The book ‘The Tiger Who Came To Tea’ is a very popular children's book and a complete original which was first published in 1968. For our performance we had to recreate this book to suit our audience and tell the story using our voice, bodies and movements to get the story across and still keep our audience of little people fully focused, engaged and entertained.

In the performance I think that a lot went well, the first being that the performance was performed in the right style which was children's theatre I believe that children's theatre is any play, musical or type of performance that has been especially written or devised for children and has been adapted to suit them. The language and movements are a lot less complex and the performance is very energised with childlike themes. I think that the performance was very childlike and energetic throughout - an example of this is at the beginning when we first come on stage and we are exploring playing the objective to explore or to search, when on stage the energy  levels differ between high and low which is good as it keeps the children entertained and and helps them to not get distracted this also meant that we were able to successfully keep their attention. Our performance did consist of childlike themes especially towards the beginning when fenton was alone on stage and he was surrounded by tigers and asking the audience were the tigers were which was giving them an open opportunity to participate and make them feel included, this moment of the performance had a little bit of a pantomime feel to it as all movements were exaggerated for the audience's amusement and there was direct interaction with the audience - I think that this was a good idea as they are so young so if they feel included in the performance they are more likely to enjoy themselves and participate, to improve the performance in this sense maybe towards the latter of the performance we could have included some more interactions with the audience because towards the end it was as engaging as the beginning due to the lack of energy and the majority of us being un-confident towards the song we were to sing. Even though this was successfully a children's performance for little people their was some things that could have made it more fun for the children, one of these things was the song. The song was not at all for children one of the reasons is the fact that it was written in a previous English dialect that even i found hard to understand this means that the children would find it even harder, and watching something that you don't understand isn't entertaining because at some points they may have felt lost. With that feeling we could lose their focus however to improve this we changed the tune of the song to something more upbeat and less depressing, i think this helped us in the performance because even though they didn't understand what we were trying to say in the lyrics of the song, the tune and our movements kept them occupied and engaged enough to not lose focus. However even changing the tune of the song it still wasn’t suitable for children's theatre as it being written in 1794 it isn’t directed for modern day children's theatre performances and also the tune wasn't very catchy concluding to the fact i don't think that the audience will think of the song after the performance is finished.

In the performance you had to use certain skills to to suit the audience of little people and to make sure that the performance was very successful, one of the skills needed is to don't try to be cool or care what you look like because the performance is for children and if you are to care what you look like then you won’t be giving it 100% and giving the performance anything less then 100% will cause it and you as a performer to fail. In the performance i believe that we all gave it our best shot and put 100% into the performance because we were able to see and understand from previous rehearsals that doing anything less than committing 100% allows the performance to show weaknesses - this means that that the people watching the performances could notice the signs of weaknesses and immediately be uninterested so we had to put 100% and give the performance our all, we made the performance look like we were having fun so the little people would enjoy it too. Another we had to use to perform was a little improvisation, even though we had thoroughly rehearsed our performance we still had to have some elements of improvisation in the piece to keep the performance interesting and not make it look too scripted or unrealistic, an unnatural play is an uninteresting play so we made sure to do things at our own pace e.g. towards the beginning when we all come as explorers for the first time we don't know where we are going 100%, a little improvisation had been embedded to make the performance look less rehearsed it kept the little children eager to know what would happen next. However in the future we could add a little bit more of improvisation as the show was clearly rehearsed, this improvisation could be something to do with the idea i previously had with more interaction with the audience e.g. the explorers could go up the children and ask questions for example” have you seen the plant I'm looking for?” . This could give them the illusion they are really their.

