So, this is what Lizi and I have planend to do with my Brownies tomorrow night :)

Obviosuly, legally I can't put photos of my Arts Leadership bit with them up here - that would be a) wrong and b) seen as slightly perverse, and so they'll just go straight into my print portfolio.

Here it is!

Brownies Theatre Night Plan

Introductions

·         Who we are and why we’re here

·         Tell the story about the boy and the girl and the troll who’s going to pollute the river

·         “So, we need you to help us solve some riddles by going back in time, to stop the troll – can you help us?”

·         All stand in a circle, holding hands, eyes closed – Doctor Who music (yes, I can do that!)

·         Open eyes – Roman times!

Roman times

·         Read riddle off big riddle sheet – need to find the name of the city

·         “Does anyone know it?” – do not let Wanipa answer, as she will know, and it will ruin it for the rest!

·         Jigsaw game with maps of Roman York – each six stands in a line (one behind the other), at the end of the hall, and at the other end, opposite them, is a pile of jigsaw pieces. They have to take it in turns to run and choose a jigsaw piece, but if they don’t get one which connects with what they already have, they have to take it back

·         The first six to complete the jigsaw and name the city gets to write the answer on the sheet, to stop the troll dumping the pollution

Time travel to Viking times

·         Long-boat races! Show the girls a picture of a long-boat, and tell them that they have to make one (from only their bodies) in their sixes to race down the hall

·         Winner of the race (or, failing that, the most imaginative boat) gets to write the answer down

Time travel to St. William

·         Tell the story of St. William (I’ll do that!) so that they know what happened

·         “Come in to the Giant’s House” game – sing a song in a circle which ends with “and see what we can see” – after which, say “St William’s Story”, and the sixes have to come up with a freeze based on that.

·         Whichever six comes up with the most imaginative freeze gets to write the answer on the sheet

Time travel to bombing raids

·         Explain how York was bombed

·         Names of places in York pinned to places on the walls

·         Kids pretend to be aeroplanes, bombing – practise a couple of times by saying “Which is in town?” or “Which is near here?” and get them to fly to the one they think is the answer

·         Then say “Which one was bombed?” – whoever gets it right first gets to write the answer on the sheet

Plenary (yes, really…)

·         Time-travel back to the present, using the Doctor Who music again

·         Check the answers

·         Tell them that the troll forgives them etc…

J

LoveLoveLove

- A -

I'm more than a little annoyed. I had to miss the lovely Phillipa Gregory doing a talk in York to write my scripts. >.< Still, wha can ya do?

I've done them now, which is alright in the end, I suppose, but it's still a little annoying.

Still.

Anyway, I've uploaded them to my fictionpress site, and you can read them here; http://www.fictionpress.com/~saffiyascarlett - and by scrolling down to the sory listing & clicking on the first two links.

:)

Enjoy!

LoveLoveLove

- A -

Oh my my my, as Taylor Swift would say, July is here tomorrow, and the performances are coming up pretty damn quickly, if we're entirely honest. It's scary.

So, we started to plan a coherent plot for the piece today, and my ideas for a story are as follows...

• Two children - a boy and a girl to tell the story
• A boat in the river taking them through time
• The river being like a time-line, incorporating Lizi's history ideas of captioning to state which time period they are in
• An adventure-feel to the piece - making it exciting and vibrant for the kids
• A "magic book" - reading the book takes them back/forward to the time period mentioned
• Incorporating the time-travel idea suggested - holding hands in the audience to make them travel in time - "You can get us there!" - panto-esque?

Anyway, that's all for now :)

LoveLoveLove

- A -

Well, first of all, I found the camera, so I managed to take the necessary photos of my days-old historical notes...

As you can see, I used Horrible Histories to help me, because they're aimed at the age range that we are going to be working with.
It's a shame I no longer find them funny - they're what made me a history geek! :(

And, now, onto what I did today, which is an expansion on my Arts Diary of two days ago. (Just a warning; if my typing becomes incoherent, I'm listening to "Whiskey Lullaby", and so I'm liable to break down in fits of tears...)

