February 2017

February 28, 2017Hannah Marie DArcy No Comments

Let’s talk about the Heirarchy …

The Discussions around the hierarchy within the theatre company started pretty early on, even though we fully plan of working as a collaborative ensemble it’s important for the whole group to understand who has the final say in the circumstance of a disagreement.

So here is a quick rundown of who is in charge of what…

(Rickards, 2017).

Meet Joe, he’s the director here at Fragment theatre company

Joes job as director is too… well Direct. However, Joe is also in charge of

any thing ‘visual’ when it comes to the show. So basically if a member of the group

has an idea.. one which the audience will see, it goes through Joe first. An example being if

our choreography Roxy has some moves she wants the world to see, she will

have to ask Joe first!

(Rickards, 2017).

Meet, well Me (My names Hannah, in case you have forgotten). And I am the producer

of Fragment theatre company. My job is to make sure everything behind the scenes is getting done on time!

for example, posters, set designs and props lists. I also am in charge of all the money! so I get to decide what gets

bought for the show, examples being costumes, set, and Marketing tools. Members of the group will come to me

with any issues they have regarding behind the scenes stuff! For example I know that our set designer Chloe has some pretty

wacky ideas, so I will have to make sure that we have enough money is the budget to cover the costs.

Myself and Joe will be working together to think about things like who gets cast as what part and the kind of staging/

seating we would like in the auditorium.

(Rickards, 2017)

Next up is Lucy, our Stage Manager! Lucy Works very closely along side myself and Joe.

Lucy’s job is to make sure everything is running smoothly, From the rehearsals/productions meetings

to the actual show itself! But are Lucy is super organised so we know she can do it!

Ok, so, The Hierarchy continues but the three main people who make the decisions are myself, Lucy and Joe! We are a group of ten people, which means ten different opinions!

but if any member of the group has a question rather me, Lucy or Joe will be able to answer it. See Below a Diagram of the Hierarchy that our wonderful stage manager Lucy made!

(Workman, 2017)

Citations

Rickards, M. (2017) Fragment Theatre Company. Lincoln: MR Photography.

Workman, L. (2017) Fragment Theatre Company. Lincoln.

February 28, 2017Joseph Peter Turner No Comments

Money Money Money – Funding our Project

No company, whether situated in the arts or not, can survive or function without funding. As part of our assessment we are given £166 by Lincoln Performing Arts Centre along with the money that will be raised through fundraising ventures, however if this was a professional venture it would not be possible to continue without applying for funding from Arts Council England (ACE). If we were going to apply we would do so through the Grants for the Arts Program (G4A) as an arts organisation, that is to say “a single group of people working towards a shared or common goal” (Arts Council, 2017), and would be able to apply for any amount between £1,000 and £100,000.

Our Producer Hannah, who was in charge of the budgeting for the show (Rickards, 2017)

When applying we would need to establish how much money we would need and specify what we were going to use the money for (research and development for example). It is essential that this estimation is accurate because if we were funded too much or too little then we would be unlikely to receive further funding in the future because it appears to the Arts Council that we don’t understand our business model.

Works Cited

Arts Council (2017) Arts Council England. London: Arts Council England. Available from http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/Grants_for_the_Arts_How_to_apply15k_and_under_September2016_0.pdf

Rickards, M. (2017) Our Producer Hannah, who was in charge of the budgeting for the show.

February 21, 2017Emily Nixon No Comments

We are Live!

In today’s society it’s very hard to escape from social media and the impact it has on everyday life. Social media “simply, is text, words, pictures, video and the like created with the intention of sharing” (Evans, 2012). The popularity of social media means that it is a great marketing device as it is free and easily accessible to a large number of people and this “community of supporters can … help to build your business” (Evans, 2012).

We have chose to set up accounts on three different social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Each of these platforms offer different advantages. Instagram is for sharing pictures and videos and as we are a visual group it seemed like a perfect match. We also chose to set up twitter as this was the easiest way to connect with other theatre companies and the venue in which we were performing. By following and retweeting these other companies it is helping us to gain more followers as we are targeting people who have an interest in theatre and the arts. Our Facebook page is our main social media platform as it is an official company page. On this page I have invited people from the University of Lincoln and people with an interest in theatre to follow us. This process allows people to accept the invite to follow our page meaning they have an interest in what we are doing and want to see what we do as a company . This is a successful marketing strategy as it means we instantly have a fan base.