When rehearsing for the final performance  think that myself and my fellow classmates responded to feedback very well an example of a change in my performance after feedback is energy. In the beginning my energy was usually kept at a constant pace I usually didn't change my energy level however now i constantly change my energy between high and low, this is vital because the energy change s what will draw the children in at the beginning of the performance - so a lack of this energy change would defeat the purpose of drawing them in as they won’t stay focused. Another way i have improved is the song in some ways i strongly believed that the song was going to be too difficult for little children to understand and i believed that the pace should have been faster and there was a number of rhetorical questions that may have been confusing for little kids - all these doubts reduced my confidence in the song which meant when performing it i wasn't giving it 100% to overcome my doubts i listened to my feedback and soon realised that the song was in some ways a hymn and is about the creation of greatness, an animal and heaven (did he who make the lamb make thee) I soon realised the pace at which we sung the song reminded me of a tiger walking and in term of pitch the structure was the same for each stanza; even though the repetitiveness could be seen as annoying it also could be catchy and the children would leave remembering our song.

In The Tiger Who Came To Tea I participated by becoming an explorer and playing the objective to search whilst playing this character, I was also apart of the human pyramid becoming successful. Each character being their own explorer with improvised and devised lines helped the creating and setting the scene for the piece - making the piece more believable.

In the performance you had to be an excellent children's performer and to do this you need to be a total performer and to be able to create a script and perform in different spaces e.g. rehearsal room or new theatre (play the space). You have to be energetic and have a positive attitude and be free to connect with your inner child, be able to adapt to the audience. Adapting to the audience is important because performing to children s not the same as performing to adults or people your own age as you will have difficulty connecting with them as  an audience that why you have to connect with your ‘inner child’ to be able to successfully give them what they want and allowing them to enjoy themselves. In the performance many things went well, we successfully built the pyramid which is something we had previous problems with, as we included the torches, it caught the little peoples attention and kept them engaged which is the top priority in children's theatre. We all used bold, bright movements and voice and body was in unison making sure we waited to feel the words instead of saying them for the sake of it (I am a slimy frog) in rehearsal was used to improve on this technique.

Things that didn't go too well was the song as we were still un-confident about it which then made the whole performance go downhill, also the tiger using the butterfly nets wasn't very reliable as the nets began to snap however we were able to pick up the performance even due to these things that didn't go too well on the performance day.Overall the performance went well overall but it also could have gone a lot better it did appeal to young children overall but certain aspects such as the song and they it was performed could have been improved but  enjoyed myself and the making of The Tiger Who Came To Tea.

Evaluation Of 'Dress Rehearsal'

In yesterdays strand lesson we had a non technical dress rehearsal,  this was to help organize the overall show and we each went through our performance so far and performed it to get used to the order of the show and to familiarize ourselves working in the new theatre - a place we haven't worked in before and is therefore abstract to us. However due to the fact that we didn't have a technical rehearsal could suggest that it wasn't a successful rehearsal, according to the 'wisegeek' website a dress rehearsal is a "full scale rehearsal or a practice of a theatre or musical performance. This practice is intended to perfect the performance before the public sees it, making sure every detail of the show meets expectations. The cast members wear their costumes and accessories during the dress rehearsal". However due to the fact that our rehearsal did not have costumes, accessories and technical support I wouldn't really consider it a dress rehearsal as such. With so little time until the performance we need a dress rehearsal and all we really benefited from yesterday is knowing the order and layout of the performance therefore to really have a dress rehearsal we will need technical support, full costumes and accessories.
During the performance quite a lot went well - we were able to successfully build our pyramid which we have had trouble doing before, the reason for this is because it has to be slick but quick and even though Fenton had  little trouble getting to the top of the pyramid, it was still successful. Another thing that i think went well was the projection of our voices when we each said our lines as it was able to be heard from all around the theatre and therefore we adjusted ourselves to suit our location effectively.
I think even though a lot went well quite a lot didn't go quite so well, but this is good because it means we can learn from it and we can successfully fix it. One of the things that didn't go well was the functions of the space and the exits and entrances (A,B,C,D), I think that reason this didn't go well is because a lot of people became confused of where they where suppose to be and when and due to this, we seemed unprepared. A way that we could fix this is to keep practicing and know where we are suppose to go before we begin to perform if someone is unsure confirm it with someone who is in the same entrance with you, this way the performance will seem more professional and slick.
Another way the performance could have gone better is by better stage dynamics because i think that we were un-confident and due to this most of use kept to the back of the stage and didn't really have stage dynamics, we need to learn to you use the space properly and effectively even if it is just gong closer to the front of the stage and filling in gaps we see around the stage because it will help the performance look less messy. Overall the rehearsal was not that effective but it did give a clearer view on what needs to be improved for the actual perfromaance

