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Lights, Letters and Zelda

Kristina Jane Hollier / May 25, 2016 / 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:

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.

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 10^th 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”

Lights, Sound, Action! – The Final Blog

Charlotte Spragg / May 25, 2016May 25, 2016 / Charley Spragg Final

Becoming a Technical Designer

A technical designer’s job role is split into two aspects. Designing the lighting and designing the sound. These are two major roles for any theatre company, as they create atmosphere for the play. “Simple illumination of a stage space is relatively straightforward, but does not contribute artistically to a performance, other than allowing the audience to see the action” (Palmer, 2000, 98). Because of this, I, as a technical designer, needed to create a lighting and sound design that would both fit with our theatre company performance, but also heighten the atmosphere on stage. This was a vast job for me as I had never designed the technical aspect of a show before. This meant that I had to find out what my role included. While researching my role, I found that not many theatre companies have one person to do both lighting and sound. Many companies have one individual to create the lighting design, another to create the sound design and finally a Technical Director to oversee the whole project. I was doing the job which three people would usually do. With this in mind I had to research both roles separately. Firstly, I researched the role of a lighting designer. To understand the different lighting effects that could be used in the LPAC, the stage we were performing our debut show, I had to talk to Darren Page, the Head Technician at Lincoln Performing Arts School. Darren told me about the various lights that could be used during a performance and he also informed me about the effects that they can create. With this information in mind, I was able to go home and think about the various different effects that could be used in the show. Of course this was early days and the script for our show had not yet been written. However, sitting in the workshops with the actors and planning different ways to heighten the atmosphere of the show became very useful to me in the long run. I also acquired the help of Google. I was able to research the roles within a lighting designer. My research showed me that a lighting designer:

“•Evoke the appropriate mood

Indicate time of day and location
Shift emphasis from one stage area to another
Reinforce the style of the production
Make objects on stage appear flat or three dimensional
Blend the visual elements on stage into a unified whole” (Aact.org, 2016).

The second role that I looked at within my job title was my sound technician role. This was a little less complicated as it meant that there was no equipment involved, unlike with the lighting. My research showed me that a sound designer:

“•motivate actions onstage and indicate events taking place offstage

establish the time of day, season and weather
locate the action in a specific place
create mood and changes in mood
stimulate audience expectations of what is to come
provide information about the characters
build transitions between scenes
offer shortcuts that rapidly advance the plot or recall past events” (Aact.org, 2016)

This new information enabled me to stick to my own job role within the theatre company. Once I had worked out what my job included, I had to spend a lot of time in rehearsals, watching the performers and speaking with Chloe, our director, about different techniques of lighting and sound I wanted to use.

Lighting

After researching different techniques to do with lighting, I became very interested in the Gobo lighting effect. Gobo lighting allows you to “not only project simple messages or names but can also create environments and scenery for an incredibly low amount of money. Fundamentally gobos are a steel or glass stencil that blocks and lets light through” (Stagelightingstore.com, 2016). I felt that this would be a good technique to use when creating the fire during the last scene of our show.

Zelda Fitzgerald was burnt to death during her stay in a mental asylum during the 1940’s. This made fire an important aspect of our show. However, creating a believable fire on stage was something that had to be thought about carefully. I researched the types of questions that needed to be answered when creating a believable fire.

“How does the “mood” of the fire affect how we build/create it? First, do we need visible flames or just an indirect flickering glow. Is the color of the fire a warm glow or a cold heat?” (Hstech.org, 2016)

With these questions in mind, I set out looking at different effects that could be used to create the right mood that I wanted.

Previously mentioned, I was really interested in the way that Gobo lighting effect worked. I looked at various ways to use the projection of images. However, after researching this for a while I realised that this may look cliché and that having the flames visible via Gobo could look comical. After discussing this with Darren and a couple of other technicians at LPAC, I managed to find a way to create the right atmosphere through orange and red LED lighting. This was more effective to the performance as it allowed the fire to flicker. The use of haze also gave it the smoky effect that I needed for it to look believable.

Other lighting techniques that I used were the back lighting pulse. This was accomplished through the LED bars which are situated at the back of the stage. Having this allowed us to pulse the LED’s and slightly blind the audience. This was to symbolise the fast forward in Zelda’s life, we also used this as a scene change. We wanted the Zelda’s, even the ones who were not in the Zelda Zone, to be lit at all times, so having the back LED lighting instead of a blackout allowed the audience to view all of the Zelda’s throughout the whole performance.

Additional to the back lighting, washes such as a sepia wash and a white wash were used during our show. The sepia wash was to place the Zelda’s and the Zelda Zone in the 1920-1940’s era. As the researcher, who was played by me, was lit by a plain white desk lamp, this separated the two eras from one another.

The white wash was to create a clinical feel whenever the nurse appeared on stage. This was to foreshadow the fact that Zelda would end up in a mental hospital. It also showed that the nurse was the illness inside Zelda’s head, constantly pushing her back.

Spotlights were used during our production to highlight the characters who were the most important and essential to the scene that they were in, for example the two Zelda’s (Hannah and Megan’s cross over) and the nurses scene was highlighted with a white spotlight to put more significance on the two Zelda’s and to take away from the nurse.

The research that I did helped a lot in knowing which lights to use for different scenes.

