Diploma in Perform

Performing &
Production Arts
Unit 8 Project Proposal

Candidate
Name Emily Andrews
Candidate
Number 371332
Pathway
Acting
Project Title
The Sad Club
Section 1: Review
When I first joined this course, I was hoping to only build my skills in the emotional and physical aspect
of acting. But I was surprised when the academic units came towards us like the vision unit. Over this
first year of BTA I am glad to say that my mind has been opened to the new possibilities that I can go
forward into. The first thing that I am proud to say that I have learnt is devising. When I first came to
BTA, I had no previous devising experience. But the other students around me and practitioners have
been so supportive of everyone in the year, regardless of our abilities, and they have taught us to make
sure we are all on the same level. Another thing that I was very excited to learn about was puppetry. I
had never thought of puppetry from a theatrical point of view, but it was an amazing experience to learn
the mechanics of how you can make a puppet come to life and where and how puppetry is used is used
in the theatre world. These lessons have taught and shaped me as an actor that I need to have an open
mind to all kinds of performing that isn’t just straight acting, musical theatre or film acting. All these
lessons are valuable to me because they have shown me that I have only scratched the surface of what
performing arts really is and has made me more willing to explore new kinds of theatre.

Section 2: Project Concept

Our FMP, The Sad Club, is a play written by Luke Barnes and published in early 2019. It is a piece of
gig theatre (a play that uses live music to enhance the story line) centered mainly around mental health
in teens. The play teaches the audience what real life situations can contribute and impact a young
person's mental health, like the school system or how we use the internet. But it also teaches ways to
help with your own mental health (mainly shown in the song lyrics). Because of these themes we must
do a lot of research so that we can make sure we are portraying these illnesses as accurately as we can
make it. We would need to research not only on websites, but we would need to ask other people what
their experiences were of similar situations and read books like “being miss nobody” or “wonder”. These
types of books can portray any type of illness better than any show or film because you can go into so
much more detail of what each character is thinking and feeling. Wonder gives the explanation of how
one person's problems can also impact everyone's lives around them. This would come in use for this
play for the way the ensemble can react to what anyone is saying. I’m excited to see how this play turns
out. I would love to have the harmonies coming from all angles of the auditorium because I feel like the
audience would have more of an impact as they would have the meaningful lyrics coming from all
corners even though we have an end on stage. For this you would have to hang extra speakers around
the auditorium to make the sound more rounded. To rehearse for this, we can go over the songs in a
circle or spread out so that we can get used to the sound of hearing all the harmonies everywhere and
so that we can make the transition between rehearsal room and stage smooth. I also think we have
such an amazing and supportive cast that we can take any constructive criticism from each other to help
build the scenes. But I also think because of the themes of the play it is important to make sure you
have cast people who you know would support each other where needed. Which I am glad to say is
something that will happen when the situation arises.

Section 3: Evaluation
Because this project is so big and important for our grades it is paramount that we as individuals take
the time to reflect on our journeys. An adequate way that I plan on doing this is journaling either videoed
or written up at the end of each week. To make sure we as the cohort are getting the reflections as
accurate as possible, we should share what we each remember happened so that we can get a full
picture and anyone who was off sick can catch up quicker. I think moving into the intensive weeks;
however, it could be a good idea for me to make a paper journal so that I can write what we did at the
end of each day instead of the week. This can help me spot any mistakes I made that day and improve
when moving forward, plus help me with my video journals a lot easier as it’s all already written down for
me. Doing these journals as a video is an excellent way for me to keep track of my main goal for this
project: to build my speech diction and vocal delivery. This means when recording my videos it forces
me to slow down my speech and to think about making each sound clear and precise. Watching these
videos back can then help me to track and help my progress of this goal. The cast I am part of is very
good at helping each other achieve their goals because most of us a close and know what each other's
goals are. However, because of this fact some voices do get left unheard during the group devising
process. Looking at this factor when going forward into the intensive weeks I intend to listen to as many
ideas as I can and share their thoughts (crediting them in the process) if they are struggling to be heard.

