Once we had decided that the subject we would like to explore was ‘The Syrian Refugee Crisis’, we looked at how we could do that thoroughly and effectively. We wanted to create a piece that made our audience think, and to have them look at it from different angles; we did not want to create an overly biased piece. To do this we explored the idea of, who else is affected by this crisis? When thinking about this situation, we figured that your first thoughts would immediately be for the refugees. We wanted to look at those who may be overlooked, but who are just as affected as those escaping their homes.

One group of people we wanted to focus on where truck drivers who are crossing the borders as part of their job. We found many articles and videos, with many opinions from truck drivers, stating how this crisis is jeopardising their jobs and livelihood. It is also making many of them genuinely scared for their life, as many had been attacked by the refugees in their attempt to escape the country. To try to explain this situation, we wanted to create a scene where the focus was entirely on the words being said. To make our audience listen, and see it from another point of view. We each wrote a monologue, voicing opinions about the situation at the borders, with both positive and negative aspects. We used elements of verbatim theatre from the research we had gathered, for example “one guy ‘suffered a cracked rib and a broken eye socket’” (Pugh and Bloom, 2015) and ‘You've got two choices - get them out on your own, and there could be 30 of them, or take them to the border and let the police deal with them.’ (Pugh and Bloom, 2015).

As the development of this scene progressed we realised that we were not fully achieving the aim that we wanted; showing different opinions on the crisis. It was still very restricted and therefore we researched more into other aspects. We decided to keep the structure the same, using 4 monologues, but this time each voicing different opinions from different types of people, not just truckers, however we did keep one trucker. The others then became: a soldier, a volunteer, and quotes from different politicians, giving us a wider range of people. Again using direct quotes to shape our monologues, for example “If they come into this country, if I win, they’re going out.”(Fox News, 2015) “Going to war creates a legacy of bitterness and problems” (Quotes.net, 2016) giving a realer feel to the scene, as there are genuine people who think and believe what we are speaking.

Keeping with the theme of people who may be overlooked, we figured a huge part of this crisis is the children. We wanted to create a scene in which they had the spotlight, the focus was entirely on them and the impact this has had on them. One piece of research we came across was a website in which children had been asked to draw a picture of anything they wanted to. The outcome was quite heart breaking as "most of the drawings are related to war and the journey to escape conflict.” (Quotes.net, 2016) We then took this idea of drawing to create an image on stage that reflected how the children felt. We decided to draw a story together, each having our own piece of paper, starting off with a happy family, leading to a war and ultimately their death. We felt that this was a straightforward way of getting our point across simply and effectively.