Sound

Researching the job role of a sound designer allowed me to be able to stick to my job role. It meant that I was able to create atmosphere for different scenes using mood and volume. There were various things I had to think about when creating the sound for our performance. Firstly, I once the script had been finalised, I had to decide on what songs I wanted to play and where. For ages we had ummed and arred about which song to use during our Quintuple (chair duet) scene. Originally it had been another song from Post Modern Jukebox’s albums, however, I felt that this did not fit with the beat in which the actors were moving. It took us a while before finally settling on Post Modern Jukebox’s version of Seven Nation Army. I took this song, along with the original version by The Strokes and put them together so that the house music, which involved more modern day tracks to separate the 21^st century from the 1920’s, cross faded into a 1920’s version of the same song. This was to take the audience back in time and make them feel like they themselves were stepping into Zelda’s time zone. Other songs I used, such as The Charleston, brought our show to life and made Kates scene, where she played Zelda who was stood on top of a taxi, more enjoyable for the audience to watch. I added The Charleston into the performance because it is a well-known song and dance of the 1920’s and was likely to be played at most parties during that era. “They danced the Charleston on restaurant tables and recklessly rang fire alarms. When the firemen arrived and searched for the blaze, Zelda pointed to her breasts and screamed, “Here!”” (Shaw, 1987, 5). Knowing that Zelda did in fact know and love The Charleston allowed me to use it in the production, meaning that not only the writing was very close to her life, but also the music too. Using sounds, such as the ringing in an ear (tinnitus), allowed me to be able to make the music sound like it is way too loud for any human to be able to hear. This ringing in the ear also put the audience in Zelda’s perspective as they were deafened by this horrid ringing too. Finally, Smile by Nat King Cole. I used this to juxtapose the way that Zelda had died. It was also to show the audience how throughout her life Zelda had been forced to smile for Scott, to help his career grow and to look pretty and happy for him.

Reflection

In reflection on my own work and the various roles I had to perform under the title role of Technical Designer, I feel like even though it was my first go at designing the lighting and sound, I did a pretty good job for a novice. It means a lot to me, on my first ever go at sound and lighting design to have a review as good as this one: “The story was emotive, the set was fantastic and the lighting and sound was genius. The sound particularly took me as they used remixes of modern songs that had been made to sound like music of the era” (Ordinary Acts of Bravery, 2016).

There were a few things however that I would change if we ever did the show again. For example, my original way to backlight the Zelda’s was to have five white lights on five different booms. This would have lit the audience more and made the fast forward more blinding for them. I feel like this would have been better as then the Zelda’s would have become more of a silhouette than spot lit from behind. Although this would have made the performance more atmospheric, I still feel like the lighting and sound designs that I provided for the show did the job in allowing the audience to feel the mood of the performance.

Works cited

Palmer, S. (2000). Essential Guide to Stage Management: Lighting & Sound. Oxon: Bookpoint Ltd., p.98.

Aact. (2016). Lighting Designer. [online] Available at: http://www.aact.org/lighting-designer [Accessed 25 May 2016].

Aact.org. (2016). Sound Designer. [online] Available at: http://www.aact.org/sound-designer [Accessed 25 May 2016].

Stagelightingstore.com. (2016). Gobo (Patterns). [online] Available at: http://www.stagelightingstore.com/Stage-Lighting-Store/Gobo-Patterns [Accessed 25 May 2016].

Hstech.org. (2016). Fire on Stage. [online] Available at: http://www.hstech.org/how-to-s/how-to-tech/special-effects/93-fire-on-stage [Accessed 23 May 2016].

Shaw, A. (1987). The Jazz Age: Popular Music in the 1920’s. New York: Oxford University Press, p.5.

Ordinary Acts of Bravery. (2016). Love First, Live Incidentally: Play Review & A little bit of Zizzi’s. [online] Available at: https://ordinaryactsofbravery.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/love-first-live-incidentally-play-review-a-little-bit-of-zizzis/ [Accessed 25 May 2016].

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Abigail Earlie Final Blog Submission

Abigail Elizabeth Earlie / May 25, 2016May 25, 2016 / Abigail Earlie, Abigail Earlie Final, Blogs

‘Love First, Live Incidentally’

(Crowe, 2016).

Reflection:

A couple of days ago, we performed our debut show, Love First, Live Incidentally and honestly it’s taken me a while to come down from the incredible highs of the performance. I think I can speak for every member of the Lifting the Barriers Theatre Company when I say that we were all very pleased with how the show went on the night. The amount of hard work and determination had all paid off and the set, costume, lighting and sound effects all came together on the night.

Zelda Fitzgerald is one of the most exciting and colourful characters I have yet portrayed on the stage. I enjoyed playing her because she had so much passion and spirit. Zelda was very passionate about wanting to have a life of her own. In the 1920’s she became the ultimate icon, resembling high spirits and loose morals. She was a judges daughter but she rebelled against his conforms and restrictions, she became the jazz age high priestess.

My objectives as the ‘in love’ Zelda had ambition and determination. Zelda’s super objective was to be free from her parent’s watchful gaze and to marry Scott. From the research I did from Zelda’s biographies, Her Voice in Paradise, Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda, The Collective Writings of Zelda Fitzgerald, I knew that her objectives for her life was not to just to get married and settle down without having a life for herself. I watched films featuring actresses based on Zelda, including Midnight in Paris (2011) and The Great Gatsby (2013). I watched the performance of The Great Gatsby at the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre and Zelda, The Musical (2004). Zelda, from a very early age was told how special she was and was adored and spoilt by all. She sacrificed her family and dreams of becoming an artist to be married to F. Scott Fitzgerald. We will never know what Zelda actually thought, but from reading the love letters and biographies, I came to the assumption that when she first met Scott she was blown away with his charming Yankee qualities. In rehearsals I made it my aim to develop the actions and constantly develop my character through units, objectives, super objectives, actions, obstacles and given circumstances. The most important thing I found during the rehearsal and performance was perusing my actions and objectives in the scene. Stella Adler stated, ‘If the actor understands the nature of his actions he performs he is helping the audience understand its own behaviour more deeply.’ (2000. p.265). I pushed the action in the scene to try and achieve my objectives. I used actions to know what I want to do, where I am doing it, when I do it and why I do it. In Scene two, I am at home in Montgomery, after spending an evening with Scott. I use the action of persuading my mother into letting me marry Scott because at this moment Zelda is in love with the idea of being in love and escaping home.

