research!!!!!!!!

Evan Placey

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/english/about/staff/ep1c11.page

http://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/plays-to-perform/Contributor/4639/Evan-Placey.html





Evan Placey is a Canadian-British playwright who grew up in Toronto and now lives in London, England. His plays include: Mother of Him (Winner of the King’s Cross Award for New Writing (UK), RBC National Playwriting Competition (Canada) and the Samuel French Canadian Play Contest (USA).); Banana Boys (Hampstead Theatre); How Was It For You? (Unicorn Theatre); and Holloway Jones (Synergy Theatre, schools tour & Unicorn Theatre) which won the Brian Way Award 2012 for Best Play for Young People and was nominated for a Writers’ Guild Award. Girls Like That, a play for young people will be co-produced by Birmingham Rep, Theatre Royal Plymouth and West Yorkshire Playhouse in summer 2013, is currently being produced by The Brit School. Pronoun, also for young people, premieres at the Royal National Theatre in 2014. He is currently under commission to the Unicorn Theatre and BBC Radio 3. His work has been produced in the UK, Israel, South Korea, and Croatia. Evan is a Creative Fellow at the University of Southampton, and also teaches playwriting in prison and for young people.
I watched the following YouTube videos of Evan talking about theatre and his plays and although he does not address the Girls Like That play it is interesting to see about why he writes plays especially aimed at young people and how he does so and his reaction to his plays.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y(rZDhddH08
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPJDgb0Cps0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pMiAX9dIn4  (start at 2.05)

Its really interesting to see how Evan works and by watching some of the trailers for some of his other shows as well as reading some of the reviews written about his shows online it really shows what an influence he has and what a passion he has to reach out to young people in a way that they can connect with and understand and yet he is very modest about his work and shows real enjoyment in what he does.

here is a interview I found of Evan Placey at Theatre Centre talks 'provocation speeches':

Here Evan is explaining about meeting a man and his teenage daughter at an events function and how he described his play 'Girls Like That' to a complete stranger whilst trying to explain that he wrote about meaningful issues not airy fairy cebeebies. Evan goes on to explain how the gentleman's reaction sparked he idea of  who says that it is ok to write a play, and who says it has to be for young people and how do you write for young people apposed to a wider audience yet still engage the young peoples parents and grandparents.

News stories that relate to the play:

The story of Amanda Todd's suicide,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Amanda_Todd
You can really see the connection between this awful true story and Evan's representation of this story in Girls Like That, and Evan even gets the characters to reference Amanda's video in the play. It is interesting how Evan uses Amanda's story to create a truth behind the story of Scarlett and the two different roots such a circumstance can go down suicide or triumph.
As Evan himself comes from Canada where Amanda lived it would be interesting to know whether the event of Amanda's death sparked the idea for a play about a naked photo sent round.

Article about Amanda Todds suicide evoking emotion and revealing the true extent of Bullying

http://dialog.studentassociation.ca/index.php/248/

research into previous productions of GIRLS LIKE THAT

YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4khBcEUblrw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9gI66SSFnI
although these are only short trailer clips it still allows us to see how the actors characterise their characters, how they stage the productions, what effects they have, what costume and props they may have whilst allowing us to speculate. It also made me think about how we would create a trailer for our production of the show, what would we put in a trailer that gives enough but not too much away about the story.

websites:
http://www.wyp.org.uk/what's-on/2013/girls-like-that/
http://www.theatreroyal.com/whats-on/2013/girls-like-that/
http://birmingham-rep.co.uk/event/the-young-rep-festival-brave-new-works-double-bill/
http://birmingham-rep.co.uk/event/girls-like-that/

Here is a video of Evan Placey and two members of the original cast being interviewed about the play and the issues it addresses on BBC Breakfast
http://www.wyp.org.uk/about-us/our-blogs/back-stage-blog/youth-theatre/girls-like-that-on-bbc-breakfast/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01cjv8s
I found from watching this video I was really able to see the passion behind Evan's writing and how he was/is trying to focus on opening dialog and starting conversations around women's bodies and discussing issues that are common in young people's lives nowadays. It was really nice to see the two cast members talking about the play and how it relates to their own lives, I found this really interesting because I have been fortunate enough not to experience the situations focused on by Evan, therefore it is interesting to see how this effects the way I act the play compared to one of the original cast or even another if my fellow performers who may have had such experience.

from this video I also had a look at Beth Johnson and Laura Marsden who were both members of  cast who wrote a rehearsal blog whilst rehearsing GIRLS LIKE THAT.
http://www.wyp.org.uk/about-us/our-blogs/back-stage-blog/youth-theatre/girls-like-that/
The two blog entries and the quote from Gemma Woffinden who is the director, give us an insight into how they rehearsed and got the play up and running, they speak about using improvisation games to enhance their acting and characterisation and how the comedy moments and random comments about chickens are actually each characters way of addressing the emotion that comes with the issues addressed.

I found this really interesting review by Vicki Galloway of the West Yorkshire Playhouse's production of GIRLS LIKE THAT, it was really interesting to read this review because it meant that I could look at what the youth theatre company had done that had worked positively and what perhaps was not an appreciated by all of the audience.
http://theculturevulture.co.uk/blog/reviews/theatre/girls-like-that/

I was also able to see some of the photographs taken of the West Yorkshire Playhouse's production:
http://www.christhorntonphotography.com/blog/girls-like-that-west-yorkshire-playhouse-youth-theatre/ in these pictures by Chris Thornton we are able to see the costume, props, staging and overall look of the play, I think it is really interesting that they use male actors, projection and enlarged props whereas we do not and how this will differ our performance. I actually really like their use of the enlarged magazines it seems really effectively artistic as it makes the audience focus on the magazines when the girls are talking about how its such a good deal that you can get all three in one pack and how this should make the audience think about the use of magazines in a teenagers life and how the girls are obsessed with the magazines which make them obsessed with body image and how it is all just one vicious circle.
here is another review of the WYP's production of GIRLS LIKE THAT written by Adam Bruce at 'A young theatre' he writes about the play being a production for a vast range of audiences and how important he believed it was that young people could see a play about such a important issues that arises in many of their own lives.
http://www.ayoungertheatre.com/review-girls-like-that-west-yorkshire-playhouse/ similarly to the other review it gives us an insight into the audience's perspective.

 

comparing the two posters created for previous productions of Girls like that.

seeing both of these posters made me think about how our poster would be if we created one, while poster one shows a blonde girl taking a selfie (almost as if its the picture before the events in the play)wearing a shirt with writing faintly behind her and information about the play above the image, poster two shows again a Blonde girl but this time it looks like the play is in the early stages when everyone has received the picture of Scarlett and the girl shown is Scarlett looking scared with social media messages floating around her, she is in a pink T-shirt disconnecting the play from the school environment poster one connects the play with, poster two also only has the play and playwrights name written.

images from previous productions:

It's really interesting to see the staging and set of previous productions and be able to compare them with the way Simon has staged our production and the ideas he has for set and props as well as costume, in both it doesn't look like St Trinians gone wrong, this is because the whole cast in the last two images are wearing the same school uniform just in different ways and their modesty and dignity is kept by using knee length skirts it means that it looks more normal and less St Trinians "who can be most sexy". The two images above have the whole cast in mufti/own clothes which matches the idea that although they use all of the same seating, the play is set with each character in their bedroom looking at social networks almost more in reflection than reliving it like our production and the bottom two images shown, disconnecting it from the school environment of face to face bullying and focusing on the social media cyberbullying.