On Saturday 2nd April, we took the cast members down to local Danegrove Primary School, dressed in school uniform and ready to improvise all the previous and immediate circumstances of the play. These included the all important trigger event, when Kal asks the others to his Friday night sleepover, the school playground relationships between all the children, and classroom antics, from Victorian Projects to secret missions to get back a mobile phone.
So after a few quick exercises establishing the relationships between all the characters, and a short period of work on the character’s tempo, we launched back in time to Monday 18th September 2006, the start of the week our play is set, and to the morning of another day at school.
A game of tag, some football, skipping, and practice of a dance routine between best friends Tilly and Jas, and our world was up and running. Improvisations were run with intentions in place, Tilly Can’t keep a secret, Kal doesn’t like Boff, Tilly likes Ro, and Boff doesn’t play football.
Into the classrooms where work begins on the Victorian Projects that Mal mentions within the play. Intentions set once again, from Ro getting a secret note to Tilly, Kal over using his mobile phone, and Mal portraying the behavioural difficulties that eventually see him excluded from class and sent to see the headmistress.
With an hour left we move to the all-important day, Friday 22nd September 2006 at the school gates, the morning of the sleepover. Excitement, planning, arguments, inclusion and exclusion. Then the secret mission. Kal must get his mobile phone back, and fortunately, with some clues in place from throughout the exercise, between them they have just the gang to achieve the impossible. When Tilly gets the Year Seven students to play on the climbing frame, the teacher takes her cardigan off. Mal can get the key from the pocket and open the classroom block where they know another key is hidden inside a draw, which opens the classroom where the phone is kept in a filing cabinet. Luckily, just before getting caught by the approaching teaches, Tilly declares her love for Mrs Carberry whilst slyly slipping the key back in her pocket. Mission accomplished.
So with the exercise over and our background firmly established we are ready to move on to the next stage of our process, including a three hour live Scary Adventure around Barnet. A terrifying experience that the cast are ding their best to look forward to, and another way of adding an enormous amount of depth and quality to our work in the run up to July’s performances.
