First Commission: “The Fairy Pirate Girl”

Dress Rehearsal:

On Friday we performed the whole story and activities to the Level 2 group. This was brilliant for both the company and the audience as the Level 2’s had to act like 5 year olds; which was fantastic to watch. Also it was a very valuable experience. I started by explaining to the audience the purpose of the exercise and what the actual performance was being used for. We then played “Whats the time Mr Wolf” to get the Level 2’s to loosen up as 5 year olds as I placed the items around the room for the Scavenger Hunt and the girls finished getting ready.

The piece started, but immediately I felt an uncertainty as the energy in the room didn’t feel focused or right for the piece. It felt that the Level 2’s were not going to be fully immersed in the embodiment of 5 year olds and therefore because they were holding back; then the girls would be disorientated and not give it 100%. Although the girls gave it their all, there were lines dropped and corpsing as they were determined to show me that they knew it would for word; and were then frustrated and disappointed in themselves when they dropped lines. The activities worked really well, the Level 2’s really entered into this and we could see that the kids would love it at the party. They all loved the “Swashbuckle salute” and “Scavenger Hunt” and then during the “Pin the flag on the island”; they all had a really good go and were not disgruntled when the birthday girl won in order to link to the story.

Afterwards, I asked for some feedback and they all said they absolutely loved it and that the kids would at the party too. They also said that the girls need to help each other out subtly if they drop lines and I reassured them this would definitely be taken on board. Lou picked up on the fact that there was a lot of stand up/ sit down with the kids and this could make them lose out on hearing a crucial part of the story. I totally agreed with this and made sure that the girls knew when they should be keeping the kids up in order to make them part of the story and not miss out on a certain part.

The overall running time of the piece including the activities was 48 minutes. Well within the original time that I was allocated in the original brief by Stephanie.

 

The Level 2’s during Port/Starboard (Centre), “Pin the flag on the island” (Left) & engaged in Captain Blushburn’s speech (Right)

The Party:

As I have already stated in my “First Commission” page, I was unable to be at the party itself due to work and rehearsal commitments. Therefore, I left everything on the day in the capable hands of Em and the girls. They arrived at Risby Village Hall and received a very warm welcome from Stephanie.

They then set up the Scavenger Hunt and changed while the children were created pirate hats and fairy wands etc.

The story and activities went very well with the children being very engaged and hanging on every word that the girls said. One of the problems that they found was that some of the children were younger than 5 as they were siblings and therefore did not want to enter into any of the activities.

This meant that due to a small number of children, the whole story was over in half an hour, which was way too early for our allocated time. The girls then thought on their feet and played playground games with the children to pass the time. These included playing Port/Starboard again but changing the actions and the rules. The kids received this very well and no one could tell that we were trying to make time up.

The parents watched on and loved every minute of the party. I am awaiting official feedback from Stephanie via email, however Em reported back that her siblings loved it and were singing Irish sea all evening and night. They also refused to change out of their pirate and fairy costumes and kept their name badges as they were very proud of them.

Overall I think the party was a success and is something that I could definitely do again with the same company. It was a delight to work with the girls. Next time however, I think I will have more structure and time allocation to my rehearsals as the first rehearsals felt too chilled and then the final rehearsals were very stressful and rushed for everyone.