Patty Smith

Patty Smith is a famous singer - songwriter and is famous for her punk genre, she was inspired by a man named William Blake. William Blake who is famous poet and artist wrote the very famous poem 'The Tiger', William Blake was inspired by the death of his brother Robert who died from tuberculosis at the age of 24 it is said that 'At the moment of Robert's death, Blake allegedly saw his spirit ascend through the ceiling, joyously; the moment, which entered into Blake's psyche, greatly influenced his later poetry. "

Essay (Beautiful Things)

I think that the play 'beautiful thing' was a very effective piece and doesn't just entertain you as an audience but also makes you think about aspects within this world that we live in, it has a yearning sweetness between the two main boys; Jamie and Ste and is a captivating story of love between two young boys.
I think that the set design of the play was very naturalistic and because of this made you believe every word that came out of each of the characters' mouths. The set wasn't too complicated and only changes between outside their house and the bedroom inside the house, I think that the idea of little scene change is good idea because that means that myself as the audience doesn't have to wait long for scene changes also the little changes means that the places they describe, have to be described really well as they do not show to us for example they talked about a park multiple times in the play is left for our imagination to create and there's nothing better than watching a really good performance and leaving your imagination to run wild. They didn’t have any messy scene changes which is good as too many messy scene changes will spoil the the flow of the piece and therefore that is why it is best to keep the props and staging simple which they did leaving them to be slick and quick.
Their stage helped create the atmosphere of the piece and they used some props but not many, just enough to make it seem realistic an example of this is using a cigarette to portray Leah who is excluded from school and spends her free time perfecting her impersonation of ‘Mama Cass’. The atmosphere of the performance changes throughout the play however it was never dull whether it was Jaime and his mother having a row or Leah impersonating Mama Cass, it was never dull which is good because a dull performance is a bad performance. Having a simple set and having simple props added to the atmosphere due to their surroundings and where they lived and the way the Mother was obsessed with the plant that hung outside her front door and this small action added to the overall atmosphere of the piece.
In the piece the costumes that they wore added to nature - like atmosphere of the piece as they wore dark, dull colours it added to the atmosphere because if they wore bright colours that would have contrasted with the atmosphere of the performance. The lighting in the play was very natural the reason i think that they chose natural and non - dramatic lighting is because it made the audience be able to focus all over the stage as their was always something going on and also to indicate the time of day and place they were in. I think they used fresnel throughout most the performance especially when outside the house this is used for a softer edged effect. But when inside the room especially when both Jamie and Ste were inside they used Spotlighting a little to focus the audience's attention.
Ste lives his alcoholic father and is one day beaten so badly that Sandra take pity on him and lets him sleep over however throughout the performance the character of Ste’s father is never actually seen and I think that this is effective because we all have a stereotype of that character in out head and i believe that once again it allows our imagination to run wild and the sound effects to go with the drunken father, the breaking of things in their house and the laughing and/ or shouting of the football match and due to this we simply don’t need to see the father, these simple sound effects tell us all we need to know about the fathers character and the relationship he has with with Ste.
They spoke very informally the younger children spoke sometimes in slang using subtle code - switching an example of this is the continuous use of the word ‘queer’ instead of ‘gay’, their regional accents and dialect shows where they really come from and how the way the younger children talk is different from the way that the adults talk. It is effective because it shows how times have changed and how the adults speech is different to the kids speech and that it could be due to the way they are currently brought up differently. This technique sells the characters even more.
Overall I think that this was a very interesting play and i found myself not being able to stop watching it, it touch on issues that are very serious in the world we live in today and this means that they had to be very careful when devising the piece and I think they did just that. I found myself really empathising towards the characters and I found that they impacted me and made me feel and understand how they feel in this situation. The main moment of impact was when Ste and Jaimie first kissed i think that this was a moment of impact because throughout act 1 it was the moment that had been building up and even though a part of me knew that it was coming it was still a shock however knowing the background of Ste’s life we immediately feel happy for him and for Jaimie finding comfort in one - another and we can see how hard it was for the both of them to come to terms with what was happening between them. Especially due to the fact that when Jonathan Harvey play first came out 20 years ago the age of homosexuality consent was 18 and knowing that these boys are 15 makes it even harder for them.
In this piece the characters were Jaimie, Ste, Leah,Tony and Sandra and the main characters were Jamie and Ste and even though the main story was of love there was still the not - so - subtle conflict between Jamie and his mother and the fact he has no idea who his father is. Most of the characters were very believable especially Jamie and Ste who were tenderly naturalistic and believable however the characters of Sandra and Tony began to pursue those of a soap opera always emitting a sort of edgy flirtation and whose characters were more stereotypes and less believable because unlike Sandra and Tony the teenagers were touchingly vulnerable as they slowly found their way to love.

