On 12th of December we went to Stifford Clays Primary and performed our piece to 180 year 4’s and 5’s. When we got there we had to straight away bring in our set and therefore had to quickly work out our staging. We all agreed to have the boards on a slant so that we could get changed and await our queues without the children seeing us as if they did it would ruin the illusion. We did this and got changed into our costumes in 20 minutes which I thought was really good and professional.
As a group the performance went really well, we all knew our queues and our lines and worked really well together, the costume changes were done in time and nobody came out of role, there for a bit of empty staging but I think this was due to the fact that we were in a new performance space and were not use to it. People were not coming off the right side and therefore ended up having to cross the back of the stage, but it was not obvious as it was in character.
As an individual I think the performance was ok, the children booed as I came on as theteacheras they thought I was still the Wicked Witch, I think I did change each characters characterisation but the costume wasn’t different enough and I think they thought I was the Wicked Witch in disguise. Also when I did come on as the Wicked Witch they did not stop booing me, according to the video they booed me for a full minute.
I was not expecting such a huge reaction and I just did what I thought my character would do and tell them to ‘ be quite’ and ‘ shut up’ I also did hand gesture of them talking, it was really tough to deal with as every time I went to talk they just started booing again. I then decided to stand there and wait for them to calm down which they eventually did. Although it was annoying I think the booing was a good sign as they believed in my character and really hated me as much as they were supposed to. As the teacher I think I did well in adopting a different role and I changed my voice and body language making everything precise.
The audience interacted with everything and more and seemed to have a lot of fun. When Catherine and I did the chase scene the children loved the water gun being fired, as I ran through they grabbed my cape which I had to react to again in the way the Wicked Witch would I told them to ‘ Get off before I turned them into frogs’ from this I learnt that my teacher character needs more of a disguise, that I need to hold onto my cape while running through the crowd and to react to the boo’ing at first but then stand there and wait or them to quieten down. When I melted as the Wicked Witch I melted to the side of the stage and therefore had to stay there for a little while, which I didn’t mind as I needed to catch my breath anyway, I had to pick the right time to move off the stage and therefore picked the time when Sophie and Jess were running as I though the audience’s attention would be on them, it turned out it was and I did pick the right time to slip off.
When we were at the performance we had forgotten the limbo poll and the camera and therefore had to improvise with the limbo poll and use another poll at the school, we also used Catherine’s phone to record the performance. I think as an individual and a group we met the assignment brief as we engaged, entertained and educated, We engaged the audience as they interacted with all points possible, they were entertained as they all were shouting and reacting and they were educated as when the fairy god mother asked questions they knew the answers. Over all I think the performance was really good and went really well.
