We will be performing our piece “Two Worlds, One War” to an invited audience of friends, family and colleagues to two open dress rehearsals at college on the 6th and 11th of February.
On the 6th of February, the performance was also attended by Melanie Whitehead the education officer at the National Theatre WarHorse national tour, Sarah Lomas, head of sales and marketing and Mike Evans, Community and Education assistant from the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton.
We will be touring our piece to our local secondary schools performing to year 10/11 students:
Tuesday – 11/2: Upper Shirley High
Wednesday – 12/2: Cantell Maths and Computing College
Thursday – 13/2: Regents Park
As part of the students creative process and the units they are studying for Devising Plays, Theatre in Education and Performance Workshop they are required to respond to audience feedback on their work to help them evaluate the potential of their Theatre in Education piece as a professional production.
They also need to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the piece and whether it was effective or not for their audiences?
AUDIENCE FEEDACK
Please could you spare a couple of minutes to informally comment below on the following:
1)- Was the message in the student’s piece on the similarities and differences of two worlds (WW1 and Afghanistan) caught in one war clear? (If you can refer to specific moments that would be really helpful.)
2) What was your main reaction / feeling when you watched the work? (E.g. did it make you feel emotional, laugh or learn something about WW1 or the war in Afghanistan that you didn’t already know?)
3) What were the strengths of the piece?
4) What could the students do to improve the work to make it more effective if they were to tour this as a professional production?
Thanks so much for watching the students work and for taking the time to help them evaluate their piece.
12/2- Final explosion - Regents Park School performance
Twitter feedback from National Theatre: Fantastic devised piece exploring women's role in war by RTSC BTEC Drama students @mayflower @WarHorseOnStage
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| 11/2- Final Explosion- Cantell School performance |
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| 11/2- Dorothy Thompson - Cantell School performance |
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| 11/2- Maria discovers her husband is dead - Cantell School Performance |
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| 11/2- William in the trenches - Cantell School performance |
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| 11/2- Violet and mother read Williams letter- Cantell School performance |
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| 11/2- Hymn to Peace - Cantell School performance |
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| 11/2- Two worlds collide in one War - Cantell School performance |
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The dualities between the two wars were starkly clear. The message was powerful in the way society deals with the effects of war. In particular during the debriefing scene where both girls were facing up to the post traumatic issues after witnessing harrowing events during war was very poignant. It is with a sense of self-blame that they are somehow feeling at fault for the death of others during conflict and that came across very clearly.
ReplyDeleteThe strength of the piece came down to dramatic performances which actually produced a very emotionally charged play which built powerfully to a dramatic conclusion. The audience left with a feeling of empathy with the two female leads and a feeling of continuing emotional struggle long after leaving the theatre.
Sue Mansbridge- Learning Support manager at Richard Taunton Sixth Form College
ReplyDelete"What a fabulous performance. It was incredibly emotional and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved the pieces that were delivered back to back, especially the "debriefing" of the two girls, which showed the different attitudes towards women and war. The merging of the two worlds when the bomb explodes, and the "slow motion" aspect were also very good.
It would be good if those doing the narration parts could speak slightly slower and clearer, as there was a tendency to hurry them which also meant that they tripped over words. Otherwise, I would say it was well executed."
Mags Moules - Just wanted to say sorry that I couldn't stay to watch the whole dress rehearsal today as we had a meeting. I was very disappointed to have to leave as I found the performance incredible. Huge congratulations to all the students involved. I'm sure they made a huge impression on the NT and Mayflower staff.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the invite.
Shaz Mossadeghi- Incredible performance by the students! Congratulations on your success! You have made us all proud. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for the invite
Hiya
ReplyDeleteWe loved your performance. It was well setted out and professional we love football as well
we love the stroies my lovely
BYA
Chloe Grant And Jade Callaway, Year 11 - It was a really good performance however I didnt understand why the eastenders clip played as it wasnt very clear that she was watching it.
ReplyDeleteHello we believe the performance was pretty good. Especially the part when she (the actor) was watching East Enders as it showed a clear link between the two wars, and how post traumatic stress disorder is caused by something we consider harmless.
ReplyDeleteYear 11 students
Thankyou for this, we are glad the message was clear to you and it made an impact. Glad that you enjoyed the performance!
