Evaluation of the Community Theatre Project

EVALUATION OF COMMUNITY THEATRE

What does community theatre mean to me after working closely with a community group? 

In Term One I learnt a wealth about community theatre, Augusto Boal and the importance of the work in uniting people and fighting for a greater change. All of those concepts, techniques, games and ideas were things that I had to bring to the table over the last 7 weeks when I was working as a facilitator in a group with other Year 13s at the Crescent Primary School, working with two primary school groups of various ages. This term certainly tested me not only as an actor, but as someone who is able to lead young groups of people, adapt to change, have empathy and patience and build relationships with people in the community. It's been hugely rewarding - as a group of 15 people, we've all secured bonds and friendships with the children we've worked with. We invested our time into getting to know the children and exploring theatrical and story telling techniques with them and in return we had invested children that really valued and appreciated the experience. A teacher at the primary school mentioned that the children would constantly remind him as soon as break time was over on a Wednesday morning that it was time for their drama project, and would rush to begin the sessions. This enjoyment that we gave the children has probably been the most amazing part of this project - more important over the impact of the work we created was the nourishment and tools we gave to these little young people. Perhaps the enjoyment they felt might inspire them to get involved in theatre or the arts when they're older, or perhaps the project did something as little as improve their confidence, communication, empathy or ability to put their hand up in class. I know from when I was younger that the advent of drama and story telling can have such a positive impact on you and your  social conduct, and I would be over joyed if this was something we achieved with the Year 1's and Year 3's that we worked with over 7 weeks. 

When we began the project, having been given the criteria of what the two groups were learning about currently in lessons, we had two slightly different aims for the groups that didn't just come down to material but also age - this was highlighted in my initial impressions to the project. 

With the Year One's, we knew we were working with slightly younger children who were probably in the midst of their primary socialisation. Many might not have ever been exposed to drama before.  Three's, we knew we had to plan the sessions accordingly so that this younger group was eased in and that there was an emphasis on fun over output for each workshop. We wanted to support their learning of dinosaurs and a book text and stimulate their imagination. With the Year Three's, we also wanted to focus on their imagination, empowering them to look at the elements about their local area that they liked, and then using their imagination to think about what it would be like if this city turned into a jungle. For Year Three's, the focus was on empowerment. With both groups, as facilitators we were tested every week to try and cater to the room and focus on creating a warm, friendly and safe atmosphere for all the children to learn and thrive in. We encountered challenges, but overall I think as a group we supported eachother in trying to understand better how to cope with more difficult situations, and we planned the sessions so there was an equal amount of initiative in people leading aspects of the sessions. By the 7th week, we performed a final showing to small audiences where we culminated a lot of concepts and exercises we'd looked at throughout the weeks and gave a mash up of our work, which was hugely successful and there was a massive sense that both groups had responded well to the experience.

Applying my skills and knowledge of community theatre has been eye-opening. This project has evolved in ways I didn't expect it to. Initially, I was disappointed that I was working with children for the second time in a year - however, working directly with children repeatedly over weeks has been such a more challenging experience than simply creating a play for them to watch. I've learnt how to understand children better and how to positively encourage and empower them, and they've taught me how to see the world differently with their vivid and untouched imagination. What has proved so strongly is that community theatre is not about you: it's about who you're doing it for. Going into this project with a hint of self entitlement was not helpful and was eventually wiped away as we as a group were humbled by the innocent presence of the children and their sense of keenness to learn. They shaped us through our growth of patience, positivity and enthusiasm that we adopted from them with a sense of contagiousness. The impact of our eventual piece was important because so much of the final work that was there was created by the children - we were simply just helping to make that happen smoothly. Their understanding of their area - Croydon - a place that is not always met positively - was transformed into a piece that imagined what Croydon would be like as a jungle. The Year One's imaginations were also stretched through their knowledge of dinosaurs and what it would be like to go on a dinosaur hunt and become friends with dinosaurs. We didn't just support the learning of the children but built genuine bonds and relationships with them, us as facilitators having respect for the children as much as them having respect for us. This was the most rewarding part of the process for me, and it embedded my thoughts on how theatre is so much more than just performing and being the self absorbed actor. It's about giving and change. Us introducing these young children to theatre could change their lives forever, and introduce them to ways of expression that could improve their life and moreover the world we live in today. We were united as a community with the primary school next door. On reflection, theatre is not only a powerful weapon to highlight issues in society, but also such a powerful tool to unite people, to emphasise with people, to look at things through different perspectives. Working with children made me see things in such different perspectives, and took me back to my innocent state of being a child. 

