Rent week 10

This week we did a full run-through of everything we have done in the show whilst also learning songs at home. I like "I'll cover you reprise" because of the split of the male and female parts and I think it's a song that everyone can connect to the song. I think the run-through went well and I am getting more confident with the songs that we have done but I just need to learn all the words to them.

10 December

Today we finalized everything with putting Tom into the transitions and running this a couple of times. I now get like that we are ready to do this but we just need to add the media and have a dress run to get used to doing the piece with full costumes. I feel like se have done a lot in the last couple of lessons which has helped us be able to perfect our piece to make it run smoother. I like the way our piece has turned out and the way the stimulus hs given our piece.

9th December

Today we did our suffragette idea and made it a scene. It is a monologue throughout with mini scenes showing the violence that the women if the suffragettes went through to fight for women's rights. Me and Dan argue to Tom about changing the vote and opening it up to women. The men then lift and soon the females showing that they are overpowered easily by the men. We didn't like the idea of people being horses so we decided to have everyone to run instead. I think that this looks much more effective and I think that we should definitely keep this idea. I like the whole scene as a whole and I think that although it is again simole, it works well with the rest of the piece.

8th December

Today we found out we were missing two members from our group. This then meant that we decided to work out our production elements for our piece. These were lights, costumes and props. We took one of the lights to decode a combination for each scene.
opening: blue, green and red

soldiers: blue and amber

arranged marriage: red and blue

human traffickin: red

suffragettes: green, amber and red

refugees: green

scene changes- all colours

We then had the opportunity to practise in our performance space for the first time. This was difficult to do with the full car but gave us a rough idea of how each scene would work.

10th November

As Theo wasn't in yesterday, we decided that we would show him our forces marriage piece. We then had to have pictures took for our prospectus for sixth form next year. We decided to show the lifts that we have done for our human trafficking piece which gave us a chance to practise them. We then decided on our ideas for costumes with everyone being in all blacks and then putting accessories on for each scene. This makes the message more important than the actors and the actual production of our piece. We also decided on what lighting we would be using with a different light for each scene. We would then have a neutral colour for transitions.

9th November

Today we looked at our forced marriage scene again and after looking at our plan for the scene, we decided not to do the idea that they are on holiday as it would be hard for the audience to understand. We also cut Freya's mum's funeral as we wanted to get straight to the point regarding our story and the theme of our piece. We started the scene with both fathers making the final arrangements for the wedding and the transfer of money. We then have the couple trying to talk to eachother with the daughter being very against the forced marriage. The daughter then confides with her friend against the marriage and he's in a position of not knowing what to do. The next scene is the son being assertive towards the daughter showing the verbal abuse that can go on. The scene then ends with the daughter being on the phone with her now husband explaining that the son is in bed and dinner is on the table. This shows that the daughter had no power and the son got what he wanted

3rd December

Today we added in Tom for our refugee scene and also got a script that someone in the group wrote. We then worked on the Suffragette scene by using the monologue that we created and putting scenes into the monologue. We added scenes of actual historic events like women being force fed and be poll for allowing women to be in parliament. We then wrote a running order for our performance. We made sure that movement pieces and dialogue. I like the fact we have added scenes like force feeding as it makes the audience visualize what these women went through. It also keeps the audience much more engaged throughout the whole performance.

I think that this scene is going well and we need to focus and get this done. I like the fact that we seem to be getting more things done per lesson but could be more focused.

1st December

Today we put together a timetable for the rest of our rehearsals:
1/12/15- Start refugees
3/12/15- Finish refugees and start suffragettes
7/12/15- Run the piece
8/12/15- Work out transitions
10/12/15- Run and polish the piece

The group then discussed what we wanted in our piece and we decided that we wanted a sound scape so the audience felt like that they were in the refugee camp. We then discussed the rough outline the scene and what ideas we had for it to create a story from our ideas. I feel like now we have a schedule, we'll be able to keep track much easier of rehearsal and need to keep to it otherwise we may not finish our piece.

Rent week 9

This week we got the script for Act 1 and we all began to annotate the parts we were in. This week we also made an ideas board for Rent. I decided that I would take pictures of various locations in New York so that the cast would understand where roughly I think the setting of the show would take place. I also put words up to give the feel of the type of lifestyle that the characters live.

26th November

Today we regained trust within the group because of the drop that happened yesterday. We talked through what we thought went wrong and when we eventually got to what actually went wrong and decided that we should try it again and slow it down so we can trust each other again. This helped but I feel like we need to less careless so this can be prevented. This is all we got done all lesson due to a lot of arguments being resolved.

24th November

In today's lesson we started by watching the video of Emily Davidson being trampled on by the horse

https://youtu.be/h0Z-sUMpyqE

This then inspired us to to a lift to show Emily Davidson (Ellie) being trampled on a horse with her being lifted up and down to show how she was being hit by the horse and being trampled on by the others horses. She then gets swung back and fourth to also symbolize this. At the end if the lesson we dropped Ellie which I think was mine and Kai's fault for counting differently to everyone else. I think this lift could work if we got it right.

Rent week 8

This week we did "without you". This is the scene where Angel dies and the couples on the show start to fall apart and split up. I think that this is good because it's emotional and isn't over the top. This has 3 movement pieces. It starts with Maureen and Joanne showing them splitting up. It then shows me and Carl setting up a hospital bed and Angel walking in slowly dying of aids. We then show Mimi and Roger arguing an struggling. I really like this song and I think it shows time passing really well and  shows all the couples slowly falling apart. The simple movement makes it understandable but not too force to the audience and not over the top to the audience what has happened.

19th November

Today we finished off our human trafficking scene.

https://youtu.be/xne8A9oHS1k

I think that we just need to clean and polish it now but that should come with doing it a couple of times so we know it properly. I like that our piece creates an immediate impact on our piece making the message of our piece much stronger and making the piece more understanding for the audience.

