.
Then came the 7pm performance which went better than the 2pm run as the technical system was up and running and everyone was more prepared just in case if the system were to malfunction again. Everything ran smoothly and the transitions were set out perfectly. The only mistake I had made was forgetting to place Marion's boxing gloves on the table. This was in the end not a problem as Marion had performed his scene very well and it was not noticed. We came to the surprise that Chris was able to watch the 7pm performance and he said he loved it. This was a lesson to my group especially as it showed the determination of putting on a show when the Director fell ill allowing ourselves to become our own director as a team and showing that no matter what problem or implication occurred, we would always work together to find a solution.
Below are images that show the implications that were faced during the whole process of the performance and the skills we had learnt from the previous two years and applied in the final major project:
Overall, the whole experience of the Final Major Project was not only a lesson or experience but a challenge on it's own as it came from a lot of individuality. We had to do our own research, find our own costumes and props, set who was going to do what. For example, who was going to get costume, help with the tech and who was going to help advertise the performance. We had to all explore our own characters and then come back to the lesson to help piece together our performance as this now draws to the part where working together was key. To get a production together, a lot of challenges had to be faced and money too. Originally, when Chris was not ill, an implication we had was our budget of £200 and what it could have been spent on. Initially we were looking at what costume Chris could wear, especially as the Pillow man could be interpreted as anything. However when he fell ill, it was a clear lesson that we could not just depend on our Director, we had to also depend on ourselves and what we could do to benefit the group other than ourselves and just indulging in depending on a person too much was not the way. We went through all the implications and challenges and provided support when needed when it came to getting things accomplished during the process upcoming to the final performance. In conclusion, we had a successful final performance and a roller coaster ride experience when it came to putting the show together as our own Director's. In addition, at first being our own director's could have been tough as we did have to make our own decisions however, the devising experience of being our own director's helped and aided when it came to this emergency in the Final Major Project. Although we did come up with ideas, we always considered Chris' input when it came to the final decisions.