I have come out of this community theatre project as a more empowered artist and also a more mature person in general. Leading sessions built my confidence and being part of a large team of facilitators who supported each other was rewarding. I won't forget the importance of the community and the meaning of the work you're creating and who it's for. I will also continue to value the importance of friendship in a cut throat world that many of us as actors are striving for: a little girl in Year 3 gave me a friendship bracelet towards the end of the project and it's something I'll treasure as a sign of kindness in an art form that is usually regarded as just the opposite. 

Week 7: Community Theatre Project

THE FINAL SHOWING

In Week 7, we had our final session with the Year 3 group and the Year 1 group and this consisted of having a little showing of a culmination of our work with the fellow classmates of both of the groups and some of their teachers. 

With Year Three, we geared them up to do a show primarily by running them through a quick warmup which we had looked at earlier in the process. Having familiarity with this game was good since they were on board straight away and could quickly engage themselves and focus. This quick warm up was therefore very efficient. Next, we were able to run the play a couple of times where we honed in on detail as facilitators such as projection and exaggeration. The children were really excited and positive about performing, which felt quite lovely to see since it was clear that they had made a lot of progression.

The small showing was hugely successful. We didn't massively need to prompt the Year Three's that much since they fully took ownership of the work and committed rather enthusiastically. This was substantiated by the successful rehearsal process we had conducted for two weeks prior. Many of them ad-libbed in the bits that were essentially led by them, for example the part of the script where they introduced themselves as animals, and it was great to see the more confident ones extending their skills of improvisation and getting a few laughs from their peers in the audience. Our piece was eventually only five minutes long - but the five minutes perfectly summed up the essence of the last 7 weeks of the project, and everyone really enjoyed performing it. The execution flowed well - everyone, including as the Year 13s were on board in knowing their lines. We did face challenges with this group particularly since there were a few members of our group who weren't present for this final session and therefore we had to re-distribute the lines and run certain bits, nevertheless in the final showing this all worked out and it was quite successful.

The idea of feedback has been something we've tried to encourage throughout the planning of all the sessions we've had with the groups - in order to get them to reflect on their work, give constructive criticism and feel proud enough to voice their opinions. After the showing of the work, the audience had the opportunity to say what they liked as well as the Year Three's to give their experiences of the project and the performance. This was great since it challenged the Year Three's to think about the work they'd seen that had represented their local area, Croydon, as a jungle - therefore, they were still gaining an insight into the impact of the work that we had created, and perhaps feeling a sense of the response we'd hopefully given the participants of the project. Many of the people in the audience seemed to understand the feeling of the work, and we got some feedback from teachers who recalled that the piece didn't just reflect what they'd been learning about in lessons, but also the individual progress of the participants of our project were seemingly progressing in those lessons since the beginning of our project. This was so rewarding to hear as it was clear that our work had supported their learning, as well as developed the confidence of the children.

The Year One showing was equally successful, although the execution probably wasn't as swift as it was with the Year Three's. We knew that we had to give the Year One's more support as a younger group therefore myself and Zafra volunteered to lead the piece from the floor so that the Year One's could look to us directly in front of them for support and guidance throughout the piece. I'd argue that this was a good idea strategically as it improved the confidence of the children and made them more enthusiastic about what they were doing. Again, the piece was quite short yet it was followed a clear and tactile structure that the group could understand and work with and that the audience could feel thought provoked by.

Something that occurred differently with the Year 1 showing in comparison to the Year 3 showing was that we included an element of audience interaction. We knew that we'd have a younger audience watching, and we should include them within the piece to make them have as much fun as the participants of the piece. At the end of the showing, we taught the audience the dinosaur dance, led by myself and Zafra and allowed them to take part. This was perhaps one of the most successful aspects of the showing since it extended the focus not just from our community project of 7 weeks but to the other children who weren't included - and it was clear that many of the children hugely enjoyed the experience of learning a dance they'd just seen. As we taught them the dance and did it a few times, the smiles on the faces of some of the children were so big and it was lovely to see. Overall, the audience interaction was really effective. It got the audience to digest what they'd just seen physically rather than having to sustain their attention span.

Overall, both of the showings we had were short but sweet, and perfectly summed up everything we'd tackled over the last seven weeks. It was such a great experience to be able to share the work that we and the children felt proud of to an audience. 

