Punch Drunk

Punch Drunk is a British theatre company, created in 2000 by Felix Barrett and it is immersive theatre, redefining theatre, by using devices like setting the play in anywhere except a theatre to create the most effective atmosphere as possible, as the audience are able to walk around the set, fully immersing themselves in the play, being known for its unique use of each and every sense, making one audience member's experience different from the next.

The immersive theatre is very focused on the small details of the set, everything has to be there for a reason, and the audience should be able to use it to further their understanding of the play. It can be used to portray emotions, characters, or the scene at the time. There are also things called 'Easter eggs' which are small things that the audience can find, which will give them a further understanding of the play, such as a quote, or a small item. These 'Easter eggs' aren't always found by the audience and are not essential to understanding the play.

Punch Drunk is normally performed on multiple levels, with different mechanics of the performance, in some, the audience may be directed to each area by the performers, with a rehearsed order, and some may be fully explorable, where the audience can look at whatever they want, ranging from finding the story through the set, to following one character the whole night, seeing their whole story.

In lesson we explored different parts of the school, to try and create ideas of what we could do with the alternate styles of building, such as the shooting range, and the school hall. We also explored creating small areas of set in class to display certain emotions with objects we brought into school. We primarily used, lighting, space, and the positioning of our objects to show our emotions. This then fed into our next lesson, where we created small areas in our groups to show the characters we were playing, as well as the scenes we were thinking about performing in extract 1, using symbolism as well as themes from the extracts we were portraying.