DISSERTATION//DONE

Here at TinCan, we aren't just working on our production, we also have other projects that we are undertaking. Probably our biggest one to date is the dreaded dissertation. I myself am a bit of a research geek, so I was quite looking forward to the dissertation, but the others... not so much. To give you a bit of an insight into what it is we've been up too that isn't just the upcoming production, I thought I'd dedicate this post to our dissertations. It will also be a bit of an observation into each individual member of TinCan and what our chosen topic of research was.

Taylor Roper

I studied how music therapy can have a positive effect on autistic children. My question and dissertation title went hand in hand, so I had the same question and title. I chose the question because my future career ambition is to teach so this would give me more insight into learning difficulties and how to assist my pupils, I also wanted to look into how music therapy works. The most interesting part was when I observed at Pencalenick school, all the students were lovely and I saw first hand how music helped their education and everyday life.

Caitlin Parry

My dissertation focused on censorship and asked whether or not theatre makers and artists are being pressured to censor their material, despite there no longer being a censorship law. I chose the topic as censorship for me is a really difficult concept. I understand some of the reasons behind censorship, but also believe people have the right to offend. Censorship also stops conversation from happening, which in my opinion is not good! I really enjoyed the dissertation and the research was fascinating. I got an amazing opportunity to interview a great director, Nadia Latif,who had so much insight into the issue, being subject to censorship herself. So overall I managed to find out some really fascinating stuff and that was the best bit.

Niamh McHale

My title was 'Social Class Within British Theatre: Is it Elitist?' I looked at whether success within the theatre world, including film and television is determined on what our perceived social class is. In particular looking at the working class/middle class divide and whether that has a positive or negative impact on the roles that may be made available to us, or the overall success within the industry. I chose this topic as it interested me personally, coming from a working class background, whether that would affect work I may or may not get in the future. One thing that stood out for me was, we talk of how far we’ve come as a society, with acceptance and equality, yet something as simple as where we are from, or how we may talk still has a huge impact on job opportunities.

Gary Collins

My dissertation title was 'How has television as a media outlet affected the drag industry?' I decided to write my dissertation on how Drag queens has changed through the years with the power of television because I wanted to see how drag queens got work without television and how accepting it is now it's featured on television. One thing I found interesting is that drag on TV is now becoming more accepting but there is still a long way to go in the UK for it to become accepted

Reigine Davenport

My dissertation title was 'Can the Stanislavski system be applied to the acting as an undercover police officer; using the character Mark Stone as portrayed by Mark Kennedy as a case study.' I chose the question because I thought it would be interesting to try and apply a methodical system such as Stanislavski's to a more abstract form of performance, such as undercover acting. In particular I chose to look at that though because I found the idea of acting in real life situations, like the persona you put across at work or the way you present yourself when you first meet someone, to be quite a fascinating subject. Much of this is performed subconsciously however, which led me to consider those, such as undercover police, who have to perform without appearing to perform 24 hours a day. I found the identity crisis that many undercovers seem to face when acting in the same role for many years rather interesting. It make sense that having particular habits/activities for years is bound to rub off on you, but it does make me wonder how different the undercovers really are from their characters after a few years of playing them.

Today was the deadline and all dissertations have been handed in and signed for! I think it's safe to say we're all incredibly proud of ourselves! So although we now have more time and energy that can be focused on the production, it's really important for us to increase our strengths as artists, in order for TinCan to grow and improve as a company, and these dissertations have been instrumental to that process.

So goodbye for now, we're all off celebrate!

TinCan X