Author: Francesca Simeoli

Final words!

Theatre Company has, in some ways, been the most challenging module I have taken part in over the past three years. It has also been the most enjoyable. I am thankful to have been a part of a group of such talented, lovely people. Writing a script from scratch and creating a set from scratch tested peoples patience, but the feedback from audience members, friends and family shows that all the hard work was really worth it.

The module has taught me many things about being in a professional theatre company. It has certainly taught me that communication between each aspect of the company is key. As head of finance, I needed to communicate effectively with those in charge of costume, set, props and marketing. I also had to communicate with the producer so he could overlook what was being done. I learned how to create an industry standard budget and used ‘Excel’ in a professional way to keep up to date with how much money was spent. Keeping track of everything was difficult but very important.

I learned about companies administrative production, and how technology now benefits their marketing as well as their shows. Although the module was short and we were busy doing our own jobs, it gave us a sneak peek of what being in a theatre company was like overall and how we could all help each other with certain things.

The night of the show was really something that can’t be described. There is something so satisfying about performing work that has been such a chore putting together. Every member of Progeny has the right to be very proud of themselves, and I will miss being part of a group with them.

(Yes, apparently I am being soppy on an assessed piece of work).

 

 

Word count: 299

Francesca

Rehearsal and final production

What were the challenges of the production? Including rehearsals and final performance. (Personally).

  1. Learning lines so quickly
  2. Fully understanding my character
  3. Being in sync with the other actors during the Counts development scene
  4. First rehearsing the scene between the Count and Countess where they begin their relationship
  5. Projecting my voice but keeping the right emotion
  6. Trying not to trip over the long skirt!
  7. Timings for getting on and off stage
  8. Creating an instant relationship between the Countess and the Piano tuner
  9. Staging the death of the piano tuner

 

IMG_0261 IMG_0267  IMG_0313 IMG_0488WP_001798

 

How were these challenges overcome?

  1. Learning lines was a personal challenge of mine. I tried many ways of trying to learn them including writing down lines over and over again, reading lines before bed, trying to relate different words to different actions. In the end, writing them down over and over again as well as rehearsing them over and over again seemed to work best. The week of the performance is the first time I ran through the whole production without needing to be prompted. This was a huge worry of mine!
  2. Steph our director held character development workshops for us where we could create our own back story to the character. This helped me create a relationship between myself and the character I was playing. The back story for the Countess was that she had come from quite a poor family in the village. She had always heard stories about the Count and his castle and was in awe ever since she was young. One day news got round that the Count was looking for a new wife. Innocently, she took a walk up to the castle gardens and started looking around. The Count then finds her snooping around, and this ends up as their first meet. As the Count likes younger girls, he takes an interest in the Countess, inviting her inside.
  3. The counts development scene took a while to get to grips with. Photos taken while we were rehearsing certainly helped us see the differences in how we were sat. Bearing that in mind along with direction from Steph, we all managed to do the same movements with the same arms in the same direction etc.
  4. The love scene between the Count and Countess was again a personal challenge because I had never done anything like this before. I had to get to know the actors as well as the characters they were playing to feel comfortable with this scene. The first time we rehearsed it felt awkward, but the more we rehearsed the more comfortable we felt around each other and the more direction we got to set the scene. It was also a challenge rehearsing without proper costume until the week of the performance. The Countess’ top half got changed the day before the performance, so thankfully the dress run went well.
  5. As we didn’t get chance to rehearse on the stage, we were unaware of how loud we needed to be. During our dress rehearsal we projected as much as we could, only to be told to be louder. During the final performance, we gave it all that we could. I found it difficult to know whether I was staying in character, but I kept full focus on the emotion I was supposed to be portraying in a certain scene and how close I was to the other actors (so I didn’t end up shouting in their ear!).
  6. Again, another costume challenge. The Countess’ skirt was extremely long, and during a couple of dress rehearsals I felt either myself or another actor stand on the bottom of it, nearly tripping me up. This was quickly solved by me staying in character and picking up the skirt when I walked anywhere.
  7. Because we weren’t able to use the stage and the lighting/sound until the day of performance, there was a huge stress on us to get on and off stage in time with the blackouts. Our dress rehearsal went well, so knowing this, we were just that little bit quicker on the actual performance. This is something that could have been worked on a lot more with dedicated time in the space to rehearse.
  8. The Countess and Piano Tuners relationship changes so dramatically in such a short period of time, I found it a challenge to portray how we felt about each other. Characterisation helped with the first scene between the two of them. Also the way we staged it, with the Countess being sat very close to the Piano Tuner. The audience had to realise that, (like Shakespeare) the characters in A Gothic Tale fell in love very quickly. There wasn’t enough time in the production for love to be gradual. Myself and Gary had to feel comfortable with each other to be acting so closely so we worked on our relationship before working on the characters relationships. Because we are friends away from university, we sometimes found it difficult to stay in character and not laugh!
  9. The death of the Piano Tuner was something which took a while to stage as we had to make sure the audience could see and understand what was happening. The last scene was very dramatic so we didn’t want the death to look tacky and under rehearsed. In fact, the last scene is one of the scenes that was rehearsed the most. The Countess had to stab the Piano Tuner a certain way and stand in a certain position to help him “fall” to the ground without hurting himself. The fall was rehearsed over and over again to make sure we understood where we needed to be and when. Our facial expressions were also something that we worked on. I had to put myself into the Countess’ shoes – I have just killed the man I love by accident. Thinking so melodramatically was difficult!

