N2C. 21|11|12. - Theatre In Education Project. 'Junk' by Melvin Burgess.

We started work on a Theatre in Education piece that the N2C theatre group were commissioned to do for the English department related to the author 'Melvin Burgess' and the 'Junk'.  We are to perform it to 3 groups of around 50 year 7's throughout an offtimetable day where they will also be meeting the author. 

Cast: 

Invidulator & Tar and
 Gemma's Friend :Chris

Tar's Dad (John) : Matt

Tar : Jake

Tar's Mum : Poppy (Me)

Gemma's sister : Emily

Gemma's Mum : Kelly

Gemma : Ciara

 We also used two of our N2C members to be extra's:

Mia Wilson - Matthew Strawford

 Plot: 
It focus's on the struggle's in Tar's life. He has a girlfriend (Gemma) who comes from a more well-off area and mum does not approve of Tar's family. Tar's dad is abusive towards him and his mother when she gets in the way. When we see that things get too much for Tar he says he's going to Bristol, Gemma, sick of being with her mother, says she's going to come with him, he doesn't want her too. When he leaves, his mother is abused more and Gemma goes to Bristol regardless. We ended our story on a cliffhanger of whether he should return home, or stay in Bristol with Gemma.

Performance planning: 

Because we had a short time to put this together, Sir was blasting through directions of what we had to do and we figured out what we were the aims were as we were going through. 

Our staging was set out with chairs surrounding the staging. this meant that everyones attention was focused on the middle of the stage. There were people at each four corners of the stage ready to run across like this:

Preamble : We then had to do crossover's four times, and we went two corners at a time. We were to be young teenagers, in secondary school, showing busy school children. Each time we had to be showing something different. My group went -being late. -arguing. -bitching. -reading & barging. we then all ran on to do a 'facebook picture' pose, to relate to the audience. This catches the year 7's attention straight away, there's also going to be loud music so they're not concentrating on what we're saying but the image it creates. Hint: Jake was then told to stand centre stage, he walks round, make sure he directs part of his sentence to each block of chairs. 'School, is the best place I've ever been'. This is a statement that not many children would agree with, and because so, the rest of the cast runs screaming 'no!' with a violent stance of being about to punch him. When he reassures us it is, we drop our fists and ask why? he then says 'Because it's not home'. We then walk back to our entrances with no facial expressions. This has planted the first bit of information. What is so bad about home? 

Social:

Gemma: Tar is centre stage, sat on a table with earphones in and there's also music playing. Gemma walks on slides onto the table and bumps into Tar, knocking his earphones out. They then talk about maths and Gemma stands on the table to show her big personality and makes a comedic innuendo about sex but not making it to noticeable we hid it in a maths reference about algebra. She then notices his black eye. She freeze's. Tar (Jake) uses direct address to say how people notice no matter what it is. The scene goes back into motion and he's reassures her it's nothing and says 'let's go to the park'. 

Park: Now we enter a youth scene. There is loud music on, Chris comes on adjusts the table sits on it, he mimes failing at lighting a fag to show youth trying to be bad and getting into stuff they probably shouldn't. Matthew Strawford (N2C member) then comes on and gives Chris a nuggie, an instant friendship is established. Mia and I (not as the mother, as a teenager) come on shouting 'WKD'. Then Chris and Matthew disagree and shout 'Fosters'. Then Kelly and Emily come on from opposite corners and shout 'Smirnoff', this is clearly the superior drink as we all react with oo's and jump onto the table drinking and laughing.

 This shows a group of badly behaving youth's because they're drinking under age and in the park which is considered quite low class and antisocial behaviour. When Tar and Gemma enter the scene, we call out to them, showing that we're friends with them as they greet friendly. I then fall off the table in a drunk manner and the scene freezes. Tar stands up onto the table and explains the park a little, and how we're not doing anyone harm. He then jumps down music starts to play and repeat 3 freeze frames, 3 times before we run off. Everyone's first one was drinking, then whatever we liked, then showing to run off, this made it a smoother transition when we had to run off. 
When the rest of us run off we leave Chris, Jake and Ciara laughing centre stage, Chris is clearly drunk, Ciara is partly sober and Jake has had nothing to drink. When Chris's character tries to peer pressure Tar into having a drink, he admits he can't and he has to leave now anyway, he leaves off stage in a hurry. Leaving Chris to hit on Ciara, after Ciara puts Chris in his place in a comedic way of pulling his finger back, and Chris's over the top drunk reaction, she marches off stage and Chris follows behind wobbly, saying 'she touched my finger!'. This is a light hearted part of the play that shows the friends Tar has but can also how frustrated he feels for hiding it from them all the time later on.

Home: Loud music plays and Matt (Tars Dad) comes on with a chair and puts it in the corner he entered at the very beginning of the piece. He stands the table up on it's shortest side to create a door, and then returns to the chair. The music continues to play until Tar comes on, and turns the table over so it's on all fours after unlocking the door. The music fades to silence, and Tar is shocked at his dad wait, he says 'it's nine' letting the audience know this must of been his curfew, and his dad is not happy. We've already established that he doesn't like home life, because 'school is the best place he's ever been'. His dad looks at his own watch then says 'ten past' before Tar has time to apologise, his mum (me) comes on behind his fathers chair and says 'your tea's in the kitchen son, just get it from the oven'. Tar says thanks and begins to walk over, before he fully gets off stage Matt shouts 'stop!' this makes the audience jump and keeps creates an intense atmosphere as it's mostly been happy so far. Matt goes to get the table and bangs it into centre stage so he's facing his wife and his son at the two corners. 

He then says how he wants to eat as a family, but I state how me and him have already eaten in a nervous tone, as if I don't know whether I should say it but I do anyway. He then gives me a glare and tells Tar to get his dinner. The way he shoves off my comment shows how he has the most power in the family. Tar goes of to get his dinner and I push the chair in and wait for him to return, I touch his head briefly to show affection. Matt's voice remains blunt  as he asks is it nice.  He then moves the plate away from Tar, walks back into the corner next to the bottom right corner of the diagram takes a deep breath and says 'you've been drinking. I can smell it.' Before Tar has a chance to fully reply, I walk over to the table and say 'Just let him eat his dinner John!' Matt turns his head towards me and makes a start, Jake stands up and quickly says 'yeh, okay, I had a drink' to protect his mum. Matt grabs the back of Jakes head and pushes it down so it looks like Jake has head has been violently pushed onto the table, but it's just a stage fall, and he cushions his head with arm, which makes a louder noise so it sounds like it's just his head.

We then repeat the preamble but doing only two crossovers this time, before Jake repeats the 'Hint' which now makes complete sense to the audience. He does this in pain, as if he's only just stood up from being hit.

We managed to do this amount of work in the 2 hours N2C time. We went through up to the end of the social section to get the timings right as the whole group especially on the 3 freeze frames that are repeated 3 times, as these require group knowledge of how long we stay in each position. We agreed on 3 counts before switching to the next freeze frame. Because we could find a place for this in out BTEC course we decided to make sure we pay a lot of attention and figure out why we do what where.