Zelda aged 18. Available from: www.scottandzelda.com.

(Crowe, 2016).

Love Letters

I read the love letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda. These letters were what Zelda and Scott sent each other when they were still courting and when Scott was away. One of the first monologues in our production involves Zelda reading an actual letter she sent her mother. We found this letter at (Schmitd, 2016). http://loveathighspeeds.tumblr.com/post/116579382067/napowrimo-day-9-zelda-fitzgeralds-letter-home

During rehearsals we developed this monologue/letter and used it to really exaggerate how determined Zelda was to marry Scott. We came across Slam Poetry, changing the world one word at a time. The three young girls spoke with conviction, confidence and in unison at moments and I think this was very powerful and showed their determination to inspire the people of America. We used this as inspiration and rehearsed until we got the letter in sync with one another and were very confident.

(Rehearsing the love letter scene to Zelda’s mother).

During the performance, we made sure that everything was spoken clearly, projected in the Alabama deep south accent, while showing from our facial expressions how happy Zelda was at the thought of marrying Scott and being in his novels.

(Crowe, 2016).

Research for Zelda.

Zelda had flaming self-respect, she was passionate, life loving and a rebel. During the very early stages of rehearsals I worked with our director to develop my physicality of Zelda and how I believed she would have carried herself in different social situations, of course we will never know how exactly Zelda would have reacted in every social situation but from reading personal letters from Scott and Zelda’s writings helped knowing what sort of personality traits she had and how she was raised in her society. She was a socialite and therefore I portrayed her with a very confident, fun loving, carefree attitude. Her father was a judge and she was very passionate about becoming a professional ballet dancer. Ballet dancers have a tremendous amount of self-control, free from tension and they carry themselves very well. It was important for the portrayal of Zelda to make everything about my physicality very precise from the very tip of my nose to my toes. I made sure my body was relaxed from warming up and releasing tension before the performance and made all my movements look very delicate and elegant.

I researched the character as I would have with any other character. I created my objectives, super objectives, obstacles, goals, actions, conflicts, paraphrasing and given circumstances. Also, I read a lot of her biographies, learning how she grew up, what her ambitions were, what her characteristics were, and reading her love letters that her and Scott sent each other during their courtship. Dear Scott and Dearest Zelda by Bryer and Barks is an excellent book that shares their personal letters. Also, watching musicals, (Zelda, The Musical,) documentaries, researching the high society in 1920’s, prohibition, flapper girls and bipolar. YouTube was a real blessing I found, because there was documentaries, performances and history of how the social elite would have lived in 1920’s America and a really interesting documentary on bipolar by Steven Fry (2006). I took influence from the film star Clara Bow, because she was the ‘it’ girl of the 1920’s film industry at the time when Zelda was the ‘icon’ and ‘muse’. Clara Bow also shared similar personality traits as Zelda, she was very charismatic, reckless behaviour, very passionate, sensual, life loving. I watched the films of Clara Bow to help me both get into the world of the play but also to take inspiration from a 20’s icon that might have influenced Zelda at the time.

Clara Bow (1927) on set during filming for It directed by Clarence Badger. Clara Bow became a iconic star during the late 1920’s.

Zelda Fitzgerald in her 20’s. Zelda in this photo shares similar rouge lips, dark eyes and bobbed hair as Clara Bow in the 1927 film.

Zelda’s Characteristics

(Crowe, 2016).

I made a decisive decision to make Zelda very bouncy and loose in her physicality. At this point in Zelda’s life (1918-1923) she was flirting and going on other dates with men in the army and anybody who would show her attention but Scott was her ‘dream’. Zelda was ‘in love’ with the idea of being in love with a fashionable, sophisticated Yankee. I created a ‘bouncy’ ‘free spirited’ persona of Zelda from watching films of movie stars in that period and I used the gestures they used. I experimented with the way Zelda may have held her face, her posture, with her head held high. You have to find who was underneath the way she was described as larger than life and her reckless behaviour. I couldn’t play all of her characteristics all at once, I had to make a choice of what was going to serve the story that we were telling. I was playing ‘in love’ Zelda so I had to ask myself what would work to show her passion, excitement of her being in love with F.Scott Fitzgerald. As a performer, I collected all of the information of the character, how she would have spoken, her pitch, walk, her little wiggle, her flirtatiousness, her curiosity and passion for life. Once I worked out all of these things, I had to look beneath all of that and ask what she was really like and who she wanted to become. It helped me to start from the inside out, how Zelda would have felt. Zelda was fragile underneath all of her bravado and risky behaviour, she wanted a life of her own but she didn’t know how to do this until she had lost everything. Zelda’s family had a history of mental illness, her grandmother and brother both committed suicide and her older sister Marjorie suffered from mental breakdowns, how could that have not have had a huge effect on Zelda’s life. She was brought up in a society where young women should hold their back’s straight, act respectfully, wear long dresses and elegant hats. Zelda defied all of this and she enjoyed being a rebel, bobbing her hair, wearing her dresses short and jumping into the fountain at union square. I loved playing Zelda, it’s interesting to play somebody who has actually lived. She was a writer, so I could read and use her letters and actually understand what she was really feeling which is different from picking up a script where you have to develop a back story for your character. Her private moments where never captured on film and you can’t really tell how somebody reacts from reading letters so I had to use my imagination of who she was in the moments of her life that were never written about or recorded.

(Crowe, 2016).