17th November

Today we split into two groups. Whilst most of us worked on the opening number which would introduce the audience to our whole piece so that they would have a vague idea what the piece was about. We then had the idea of projecting a clock onto the floor to show how the time keeps on changing to almost show a timeline of events. We decided to choose the song "I need" because it was a song that not only fitted with our theme, it fitted the type of movement piece we had planned out.
I think that today went well as we got through a lot once we had started but we need to actually just get on and do something rather than discussing what we are going to do.

Opening number

This is our opening number test we have been working on

https://youtu.be/xne8A9oHS1k

I think it's a good opening scene when everybody knows fully what they're doing with it and it looks much neater.

Suffragette research

Here is some research that I have done for suffragettes this week that could influence our puiece:

http://www.thesuffragettes.org/history/key-events/

Some events of the suffragettes for our monologue about some of the events of the suffragettes.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/jun/01/suffragette-emily-davison-knocked-down-kings-horse-video

Emily Davison getting hit by the King's horse in the Epsom derby to raise awareness to the suffragette cause. We could do a stylized movement piece with the horse hitting one the girls in our group.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/the-role-of-british-women-in-the-twentieth-century/suffragettes/

This a brief history so we have some detail on our piece so that we can have some accurate facts about the suffragettes and that we'll be able to make it more realistic. I think that al it of this can be incorporated into our piece so that we can have an accurate story to it and that we should now have a basic idea to be able to progress in the lessons ahead.

Rent week 7

This week we incorporated Lorna into our show. I felt like this was the first time that I saw he piece called me together as we have had the full cast for the first time. I felt things like La vie boheme really came together as its a group number. I also went through my Alexi Darling pieces and I felt like I definitely became more confident I I think that I may have to make the numbers up as I won't be able to remember all the phone numbers all at once

10th November 2015

Today we ran through our human trafficking scene and had some photogrpahs taken for next years sixth form prospectus. We then decided that we would wear all blacks for our costume and only have an accessory to change to shoiw that we are different charecters. We aslo decided that we would use a different colour lighting for each scene and then have a neutral colour for in-between scenes. We also thought it would be a good idea to have Ellie slowly be stripped down until she is just in black showing that there's no costume left. I like the idea of this because it shows her losing her innocence and slowly turning into what the dominant male want her to be like. He wants her to be used and not loved like she though she would be.

Rent week 6

This week we started on working "without you" where the couples fight and Angel die. I think that this looks good and think it's simple and effective. I think that the couples slowly breaking up is very effective. I think that I need ti work on the timing on when I bring on the pillows and blanket. We then worked on all the scenes that we have done so far in Act 1 and I think it went quite well but I think that I need to work on "Will I?". We then went and worked on separate scenes. I worked on my Alexi Darling parts where I just need to work on the phone numbers.

I feel like we got a lot done but I need to work more on "Will I?" to get the notes right and make sure it doesn't sound like i'm struggling or straining. I feel like that with "Rent" I know what I'm doing, I just need to work on learning the words.

5th November

Today we worked on our forced marriage scene. We decided to make it about forced marriages rather than arranged marriage as it's more of the parents not letting them marry who they want rather than a back-up plan. We thought of starting with the two fathers (showing male dominance) on the phone setting up a marriage for a son and daughter. We then faced the problem of only having two females when the piece we had needed three. We then decided that the daughter's mother would be dead and that the dad could use this against the daughter of and when she decides to rebel. We decided that the daughter's father could tell the daughter that they are going on holiday but then mentally abuses her to marry the son of the other man.


I like the idea because it's a way to get around the problem that we have with only having limited girls and the fact that we can use this against the daughter in the marriage making it more brutal and manipulative towards her. I think to improve, our group needs to be more forward thinking and get more ideas out when we are together as we only have three lessons a week and limited time till the performance.

3rd November

Today we all showed what research we had done outside of the lesson. I presented my research about human trafficking that was on my blog to see if we could incorporate any ideas into the piece that we already had. I fell that even though this was a productive lesson, we need to actually need to get up and do things much quicker rather than just sit and talk about things.

2nd November

Today the group re-visited a movement piece that we did before half term and changed a few parts to improve it. We made our movements towards the victims much more aggressive than before. We then went over it and changed some timings to make sure it fitted in with the music. I really like this piece and I feel like that we shouldn't make it any longer as I feel like it could drag the piece out and the audience could get easily bored. One thing we could of did e is put a bit of stylised November in our piece but we may be able to incorporate that into another scene of our play.

Rent week 5

This week we sang through seasons of love working out who sings who and working out the harmonies for everyone to make sure it sounded as good as it can be. We then worked on Tangp Maureen for a while to make sure that everyone knew what they were doing. We then had our production meeting discussing who is in charge of what. I'm making the posters and programmes . We decided that we should keep the show as original as possible whilst putting our own twist on things. We decided to have our audience in cabaret style seating making it a less formal setting and having separate stages round the audience aswell. We could use these for Chriatmas bells when the scene onstage is changing

Rent week 4

This week we have worked on the number "Tango Maureen". We got taught a dance which I had trouble with at first as I missed him teach the first part to us because I was trying to get my partner to actually feel comfortable doing the dance. I felt like that I have now picked up the dance from going through a couple of times and is now just the challenge of eveyone getting the walks around the stage in perfect time with the music. We then went through this again next lesson correcring the timing and then went through "life support" and "Will I?" only using backing tracks. I think I have the timing for "Will I?" right and now just need to rehearse to get the singing right especially as the range of the song is quite big.

Tuesday 20th October

Today we continued on our movement piece that we have been working on and added in quotes and a small contact improvisation part. I think that the main parts we need to work on is our timing so the piece can be as effective as possible and the actual characters that each person has as I feel like at the moment they are coming across as random people rather than actually people who have used and abused these girls in different ways.

Picture inspiration

This is the set of "curious incident of the dog in the nighttime" where I think the idea that they are constantly sat on stage and watching the action and then just stand up to perform the character that they are. They could also just be able to hand out a prop to the characters onstage. They also put on various accessories for each character as a costume to be able to change character quickly whilst still seeing a clear difference between the characters. It's also easier to do simpler actions and then sit down again rather than go on and off stage. We would be performing in traverse rather than in the round though as it would suit our piece much more.



