Before watching the performance footage, I felt that it went well, I feel like everybody knew their characters well and gave as much energy as they could towards to the performance and managed to not slip up anywhere, for example, corpsing or messing up lines.

After watching the performance footage back I feel like their are some grey areas that still needed work on. Firstly, I feel like the opening scene with the President could’ve shown more enthusiasm as the natural feel for the performance was suppose to be joyful. I feel like the presidents character when opening the scene immediately sets the energy therefore spiralling a lot of interest throughout the audience and engaging them. However, a strength that was seen in the opening scene was that the presidents clarity and diction was really clear and their voice projection was above satisfactory standard. Also a strength in the opening scene was the character introduction to ‘Ven and ‘Jet’. I feel like the two actors carried their characters really well and showed the relationship between the two characters. Throughout the whole performance I feel that the actors playing ‘Ven and ‘Jet’ showed really good characterisations and we’re very open with being exaggerative, also they showed variety for example changing the tone of their voice. However, one thing that could’ve been improved on was at the start of the performance when they were silently walking in during the presidents speech. I noticed that they both came out of character and waited for the actor who was speaking to stop. An improvement to that could’ve been the two actors miming a conversation between the two reacting off what’s being said by the president. This improvement would’ve been beneficial because then the two actors playing ‘Ven’ and ‘Jet’ wouldn’t have to break character until it’s their turn to speak.

With my characters entrance into the scene I think that it was a great entrance as a facade to making the audience think that I am the main villain. I made my body language big and didn’t carry too much seriousness when walking onto the stage. By that I mean that I gave my character a comedic entrance by exaggerating my walk to having my leg extension longer than usual. Also with the rest of my body, I utilised a villains entrance and changed it by making everything on my body wide so that It looked like I was making fun of it instead of going with a cool entrance. This is appealing to the audience as it gives a comedic purpose and demonstrates how an unserious villain may look like in a children’s theatre play.

In the scene where we see everyone on stage together for the first time I feel like the blocking was good but could’ve been improved on more. It was good because some actors standing next to each other didn’t block each other, they used good special awareness and stood just behind or just in front of their fellow performer so that they could be seen. Also didn’t stand too side one, they opened up their body so that the audience could see their face and not just their side profile. The bad part of the blocking was that, in some scene, the actors lost their spacial awareness and completely blocked another actor out of sight. This caused the audience not being able to see whose speaking and also see the other actors reactions. Also in the end scene all characters where standing behind the chair which gave the actors and audience distance between them, making the performance stretch further away from the audience losing the immersive feel. This could’ve been worked on more in the rehearsal room to the point where we were used to not blocking out other actors so we get full sight of everyone on stage and being closer to the audience so they can feel involved with the performance as well.

With my characterisations, I feel that I had a good interpretation of my character and knew what his goal was. I feel like I studied my character well and embodied him well, being very open to using a lot of exaggeration to make my characters personality stand out. For example, when my character came rushing in to steal bad guy rabs spot light, the run in was very over dramatic as well as the jump into me pointing cluelessly everywhere. This served its comedic purpose as it took off the tension of having an evil villain and changed it to being light hearted and whacky. Also when playing my character, I was very comfortable with going above and beyond to entertain, giving every action 100% energy whenever required. However, a weakness in my performance was that, I was left standing still for the majority of the time at the start and at the ending of the play. This could’ve been worked on so that my character has a lot more to so say during these scene and not just leave me in the shadows whilst everyone else speaks. This made my character hardly serve any purpose and look awkward in stage not knowing what to do. This could’ve been worked on more in the rehearsal room by changing a few parts to having me say more lines or even possibly adding another scene where my character speaks more to increase his purpose of being in the play. Feedback that was given to me was that my character needed to do more on stage as he was very quiet and didn’t have much purpose or influence in the play. After watching the performance footage, I strongly agree with the feedback given and understand that my character was more of an extra rather than one of the main roles. With my costume that was chosen, I feel like the top half was thought out to a satisfactory standard however the bottom half looked very improvised. To improve this I could’ve taken a lot more thought and time into choosing my characters costume to give my character even more life and believable to the audience. Very little thought was put into to choosing my costume as it was last minute and I should’ve not waited for so long to chose my costume and have a set idea at the start of the project for what my character would most likely wear. A strength in my performance was that I had great voice projection, clarity and diction, I could be heard very well throughout the audience loudly and clearly.

