Author: Kristina Jane Hollier

Lights, Letters and Zelda

Kristina Jane Hollier / / Kristina Hollier Final

How to build a company?

“Passion. Blind faith. Talent. Naiveté. Focus. A burning desire to say something important” (Mulcahy, 2002, 1). These qualities are just a few needed to build a successful theatre company which is certainly not the easiest task. Lifting the Barriers as a company, and more importantly as a group of friends, are determined to make this company a success. In order to do this we need to be aware that “art and commerce walk hand in hand” (Mulcahy, 2002, 55). By treating the company as a business to begin with we are able to approach theatre the same way as the Arts Council England and share the same values. As a company of young women we feel it is our duty to tell a story that is topical in today’s society. According to the Arts Council, art and culture “helps us make sense of our lives and the world around us” (Arts Council England, 2013) which is what we intend to do. This was highlighted through our debut performance Live First, Love Incidentally. This performance was about the life and death of Zelda Fitzgerald and how having bipolar impacted on her life. At the time that Zelda was alive nobody understood mental illness particularly bipolar. Unfortunately there is still a stigma attached to mental illnesses today.

 

Before starting the devising process we started to build up the business aspect of the company by deciding everyone’s role. I took on the role of assistant stage manager and Jessica took on the role of deputy stage manager. Together we are working closely to fulfil the role of one person taking the job of stage manager. As assistant stage manager I oversee the creative designers in hair, make-up and costume and I am in charge of the props and set. Meanwhile Jessica is in charge of everything associated with light and sound. As the stage-management team many of our duties overlap and we are there to assist each other. This clear distinction means the every other department knows who they should ask depending what their question was on.

The structure of the company goes as follows:

Structure
Structure of the Company (Hollier, 2016)

We also wanted to have a clear set of rules that would make the whole process a lot easier, for example do not make big decision without the majority (8 or more) of the company present. If a company member does not follow these rules there is a 3 strike system. After those strikes there would be a meeting with the producer. The only exception would be the producer, then the meeting would be with the director to discuss what would happen next.

 

Work in Progress

As part of the stage-management team we felt there was little we could do until we devised a script. To begin the script writing process all the actors brought in material which was later expanded on through a series of workshops. However, having 10 members of the company all with very different ideas on what the performance will became too much. There was no way the script could successfully fulfil everyone’s ideas. Jessica and I worked with the director, Chloe, to create the script. This helped the actors and director to start developing their Zelda characters in rehearsals and while we devised sections of the script. During rehearsals the actors were able to try the script to see if anything had to be changed, edited or reworked. The whole process of creating the script was collaborative as Jessica and I worked closely with Chloe to see what she wanted in each scene. Also the actors were encouraged to have their input in the script. As well as working on the script in each rehearsal either Jessica or I would take rehearsal notes. By doing this we were able to inform different departments that were not at the rehearsal about any decisions that were made.

 

As a new theatre company we wanted to establish key features of the performance that the audience would associate with the name, Lifting the Barriers. We paid close attention to the set. We decided to physically show a barrier between the contemporary time period and to the 1920s time period. This was the ‘Zelda Zone’. Since Zelda’s life was surrounded by letters and books it only seemed right that to create the 1920s ‘Zelda Zone’ through scrunched up pieces of paper and letters. There was also the question if a physical presence of a man, i.e. F. Scott Fitzgerald, was needed or would it be just as effective if the mere mention of him was enough. Zelda’s life always had a strong male presence from her father to Scott to any potential suitors. One idea was to have a male actor back-lit on-stage throughout the whole performance. This would create a shadow at the back of the stage. He would be typing as if he was dictating Zelda’s life. However, as a theatre company this contradicted what we have established ourselves to be, an “all- female team” (Lifting the Barriers, 2016).

 

As a theatre company one of our unique selling points was the set. We decided on-stage there would be letters hung from the lighting bars in the square-shaped ‘Zelda Zone’. This was inspired by the set of As You Like It and Matilda the Musical. Both these sets, as seen below, hung paper/ books to engage the audience and inform the audience’s interpretation of the performance as a whole. We wanted to achieve a similar effect for Love First, Live Incidentally.

Matilda
Matilda the Musical (RSC, 2016)
rsc-as_you_like_it
As You Like It (Park Avenue Armory, 2011)

 

For Live First, Love Incidentally the idea behind the hanging letters was to highlight that Zelda was surrounded by books and letters. In a sense her life was dictated by how successful her or Scott’s writing was. Also Zelda wrote a lot of letters, mainly to Scott, and she cherished everyone she read. . The actors also interacted with the set by looking and remembering the letters they had sent. The main interaction with the set was when 2 of the Zelda’s pulled down one of the letters. All the letters and some of the paper on the floor and envelopes were tea stained to give the impression the time period linked which were created by Jessica and I. The only set bought was the fishing wire to hang the letters and the paper itself.

 

Throughout the whole of the performance the 5 Zelda’s never left the stage as if they were a ghost of Zelda. When they brought Zelda’s story to life the actors had to be in the ‘Zelda Zone’. This meant all of the costume and props had to be pre-set at the back of the stage. Since the performance was inspired by Brechtian theatre and very minimalistic not many props were needed. All the props used needed to fit in with the time period they were located. For example, all the stationary on the desk was what you may find in on a desk today, for example laptop, pen pot and scissors. Whereas the lipstick Hannah used was in a black and gold case which was similar to what would have been around in the 1920s. With the exception of the vintage projector screen, all the props were free for us to use. They were either from the LPAC props department or a member of the company had the prop in the 1920s or contemporary style. I tried to be as resourceful as possible to keep costs down. This minimalistic stylistic feature is another unique selling point that would be associated with Lifting the Barriers and would be continued in future projects.

