Final Evaluation of The Tiger Who Came To Tea

Discuss your exploration and development of TTWCTT taking into consideration key factors and relevant ideas and input you put in to the process.

Evaluate the skills and techniques you used in rehearsal and discuss how you responded to direction and feedback to develop work.

In term 5 we worked to put together a production of The Tiger Who Came To Tea for little peoples day. As a piece of children's theatre I thought that the piece would be easier than the previous pieces I had performed throughout the year; however I was mistaken. Children's theatre is one of the hardest pieces of theatre to pull off, in my opinion. It took me out of comfort zone and made me work even harder to pull of a character that the children related to and believed in. I think people may think that just because the play is for children you therefore have to make it childish. This is wrong. You must make it age appropriate of course, but you need to stay professional and put as much effort in to your piece as you would when performing any other play. You need to explore themes and perhaps issues that children will be able to understand and make them into a fun piece, perhaps with an underlying moral. If you create a piece that both children and adults can take something away from you have created a universal piece that is differently interpreted but unanimously enjoyed. 

When creating TTWCTT I found it hard as an actor to let go of my self worry and self judgement and let myself be a child again. As a children's theatre performer you must find your inner child and adapt the qualities children posses into your performance. Children let themselves be free of worry and judgement which was exactly what I needed to do. I needed to remind myself that the children weren't there to judge they were there to be entertained and therefore it was my job to explore this type of theatre to do that job effectively. Therefore as a child actor you need specific qualities. You can't be scared of looking bad, you need to experiment, live in the moment, be a complete artist, have 100% energy, connect both voice and body and don't think feel.

To adapt our performance to work both effectively for both actors and audience we had to take into consideration the key factors that our piece would include. The key factors included working to three sides, working for a specific audience and working as an ensemble. 

Therefore when preparing the piece, one of the first steps was to find my inner child and my childlike confidence as a performer. Exercises like slimey frog and exploring the 7 level of tensions helped me do so. Slimey frog helped me. Instead of focussing on the words you were saying, we concentrated on the sounds that made up the word. When saying the sentence ‘I am a slimey frog’ you would try and feel the sounds not the words. The sentence therefore sounds strange and distorted, but it helped me become more animated. Plus when doing this we tried to join our body and voice as one instrument. By feeling the sounds you are able to make your body flow accordingly. I think this helped me become looser in body and voice and prepared me for all other elements of our performance we would be doing next. As I got good feedback when I performed ‘I am a slimey frog’ it boosted my confidence and helped me progress to the next rehearsals. The 7 levels of tension helped in a similar way. It showed me how to perform at different energy levels, yet put the same amount of effort into each. When performing to children different energy levels are key. I thought that learning all these different tension levels helped us when devising and performing as we could know how to react to situations on stage. Change in energy keeps our audience engaged. If we had kept the energy the same throughout, the children would lose interest. Energy levels can create humour, suspense and mystery; a mixture we used to keep our piece engaging. These and other exercises helped me loosen up. As these exercises made me look and sound ugly I was no longer ashamed of looking bad on stage, as I knew the children wouldn't care how I looked or sounded as long as the piece I was performing entertained them.

Many elements went in to putting on our performance of TTWCTT. As an actor it is important to explore other mediums of art like singing and dancing. Exploring these were very fun for myself and for the cast as an ensemble, but there is no doubt that I found it very challenging. One of the first things we learnt was the song adaptation of the William Blake poem ‘Tiger Tiger’ by Patti Smith. We listened to it as a class and then, copying the style of Patti Smith, we tried to sing it. However after learning it in this style, in hindsight we decided that this style wasn't appropriate for little children as the song was a dirge with a lamenting tone. It wouldn't engage them as the sound wouldn't be animated and exciting. Therefore throughout the course of our rehearsals we adapted the song to fit the into a piece of children’s theatre. We got Kitty to change the tune to a more upbeat catchy tune that the children would enjoy more. However I originally thought that the lyrics were a problem as well because they were written in old English and used language that the children wouldn't understand. However based on the direction I was given, I saw that the lyrics could be effective if used properly. It describes the tiger through lines like ‘eyes burning bright’ and ‘fearful symmetry’ but to make them work I had to use the new and improved tune and also my new found knowledge about the seven levels of tension to make it appealing to children. I personally would've changed the song, however I believe that the different techniques we learnt made the song effective and engaging for the children.

