Stanislavski technique: 

The method is an actor training system made up of various different techniques designed to allow actors to create believable characters and help them to really put themselves in the place of a character. Much of the technique centres around Given Circumstances and the Magic If. (reference link here). I used the Stanislavski technique in preperation for the final performence in many ways, some examples being:

The magic if, i took part in group activities where we were given random scenarios and we had to think about how our characters would rect to the situtions, thinking about everything from the movement, speech, accent or even facial expressions of the character to really bring them to life and build them an almost backstory, another thing i did was hot seating, this was really useful as it really helped me feel closer to the character i was playing because i could never guess what questions i would be asked, another thing i did that uses the Stanislavski technique is that at the beggining i set my character a super objective, for example the super objective for my character was that he just wanted to play in a play,he is just kind of chill and goes along with anything that happeneds without having too much imput in anything. The last thing that i did to develop my character was subtext, this is when i analysed the script and really tried to find the true meaning and purpose behing anything my character said or did. My characters name was Snug, his job was a joiner which is basically a woodworker so he built stuff like wooden parts of houses or furniture, judging off the scrpt i would say my character is about 27-30 years old, i decided this as he seems to still be very active and not too mature with some of the things he says or does for example when he forgets that he is meant to roar in act 5 when Flute enters and says his queue. I feel like my characters background is that he was raised with no family and that he was poor and barely making it through, i also dont think he was married as he doesnt seem to show off too much emotion and doesnt seem to care about romantic stuff instad he just wants to work and follow his dream of being an actor. My character probably didnt have many if any friends on the set but if i had to guess he was the closest to Snout as he is seen with him alot during the play or Quince since he would want to get to know him as he admires him and what he does so he wants to get on his good side. The overall story 'A midsummer nights dream' was written between 1595-1596 which was also the same time that Shakespeare was working on Romeo and Juliet, the overall summary of the full play is 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the story of the events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, king of Athens, and Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. It follows the lovers Hermia and Lysander as they attempt to elope but are dogged by Demetrius, in love with Hermia, and Helena, in love with Demetrius. Parallel is the story of Titania and Oberon, monarchs of the forest, who are embroiled in their own fight. Puck, their fairy jester, functions as a liaison between the two parties, as Oberon orders him to use a love potion to make Demetrius fall in love with Helena. Oberon’s plan backfires, and it is Puck’s duty to right his wrong. As the play is a comedy, it ends with a many-part marriage between the happy lovers.' (reference link here) compared to our shortened version where the summary was that a group of people got together and went through the strange adventures that life presented them with to produce and air a good play for the people. I feel like the overall message of the full play was meant to be that love comes in many forms and that looks and reality are not always what they seem, whereas the message from our shortened version was that no matter what happeneds and comes across your path to your final destination you can not let it stop you from moving forward and overcoming it, and that life will throw many surprises your way some good and others not so much but you cant let them bring you down. In my opinion  the story has changed becuase we only took a bit out as the full story was more slow paced and focused on a deeper meaing however when we took only some of it and made it into its own little play, it seemed very fast paced, like everything is happening right after eachother and all the events are hectic with no time to unwind.  Obviously there are pros and cons to having presented the play as a shortened version, examples of some pros being: We were able to get the funny and comedic parts of the story out to our audience without having to make them sit through the whole play, we were able to interpret our characters in different ways then we could have if we was to do the full version, we were able to perform the shortened version more times allowing different audiences to see it each time. Some cons are: The story didnt have the same 'love' meaning overall , the play lost some of its authenticity, we werent able to add parts from different acts of the play into it that could have been significant to the overall story line.

Other useful practitoiners:

Michael Chekhov has a very interesting technique that in my opinioin can really help with focus and improvision skills as it really makes you think, the technique is that you have to invent two different moods, one to start a scene and one to end it, and act out a story that takes a character from one to the other, i would like to use this technique in future productions as i feel like i could gain alot from being put on the spot to change the whole plot of a story from one emotion to another whilst working with others and still making it make sense.

Bertolt Brecht, his technique was breaking the fourth wall, which i feel like could be a very powerful move as if you include the audience in a play as your character it will make them forget that they are watching a play and almost lead them into a false sence of security and make them feel as if they are involved in whatever is going on in the performence.

Our performence was perpared as Stanislavski meaning we kept it very realistic and we rehersed using Stanislavski techniques such as hotseating, magic if, improvision with points to include or rehersing it in a realistic way but we staged it in a Brechtian way since we performed in a tent which contradicts Stanislavski as its not a realistic stage set up and thats what Stanislavski wanted and we also broke the fourth wall since we interacted with the audience through speech and actions such as seeking a calender from an audience member which would also be a brechtian style, another thing we did was that we did all of our costume changes on stage in frot of the audience making it obvious that its not realistic as they could see what was going on back stage.

Link to video of paired hot seating    This is the first time we were hot seating as our characters, at this point i did not know too much about my character and his backstory, i only knew he was a joiner, his name was snug and that he was playing a lion in the performence, this was still however a great way to get to know my character more and to start building a back story on him through improvised questions, i really enjoyed the unusal quesions that i got asked like for example how would my character walk as it made me dig deeper into my character than i normally would have. 

Examples of how i interpreted my characters part of the script with stage directions i gave myself, and facial reactions, body gestures and tones and ways of speaking.

Evaluation

The performance definetly was not the easiest to perfect and it gave us a lot of challanges along the way such as limited space since we were performing in a tent, having an audience in the round which i found a really fun and interesting to learn from challenge, it was different from anything ive done before as you always have be aware of where your back is facing to make sure it is not facing one side of the audience for long periods of time. When i first went to watch A midsummers night dream i got worries as it is Shakespeare and therefore its old English and i was worried i would struggle with the script, however when we shortened it i got a bit more confidence since it made it look and seem more smiple. Another thing i was worried about is that shortening the script might make it completely differ from the origional meaning it would be losing the moral of that love and looks are not always what they seem, however i. feel like we did a pretty good job at sqeezing not only some significant parts of the story line but also the funny parts that would keep the energy in the audience up and make it more of a short funny watch rather than a serious sit down play which is what we were tyring to do. For the future if we were doing a performence i would want more time practicing the spacing and positioning in each scene to really get down the positioning on stage not to face backwards to the audience, i also learned a lot by researching practitioners and i realised that its possible to mix a couple different practitioners techniques in one performence.