 

The Last Week

A week before the performance we had a production meeting with the stage manager and technician from the venue on 10th May 2016. In this meeting we discussed everything we needed for the performance from the venue including what the set is, specialised lighting and haze. The main outcome from this meeting was how my role on the day changed. A stylistic feature of our performance was to have all props and costume on-stage throughout the performance. This would mean during the performance the only reason I would be needed backstage was to work the haze machine. In the production meeting we were assured that haze could be programmed into the lighting desk therefore there was no need for me to backstage. To make Lifting the Barriers a more sustainable theatre company I would be the sound technician for the performance. This meant that, as a company, we were less reliant on the venue staff. If this performance toured we would be able to operate the show ourselves.

 

Within the final week, rehearsals had become more intense especially in the run up to tech. To save time in the space on tech day Jessica, Kate B and I programmed all the sound cues into QLab the day before. Jessica and I had never used QLab before so this was whole new territory for both of us hence why we enlisted Kate B’s help. Overall there were 38 sound cues. This was mainly because every time the Narrator spoke it was a different cue and when a track needed to be faded down this was another cue. During the tech itself there were a few problems with sound, for example the wrong song had been programmed into QLab and needed to be changed. I also found it a struggle to get the right sound level for each track especially when the actors spoke. A few of the sounds were background music to the actor’s dialogue therefore the audience primarily needed to hear the actor. Since we programmed the sound cues the day before we had scheduled in time to sort out any problem in the tech and on show day.

               

Show Day!

“Each department is working towards that opening night, that fixed moment in time when everything comes together in front of a live audience” (Foreman, 2009, vii). To prepare for the show Jessica and I agreed a schedule which was in the technical rider to ensure every department knew when they would be need.

Technical rider Continue reading “Lights, Letters and Zelda”

Backtracking to the beginning of the research process

Kristina Jane Hollier / / Kristina Hollier, Uncategorized

Zelda Fitzgerald is one woman in history whose story seems to be dominated by a man she once loved and an illness which is only just being understood in today’s society. But what made us, as a company, choose to tell her story when there are so many other, past and present, strong women who all a profound story to tell?

Zelda seemed like an underrated woman in history, despite potentially having a very strong career herself, she was constantly overshadowed by F. Scott Fitzgerald. But what we were particularly interested was the fact she was misdiagnosed as schizophrenia when she actually had bipolar. Mental illness is still a topical issue that still does not seem to get enough attention.

Before deciding to tell Zelda’s story the research process was extensive. I chose to do further research into two key women which were Florence Nightingale and Marie Curie. Both of these woman are well known names who have created a legacy for themselves.

Florence Nightingale:

Florence Nightingale was born 12th May 1820 in Derbyshire. She was born to an upper- middle class family and was home schooled by her father focusing on classics, modern languages and philosophy. By the age of 17 she become interested in helping other, spending quite a bit of time at hospitals or charitable institutions across Europe. After this she was convinced that God called her to service but she was not certain what this service entailed. By the age of 24 she become eligible to marry but realised that nursing was her calling much to her parent’s dissatisfaction. After some years and a declined proposal her parents finally funded her education to become a nurse. By the age of 33 she was made a superintendent at a woman’s hospital in Harley Street. The following year she was sent out to the Crimean War where she was in charge of 38 nurses in a military hospital in Scutarui, Turkey. This was the first time women were allowed to serve the army. This was where Florence Nightingale made a name for herself. She cleaned the hospitals which were layered an inch thick in faeces. This was the first time troops were treated with respect. Upon her return to the UK she was repeatedly praised for her efforts in improving sanitation in the army. In 1856, when she was 36 she persuaded the government to set up the Royal Commission into health of the army. She found 16,000 to 18,000 deaths were caused by preventable disease which were caused due to poor sanitation. She continued her work into improving healthcare and sanitation in the army and trained nurses physically and via books she wrote. She became the first woman to be awarded the Order of Merit.

Marie Curie:

Marie Curie was born Marie Sklodowska 7th May 1867, Warsaw, Poland. She was the youngest of 5 children to poor school teacher. After the death of her mother, Marie had no financial support from her father so became a governess and started studying. She then moved to Paris to study physics and maths at the Sorbonne University. This was where she met her future husband, Pierre Curie. Together they discovered highly radioactive elements including polonium and radium. In 1903 Marie Curie was awarded a Nobel Prize for her work on radioactivity and completed her doctorate in physics. Unfortunately in 1906 Pierre passed away. Despite this Marie continued their work and took his position as a lecturer as Sorbonne University, becoming the first female professor at this university. 1911 she won her second Nobel Prize in chemistry. Sorbonne University built the first radium institute which had 2 labs. The first one was for radioactivity research and the other for biological research into cancer, both of which Marie Curie would oversee the research conducted. During the First World War Curie developed mobile X-rays to diagnose injuries near the battlefront. In 1914 she built a machine that detected the location of bullets in soldiers. After the war she worked as a researcher, teacher and head of laboratory. She received numerous awards for her work. Marie Curie died in 1934 from pernicious anaemia which was caused from years’ worth of exposure to radiation. Marie Curie was the first woman to make a significant contribution to science and continues to inspire women today.

Both of these women are true inspirations. However, as an emerging theatre company we felt that we needed to tell one woman’s story that was topical within today’s society. As a company we felt that Zelda Fitzgerald’s story allows us to remind the audience of the difficulties of living with a mental disorder. It has allowed us, so far, to physically represent the disorder in an attempt to show what is like living with bipolar.