I think the use of floor projection of various quotes for our piece could be used so that not only can the audience tell that the scene has move on. It would also make it more hard hitting if we include facts and statistics. I don't think that we should change these quotes on the floors too much though as they could become distracting. I think that they need to be in contrast to the colour of whatever the stage will look like, I feel like they should be with full opacity rather than see through to make them stand out more.



I think that the use of dim lighting should be used a lot in our piece because it's quite a dark piece. This will also allow us to use spotlight on each character to show emphasis if they feel lonely and the fact that they have nowhere to go showing the crisis they are in. Also, we can dramatically change the lighting when something significant happens.



I think this is an inspiration quote because it shows that woman are being held back in the world and I think that we should address this issue and then put this quote on the floor with who said it
 to get the pint across more. I think that we can now use this quote for woman rights as it shows everyone's a team but haven't been able to be one because half aren't being allowed to even though we're all even.

Human trafficking

This is our human trafficking piece that we started today

https://youtu.be/sOLiAprOcV0

I think that it looks good especially with the grabbing and how we lift Ellie up and almost drop her. I just think that we just need to finish it off and make sure that everybody is aggressive with their movement towards her and not too soft or nice.

Rent week 3

We started this week by doing a run through of everything that we have done so far. We then continued on setting the opening of Rent. I'm glad that we haven't made it too dancy because I think that Rent as a musical as a whole shouldn't have that much dancing in it but the dance bit that we have put in suits the piece really well. This will help the audience stay interested rather than just watch people singing. We then moved onto "Life Support and "Will I?" which are about an AIDS support  meeting.  The two songs aren't very long but aren't the easiest songs to sing as in "Will I?", there's lots of overlapping. I start this number off on my own and I think with some practice, I could do this number confidently. I just need to work on the last note that I keep cracking on.

Future Conditional inspiration

Below is a clip of an interview from the show future conditional where we had the idea that there would be a theme rather than a story to our piece. I think that the fact that the stories can then vaguely link with it still making senese. I think that it would be better if we didn't try too hard to link all of the stories together as I think that it could end up with it being a bit too fake rather than it looking natraul.

https://youtu.be/iVmWnFdRd4I

Thursday 15th October

Today we discussed all of our ideas that we have so far and then discussed to see if anyone had any more ideas and we looked at pictures onto some more pictures to find out more about the horrible situation that is happening. We then took inspiration from a video of a movement piece that we saw and began to think about a dance that we could put in so we have a variety of techniques used to tell the story and the audience won't get bored of just us acting. We then decided that we would change our whole theme/concept of the piece to women rights looking at various issues of women rights itself. This also meant that any previous scenes that we did could be kept in and could link t o the new idea that we had. Our different story lines should include: refugees, Human trafficking, soldiers, suffragettes and arranged marriage.

Monday 12th October

Today we worked on researching stories for a refugee idea that we had. We found the picture below that shows a dead child on the beach:

This then inspired us to find more stories to see what we could put in and make our piece more about women rights rather than just about two woman. I found the story below in the lesson. We didn't do any practical work as we were finding stories and presenting them to the group.
https://vimeo.com/5092423

Black Watch

On the Blackwatch play, it shows the theme of soldiers that we may be doing. I like the idea of the fact we can use flashbacks with the piece. I think that we could also have it that the way they are able to transfer scenes really smoothly. I'm still not sure about this because we may not want to rush into the scenes too much otherwise the audience may get confused and may not understand what is going on. I think it would have to be done right. It also has an idea for an interviewer who comes in and question what goes on. I think that we could instead have a councilor and the flashbacks can be from the story that he tells from his past to the councilor. I also thought that we could use some of the slow motion mixed with the music that they do along with a monologue although this could still work well in shorter bursts for shorter amount of time.

https://youtu.be/LVzHw979gHY

Idea 3

Another idea that we had for our piece is that we could do a soldier idea that we could show two different woman, one traditional where they stay at home and one modern day and show the difference that they have. This would be set in modern day with the wife being stuck at home doing everything for the husband and the woman soldier  being on her own without needing anybodies help and gets to be independent. We had an idea that we would have short scenes for each part of the day which will be different for these women with them having complete different days. I think we could show the emotional impact each of these women have. Even though they do different things, they're lives are still stressful and one has to please her husband whilst the other has the stress of being in the army all the time. I think this can be expanded on and it a great idea as it shows women rights

Rent week 2

This week we have gone through"La vie boheme". We spent a whole lesson going through the words for this as it is a tricky song with lots of  unusual words and tricky sentences that are hard to say, let alone sing. I think that the song is challenging but is actually really fun to sing.

We then added movement next lesson making it come to life more. I just think that we now need to perfect it to make sure it has the effect its meant to have on the audience. The song is really good with movement an I think that it will be one of my favorites, if not my favorite song of the show

Idea 2

We created an idea to do a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a freeze frame and if we put this in the piece we would have to expand it by maybe using multiple freeze frames and I hope that we carry this on because if we can expand this, I think this could be very good as it fits in with our stimulus very well and is a subject that more people should know about. I was thinking that if this was our idea, we could show the whole story with the person suffering from this to have a full flashback. It could start with the promises that he could be lied to as a soldier and then him going into the army building up in the ranks and then a tragic accident happening. This could then lead to him being promised help but then him being torn away from his family. This could be done through multiple techniques like movement, scripted, freeze frame or flashbacks. I think that that the flashback could be done by another actor with the person now being older and being alone with nobody to help him.

Below are some diagrams of our ideas when we were deciding what stage to have. We decided to go traverse in the end as it was easier to stage things where everyone could see. The red circle are the cast members with the audience being the green circles. The green were set behind in traverse to make it easier for the cast to get to stage.

