Before the first timetabled session for this module, as our theatre company group had already been decided we arranged a meeting on Tuesday 24th January to establish everyone’s production roles, and to generated potential ideas for both our show and the company’s name.
During this meeting I chose to take on the role of both actor and writer. I decided upon these roles as I wish proceed with acting and script writing on a professional level after university. I believe everyone was happy with their position in the theatre company, and following this finalisation of roles, we decided upon our companies’ hierarchy, in order for us to operate similarly to how a professional theatre company would. The document containing the roles and responsibilities for our cast, will be uploaded to this site once finalised.
Figure 1 – Initial group meeting (Chattaway, 2017)
As a group we then ‘mind mapped’ our initial thoughts for our 45-60 minute assessed piece. From this an idea regarding escaping into music became apparent to us. The concept escapism using music, or the utilisation of lyrics and songs in everyday situations to create a ‘fantasy world’ or ‘ideal scenario’ was one which we believed held a lot of creative potential.
The notion of escapism stemmed from a discussions regarding the current political situations occurring worldwide. Whilst we did not wish to ignore these global issues, we equally did not intend to base a performance explicitly on these matters.
Figure 2 – Mind mapping potential ideas (Chattaway, 2017)
As a result of this, we decided to explore how the ‘individual’ person copes with these ‘big issues’ on a daily basis: by escaping. From this discussion came the word ‘fragment’ and subsequently the name Fragment Theatre Company.
I believe this name suits the initial ideas we have for our company as we intend to focus on the uniqueness of individuals and how their story creates perspectives to ‘big issues’ that aren’t often voiced.
Since this initial meeting we have had one seminar with our lecturer, which has reinforced the ideals of having individual production roles, a hierarchy and code of conduct for our company. These documents will be uploaded in the ‘Production’ category of our ‘Documents’ tab on the blog’s menu bar, when completed.
Despite this being an early stage of the module, I have also been made aware of the significance of Art’s Council Funding, in regards to the success and practicality of working as a professional Theatre Company. Although we will receive £166.66 from the School of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Lincoln, and aim to fundraise further budget to aid our production, I understand that if we were a professional theatre company we would need to apply to the Art’s Council England (ACE) for funding.
ACE “offer awards from £1,000 to £100,000 to support a wide variety of arts-related activities, from dance to visual arts, literature to theatre, music to combined arts” (Arts Council England, 2017), through their Grants for the Arts project, which would be vital to our process and budget if we were operating as a professional theatre company.
Following this first session we have decided to research further into escapism in order to expand the potential ideas for our final performance.
Works Cited:
Arts Council England (2017) Arts Council England. London: Arts Council England. Available from http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/ [Accessed 1 February 2017].
Arts Council England (2017) Get Funding. London: Arts Council England. Available from http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding [Accessed 1 February 2017].
Figures:
Figure 1 – Chattaway, A. (2017) Initial group meeting. Lincoln.
Figure 2 – Chattaway, A. (2017) Mind mapping potential ideas. Lincoln.
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