Facebook Post (Nixon, 2017) Twitter Post (Nixon, 2017) Instagram Post (Nixon, 2017)

The great thing about the three social media platforms is that they are accessible on mobile phones. This an advantage for two reasons:

1.The marketing team can update social media throughout the day meaning we can be live from rehearsals and update our followers immediately.

2.Our followers will get notifications straight to their phones and can see our updates regularly throughout their days.

Social media as a marketing tool also has the support from the Arts Council England. They say that: “social media really comes in to its own: it capitalises on our desire to be involved” (Artscouncil.org.uk, 2017). I feel confident using social media as one of our main marketing strategies as it reaches our target audience of young adults and students.

Works cited:

Artscouncil.org.uk. (2017). We Are Here | Arts Council England. [online] Available at: http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/read-all-blog-posts/we-are-here [Accessed 11 Feb. 2017].

Evans, D. (2012). Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day. 1st ed. [ebook] Indianapolis: John Wiley & Sons. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HCmlrmiMOxoC&dq=quotes+about+social+media+marketing&source=gbs_navlinks_s [Accessed 21 Feb. 2017].

Nixon, E. (2017) Facebook Post.

Nixon, E. (2017) Instagram Post.

Nixon, E. (2017) Twitter Post.

February 21, 2017Hannah Marie DArcy No Comments

The Theme of our show…

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, and a while since I made a blog post. So I thought I would catch you all up on what’s been going on here at Fragment Theatre Company! and by the title of this blog post you are probably wanting to know the

big question… what on earth is our show about. Well, I shall tell you… soon enough. And here’s a photo to keep you thinking before I get to it!

(Allan, 2015).

Over the past couple of weeks rehearsals have began! and they are already turning out to be a lot of fun! We have had many production meetings as a group to discuss what it is we want to create and have put together a manifesto for our theatre company, talking about the types of performance/performances it is we wish to produce. If you would like to take a look at it will be under the ‘Marketing materials’ section within the Blog, take a look!

I’ll explain it quickly here… We are a company that want’s to bring people together through the means of theatre, no matter on the age/ background are audience come from we wish for our theatre to speak to all. Which is when we created our Company slogan ” we speak to someone, anyone, everyone” This is something myself and the rest of my Company feel passionately about.

It also correlates with the guidelines on the Arts council Funding website and what is takes for us as a company to be able to get funding from Arts Council England. “Make sure you explain exactly how and why your work benefits the community. Where appropriate, use specific examples, statistics and quotes from people involved. If you can, use multimedia content like photos or videos” (Artscouncil.org.uk, 2017). We Hope that our performance will benefit any audience member that chooses to watch the show.

Anyway, ill get back on track, the theme of our show is… ESCAPSISM. You’re probably thinking why? well escapism is something that every individual experiences in one way or another. From going out with friends. feeding your sadness with food, watching a film or even just imagining your in another place, escapism happens to us all. Our performance is going to tell a story of escapism and the effects of it on four individual people. whether the effects being positive or negative, depending on the story.

citations

Allan, P. (2015) snap back into reality. London

Artscouncil.org.uk. (2017). Individuals | Arts Council England. [online] Available at: http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/why-culture-matters/making-case/individuals [Accessed 20 Feb. 2017].

February 20, 2017Brodie Atkinson No Comments

‘We’re talking away, I don’t know what I’m to say, I’ll say it anyway’ (A-Ha, 1985)

Now we had discovered that the common thread of our theatre company was escapism, we quickly wanted to establish a personal approach to the theme. This was due to the manifesto that we wanted from Fragment but also the fact that we believed the strongest content we could make was the personal kind.

This lead to several exercises in which we wanted to discover every member’s personal experiences with escapism. One was to brainstorm away from an item that represented the thing we escape into, another was to post-it notes a progression of our thoughts. This all eventually led to a group discussion, where we presented our own personal escapes.

A typical group discussion on the show. (Nixon, 2017)

This created a list that contained music, nights out, writing, reading, gaming and so many more. As we went through the various forms of escape, the personal aspect came straight out, with each person’s story or reason to escape being shown. This is where the more personal approach to writing the characters came in, the fact that at its core, escapism is a personal and individual thing.

Eventually we shortened this list down to the ones that appeared in the final show, though we always stated that the others would influence us massively. These were Food, Childhood, Writing/Reading and Music, each having a personal impact on a company member and perfectly showing our understanding of escapism.

Works Cited

Nixon, E. (2017) Fragment Theatre Company’s Gallery.