End of unit PLTS assesment table

	Jack Silkstone	Olly Smith	Frankie Cooney	Abi Lee
Self Manager
Effective Participator
Reflective Learner
Creative Learner
Independent Enquirer
Team Worker

This is how I now see me and my group at the end of the unit. As you can see, I’ve finally given myself a few greens within reflective learner and team worker. This is because now we’ve been working together for so long, I feel we have all at some point proven that we can everything that is necessary within the team worker section. I’ve also put reflective learner up as with all the blog posts they are being reflective in their ways, learning from the past. Olly went up in the criteria’s with me, and Frankie was already borderline all of them anyway, so it didn’t take much. As with before, it’s damn near impossible for Abi to improve much more, but she has shown improvements within all areas, despite already being so high.

Personal Learning and Thinking Skills - Group Performance Skills

Effective Participator

Discuss & Resolve Concerns;

The group were expressing concerns over afew members inability to remember lines, as if they were not properly rehersing them. After a brief bu deep and calm discussion the membersi n question got their act together and returned with near perfect line memory, resolving the issue entirely.

Present a persuasive case for action;

At the begging of the unit, every student was required to attempt to persuade the rest of those on the unit towards their cause. I presented a case for a peice on the Justice system, something that is taught in passing to the generations, and requires greater understanding to properly grasp it. Obviously, mine didn't go through, and we ended up with Gender equality. Honestly, this was the more persuasive case, and had the most research and backing behind it.

Propose practical ways forward, breaking these down into manageable steps;

This was done within the generation of the music to be used within the peice. The song was first discussed, broken down to it's cords, It was then seperated up into the instruments to be sent and rehersead seperatly with some collabartion from the group. Then the instrumental was recorded. Over this, the vocals were recorded and placed.

Identify improvements;

Identyfying the advancement of the music as it evolved from one stage to the other, and as cords were eddited and the tempo changed. Also with the addition of new instruments.

Influence others, balancing diverse views;

Creative differences within the group were balanced based upon the practicality and involvment of the set; from the position of the moveable rail pecie, to the narrators table and the "bed steps".

Act as an advocate for views and beliefs that may differ from their own;

The role I was placed in was highly and noticably sexist, while I am averted to sexism and look down upon it's acts.

Team Worker

Collaborate with others towards common goals;

There was a collaborative effort to move the set peices to their necercary positions for the changing of scenes withing the peice, namely the movement from the "House" to "Emily Bile Set".

Reach agreements, managing discussions to achieve results;

Dissucsions about rehersal schedual were inputted by all members to allow for the best times without interference from other workloads.

Adapt behaviour to suit different roles and situations, including leadership roles;

I had to move in character onto the set and settle down in the bed as if my que was given when my que line was missed, without being conspiquios and obviously confused, adapting to the situation as it were.

Show fairness and consideration to others;

Acknowlagement of other ideas, and only chosing designs based on their practicle merit, and not the one propsing them.

Take responsibility;

Coloring of labels ready for performance day.

Provide constructive support and feedback to others;

All students gave constrictive feedback to other groups performances on what could have been improved, their group skills, and their personal acting skills.

Consideration of Health and Safety

Within the production of this we attempted to go about it's creation in realistic veiws. One such realistic thing that comes with nay performance is the health and saftey requerments of the venue to ensure both the actors and the audiances saftey in the event of an emegancy.