Feedback that was given to the group as a whole was that the characters where very strong and clear, the storyline made sense but could’ve been improved on. The storyline involved conflict however didn’t perceive that conflict between the villains and the heroes enough to be satisfied with why everything is the way it is. Although the storyline was strong, we could’ve explained more at the beginning why theirs heroes and why theirs villains. Also, with the montage of ‘Ven’ and ‘Jet’, it was too long, and should’ve been cut down to only a certain amount of runs across stage because at first it was funny to the audience but then as it kept going on and on it lost its comedic purpose and started to get boring. The use of props was very limited, because my character ties us the president in the chair with nothing, so an improvement that could’ve been made is that I should’ve tied her up with an actual prop rather than mime.

Overall, I feel like the performance was a success, everybody knew their characters well and was able to portray them effectively. Everyone had a lot of energy and gave it 100% throughout the whole performance. I feel like the comedy and the storyline itself is what was good about the performance. Although the storyline needed more explanation, I feel that the plot was funny and entertaining to the audience and we were able to bring that to life on stage. The comedy was not over done, it didn’t force any of the comedic humour, we had it at the right times and made it very age appropriate. The performance and rehearsal stages were very tough and hard to come by but we all managed to pull through it by working hard together as a team.

An actor acting in children’s theatre would need to be able to step outside their comfort zone and be very open when playing a character. An actor would need to insure that they are versatile and enjoy playing a character. This excites the children watching the performance making the performance more enjoyable. However the actor must know that children’s theatre is not a pantomime but does require the same energy. Pantomime consist of constant audience interaction but children’s theatre is on the contrary. So the actor must be able to play the characters with as much exaggeration without turning it into a pantomime atmosphere. The actor must know their basic skills so that they know how to keep the audience of children interested through out the whole show, which would mean, the actor would have to work hard in portraying their character and go above and beyond to make sure that their enjoying playing the character but most importantly the children watching the performance are enjoying it.

Your attitude towards children’s theatre has to be 100% effort at all times. When actors are working in a team, they always have to be a team worker, they cannot be focused on themselves because then the group will get no where. Commitment levels from all actors has to be high and no one can be selfish when working in a group. No one can reject helping someone develop their character in a group. All actors must support and help each other throughout any project process. Also, when working on a children’s theatre project or in fact any other theatre project, all actors must be on time to rehearsals and not give poor excuses for absences or lateness. This can hold back a group and the development of the piece leaving some scene incomplete or having to cut out scenes. This could also lead up to the actor whose always absent or late to be cut out from the theatre project and replaced with someone else.

Children’s theatre is a form told theatre aimed at younger children under the age of 12. This is performed by professional actors in front of an audience of children. Sometimes plays were written by children themselves or constructed by professional writers. I’m these performances the actors would usually put on a show involving puppetry, music and dance to enhance the experience for the audience of young children. Originally, children’s theatre was founded in 1920 during the Russian civil war but made its way over to the uk during this time as well. Source: https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/ge

The polka theatre was the first theatre in the uk to be dedicated to children’s theatre when opened in 1979. This day was marked by a gala performance attendees by Her Majesty The Queen. The polka theatre was designed specifically for children with a main auditorium with 300 seats and a 90 seat studio. Also coming with a café, a Toyshop, a playground, exhibition and gallery spaces. For its high production values and on going puppetry performances, it quickly became a highly looked upon both locally and London-wide. Source: https://polkatheatre.com/polka-history-2/.

Little angel theatre which was formed in 1961 founded by the South African puppeteer John Wright. The theatre is based in the London Borough of Islington and is specifically designed for children performances in a derelict temperance hall which king wright transformed into an 100 seater magical little theatre. Over the next years the little angel company created and performed over 30 full scale shows and toured all over the uk and abroad, participating in in international puppet festivals including continents such as Europe USA and the Far East, collaborating with musicians on large scale prosecutions. Source: https://littleangeltheatre.com/about-us/sub-page-1/

23rd January – today we spent half the lesson creating our own sock puppets to perform to everyone else in the class. After this process we got into our groups given to us a week ago and came up with an idea of the topic our piece was going to be about and started devising and short sock puppets show to perform in front of the rest of the class. For our performance we decided to choose the hero topic and devised a short comedic play.

29th January – due to an illness I wasn’t able to attend this session however I do know that in the lesson we had to dress up as super hero’s and act as children in a children’s birthday party. In this we had to be children for the lesson and not break character at all. We re-enacted a children’s birthday party so we had to bring in a present for the birthday child (who was Vishnu chosen by our teacher) and any food or drink children would’ve been allowed to bring.

