CONTEXT – A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Part 1 Planning:

Here is the link below to my planning for our rehearsal process of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SL0Rjx1Se9poh5_bVWMexJoG66N_LiJ7mljTHaIHD64/edit

A Midsummer Night’s Dream were scheduled to rehearse three times a week with our director Erica on a Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 3-5pm (as shown below).

https://www.facebook.com/download/578716009260362/Weekly%20Plan%20-%20Theatre%20in%20Education.pdf?hash=Acornm5Jp1TWI-8N

Shows 1 & 2 only

What is the name and who is the author of the show you are performing in? When was it written and first performed?

I am performing in the show of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” this season, we will be performing this on a tour between the weeks of the 11th-15th February and the 25th February 1st March, followed by a performance in the Conservatoire Theatre on the 12th February.  This show was written by the playwright William Shakespeare and it was written between 1595 and 1596, according to the website Wikipedia.  Following on from this, shown by Study.Com, the play itself was first performed and shown on the first of January in 1605, which is 9-10 years after it was first heard to be written.

Who is directing it? (full name please)

Our tutor Erica Jane Dupuy is directing our cast for this performance and process, Poppy Stevens is also very likely to be helping with this and Tim Westerman will most likely be looking at props and resources.

What genre of theatre is your show and why do you think this? (Circus? Dance? Cabaret? Opera? Physical theatre? Classical theatre? Modern or Contemporary theatre? Musical theatre? Theatre in Education?)

This particular show of A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been adapted into a Thirty Minute Dream for the purpose of Theatre In Education, which is our project this term. Therefore, there are changes to the original script so that it is fitting in co-ordination with the children’s workshop and performance together. Our performance is also an adaptation specifically made for modern-day. We have modernised our costumes, props and setting, more beneficial to the audiences we will be performing to. Also, looking at the script, plot and storyline, this is one of Shakespeare’s most comedic plays in which he explored the ideas of the plot being comical for someone to hear. Putting all of these elements into play, the performance is very tailored to being performed on our tour of TIE for the younger students of Key stage two and three. Therefore, it contains the many elements of Comedic Theatre, Modern Theatre and Theatre In Education.

Personally, I think that our show involves a few genres, in general, on the whole. I think that these all link into the biggest genre out of three of Theatre In Education. We have adapted the play into a shortened version of this, sticking with the comedic style but adapting the costumes, set and props into our modern style. So, I believe that there are three elements in which fit into this category. However, it is very important that all structure and language remains the same as we are trying to teach and educate the children on this particular play by William Shakespeare.

What is it about and who are the key characters?

Summed up in Lysander’s line towards the end of the play, A Midsummer Night’s dream revolves around this phrase: “The course of true love never did run smooth”. However, there are additional themes of magic, confusion, disorder, dreams, heartbreak and mischievousness seen throughout the play.

A Summary Of The Play:

“ Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is preparing for the wedding with Hippolyta.Egeus asks Theseus to make his daughter agree to marry Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander decide to run away and meet in the forest. Helena somehow gets known to their plan. She decides to expose this plan to Demetrius, so that he may feel pleased with her. Demetrius at once chases those lovers to the forest. A group of craftsmen are rehearsing a play that was to be performed at the marriage. There is a quarrel between Oberon and Titania over a young Indian prince. He orders Puck, who is very mischievous, to bring a magical flower, the juice of which is spread over a sleeping person’s eyes, that person will fall in love with the first thing he or she sees upon waking. Puck brings the flower. Oberon orders Puck to spread its juice over the eyes of Titania. He orders Puck to put some magical juice over his eyes too. Puck takes Lysander to be the one of whom Oberon spoke and thus spreads magic juice over his eyes. When Lysander wakes up, he happens to see Helena and falls in love with her. Helena thinks that they at mocking her. Hermia becomes jealous of Helena. Lysander and Demetrius are about to fight but Puck confuses them by mimicking their voices that lead them apart until they are lost in the forest. Puck also transforms the head of a craftsman (Bottom) into that of an ass. Bottom’s friends on seeing him run away and he himself runs to them. When Titania wakes up, she happens to see that ass-headed man. Both Oberon and Puck watch them and laugh at them. On his order, Puck restores the situation back to normal. Theseus and Hippolyta find the sleeping lovers in the forest and take them back to Athens to be married. Now Demetrius loves Helena, and Lysander now loves Hermia. After the marriage ceremony, the craftsmen present their play. “ (English Summary.com 2019).