Inside the book "Practicle Theater: A post-16 approach" edited by Sally Mackery, there is small list of bullet points for consideration on page 367:
"·         means of access and escape;
 ·         public address installation;
 ·         the staging arrangements;
 ·         sight line;
 ·         production details; barriers and fencing;
 ·         the evacuation plan
 ·         mixers, delay towers and temporary towers;
 ·         policing, security and stewarding, first aid service and emergency provision."
The means of access and escape were easly identifyable within the performance, acces leading in from the front of the room, and a clearly marked fire escape to the outdoors at the back of the room close to the audiance.
 As we were only acting in a small space, public adress to the audiance was easly done via our own voice, and so no such installation of devices were neceracary.
The staging arrangements were gone over with the teachers in question, making sure that the performance space was clear for the props and actors to have ease of movement and acting.
I don't belive line of sight would have been an issue for any member of the audiance, with it being such a small space and everyone sat on the same level, they should have been easly aware of the stage and their enviroment.
 The production details had all gone through to the teacher for the performance to go ahead, everything that was both needed and easly viewed as not needed to know went through, to make sure that in any eventuality the health and saftey of all partys involved were taken into consideration.
As mentioned many times, it was a small audiance, and we're not exactly well known with hundreds of rabid "fangirls" to require barriers to be put in place to stop the audiance from getting to close to the production.
By now, I'm fairly certain that the evacuation plan of the school has been drilled, in most sences of the word, into the students and teachers. If an eventuality of an emergency arose, everyone would know what to do and do it calmly.
I honstly don't know what these things are, and since it was within an indoor enviroment, I'm fairly certain they wouldn't be possible anyway. I guess making sure that they were impossible before attempting any such thing is a part of health and safety.
All of there things are taken care of within the school enviroment, and so were of no concern to us.


In "Designing for the Theatre: Second eddition" by "Francis Reid", on page 47 there is a section on stability, an extract from which is:
"An aspect of which is perhaps related rather more to actors' confidence in saftey, rather than actual safety, is the stability of the scenery."
This holds true to us, as one of our set peices (a very major one) become extremely unstable, as one of the wheels broke befor the performance. This lead it to be unfit for health and saftey requirments, unless repaired. This worried us greatly, but thankfully it was in good condition for the final performance and so was able to be used without chance of breaking anything health and saftey realated. This also impared the movement of the set, which was of concern for both health and saftey and the integraty and pace of the production.

Evaluation of Performance

It was the performance day of the peice, and my group was the first one performaning. In early rehersals, part of the set broke. This all ammounted to an abundance of nerves that really started to not agree with my systems. It was looking rather bleak, but I hoped, I knew, that we aere going to pull through it.

When it came to the actual performance, the nerves were still there, and they never went within. Without the support of the group, we may not have done as well as we did. Everyone made sure the set peices were in place and safe. The movments were on time and specific. There were afew muck ups and line misses, but we were there, we movedinto the scene in character, got to where we needed to be for that line, and everything ran smothly.

Looking back on it now, the strongest part had to be the end "Emily Bile" section of the peice. It pulled the audiance into a "Jerry Kyle" type of show, with the characters still there and recogniseable. The audiance participation of this had the audiance at attention, and when asked were ready to answer with their thoughts.

I belive I articulated and projected my voice well on stage, at the correct level for the audiance being so close. I also displayed the ability of multi-rolling, if only barley, with my change from the Father to the Wolf character. Also, my movments and actions were beutfully over the top for the style of theater being produced.

By the end of the performance I felt relieved that it was finally over and all wnet well, with only minor mess-ups that were quickly and un-noticibly coverd up. And while I was happy that it was over, when it got to helping them with their questionaires I did feel abit useless because they were being very independant and I realy didn't know how to engage any of them.

The overall audiance responce was positive! They expressed that they enjoyed the characters, varying answers on who each preferd more, and most because of the humour given by the chracter. They also thought the set was well made and functioned well for its purpose.

The "workshop" segment of the peice was intergrated into the performance as whole as in the "Emily Bile" end scene, and so stood up and performaned as well as the rest of the performance did (with a couple of sign slip ups and set movement messups by me, but it didn't seem to detract from the peice much). In all honesty, it could have had more time put into it to make it longer and more informative to the audiance, but as it were it was perfectly acceptable.

If I had to work within this group again I'd probably attempt to take on more responsibility. The weight of the performance was rather focoused in this one, and it would have got things moving much faster if I brought responsibilities onto myself to get things sorted and ready on time and with purpose.

