Floor plan and other location pictures Fort Amhurst devising

Above is the scenes in order from start to finish. The final plan that we formulated. 

Changes to Carl's Movement piece

After completing Carl's movement piece. We decided to perform it to the rest of the class who weren't actually involved in the scene yet due to not being present. After watching our idea they were really interested and pleased with the way the movement correlated with the music. They did propose quite a few ideas to adapt the piece in some ways. For example around the middle of the scene we all put our hands up as if to trap Carl. To show the audience that Carl is trapped in his own head. It was a cool concept but we ended up taking it further. By reaching in and holding down a part of Carl's body. We felt this would make the scene more intense. And more physical.  We also added quite a few scenes including a synchronised dance/movement scene. And a puppeteer scene. 

I was very fond of the puppeteer scene. Because it's showing Carl's schizophrenic character being influenced by all the different personalities inside the institution. 

Risk Assessment Fort Amhurst Devised

Risk Assessment- Fort Amhurst

Production: 13

Date: 29/06/2016

Company: Revolution Arts-The Howard School.

Completed by: Dan Smith ( Student at the Howard school sixth form) 

Hazard:Trips and falling over in the space of the tunnel areas.

Involvement: 15 cast and Crew for each performance along with 15-20 audience members within the two performances.

Likeliness: Highly unlikely due to the walk through the tunnels being slow safe and controlled.

Severity: mild/medium. If a fall was to occurr it's quite a dangerous place to fall. As the floor terrain is very uneven and cave like. The walls are also very sharp and bits of chalk stick out here and there. Also to call the emergency services in the unlikely case of a severe accident from falling. We would have to navigate out of the tunnels to contact emergency services.

Causes of action to avoid incident: Crew members kept hold of walkie talkies throughout which also radioed through to the owner of the location fort amhurst who knows all the emergency exits. 

Cast were well rehearsed and understood the spacing well

Pathways lighted in the correct manner to help guide the audience safely. 

Any hazard were either warned at the start. Or clearly displayed.

Hazard: structural failiure

Involvement: 15 cast and crew. 15-20 audience members. 

Likeliness: quite unlikely however the tunnels are old so may be a slight chanc 

Severity: severe if a hazard was to develop 

Actions taken to prevent: Cast did not utilise the walls or ceiling for safety reasons. 

Hazard: Fire

Involved: 15 cast and crew. And 15-20 audience members. 

Likeliness: Highly Unlikely

Severity: medium

Actions to prevent events: Fire extinguishers around areas. Emergency areas well lit

Hazard: Lighting and epilepsy

Likeliness: Unlikely

Severity: Medium

Actions to prevent events: At the start of the tour lighting and strobe lighting was initially warned and audience members were asked if anybody suffered from epilepsy before entering the tunnels to watch the performance.  

Micheal and Charles scene Devised

In my scene with Dom. We ended up putting a little twist on it. While the audience is thinking all along that I am a psychotic killer. They soon learn that I am just a normal man who has lied to get out of going to jail. But since being in the mental institute being ploughed with medication he starts to  Believe he is insane. So during the scene when Dom is actually revealing that my character is not insane, and only feels it because of the medication, My character starts to freak out of fear that he will be transferred to a prison. 

During the scene my character is very non communicative. Until Dom starts reading facts about my characters murder and family history. At this point my character comes to terms with the fact he is being discovered and his lies are coming out. 

So at the end of the scene when Dom has worked Michael up into an angry stupor. Michael goes to attack Dom with the pen Dom is actually using to write notes with. I feel this would make the audience feel uneasy that I'm not actually crazy. I'm just a killer who has been let to roam a mental institute and they are all stuck in with me. 

Fortunately for the audience I am dragged away at the end by the doctors away from Dom. Whilst I shout threats at him about killing him and his family. I feel my scene would have had a creepy effect on the audience. Having them realise that half the people in the institute aren't actually crazy. Just natural born killers. 

7 Devils. Devised piece

The 7 Devils piece was the final piece i was in. In the final performance. I feel it was the most powerful movement piece we actually performed. We were all scattered around the room in chairs. There were 7 of us in total (7 patients). The room had a balcony like hole in the wall which we shined a light on. This is where Dan Mckay and Freya stood ( The Doctors ). This gave an eerie effect. Also due to the fact the audience scattered themselves around the room. Some even between patients. 

