Well I have just completed my solo performance…

James Reilly

Well it is midnight! I have been to the pub and I have been eating cake whilst at the pub whilst getting strange looks from the bar! What a rollercoaster this creation process has been I have cried, I have laughed, and I have got angry. But today I finally performed my Solo Performance In The Plus. I feel it went well and I put my heart and my soul into the performance and the responses I got from the audience indeed imply I did my community justice.

I will be doing another post analysing my performance, but I thought I would do a quick post to give a more personal reflection than an analytical reflection. I would like to say being able to explore my asexuality through this module has been a joy, and because of this, I have further understood who I am. It became a form of catharsis for me performing this show, and I am grateful for being given this opportunity to inform through a performance space.

The next few posts will include all my scripts including the final performance script and the tech script. Then I will go into a full performance reflection, and finally, I will cover how I got to where I was and where I want to take in the plus now. Yes, I plan to take In The Plus further, and this creation process and the support of this module has given me this chance.

In The Plus (Final draft of the performance script)

James Reilly

Solo Peformance Script official

Above is the last edit of my script. Overall through looking at my script edits, you may have noticed that I went from an 8 to 10-page script to 5 pages. This is because throughout my process I realised what I felt was important and what wasn’t to my writing. These decisions were even made in this final edit where I wanted to refine my material.

 

Finally, significant edits came towards the end of my performance. I reduced the length of the voiceovers (Mainly for my benefit baring mind I was planning to run on the spot for it all) but also my monologue at the end of my performance I decided to review what I wrote and pick points of focus rather than discuss everything.

 

Apon reflection I found creating a script for 10 minutes very tasking, and I’m very proud of my ability to reduce the text when I may have wanted to keep sections of it. It opened my eyes to how to structure a show and what is essential to remain in a performance.

 

 

In The Plus script (Version 3)

James Reilly

Below is my 3rd version of my In The Plus performance script as an attachment. In red is the new edits.

Solo Peformance Script version 3 ;0

I decided in my piece to bring focus to the idea of cake more so to achieve this I included halfway through my show and at the end. In the middle of my performance, I decided I would hand out brownies to the audience then move onto the explanation of the importance of cake to asexual. Likewise, at the end of my script, I stated in my text feel free to eat the cake because otherwise, I would bringing back some humour to my writing.

I also decided I need to show the audience why I’m doing a show on asexuality and why we are so hidden. To achieve this in my script discussed is the lack of asexuals in the world focusing on the statistics 70million and 1% of the population. I wrote this then visually to shown by the projection of what this would cover on the map.

Voiceover creation: The use of Audacity

James Reilly

As discussed earlier I decided for my piece i wanted to include real experiences from asexuals. I decided to achieve this i was going to interview. I spoke to asexuals i have known for years on the struggles they have faced I then opened this up to asexual forums and i got a few responses but these recored audios were the ones i chose.

 

These were my draft audios which I believe i will be editing and creating again closer to the time. I asked the people recording the audios to leave paused just so it made editing audio in case i wanted to remove parts of the script easier for me. Below is the audacity file i used to edit my voiceover:

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