Week 2 - Thursday 12th June

What tasks did you do in the lesson today towards creating TTWCTT?
How do you think it contributes/will contribute towards making TTWCTT? 

This week, we all lay, face up, on the floor when we told to mimic certain noises (e.g. birdsong, door creaks, ect.); this helped towards creating The Tiger Who Came To Tea as, in the opening of our piece, we create a soundscape to mimic the morning as we do birdsong and snoring noises.
We also created scary stories through sound and minimal dialogue; this also helped us create The Tiger Who Came to Tea as it taught us that we can easily tell a story through sound without the constant need of dialogue... This also showed us the effectiveness of having sounds in our performance and in theatre in general.

Week 1 - Thursday 5th June

What is children's theatre?

Children's theatre caters for young children and their families; it could be seen as lighthearted as it is not very serious as otherwise it could lose the attention of the audience. Young children commonly have short attention spans so the performances are often fast paced and not very long so that the audience stay focused and keep their attention on the show. Children's theatre normally involves the audience to bring them in to the show and make them a part of it. The play is either written especially for children or adapted from a different play so that it suits the young audience.

What skills does an excellent children's theatre performer need to possess?

To be an excellent children's theatre performer, there are qualities that you will need to possess; for example, you will need to be able to embarrass yourself to entertain the children as children are often entertained by people falling over, making a fool of themselves, etc. You will need to be able to create over the top characters to make it more easy to understand for the children.

How would you adapt an issue for delivery to a specific audience?

To adapt an issue to a specific audience, you will need to consider the age range of the target audience, which will lead you into considering which factors they may/may not enjoy so that you can edit it to make it tailored to that specific audience.

Evaluation of performance rehearsal

In yesterday’s lesson, both theatre classes shared their work to each other.

In Mr Rennison’s class, their performance consisted of the actor’s transforming into explorers who are looking for new discoveries, which ends with them finding a tiger. The performance was amazing as, at the beginning, each actor had their own individual qualities that they each brought to the performance and it was all different so it each actor was unique. Later on in the performance, there was quite a lot of the performance that was in sync and the group was very good to stay in sync; to improve, I think that the start of the song was a bit low and quiet due to the fact they were probably shy at first but it improved and got better very quickly. To improve, I think that it would be very effective if, when they were saying their discoveries, their voices overlapped each other, to make it sound more busy and to make it sound like there were more discoveries than there were; I also believe that the discoveries should suit the audience more as they may not understand what many of the things, like ‘influenza’, are. To conclude, I believe that it was an amazing performance but I think certain aspects should be more child-like as it was a very mature performance that may frighten the audience.

In our class, I think that it went very well although many things like the transitions let it down. I believe that the performance was very suited to the audience and the fact that it is supposed to be ‘Children’s theatre’. I think that we all gave it our all in the way of having the ability to ‘embarrass ourselves’. To improve, we will have to improve our transitions to make the performance more fluid and flow better.