The Dragons Den

The Moth Boy

Ruby Savage

Sarah Louis

And Lea Towler

Present…

‘Rays of sun coming through the broken roof are blocked out momentarily as something

moves under the rafters out of sight. A young boy gets slowly to his feet, wiping

away tears and peers up into the darkness…’

‘A fluttering is heard….’

‘There are no curtains, the audience enter and sit facing the performance space, the atmosphere is dark and eerie. Five minutes before the production is set to start, when most are seated, mysterious ‘fluttering’ noises are played distinctively in the background, leaving the audience to wonder what the noises could be.

 Eventually a young boy runs out into what appears to be an abandoned warehouse. Where he stands it is dark and gloomy, rays of sun break through the rafters on the roof and highlight areas of debris on the stage.

 He doesn’t acknowledge the audience; he is upset about something. After

pacing around he starts to speak, not to the audience but aloud to himself. He speaks about a death, lies and his father, as he sobs he becomes aware of the fluttering noises, at first he ignores them, but when something passes across the ‘roof’ and blocks out the rays of sun as it passes under them, he becomes agitated and looses his temper. The audience still haven’t seen the source of the noise.

“What the hell is that noise!? I’m upset! Where are you pigeon!? I’ll get you! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you like he killed her!”

 As the boy talks the story of ‘the death’ is gradually unfolded to the audience. After throwing furniture around angrily in search of what he believes to be a pigeon, a voice is heard…’

Moth Boy

• Our pitch is about a young boy called Billy, after the sudden discovery of the loss of his Mother, Billy, wanting to be alone, runs into an old hideout of his, an abandoned warehouse. It is here that the young boy discovers a giant moth.

• The moth turns out to be an apparition of his dead Mother in a form he associates with her – it is revealed his Mother is an Entomologist (someone who studies insects).

• Eventually Billy is able to accept his Mothers death because he is able to face and speak to the physical form of the moth, representing his mother.

The Lake Side Theatre• As a group, we decided that of all the venues we have visited, (the

Royal, the Lakeside and the Concert Hall) the Lakeside Theatre is definitely the most appropriate.

• Our idea for a production is very intimate, and we intend it to be very much a personal experience for each audience member. We don’t want the audience members to feel alienated from the stage we want them practically on-set. The concepts in our play are very personal, so the space must be personal too.

•The intimate Studio Space of the Lakeside is not too overbearing and the design is quite minimalist, perfect for a production in which the majority of the acting takes place in the form of a dialogue between just the boy and the puppet.

Moth Boy

• As a group we decided we wanted to come up with a production which had a meaningful underlying message, we wanted to focus on an issue and by the end of the play we wanted that issue to be resolved, and what issue is harder to over come than death?

• We decided to tackle this idea for a performance in a surreal manner, but with very real underlying messages.

• We wanted our performance to be thought provoking, and leave the audience with a moving piece to think about.

• Our performance idea centres on death, grief and overcoming these

issues, but all in a surreal context. Our idea has an underlying message about dealing with death, taking you through one individual’s loss, pain and eventual acceptance of what has happened.

• When asking ourselves what is it that audiences want to see? We thought about the productions we had been to see and what strengths they had.

• Audiences come to expect more and more amazing spectacles within live performance as technology advances. They want to see originality.

The Moth• We decided early on there was going to be a

creature in our surreal performance piece, and linking it to his mother’s profession we decided on an insect – a moth.

• Amazing costumes and character creation can really bring the stage to life, our moth creature will be the main spectacle

• We chose to use a moth because it is a creature that is sometimes associated with death and because it allowed us to do something that had not been done before.

Developing The Moth

we toyed with the idea of putting a performer in a costume with

huge wings to play the part of the moth…

Developing The Moth

• We also looked at just suggesting the presence of a giant moth with sound and Shadow Casting, so the moth would never actually be seen…

Marionette Puppet• We eventually decided on making our moth creature as a giant

marionette puppet, we feel in a space like the lakeside this will be quite a spectacle to see, the audience having herd this fluttering sound all the way through the play and being led to assume there’s a pigeon in the warehouse will be blown away when the beautiful giant moth is eventually revealed.

• We decided to bring projections into our piece also; multimedia and projections are much anticipated in modern day Theatre. We will be subtly flashing images of a woman’s face onto the under wings of the moth for a few seconds when ever they are visible, hinting at the idea that the moth is somehow connected to his mother, making the audience ponder the meaning of the image.

• Our moth Marionette puppet will be suspended from above, on strings long enough to reach the floor. The moth will be able to move up and down and move it’s wings and head within a confined space, however because of our venue it would not be possible to manoeuvre the moth from one side of the stage to the other.

• In the opening scenes before the creature is seen it will appear to move around the stage, appearing in darkness, to pass under the rafters, blocking out the rays of sun.

The Design of the Moth

• The moth will be made of very light materials – a very light skeletal structure made of wire, and stretched over this, white netting. The body will be typically hairy for a moth, covered in thick fur, in brown.

• Subliminal messaging – As we want this piece to be quite profound and moving, we developed the idea of using projections of Billy’s mother on the moths wings. This will happen at various intervals, whenever the moth is positioned with the lighter underside of its wings towards the audience.

Set and Costume

• Our set will be very simple and minimalist as you would expect with a venue like the Lake Side theatre. The structure and design of the Moth puppet will be essential.

• We see Billy in very run of the mill modern day middle class kids clothing.

• the most important aspect of out set will be creating believable rafters and the beams of light coming in, on stage there would be various pieces of discarded furniture etc all creating an intimate space reminiscent of an abandoned warehouse.