Once we had the entire script fully completed, I could sit down and read it in one sitting. As soon as we came with the idea of producing a show on Zelda Fitzgerald, I immediately started to prepare and read as much as I could about this incredible icon and muse of the 1920’s era. The Southern accent was hard to develop at first, but I watched old Hollywood films where there leading English actresses played Southern belles, such as Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind (1939,) and again as Blanche Dubois in a Streetcar Named Desire. Thankfully these are two great films that I strongly recommend so it was enjoyable for me to watch scenes over and over again to pick up the accent and perfect the accent.

Vivien Leigh, (1939) played Southern belle Scarlett O’ Hara in David O Selznick’s Gone with the Wind.

I most enjoyed performing the nurse scene. I got to experiment from changing my objectives and fighting for status with the nurse in rehearsal and along with the director we used distance between the two characters to show who was in control. The ‘in love’ Zelda has the most power over the nurse.

(Crowe, 2016).

I hope the show fills out our audience’s impression of Zelda Fitzgerald, that she was not just a ‘muse’ to one of America’s greatest novelists but she was a woman who had an incredible passion for life, a woman who was misdiagnosed. She was allowed through us as a theatre company and actors to expand and there was so much the audience may have not have understood about her, her wit, her desire to be taken seriously as an artist and I hoped that some of those things can be understood in the common view of who she was. A biographic theatrical production exploring on going mental health, including physical theatre is possibly not the way our audience would usually spent their evening, but I hope from our commitment in the production that they are inspired to see more art and culture that is different from the norm. We hope we succeeded in fulfilling the Arts Council England’s policies. ‘When we talk about the value of arts and culture, we should always start the intrinsic. How art and culture illuminate our lives and enrich our emotional world.’ (Mowlah, 2014).

Citation

Abbott, J. (2012). The Acting Book. London. Nick Hern Books.

Adler, S. (2000). The Art of Acting. New York. Applause Books.

Bryer, J and Barks, C. (2002). Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda. The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. London. Bloomsbury.

Churchwell, S. (2013). Careless People: Murder Mayhem and the invention of The Great Gatsby. London. Penguin.

Fitzgerald, Z. (1991). The Collected Writings Zelda Fitzgerald. United States. Little Brown and Company.

Fowler, T. (2013). Z, A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Great Britain. Two Roads Books.

Fry, S. (2006). The Secret Life of The Manic Depressive. Youtube. Online Recourse. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3rHTm1YLxA

Latifah, Q. (2014). Changing the world one word at a time. The Queen Latifah Show. Youtube. Online resource. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YshUDa10JYY [Accessed 24^th May 2016].

Midnight in Paris. (2011). Directed by Woody Allen. California. Gravier Productions.

Mowlah, A. (2014).The Value of Arts and Culture to people and society. Value Arts Culture Review. Arts Council England.

Schmitd, L. (2016). Zelda Fitzgerald Letter Home. Online Resource. Available from: http://loveathighspeeds.tumblr.com/post/116579382067/napowrimo-day-9-zelda-fitzgeralds-letter-home [Accessed 24th May 2016].

Sharky, S. (2016). The Great Gatsby. [Performance Art]. Black Eyed Theatre. Lincoln. Lincoln Performing Arts Centre. England. Friday 4^th March 2016.

The Great Gatsby. (2013). Directed by Baz Luhrmann. Warner Bros.

Zelda, The Musical. (2003). [Performance Art]. Directed by Craig Revel Horwood.

Final Blog Post

Chloe Radford / May 24, 2016May 24, 2016 / Chloe Radford Final

In our theatre company, Lifting the Barriers, we wanted to ‘provide dynamic theatre that is accessible with a particular view to engaging with young people who want to experience the world in a different way’ (Lifting the Barriers, 2016). Likewise to the Arts council England who believe ‘Arts and culture has the ability to move us to laughter or to tears. It helps us make sense of our lives and the world around us’ (2013). This said, we wanted our theatre company to reflect on a life that may have been unjustly overlooked and emphasize it to educate a young audience so to become more aware of the world around them. The performance was aimed to be thought-provoking, enlightening and above all powerful. As the director of Lifting the Barriers, it was my job to explore the different aspects of Zelda Fitzgerald, and devise a piece of drama that looked into her world whilst dealing with a mental disability she didn’t even realise she had. Although this meant that we had plenty of material to use, it also proved to be a delicate subject, one that still proves relatable to people in today’s society. With the use of Bipolar as a strong focus of the performance, we had to be respectful and careful.

Finding Zelda

Zelda Fitzgerald was the first ever flapper girl and wife to the author F. Scott Fitzgerald. However, to society, Zelda was seen as a distraction or disturbance to Scott. Countless reports showed Zelda to be a flirt with men and a trouble maker, drinking and partying till the early hours of the morning. Nevertheless, it was not discovered until after her death, the turmoil and distress she was under, mostly due to her mental illness, bipolar. Unfortunately, due to the times in which Zelda was brought into, bipolar was not discovered as a mental disorder until twenty years ago. Therefore, she was misdiagnosed with Schizophrenia. On top of this, she was thought to have miscarriages, postnatal depression, and an affair with a French airman and a love/hate relationship with her husband. All of these moments in her life were due to or affected by her mental illness of bipolar. We wanted to highlight this to the audience, creating empathy for the first flapper.

This was why we chose her instead of another influential woman. We did have the intention of using six influential women in the performance, but this proved to be difficult as they all had a deep, complex background. Even though Zelda had come from a world of wealth, she did suffer the pressures of society with an undiagnosed disorder. At the time of her life she was seen as erratic and, in her later years, a danger to society. This inspired us to explore the illness and to how it affected her in day to day life, but more importantly, how she coped with it.

