End of Term Report

Being, as we are, a University project, ttpo# now faces two weeks without workshops, and given how we have been struggling to link together the different improvised scenes today's workshop given by Justin Audibert couldn't have come at a better time. Justin is currently assistant directing up at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds where he has most recently been working on the well-received The Grouch. He came in tonight for the second of our professional-led workshops (thanks to funding from CILASS), and after a jumping, clapping warmup that would be the envy of even the most energetic gospel choir, he truly kick-started the proverbial loom, encouraging the group to improvise a string of five scenes: if you'll excuse further metaphoricalising, he's shown us how to water and fertilise the seeds we've sown.

I also found myself pushed to explore the full technological limits of our rehearsal space, linking up a DV cam to the lecturn PC. This meant we could not only record most of the rest of the proceedings (video coming soon...), but project live video onto the wall as well.

As I have previously mentioned we are at the end of the spring term and now half-way through the second semester. Time is therefore not on our side, and of the seven weeks we have left, only five of them will see us physically meeting up as a group.

We'll therefore be switching to collaborative online software, namely Google Docs, and concentrate on using our Facebook Groups to develop our ideas and plan the roadmap to performance.

If I was to give the collective a grade for the term, I'd say we've just about pulled a last minute 2.1 out of the bag, but we have a lot of work ahead of us if we're going to realise our ambitions for this project.

Some of us are off to the National Student Drama Festival (NSDF) next week, so will be posting from the glamorous beaches of Scarborough to a screen near you before you know it...

Who are the watchers?

I've now put together a preview poster (see right) - we're probably going to use this as the basis for a collaborative design for the final publicity campaign, and maybe use the camera stencil for some t-shirts for those involved.

Some people have commented that on first glance it looks like a gun (but that this is a not necessarily a bad thing), while others say it a looks lot like a Hard-Fi album cover - I say it just looks like one of the standard posters warning people that they are on CCTV. I don't know how much these notices blend into the background these days; despite being bright yellow it is only been since I've been involved with this project that I've started noticing them again - their ubiquity has more or less meant that our brains ignore them.

After a couple of workshops it now seems that at least part of the focus of the piece will be on an operator working in a CCTV control room. We have this idea of him facing the audience, sat at a workstation on a raised section of the theatre (known as the baptistry - the theatre we'll be using is a converted church) with what he sees projected onto a screen suspended above his head. But who exactly are these anonymous people who sit watching us?

Red Road (2006) portrays quite normal, down to earth people, far from any 'type' we might imagine: a busybody or voyeur. I imagine there must be some kind of vetting procedure, obviously including a CRB check, but the skills requirements suggested by this Local Government Careers website only the following:

- excellent eyesight,
- strong powers of concentration,
- to be able to react quickly and calmly in an emergency,
- good communication skills,
- to be discreet - confidentiality is very important, they must never discuss what they see on their monitors with outsiders,
- to be able to work without supervision.

I was interested in seeing what these people might be like, so searched for a group on Facebook this morning. Sure enough, I found CCTV Operator's club; with about 18 members it can hardly be described as fully representative, especially considering the skewed demographics of social networks, but there were only three women to the fifteen male members. What I noticed this morning was that among the related groups section (which lists the top 5 groups members have in common) was that as well as I WORK IN THE BULLRING (presumably one of the main nodes of the group invited their colleagues at the Birmingham shopping centre), was a group called Bloody Women! - mysteriously now deleted. Unfortunately I didn't take a screenshot this morning so you'll have to accept this on trust, but I may well have a cache saved on my home computer to upload.

UPDATE: seems to have reappeared to you'll be able to see for yourself...

The group was not quite as misogynistic as you might imagine; it seemed to be several young men talking about how they always seem to end up in the "friend zone", although the description did mention oestrogen and madness in the same sentence.

Is there a certain motivation among young men who are "unlucky in love" towards this job? As a woman, would it worry you if a large number of CCTV operators were men? There has been a lot written on the relationship of gender to surveillance, and given this finding perhaps this is an area we should explore.

The Audition Workshops

I'm writing from the lectern in CILASS 7 where we are currently holding the first of our two "audition" workshops - having had difficulties persuading students to overcome any fears they have about being involved in our project, we felt we needed to use the word "audition" as a way of encouraging new people to get involved. We weren't looking to eliminate people, just see how different people fit in to the group dynamic. You can see some of the stuff we got up to in the video below...



Many thanks to Dan Balla for being the guest leader for the first workshop - and giving us a lot of ideas for the second, including "Autocue Improv"... more on this later!