The music we used for the piece was ( 7 Devils- by Florence and the machine. The music was very powerful and eerie sounding which helped deliver what the physical movement was showing. It was showing all of us going through a relaxation movement. But showed all our inner demons coming out. We were trying to show that we were trapped and locked inside our twisted minds. I feel that the music seriously helped get across the audience what was being shown. 

At the start of the movement piece. Before any movement. There was a small clip being played at the front that we were all staring at. A relaxation clip showing a doctor talking about relaxing advice. At the end of the clip we began doing slight rapid movements for example grabbing our faces or reaching out forward. We were all doing this in sync. Then we slowly moved around to different chairs around the audience. We done this to make things extra creepy. At first the doctors said the patients wouldn't move. Which probably made the audience feel relieved and inclined to stand anywhere. This delivered effect when we all started getting up and moving. Around the audience. 

By the end of the movement piece we are all in different chairs to our original ones. The reason this was my favourite piece. Was because of the 1: location- I felt that doing it in this large creepy room which was on a different floor to the other rooms really gave massive effect: I also felt extremely in character and really put myself in the position of the character I was playing. Portraying exactly how I would be feeling or behaving if I was really there. 

I was told by audience members after that this was their favourite scene. Due to the unexpected outcome of the movement. Also I was told that obviously the venue itself is quite haunted and paranormal. The music and scenario of what we were actually doing did put some people on the edge. Feeling a bu strange. We wanted this exact reaction from this piece and we got it. 

Transitions 39 steps

Transitions throughout the performance are quick. And kept to a minimum. We only really every brought on one different object to display a different scene or location. For example when Hanny and Pamela are coming up to do the Fence scene. Tom was late to the stage with the fence. This wasn't supposed to happen. And when he eventually ran out with the fence. He tripped over and kicked one of the legs off. Which managed to get an earthquake of laughter from the audience. We all found this absolutely hilarious because Tom ended up having to stand onstage holding the fence. The performance was so funny we ended up making a transition a comedy sketch in itself.

Another thing we did was use the same object for different scenes. We just quickly moved it around. The table at the start of the performance was a Sherrifs desk. Placed in the middle of the stage. It was then later moved over to the other side of the stage during a quick scene change to be the table in the hotel reception. Soon after this scene it was again pushed up stage right. To become a bed. 

I can't really remember any other transitions in our act that we performed. Although we managed to make a car out of four chairs which was very amusing. We stylised very well because when the car was turned on. We all started bouncing around as if we were in an old car. Winding up and down the windows making squeaking noises. This was a good transition. It was mad funny in the end of the scene when Toby and Tom end d up just stacking the chairs up on top of each other and walking off. 

The simplicity of our transitions had an increasingly good impact on the play itself. There was always something to watch and find amusing. Even through transitions 

Pace and Energy

For 39 steps due to it being in the style of vaudeville. It had to be very fast paced to deliver the comedic value of the performance. Not to mention there were only 4 of us acting and there was about 8 different parts. So some of the characters had to multi role, which again was true to the style. We made the performance very quick paced because it doesn't give the audience a chance to get bored. There was always something going on. Someone doing movement or talking. This meant that we could not slow down. Because it would completely go against the style of the performance. 

Saying this however during the comedic parts of the performance. Slow movement was used. For example. During Toby and Toms scene when they are playing the elderly characters. They slowly stumble on stage pulling funny facial expressions. This had a better effect on the audienc because it was really slow. Also during Toby's speech when he was talkin quite slowly and stumbling over his lines. The audience cracked a lot of laughs. 

This is how we knew we had delivered the play well. We got a great reception from the audience. Even I had trouble holding back my laughter at some points because it was just overwhelmingly funny. Also the pace between scenes were short and snappy. There want really any scenery or back drops. Only occasionally a different chair or a fence was brought out to symbolise a different scenery. Costume changes were snappy and fast. We couldn't at all drop the energy. We ended up delivering an incredibly funny piece. And if lines were forgotten or somethin went wrong onstage (which happened) we quickly improvised with even more comedy. The audience didn't even know any mistakes were made.

Hannay Voice

For my Hannay voice I have to be very posh and well spoken. Despite being accused of murder and quite common. Hannay likes to make himself presentable and smart and cares about how smart he looks. He likes to match this with his strong English voice. Pronouncing words right. 

Hannay has to project a lot well. I spent a few lessons practicing projecting. Especially with the scene with my monologue. I have to deliver to the audience and people at the back need to hear me clearly. So I practiced speaking posh loudly and it's starting to come along well. 