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Project Action Plan and Timetable

Week Date Week Activity / What you are intending to do - Resources / What you will need to do it -
Beginning including independent study including access to workshops

We read through the script and produced Rehearsal room, script, director,
1 19th themes that kept on coming up in the choreohrapher, cast
February play.

We got introduced to our music director Rehearsal room, keyboard, script,

2 26th and started learning harmonies for the Director, MD, Choreographer, Cast
February opening song of the show. We got given
monologues or duologues from the play
to look at, so that Krista could see who
worked well together and what scenes
suited which person for future
references.
We presented our initial research Rehearsal room, projection equipment,
3 4th March presentations to our class, which went keyboard, big paper, pens, script,
okay. We devised what could be a Director, MD, Choreographer, Cast
prologue to the play and analyzed
different scenes in small groups to
present back to the class. We also went
over what we learnt last week with Alex
(MD) and learnt background harmonies
used in the swimming sequence.
We got given either the same or different Rehearsal room, keyboard, script, Director,
4 11th March scenes to what we had been previously MD, Choreographer, Cast
given so that Krista could make a final
decision as to who would get what part
in the play. We learnt more songs with
 Alex, and they sound amazing! Finally,
we built up our core strength so that we
were able to lift people and build that
technique for when it comes to
choreographing the swimming contest.
We got given the casting for the play, some of Rehearsal room, script, keyboard, DIrector,
5 18th March it was unexpected but overall was a MD, choreographer, Cast
particularly good cast play. Some of us got
given duologues or monologues to act out
presumably so that Krista could cast the final
few into roles that she had not found for them
yet. We learnt two more songs with Alex and
are getting quick at learning harmonies! We
started on the choreography for Michael's
monologue with people being used as objects
and different freeze frames to really fill in the
space fir Michael to have people around him
when speaking the monologue
6 We showed our director what we had Rehearsal room, director, MD,
25th March worked on with our choreographer on choreographer, cast, script, musical
the Michael scene. We then decided to instruments
make more variations of it to show back
to the choreographer who they can then
decide which one works best for the play
and scene. We then started looking at the
you and younger you scene, coming up
and running already existing ideas the
director had. For the end of this day, we
finally sang through and worked on
missing harmonies for all the songs
we’ve learnt so far with the musical
director, until they were all running
smoothly. The next day, we worked on
the Cassie scene with our director. We
learnt part of the Britney Spears: Baby
one more time dance and incorporated
and devised the scene ourselves where
she watched them to get her own ideas
for the scene.
7 We started looking at different scenes Cast, show props, 2 guitars, bass, drum
15th April properly on Tuesday, looking at Mia’s kit, 2 guitar amps, bass amp, director,
scene and how props would get brought assistant director, md, choreographer,
on and who would be in the scene. We scripts, chairs
also looked at Georgias scene, thinking
about how we could bring Krita’s vision
of booked appearing out of nowhere to
life. On Wednesday we had a costume
call to see if things fit or not and if there
were going to be things needed to be
brought in (such as Hawaiian shirts or
shoes) I also got the chance to look at
my scene again and got some pointers of
stage positioning and how Krista wanted
the scene to feel like. We had a music
session with Alex in the afternoon where
we went back through songs to make
sure everyone still remembered their
 harmonies after the holidays. On
Thursday I was only needed for the
movement rehearsal in the afternoon
where we sorted out and tightened the
beginning of the show. On Friday we did
our first stagger through of the entire
show! We hadn’t set the transitions or
some of the movement in the songs so it
was slightly stop starty but it was an
amazing first stagger through!