Workshop Auditions

This Wednesday we will be holding workshop auditions for the performers for Surveillance, which if you missed it is the title of the final piece we will be performing.

It needs to be stressed that with this project the journey is far more important than the destination, and that being involved with ttpo# will be an opportunity to be part of a pioneering student-led IBL project, after our successful grant application that will allow us to bring in professional experience and take our work to conferences, festivals and across the world-wide web.

We're looking for a mix of creatively-minded undergraduate students of all levels of experience with theatre to work on researching and devising a show exploring the implications of increased surveillance at all levels of modern society, focussing in particular on the effects on both the watcher and the watched. As an official project of CILASS, (Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences), we will be blending professional-led workshops with devising sessions, discussion forums, video shoots, hands-on technical training, and a collaborative online organisational system; this will be a huge opportunity for anyone interested in theatre, sociology, collaborative research, and improving their research and information skills.

We will be running two sessions (open only to members of the University) on Wednesday 20th February 2008: 2pm-4pm and 5pm to 7pm (14:00-16:00 & 17:00-19:00). Anyone interested in joining the project need only attend one session. There is a chance we may be oversubscribed, or that you may not be able to make either session. If this is the case, either contact us by email/text/phone, or let us know in the comments and we'll get in contact ASAP.

Please wear comfortable clothing (and clean socks!), and make sure you bring your U-card to access the building.

So, to sum up...

Location: CILASS 7 (Level One of the Information Commons)
Day: Wednesday 20th February 2008
Session One: 2pm - 4pm
Session Two: 5pm - 7pm

Facebook Event Page

theatre two point oh # presents: "Surveillance"

A belated Happy New Year and welcome to any new visitors to the site. We've got plenty of news to update you about, which we'll try and do in dribs and drabs over the next few days.

The ttpo# team is now coming together, having brought on board a brand new stage manager, Sarah, who will be gracing these pages with her thoughts as soon as her assessments are out the way (should be next week)

We've also submitted a funding application to CILASS at the University of Sheffield with a view to becoming a fully integrated CILASS project - we'll let you know the results of this as soon as we know in a couple of weeks' time, and more about what this entails in the next few days.

It also seems that we've now committed to a title for the play, simply "Surveillance". It came to the point where publicity/marketing-wise we had too many deadlines approaching, and it doesn't restrict us too much with where we want to go with the play. For those of you that are new to these pages, we're going to be investigating the implications of increased surveillance in our society, whether through closed-circuit television, DNA databasing, RFID chips, or any other technological development, so hopefully this title works for you!

Falling behind...

How did we get so behind with the blog?

Well anyway, here's a quick photo from the last workshop to give you an idea of what we got up to. We'll be fully writing this up in the next few days, but you'll have to forgive me for putting my course before keeping the blog up to date :)

Anyway, just to let you all know that we'll be putting on many more workshops on in the new year that will be open to all shef students, so watch this space for details.

Launch Workshop Tomorrow! (Wed 12th Dec)

Shit me things have been busy recently! Sorry to anybody who's been waiting eagerly for news, especially about when we're getting started. Things have been happening, but due to a hectic schedule and the fact that it's just me blogging at the moment (though this will soon change) I haven't kept things up to date on here (slapped wrist!).

First and foremost, then, details of the workshop...

Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Time: 4:00pm - 6:00pm / 16:00 - 18:00
Location: CILASS, Information Commons, 44 Leavygreave Road, Sheffield

Only 24 places available, first come, first serve. We're looking to recruit our entire team (cast and crew) as early as possible, so all participants will be invited to get involved with the show in some way, shape or form. That said, there are no strings attached, so don't be afraid to come along even if you don't want to commit!

Now for what you need to bring:

- Comfortable clothing (and clean socks!)
- Your U-card (so you can get into the building - sorry to non-students!)
- Digital Recording Devices (laptops, cameras, camcorders, mp3 players/recorders); N.B. any equipment you bring is at your own risk.
- A random item of costume (in the broadest sense)
- A mask, a prop, or some kind of unbreakable object
- We'll also be asking you to fill in a couple of forms, so make sure you know your contact details, and bring your measurements if you happen to know them.

Facebook Event Listing

We're also running one next week (at a slightly different time), so check the event listing for more details of number two.

Other than this, I have been meeting up with various directors, performers, and lecturers, have seen performances at the RSC and at the Capital Centre (another CETL, a bit like CILASS), and have been to a "Network Event"(!). Will write up all of this and more, but for now hope to see some of you tomorrow!