The actual pages I wrote are going into my portofolio, but I took some shots of them, too;

So, that's the lot. Those photos took me HALF AN HOUR to upload.
I can't be bothered to comment on them, on account of that.
Besides, I'm scrolling Brad Paisley's back-catalogue, happily enough... :)

LoveLoveLove

- A -

This is part of my Arts Award - it's a development of ideas from our lesson today.

Basically, we carried out work-shop style sessions based on history and the environment to brain-storm ideas for performance. I was, of course, in the history set, and we selected three events from history to perform from; Viking, St William and the Baedeker bombing raids. We started with all of the characters - a Viking, a person in the Blitz, and St William - entering the stage, and we then formed the bridge, which makes up the centre-piece of St William's story (he is a Saint because he saved everyone when a bridge collapsed - it was an Act of God), using physical theatre choreography to create the crumbling Bridge from our bodies. St William then acted as a pupeteer to save the people and resurrect the Bridge.

I think that we could develop this idea by having, for example, a freeze after the bridge had been reconstructed, with St William then stepping to the front and asking the audience - because it's for school children - "I suppose that you want to know what's happening now, then?". He could then go on to begin to tell his story, with the actors in the back-ground using physical theatre in innovative ways to demonstrate the story. For example, the crowd on the Ouse Bridge as he arrives could be made up of the same actors who formed the bridge, suddenly stopping being the bridge, and being on it instead - waving and cheering.

St William's narrative would need to be along the lines of; "So, I used to be the Arch Bishop in York", at which point the actors could form the altar, with St William stepping back inside the action to pray beside it, "until the Pope called me back to Rome", at which point one of the members of the altar would step aside, and call him back, "a bishop from fountains", the actors become a fountain, with the new archbishop stepping out of it, "but he was unpopular and greedy", evidently some kind of booing would occur at this point, "so, eventually, I returned, and the crowds waited to welcome my return on the Ouse Bridge", as described above ;), "but, catastrophically, the Bridge collapsed", at which point the original collapse would recurr, "however, I called upon God", at which point he would cross himself, "to help me in their rescue", when a repitition of the earlier puppetry would occur.

This section could then be followed by other segments from York's history, done in a similar manner, with the actors who originally enterred as Vikings or Baedeker raid-ees, telling their stories.

I would suggest that, in order to maintain coherence, some kind of motif would be used to introduce the scenes - for example the entrance of the characters in the same way, to a piece of music which would always be the same, followed by a non-naturalistic portrayal of the main aspect of each character's life. After this, the same story-telling would be used, and then the scenes would end with the characters melting back to their original positions before entering in the same way again. To make it clear who's story would be told each time, the characters could enter in silence, save for the one who's story is next: for example when the person being bombed enters screaming "BOMB!".

I would have the beginning of the play, set to the music, with all of the actors standing and facing the front, all saying in unison; "It's called the butterfly effect. You step on a butterfly today; and a thousand years from now, they're still suffering the effects"; before all of them melt back to their positions for entrance before each scene. I would suggest that the play be ended the same way, thereby making the dramatic intentions of the piece to illustrate the consequences of your actions - as, in this way, the future and the global-warming based work of the other groups could be integrated with the work of my group, on history.

The basic timeline would go;

• Romans (possibly)
• Vikings (definitly)
• Battle of Stamford Bridge (possibly)
• St William (definitly)
• Baedeker (definitly)
• ... and into the future and global warming gubbins which I don't fully understand... :)

I hope that's alright for everyone...

...in which case, I will sign off in my usual way;

LoveLoveLove

- A -

So, I've been busy (for a change). I've discovered that (sadly) I won't be able to get to see an example of children's theatre - however I have been very lucky in that BBC Writers' Room scripts are available for CBBC shows, which are aimed at children aged 7 to 10. So, I'm going to be going back to watch small children's television again, in order to cover that clause. Good fun stuff!

(c) BBC

The scripts are here; http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/childrens_drama.shtml; and I'm going to print off one of the Tracy Beaker ones to look at. :)

Also, I'm headed along to an art exhibition of my the work of a friend of a friend tonight... So, that's one more clause looked at! :)

I'm really starting to enjoy this alot now!

