'Shakespeare's House Party' Production Process Evaluation

'Shakespeare's House Party' Production Process Evaluation

The Job Role:
For the 'Shakespeare's House Party' production, in which me and my group had performed to a live audience in early March 2014, I volunteered for the Job Role of 'Costumes Manager'. Being the Costumes Manager, I had to decide what costume theme the group wanted for their performance. I did this by, at first, coming up with different costume themes within the first production meeting where I was working with two other members of my group. I contributed to the meeting by suggesting that we first come up with different costume themes and let the whole group decide what they wanted whilst marking down their decision on a tally chart. My partners had agreed with this idea, so that is what we evidently did. The costume themes we came up with were: Formal Wear, Masquerade and Film/TV Characters. The costume theme the whole group voted on was the 'Film/TV Characters'. The costume I had chosen after this decision was finalized was the character named 'Shaun' from the zombie classic film called 'Shaun of the Dead'.

After the first Production Meeting had finished, I had told the rest of the group that I would create a chat group on the social networking website called 'Facebook', and invite every member of the group to this chat group where we would further discuss what costumes they had decided to wear for the production. At first, not everyone had decided what they wanted to wear and if they could get the materials required for their costumes. I had counteracted this by telling them to ask others in the group if they had the resources necessary for their chosen costume, for example, one member of the group wanted to perform as 'Jack Sparrow' from 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. I had told this person to ask others if they had a certain headpiece to finish the costume, and luckily, another member of the group had the headpiece to complete the costume and had borrowed the headpiece for the performance's.

After all the costumes where decided by the whole group, I did a final check on 'Facebook' to make sure everyone brings in their costumes on the same week of the main performance's. There was a situation where one members costume had not been delivered to her house after she had ordered it online. I told her to come up with a back-up costume until the ordered costume had been delivered, or furthermore, to perform as the back-up costume if she preferred. Below will contain the list of the costumes that each member of the group had performed in:

Nathan Stokell (Me):
Character: Shaun (Shaun of the Dead)
Kaylam Taylor:
Character: The Joker (Batman Series)
Jake Colley:
Character: Plays As Himself
Templar McGregor-Sims:
Character: Trevor Phillips (GTA 5 Video Game)
Kaleigh Mitchell:
Character: Harley Quinn (Batman Series)
Demi Miller:
Character: Castiel (Supernatural TV Show)
Logan Cutbush:
Character: Captain Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean Film Series)
Nyakeh Tutunge:
Character: Agent J (Men In Black Film Series)
Frank Hussey:
Character: Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes Series)
Milo Welch:
Character: Flynn Rider (Tangled Film)

On the weekend before the main performance's, I had decided to message my partners on 'Facebook' and start the second Production Meeting. I told them that for this meeting, I wanted solutions as to how we could keep everyone's costume organized, so nothing where to be misplaced before the production begins. I contributed to this by telling my partners, and eventually my teacher the following week, that we could use a coat rack to hang everyone's costume on. This idea was a good one, and this is what we did when it came to the dress rehearsals and the main performance's. The one thing that wasn't contributed to thinking of a way to organize everyone's costumes was to have a shoe rack also, to place footwear worn by each member in the rehearsals and the main performance's. If I have had the resource available, I would have contributed by bringing in the shoe rack for the main performance's, so each members shoes wouldn't also be misplaced. I did counteract the shoe rack idea by telling each member of the group to either wear the shoes they would normally wear on an average day, or bring in a separate bag which would contain their shoes that they had chosen to wear.
Before the main performance's began, below will be the full list of equipment/materials me and my partners had used to contribute to the production:

Coat Rack: To hold each members costume on so nothing gets lost.
Coat Hangers: To hang each persons costume on the coat rack so their costumes don't crease.

As mentioned above, I would have contributed by using a shoe rack also, to place every members shoes on before each performance. Again, if I had the resource available, I would have brought the shoe rack into college for the dress rehearsals and the main performance's.
After having done all this hard work to make sure me and my partners keep the costumes organized for each performance, we had gained positive comments from the whole group for doing so. I had appreciated each comment given to me and if I had the opportunity to be a 'Costumes Manager' again in the future, I would consider picking it because of all the positive comments given by the group and also because it is a very important role to work.

If I were to evaluate my strengths and weaknesses in this Job Role, I would think of my strengths being that I was committed for the whole process in making sure that each members costume was finalized and ready to bring in on the week of the main performance's, that I was very organized as well throughout the whole process in making sure that each members costume was on the coat rack on the week of the main performance's, and if they also had any make-up/shoes brought in within a different bag. I feel comfortable to say that I had no weaknesses whilst working for this Job Role, because throughout the whole production process, I have been focused from the very start until the very end to make sure that the costumes were to be finalized by each member and ready for the main performance's. If I could improve next time if I were to choose this Job Role again, I would like to have the resources available to bring in extra equipment, to make sure that nobody loses their costumes and footwear, since not having a shoe rack for this production did cause a little problem with people finding their shoes before the performance if they had left them at college with their costumes on the coat rack. Another idea to contribute for this to stop would be to have name tags on the footwear of each member, so no-one wears the wrong footwear accidentally on performance's.