Lesson 1

What Is Children's Theatre?
Children's Theatre is any play, musical or performance that has been specifically written or devised for children and has been adapted to be suitable for children, the language and movements are less complex so that the children are always able to understand what is going on and always be fully engaged because if at any point the children lack understanding of the performance they immediately loose interest - and children who have lost interest in something are restless. Also the performance is very energised and moves along very quickly because having a slowly paced performance with little energy not only would children but any types of audiences will loose interest and become bored.

What Skills Does It Take To Be Good

• Don't try and be cool and care about what you look like because in doing so you will only think of things that will prevent you from working at your full potential, so when performing just do it right and don't care about what you look like, or if you are being judged, its the audiences privilege to judge.
• Commit and give it 100%, once you have started do not stop, give it everything you have got and put everything into it because if you put half and half it will come out a ball of rubbish, to be successful you start at 100% and you end on the same way, if you go down hill then so will the performance but if you stay 100% committed then your performance will be successful.
• Don't think, feel, just feel what's right and if it goes it will flow, the more you think about what you do, it will be over analysed and won't be natural, and a performance or exercise that doesn't look natural isn't a good performance.
• Use sounds in exercises, it doesn't have to be words, don;t concentrate on saying the words of the performance concentrate on the sound and making different noises, and experimenting to see which sounds best or most interesting as you are never going to learn anything new if you don't experiment a few time and things wrong and right, learn from yourself.
• Improvise don't repeat the same thing again because like previously mentioned there is nothing worse than looking unnatural or looking as if you are forcing something on - be in the moment.

To be an excellent children's performer you need to be a total performer and be able to successfully create a script that is suited for and will entertain young children otherwise in defeats the whole purpose of the script., be able to devise a piece that is set to be performed in the new theatre and can be seen on all three sides. You have to be extremely energetic to keep the children focused and entertained at all time during the whole performance. One really important factor is that you need to be positive and have a positive attitude towards who your working with and children, you need to be able to make big, bold and clear movements that could be exaggerated throughout because that may be seen as funny and silly to a child and could keep them entertained for longer. Be controlled and engaging and have a lot of eye contact with the audience to make them feel really apart of the performance and the experience.

Voice and Body in unison is very important in theatre because they are not two separate things, they are one both controlled by each other and when say something or acting something it is always best and most effective for your body to be in total sync with your voice so both are giving if the correct messages to the audience and that everyone is able to understand the performance properly, if your voice and body is not in unison, especially for little kids they could not get confused which leads to restlessness.