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COMMS - URGANT


willbob8

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If verbal cueing is as important as you say it is, something should've been factored into the budget to make it happen. And it definitely shouldn't have been left until last-minute - if you knew you were going to need it, and knew that the venue didn't have a system installed, it should've been considered from early on in the planning stages!

 

At worst, you could rig up a system of lightbulbs in the relevant places, switched remotely - light on for stand-by, off for go. And you say you've got a large stage crew - task one of them with running up to the dressing rooms to give them their calls!

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My negative comments are really just because after a week of standing in for an ill drama teacher the week before last, I've realised that there is no need whatsoever, of introducing any form of complication whatsoever into school GCSE or Arts Award Drama. I was in a drama space, equipped by the usual firm, and spent far too much time stopping the kids turning on the lights programmed in a chase - rather than the flu tubes we really needed. I find the notion that year 7 can learn lines and follow a script laughable. There's no time to learn scripts, and it's not necessary. Attention span of microseconds for some, and no sense of responsibility from most of the students. Schools do drama without the need for anything remotely like professional practice - so after just a week of doing it, I'm convinced, even more than before, that the BR 'almost' policy of recommending no movers and no state of the art clever technology is correct. Every time it's use is justified by someone, the real reason for the toys is fun for the boys! The prospect of the older kids bossing the younger ones around sounds far more fun than the actual need for it.

 

If the TEACHER is not worried about comms, then it is NOT important in the great scheme of things.

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I find the notion that year 7 can learn lines and follow a script laughable. There's no time to learn scripts, and it's not necessary.

 

In primary school (ages 3½–7) we did a school play in French. None of us had a single word of French, but it was all learned by rote. I do remember sticking my head through the curtains and saying "act trois".

 

 

That was a few years ago, mind.

 

 

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In primary school (ages 3½–7) we did a school play in French. None of us had a single word of French, but it was all learned by rote.

Why? :blink:

I think to convince the fee-paying parents that Little Angels School was more genteel than the council Yobbo Primary down the road. :o

 

 

 

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we managed in our school (many many years ago) to do it all from scripts that were almost direct copies from the prompt copy. that way everyone knows what should happen next and when it should happen. Run off a few copies for lx, sound, SM, ASM, Stage left/right , upstage down stage, toilet or wherever you need them to be .
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Of course the no-cost solution is bodies. Responsible bodies who can follow a script. Enough that they can act almost as a chain gang sending messages to the right places :)

 

To give an example of the opposite extreme....

 

I'm current midway through "Wind in the Willows". It's an all girl cast aged 11-15 (fee paying school :rolleyes: ) about 40 of them. There's the drama teacher and me (I'm support staff).

We are doing the show on the stage (shock, horror) and the cast have to stay backstage behind the set flats which is crammed with junk, we made just enough space for them to stand.

 

Minutes before curtain up we send them off from the dressing room to back stage where they remain for the entire performance unsupervised with no backstage help. ALL the students backstage are acting, there are no 'stage' staff at all!

 

THAT'S how you run a show with NO communication whatsoever. Trust. We're reet proud of the little darlings :D

 

Sadly - for the rest of you :o - we are a fortunate minority, you have my sympathy dealing with students (and adults?) who simply cannot be trusted to know where they should be and when :(

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