There were of course, other challenges throughout the process of putting the production together. These were the main challenges for me throughout the rehearsal process however, and I believe that we dealt with each of them in the best possible way. We used team work when overcoming challenges and this was one of the things that brought us closer together as a group.

 

Word count: 1037

Francesca

Final spending spreadsheet

PROGENY SPENDING 2

 

See above the final spreadsheet on Progeny’s spending. It turns out that we did not use the whole of our £250 budget as we have money left. This means that, unlike what we thought before, the copyright for the show can be taken out of the budget instead of being paid for by the cast and crew.

As has been posted about before, our production required a lot of set and a lot of props. Luckily, a lot of these were sourced from the LPAC, meaning that the money we had in the budget could be used for more important, less easily sourced items. The crew in charge of set and props used their money successfully, sourcing the cheapest and most relevant items they could.

Just as a note – I have hold of the expenses forms which will be handed in this week (beginning 20th May).

Francesca

Word count: 147

Company spending

As head of finance, it is my job to review the budget regularly as well as keeping up with the companies spending. I have to have direct communication with the head of set, costume and props to make sure the spreadsheet is up to date at all times.

Budget

Here, I have attached the budget. This is what the company is keeping to as their limits. On the ‘Administration’ page (or on previous post ‘Budget’), you will be able to see the original budget which included the copyright to our performance. Due to expanding the financial needs for other aspects of performance, our producer decided to take the copyright out of the budget. We agreed as a group to put towards the copyright ourselves.

 

PROGENY SPENDING 2

Here I have attached the most up to date spread sheet which notes down all of the companies spending. (This will change slightly until after the performance is over).

As can be seen from the budget and the spending spreadsheet, Progeny have been lucky enough to receive in kind support from the Football Club. They were nice enough to lend out their space as rehearsal space for free. Although we received in kind support from LPAC in regards to rehearsal space, space was not always free so we were left with no where to rehearse. Having the Football club allowed us to have a guaranteed space.

Items such as the wood (from which the angels are made) have also been given in kind, meaning we saved a lot of money. The props cupboard at the LPAC has also served us well in saving us money. Altogether, we have saved over £80 on props that we would have had to spend if it wasn’t for the props cupboard, friends, family and companies support. This has benefited our company greatly, meaning we have been able to focus more on aspects such as costume which have needed alterations.

If we were a real company without the support of the LPAC, we would have had to source everything ourselves, meaning we would have had to spend more money. We have to stick to our budget, but there are other ways to raise money. Refer to the ‘Fundraising’ post.

Francesca

Word count: 365

Fundraising

This post is just a brainstorm of some of the fundraising ideas I had if we needed more money for the budget.

 

  • Bake sale – LPAC Cafe
    We would bake a variety of our own cakes, liaise with the LPAC to set up a date and spend a couple of hours in the cafe.
  • Quiz – LPAC Cafe
    Taking inspiration from online, we could put together a quiz of around 20 questions, charging 50p-£1 for every entry.
  • Bring & sell – LPAC Cafe
    A bring and sell is where we could have brought in anything from our homes that we do not want/need anymore and asking for a donation for it instead of selling it for a certain price. The items of course would have to be in good shape and could not be anything inappropriate!
  • Donations to Progeny (collection) – LPAC
    This would just be a basic donation – tell people what we are about and what we are doing and why we require donations. There would be no pushing people into giving us money.
  • Sponsored fancy dress for the day
    Fancy dress which includes the whole company could be a fun idea. The fancy dress would have to be a theme which linked to our performance or made people want to sponsor us!
  • Sponsored silence
    Some people may love to shut us up for a limited amount of time! We would have to prove this by being out in public though.
  • Running a workshop for the public (including schools, colleges or youth centers).
    This was an idea from Hannah. We could have ran a small workshop on ideas which stemmed from our original fairy tale ideas. It would only be one hour long per workshop.
  • Bingo night – LPAC Cafe
    Speaks for itself really. Again, charge 50p-£1 per entry.
  • Competitions – eg. the competition we had on our Facebook page (guess what this image is)

 

There are of course many other ways in which we as a company could fundraise, these are just several of the ideas we could have chosen from. For now, we do not need to fundraise.

 

 

Francesca

Word count: 344

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