Another art form we looked at was dance. I'm less confident in my dancing ability than my singing ability and I wasn't confident about singing anyway, so the prospect of doing some sort of dance was worrying. However the kind of dance we did wasn't too complicated but was very effective on the stage. We created a Chinese dragon-like tiger that moved around the stage whilst the song was being sung. It started out by us learning some historical dancing. I thought this was really effective because it gave us a basis that was simple yet effective, but it also gave us opportunity to adapt the style to fit the performance. In rehearsal we used sticks as the body and a box as the eyes, but eventually we had butterfly nets and light-up eyes. I think the dance wasn't very difficult as long as you were rhythmic and lose. If you became stiff and dull the children would lose interest. To make the tiger come to life, we had to come to life. I think that all the animation we had to put in to the dance helped us animate our characters in other parts of the performance. I think the dance was effective because the children would be able to get involved and feel like a tiger was in the room. This created a dangerous and exiting atmosphere that would keep the children focused.

Another visual element we created was a human pyramid. We had done a piece of physical theatre before and I think that helped us as a group and also gave me the confidence to be able to pull it off. When we originally tried to build it didn't work. It was unstable and didn't have the effect we wanted because we hadn't researched it and didn't know enough about constructing it to make it effective. I wasn't confident in building and exiting the pyramid and therefore I wasn't focused on performing whilst in the pyramid formation. Therefore we needed extra research to make it work. Holly researched the building of a human pyramid and she found a more effective way of building and de-constructing it. When we built I felt stable and confident enough to be able to stay in character. The children enjoyed because it used all levels and we stayed animated. Even though the construction looked good I had to stay animated and try and direct my body at all three sides whilst staying stable. That became easier with practice. 

The rehearsal wasn't as effective as we would've liked because we didn't have enough technical support and as technical elements were very important in our piece it didn't work as well without it. In the rehearsal I think I performed well and the energy was high, but I lost the energy when I performed the song. As the whole group was un-confident in starting the song it meant lost my energy as I was waiting for back-up as to when to start the song. Therefore the song was weak throughout and it meant the energy dropped and the audience lost attention and focus. Therefore the second run in the space we were performing in was better. I performed better because after watching the other performances it pushed me to do better. We kept the energy up and used our energy to push the song to its pull potential; animated and engaging for our specific audience. 

Our final performance went very well and on the whole I was very happy with my performance. I think that I was able to vary my energy levels according to the action on stage and also I was able to react to the people performing on stage and change my energy levels accordingly. I also think I stayed focused and in character throughout the performance and used my characterisation to engage the audience, by working my body and voice to all three sides. However I think I could improve on my face and voice fluidity to make my character more animated. I think I could do this by researching more children's theatre performers and how to acquire the techniques they use to pull of a effective performance. To engage my audience more with my character I think I need to not react only to energy levels but the positioning of my fellow cast members and therefore react to the empty space on stage to mean there are no dead energy levels on any spots on the stage. I think I need to continue to push myself past my comfort zone, something this piece definitely taught me to do. I need to keep learning and taking direction to make myself a better, more versatile performer.  

I think because the piece took me out of my comfort zone I therefore needed direction to show what was appropriate to do in a piece of children's theatre. One of the main things I have learnt through direction was how to use different dynamics to bring a piece to life. Children lose focus quickly and therefore to keep them engaged I need to change my movement and tone of voice making them both bold and interesting. At first, when we were just starting to put together our opening I would walk on stage slowly because I had misread the direction. If I am walking around the stage slowly I won't draw the audiences attention to the action on stage and they will switch off. I have discovered from feedback that we need to move around the stage at different paces, use different levels and engage the audience through my body. I think my personal response to direction could've been improved. As the piece is an ensemble piece I felt comfortable moving with other people instead of steeping out to the front of the stage and moving my body from the ground until I'm reaching up towards the ceiling. I think in the last week or so I have began to realise that children need variety and I need to give them that. I need spacial awareness to know where I can fill the gaps and when the energy drops take it upon myself to bring it up. Therefore in the last weeks I had to work hard to improve based on the direction I was given to pull of the performance we gave.

I have learnt to be animated and bold in my movement and voice and I hope to take this skills and use them as it took me a long time to acquire them over the course of term 5. Even though children's theatre took me out of my comfort zone I think it was a big learning curve about how to work a stage and audience. I didn't enjoy this type of theatre as much as the others I have explored, but I'm happy I was given the opportunity to learn from this piece and would like to discover more about the style in the future.