Reflection on Marketing and Advertising

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Reflecting back on the decisions made within the Advertising and Marketing team, i am thoroughly pleased and privileged on what we managed to create and achieve with the time period we were given.

Our first initial ideas towards trailers, posters and programmes have different and altered over the process, but only improved to the better. On reflection, i feel they have all been designed to coincide with the themes related within ‘the trial’. At the same time as this, we focused largely on trying to keep them simplistic and also in a way mysterious , without giving to much away about the show.

The advertisement of the show was also helped and acknowledged through our social networking sites, as well as flyers distributed around Lincoln, to try and attract a wide variety of audiences to which we achieved.

To look at future improvements we discussed an idea of perhaps trying to advertise the show more vocally and physically by performing small snippets in town or local cafe’s, or even handing out flyers in our characters to try and appear more visually exciting and draw people in to find out more.

Thanks

Rebecca Ward

Sentence and Execution: Concluding the Production

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With STAMP Theatre’s The Trial now a week ago today, performing to strong audience quantity and reaction, I will take a retrospective look at the process of creating the show to examine the production’s strengths and flaws in order to assess how our company, and its members, can improve. As Jerzy Grotowski states, ‘you can’t ignore the result because from the objective point of view the deciding factor in art is the result’ (1981, p. 201).

To ensure everything required for a successful show was completed, I created a day-schedule (STAMP performance day schedule); tailored to have more time than perhaps necessary spent on technical details, as set-up, in my experience, often overruns because of unforeseen contingencies. I also wanted to have one cue-to-cue, to adjust ourselves to the lighting (which I would be operating with our stage manager and lighting designer’s cue sheet), and one final dress rehearsal. I also added several breaks due to the same reason of running only one dress rehearsal – so the technical staff and performers would not be exhausted for the night ahead.

I have placed the performance day schedule next to the actual timeline of the day above (the latter in document form here [performance day breakdown]) to show the difference in what was expected of the day and what happened. As we completed the technical details relatively quickly, we were able to have a cue-to-cue one hour early. However, I mistakenly set a dress rehearsal directly after this, as there were lighting states to improve after the cue-to-cue. Even with this, because of the extra technical allotment, we were working on time. The dress rehearsal was especially vital for me in operating the LX; although we had a simple technical procedure due to our lack of stagehand set-changing or sound, and I have had experience in working LX boards professionally, due to the quick lighting cues of the piece (which numbered more than 90) I had to adjust myself to where difficult cues appeared.

Throughout the day, when changes to the schedule were made, I acted as a go-between for the actors, the director, and our technical team (consisting itself of stage manager Darren Page, chief technician Martin Rousseau, and our lighting assistant Alex Kent). Problems arise in the schedule when there is miscommunication, and so I made everyone know clearly what was going to happen, and when. This was a very direct experience for me in terms of the importance of the producer – with the director affirming the look of the set, lighting and proficiency of the actors, I had the responsibility of making sure tasks were carried out. Although there are a few minor changes I would have made to the schedule (such as having allotted time after the cue-to-cue, and having the actors come in as early as possible [an amendment the director fortunately made]), I am assured that the technical success of the show and ability to perform tasks in good time was strongly aided by my scheduling foresight and on-day communication.

Although I believe the performance was a success, I believe I could have done several things as producer to increase the company’s effectiveness. Contrasting with my self-analysis for communication on the day, I failed to rotate several details between myself and the venue, which led to a clash in timetabling. I also expressed interest in connecting our marketing department more with the community, specifically in school workshops, which although was cancelled because of concerns with time, could have been done with effective planning. Nonetheless, I am glad to have experienced mistakes as well as successes, as if I had neither of each I would not be able to improve myself as a producer. As Grotowski states: ‘It is after the production is completed and not before that I am wiser’ (1981, p. 98).

Word count: 630.

Overall word count: 2,737.

Works cited

Grotowski, Jerzy (1981), ‘American Encounter’, Towards a Poor Theatre, ed. by Eugenio Barba, London: Methuen, pp. 199-210.

