When starting my Gold Arts Award, and this project in particular, my essential ethos was to learn by doing: to expand my knowledge from an area by getting involved with it myself, when and if possible. For some of the things I looked at, like Broadway or Stanislavski, it would be expensive or impossible to go and interact with the subject matter, but I still made an effort to use what I'd learnt practically (like the Brechtian workshop with my drama teacher). Of course, the majority of my industry exploration was indeed practical: visiting the Mayflower Theatre and now completing work experience there, painting set for / attending auditions at the Maskers Theatre Company, and making my own shortfilm with my own resources and friends to help as crew.
The reason I had this ethos to begin with was that I believed the best way I could advance in skill of anything was experience, and this proved to be truest in my Unit 2 project: putting on 'The Weird and Wonderful World of Musicals' variety evening. There are so many stages to a feat such as the one I took on, and subsequently so many more possible mishaps and challenges. Now, when entering a production even as an actor rather than directorial role, I understand that initial process of getting an idea off the ground even better. I know the planning for a show to be put on doesn't just happen overnight, but extensively in and beyond those week-long gaps between rehearsals where the actors see very little change.
I developed a small-scale network so that the project could take place, where teachers and technicians took on roles I assigned them that mimicked the ones I had seen in place from my Unit 1 research into professional theatres. The communication in this network was vital: if there is a change, everyone it affects must be notified, both so they are informed and for efficiency. If everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet, there are bound to be less flat notes (and hopefully some harmonies)! Quote me on that one.
My leadership skills evolved dramatically within the realms of this project, and I have an appreciation for the scale of responsibility and pressure on a director when they're at the wheel of such a ship (we're doing metaphors today clearly). By seeing what did and didn't work on this project, I've ended up changing my attitudes to future shows I've been a part of. Recently for example, I was in a production where the director was visibly showing their stresses under the pressure of the project, and started to take it out on the cast during rehearsal time. Immediately, the cast members became equally despondent and started being less responsive and productive, meaning our technical rehearsal dragged longer than it needed to and the experience became negative. After speaking with the director, we came to the conclusion the cast were essentially mirroring what they were being told, and if we had a positive attitude, which we then enforced simply with smiles and greetings and support, our productivity would sky-rocket. Sure enough, the technical rehearsal came to a close two hours after the change, and I had a few cast members come to thank me for speaking with the director. It was then our job to carry that positive energy through to the show, which we did successfully on the coat tails of a victory in Rock-Challenge for our cast. That experience came directly, I believe, from my work on Arts Award, recognising the pressures and knowing how to ease some of them by uniting as a cast.
Positivity breeds productivity! (a new ethos it would seem)
Furthermore, after now embarking on work experience in professional theatre and continuing my exploration of the industry, I've expanded my knowledge of the art form to a point where I fully recognise how it works in a business-driven sense. Having this understanding of real-world application is so useful, because it brings creative talent down to earth by giving it such purpose. Theatre is a business, and seeing its inner-workings, from the mailing room to the box office to reception to backstage, is a priceless hindsight to have.
In my initial project plan, I had three leadership aims. Here is how I believed I achieved them:
- Being a reliable leader: The aforementioned communication network meant I could keep on top of organisation. I had a rehearsal schedule and could track my progress by the documentation I was making via Arts Award, so would always know what was happening and when.
- Offer effective help: Luckily, there were no major issues with the cast of our show. But, when they did feel they needed support or when I wanted to raise their performance higher, I supplied them with the correct tutoring available in school (a 1-1 with our music teacher etc.) to aid them. Furthermore, I stuck to my previously praised ethos of learning by doing, by showing not telling, and getting involved in the rehearsals practically.
- Inspire them!: This goal was surpassed better than I could've hoped, with the impact this project made on the school now meaning they annually have student directorial roles, in singing, costume and choreography as well as staging and production.
Of course, nothing is ever going to seem perfect, especially from a self-critical perspective, and there were a few things I might've changed if I were to do it again.
Firstly, I think I needed to have a greater understanding that the network I had were infact there to support me and could do jobs too! I took a lot of the workload on single-handedly and it ended in a lot of nerves on shownight as I knew most of what the audience were about to see was up to me, and if they didn't like it, it was going to be my fault. I now understand how a whole production team can come together to put something on, and the product can ulimately be better because of it.
Secondly, there were moments in the show I don't think were fully rehearsed or perhaps just didn't work, and while I understand time restraints worked against me here, I would've liked to take a step back and realise what had to be cut to make a better show.
Something I might add to the project is a celebration at the end, for I feel I underestimated how much the cast had achieved at so young, and in hindsight, rewarding them for their efforts could have been a positive end to it all, even if they did have fun nonetheless. Hopefully their next few years offer them more experience they hoped they had!
All this said, I am very proud of what I and the team behind me achieved, and look back fondly on how much hard work went into the production, and more so what it has taught me that comes in useful today.
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Further links:
Evidence of sharing my project is here: (S2E5 - 5:57)
Here are some useful interview clips attaining to evaluation:
- 'Were you motivated throughout the process?' - (S2E3 - 5:17)
