6.5. Scene 3 & Production Meeting & Signs

   Today we started to tackle on scene 3 and I was quite happy with how many times we were actually able to run through the scene with commenting and changing things in it at the same time. 

   We still need to work on the newspaper people on the background. For now, we have been improvising the movements, but I feel we need to look up certain lines where we react in a certain way, choreograph it more and make it way more stylized. We also noticed by the end of the class, that the stage directions actually say that the people leave in the middle of the scene, meaning we have less time to play with the newspapers. What also changed about the newspaper people was that we first had them as people at the bookie's office, which I am kind of sad we lost. It gave the atmosphere for the bookie's office, telling the audience where the scene is set, but also gave movement to the people on the background. I'd like to see if we could for example first have the people listening to a radio, betting on horses, and when the conversation between Ui and the other's gets heated, us extra people could start listening and snooping around. 

During BLP, we had a production meeting where we went over each team and discussed when their next deadline was, where are they in meeting that deadline and what do they need to do next. This was a pretty straight forwards conversation. Me and Sophie are ahead of Marketing. Our upcoming deadline is distributing the posters and  leaflets, which was originally set for next week, put we decided to push it back for another week. We don't want to put the posters up too early, since people forget easily and they might be taken down or covered by other people's posters after a couple of weeks. By putting them up the week after we still have close to a month before the show, which is plenty of time for the posters to be up. We also discussed Other ways to promote our show. We already have a Facebook page and Twitter account, but we need people to buy tickets and get more interested. Sophie talked to Andy about leafleting and if we could perhaps get a permit to do that on a day or two couple of weeks before the show and he promised to call someone about it. We also thought about maybe pitching a story to The Argos, but the problem with this is that we would have to have an interesting story for them thought out first. I also came up with maybe leading workshops to nearby schools drama classes. This could get us some more publicity and more people who would come and watch our shows, but also give us experience in creating and leading a workshop. The workshop could either be about Epic Theatre or Commedia dell'arte, since those are two styles we have been studying. I already e-mailed a couple of schools asking if they would be interested.

   Me and Sophie are also ahead of doing the program for the show. We are trying to get new head shots taken of all of us, since that would make the program more professional, but I feel that even if we can't get them done by the photographing students, we can take our own if needed. They wouldn't be as good, but I think it is still important for us all to have some kind of introduction for us all. Max also brought some programs from other shows for inspiration. These are some things I would like to include in our program:

1. Cover - similar to poster, doesn't necessarily need all of the information on it
2. Introduction to the play and author - summary of the play, Brecht, Epic theatre and the time the play was written in
3. How we see the play? - explain our vision and political opinion, what inspired us style vise
4. Introduction of the actors - Head shots and short introductions about who we are, why we act and what are we doing after this course
5. List of characters and their actors
6. (Maybe) Scene Summaries
7. Thank you's and acknowledgments

  We also talked about the signs in the play. Before, we have just kind of brushed them off and not talked about them too much, but today we really got on it to decided what they will be in our play.There were a couple of ideas flying around. Sophie and Sav were planning to have  pictures that would somehow represent the scene and the play, but we were also pointed that Brecht wanted it to be clear to the audience why these scenes happened. We decided to have a mix of both picture and text signs, using both the projector and actual sign to our advantage. These were the texts that would be for each scene, telling the audience what historical events they represent:

• Prologue
• Montage/Powerpoint of news articles
• Scene 1
• Germany is hit by the world crisis. The cauliflower trust represents Prussian Junkers.
• Scene 2
• Prussian Junkers offer president Hinderburg an estate.
• Scene 3
• Nazi's are threatened by bankruptcy. Hitler tries to be appointed Chancellor nut Hinderburg refuses to see him
• Scene 4
• Hitler is appointed chancellor, promising to prevent the composure of Osthilfe scandal
• Scene 5
• Hitler keeps his promise but use's violent measures
• Scene 6
• Drawing/Drama masks representing the change of Hitler and the rumours about how he was trained by an actor. 
• Scene 7
• Reichstag Fire
• Scene 8
• Innocent unemployed worked is sentenced to death for causing the fire.
• Scene 10(we skipped 9, since it doesn't tell exactly about a real event, nor does it say in the play it has a sign)
• The death of Hinderburg. Junkers demand Röhm's removal. The occupation of Austria is planned.
• Scene 11
• Hitler betrays Röhm
• Scene 12
• The Austrian chancellor Dollfuss agrees to stop the media attacks against Hitler
• Scene 13
• Dollfuss is murdered. Hitler continues to negotiate with Austrian rightist circles.
• Scene 15
• Hitler marches into Austria. An election under Nazi terror results in a %98 vote for Hitler.
• Epilogue
• A montage of past and present leaders and dictators connecting to Hitler and how society has had the change to stop this, but have they? Have we?

• Did I achieve my last goal? What could I improve on?
• I wanted try to look at the scene in a more playful way, which ina way I did. We for the newspaper people I suggested to try lead and follow game, something we have done before to train our complicity. Also we tried a game where want to hear and see what the gangsters are talking about, but also cannot be seen by them. I could have used another game or two to create the choreography for the newspapers, but at the moment I could think of any. 
• What did I learn during this lesson? How can I use it?
• We really need to read the stage directions! This might seem like a stupid thing to say, since it is so obvious, but today we forgot to read them and until the end of the class we didn't realize that halfway trough the scene the extra people flee away. 
• What is my goal for the next lesson? What do I need to do to achieve this? What information do I need?
• We have extra rehearsal tomorrow and I really want to work on the newspaper people before moving on to the next scene, even if it won't be with the other people acting on the foreground, but to make it interesting. I could look into musicals and movies for movement inspiration, Newsies could be a good example. Also, simply looking at scene from gangster movies where they are in crowded areas can show how people acted in public in a more stylized way.