Grotowski, Jerzy (1981), ‘Methodical Exploration’, trans. Amanda Pasquier and Judy Barba, Towards a Poor Theatre, ed. by Eugenio Barba, London: Methuen, pp. 95-100.

Character Evaluation- Chorus & Titorelli

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Working as a member of the chorus throughout the past four months has taught me many things. Having never worked in a chorus before, I was happy to take the chance at experiencing it with STAMP Theatre but I did not imagine the extent of how much a chorus could be involved in a production before! In my opinion the chorus was the most important element in The Trail because not only did they have to carry out all the transitions between the scenes themselves, but we also had to stay incredibly focused and in tune with one another. If one person in the chorus should start to fall in posture, gesture or sound, the other members of the chorus would have to become aware of this and in order to combat it, make sure that they increase their own movement and volume in order to bring the other member back up to the required level. In this, we felt that we had an invisible network connecting us together as we were so aware of each other, that if necessary, if one member of the chorus forgot a line or movement, any one of us could step in. That is what I found so interesting about the chorus; the ability to link actor to actor without the realisation of it throughout rehearsal was a wonderful thing and something that I am extremely privileged to be a part of.

My characterisation of Titorelli had undergone much work throughout the rehearsal process, the most noticeable of which was the accent I chose to use for him. Starting rehearsal with an Italian accent was fine and everyone believed that it suited the character well, however as each session went on and the actors were becoming more grotesque in the way they played a character, I felt it was necessary to develop his voice as well as his physicality. Upon trying separately, French, German and a Cockney accent with the character I still believed that there was more that was required with Titorelli’s voice. I then began to think about Titorelli not as a grotesque character. He wasn’t naturalistic so therefore, why should he have a naturalistic accent? This is when it clicked and my thought was to combine a mixture of European accents to create a strange accent that the character believes to be real, but Joseph K does not. As every character K meets during the play tries to get something from him and deceives him in one form or another, I thought the same should be applied to Titorelli. Therefore, I wanted to play him as an imposter of a court painter; A painting of a mask within a masquerade ball. As K’s character starts to deteriorate toward the end of the play and he becomes a broken man, I feel that so should the characters and the world of the play around him reflect that. This is why I chose to play Titorelli in such a way. I played him as a character playing Joseph K’s image of what a court painter should be within the corrupt world that is crumbling around him.

Thanks, Joe.

Performance Day Reflection

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On reflection of the performance day, I would say we had a smooth running and organised day. The technical team (Larissa, Alex HS and I) along with the director were in the performance space for 9am ready to start. Luckily we had been in the theatre with some of the LPAC technicians the night before to hang the frames ready for performance day. This meant that we were already ahead in terms of our performance day schedule.

Here are some of the photos from throughout the night before and the day of the performance:

Here we are marking centre stage to get an idea of where the frames will hang ^

Alex (the technician) and I are preparing the bungee chord and rope for the frames here.

Discussing the lights in relation the the frames (We rigged the above head spotlights at the same time as rigging the frames).

These are taken of the first walk through with the frames – taken on the night before the performance.

After rigging and focusing the lights, Larissa Oates, Alex Watson (who was cueing the show) and myself went up to the lighting box to start the cueing process. In total we had 92 LX cues in the script that needed to be programmed in chronological order, ready for a cue to cue, a full dress run through and the actual performance.

After finishing programming the lights we broke for lunch ready to come back for a cue to cue. The cue to cue lighting did not go as well as planned as the blue wash didn’t programme on all the cues as intended. In saying this it was sorted out through liaison with the technical team ready for the full dress run through.

As a performer I felt the dress rehearsal went great, a few stumbles happened with lighting cues but apart from that all was well. The actual performance also went amazingly well, and we’ve had a great response from the audience both in person, and on our social media sites.

If I could do it all again to change anything, it would be the strength of some of the frames. One did snap mid performance, but I think I handled it well enough for the audience to notice but not know if it was on purpose or not. Little glitches to happen in performances that sometimes can’t be helped but overall I think we put on an entertaining show that matched what our manifesto said it would, and hopefully you’ll hear from STAMP Theatre again some time.

Thank you for reading,

Emma Huggins