LoveLoveLove

- A -

Samantha Priestley, Author

You know that interview I promised you not so long ago? Well, I managed it. Yesterday, I spoke to author Sam Priestley, for the benefit of both my arts award and my ambitions...

This is what she said;

1.  Tell me a little bit about yourself?
   I live in Sheffield , where I’ve always lived. I love books, but that’s obvious! I also love film, theatre, music and most other arts, and I could live on pasta.
2. You're a published author. How many books have you had published, and what are their titles?
   My first novel, Despite Losing it on Finkle Street , came out about 18 months ago. Apart from that I’ve had short stories published in a few anthologies. Late Night River Lights and 43 L Plates are a couple of them!
3. Have you any plans to publish more in the future?
   Yes, my second novel is going through the editing process now, and I’ve started writing number 3.
4. Did you always want to be a writer?
   Yes, I think I pretty much always wanted to do it, but growing up I didn’t think it was really possible. I didn’t see anyone around me doing anything creative and it seemed like ordinary people like me didn’t get the chance to do things like that. As an adult, it’s difficult when you have bills to pay and you have to work a day job, but I decided that this was important to me and if I didn’t give it all I’d got I’d always regret it.
5. How do you work when you're writing? I hate planning, but some people deem it essential... so, do you plan meticulously, or just see what happens?
   I never plan! I once tried doing that and I was bored in five minutes. Half the fun of writing, for me, particularly a novel, is seeing what happens as I go along.
6. How did you secure your publishing deal?
   I entered a short story competition on the Fygleaves website, which I was a runner-up in, and then sent in the beginning of my novel. Fygleaves were launching a new imprint, Pioneer Readers, and decided they wanted to publish Finkle Street as the launch title.
7. What advice would you give to anyone trying to do the same?
   Read a lot, write a lot, submit a lot, don’t take rejection personally, be patient and keep going. The ones who get published are the ones who don’t give up.
8. Are you happy in your work?
   Yes, there’s nothing else I’d rather do. Some days it’s lonely and some days it’s frustrating, but I love it.  
9. What are your plans for the future? I've heard something on twitter about a film?
   Yes, my friend, who’s a director, came to me with the idea. He’s been working in TV for a few years, but wanted to get back into film, which is what he did originally. It’s my first time working on a script, so quite exciting!
10.  Do you have a motto to live your life by? If not, what would it be?
    It’s something my mum once said to me when I was a teenager. I’d left school with next to nothing and was dossing around a lot with all these big dreams, which I was doing nothing to make into reality. I think she could see how I could end up stuck like that, wasting my life. I was always complaining that I wanted to write, but didn’t think I was good enough and it would never happen for me. One day she just turned round and said, ‘If you want something in life you have to go out there and get it, no-one is going to give it to you’. It was a real slap in the face for me and I’ve never forgotten.

Sam's website is at www.myspace.com/sampriestley. Thank you, Sam!

:)

LoveLoveLove

- A -

The work of Nicholas Wright includes the highly regarded "HDM" adaptations.

Nicholas Wright is a famous modern British playwright, renowned for his extensive and spectacular works with the National Theatre in London. His most famous work is undoubtedly the stunning adapted version of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials (see image), which he wrote in coalition with the National Theatre.

I have chosen to write about him because I was lucky enough to see the two HDM  plays at the West Yorkshire Playhouse last Saturday, and I was absolutely blown away; he wrote a commentary on the scripts in the plays' programme, and this stated that when creating an adaptation, a playwright is writing for two audiences - those who know the story and those who don't. He stated that this was the biggest challenge, because details such as the complex concept of the daemon in HDM would need to be explained, to people new to the work, for example. I think that his adaptations worked perfectly; the omissions made were insignificant, and I feel certain that the play was clear for new audiences, too. The work of Nicholas Wright in adapting theatre is similar to the concept of my plotting using historical reference.