My Self Evaluation For Performance:

Personal Strengths Achieved:
For my performance in this production, I feel comfortable saying that I have a lot more strengths than opposed to weaknesses, I say this because I have done a lot of extended research into both of my characters for this production by watching a variety of different interpretations of the same play that I perform in as the character, and I have also come up with different strategies to make me more 'Embodied' with my characters before each performance began. The exercises I had come up with doing before each performance actually originated from our weekly sessions with our acting teacher. The exercises include going from normal breathing to an extended breathing pattern to help lower the heartbeats per minute which would calm nerves, I didn't feel nervous during pre-perfomance but I did the exercise anyway just to make sure. Also whilst we were all on a break between each performance before going backstage, me and another member of the group, whom is my best friend, would perform the 'Rubber Chicken' exercise taught to us by our teacher in our first few sessions with her. The 'Rubber Chicken' exercise is a vocal warm-up, its requirements are to count from 1 to 8 in a chosen voice pitch and tempo at which to perform the warm-up, for example, normally at first in our regular sessions, we start off the 'Rubber Chicken' whilst vocally performing much like a football player with a deep voice and regular tempo speed. Afterwards we would do the same thing, to count from 1 to 8, but this time we would vocally perform it in an female opera singers voice, this required me to sing at a high pitch and at a fast tempo. Of course me and my friend were messing around whilst doing this exercise, but that made me feel more comfortable during the time before the performance, and since I was to perform with my friend for the 'Lads in Love' scene from 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona', me and him being together makes it easier for both of us since we are both there to achieve the best result we can together. I would consider using these exercise warm-ups in the future before performance's since I feel that they have benefited my performance well.

Personal Weaknesses Noticed:
In the past, I have known myself to become 'self centered' during performance's, meaning that I don't express myself physically very much whilst announcing my lines. I felt this problem occur again during our first performance with other students watching us whilst we were performing the dance routine contained after the prologue to our production. I feel that the problem was that I am not very social outside performance time, and I didn't know who I was performing to very well, which made me feel less comfortable with myself whilst dancing, since during the routine, the group and I were meant to call out to the audience and interact with them whilst dancing. I didn't do very much interaction with the audience during the first performance, but after we had finished the performance and the students came to congratulate us for finishing it, I got complimented on my performance as Puck and Proteus. This made me feel more comfortable about my performance and influenced me to do even better for the next performance. This was a regular thing that happened after every performance, resulting in our final performance to be the best one out of all four of them, but the previous also not too far off perfect. If this 'self centered' action were to occur again in any future performance's, I would think about past performance's where I was complimented and only think about the positive things that were to come out of the performance and forget about the negative. I can only monitor this by thinking about the positive side of things and knowing that it will be an improvement over the last. I feel that I can achieve this in future performance's since the students above us in the Level 3 Course for Performing Arts Acting think that we were better than the previous Level 2 Actors and know that we will become Level 3 Performing Arts students in the future, hearing comments like this made me feel more comfortable with my acting/dancing since they only point out the positives as well and seem to forget about any negativity to the performance being shown. As long as I remember about all the positive comments that were given to me after a previous performance, I feel that it will not be impossible to achieve this goal in a future performance, either it be in front of a larger audience or in front of people I don't know personally.

How To Improve Next Time:
Something to improve for my next performance may be my diction and pronunciation of words, and to slow down on certain lines when I am speaking so the audience can grab the conversation happening between a certain number of actors. During rehearsal sessions before performance's, my teacher had pointed out that on certain bits during my lines, I would speak very fast and she thinks that the audience won't catch what I am saying to another actor on stage. I took note of this and practiced announcing my lines at the chosen tempo to say them so when It comes to the next performance, I can say my lines without having to worry that the audience can't understand what I am saying. I am going to consider trying to speak more slowly in the future so it becomes more natural when it comes to performance an line runs, so my voice is much clearer to understand.

How Do I Feel The Production Went As A Whole:
I feel that the 'Shakespeare's House Party' production has been one of the best productions I have performed in for the start of my acting career. I say this because I feel that everyone was a lot more focused in this production opposed to the last one we performed in at South Downs College. This ranges from me and my partners as the 'Costume Managers' being very organized with all the costumes, for example, I was very committed to my Job Role and contributed most of the ideas we had used in the production process to give the best organization possible. The 'Head of Props' also keeping all the props used on stage in an orderly/organized fashion, for example, she had placed the props on tables on both sides of the stage to later be used during performance by some of the actors to use in their scenes. The 'Lighting Technicians' managed to have the right contrast and moods of lighting fitted for each scene in the performance, for example, one scene in the production with Helena and Lysander performing their scene had a deep blue/violet light which was quite a nice color to see whilst watching their scene since it had a lot to do with love. The 'Sound Technicians' had picked very good songs that went well with the production as a whole, especially the dance routines, where we danced to 'Get This Party Started' and 'Bust A Move' in between scenes fitted well in the performance.

Could We Have Done Better Overall:
I feel that our performance couldn't really get any better than it has been since we all tried our best in the Job Roles we chose to work in, and we delivered a grand smashing performance to finish it off. I feel that me and the whole group worked as a great team overall and, in my opinion, we should all be graded equally since we all performed to our best ability and we all had a lot of fun during the process of this production.