I performed Boxed in Studio Two on the 25^th May at 11:45am. I had a good size audience and I am pleased with how the piece went. There were a few things that could have been improved, most of which I agree with, but overall I am proud of my piece and was pleased with the feedback that I got.

The Setup – I was feeling very confident during my setup as I knew what I needed to do. Also because I did not have any crazy need for set, I knew that setting up would not take long at all. I managed to set everything up in enough time to do a quick run through. When doing the run through I started to get nervous as I was forgetting cues and messing up my lines, however I tried to keep telling myself that it was just nerves. The tech was running very well and my set was looking exactly how I had planned.

Intentions – I wanted my audience when they first came into the space to feel comfortable, happy and intrigued (as I was sat with my back to them). During the piece I wanted the audience that had not been through divorce in their family or problems with a parent to feel surprised and shocked. For those who had, I wanted them to feel confident and safe as they may have been able to relate to some of the content in the piece. Towards the end of the piece, I hope there would have been a collective realisation that the piece was actually about me and not about another little girl, like I had been trying to make obvious throughout the piece. I wanted my audience to leave feeling positive, proud and thinking that no matter how hard it is to let go, if it is for the best you just have be strong and believe you can do it.

The Show – I think that my show went very well and was positively received. I did mess up on the first line as I was very nervous by saying ‘my’ instead of ‘her’. The second part of the piece went well also. I remembered all the stories and I feel that I performed them the best I have ever done. Overall, my piece went the way I thought it would and exactly the way wanted it to go.

Feedback and Improvements – I felt very positive about my piece however I think that there is always room for improvements. If I was to do my piece again, I think that due to the intimacy of the content of the piece and how personal it was, I would place the audience closer or even within the performance space. Even though the audience was close to the performance, I felt that there was still an area of nothing between the two. Another element of my piece that I was disappointed about was that during the poem section, I started to cry. As previously mentioned the piece was very personal to me, but I wish that I was able to detach myself partly to not let my personal emotions affect the piece.

After speaking to members of my audience, I was able to get an idea of their feedback. Mostly, the constructive criticism was the same as the above. One other bit of feedback mentioned that they felt the poem was slightly too long. That it would have been nice to either have more movement or more to the story element. Moving forward with my piece, that is definitely something that I would like to explore, even make the piece longer, without the time restriction there is more room to explore other elements of my piece. However, more positive feedback given to me that it made people very emotional when they felt they could connect with it on a personal level and those who could not felt that it was interesting to see what people go through when going through a traumatic experience. Some audience members also said that it reflected on me as a person as they felt that it gave them the opportunity to get to know me better.

Overall, I am very pleased with how Boxed went and have some very good ideas with how to improve it if I was to do it again.

I have made the decision to pre-record my poem for the final section of my piece rather than speak it. I feel that it would be more effective and easier for the audience to hear every word. Below is the poem:

Sometimes you were kind, sometimes you were fun
Sometimes you were a mum
You were exactly what she needed, you knew all the right things to say
Sometimes just sometimes you brightened up her day
She has boxed it up and buried it in the ground
Then you and her dad started to argue and things turns bad
She just wanted a family what everyone else had
Just know she did love you
You were her queen with a crown
But all that turned to shit you let her down
She doesn’t know why you left, she doesn’t know where you went

She has boxed it up and buried it in the ground
But just think of what you have missed out on
Think of the time you could’ve spent
Going shopping and talking about unimportant stuff
But no, even though she was your daughter
That reason wasn’t good enough
She has boxed it up and buried it in the ground

Behind your shadow, she stands and falls
It’s a tough battle, in which she feels so small
Her feelings toward you, you might think are dumb
Sad, upset, confused, angry, hurt, and numb
When she needed a mum, you were not there
to talk about boys or to fix her hair

She has boxed it up and buried it in the ground
Yes, you did call, every once and a while
but an ocean of tears hides behind her smile
She sees other girls laugh with their moms
She goes dizzy with swirls, and crashes like a bomb