Week 5 & 6: Community Theatre Project

In Week 5 and 6, we have been working on rehearsing a finalised script with both the Year 3's and 1's that ties together many of the concepts we've been experimenting with in our sessions up until this point. With the Year 3's, primarily we have been aiming to empower the children with their imagination and knowledge of their local area, whereas with the Year 1's we have been aiming to support their learning of the text 'We're going on a bear hunt' and knowledge of dinosaurs.

Here is the finalised script for the Year 3's:

In these two weeks, our role as facilitators slightly changed since we weren't necessarily leading tasks, but were trying to assist Susanna in running the rehearsal as a director and ensuring the flow of the rehearsal was kept. By all of us having a copy of the script, we were all organised and were able to reference it when we were unsure what was going on - for example if a child with a line forgot what to say. We had an actual stage we could use which was great since it elevated the idea of the Year 3's being actors in a play, and this air of excitement felt so nice to witness as it was clearly something all the children really liked.

The Year 3 script that we've evolved, I think, is a great basis for an informal showing and culmination of the project. Some of the exercises that the children enjoyed the most - the visualisations of a concrete jungle, soundscapes and the acrostic poems had been tied into the script into some way, as well as an implementation of the theme of Christmas. As a result, the children could grasp what they were doing quite quickly because there was a sense of familiarity and safeness around what we were doing. This also made the rehearsal process more efficient when it came to these familiar areas. For example, when myself, Stella and Sean reunited with the group we made the acrostic poems with 6 weeks earlier, we asked them if they remembered the acrostic poems and they all leaped up enthusiastically and performed it to us as they had done 5 weeks before. It felt quite rewarding since it was lovely to see that they had all remembered it and performed it as if they had been rehearsing it. As a result, this made it easier for us as the facilitators because it felt like we'd cemented a relationship earlier on in the process where because we had invested in the children, they eventually invested in us and the final showing.  Another good aspect of  the script was the idea of having narrators, many of which were lines that we as facilitators said on behalf of the group. From my knowledge from Year 12, narration is a great device especially in children's theatre shows to constantly hold the hand of the audience so they know what is going on. Our audience will be mainly the classmates of the children, so this seems suitable. 

In contrast, some of the less efficient areas of the rehearsal process was when we gave the children lines. Randomly selecting children to give the lines to had the intention of trying to be inclusive and give the children a chance to feel particularly involved and important within the piece, which was great and successful. Nevertheless, sometimes we had challenges when a child forgot they had a line or didn't know their cue. We tried to tackle this as facilitators by pairing up with children that had lines so we could give them a quick nudge if need be. We also gave the children little narrator cards that they could take home and practice, which definitely made a difference as by the second week many of the children seemed to be much more secure with their lines. I'd also argue that by this stage of the project, our relationships with the children became a lot tighter. They felt a lot more comfortable with us and because there wasn't a fast paced structure to the workshop and we were focusing more on rehearsal and quality, a lot of the children seemed to have conversations with us and seem more warm towards us as facilitators. This was rewarding as by this point it seemed clear that the Year 3's really valued the experience yet it wasn't that we were put on a pedestal as the people 'bringing theatre' to them - it felt like a humble experience where we were grateful for their participation, and they were equally grateful for the opportunity. Personally, these conversations were sometimes a setback and I have to admit that I as a facilitator found it a challenge in the first week to balance my personal interactions with the children and to develop the relationships there and putting the work first and getting to the end project. On reflection, I think that is one of the predicaments of community theatre: when you are working with community groups over a few weeks, you're not just looking to create theatre but also looking to build bonds and nourish the idea of community. What's lovely about our project is that we're all in the same community of Croydon, so it feels quite natural that some of us made friends with the younger kids, and this has definitely been one of the most rewarding and successful elements of the project.

With the Year Three's, the rehearsal process worked well enough that we were able to finish the vast amount of show in the two week rehearsal process - particularly surprising since we had a group of at least 30 children and not an awful lot of time. A lot of the elements of the script were cut to enable this to happen, but I think this was good because this posed the emphasis on quality over quantity. However, I think that one of the places where our facilitation lacked in the success of this was the fact that we may have rushed it, and lost some of the beautiful detail we'd developed with the children in the devising activities earlier in the process. The direction we gave was less about physicality and emotion as we'd repeated and emphasised throughout the weeks, but more about technical delivery - cues, projection, pace etc. However, having said this, it seemed that the Year 3's had actually put the work in themselves when it came to rehearsing it all the way through, so it ended up being quite good quality. What helped this to work was the fact that we would divide the script up into chunks and rehearse the chunks individually and repeat them so that the children could grasp a sense of familiarity. Hand in hand with this was the sense that all the children were so enthusiastic about the work and committed that they made the quality a lot better through their dedication and lack of self consciousness. We hardly faced any problems of stage fright or nerves, which was a success - the children mainly just did it. This, again, was probably informed by the warm atmosphere we have attempted to create throughout the workshops we've had with the children - putting our importance on their safety and comfort over the theatrical aspects. 