The tone of Hannays voice is very laid back sounding. Quite calm and collected, however when he gets angry or gets quite upfront. He tends to get a bit deeper in his tone, especially in the scene with Pamela in the apartment. When they both start argueing. Hannay gets quite agressive. The posh sounding tone remains. But he projects alot more. 

Vaudeville research

Vaudeville was the most popular form of American entertainment from its rise in the 1880s through its demise in the 1930s. It played much the same a role in people's lives that radio and later television would for later generations. Indeed, many early radio, television and film stars began as vaudeville performers: Bob hope, Edgar Bergen, Abbott and Costello, the Marks Brothers, Bert Lahr and Ray Bolger (the latter two being best known today as the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz). Every medium-to-large size city had its own vaudeville theatre, and performers on the vaudeville circuit preformed for a national audience by traveling constantly from town to town. With its national circuits, its reliance on train transportation and the telegraph, plus its production of a mode of performance with interchangeable parts, Vaudeville was the first truly modern form of popular entertainment.

Vaudeville was variety entertainment, consisting of a highly diverse series of very short acts, or "turns." The acts ranged from singing groups to animal acts, from comedians to contortionists, from magic tricks to short musical plays. A typical vaudeville bill consisted of approximately 13 acts, most of which were typically 6-15 minutes long. Many of the modes of performance developed in vaudeville had a profound effect on popular culture that continues into the present day. For example, many of the ethnic stereotypes prevalent in television and film -- Jewish, Irish, Italian, African American -- derive from the ethnic caricatures that were a mainstay of Vaudeville comedy. The comedian Frank Bush, whose act is recreated for Virtual Vaudeville, exemplifies this brand of ethnic humor.

Vaudeville appealed to a broad cross-spectrum of the public, representing every class and ethnic group. The wealthiest patrons could purchase exclusive box seats or seats in the parterre, while working class spectators could purchase inexpensive seats in the galleries. Vaudeville had something for everyone, and particular acts in the vaudeville lineup appealed differently to different groups in the audience. Irish comics and tenors, for instance, found a ready audience among the "lace curtain" Irish in the audience while WASP mothers out shopping with a child might prefer the circus-like entertainment of an animal act or juggling.

Variety entertainment emerged gradually throughout the nineteenth century, starting in circus sideshows, concert saloons, burlesque theatres, minstrel shows, and dime museum performances. These early forms of variety theatre had an unsavory reputation associated with rough-house behavior and prostitution and appealed mainly to working class men.

Fence Scene 39 steps.

We got quite creative when it came to the fence scene, the fence scene is when Hannay has just escaped from the police. Carrying also Pamela. The lead female role who is chained to Hannay by a pain of hand cuffs, previous to the fence scene while Hannay and Pamela are escaping through the marshlands Hanny is very eager and pumped because he has escaped the police. Despite on the run he is calm and collective. Often still flirtatious and confident with Pamela. This infuriates Pamela and she shows a lot of anger and hate towards the over confident Hannay, she often threatens to scream. Because she is chained to Hannay who is convicted of murder. As soon as Pamela and Hannay reach the fence, they begin to climb over it. However. Hannay decides to pass under the fence, while Pamela continues to climb over, during this they bother appear to become stuck. Being one of the more comedic scenes me and Freya have made it funny as we keep changing positions. And accidently pulling each other in all sorts of directions. At the end of the scene when we both finally manage to get over I fail to realise the handcuffs are stuck under my leg. I then walk off while me and Freya (Pamela) are still bickering and I end up dragging her along the floor. We wanted to make this funny and show the audience how such a simple thing can be hilarious. 

To Make this scene work we actually had to get our own bit of fence. We managed to find some old wood which was previously used for a different show and create a big enough fence. The fence couldn't be too big/small however because I am tall and Freya is small, so we had to get a bit technical by sawing off some of the fence and sanding it down. Which was a lot of fun. We did this because the fence scene is important and starts to show Pamela and Hannays relationship start to blossom 

39 steps Hannay

During our lessons for our production of the comedy 39 steps, both groups leading roles of (Hannay) had to sit down together and discuss personality traits. In act 1 Ashley Clayton is performing in the role of Hannay, and in Act 2, I (Dan Smith) am performing as the role of Hannay. Me and ashley understood that if we didn't gather the same characteristics/ personality traits in each other, the audience won't understand that we have split the play and will think we are putting on a different one. While me and ashley were doing this, the other characters from both acts, were also comparing characteristics. 