The Zelda’s

In the early stages of devising, the group had to decide who we were going to include in the piece, and what parts of Zelda’s life was most apparent to talk about. We contemplated the idea of having a man on stage, but this would have defeated the purpose of an all-female theatre company. Furthermore, we wanted this performance to be focus only on Zelda, to just have her on stage and tell her story. Therefore, we broke her life down into five life-changing moments. These moments, in our opinion, determined the outcome of her life, thus leading her to Ashfield Highland Hospital in her final days. These moments were:

In Love Zelda (Abi) – The young, naïve flapper. In love with the idea of love and spending the rest of her days with Scott.
Party Zelda (Kate K) – The socialite, newly married and extremely happy. However, battling with the rumours of Scott’s liaisons with other women before he married Zelda.
Depressed Zelda (Hannah) – Upset in her current marriage and living in Paris, Zelda fell for a French pilot. When she tried to confront Scott and leave him, he locked her away in the house until she agreed to never try to leave him again
Ballet Zelda (Megan) – After the almost breakdown of her marriage, Zelda became fixated on her ballet and drawing again. She attended a ballet school in France and practiced up to eight hours a day. However this was too much of a strain, and she had to quit.
Hospitalized Zelda (Maddie) – Zelda at the end. After everything she endured, her father passed away and this tipped her over the edge. She was in and out to hospitals until the end of her life.

(Flickr, 2016)

As well as the five Zelda’s, there were two characters present on stage, and another two as recordings. On stage was a researcher from our time, interested in the flapper’s life, and a nurse from the hospital in the 1940’s who questions Zelda’s actions throughout the performance. The purpose for the researcher was to link the other voices to the performance, this being the Interviewer and Zelda’s granddaughter, Eleanor Lanahan. These characters were introduced, not only to narrate, but to link the past with the future, thus linking the audience.

(ibid)

Devising

In the beginning of the process, we knew that we wanted the piece to be stylised due to the mental illness of bipolar and how it can affect the mind. We wanted the audience to experience this first hand. However, we had to understand Zelda and the metal illness first. I researched her life using various websites and books, such as Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (Barks and Bryer, 2003). I also interviewed someone with bipolar and the daily struggles they have. Furthermore, I watched an adapted performance of Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby at the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, where the blog can be found through this link (Sharkey, 2016). I also watched the film Midnight in Paris, as nearer to the beginning of the film Zelda and Scott made appearances, in their youth (Allen, 2011). It also helped me to understand the exciting life of the 20’s and 30’s, therefore understanding Zelda. Through this research I begun to understand how erratic and possessive she would have seemed to society due to her mental health. The sense of unity and consistency needed to be made clear in the performance, linking the Zelda’s to one another as they told their story. This led us to the workshops.

The earlier rehearsals consisted of various technique classes and games, as so to understand Zelda and to determine different ways of expressing her. As there was so much writing of Zelda in her life due to Scott’s work and the tabloids, we begun to favour a physical theatre aspect to the performance, instead of always talking. The games assisted in this, as well as hot seating, we mimicked each other’s walks, used mirroring exercises and walked around the room focussing our attention on one person in the room, keeping them in sight. As these rehearsals went on, we used our research of Zelda to assist in the devising. As the actors knew which Zelda’s they were playing, they were able to develop their characters walk and characteristics. One rehearsal, closer to the performance, we focused a rehearsal on characteristics and walks. The Zelda’s watched one another and copied each other’s walk, making them aware of mannerisms.

Following on from the physical aspect, we used many practitioners in our inspiration for our movements. One of these was Frantic Assembly’s Chair duets (HowBizarreProduction, 2011). The unity of the performance was something that we wanted to embody for Zelda, so we used the idea of movement with chairs to form out opening movement to the performance. Instead of it being a duet, I directed all five Zelda’s to perform at the beginning as means to foreshadow the movements and events that the audience were about the witness. Another aspect of physical theatre we were inspired by was Pina Bausch – Kontakthof (YouTube, 2013). The video showed a woman first appearing to be delicately petted by admirers, which then slowly turned into an attack. This reminded me of Zelda in her own mind, and how she battled with herself. Therefore I directed Hospitalized Zelda to be slowly petted then attacked by her past selves. This turned into the finale of the piece, following after a projection of her past selves, taunting her decrease in life. The full explanation of Pina Bausch performance can be found by this link.

(ibid)

As mentioned before, in relation to mental health the nurse of the performance was slowly changed throughout the process. First there to taunt, I managed to soften her antagonism in the piece, as her questions became less cruel and instead blunter. She eventually became a physical representation of the mental health of bipolar, acting as the voice in her head, questioning her motives and reasoning. The voice was in the form of a nurse due to the conclusion of Zelda’s life and the only physical contact she had with human life at the end. The nurse was only real at the end of the performance, when she touched Zelda in comfort. Up until this point, the nurse kept a distance from Zelda, at least at arm’s length, to emphasise Zelda’s isolation and inability to control her mind. The nurse was the only character allowed to leave the stage throughout the piece, seeing as those who suffer with bipolar hear the voice most clearly when they are at their lowest state. This is why we had the Zelda Zone.

The Zelda Zone was originally inspired by the idea of Brechtian Theatre. We wanted the Zelda’s to not leave the stage, but to help assist in the flow of the performance, whereby the audience can witness every change in Zelda’s state of mind. However, the staging would have proved difficult if we had use minimalistic set, which is how we thought of the letters. Throughout Zelda and Scott’s blossoming romance, they wrote letters to one another of their undying love, which we used as verbatim theatre in the letter sent to her mother which can be found on the blog. Performances such as West End’s Matilda and RSC’s As You Like it, also helped in the creation of the set, as their set also revolves around letters and the telling of a story. Therefore, we wanted to use this as inspiration to the setting of the stage, not to isolate the audience from the actors, but to make the scenes clear and concise; and easy to differentiate between what was the main focus of attention. That is why I was very strict that when playing a Zelda, the actors were not allowed to leave the zone until finished with their scene. This was so not to break focus from that time zone of Zelda’s world. Any props that needed to be handled off or on the stage had to be handled by and un-used Zelda. This is why I was more lenient with other Zelda’s playing different characters, as the current Zelda could not leave the space. The different characters, although different voices and characteristics, were still acting for the one purpose which was to assist in the telling of Zelda’s story.

