Holly Gallagher (w12017006)

Theatre and Performance Practice (PA0703)

Reflective Essay #2: 10 Mins to...

10 Mins to... is an event hosted by Live Theatre through their artist development
scheme Live Lab. It aims to pair new writers and directors to showcase a short piece of
theatre of roughly 10 minutes in length which is directed, staged, and performed fully over
the course of a weekend. I completed this project twice over the course of the past academic
year. I was asked to do this event firstly in November 2015 after I handed my directing CV to
Live employee and director Melanie Rashbrooke during the Freshers week of my MA, and
secondly in May 2016 after Creative Producer Graeme Thompson invited me back as he was
impressed with my efforts the first time around. I believe that through completing this project
I have developed an array of new skills in regards to working with different genres, and have
also had the opportunity to develop pre-existing directorial and theatre making skills each
time I have partaken in the event.
The first piece I worked on was Last of the Artisans by Timothy Jones for 10 Mins to Light
the Fuse with actors Tom Isted and Conor Lowson. This piece was comedic a new genre
for me to play with as a director. It centred around a heist gone wrong, leaving the two
burglars stuck on the ledge of a Mafia boss windowsill. This meant that whilst our playing
space was limited by this, staging the piece didnt take long our main focus was on
establishing the environment on stage as high up through glances and physicality. This left
plenty of time to focus on text and the comedic performance of each actor. Comedy of course
requires an actor to stress a predominant psychological feature of the character which came
through a slightly more melodramatic performance from each actor in this piece, a feeling of
ease which I believe comes out of a script being performed with the intention of telling the
story truthfully rather than for laughs, and strong radiations of gay and happy qualities and
quick tempo interspersed with slow moments, the latter of which I believe Isted, Lowson,
and myself truly were attentive to in order to keep the piece engaging (Chekhov, 2002,
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Holly Gallagher (w12017006)

Theatre and Performance Practice (PA0703)

p.131). Another facet of performance to focus on alongside bringing out the comedic
moments in the script was in keeping the text fresh and interesting through its delivery. This
can be a challenge in a piece that is fairly static due to its small playing space a similar
challenge which I later faced when staging Before (the line is lost) as the piece largely takes
place at a small table with me reading text aloud. The way in which we set about keeping the
text fresh was by gaining a complete understanding of the piece in order for the actors to play
around with it more effectively we did this through facts and questions much in the same
way as I had with the ARCade Scratch and we also used a variety of character building
exercises from Hot Seating to Objectives and Units. Units are particularly helpful in breaking
down a narrative into events and splitting it into smaller sections to work on (Mitchell,
2008, p.55).
The second piece I directed was Tick Tock by Zoe Murtagh for 10 Mins to Make Amends.
This piece was written for 4 female actors and focused on the serious topic of sexism and
abuse in the music industry following the Ke$ha Sony trials earlier in 2016. This piece
immediately caught my eye for these reasons as I felt it had a prominent feminist ideology
something thematically similar to Before (the line is lost). I worked with actors Savannah
Betts, Meghan Doyle, Katie Powell, and Colette Conlin for this project after trying to cast
actors that either suited the archetypal role of the characters, or who had a music-based
background to aid in the sound of the piece. I found this piece more challenging to direct than
Last of the Artisans due to Murtaghs writing style the lines in this piece were short and
sporadic, with the storytelling split up into tiny chunks amongst the entire ensemble. This
proved an issue for a couple of reasons: one a large part of the rehearsal process was spent
on understanding the text, rather than on staging and delivery in order to solidify the
storytelling of the piece, and two due to the clipped and short writing style, a number of the
cast members found being off-book for the final performance difficult. Given that this piece
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Holly Gallagher (w12017006)

Theatre and Performance Practice (PA0703)

was dramatic, it required a purely human attitude and artistic truth in given circumstances
which meant that establishing a real understanding of the text was important and this was
achieved through a lot of group discussion surrounding unanswered questions and the listing
of facts (Chekhov, 2002, p.131). Once the storytelling had been largely understood however
we could focus on collaboration as an ensemble for the rhythmic and physical parts of the
performance.
In order to stimulate the ensemble to create musical rhythms and a short song to be used in
the piece, we worked with objects" which were in this instance musical instruments
(Mermikides and Smart, 2010, p.113). With a range of instruments in the room the
performers had the choice to pick whatever they liked to work with and were given free time
to build up a beat and rhythm from there. Thanks to having cast consisting of more musically
minded performers this task proved to be fairly simple, and with a few hours of rehearsal we
had an underscoring song that really provided a good energy to the piece. The final technique
I had the performers carry out involved working from images finding iconic pictures of girl
bands online and recreating this as several tableau images that could then become a short
movement sequence. This was a technique I had learned during my time with the National
Youth Theatre last summer which has proven useful in several of my projects for this
portfolio including Young Company, Mother Courage, and Before (the line is lost). Once
these movement sequences were in place we also played with the direction of movement
including fast/slow to add new qualities to the sequences and to match the tonal changes
within the text (Bict and Baldwin , 2002, p.106).
Overall, whilst I found Tick Tock a difficult piece to direct, it was my favourite of the two 10
Mins to... pieces I had, as it allowed me to utilise a far more collaborative directing style
which I feel I have developed over the past few months through projects such as Young
Company and Mother Courage. I believe I enjoy this kind of process more, being in a room
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Holly Gallagher (w12017006)

Theatre and Performance Practice (PA0703)

of makers rather than just actors, because of the theatre making background I have. I enjoy
constructing and developing work that everyone in the room has a say in, and that utilises
more techniques for crafting original material around the text than a perhaps more traditional
methodology would allow for. I feel this sense of enjoying collaborative work applies to me
both as a director and a theatre maker.
Generally speaking 10 Mins to... allowed me to focus on developing a huge range of
theatre making skills which were all beneficial for Before (the line is lost): character and text
excavation, storytelling, and devising from sound, images, and props. In addition, I was given
the opportunity to work with a range of genres and styles including drama and comedy,
straight acting and music performance. 10 Mins to... allowed me to work with new writing
at a different stage in its process to the ARCade scratch these were 10 minute pieces ready
to be showcased or developed further much like Before (the line is lost) was in January. And
by working on them I was given an insight into how to spot room for development in gaps
that may exist within a piece (such as with narrative flow, construction, and delivery in Tick
Tock) that I could then apply to the 10 and 20 minute versions of Before (the line is lost) to
move them forward.

Word Count: 1,357

Holly Gallagher (w12017006)

Theatre and Performance Practice (PA0703)

Bibliography:
Bict and Baldwin (2002) Devised & Collaborative Theatre, Marlborough: The Crowood
Press Ltd. p 106.
Mermikides, A. and Smart, J. (eds.) (2010) Devising in Process, Hampshire: Palgrave
Macmillan. p113.
Chekhov, M. (2002) To The Actor: on the technique of acting, New York: Routledge. p.131.
Mitchell, K. (2008) The directors craft: a handbook for the theatre. 1st edn. United
Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, Inc. p.55.