Performance For A Teenage Audience example essay topic

Describe And Evaluate The Preparation Of Your Performance To A Targeted Audience ~A Teenage Play~ Introduction We were asked to create a performance for a teenage audience. We thought and discussed many options for a subject matter and came up with relevant happenings to teenagers. The more considered subjects were sex, school and study pressure, friendship and love. Our final decision was about sex because we felt that sex is a major part of teenage years and that not enough teenagers are properly educated about sex. We also decided that we wanted our performance to educate teenagers so we used T. i.e. (Theatre in Education) style of theatre. The target audience was found because of the way we felt about sex education in PSHE.

We felt that year 9 would benefit from seeing our performance because sexual pressure is aroused at approximately this age. Our play was asked to be ready in one month therefore we only had one moth to rehearse. Rehearsal Each of the different groups rehearsed on their own at first until they mastered their acts. After plenty of practise the groups came together to rehearse.

When rehearsing, the different groups used improvisation techniques and attempted to write a simple guide script. Each of the actors gave views on how to improve our rehearsal skills and helped each other with their acting skills. Given the time that we had to rehearse most of it was waste and I believe this was because some of us lacked concentration and enthusiasm. My group had certain worries about the improvisational scripts that another group used because of the pretend abuse that we had to take from another group. We overcame that problem by talking to them about it and they toned down their scripts so that no more time would be wasted.

The Play The play is about thre different groups of male and female teenagers who all go to a party. The different groups have views about sex and different ways of talking about it. The male group brags to each other about their sexual adventures when really have not any and just lie to impress their friends, which shows us another common theme of peer pressure. This is where the girls differ, as they do not talk about sex because of their fear of being labelled. This also shows us about sexism where girls would be slandered against if they talked about any sexual confrontations. They all go to a party where a male character (Eugine) who is labelled as a "geek" and an ordinary girl (Rachael) who has had secret crush on him, get together and have sex.

Rachael's friends are disgusted with her for going with a geek and having sex at such an early age whereas, Eugine's friends praise him. In this play we used a narrator to tell the audience of the whereabouts and time of the next scene. Our narrator also interacts with the audience asking them of what they might think will happen. This would have been useful because it would have kept the audiences attention. My role in the play was a girl friend of Rachael's who accompanies her to the party. A particular scene that I was in that I thought was good was a scene where the girls talk about what they are going to wear to the party.

My character persuaded the other girls not to dress loosely and to cover themselves up or else they'd give the boys the wrong impression. I changed the tone of my voice to get into my character so that I'd show the seriousness of the character. I could improve my acting skills by being more enthusiastic and by getting in to it more. The Set In the play we used 2 different sets. The first set was one made up to look like a classroom (see diagram 1). We used this set for a scene in which the boys talk about sex and where they ask the girls to come to the party.

The second set was made up to look like a living room and this is where the "losers" discussion and the party are set. To improve the living room set we could have used more detail by putting in little things like a coffee table, this makes the set look a little bit more realistic. We did not use any special lighting or change the lighting through the play because we did not have access to lighting facilities. However we did use music in a few of the scenes.

We played fast music while the boys and girls where dressing and making themselves up and at the party. This was successful in creating a party feeling for the characters. Conclusion In my belief, the idea and intentions of the play was excellent because it would have educated and entertained an audience in one performance. Mixing education with entertainment is a good idea especially for restless teenagers because it keeps their attention focused on the pleasures of learning and enjoying themselves at the same time.

Unfortunately, we did not perform the play. This was because of the small amount of time we were given to rehearse in and because of the time that people wasted. Hopefully, next time we are given a task to create and perform a play my class will understand the importance of time and how it should not be wasted because I now understand from this experience. I believe the play would have been successful if we performed it and that we might have educated the audience about sex and the pressures sex puts on teenagers as we set out to do. Courtney 3rd Feb 2001 3 a 7.