In the round

Traverse

Idea 1

As our stimuli is humanity in crises we thought that we could do about slaves as slaves are quite a big issue for in the world right ow and have been for centuries. The fact that it impacts the whole world, it shows that its humanity rather than just a couple of people as it can affect everyone in some way. The idea we had was that slaves are battling for survival against their controller and the fact that they can’t be broken when it’s just two of them but when they team up together they are able to get over the controller and stop being repressed by him. I think that we could put this into our piece but we would have to stretch this out quite a bit as it’s only a movement piece at the moment that last for a couple of minutes. An alternative to this could be to have a couple of different stories mixed into one. I think that this won’t be the best idea we could go for as you won’t be able to expand on this too much but I feel like we could be able to link this in with other ideas if we find a common theme with this type of performance.

Thursday 8th October

Today we thought that it would be a good idea to start to discuss the difference between woman and wife and thought that the best way to show this would be cross cutting. I thought that this would work well only if we had suitable lighting to go with this to highlight all of the action that is going on. We all thought of individual stories that we could do. I came up with the idea of that they could just talk to the children like in the play that we saw in London (future conditional). I then thought that the bag could just be given to one of the actors that are sitting in the audience. We thought that it would be a good idea to have both of the women to be taalking to a friend talking to each other. Then we changed the dialougue as it sounded much more like a monologue than a dialogue with friends. I think that our group need to plan out dialogue more rather than come up with it spontaniously as it never actually works and doesn't sound good.

Response to stimuli

I think that the stimuli that we have been given is very inspiring as we have been able to have multiple ideas and I feel like that it is very broad. I don't think our group will struggle with finding ideas that we could do, I think the struggle may be converting ideas into something that is presentable so we can have a good performance and making a point in our piece rather than just something that doesn't make a point.

Tuesday 6th October

Today we tried our piece in traverse. I think that this works better than in the round because you can do more with this because there are less angles that you would be worried about when it comes to audience. This also means that we can still make the audience feel part of the action like they are sitting in a board room with the two people having a debate with. We have also included a movement piece for everyone at the sides who are in the audience, that was originally meant for the two actors who were speaking to do making it more effective and making more sense as the argument was a naturalistic argument. We also changed the dialogue so that it didn’t sound so much like a debate with politicians, rather more than one with two people in a board room talking about this subject making it less formal.

I think that this scene is now much more effective and makes more sense as well and the movement piece that showed what each gender was doing has changed for the better. It is now shorter showing what happens with each gender in shorter way at separate times and makes more sense for the audience and I don’t think that they’ll be confused which gender to watch as they are now done at separate times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yLbXA4ncIHE

Starting Rent

This week we started on our next production of "Rent the Musical". We have decided that we won't be doing the full musical because it is too long to do in a short amount of time as we have to do the performance before Christmas. So far we have set the closing to act 1 which is la vi boheme. We have decided that everyone can chip in and put their opinion in on what we can do. This means we're more then just characters.

 We have also set the opening number "Rent" using various props that will then emulate the loft that Mark and Roger live in. We also put basic choreography into it at one point aswell. This all goes on behind mark and Roger so they are still the main focus of the scene

Thursday 1st October

Today we tried our performance in "In the round" to see if we could get this to work so that they are like a boardroom. This turned out to be very difficult because we struggled to make it realistic with "In the round" because this means that at least one person will be able to see something making stage combat really hard and we then eventually thought that we had to cut out any combat out as it would look really unrealistic. After trying this for the whole lesson and struggling to make it realistic, we decided that "In the round" was not an option because of the struggle of the round stage and how we could make it realistic for everyone.

Thursday 24th Septemeber

This is our group performing our contact improvisation piece. I think the theme of slavery was a very good choice and I think that it was the right idea to choose and that it worked well with the contact improvisation.


http://revolutionarts2016.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/contact-improv-group-1.html

Writing in role (Donnie from "Wasted Talent")

Dear Diary,
Today, he did it. You know who. I don't need to say his name. I got the call from his music producer. He was found by him in the studio in the morning. He thinks it's his fault for letting him stay there late at night when he normally goes straight home. I can't believe that he could think that. He performed it himself. I want just to hear him play again. He was an amazing guitar player and an even better friend. I miss him dearly and 'll never get to see him again. I just want to see his face one last time so I can say goodbye to him. Why didn't I get a chance to?

Changing my contemporary monologue

I decided that I would change my contemporary monologue because I felt like that the character of Christopher would be too hard to do as an audition piece and would require a lot of research that I wouldn't be able to do in enough time like they can if they are playing the character on the stage in a production.

I have changed my monologue to a play called "Wasted talent" by Josef Arnone.

This is my new monologue:
"He stopped believing, that’s it, that’s why he failed…he quit. So much talent, so much potential but he stopped believing in himself…he lost his way cause he couldn’t figure out what to do next with his career and I guess all the stress added up and finally broke him…his music was great…I would listen to it all the time…it would get me into a pumped up emotional state and his lyrics never got old…no one gave him a chance but I think that in today’s world that doesn’t matter; he didn’t give himself the chance to take control of his career the way I knew he could have. Maybe it was fear from doubting himself and it crippled his ambition. He did it for so long with no financial gain, no recognition for his genius and he couldn’t do it no more…he gave up and that’s why he hung himself in his studio; he couldn’t do it anymore.I will miss him very much, he was a dear friend and a talented artist and the world has been robbed of his contribution to humanity. It hurts. It’s sad. It didn’t have to happen this way."

Thursday 17th September

Today we were split into groups and started focusing on a scene from a script so that we can look how scripts work and put together a short piece with a script. This was mainly to see how we could write a script and then even put movement to it later. This is because our dialogue is normally much weaker than our movement pieces when it comes to devising. I enjoyed the piece and I think that the play as a whole would actually be very good as it sounds really interesting. I think that with this, it would be a good devising piece and would made the audience think. I think that we neeed to take time on each scene tht uses dialosgue so o0ur piece can be better.