Here is the finalised script that we rehearsed with the Year One's: 

I think the successful thing about the Year 1 script was that it followed a story that all the Year One children were familiar with, not only because we'd been following this narrative in our workshops but also because they'd been learning about the book 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' on their lessons. This perhaps made it easier for the children to grasp a sense of security over what they were involved in.  The concepts we'd looked at throughout the weeks weren't as present and evident in this script as they were with the Year 3's, yet I would argue that came down to the need for simplicity with the Year 1 script. 

As facilitators, I would say we definitely had a more challenging rehearsal process with the Year One's than the Year Three's, which is no surprise since the Year 1's are much younger and with the fun and free atmosphere we created, I expected no different. Unlike with Year 3, we didn't give the individual children in Year 1 individual lines to say, which I think was a safe choice since even the orchestration of the Year 13's saying the lines and the children responding seemed difficult. One of the main challenges we encountered was trying to get the children to listen and follow direction. When they did listen, they would often continue talking or laughing when performing the material, which slowed down the efficiency of the process, nevertheless it was good to see that they were enjoying themselves. As facilitators, what I have learnt is that you have to be very patient with young children when they are not being responsive. Putting our hands up and waiting for a response, a technique that has proved useful in previous workshop sessions, seemed more effective at controlling the children's noise level but we still struggled quite significantly. Likewise, with the two rehearsal weeks, we definitely encountered a new problem with behaviour. There were a few children who probably didn't have the attention span for the focus of a rehearsal process in one fixed location, and in the plans for rehearsing we didn't really cater to these children and their different learning styles, which probably contributed to increased bad behaviour. Individual situations were easier to cope with than others, but overall as facilitators I think we found the best tactic was not to patronise the children but instead to treat them like professionals and let them be in control. Besides, I think it's safe to say that some children wouldn't have engaged with the process regardless of how well behaved they were, so those that were being naughty for the sake of it and those that were genuinely disillusioned with the project were separated and were able to have control over their contribution and participation. We could handle children that felt uncomfortable with the idea of performing by giving them the option to sit out or by standing next to them and doing it with them. 

Like with Year Three, some of the detail that we had worked on in previous sessions revolving around physicality was lost, especially with the lack of concentration. Yet the essence of the story was there by the end of rehearsing the piece. We had less material to work on, and so what was successful was that it seemed that most of the children knew the gist of what was going on and could look to us for guidance and prompts if need be. But the main aim of telling the story of 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' mixed with dinosaurs was there by the end of the rehearsal process, and we also included the dinosaur masks that we'd made and the dance which made the rehearsals more fun for the children. 

Week 4: Community Project

This was our last week of exploring possible material and 'devising' in a sense with the two Year Groups before we begin to 'rehearse' and stage a show with the groups next week. As such, the planning of this week's session was important to ensure we gained as much experimentation as possible before we have to write a script.

YEAR 3 PLAN:

Overall, our session with the Year Three's was hugely successful. It involved a lot of adaptability and improvisation on the part of us as facilitators, since the plan we came up with was in actuality quite loose and not too specific. I feel like this was one of the successes of the workshop since it allowed us to put the children's needs before ourselves, accentuating the principles of community theatre.

Specifically, the visualisation exercise was probably the exercise the Year 3's seemed to resonate with the most - probably because it was almost the exercise that most emulated proper 'acting' with guidance from us as facilitators. We each took a chunk of a visualisation of the children waking up and going christmas shopping, before Croydon gets turned into a jungle and how that unfolds. This was a good structure for helping the exercise to flow easily and for the guidance to be easy for the children to digest while applying it almost immediately. Using the ideas of physicality and emotion, we got the children to grapple more with the detail of the exercise. In hindsight, the masses seemed to more engaged with this and to actually take more of this on board and apply it as this is a concept that we've emphasised over the weeks. Therefore, the repetition over the last few weeks of using your bodies, physicality, face and understanding emotion has definitely been an element that the Year Three's have seemed to understand, and this has been one of the successes of our plans of the workshops. 