DeleteWe enjoyed the performance it was very moving.The actors portrayed the charaters clearly.Also they got the the audience involed was very intresing.We think the story line need to be abit more clear, it was quite confusing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for performing to us it was amazing
your perfomace was really good, i liked the way the actors changed characters and they made it very clear what the play was about, i loved your perfomace. Melissa Khasandi
ReplyDeleteWe really enjoyed the performance, it was really powerful and had an affect on us, we could identify the drama techniques used. the scene that we liked best was the football scene, it had an effect on us.
ReplyDeleteRose year 10
April year 10
Hello, We're really glad you enjoyed the performance and it had an effect on you as we did not want to create a piece of theatre that placed the audience into a passive state and we hoped our performance did not do this! It's brilliant that you identified the techniques we used and we hope this can help you either in your own practical or written work within your subjects!
DeleteThank-you so much for your feedback its really appreciated!
well done
ReplyDeleteThe play was very good because it compared the past and the future, it displayed the themes of the play very well such as no matter how long it has been war never changes. The sound was good as it engaged the audience and the play was able to immerse the audience which provoked emotions and sympathy for the characters. I liked the use of jumping from one timeline to another as it showed how the past influenced modern day, I particularly liked the split screen to compare the past and modern. It was quite educational however, as improvement, it would be good to have a bit louder dialogue. - Jarif Islam and Sumeet Sandhu Year 11
ReplyDeleteThank You so much! Our constant aim throughout the devising process was to show the contrasts and similarities between modern war and war of the past. We wanted to immerse the audience and have them connect with the emotional difficulties soldiers and civilians of war went through and still go through today. We will take note of your critique and work on projection as a group. Thanks again for your feedback, its really appreciated.
DeleteYour show was absolutlely superb we love the way you engaged the audiance by coming close to contact. We also like the way that your transitions contrasted it was just fabulosaa :) To improve try to make it abit longer as its just fabb bless famalam. From Yakob, Isaac and Ahmed ;)
ReplyDeleteThank you... With the improvement you suggested, we actually had to shorten it because it was only supposed to be 40 minutes long and it was 50. But thank you... If we could have made it longer we would of done :)
DeleteHiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii we thought you did really well, but we dont think everyone understood that there was two storylines
ReplyDeleteOverall I really enjoyed watching the performance as it was emotive and the sensitive scenes also the transitions were extremely clever.The whole slow motion scene was the highlight of the play. Although I thought some of the monologues could have been more emphathised for a more dramatic effect. That is the only critical thing I had.
ReplyDeleteDhruti + el-shaddai year 10
We really enjoyed the whole performance and felt like part of the play. Throught out the play we felt connected with all the characters. Some of the clips were a bit consfusing, namely the EastEnders clip which we didn't know how it conected to the scene it was put with. The fact that you had live music as well as music on clips was really good because it helped put the audince in the mindset of the characters and their situation.
ReplyDeleteWe loved it though,
Thea and Lucy
Yr10
We really enjoyed the performance and felt it was portrayed in a way that kept the audience engaged. Your ability to adapt your performance around the space you were given was successful and impressive. The mediums used helped to enhance the performance and your interaction with the audience was very effective. At points we were slightly confused, e.g. by the EastEnders clip. However the performance as a whole was very successfully shown and we enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteAlice, Ashleigh and Layla
Year 11
Upper Shirley High
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThankyou so much for your positive feedback we're glad we managed to keep you all engaged and that you felt we adapted to your space successfully! The Eastenders clip seems to have had either two effects on our audience. The clip was placed into the piece to show how Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can effect anybody who has witnessed terrible events during conflict. We chose the clip as we felt the pool of blood witnessed and the door banging may of been triggers for Molly to remember the bomb and the death of Heba (the young girl). It's useful to know however that this was confusing for you and if we were to do this piece again we would remedy this perhaps by using a more obvious clip!
DeleteI really enjoyed your performance and loved how you used live and recorded music. I also liked the bit with recorded thought tracks.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the performance yesterday- it was incredible.
ReplyDeleteAll my students loved watching and being inspired by so many of the skills on stage yesterday. They have all been trying out Slow motion in lessons today!!
Please congratulate all your students on their successful performance and wish them good luck in their future careers.
Many thanks and enjoy a restful half term.
Liz
Liz Bishop
Head of year 11
Drama teacher