(ibid)

Show Day

On show night one of my favourite parts was the beginning letter, originally sent from Zelda to her mother. The deliverance of the letter was inspired by slam poetry enthusiasts, Changing the World, One Word at a Time, for the energy and surety of the speech (YouTube, 2014). The blog for this can be found here. If I could have had a chance to improve, I would have liked to have tried different ways to portray the narrator. It proved difficult during rehearsals how to show the narrators state in the show, the presence of her and the researcher on stage throughout seemed the least complex choice. However, if given more time I could have explored further into how to portray her. Also, I would have liked to have used the letters from the set more. Even though the only two Zelda’s to use the letters were deliberate, as they were both taking a chance at life and hope which interlinked them, there could have been ways to further the idea. That’s said, I would not have changed the set because, although it was simple, it was striking and drew the audience in with curiosity from the beginning. Also, I liked the look of all actors on stage throughout. Although some were worried of the Zelda’s at the back distracting the audience, I thought it was powerful in how each Zelda haunted the past and future. The show received positive feedback by a local blogger of Lincoln who commented, ‘The story was emotive, the set was fantastic and the lighting and sound was genius’ (OrdinaryBravery, 2016). Therefore, I believed we communicated the life of Zelda Fitzgerald in the respectful manner we wanted, paired with the severity of mental health.

(ibid)

Citation

Allen, W. (dir.) (2011) Midnight in Paris. [DVD] California: Warner Home Video.

Arts Council England (2013) An animation: Arts Council England’s mission and goals explained. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdTQD3zoPiY

Barks, C, W., Bryer, J, R. (eds.) (2003) Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Flickr (2016) Love First, Live Incidentally. [Online] London: Flickr. Available from https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/61839232@N02/26468989524/ [Accessed 23 May 2016]

HowBizarreProduction (2011) Frantic Assembly’s Chair Duet. [Online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCu5MeHnDyk [Accessed 1 March 2016]

Lifting the Barriers (2016) About Us. [blog entry] 19 May. Lincoln: Lifting the Barriers. Available from https://liftingthebarriers.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/about-us/ [Accessed 23 May 2016]

OrdinaryBravery (2016) Love First, Live Incidentally: Play Review & A little bit of Zizzi’s. [blog entry] 18 May. Lincoln: Ordinary Acts of Bravery. Available from https://ordinaryactsofbravery.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/love-first-live-incidentally-play-review-a-little-bit-of-zizzis/ [Accessed 24 May 2016]

Sharkey, S. (2016) The Great Gatsby. [performance] Adrian McDougall (dir.) Blackeyed Theatre. Lincoln: Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, Friday 4^th March 2016.

Tumblr (2015) Zelda Fitzgerald’s Letter Home. [online] New York: Tumblr. Available from http://loveathighspeeds.tumblr.com/post/116579382067/napowrimo-day-9-zelda-fitzgeralds-letter-home [Accessed 8 March 2016]

YouTube (2013) Pina Bausch – Kontakthof (Nazareth Panadero) [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCiT4l8iV-Q [Accessed 15 March 2016]

Megan Langer Final Blog Submission

Megan Langer / May 23, 2016May 24, 2016 / Megan Langer, Megan Langer Final

Marketing for “Love First, Live Incidentally”

For our theatre company, Lifting The Barriers, Kate Kelly and I are the Marketing Officers, whereby our role and responsibility is “to promote and sell tickets” (The Theatres Trust, 2016) for our first show Love First, Live Incidentally. One person that I looked to for inspiration when undertaking this role was Victoria Murray, who is responsible for the marketing of the National Theatre Live cinema broadcasts and the National’s touring productions. In an interview, Victoria discusses how her job requirements are ever-changing, and summarized the job as “a hugely mixed bag” (National Theatre, 2015). This variety of tasks was also true for myself throughout this process, whereby my specific jobs for the company were to create the Marketing Pack, write the copy, communicate with the LPAC box office and marketing team in regards to ticket sales and promotion, contact local businesses and radio stations, and share the responsibility of the social media accounts.

Lisa Mulcahy states that “your most important marketing lesson…keep focused on the main purpose of your company” (Mulcahy, 2011, 53). The main purpose of our theatre company is to create devised theatre inspired by current events and social issues, which is accessible, thought provoking and engaging to young people through dramatic performances and documentary theatre. Love First, Live Incidentally is about Zelda Fitzgerald, the infamous “first American Flapper” and socialite of the 1920’s mostly known as the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Through a theatrical retelling of Zelda’s life and her battle with bipolar disorder (which was misdiagnosed as schizophrenia), we hope to raise a discussion and awareness of mental health.

Marketing is defined by the Arts Council as “the process of communicating the value of your work to potential audiences…a good marketing plan will allow you to meet your goals and the needs of audiences” (Arts Council England, 2016, 3). Thus, our marketing campaign concentrated on informing our target audience about the focus of our piece being Zelda and her mental health.

The key stages of our campaign were:

To ensure our target audience knew who our company was by sharing images of our process and creating short biographies.
To create a presence online on social media by regularly engaging with our audience and updating them on our process.
To participate in world days that connected with and highlighted our shows themes.
To fundraise for our show, which would subsequently promote the company.
To design and produce posters and flyers for display around LPAC and the university for our target audience.