We decided that hannay should be very gentleman like, but very shrewd in how he stands and behaves, we want his body language to be very smart like, with a good posture, however because he is being hunted by the police on murder charges, he is quite fritters and nervous when present onstage, for example constantly looking around, or nervously sorting out his tie. Me and Ashley also wanted Hannay to be very over confident around the women in the play, being very flirtatious and cocky even when they are showing no interest, its these characteristics that are going to help the audience understand what we are doing.

Mike Costume ideas and makeup

For Mikeys Makeup and costume ik really want to show the audience what the hospital has made him become, i want to make his eyes appear red, using specific makeup, this will help to get across why people think Mikey is insane. I also want his hair to be unique, scattered all over the place much like his personality. For costumes i believe we are all going to be purchasing white outfits closer to the performance date, this will then be able to make us easily identified as mental patients. There isn only so far we can go with how we look, make up wise, our acting really needs to be powerful and defined, to help the audience understand why we are insane, and why we behave the way we do.

Carls Movement Piece

So far i feel that this piece is one of the most powerful pieces, Carls character is a schizophrenic, and the whole piece is showing the horrors that go on in a schizophrenics head, i had the opportunity to pick the music, i wanted to aim towards a mysterious progressive piece that backs the piece with eerie and haunting music, i picked Save Me by avenged sevenfold, which is a progressive metal song about how life is cruel one of the lyrics, ' Where the endings are the same as every other, we are only here to die', this lyric is one of the main reasons as to why i picked the song, it brings around and empowers how Carl is really feeling inside, 'Trapped in a vile world', he can't escape, the voices in his head keep him under control.

Now i have explained the music i will explain the piece, before anything happens, we see Carl sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, shortly after a a projected video is played on the wall, it shows (Theo), a doctor, explaining schizophrenia, the cause, and how to deal with a schiztophrenic. He ends with saying 'Never look a schizophrenic in the eye.".  carl is initially sat on a chair, he is then lifted and spun around, the people involved in the movement piece whisper at Carl, these are the voices of the other patients in the asylum (showing the voices in his head), we can see he gets aggravated by this, by now he is standing, hew tries to escape but people are surrounding him, engulfing him, he feels trapped, tries his best to get out, but is thrown back to the middle, we are doing this to display that carl isn't in control of his actions or his emotions, his head is a massive whirlpool of confusion, which has lead to his intense insanity. We then had a really good idea, which goes along perfectly with the drums in the eerie music where we all get into a sort of production line on our knees, and do a puppeteer like movement, doing various movements like holding our heads and throwing our arms around.

Carl essentially is one of the patients, because he has been in the hospital for years, all the voices in his head, are of the voices of the other patients in the asylum, he has spent the most time being a patient and has become influenced and controlled by other personalities, we show this in the piece during the puppeteer piece, we all end up individually taking control of carls movements, like a puppet, and making him do actions and movements that display all of the different characters personalities in the hospital.

We really like this piece alot because the musical and movement power really go together well, it will also help the audience to understand what it really feels like,to be trapped and controlled by voices and things that don't even exist.

Script beginning ideas dan and dom sene

In this scene Mikey is being spoken to by a newly qualifying psychiatric doctor (Dom) who is questioning Mikey and finding out intricate things In his personality and the way he behaves. Below is what we have started

From the script so far we can see that Mikey has been living for a while believing he is mentally unstable because his doctors tell him he is every day. Also one of the reasons Mikey thinks he's insane is because he's regularly injected with tranquilliser which is extremely strong. Excessive use of the drug has made mikeys condition far worse than it originally was. Resulting in Mikeys behaviour becoming extremely agressive off the medication and so has become addicted to being tranquilized. He claims to the mental hospital that they give it to him because it stops him killing people. 

From the script we can see dom getting frustrated and angry that Mikey is not insane. And the drugs he is on is Making him believe that he's ridiculously insane. 

Dom gets more and more wound up especially after studying a psychology degree, knowing that Mikey is just taking the easy way out. He isn't in fact insane at all. He is probably in fact a manic depressive who uses the use of medicinal drugs to short term cure his unhappiness. I feel we should show some emotion in Mikey as Dom gets to the bottom of Mikeys troubles. I feel Mikey should then try to reveal the truth to Dom about what they are actually doing to them in the asylum. But before he can finish he is injected with a strong dose of tranquilizer which knocks Mikey unconscious

I really think this will eventually have a reverse effect on the audience, at first they all see Mikey to be a psychotic killer, but it is soon revealed that his unhealthy childhood and upbringing, years of neglect, has resulted in  him craving attention and medicine in an asylum, this is the reason he dent want to be conformed to a jail, its quite sad to be honest because its not all Mikey's fault, i want the audience to feel sorry for Mikey, he is also trapped in a confused world and doesn't understand.