8 On Monday I was only needed for the Scripts, cast, props, costumes,
22nd April movement session in the morning, which designers, directors, choreographer,
is when we sorted Lily’s scene, where we md, 2 guitars, bass guitar, drum kit, 2
casted who was going to be in the guitar amps, bass amp, temporary
popular or the smellies group, how we rostrum
would get the tables and chairs onto the
stage and how each groups freeze
frames are going to look like. On
Tuesday we added more to the
competition scene and had everyone
who wasn’t in the race peeping out from
behind the curtain for humor reasons
and so that we could be heard easier. We
also blocked the transitions for most of
the scenes throughout the whole play to
make sure everything runs as smoothly
as possible, we finally then looked at the
final song of the play and blocked some
of Kristas ideas roughly so we would
have something to do when we come to
doing another run through. On
Wednesday we picked right up where we
left off with the transition work and
finished those off as quickly as possible,
whilst running them a few times to make
sure we all knew what we were doing for
each one. Me and Mai then had a second
costume call where we then tried on our
party accessories and items that had to
get altered. Everything ended up fitting
well, and I’m happy to be wearing
trousers customized to my height, which
makes everything much easier. On
Thursday we did our first proper run
through of the show! For me it didn’t feel
like the most successful thing I’ve ever
done but I think for a first run through it
went well. I think tomorrow we must work
on the transitions again as some of them
did get messed up a little and I do need
to work on remembering what scene is
where in the play and what I need to
bring on during each scene to make the
play run smoother for myself. On Friday
we polished the transitions and fixed any
confusion in the cast, Krista also made
 us all write in our scripts what we do in
each scene and on what line so that she
had peace of mind that we all had some
form of notes that we could look at if we
ever got stuck. We then did another run
which ran a lot smoother than the day
before, so much so that we cut 15
minutes off the show entirely!

9 On Monday we choreographed the end Script, ALL CAST AND CREW,

29th April song and ran it a few times so that there stage, 2 guitars, bass guitar, drunk
was no confusion as to what props were
coming where and when and what
kit, 2 amps, bass amp, rostrum,
everyone was doing at different points of props, costume, microphones
the song. Having Linzy choreograph this
song was very helpful as it made me feel
more confident in what I was doing as
everything made a bit more sense and
slotted in a bit easier than when we did it
last week. In the afternoon we then ran
the show again and we blocked the bows
too so that we wouldn’t do those last
minute and make everything chaos. This
run went well, and we had James Moore,
Alicia, James Creed and all our
designers and stage managers watching
so that they could see what we had
worked on and for them to see what they
needed to call at which bit of the play. On
Tuesday morning we had a singing
session with Alex where we cleaned up
harmonies and ran the songs with
movement so that he could make sure
that everything also sounded good with
the movement added. This was helpful as
it allowed me to move in the swimming
competition so that I could sing my
harmony more easily. In the afternoon we
ran over scenes and dances that Krista
felt needed some work on. Unfortunately,
I was tired and upset at this point so not
much energy was put into this session,
but it was still helpful to be able to clarify
some things about the movement ready
for tech tomorrow. Wednesday was our
tech day! When I walked into this day, I
had no idea how tiring this would make
me, but we all got there in the end. This
day was amazing that we were all so
professional on the stage and so patient
that we managed to finish and leave the
theatre early, it was such an amazing
feeling to have accomplished that.
Thursday was our first dress run! This
didn’t go as smoothly as planned, such
as my table breaking on stage, but these
issues got flagged to the stage crew so
hopefully they will get fixed by tomorrow.
We also watched the other half of the
year's show. This was so much fun as we
got to see what they had been working
on and we got to celebrate their
achievements in their first year at BTA.
On Friday we had our last dress run and
our opening show. I was extremely
grateful for that dress run as it put my
mind at ease that the table transition
would go well for the actual shows. The
show itself in the evening went amazing.
I had someone in the audience watching
for me and he said he loved it and can’t
wait to watch anything else I do on this
course. This show was so much fun to
do, and we celebrated all our directors by
giving them cards and gifts to show our
appreciation for them and how much we
are going to miss all of them. Saturday
was our final show. We came in a couple
hours beforehand so that Krista could do
some last-minute cleaning of some
transitions then we had a break before
the last show. We all came back earlier
than called so that we could cheer on the
other cast and show them how amazing
they had done, just like they did for us
the day prior. The last show went
amazingly, and I loved every minute of
working on this project. I’m going to
miss The Sad Club.