Born in 1940 in Cape Town, he is a British dramatist renowned for his work in adapting theatre. He began his career as an actor, and trained at the internationally recognised LAMDA academy, and published his first play, Tree Tops, in 1978. He opened and ran the Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court, and was once the literary director and associate director at the National Theatre. His play Vincent in Brixton was performed in London and New York and won the Laurence Olivier award for best new play in 2003. 

In writing His Dark Materials, Wright worked closely with the actors and directors of the original production all of the way through, running workshops to test out his ideas. He was lucky enough to also have the opportunity to work with Phillip Pullman, who wrote the novels on which the plays were based, to talk about omissions from the texts; HDM runs several plots simoltenously, and as Wright noted in the programme, this is impractiucal in theatre as it causes the audience to lose focus and become uncomfortable in what is occurring. He worked with the original and revival casts closely, and was present at every one of the rehearsals for the original production, so as to adapt his script constantly, where it was not working effectively, or where he believesd necessary.

He has also published two books, 99 Plays, and Changing Stages.

Bibliography

• Images sourced from Google and collected together. For original credits and copyrights, please request
• http://www.stagework.org.uk/webdav/harmonise@Page%252F@id=6010&Section%252F@id=159.html
• http://www.stagework.org.uk/webdav/harmonise@Page%252F@id=6006&Document%252F@id=656.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Wright_(playwright

LoveLoveLove

- A -

Hola, everyone. I'm practically asleep now, but I thought I'd just mention to you all that I've just noticed that I need to do a case study on an Arts practitioner, as well as meeting one - which I am doing with my interview about Sam Priestley (*crosses fingers that this counts!*). So, if anyone has any ideas about who might be a good practitioner to do, I would be grateful! The best person would be someone who is something to do with children's theatre, or with plotting historical plays... I'm thinkning I need to get Googling! :)

And, I've had some more questionnaire results through! I'd like to thank the lovely ImSoReddie for her answers, and the one I'm publishing for you tonight is from TerrierAndy7, a fellow member of the LitDen, and someone who has taught me alot about writing; I will, you'll be glad to know, never use the word "suddenly" again, without much thought! :)

Here goes...

So, that's all for now... must get Googling about my practitioner... Also, must start asking whether they have to be relevant to my work, because, if not, Rachel, here's looking at you, kid! ;)

Lol. She'll kill me for that.

Double "Lol" - since when did I write "Lol"? I must be tired!

LoveLoveLove

- A -

If you do something in the arts; be it in literature, visual art, photography, music, theatre, dance, or something else; please click here to complete a questionnaire!

Bee Pirate Hooker is a popular online model and personality recognised for her awesome photography skills and exciting fashion sense. She has thousands of friends on her Bebo page, and has fans across the world. She also had ten spare minutes earlier today to complete my Arts Questionnaire, for my Arts Award! Thank you, Bee!

Bee Pirate Hooker (c) Paul Hastie Photography

What is your name or the name you use as an artist? (eg screen-name/stage-name)
 Bee is my name, Bee Pirate Hooker is my stage name.

Which arts are you involved with?
Photography and fashion

How did you get to where you are today?
Through setting myself goals and achieving them; by getting inspirations and re-creating everything in my own way to try and reach the top!

What are your goals for the future, and how do you intend to achieve them? 
To move to London and become something in the fashion industry; I'm going to do this by going to University there and just seizing every opportunity that I can get, like fashions shows, casting, and what have you…

If you are a professional in your art-form, did you require any qualifications to get to where you are today? If so, what? 
Not that I know of.

Who is your hero in the arts? How have they inspired you? (In your art-form, or another) 
Audrey Kitching as a model, Alexander Mcqueen and Viktor & Rolf as fashion designers have really inspired me.

What inspires you in your art-form? 
Creativity and making a statement; being original and unique and standing out from the pack!

Do you have a website address you are willing to share?
www.bebo.com/pirateh00kerr

Thank you, Bee, so much, for taking time out to complete this for me! :)

If you do something in the arts; be it in literature, visual art, photography, music, theatre, dance, or something else; please click here to complete a questionnaire!

LoveLoveLove

- A -