Our company came together as part of the Theatre Company module for the undergraduate degree in Drama at the University of Lincoln. As theatre makers who were all interested in creating performances that celebrate life and individuality, we decided to join together to create the best group dynamic we possibly could. In our first meeting, we set down our group manifesto, code of conduct and how we were going to run our rehearsals to ensure our group dynamic was working efficiently so we could create a show that showcases our talents and gives our audiences something a little bit different whilst keeping them entertained. From our first meeting, we also assigned roles that we felt comfortable in and that we thought would give us a challenge. I chose props manager, as it’s what I’ve done in previous productions and I feel comfortable with organising this side of production.

Our first devising workshop we focused heavily on exercises that helped us all to discover who we were as individuals, such as how our personality and life experiences leads us to make choices in life. For example, one of the questions we focused on in detail was “Would you choose to be happy in a relationship with no money, or single with a lot of money?” From this we began to ficus more on love as all of us had been affected in some way, we all know what it’s like to be loved or to love someone else and it started us off asking questions about how being in love can change our personality and individuality. From this, we began improvising small episodic scenes which we decided were to become part of our first performance!

Along the lines of celebrating individuality, we decided to make our first show about love, using our own experiences and stories from our loved ones to create the story lines. Our main goal is to put a piece on the stage that reflects who we are as individuals and so our initial workshopping device is to write short stories that answer a question and then storyboard them from those initial ideas. From this, we have discovered our initial idea that we want to turn into an episodic sequence of love stories that develop and give an audience perhaps a different understanding of love. A different outlook on how love is portrayed on the stage. We believe that love is portrayed through rose tinted glasses in films and on stage and we were keen to change how people see this.