The main thing that would have improved the performance as a TIE company would have probably been experiance in this area. Our experiance of this form of drama is left wanting, mainly for the reason of this being more than likely the first time any of us has tried to educate within a performance, and set out to have a performance with a purpose other than to simply entertain. If we were more experianced in this area, our understanding and educational prioritys would be much greatly improved, and so too would the production.

Watching it back on the DVD, in all honesty, made me cringe. Apparently, despite trying to change the tone of my voice several times within that performance, there wasn't much a noticible change within it. All it just sounded like me to me. It appeard low budget and rather scraped together, with a scene or two that didn't make full sence, and alot of exits which could have been improved (Majority of those exits done by me). Everyone seemed to manage to create enough of a stage presence at the points they needed to be the focus at the right times, directing the audiances attention well, and the characters demena and personality was pretty consistent throughout the peice.

Personal Learnering and Thinking Skills table and evaluation

This is how I viewed me and my group at the begging of the unit in regards to the PLTS’.

	Jack Silkstone	Olly Smith	Frankie Cooney	Abi Lee
Self Manager
Effective Participator
Reflective Learner
Creative Thinker
Independent Enquirer
Team Worker

While I may not have been holding the group back at the begging per say, I had the most reds and no greens. Olly has his drawbacks but he is a creative guy within music and on the fly ideas. Frankie didn’t fall short of anything, and balances with high-average and excellent. She did the main research for the facts and things that the piece was going to be about. Abi, on the other hand, seemed to be a natural at everything needed. She was a major part in the development of this, the basis of the actual performance in the begging came from her. But that isn't to say she fully took charge without a say from anyone else, she allowed everyone to have their say and pooled ideas together. She seemed to manage her time well with what was needed for the group out of her own private time, which allowed us to steam on. I tried hard to give her amber on this, but she never fell below the highest standards.

This is how I see us now

	Jack Silkstone	Olly Smith	Frankie Cooney	Abi Lee
Self Manager
Effective Participator
Reflective Learner
Creative Thinker
Independent Enquirer
Team Worker

I’m still the least, but I have improved in Self Management and Team Worker, as I've integrated more into the group since the begging, and Olly has improved in Self Management with me, as we are now using more personal time to get tasks done quickly and correctly. Frankie has proven herself an effective team worker with significant improvement from my first views, but this improvement is more a case of being much better than expected, and while it may have looked like Abi was at the highest, she still proves to be improving in all areas with the constant script improvements and understanding.

I need to try and get myself into the green for a couple of them, and try to improve on reflective learning. Olly may need to try and do some independent research and enquiring of his own, and that may innately bump up his other areas. Frankie doesn't have far to go to get greens across the board, and Abi just needs to keep being Abi and nothing bad can happen.

I’ll be referring to this table and the PLTS’ in future and keep track of improvements, hopefully I’ll manage to give myself a green before the end.

7th June- What to Achieve in the next 2 hours!

1. - Emote the lines properly
2. - Know stage directions with set pieces
3. - Devise questionaire

Additional rehersal for full set and dress for 2 hours after school on Thursday.

Comparative Review on Gail and Pavlar Interviews

While a good majority of this seems to near enough the same, there are parts in which the two differ. The major area  I see this is within the question "What styles of theater do you use?" Gail replied by saying that it isn't allways up to them, it's up to the ones who effectivley "order" the performance, while Pavlar said that theirs are primarly inspired by Brecht, with parts of Boal and Dorothy Hethcote. This shows that Blah Blah Blah seem to have more creative freedom on what they perform, as it is them who decides what it is they are performaing in what style. I wonder what brings about this difference?
There is also a difference on how long productions are in planning. For Gail, she said they plan two years ahead, while Pavlar says it depends on the budget and even after it's produced it is still constantly evolving. This may be down to the above, with one being comissioned on a certain style while to other gets to decide for themselves, but the fact that the timescales still differ so greatley is something that shows the un-even nature of this line of work.