Tuesday 15th September

Today we finished off our first contact improvisisation piece off and performed it with the class. We struggled so we talked to the teacher and everyone agreedto do whatever we want and see what works. This turned out to actually look really effective and more like contact improvisation. We then had to try again as a certain member in our group was too embaressed to do this so we convinced her to try and this time she did it. We then decided that we would then all turn to the back so it worked better. I feel liked the last part was the best part as it seemed much more improvised.

We then went worked on a piece for voice. We decided that we would be in a mental hospital with multiple people with different disabilities. I thought this went well but I thought that it was rushed as we only had limited time to complete it and could of been much better.

Thursday 10th September

Today we finished our performence piece about World War 2 about the soldier with post-traumatic stress order. We then watched a video of dance that had elements of contact improvisation.We then moved on to performing a piece about slavery using this contact inprovisation. The struggle for our group was trying not to make too much of a dance. Because this was our first time doing this, the class decided that we couldn't actually improvise it as we could easily go wrong and everyone could go in different directions. We got a good way through the song (although contact improvisation ois normally done in silence) and I felt that we got quite far in terms of story telling. I'm not sure where we could use this in our piece and i'm not sure weather it will look relevant or wierd in a piece if we just star doing this in the middle. We will have a bit more time next lesson and then we will finish the story (not neccesarily the song) and perform it to the class. I think this could work well in our piece if it's about human trafficking to help enforce the idea and I think for next lesson we need to make sure we finish this.

Tuesday 8th September

Monday 8^th September (single)

Today, we got put into groups for our devising unit. We had to brainstorm ideas for what our group could do. Our stimulus is “humanity in crisis” so we came up with a spider diagram to see what ideas our group can come up with.

We then got told to create a short piece for our research. We started to look at our World War 2 soldier idea in more depth and created a short performance based on it. We thought instead of making it about somebody being in the war, we thought it would be better if we made it after the war when somebody suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. We decided to do this so we wasn’t going for the stereotype of what everybody does for war with it being a battle with fake guns. We all agreed that this looks a bit rubbish and very amateur. We had it with everyone being this soldier’s family and when somebody knocks on the door, it looks like they’re back in the war where all his friends died. He then looks around with everything being frozen. He knows it’s fake but he’s still angry. When he turned around again, he realises that he’s just thinking about this in his head from his post traumatic stress and he’s still in his room with his family.

I don't like the idea of any soldiers or anything that uses guns because of what happened with the last devising piece where the gun didn't go off and made it awkward. I like the idea of something to do with human rights as it fits our stimulus.

Idea Brainstorm

Character Profiles

Curious Incident
Name: Christopher Boone
Age: 15
Gender: Male
Special needs: Yes-Autism
Location: London
Notes:
Christopher lives in London and has just found out that his neighbors dog has just been killed. After he gets accused of killing the dog, Christopher decides that he will find out who actually killed him. Christopher generally listens to what he is told takes everything literally and struggles with things like metaphors because he is autistic. He doesn't listen to people when he is passionate about something that he wants to do and feels like it is right to him even if it means it may not be completely right and fits in for everyone else. He has a close relationship with his dad even though this trust is broken in then play but it is resolved by the end of the play. He also finds out that his mun is alive and creates a close relationship with her even though their previous relationship wasn't very good. He doesn't really have any friends apart from his teacher Siobhan and his neighbor Mrs Alexandra which he says isn't a friend.


Shakespeare-As you like it
Name: Jaques
Age: Young man (20-30)
Gender: Male
Location: England 1600
Notes:
A faithful lord who accompanies Duke Senior into exile in the Forest of Ardenne. Jaques is an example of a stock figure in Elizabethan comedy, the man possessed of a hopelessly melancholy disposition. Much like a referee in a football game, he stands on the sidelines, watching and judging the actions of the other characters without ever fully participating. Given his inability to participate in life, it is fitting that Jaques alone refuses to follow Duke Senior and the other courtiers back to court, and instead resolves to assume a solitary and contemplative life in a monastery.

Curious Incident monologue speech

Father planted a vegetable patch in the garden (.) I helped and Sandy watched. We planted carrots, peas and spinach and I’m going to pick them when they’re ready (.) He also bought me a book called further maths for A-level, he told Mrs Gascoyne I’m going to take it and she said ok (.) I’m going to pass it and get an A* and then in two years I’ll take A-level physics and I’ll pass it and get an A* in that (.) And they I’ll go to University (1.0) I’ll take Sandy and my books and my computer (.) I’ll get a flat with a garden (2.0) and a toilet (.) And then I’ll get a first class honour’s degree (.) And then I’ll be a Scientist (3.0) I can do these things (1.0) because I went to London on my own (.) I found out the mystery of who killed Wellington and I found my mother (1.0) I was brave (.) And I wrote a book (.) Does that mean I can do anything? (.) Does that mean I can do anything Siobhan? (2.0)Does that mean I can do anything?

Curious Incident monologue

This is the monologue that I will be using for my modern piece for Mountview:

Father planted a vegetable patch in the garden. I helped and Sandy watched. We planted carrots, peas and spinach and I’m going to pick them when they’re ready. He also bought me a book called further maths for A-level, he told Mrs Gascoyne I’m going to take it and she said ok. I’m going to pass it and get an A*. And then in two years, I’ll take A-level physics and I’ll pass it and get an A* in that. And they I’ll go to University. I’ll take Sandy and my books and my computer. I’ll get a flat with a garden and a toilet. And then I’ll get a first class honour’s degree. And then I’ll be a Scientist. I can do these things. Because I went to London on my own. I found out the mystery of who killed Wellington and I found my mother. I was brave. And I wrote a book. Does that mean I can do anything? Does that mean I can do anything Siobhan? Does that mean I can do anything?

Choice of monologues

These monologues are the ones that I have chose:

Curious Incident
I chose this for my modern monologue because I think that the charecter is close to my age and I know what it's like to be a 15 year old boy. He is also the same gender making me more realistic and I know how to be more like a boy than a girl. It also will show that I am versatile actor as Christopher is autistic and none of my other monologues are spoken by a charecter who is autistic showing a range of skills. Also, I am familiar with this play as I have performed in it before, have seen it live and have watched a filmed version a couple of times.