One of the challenges of the exercise was that it seemed to go all too quickly and nearly ran out of steam. This is an issue we've had before as facilitators: it can sometimes be difficult to time how long each aspect of the activities should go on for - weighing how engaged the children are with the importance of what's coming next. We had seemingly rushed through this activity and it got to the part where Croydon had turned into a jungle and we then didn't know what to do. One of my personal successes was that I thought on the spot and offered suggestions on how we could extend the exercise - using the idea of the animals wandering through the streets of Croydon and having to come across people, traffic lights, zebra crossings etc and how that changes their physicality. Subsequently, this added a new dimension to the activity that the children found quite fun since they were met with an obstacle. Other Year 13's played these obstacles to keep the energy alive - for example, Sofianne played a ticket inspector on a tram, which was really successful since it was clearly something the Year 3's took on really seriously and found really fun as a concept to play with. 

As such, this visualisation exercise, keeping in touch with the original brief we were given from the beginning of working with the Year 3's is something that I think could definitely go into the script that we will create for the final showing with the Year 3's. It follows a narrative, was something that the children really engaged with and as such is definitely feasible as an aspect within the showing.

Again, the soundscape exercise was successful since sound is something we haven't massively touched on within the workshops so far, but became something that likewise could also be put into the script for the showing. The children were a bit shy coming up with sounds that represented Croydon at first, since we were stood in the circle, yet with the encouragement from us as facilitators, this problem was tackled with quickly, as we were able to make all children feel safe and not obligated to participate if they felt truly uncomfortable. The variation of sounds that the children demonstrated was amazing - it really captivated me as the exercise emphasised how much children can really see things in a new extraordinary light to you, having such vivid and undamaged imaginations. Because of this, I think this exercise really gave the Year 3's ownership over the work and as a result should be something that is implemented into the script. 

YEAR 1 PLAN:

A primary challenge that we faced from the onset of this session was that one of the facilitators in our group forgot to bring a speaker which was quite necessary for the dinosaur dance. As such, I wasn't available for the first bit of the workshop as myself and Lucie were trying to source a speaker. Nevertheless, the basis of the workshop warm up which focused on physicality was successful structurally since like with the Year 3's, physicality is a concept we've been repeating and some of the skills the children have learnt have started to come to fruition by this point in the process. Pretending to be dinosaurs who the children are learning about in their lessons is something the children really like, as they can apply the knowledge they've learnt to physical reality, and I think that's hugely fun for them and allows them to learn in different ways.

Extending the session from last week, we divided the group up into smaller groups and endeavoured on developing the idea of 'hot-seating' further. This is an exercise that we've developed on with various stages over a couple of weeks, so it wasn't foreign to the Year 1's, and they were able to feel safe and comfortable while learning about the dramatic technique of hot seating. They seemed to enjoy using the prop of the dinosaur mask and asking eachother questions. There was about two facilitators in every group yet the children seemed to embrace this with maturity so in my experience we didn't face many issues. One thing that we had to try and aim to do as facilitators over this exercise was encourage the children as usual, since many still needed to be almost shown an example of how they would interact with the dinosaur before doing it themselves. With me and Stash joining in with our group, it didn't just help the children feel more comfortable but also made it a little bit more real for them, since we were equally as enthusiastic and committed to the idea of a dinosaur being in the group. The exercise of hot seating is also a really effective way of getting young children to understand emotion and empathy, as well as how to build characters. There was a tender improvisational element to the exercise which gave the children more freedom and challenge who were playing the dinosaurs, while the children questioning the dinosaurs were able to understand what it's like to 'put yourself in another person's shoes'.  There was an almost forum theatre introductory feeling to this aspect of the workshop. As such, this hot seating exercise was a really great and successful element of the workshop. 

The final stage of the workshop involved Luke and Lucie teaching the Year 1's a short dinosaur dance, which we are hoping to implement into the show next week. From my knowledge from the children's theatre unit from Year 12, dance and song are things that children really engage with since they are quite bold and extravagant and fun. By tieing this into the show, we are trying to ensure that there is variety and moments of colour and fun where the children can perhaps feel a bit more free in doing something a bit silly. The children took on learning the dance quite seriously, and Luke and Lucie executed the exercise effectively through implementing the idea of a handshake and so different children would interact with their other classmates. 

Overall, this session was successful in developing character, physicality and emotion in preparation for the beginning of our rehearsals next week. In hindsight, I think that we could have been slightly more creative in trying to add more exercises into the workshop in order to make the most out of our last devising session with the children, nevertheless we still have plentiful material that we can use when creating a script.