The Marketing Pack

At the beginning of the campaign, Julie Ellerby, the Marketing Manager for LPAC, shared valuable advice with us. She highlighted the importance of understanding who our audience were and defining what makes us as a company unique (Ellerby, 2016). She reiterated how our campaign needed to be a clear reflection of the performance for our target audience (Ellerby, 2016). I thought of this when creating the Marketing Pack and copy, as seen below, which I hope presents our company and the performance clearly to any potential venue. As Jackie Elliman comments, “your brand is crucial…it should enable not just audiences but venues, funders, potential partners and others to understand what you’re about” (Caines, 2013).

13220663_10207873378490144_4680283078655292860_o — (Langer, 2016f)

One essential part of the Marketing Pack is the list of our Target Audience. It was essential to ensure there was a wide range of potential audience members, as well as specific groups of people to target that would have a keen interest in our show. Our Target Audience members were those over the age of fifteen, those interested in history, literature, feminism and/or mental health, and Students from the School of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Lincoln. An example which shows that targeting our audience was successful is how a blog reviewer of our show came to see the performance because of “a fascination with the 1920’s” (Ordinary Acts Of Bravery, 2016). Thus, we effectively marketed the show to this audience member and their interest in history.

Social Media

One vital aspect of the marketing campaign was our social media accounts. There has been a large increase in likes and followers for all of our social media pages since our company formed. This is most evident on our Twitter, which is the platform that we used most on a consistent basis.

As Lyn Gardner says, “Facebook, Twitter and blogs are increasingly the means by which ticket sales are driven” (Gardner, 2010). Therefore, it was imperative that we used our social media constantly throughout this process. We posted content that promoted the company and the show, whilst also engaging with our target audience and making them feel connected and invested in the company. On Facebook we shared photos of our rehearsals, talked about our fundraising events and posted ticket information (as shown below), on Instagram we shared photos of the company, and on Twitter we posted and retweeted updates of the company (as shown below) and created a countdown to the performance. In the weeks leading up to the show, the actresses playing Zelda changed their profile pictures to their corresponding flyers, allowing for our images to reach a wider audience of their online friends. Additionally, I also created a Facebook event for the performance to get an idea of who was going or interested in the performance online.

13217230_10207858344474303_9169016090916773082_o — (Langer, 2016c)

“World Days”

Part of our campaign was to interact and participate in “World Days” that had a connection to our performance. This was inspired by Lisa Mulcahy who says that “thinking in an innovate way about your marketing concerns can tremendously benefit your company” (Mulcahy, 2011, 94). On the 3^rd of March we celebrated World Book Day on our Instagram by introducing our company to our audience with what their favourite book was, as shown below. This highlighted the literary themes within the show and meant that we could be a part of a much wider online engagement with our target audience. Additionally, on the 7^th of April we participated in World Health Day by asking our target audience to answer the question “is enough being done to lift the barriers of mental health”. This was then shared on Facebook, as shown below. As Zelda lived with bipolar, we used this opportunity to discuss with our target audience what they thought the perception of mental health is in our society. All of the individuals answered that not enough was being done to support those with mental health issues. We as a company shared the same views, and these answers were useful for us in understanding how imperative it was to portray how Zelda’s mental health affected her life in the 1940’s honestly and realistically. Hopefully, our performance has brought further to light the importance of supporting those with mental health issues.

13235177_10207858344234297_8751433900876608275_o — (Langer, 2016g)

13235347_10207858343394276_1349253401238206823_o — (Langer, 2016h)

Fundraising

For the performance we needed to raise money for the show to be able to afford the props, costumes, tech and marketing products that we wanted. Fundraising was also an effective way to market the company and the show, because as Lisa Mulcahy notes, “one tried-and-true method is to hold a fundraiser to establish your company in people’s minds” (Mulcahy, 2011, 47). Alongside an online Indiegogo campaign, we held a pub quiz on the 7^th of April and a bake sale on the 12^th of April, through which we held a raffle to win afternoon tea for two that was gifted to us by thomas2catering. All of these events were profitable for the company and helped us to connect with potential audience members.

Print Marketing

Images were a medium that we used as much as possible throughout the campaign, on both social media and in the print marketing. As Elizabeth Hill, Terry O’Sullivan and Catherine O’Sullivan observe, “there are few thing as eloquent as a good photograph” (Hill et al, 2003, 212). When designing our flyers and posters, we wanted the image to support visually the words I had written for the copy and capture the feel of the performance for our target audience. We were inspired by a photograph of Zelda and Scott in an embrace, and were advised by Julie to replicate the tone by making our image appear like an old photograph. Using the backdrop of the Arboretum in Lincoln, we captured the moment of one of our actresses playing Zelda in an embrace with Scott (played by our friend Simon Payne). We also captured a moment of the actress playing Zelda in the distance looking towards Scott with a pained expression. This contrast between the images was to highlight the differing emotions Zelda felt throughout her life, with the front image being happy and in love, and the back image seemingly hurt and angry. After further advice from our tutor Dominic Symonds, we decided to recreate the photographs we had taken with the four other actresses who played Zelda, as a way to inform the audience of the concept of the five actresses each playing Zelda. All of these flyers and posters can be found in the Marketing Documents. I think the flyers and posters were a great reflection of the performance, as they placed Zelda at the forefront and reinforced the setting of the era through the sepia tone and the black and white design. This was apparent in the End Of Year Performances brochure that included our image and copy, whereby, when compared to the other performances, I think the themes of our show are evident. I believe the image and design of the print marketing were successful because, as Lisa Mulcahy says, we concentrated on the “company’s main reason for existing in the first place” (Mulcahy, 2011, 53), focusing on Zelda and introducing her to our target audience.

zelda-scott-fitzgerald — The photograph of Zelda and Scott that inspired us. (Anonymous)

The flyers and posters for our performance with Hannah Taylor as Zelda in the original images we took.

