What Am I? – The Making of Rubbish

The start of the process of Rubbish Theatre’s debut performance is proving thoroughly exhilarating and challenging. As producer, I coordinated our first production meeting in which was a ‘meet and greet at which the creative team, production team, performers and administration staff are all present’ (Dean, 2002, p.110) and it allowed all members of the company to begin creating relationships with each other. Additionally, an understanding of creative intentions and wants for our performance were realised through the creating of our code of conduct, ethos and company name. We have solidified what makes Rubbish Theatre the company that it is and in doing so we have revealed that each member is creatively inclined in the same way: we all want to create a piece that is abstract and pushes the boundaries of performance. During this meeting we created our ethos and code of conduct:

 

Who we are REAL

Screenshot of Rubbish Theatre website ‘About’ page.

After discussion with the company’s director, I plan to print off and take the code of conduct to every rehearsal and production meeting in order to remind people of what we all agreed upon. Additionally, I think that this will help each member recollect the behaviour necessary for the production to continue progressing. In order for the code of conduct to not seem threatening and negative, we will implement fun ‘penalties’ decided by the rest of the members (such as ten press ups or laps of the rehearsal room) that encourage people to commit to tasks which ultimately helps my job.

Our company ethos was written as ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ which demonstrated that each member of the company lost individuality and we should consider ourselves as one entity which meant that all members would be involved in everything. Although this could have presented complications for delegating tasks, it ultimately improved our productivity because we helped each other wherever needed. This was vital when we realised during this meet and greet that our creative dream was so imaginative. Rubbish Theatre wants there to be ‘endless possibilities’ (Brunt et al., 2017) and this meant that we would have to be extremely organised in order to achieve our goals. It was from this point that I decided to have at least one production a meeting in which we would set weekly goals.

example todos 1

Example of one week’s task list.

After the core of Rubbish Theatre was established we wanted to establish the demands of our respective roles.

producer - discussed by team

Once we had finished this task, we created the company hierarchy and it was decided that the producer was ultimately at the top in order to oversee all aspects of the production. Through research of the duties of a producer I found that it was imperative that I had the ability ‘to step back at any point and take a view’ (Seabright, 2012, p. 13) thus having an oversight of all aspects of the production was a positive aspect. This also meant that each member understood what was expected of them and helped us to understand the dynamics of the company.

These key aspects established in our first meeting were implemented until the actual performance and I believe it meant that we managed to achieve the aesthetically daring set and costume that we were aiming for as well as an invigorating show ‘for you to ponder over and enjoy’ (Brunt et al., (2017).

 

awakening rehearsal REAL

The Awakening scene in rehearsal.

 

Lincoln University

The Awakening scene actualised.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Word Count: 567

Works Cited:

Brunt, E., Crawford, J., Crockford, K., Kay, J., Pearson, J., Skelton, J., Soyza, R., Toon, J. and Watson, B. (2017). rubbish-theatre. [online] rubbish-theatre. Available at: https://www.rubbishtheatre.com/about [Accessed 17 Mar. 2017].

Dean, P. (2002). Production management. 1st ed. Marlborough: Crowood Press.

 

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