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.