Rehearsal Diary

Monday 6th October
- ran opening scene
- devised market place scene
- devised 1st Pig's house scene
- devised 2nd Pig's house scene

Today was a highly successful rehearsal, as we managed to devise three new scenes with the time we had, as we were losing Ali early for a doctor's appointment. Running the opening scene kept it fresh in our minds and allowed us to run it professionally, as we would for the primary school children.

The market place scene gives us more audience interaction, where we each ask questions for the audience, such as "What should I buy to build my house with?" Alongside this are some comic aspects where we reference Little Red Riding Hood and the questions she asks the wolf in that fairy tale, "What big nose you have, what big eyes you have etc."

The 1st Pig's house scene led to a discussion of what we will build the set out of, we decided to have a pre-made house for each pig, which would be pulled up by the actor on stage as if they were building it. Then they would ask the audience for assistance in putting the finishing touches on the houses' exterior. With each scene the Wolf (Liam) will do the classic 'huff and puff' line that is so closely linked with the fairy tale, but to give it a further comic effect, what really blows the houses down is a fart from the Wolf's behind! This directly links with the comic aspects that our target audience desire.

After devising the second house scene, we discussed how we could flesh out these scenes to make sure that we don't make our performance too short. We thought about what Children's Theatre often entails, and decided that we should add a few songs. We also chose songs that would link well with fairy tales, and stated that we would find pre-existing songs and adapt them to fit our narrative.

For the first pig's house, we are adapting the song Do You Want to Build a Snowman from Frozen, a popular song that the entire audience will be familiar with. The lyrics we constructed are easy to follow and learn, so that the audience can join in, but also link well with the narrative. The lyrics are:

Do you want to build house kids?
Come on and help me out
I do not feel safe anymore
I've got some straw
You'll help me out, no doubt

I used to live with Mummy, now I don't
I wish she was here right now
Do you want to build a house kids?
Please help me build a house kids
Help me out

Monday 13th October

- discussed 3rd pig's song

- discussed Wolf theme tune

- devised a short TV sketch on the theme of pirates

I thought of a song/chant for my section of building the brick house. I based it on the chant-like structure of Brick by Brick by Arctic Monkeys. It's repetitive and easy to follow for young audience members, and so I changed the lyrics to suit the narrative.

After each line as seen here, I will get the audience to shout 'BRICK BY BRICK' which will keep a rhythm for me to build the set whilst interacting with the audience. 

The TV show devised piece helped us to utilise our bodies as scenery and also to improve character work for young audiences. Pirates are a good way to work on characterisation as they are loud and lovely much to a child audience's delight.

Monday 20th October

At the start of the lesson, we practised tone of voice for children's theatre, by telling various opening lines to stories and addressing children who are struggling socially, and trying to cheer them up. This worked well as we were able to accurately approach each situation presented by Mr Kelly, and focused on key words that obtained actions that kids will enjoy such as 'disco'. I did a dance that children would find comedic and one that they can relate to. We then applied this level of energy to a run through of the opening scene so that we could visualise our performance.

Building the first house - second part 

Jake and I enter to assist Ali in the building of the straw house. We come in after Ali sings the Do You Want To Build a Snowman section of the song, and we join him to construct the house to our lyrics of the Let it Go chorus from frozen. Our lyrics are:

Get some straw

Grab some more

Put it all up against the walls 

Get some more

Grab more straw

Could you imagine if it falls

We don't care what the wolf will do

Let him huff and puff

The wolf never scared me much anyway

The plan for the next lesson is to stage this song, and run the entire scene to make sure it is at a professional standard.

Thursday 23rd October

 - we rehearsed the first pigs songs, and choreographed some simple steps to it 

- we created the wolfs song to make it three frozen songs in that section 

- we ran through all three songs so that it was to a more suitable standard 

Pigs'll snort

Bacon pancakes can't be bought

And I'll be having whatever wolves have for supper!

A drink in my paw

I'm gonna blow down this house of straw

And I'll be having this little pig for supper! 

I'll huff and puff and huff again

And blow away this house

I'll eat this yummy little pig and dessert's a mouse!

And I can't wait to eat

This scrummy yummy piggy treat

Just imagine how much fuller I'll be after supper! 

(Dance break improvisation from Liam)

Bacon and pancakes are both so intense

Little pig key me in, it just makes sense!

These are the lyrics for the Frozen song In Summer. I, along with the rest of the cast, re-wrote the lyrics so that we could relate our narrative to the rhythm of the song. The audience will once again recognise the song and therefore feel engaged in the narrative through its recognisability.