Wasted talent

I have chose this emotional because it is quite emotional towards a friend. I feel like emotional is one of my strengths. The fact that he is also the same gender makes it more realistic and the charecter is a teenager which is around my age which also makes it look much more realistic. This contrasts with my other modern monologue which is much more passionate and is a totally different charecter.

Romeo and Juliet

I chose this for my classical monologue because I think that the charecter is close to my age and I know what it's like to be a teenager. He is also the same gender making me more realistic as I know how to be more like a boy than a girl. It also will show that I am versatile actor as Christopher is autistic and Romeo has no learning difficulties showing a complete contrast of charecters. Also they are done in different times aswell meaning different language being used aswell. Also, I am familiar with this play as I have seen it doesn't ne before making me more familiar with his whole story and journey throughout the play.

Tuesday 7th July

Today we ran act 2 and I felt like there was a lack of energy today. I think that this may be because we haven't done it for a while and wasn't used to doing it every lesson. I think that we're ready to perform and I think people just need to learn their lines.

Monologue shortlist

Romeo and Juliet
Although I wouldn't choose a classical monologue as it wouldn't really reflect to my personal experiences, both of my schools require one classical monologue so I chose to look at classical monologues aswell at modern monologues. I think that this monologue is ratable because it's about getting something that you can't get even though you're so desperate to get that one thing.
Duchess of Malfi
I chose this monologue because one of the schools asks for a different type of classical monologues. I thought that I would have two and choose one. I think this is relatable to me and it is engaging and a serious monologue and would be good if I put it with a comedy monologue .

Curious Incident
I think that this will be a good monologue because it will show a wide range of acting skills as he is autistic meaning that's it's different to all my other monologues and Christopher is 15 and I know what it is like to be a 15 year old. I have also seen this play done with multiple actors in this role making it easier to give me an idea on what I can do with the monologue

Wasted talent
I think that this is a good monologue for me to use because it's modern and the character is around my age meaning that I can relate to him. Also, I know how it is to lose somebody that you love and I know how the character would feel.

Single Crutch
I think that this monologue would be good for me as I know how annoying it is when somebody won't give me something. I can also show more than one emotion and I think that this monologue definitely tells more of a story than all of the other monologues that I have done.

Like dreaming, backwards
I think that this monologue would be good for me because the character in it shows a wide range of emotion and once again tells a story that you can build upon making the audience feel more engaged and connected with me.

Monday 6th July

Today we was doing our backstage jobs. I worked on the tickets for the whole lesson to get them done the way I wanted and used a range of designs until I found the one that I liked the most. I will give the file to my teacher who will print them off so that we can sell them soon.

Drama schools requirements

Mountview

Mountview recognises that talent cannot always be measured by conventional academic achievement and welcomes applications from people without standard entry qualifications. However, one of the following is desirable:

• Five GCSE passes, including two at A-Level
• Four SCE Higher Grade passes
• BTEC National or Higher National Certificate or Diploma with merit grades
• Foundation course

They ask applicants to use

• One classical monologue
• One modern monologue

LAMDA
LAMDA asks you to prepare:

• one monologue from an Elizabethan or Jacobean play; and
• one monologue from a play written in either the 20^th or 21^st Century, but not a piece written by you or by an unknown or little-known author.

Thursday 2nd July

Today we ran Act 1. I think that this went really well and I think it's now a case of people learning their lines especially as it's only a couple of weeks away. This will make running the show much easier as people will then know what they are doing rather than constantly looking at their scripts. It will male the show look much neater aswell..

Tuesday 30th June

Today we decided that that we would split ourselves into teams to get the backstage parts of the show done. I got put into team front of house. I was in charge of making all the finances of each show into a spreadsheet. This involved putting things into formulas aswell. I then helped design the tickets. I think that I will slightly change the tickets and put some vines on them and a picture of a plant.

Monday 29th June

Today we had the pianist meaning that we could go through the numbers properly instead of going through them double speed. We only sang today and we only did the songs that was able to be done with a piano as some of them needs more instruments. The top of Audrey 2 is now looking good with lips and the base colour of green paper going on aswell.

Thursday 25th June

Today we worked on setting up the show. Some of us cleaned the stage whilst others worked on the plant and others worked on  the set. I think it's good that it's now coming all together and I think that the stage will look really good when it's all done.

Monday 22nd June

Today we did a run through of Act 2. We had to do some numbers a couple of times to make sure that everybody was doing them right and they knew what to do. On the whole, today went well and I think that considering we have 3 weeks until the actual show, I think that it's in really good shape.

I am worried about the plant because at the moment, it's very flimsy and we haven't even started the bottom half of the plant. I'm worried that we won't get it done in time because only an few people are willing to give up their free periods.

Children's theatre research-Companies

Unicorn Theatre

Caryl Jenner founded The Unicorn Theatre as a touring company in 1947 and was trying to give children a valuable and often first ever experience of quality theatre.The Unicorn Theatre try to push the boundaries of imagination for their child audience in everything that they do. This also includes: welcoming families, schools, and young people for unforgettable theatrical experiences and try to expand horizons, change perspectives, and challenge how we all see and understand each other. They have a purpose built building at London Bridge contains two theatres, four floors of public spaces and two rehearsal studios. This allows them to work with some of the world’s most exciting theatre-makers to produce, present and tour a broad range of work.

 

Polka Theatre

Polka has been entertaining children t the theatre since it opened since 1979.Polka attempts to use the emotions, spark the imagination and, most of all, entertain. It has two theatre spaces, the Main Theatre and the Adventure Theatre are designed especially for children so that their first visit to their theatre is relevant, engaging and welcoming.At Polka Theatre, children aged from 0 to 14 can enjoy a wide-range of experiences from the dramas like Stamping, Shouting and Singing Home; to comedies family shows like Flat Stanley; world-premieres of plays for children like Cloud Pictures; and adaptations of well-loved stories like We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

Friday 19th June

Today was our last rehearsal before our performance. We found out that our performance space is too small to do our silhouette meaning that we will have to perform it at another time at a different venue. We ran through Jack and the beanstalk and Little Red Riding Hood. I feel confident with both of these stories. It's only Goldilocks that I am worried about.