She has boxed it up and buried it in the ground

Tell her how to love someone
who doesn’t love her back
Tell her how to respect someone
who doesn’t deserve her respect
Tell her how to trust someone
who betrayed her so badly
Tell her how to get along with someone
who brought her nothing but endless tears
Tell her how to forgive someone
who hurt her so severely
Tell her how to open her heart to someone
who broke it to pieces too many times

She has boxed it up and buried it in the ground

She has grown up before everyone’s eyes except yours

You don’t see that kind of thing behind closed doors
So she will continue to smile and move on without you

While you sit there and do whatever it is you do

She is not going to dwell on the past, cause her conscience is clear
She doesn’t even know who you are anymore, but she has one fear
That one day her phone will ring, and you’ll be on the other end
Trying to tell her sorry I love you, but she’ll know it’s all pretend

She has boxed it up and buried it in the ground
She doesn’t need you anymore, she’s doing perfectly well
Her dad has stepped in as mum from that position you fell
You don’t deserve that label, you have abused its meaning
If you think she will ever love, miss or talk to you, you need to stop dreaming
She is stronger, happier and more confident too
All of that came from her dad, none of it was you

Because it’s too late to be a mummy she is all grown up now

And she is making it somehow
And she will continue to make it through

Just like any other day without you

She has boxed it up and buried it in the ground
Boxed it up and buried it in the ground
burned it up and thrown it away

The above picture is my final set design. The space in front of the tech box is the audience area. There will be blankets, pillows and teddies. Then there are boxes in front of the audience, one side good and one side bad with bandages draped over the top of them. I will be mainly placed in the middle of the boxes with a box attached to my ankle by a chain. I have decided to cut the studio off after that. Due to the piece being of intimate nature I want the audience to be very close to me. I want the set to be as simple as possible.

For my tech, the opening scene will be a pink wash with the sound of birds tweeting to set a calm and innocent atmosphere.

The second part of my piece will be a split lighting to reflect the bad and good side. The bad side will be a dark blue and the good side will be an orange/pink colour. Due to the second part of my piece being heavily spoken, I will not have any sound.

The final part of my piece will be rainbow lighting. I want this as its the part of the piece where I dont really feel any specific emotion. Due to the mixed emotions, I wanted to reflect that through mixed lighting. I will also have a quiet rumbling sound behind my poem.

After finding the song lyrics, the song Come into my world by Amy Grant really stood out to me. I am thinking of using those lyrics to open my piece.

However changing them slightly as I dont want my piece to be in the first person. I want the audience to think that I am telling someone elses story. So instead it will be:

Come into her world
So lovely from the outside
So dark in here the demons dance and twirl
And find their pleasure frightening this girl
If you are brave then come into her world

I have also been thinking about my piece and rather than my piece being about divorce as a whole, the piece being about how my mum let me down and it all started during the divorce. Once again though, I dont want to say ‘I’ or ‘me’, it will all be spoken as if about someone else.

When I was younger, I always used to ask my mum if she would love me forever. This gave me the idea of asking questions with really obvious yes questions. For example, Is the sky blue? and Is the grass green?

All of the above will be the beginning of my piece.

I still want to keep in the idea of the use of bandages. So I have decided to have boxes all around the space with bandages on top of them. I will also have a box attached to my ankle by a chain that will have items to do with how my mum let me down. I will then tell the story that is attached to that item.

I then want to recite a poem that I will write, while saying the poem I will be packing up the boxes to show that I am moving on from the pain my mum caused and getting on with life.

Today, I had a rehearsal with two of my classmates and I showed them my final ideas for my piece. I come to realise that I had to make a few changes in terms of the poem and I also faced problems with how to keep the chain on my ankle and how to take it off easily, quickly and without taking to long.

In terms of the structure of my piece, my classmates said it worked very well and was effective to what I am trying to show through my piece. They also said that the content of the piece was really good and made them feel many different emotions, but the ending made them feel positive and happy for me as they could tell that it was about me finally getting over my mum and moving on for the better.

I am feeling very positive about my piece now.