The Key Charcaters:

Lycander- The man in which Hermia loves

Demetrius- The man who Hermia is set to Marry

Hermia- The daughter to Egeus who is in love with Lycander

Helena- The female lover who is very in love with Demetrius

Theseus- The Duke Of Athens

Egeus- Father to Hermia

Philostrate- In charge of The Lord’s Entertainment

Oberon- The Fairy King

Puck- A mischievous “Sprite”, also known as Robin Good fellow.

Titania- The Fairy Queen

Hippolyta- Engaged to Theseus

Fairies: Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustardseed

Mechanicals: Peter Quince, Nick Bottom, Francis Flue, Tom Snout, Snug and Robin starveling.

Peter Quince is a carpenter in his spare time and Nick Bottom is a weaver. Additionally, Flute is a bellows mender and Snout is a tinker. Snug, who plays the lions part, is a joiner and starveling is a tailor.

When they are called to be given their parts in the second scene of our performance, Peter Quince references their jobs in their title, this is crucial as the audience then learn what they do outside of being a Mechanical.

What part are you playing and why do you think you have been cast in this role?

I have been cast as the character “Puck”.

“Puck is one of Shakespeare’s most enjoyable characters and is seen as a mischievous sprite as well as Oberon’s servant and jester. Puck is perhaps the play’s most adorable character and stands out from the other fairies that drift through the play. But Puck is not as delicate as the play’s other fairies; rather, he is more prone to misadventure.”(Thought Co. Com 2019)

Puck is a very fun and bubbly character who is constantly full of energy. Personally, for myself this isn’t a casting which I typically tend to reach for. I tend to lean towards the gentle and ditsy characters or the harsh, decisive and mean castings. Therefore, playing the trickster with a lot of mischievous elements is something very different for me. I think that I have been cast as this character so that I can explore this side to my acting and performance and push myself out of my comfort zone. I know that it is very easy to find something to like and try to stick to that, so I am very excited, delighted and happy to be taking on this role.

From reading aspects of the script, I think that I am going to have a wonderful time exploring and pulling this character apart. I will be looking majorly into YouTube clips, researching characteristics and looking at how this has been developed over the years.

From the past couple of years, I have played roles such as Velma (Hairspray Jr) and Lily St. Regis (Annie Jr) so these really contrast to my role as “Puck”.

• When is the show set and how is this important to the way the production is being developed?

The play and production are set in the time of when it was written, around 1595/6. This was around the same time that this play was said to have been written and first performed. However, we are specifically performing the piece with a modernised context behind it, keeping all of the language and structures that Shakespeare wanted and had written with the intentions of.

At the time when the show was written and performed, in the same time period, we would know that they would be performing with the similar cultural and political background in their performance. As this is modern-day, there is going to be major differences between what that was like back then compared to now.

However, we are developing our own performance of this, and will have our own take on the style and how we will interpret this, keeping all major features the same. But, I think that it is key to remember when the show was written and that it is set in Athens. The language and style of writing is going to be completely different to modern-day. We will have to go away and study the language of some of the phrases and develop the meanings of these to bring accuracy to our performance. As actors, performing a piece of text from the early 1600’s, we are going to need to pull this apart and look in-depth at the meaning behind the context of the work and bring this to a modernised performance.

Research is going to be a key aspect of this project as we will be unaware of some meanings and intentions built. It is our job to gather a high understanding and bring this into our performance. On the whole, Shakespeare is a very distinct genre of theatre, so it is very important that we hold all of the elements in this with high accuracy.

