Brothers Grimm: New Building Plans 19/5/2014

Monday 19th May

Today we went on a tour of the new building. We went into the new performing arts space which is a big stage area with bleacher seating.

When we came out of the building we started to make plans for our Brothers Grimm performance of Hansel and Gretel. Since this new area has bleacher seating we aren't really able to have the audience wherever we want them such as in the round or transverse.

Since the stage can change levels I decided that I wanted Hansel and Gretel's house to be on stage right but on a lower place than the witches house which would be next to it. This shows that Hansel and Gretel have been hit by the poor society, famine and hunger with their starvation. The witches house will be stage left but on a higher level to than the family. The woods will then be on the floor in front of the audience since there will be a big space between the seating area and the stage.

I then came up with another idea of having the woods on the stairs of the audience. They would come down from the gates by the lighting box on the balcony. However there are many scenes which are performed within the woods so this wouldn't be a good idea to do.

There were other ideas for the atmosphere of the piece for the audience, someone came up with the idea of having the audience just sitting on their own as a one person seat and the woods would be around them. Since sitting on your own within a theatre would be creepy and eerie anyway, having the scots work around you would add to the affect of the piece that we want to achieve.

This is the new staging area at its different levels 

 Here is a view of the stage from the balcony where the lighting box will be. The audience will go up to near the black thing is on the floor or just before there.

This is the balcony area, where the black pipe is is where the lighting box will be. On the far left and far left will be gates for the audience to get don to their seats.