We also went through costumes but I am worried about the quick changes that we will have to do as they will be out in the open and with people rushing around at the side of the view, it could distract our audience. I'm still unsure what I'm wearing sometimes.

Thursday 18th June

Today we went through all of the musical numbers in Act 1. We danced them through a couple of times to made sure that we went through all of the parts that people were unsure of. We also sang through the numbers to make sure we knew all of the lyrics and that we had enough volume. The singing is a bit rough at the moment because we are using backing tracks rather than the band that we will be using.

Tuesday 16th June

Today we ran through Act 2 like we ran through Act 1 the other day but once again the backing tracks were again too fast for us. This hopefully won't be a problem during the performance because we will be using a live band. We was then told that Act 2 had much more energy than Act 1 so we went over some of the dances in Act 1 and put the energy that we lacked the other day.

We also got taught the dance to "It's just the gas." I think that the choreography looked really good as it's one of the numbers in the show where it is simple but effective. We are in a chair and we do simple movements as we're not meant to be the main focus of the song.

Tuesday 16th June

We are now one week away from our first and only performance . Today we ran Little Red and Jack and the Beanstalk. We also worked on the opening to our whole piece because we hadn't done that for a couple of weeks due to working on Jack and the Beanstalk. We also sung through our finale song "I'm a believer" for the first time. Because we haven't seen our performance space yet, we're not sure if we will be able to do Goldilocks or not because to do this effectively, we need a big space and the space we have may be too small.

I think that we just need to know the lyrics to the songs that we are doing and make sure that he people in the last couple of scenes of Jack and the Beanstalk just need to learn their lines. One thing that I'm worried about is the fact that we still haven't done the transitions from one story to another.

Monday 15th June

Today we ran through all of the first act. The things that we lact was energy and the volume of singing. I think that I did ok on all of the dances but I did struggle to remember "Ya Never Know." I feel like I could of done better though. I don't like the backing tracks that we are using at the moment because they are too fast making it look messy and sometimes we practicing double speed to what we are actually will be doing on the night. I think that the performance will be better and more accurate as we will have a live band who will be able to play things that we want to our own speed.

Friday 12th June

Today we completed "Jack and the Beanstalk." This means that all we have to do is learn our lines, clean our performance and learn our transitions between the stories. We then decided a finale song. As a group we ended up with choosing "I'm a believer" from Shrek the musical. I think that this is a good choice because it's a really upbeat song and will keep the kids entertained and engaged until the end. I am slightly worried about what we are doing about props and costumes as we haven't even had time to discuss this yet and with the performance still not being the best it can be with only two weeks left, I'm worried that it will be forgot about.

Thursday 11th June

Today we ran through all of the ensemble numbers that are in the show. I felt that the dancing for the show is going really know. I think that we should now focus on the singing of the show rather than the dancing and only go over it to keep it fresh in our minds. That being said, I do think that "Ya Never Know" still is a bit of a mess at times and should go through that number the most. Now that the whole show is set, I think that it's good that we can just go over and clean the dances and work on our singing whilst dancing as I don't think that we have done that for most of the numbers.

Tuesday 9th June

Today we sung through the numbers that we have done and then went through the whole of Act 2. I think that this was a good idea as now I'm now much more aware of what actually happens in Act 2 and what I need to do. I feel like the ensemble army needed as much but. I think it makes the audience focus more on the story. I think that it's really good that we've set the whole show and that we are aware of what we are doing.

Tuesday 9th June

Today we found out that we would be going to the Primary School's instead of the Primary Schools coming to us making it more difficult to set our piece because our stage will be different everytime. We would also be using silhouette instead of the lighting tower as that can't be transported.

After this, we did a run through of all the scenes we have done so far for "Jack and the Beanstalk." We then put some audience participation in when Jack decides to climb the Beanstalk. We then created a scene for when Jack has climbed the Beanstalk. We use the song "welcome to Duloc" from Shrek the musical and change the lyrics to show how much of a perfect place the sky is. This will help keep the kids engaged with the story.

Monday 8th June

Today we went through all the dances that we have done so far and cleaned them up. I still am slightly worried about "Ya Never Know" as it a fancy need and that everything has to be on point otherwise it won't look right. I am surprised how well it went considering that we haven't done some numbers all together like the opening number for a couple of weeks. I think that the show is starting to take shape and I just hope that everybody can keep up the hard work.

Tuesday 19th May

Today we ran through the numbers we did yesterday and then we filmed them. We then got some easy and basic movement for "The meek shall inherit" at the chorus. We then do the same thing at every chorus but slightly different. This then means that the ensemble get to do something rather than just sitting there and doing nothing on stage when we could be used.

Thursday 4th June

Today we watched a documentary on musical theatre. This was about how quick people can be told that they canose jobs due to shows closing or about the fact that the producers just don't think that they are right for the job. It also showed how children can get into theatre through academy's that are set up by the musical or by open calls. We then went through "Ya never know" because that is the weakest dance so far. We then filmed it so we can can practice out of lesson.

Tuesday 2nd June

Today we finished "Ya Never know." I think that it looks really good and I think that the audience will enjoy this. I am still worried about this leapfrog that everybody has to do as its a hard move as they are standing up but it should work on the day. I now need to go over this to make sure that I know what I'm doing for the whole dance

Tuesday 2nd June

Today we worked on the market scene. We took inspiration from the beginning of the musical "Beauty and the Beast." This starts of with me and other members of the group walking round in the stage trying to sell items at a market. Jack tries to sell his cow and everybody tries to flog their items to him. Jack then bumps into bean man who tells them to go away so he can talk to Jack. We then do the song "I've got the magic in me" convincing Jack to buy the beans. This then leads to everybody doing a cheesy dance to this so that the kids stay engaged throughout. We cut the song to make it shorter to keep all of the kids entertained.