When was this show first performed, how did people react to it and why do you think this was? Why do you think an audience would still be interested in seeing a new version of this show?

The show was first performed anywhere between 1595 and early 1956. It is estimated as this due to, “the basis of topical references and an allusion to Edmund Spenser’s Epithalamion“(Wikipedia 2019).

Looking at any research pages, there is said to have been no given records of how the public reacted to this performance. However, from “Shakespeare Online” I have found this statement: “After the Restoration, A Midsummer-Night’s Dream was revived at the King’s Theatre, where it had the mischance, in September of 1662, to number among its spectators Mr. Pepys. This worthy promptly confided to his famous Diary that it was ‘the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life’.” This statement tells us how they reacted to it approximately 60 years after it was first performed ans produced. The community at this time saw the silly and comedic intentions behind the play and reacted in order with this.

I believe that this may have been one of his first comedies performed, so in context, I can imagine that the Elizabethan audience would have been in shock and might not have known which reaction is most appropriate. However, Shakespeare created and composed this play for a comedic purpose and wanted people to laugh and express the sense that they had found this funny and amusing to watch. As, this was one of the first plays written in this style, I am convinced that people may have held their reactions back and restricted themselves from releasing how they felt.

Due to my research, I know that Shakespeare himself didn’t produce any of his plays, he had just written them before his death. So, they were shared for a purpose and I believe that the reaction in the 1660’s would have been very similar to its first release, once the initial confusion and shock was put aside.

What style of production will it be and how will it be staged? (e.g. one act play; e.g. revue; e.g. talent show) (e.g. modern, classical, avant garde, end on, thrust, promenade, in the round?)

Our performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been adapted into a “Thirty  minute Dream” for the purpose of Theatre In Education. The Play runs smoothly from beginning to end, as the actors perform for approximately 30-40 minutes with no breaks. Therefore, we have adapted the traditional five-act play, into a one-act performance. We have done this because we are performing to children in the key stages of two and three and it needs to be easy to understand, accurate and detailed. So, we have kept all of the most important aspects to the storyline and have condensed the play down, so the children are constantly engaged and focused. We want them to learn from it, embrace the performance and begin to understand and enjoy Shakespeare so this length and version will be most effective.

As we are performing as a part of the Theatre In Education tour, we will be performing to four primary schools, one secondary school and completing an additional performance at the Conservatoire East theatre. Due to this, we will not have a set staging type. However, we can assume that we will be performing in either halls or classrooms when we are on the tour. Therefore, the style will most likely be proscenium staging. But, I am convinced that this could change, depending on where we are visiting and what is most convenient. We will be able to confirm this after we have completed the performances. I can confirm however that when we complete our performance at college, we will performing on a proscenium stage to an audience positioned and angled in one direction as this is our performance environment when studying at college.

What performance experience do you and the other cast members have and how will this affect the process of developing this production?

I have been performing since the age of 7 and have continued this to present day. Therefore, I have explored shows and performances, developing my knowledge along the way. However, I have never tackled Theatre In Education. From my knowledge of my cast members, I do not think that anyone in my cast specifically has either. Like myself, I know that most company members have been interested and in relation to performing arts since a young age, but have also never tackled this genre of Theatre In Education.

I know that as this is something I have never studied before, this is going to be a whole new experience in which I will be developing and expanding my skills of TIE. I will be learning how the rehearsal process will format, leading into how we will arrange the performances, prepare for them and carry them out. Due to this also being a tour, each school is most likely going to be different, so we will be learning more about individual schools and how they like to use TIE to inform their children.

Similarly, we will be developing our workshop skills and learning how to lead activities with the children. We will be taking direction from Erica and Poppy throughout and can improve our set of this throughout and use each other and the team bond we have created to do so.

I believe that this will only affect the process positively as we are all going to be learning throughout. This just means that at times we may be taking things slower and having discussions about leading possibilities in some situations. But, on the whole as we are all going to be developing a whole new skill set in this genre and Shakespeare as a whole. So, we will be working with great care and time consideration as we may have to be taking the pace a tiny bit slower in comparison to normal. However, we can review this at the end of the process.

