Types Of Staging - 15/09/14

Today, we had our first lesson with Mr Crowther. As a class, we went through lots of body warm ups and voice exercises to make sure that we wouldn't hurt ourselves or strain our voices. Our teacher helped us to find our neutral position which we could form into our character from the play 'Noughts & Crosses'. Whilst in your neutral position, you should make sure your posture is upright, make sure you are in a stance where you can stand still and slightly bend your knees so that you can start walking quickly. After this, Mr Crowther taught us about the many different types of staging in theatre and why they are good for different types of things. For example, traverse staging can be used as a catwalk or a stage for when two people are reflecting each other, for example, if they had an argument, they would be very distant. Traverse staging can also be used to build up tension. An example the teacher gave us was a very long walk up to a desk where an important person is seated, like a boss of a company and an employee. Proscenium staging gives all of the audience a good view of the people on the stage as the actors can face the audience at all times. It is almost like looking into a window. Thrust staging generally consists of three sides of people around the stage and the fourth side being a backdrop. This makes a large square or rectangle stage involves the audience. In the round is another form of staging. It is made up of a stage, completely surrounded by an audience. This gives the audience a 360* view of the actors and really gets the audience excited. When we had learnt about staging, we were put into groups and given a script to learn for a performance on October 15th for settling in evening. In our group, I play the character 'Kamal' from 'Noughts & Crosses'. By the end of our lesson, we had staged our scene, according to how the characters were feeling and for the events that were going to occur.