Using Lisa Mulcahy’s advise of “the best advertising is really just spreading excitement” (Mulcahy, 2011, 86), we made sure to distribute our print marketing around places in Lincoln that would attract our target audience. It was vital we had a large amount of distribution at LPAC, as this was the main place our target audience would be about. We also distributed around other buildings at the University of Lincoln, and went flyering in the town centre of Lincoln the weekend before the show. Furthermore, I sent an email to the School of Fine and Performing Arts via our tutor Kelly Jones, which contained the copy of the show and ticket information. As most of our tickets were bought closer to the date of the performance after this distribution, it can be inferred that our traditional marketing of posters, flyers and emails was effective.

Ticket Analysis

When tickets were first made available to purchase from LPAC, I contacted Phoebe Wall-Palmer, the Box-Office Co-ordinater, who agreed to send me a weekly Event Sales Report for the show, so that I could review how our ticket sales were going each week.

Whilst the capacity of LPAC is 444 seats, only 180 seats were available preliminary. With this in mind, our first target audience number was 180 seats. Our ticket sales since tickets for the show were made available are as follows:

There was a slow increase in ticket sales over the month of April, with a dramatic increase in the last few weeks before the show. This increase may be due to how a large majority of our audience were fellow students from the School of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Lincoln, who are much more likely to have bought tickets last minute. This increase could also have been affected by our ongoing social media marketing, as well as the distribution of our flyers and posters around LPAC and the rest of Lincoln in the last few weeks leading up to the show.

Feedback and Evaluation

Overall, we sold 142 tickets for Love First, Live Incidentally at LPAC on the 17th May 2016, and filled the auditorium to 32% capacity. For our first show as a debut company, I am very pleased with the number of audience members who came to see our work and believe we have established ourselves well as a theatre company.

We had an immediate positive response from our audience after the performance, as well as on our social media pages, with many congratulating and praising the piece. Particular admiration was given to the set, script and the form of the storytelling we used. Additionally, we were reviewed on a blog, who said that:

“I thought the Lifting the Barriers company did very well. The story was emotive, the set was fantastic and the lighting and sound was genius.” (Ordinary Acts Of Bravery, 2016)

In the future, to maximize on the success of this performance, I feel we should continue creating innovative devised work that plays with the form of storytelling. From our audience’s response, I think a strong point of the show was our set and the script, and we should keep writing and designing our future work with this in mind.

In reflection, I believe the marketing campaign for the performance was very successful. We sold a great number of tickets for the show, and I feel that the varying different mediums of marketing that we used all played a part in informing our target audience about the show’s emphasis on Zelda and mental health, and successfully selling the performance.

Works Cited:

Anonymous. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald [image]. Available from http://www.vogue.com/13288144/zelda-fitzgerald-birthday/ [accessed 22 May 2016].

Arts Council England (2016) Audience development and marketing, and Grants for the Arts. Manchester: Arts Council England. Available from http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/Audience_development_and_marketing_and_Grants_for_the_Arts_Jan2016.pdf [accessed 23 May 2016].

Caines, M. (2013) 15 tips on setting up a theatre company. The Guardian, 28 August. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2013/aug/28/expert-tips-setting-up-theatre-company [accessed 23 May 2016].

Crow, P. (2016) Love First, Live Incidentally. Available from https://www.flickr.com/photos/61839232@N02/27005919041/in/album-72157668230653081/ [accessed 19 May 2016].

Ellerby, J. (2016) Marketing. [speech] Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, 17 February.

Gardner, L. (2000) Theatre: wake up to the digital age! The Guardian, 20 April. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2010/apr/18/theatre-digital-twitter-facebook-social-media [accessed 23 May 2016].

Hill, E., O’Sullivan, T. and O’Sullivan, C. (2003) Creative Arts Marketing. London: Routledge.

Langer, M. (2016a) Lifting The Barriers Facebook post [image].

Langer, M. (2016b) Lifting The Barriers Social Media bar chart.

Langer, M. (2016c) Lifting The Barriers Twitter page [image].

Langer, M. (2016d) Love First, Live Incidentally Tickets Sold line graph.

Langer, M. (2016e) Marketing Pack [image].

Langer, M. (2016f) Programme Copy [image].

Langer, M. (2016g) World Book Day Instagram post [image].

Langer, M. (2016h) World Health Day Facebook post [image].

Lifting The Barriers (2016a) Back of flyer with Hannah as Zelda [image]. Available from https://liftingthebarriers.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/marketing/ [accessed 22 May 2016].

Lifting The Barriers (2016b) Front of flyer and post with Hannah as Zelda [image]. Available from https://liftingthebarriers.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/marketing/ [accessed 22 May 2016].

Mulcahy, L. (2011) Building The Successful Theatre Company. 2nd edition. New York: Alworth Press.

National Theatre (2015) Careers at the National Theatre: Marketing Manager. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmUA2KuHOgc&index=15&list=PLJgBmjHpqgs5SvR8xSnvuHcFTbDl_hta6 [accessed 23 May 2016]

Ordinary Acts Of Bravery. (2016) Love First, Live Incidentally: Play Review & A little bit of Zizzi’s. [blog]. 18 May. Available from https://ordinaryactsofbravery.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/love-first-live-incidentally-play-review-a-little-bit-of-zizzis/ [accessed 19 May 2016].

The Theatres Trust (2016) Who works in a theatre? London: The Theatres Trust. Available from http://www.theatrestrust.org.uk/resources/exploring-theatres/who-works-in-a-theatre [accessed 23 May 2016].