Monday 3rd November

- choreographed chant for 3rd pig

- crafted lyrics for wolf section of chant

- devised 3rd pig scene

- discussed ending

Thursday 6th November

- ran 3rd pig scene

- choreographed 2nd pig scene and dance 

- I chose song for dance - I like to move it

Monday 10th November

- ran movement pieces and specific scenes

Thursday 13th November

- ran production

Monday 17th November


- speed run of entire production (Liam was not present)
- trust exercises and team-building exercises

Purpose of the performance

The main purpose of the performance was to entertain. We had to keep the audience engaged the entire time, achieved by audience interaction such as the chants and the "boo's" for when the wolf showed up. We also wanted to convey the message of forgiveness, particularly with Christmas in mind, and the spirit of giving and love. We met this by adapting the original ending and having the wolf enter the pigs house and apologise. He was forgiven, and then we celebrated Christmas as friends and family. We wanted this to be clear, that the holidays was the time for family and friends, and kindness.

Is our performance suitable?

Our main concern was ensuring that our performance suited our audience. Straight away, comedy was a must. We then discussed that the audience we had would love slapstick comedy, and so we put aspects of slapstick into our performance. Sticking within the comedy vein, when improvising our production, many puns came through to do with pigs. Even though upon discussion, we decided that many, if not all the children wouldn't quite understand the puns, we kept them in for the teachers that would be supervising the children, because we felt that they would still want to have entertainment. Films for children often have adult ideas hidden away for comedic effect, that only adults will fully understand, such as the new film Paddington. My uncle recently took his kids to see it, and he told me that he also enjoyed the film, as it catered to the parents taking their children to see it too. This is what we wanted for our own performance, and from the feedback we received at the end of each performance, I felt that we had a suitable performance for the entire audience, both the teachers and the school children.

Venue

When we arrived at both venues, we were shown to the hall of each school. The first hall belonged to a smaller school, therefore we had to adapt our performance to work with the venue. We moved the performance stage blocks to create a higher stage off the ground to be higher than the audience, to make it easier to control the room vocally and physically. We used movable noticeboards to act as the 'wings' of the stage too.

In the second school, the entire infant school came to watch, and so we had a larger performance area. The stage was already set up, presumably for their school's nativity, and so we moved the notice boards like last time, and used them as the backstage for the production.

Target Audience

Our audience was a collection of ages from Reception Class to Year 2's. This was ideal for our ideas as a company, to utilise slapstick actions, comedic voices, and wacky narrative additions to the original tale, to engage and enthral the children. Upon discussing what features we would like to have in the production, we decided that having audience engagement would be ideal, to both ensure their fascination but also to allow them to feel as though they are more of a part of the world of the narrative.

During our performance, the audience often shouted "it's the wolf", and booed him just like we asked in the introductions, and so I personally would say that we met our target audience well, as they sounded as though they were engaged throughout, in both performances.

Production - lighting, costume, health and safety etc

The costume was decided when I was away for an audition. I was sent a message explaining that we are having simple but effective costumes to differentiate each pig and the wolf. Mr Kelly crafted pig masks for each of us, and also the wolf mask for Liam, and an extra wolf mask for when we trick the wolf into thinking we are his mum. He explained what he had created, which was half a cardboard pipe of loo roll with string tied around it, with pink fluff stuck to the outside, for each pig nose. He then gave us each a head band with pink material in the shape of ears. For costume, in the sense of what each pig wore, we had slightly altered costumes to show the difference between us. Danny wore a dress, to show that he was Mummy Pig. I wore worker boots, jeans and a checked shirt. This gave a sort of builder look, which related to my character in that I built my house out of bricks.


The lighting designs for these productions was kept simple as we did not have previous access to reach schools equipment. We left the lights as they were, giving the production simplicity, and not focusing on certain parts of the stage, but the piece as a whole.

Forms of storytelling

We had five key things that we wanted to have in the production. They were:

- music
- adventure
- comedy
- magic
- imagination

This was to be included in the production no matter what. We had to meet these aspects in order to achieve our goals as performers.

With these in mind, we had movement pieces, songs from Frozen, a chant based on an Arctic Monkeys song and comedic twist to the narrative at the end. All these factors gave our production a unique way of telling the original tale.

Adapting the original tale

The original tale is widely known by everyone. The 3 Little Pigs is one of the most famous classic stories ever. To perform this and make it interested to an audience that already knows the narrative, we needed to adapt it. We added things such as slapstick events, but we also had inspiration from other tales, both classic and modern, to make a unique, exciting story for the children to enjoy.