What are the implications, for a performer, of putting on this kind of show?

Relating strongly to the previous question, the implications of a young performer like us creating and putting on a TIE performance is that we will be gaining large amounts of experience. We are going to constantly be learning along the way, viewing what ways are best to lead a workshop, whats successful and what is not, how to adapt our performance to a new performance environment, how different age groups may react, how we stage a performance like this and what ways are best to go about props and costumes as well as many more.

There are so many creative elements within Theatre In Education and we will all learn so much along the way and develop our skill set majorly on the whole. We will have the opportunity to reflect on this at the end of the process and as we make our way through.

What is the time scale over which the show is being produced? How will you manage this time so that you are fully ready to perform to the public? How many performances will you be doing?

Our show is being produced over a scale of nine weeks, however we only rehearse for this three times a week. Due to this and any implications we can predict, we know that we will have rehearsed for approximately six weeks on the whole. We have scheduled two-hour rehearsals on a Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoon.

So that we are fully ready to perform on the Week Commencing 11th February, we will need to be taking it upon ourselves to learn lines as oon as possible outside of rehearsals as well as recapping everything we have done so we are fully prepared for any other upcoming rehearsals. We need to be doing as much as we can at home to ensure were always on top of our work and never falling behind as our time is so short.

We will be completing six shows, we will be performing five shows on tour (including four primary school performances, one secondary school performance and one performance at our college theatre which is open to the general public).

Where is your show being performed and therefore, what production elements will the show be able to include?

As we are performing the majority of our shows on a tour, we will be performing at various different schools and be adapting our performance in many different spaces. Considering this, it is very likely that we are going to be restricted with what production elements we will be able to include.

Our director Erica majorly looked at what is going to be most convenient, fit into a mini van and be adjustable for new scenes. As a company, we perform our show with 6 light up cubes, they are reasonably sized and can be moved very easily to create new scenes and spaces. Alongside this, we have our costumes set and there are not any full changes for any company members, just the adding or subtracting of a layer on top, as we will not have changing rooms. This has all been considered and will help us to perform this all most accurately, so the acting isnt affected.

We will use the sides of the stage, where the actors will be placed if they are not on stage, to hold costumes and props. These are not large and should not restrict any movement or performance elements.

What kinds of people are likely to attend your show? How is your show being advertised? What else will you need to do to make sure that your show will sell out?

As this is a TIE tour, we will be performing to KS1, 2 and 3 students when we are performing to the different schools. So, how may attend for this depends on the teachers choices and size of our performance space.

This show specifically will not be put on advertisement as Erica is booking our performances with the schools which would like to present the story of AMSND to their students.

We will use the power of speech and communication to let our peers and the public know about the evening performance. But as this is tailored to family and friends, this should be very simple. It is our job to ensure that people know about this evening as we present our TIE tour to family and friends.

 

Links to any information which is not my own:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Midsummer_Night%27s_Dream
• https://englishsummary.com/midsummer-night-dream-shakespeare/
• https://www.thoughtco.com/character-analysis-puck-midsummer-nights-dream-2984577
• https://www.bing.com/search?q=when+was+amsnd+first+performed&form=PRHPC1&src=IE11TR&pc=EUPP_HCTE

• http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/midsummer/mdshistory.html

Context: UAL definition: The level of intellectual analysis, critical evaluation and understanding of the self and the broader context within which the extended or collaborative project is situated

Fail: Limited understanding of subject context, lacking clarity in aims and purpose.

Pass: Understanding of subject context used appropriately to make judgments, describe aims and clarify purpose.

Merit: Good understanding and knowledge of subject context used to make sound  judgments, articulate ambitions and clarify purpose.

Distinction: Comprehensive understanding and knowledge of subject context used to  communicate complex concepts, articulate ambitions and clarify purpose.