1. How is the initial material being researched and developed at significant stages during the process of creating drama?

Our initial research was heavily based around the idea of secrecy. Therefore we spent a lot of time researching potential secrets people may be hiding, as well as common everyday secrets most people have. Within our research we discovered that secrets are most commonly based around love, family, money and addiction. Through this, we were able to devise several improvisations using these themes within secrecy. For example, I played a character that had been secretly in love with their best friend or years and could no longer hide their feelings. Despite this, we found the theme of secrets difficult, as we found various ways in which to reveal the secret a struggle. However, when creating our own secret scenarios, rather than focusing on the topics we had found in research, we realized the idea of the unexpected contained a lot of humorous potential.

Influential Workshops

Before coming up with a theme behind our piece of theatre, we each created our own workshop based on our trip to New York and the personal experiences we each had. The main task that I found the most helpful was during Hazel and Elizabeth’s workshop. The task was solely based on snappy creative improvisation through small pieces of information we were given at random. We all wrote a character name on a piece of paper, as well as a secret they had and wanted to conceal, e.g. an affair, or the fact that they were famous. We all swapped our papers around the room, meaning we did not know what character we would have to play. We were then given the scenario of being on a flight and trying to conceal our secret, whilst trying to discover the secret of the person next to us. However we could only talk in questions. This was challenging, as we really had to think about what to say to retain information. Furthermore, improvisation allowed us to become a character spontaneously, meaning we had to respond to one another creatively as we did not know how their character would react to certain questions. This was helpful as it allowed us to become familiar with reacting to the unpredictable on stage whilst maintaining a character. The plane setting also fitted with our theme of New York, the idea of the “Cover Up” through the secret, relating to 9/11.

Within Elizabeth and Hazel’s workshop, the characters created revealed various dramatic potential, such as Sheldon pretending to be a famous person in disguise on a flight was under the constant pressure of questions conveyed a possible trigger of tension in a storyline as the audience would be waiting for her character to fall apart under the constant strain of concealing her identity. The idea of having to conceal a secret under pressure appealed to us the most as it contained various situations that could arise under pressure. For example, as ‘Trev’ (Shirley) tries to remain calm on her date, desperately trying to conceal her identity from Jackie with Maurice prying over her shoulder, she nearly let’s vital information slip that only the two women would know (‘three years actually, I mean if you let me finish, I was going to say three years is a very long time’). Also, under the shock of Jackie suddenly becoming sexual attracted to her male date, Shirley screams for Maurice, who comes running in only to trip with the drinks and cause Shirley’s secret to be revealed.

We made the decision for the theme of our piece of theater based heavily on our trip to the 9/11 memorial in New York. Whilst there we were overwhelmed by the emotion within the memorial and the dramatically life changing factor behind the traumatic event. Looking closely at the names written around the memorial, we discovered just how many ordinary lives were tragically brought to an end, for example a young woman and her unborn child. As well as this we met several interesting characters when travelling around the streets on New York, such as a man playing the clarinet who caused an outbreak of song between strangers on the subway. Meeting characters like him, as well as visiting the memorial caused us to realize the “ordinary” lives and stories behind extraordinary people. Subsequently we made the decision to create a comedy based around ordinary, relatable characters and their lives all coming together to achieve on one goal, the goal being a “Robbery”. This was due to the fact that we were overtaken by emotion at the memorial, however it was revealed to us, that everyone involved had their own ordinary lives behind the event, as they themselves are ordinary people. We made the decision on a comedic piece, as we believe behind “ordinary”, stereotypical characters there are situations and stories in their lives that could be humorous.

Improvisations

I found the “Bus Stop” improvisation was very helpful in discovering potential characters for our pieces of theatre. For example, I played a pregnant woman, who suddenly goes into labour.  Created dramatic potential to our storyline, as it would introduce an “unexpected” element that we could use to create humour for the audience. We decided that the best way to enhance our performance we should play to our acting strengths. Therefore, the best way for us to find possible plots for our piece was to play the moulding improvisation game. This allows us to think spontaneously, responding to our physicality that has be ‘moulded’ by a member of the audience. For example, Raye found herself taking on the role of someone with a secret infection, as she was to bend down, trying to show her best friend 9played by me) what the problem was, whilst I stood disgusted, with exaggerated facial expressions as I gagged at the ‘sight’ of her infection that the audience were forced to imagine, creating humour.

Raye played a mother in the middle of labor, her daughter breaking the news that she too was pregnant and had left school, unexpectedly right at that very moment. This immediately stuck a cord, as we were able to link this idea to the unexpected element of 9/11. Nevertheless, we are able to create humor of a situation such as a robbery through various characters' reactions, the fact that they appear “ordinary people” making them even more relatable to the audience. After completing several improvisations, we decided to create a comedy montage for our piece, in which we’d develop short storylines out of the most successful improvisations we’d devised in lessons.

Pia and Elizabeth found themselves playing two ‘common’ builders spying through a hole in the door, at what they described to be a woman. This was funny as it created a double act with humorous banter as the squabbled over who’s turn it was to look through the door, the sneaky mischievous element to their spying creating quite a childish atmosphere. This idea of a double act lead me to do some research on comedies. I found double acts such as The Chuckle Brothers in which Paul, the older brother is bossier, and trying to control Barry in situations he has created. This helped us to develop our piece as we came up our last scene in the montage, consisting of Bob (an older, dodgy plumber) and Terry (a young dopey apprentice) who stupidly does and believes whatever Bob says. This created a good dynamic for comedy as the contrasting ages created an opportunity for conflicting ideas and banter. For example, Terry has never heard of Peter Andre ‘a living legend’ according to Bob.