30th January – in this lesson we spent the first hour speaking about the problems we may face when performing in front of children. In this case we had problems such as, they’re bluntly honest, they have a short attention span, they may be hard to control and may get bored very easily. After speaking about these problems we then went on to move into our groups and given the option to create a new script or use the ones already provided for us. My group decided to create a new script so that we can implement enough characters and make the story line make sense. We sat together as a group and all agreed that we would keep the storyline as a hero vs villain story. We gave each other characters and created a draft script. After creating the draft script we put it on it’s feet and started to devise the scene we drafted with our teacher giving us a time limit. We all came back together as a class after the time limit was done and performed out piece. After performing our piece we was given feedback by everyone including the teacher. The feedback we received was don’t make it about a two hero’s fighting over a princess, make it something that’s not in the category of romance. After reviving that feedback we were told to go back into our group and tweak a few parts in the script such as the princess which we changed to a president and the hero’s competing over who would be knighted. Once we re made the script and re made the scene we came back together as a class and re performed our piece with changes.

5th February – due to me being away for a day with NYFA I was unable to attend this lesson however I do know that the script was developed and somethings were changed such as cutting out the narrator and changing the hero’s from being incompetent to being slightly clumsy but not exaggeratively. Because I wasn’t here for the lesson I wasn’t involved in the making of the new scene however was provided with a video so I can get an understanding of what happened and how things were changed and also the new character given to me so we can further work on the rest of the play during the next few lessons.

6th February – Today after receiving the feedback my group was given on the previous day, I sat down with my group and decided to construct another script. We decided to spend the first part of the lesson planning the first scene as a script then put it on its feet. After watching the video back we cleaned some parts so that they make more sense and still carries the meaning behind the performance. During this process of writing the opening scene of the script we implemented some parts we liked into the script because we felt it would have a really good affect and still carries some of the comedic purposes. For example we decided to make the hero’s not completely incompetent but still a funny/whacky double act. Also we decided to keep the idea of having a “henchman” for the main villain (bad guy rabs) to keep that comedic affect and to show there’s still good in evil because of how clumsy the henchman is.

12th February – in today’s session we carried on rehearsing our performances and started to manufacture the rest of the play. After working on the opening scene three or four times, my group came together and figured out what the middle and ending part will be. This involved us writing a script together and asking for our mentors advice on what would look best. When doing so, my group explored what would be suitable and appropriate to show the children. For example, even though we had conflict in our performance we couldn’t show physical violence so instead we chose to do something more playful I.e. tickling. Also, as a group we decided to change the performance name from “Quest for the president” to “let’s be hero’s” because we felt that it had more meaning to the play as there’s a plot twist in the ending.

13th February – on this day, the drama class went on a trip to the unicorn theatre to watch a children’s theatre play to get a taster of what our play should look like and the atmosphere around it. Unfortunately, due to personal reason I was unable to attend this trip.

19th and 20th February – half term holiday, no lessons were taken

26th February – rehearsals continued with my group, after coming back from the half term holiday, we had to recap on were we left off. During this lesson we looked back at old rehearsal footage and saw what could be amended or changed. Bearing in mind the content of what we are allowed to put into our piece and how we can keep the children entertained throughout the whole performance. With this in mind, we decided to develop our characters by finding ways to make them stand out more. For example the body language of our character and the way they would produce their lines. I.e. exaggerative, calmly, angrily, etc. No further changes we decided to be made within the piece because our group were satisfied with what we had and decided we didn’t need any add ons or changes. Also with the script, we were satisfied with the script however we were still relying on it to help us with our lines. So we set a target to be off the script by next weeks lesson.

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5th March – in this lesson, with our piece finished and all that is left is to perform it, our group decided to look in the costume room and finalise our costume we were going to where. In our mind we had to give our characters bright colours and also represent who our characters are. While finding suitable costumes, we weren’t able to find the brightest of colours but found costume we individually felt would suit our characters. After finding our costumes, we then did a run through of our performance and filmed it. This rehearsal footage below is our final product and is what will be shown on performance day. We decided to do this rehearsal in parts of our costume so we can get a feel of how they are and if we can perform in them. As we are aware that the performance date has been change so that we are not going on tour to primary schools, we are only showing our pieces to the year 2 drama and any other performing arts students who would wish to watch.

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12th March – performance day. We performed our “working progress” children theatre pieces to the year 2 drama students and any other performing arts students who wanted to watch.