We firstly added little references to Little Red Riding Hood, with the whole "what big teeth you have" conversation that she has with the wolf in that tale. This was firstly questionable as to whether the kids would catch on to it, but if not we also had various teachers supervising the kids, and therefore that reference was in place for them too.

We also added songs from Frozen, with altered lyrics to align with the narrative. This, upon performing the production, proved to be a great idea, as the kids recognised the songs instantly, but enjoyed hearing the new lyrics. Frozen is a massively popular story for the youth of today, and so the decision to input this into our tale was a good idea.

We performed dance pieces too, again modernising and adapting the original tale, and making the story exciting and engaging, without changing any of the original narrative itself.

A decision was made to focus the ending around a Christmas theme, as Christmas was looming over the date of the production. Therefore we made the Wolf come in and apologise, and taught the message of forgiveness to the children in the spirit of Christmas. This differs from the original tale but was well received by the audiences from both schools.

Educational Messages

As this  production was performed during the lead up to Christmas, our main message was that of the act of giving, and appreciation. This was summed up successfully by Danny, who played Mumma Pig. When the Wolf came to apologise (another educational message, of working on your mistakes) Mumma Pig accepts his apology and allows him to sit with the other pigs for Christmas. Danny also made the message clear by saying that Christmas is a time for giving, for love, for friendship and appreciation.
These messages are perfect for the target audience as the children will have them embedded in their minds for future decisions made. Facing up to consequences like the Wolf, and being there for others, as well as the act of giving during Christmas time.

Character Profile

Basic Statistics

Name: Brainy
Age: 9 years
Nationality: Pig-lish (English)
Hometown: Mumma Pig's Pen
Current Residence: Brick Lane
Occupation: Architect and Builder
Income: 15 corn a month
Talents/Skills: Smart and strong enough to design and build houses

Physical Characteristics:

Height: 1.3m
Weight: 220kg
Race: Mammal
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Ginger
Glasses or contact lenses? Yes
Skin color: Pink
Shape of Face: (see top right image)
Distinguishing features: None
How does he/she dress? Smart shoes, jeans,
flannel shirt and glasses
Mannerisms: Moves glasses back in position often
Habits: (smoking, drinking etc. none
Health: In top shape
Hobbies: designing elaborate futuristic houses, and golf
Favorite Sayings: "This is an outrage!"
Speech patterns: sophisticated, long words
Disabilities: none
Style (Elegant, shabby etc.): smart
Greatest flaw: bit of a nerd
Best quality: Brains and muscles!



Intellectual/Mental/Personality Attributes and Attitudes

Educational Background: Hogsford University
Intelligence Level: High
Any Mental Illnesses? none
Character's short-term goals in life: build a house to last, after his Mum asked him to leave
Character's long-term goals in life: have a family and grow old with them
How does Character see himself/herself? a clever and giving person
How does Character believe he/she is perceived by others? others are envious of him, but he does not like to show this thought out loud
How self-confident is the character? Fairly
Does the character seem ruled by emotion or logic or some combination thereof?
What would most embarrass this character? A house he has constructed that doesn't last


Emotional Characteristics


Strengths/Weaknesses: Physical and Mental Strength, yet relies on Mum to look after him and his brothers
What does the character want out of life? A high paid job and a loving family household.
What would the character like to change in his/her life? He would like to move out and look after himself
What motivates this character? SLOP
What frightens this character? The Big Bad Wolf
What makes this character happy? A warm home, and slop
Is the character judgmental of others? No, he's smart enough not to start fights
Is the character generous or stingy? Generous enough to let his brothers live with him!
Is the character generally polite or rude? Generally quite polite

How the Character is Involved in the Narrative 

Scene where character first appears: Scene 1, waking up

Relationships with other characters:

1. Mumma Pig: -- Constant love for the pig-person who looked after him from birth, and assisted him to become the pig he is today.
2. The Big Bad Wolf: -- Lives in fear of this character, but will stand up to him when the time comes
3. Pig #2 and Pig #1: -- Brothers from birth, bonded more overtime what with the Wolf threatening to kill them!

THE CHARACTER PROFILE SEEMS TO BE QUITE CHILDISH, HOWEVER I CREATED IT WITH THE TARGET AUDIENCE IN MIND, AND THEREFORE WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT IT WAS SUITABLE FOR AN AUDIENCE MEMBER TO READ, SHOULD THEY WANT TO PURSUE THE PRODUCTION FURTHER. I FEEL THAT SOMETHING LIKE THIS ENHANCES CHARACTERIZATION, AND DOING IT IN THE STYLE OF OUR TARGET AUDIENCE HELPED ME UNDERSTAND THE AUDIENCE WE WOULD BE PERFORMING TO BETTER.