After Mikey gets back up he has forgotten everything once more, Dom should try to talk to him but to no success. This is where Dom should start finding things suspicious in my opinion.

character profile Micheal ellington

Name: Micheal Ellington
Nickname: Mikey
Age: 27
Date of birth: 1948
Hometown: Rochester
Ethnicity: White British
Hair colour: Brown
Eye Colour: Brown, (Has been seen wearing red contact lenses.)
Family members: Martha Ellington (mother), John Ellington (farther). Both passed away in the year 1960 (fatal car accident), Mikey has no other siblings.
School attended: Roosevelt Secondry school, until 1961, where he was permanently excluded.

Mikey was taken to an orphanage with other parentless children, he hated it, and was seen often bullying other orphans about their parents loss, despite the fact he lost his parents, he would then try fostering with other families, he was turned away from every family because he threatened the parents in every foster family, telling them that death was going to find them also.

Mikey at the age of 18 was trailed for the murder of parents of a family who earlier tried to foster him, claiming that they killed his parents. He mysteriously vanished for nearly 8 years until the police captured Mikey who was now 26, he was trialled again and quickly admitted to killing three more people, during his courtroom prosecution, Mikey claimed that he was being told to kill by voices in his head, and after tests by 4 different doctors, Mikey was found to be mentally unfit for a prison and was sent to a local asylum.

Pillowman evaluation

On the 20th may we performed pillowman in the afternoon. I felt the performance went well. But I also feel it didn't go as smoothly as we would have once hoped. Despite working at the play for quite some time We ended up having to cut quite a lot of the performance out because we had major problems with line learning, there was a lot of lines. It came down to us even cutting out acts from the piece. Despite all this I feel that I played my part very well. I was performing in the role of tupolski. A troubled alcoholic who is very sarcastic and dry personality wise. I feel I delivered the part right because I got a few laughs on the comedy sides of the play. But also came down like a ton of bricks when I needed to show the agressive side. For example in the first scene I was very laid back showing Tupolski to be quite a chilled out police officer. Then he looses his temper within a matter of seconds. I feel I showed this well and displayed the two different sides of the character quite clearly

Actual Finalised Decision.

After weeks and weeks of discussing ideas and workshopping ideas, ironically we have actually gone with one of the first ideas that was initially brought to the table, which was the mental hospital idea, we have put a little spin on it however because of other ideas. We had the idea of Fort Amherst being a mental asylum. Within the asylum are various different mental patients, each suffering with different health issues. From audience perspective, they will be following the tour which is going around the Fort. It is lead by doctors who are showing round a psychiatric doctor, who is evaluating the patients and hospital. During the tour, the audience will learn the dark secrets behind the mental hospital, what horrors lie behind the doors, and how the doctors themselves don't treat the patients right. At the end, we had the creepy idea of the Doctors, (who are showing people around), actually turn out to be mental patients also, we feel this will be a creepy unexpected end to the tour, and will have a good effect on the audience.

We have had the ideas of the doctors being a bit physically forceful and mentally neglecting, towards the patients, for examp[le, in a workshop scene, we had Freya, who's character was a 5 year old trapped inside a 20 year olds body. She was constantly asking to play, The doctors started getting annoyed with her and ended up threatening her with the electric chair.

Along in the next workshop idea, we had a crazed man who thought he was the second coming of Jesus. And had about 5 mental patients praying in their own individual ways. After the doctors enter and explain the the psychiatric what each character is behaving like, The man who thinks he is jesus gets extremely weird with the doctors, demanding that he is the second coming, and that they are disturbing a house of peace.

The good thing about the idea and fort amherst, is that they link extremely well. There are lots of different tunnels with different characteristics, for example, one looks like a church, one looks like a big isolation room, we can study each room, and bring different ideas for each one, i feel this way we can come up with a really clever cut piece, that flows well and will be dynamic

Character ideas and workshops

We have started to come up with character ideas, We are all going to be mental patients, i decided i wanted to lean towards a psychotic murderer, because i know i would be able to portray the character well and look absolutely crazy while doing it, i want to really bring fear to the audience through how i play the character. In workshops so far, i have not been able to display my full potential with the character. I want to get a character profile down also to help me understand why my character is the way he is, and why he behaves in certain ways.

I had the idea of having my character constantly paranoid, hearing voices, telling him repetitively to kill, i feel this will make my character appear eerie and odd