Evaluating potential for development

My company and I performed a workshop performance of the musical Rent. I am evaluating the potential of this piece and where it could perhaps go toward a wider scale production.

Style

In the rehearsal process for the production, we spent a lesson discussing the style we want for our company’s production of Rent. It was all about how we want our production to look as a whole – what we wanted to do with it. As this was toward our performance workshop unit, we were able to workshop various ideas and sketches for elements such as staging, choreography and exploring through the script. We wanted the look of our layout to be sort of bleak and industrial looking to give off quite an impoverished, rusty sort of feel – and due to these decisions aspects such as set costumes and staging were dependant on it. Style also incorporates how we present the show; and as Rent is an extremely well known show but because we undergoing performance workshop, we did not feel pressurised when changing and adapting it.

The potential for development if we were to take the production further lies a lot within our style and how we wanted to perform Rent.

1.       We had a lot of positive feedback from the audience but a lot of people stated that the story was hard to follow and often they did not know what was going. In developing this, balancing dialogue could work very effectively in resolving this issue. What I mean by this where the show is predominantly sung through with very few bits of dialogue, we could potentially balance it out so that more of the lines were spoken, instead of sung. This not only allows the story to be followed more clearly, but actually puts a prime focus on the development of our style and uniqueness in doing this show. Having more sections of the show spoken enforces a strong element of straight drama and acting core which works in the favour of creating a uniqueness to our performance and works very well toward workshopping the production. Developing my company’s style is important when putting on a production as it induces an individuality and spontaneity to our work – it therefore acting as a new, exciting piece of drama that no one has yet experienced.

2.       As well as staging, the style of a production (especially a musical) also encounters choreography of numbers. As this was a workshop performance that the company were practising, choreography movement within songs was thought up purely by ourselves – some routines were workshopped and scrapped and some were kept. However if this was taken further and bigger, potentially hiring a professional dancer/choreographer to focus on that aspect of the production would allow not only an outsiders input toward the piece, but also allows us as the actors to focus mainly our individual performances and exploring the play and our characters. Doing this will obviously encounter the demands of a fee to hire, therefore we would need some sort of budget.

Location

Due to this being an A-level performance and more importantly having nothing to our site specific unit and criteria, it was sort of by force for the production to be performed at school – however the actual staging of the show was up to us, and we workshopped lots of different ways to present the piece. The final decision was for it to be predominantly staged on the stage in the main hall, but the use of steel decking, we created lower staging/performance areas to create wide spectrum to the production for the audience to feel somewhat attached and involved. We thought that using a small intermit performance space, perhaps where the audience are on the same level, would be a bit much for this type of production. It being a musical, entitling music, dance, and sound and lighting equipment; we felt the performance needed a much bigger, and clearer space in order for the audience to feel an experience and for us the actors not to feel so enclosed in a wide scale production like Rent. I also feel that for a musical theatre piece, close, intermit performance spaces between the action and the audience don’t work as well as if it was a straight drama paly. I suppose it was dependant on the way we were staging our version of the production, but as a company we thought we’d keep it to traditional musical theatre staging, with an auditorium and set stage – however adding our own little twist with creating separate steel decking performance spaces, bring the action surrounding the audience.

A big part of the production’s potential for development lies in the location to where we could potentially take the performance.

1.       To create a wider scale to our production of Rent and take a further, looking into hiring a proper venue with a real auditorium and stage feel would be one of the first things that I would do. The Avenue Theatre in Sittingbourne is quite a small auditorium space bit set out like a traditional theatre. It would allow the production to be go ahead as workshopped with a sound (tracks, and potentially radio mics), lighting, music and dance with the audience being quite comfortable in a proper auditorium – seating 88. However this would require having a production budget to invest in our production; the Avenue charges £150 including full facilities - and that might be just for one night, or per hour.

2.       Performing our production in a legit theatre venue would potentially mean changing our set plan purely because our set designs are fit for a small scale school stage productions so we’d have to think about changing our set plans – potentially hiring a full scale Rent professional set, again demanding a budget. This would mean that our new set would adapt perfectly to our new theatre venue.

3.       Working in a new theatre with the new set would mean a number of rehearsals in the venue, probably costing more money in order to use the space. Also, with full scale sound equipment included in the price, perhaps demanding technical rehearsals, this might mean having purchase into radio mice to contemplate for the backing tracks through sound system that would most likely be very overpowering to natural voice and projection. – again costing a budget.