Monday 1st June

Today we learned the dance to "Ya never know." I think that this is a challenging dance but I think that it looks really good. I think that the choreographer did well to not just dance it, we can also act it aswell. I am worried about the leapfrog that we have to do as I think it may look messy but I think we just need to practice it and it'll look really good.

Friday 22nd May

Today we did a run through of "Little Red Riding Hood" and worked out the plot and the scenes for "Jack and the Beanstalk." So far the only part we have worked out is the opening. We then worked on improving the small scenes and worked out how we would do the other parts like Jack going underneath the Giants door. I think that this could possibly be the most interesting one to all of the kids.

Thursday 21st May

Today worked on our charecters. This was mostly for the ensemble charecters so they'd know why they'd be like when being on the street and making sure that they stay in character. I decided I would be a homeless person. This is the profile I made for him:

Age: 20

Job: None

Family: Alcoholic dad after the mum died

Mental state: paranoid about life

He reads the same newspaper as he can't afford to get a new one. He is hopeful that one day he will get a job and get money. He never went to a hoo but wants to be a florist which is why he hangs round Mushik's store. 

Tuesday 19th May

Today we worked on what Goldilocks will say when she is in front of the curtain. I'm getting worried about this silhouette idea that we are doing. I feel like that we need more practice to perfect it. I think that the kids won't understand what the shapes are because they are rushed and they don't always look like the object that we are creating. As much as I think this, I think that we should stick with this idea because we don't have long before our performance and we still have to do another story yet. I feel like if we changed it now, it would look even more rushed.

We so had a few minutes at the end to start on our next story that was Jack an the Beanstalk. We started on the opening part and I think that so far that it's looks really good and will be more engaging than Goldilocks.

Monday 18th May

Today we did the finale song, we set  n and worked out the basic movement to the song. I think that this looks good but I don't like that the bows are with this song. I feel like that it's quite irrelevant to the song and that we should do a separate curtain call like they do in the actual show. We then started to put a bit of choreography to the dentist song. Although that we finished the song, it definitely needs to be polished a lot so that it looks much better than it does now. The choreography needs to be clean and our expressions need to cheesy, over the top and funny

Thursday 14th May

Today we decided to block the secound act dialogue today. This made us more aware of everything that everybody does in the secound act. We then did the finale, even though we haven't finished it, I think that it looks reallhy good. The only part that I don't like is the fact that the curtain call isn't seperate to the song "Don't feed the plants." I think that they should do seperate curtain call music of the title song like they normally do in the professinal show in all of the productions.

Tuesday 12th May

Today, I missed most of the lesson due to the exam but as a class we had decided how we was going to set Jack and the Beanstalk. We decided that for the Beanstalk, we could use the tower that we use for the lighting but make sure we would cover it with green vines to make sure it looks like a beanstalk.

We then got plans for our performance area. We plan for our silhouette sheet to go at the back and make it easily roll forward with the beanstalk and other props round the side making it easy to move into the performance space. Also, our audience will be in a semi-circle aswell to make so that they feel like they are part of the action with us.

Tuesday 12th May

Today we ran the songs and dialogue that we have done. This gave us to basically run the show up to what we know and what we have done. This shows that the show is really taking shape and that every part we have done is now in sequence and the transitions go into each scene really smoothly and it now runs smoothly. I do think that I need to go over spme of the lyrics of the song just to make sure tht I definately know them.

Monday 11th May

Today we went through all of the songs that we know and did it including all of the dialougue and changed a couple of parts of the dialogue. We then set "closed for renovation." I think that it was really good because most of it is only movement orientted an I think that this suits the number really well as it doesn't need to be  massive dance number as I don't think that it's that type of song. We also ran all of the songs and scenes that we have done so far. I think that the show is now taking real shape and that it looks good and I think that the show will be very enjoyable to watch. My target for next lesso  is to make sure I remember closed for renovation and go over lyrics for the other songs.

Friday 8th May

Today, we continued to work on Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We decided that to create a realistic looking bowl, it would be better if we cut a bowl shape out of a piece of card. By doing this, it will make the silhouette more clear to the kids making it more suitable for our target audience.

We also decided that we would need a narrator so that the kids would understand what is going on so we thought we would have Freya who is playing Goldilocks to narrate what is going on in front of the curtain when she isn't behind the curtain. She will then interact with the children in front of the screen so we can still communicate with the audience so we can use audience interaction using another technique.

Our original plan was to go to Primary School's around our local area to perform our piece but we thought it would be easier if they came to us and we just performed it at our school as we would have all the equipment (i.e lighting) to use aswell.

I think that the silhouette is a good idea but because of the age of our audience, they could be bored and confused as they might not know what is going on. Also, as we have only just started so it may not look that good as it's very easy to go wrong as even if we're slightly off with our positioning, it could look rubbish.

I think that it would help that we have a running order for each scene of the silhouette so that everyone is confident in what they are doing.

Silhouette Research

In this clip we can see that the shadow group "attraction" telling the story about a family in the army. I really like how they decide to do the transitions. I think they are really smooth and it's something that we should definitely use in our piece so that our story is clear and so the kids don't get lost. I also like the way that they use different distances from the light to make smaller and taller people. This was well used when they made the child. I liked the way that the light sometimes changes to almost a spotlight on a particular part of the action. I'm not sure if we could use this because of the facilities that we have and also the type of story that we are doing.

I do think that instead of the music that they use over the top, we should use narration of the story. I think that we could use a pre-recorded voice of the story rather than have seen money come round the sheet to say it because this could be distracting to our audience and it would mean that we'd have one less person to be in the shadow.

YouTube Clip: https://youtu.be/CvQBUccxBr4

Thursday 7th May

Today we rehearsed all the numbers that we have done so far which is "Little Shop of Horrors", "Skidrow and "Da-Doo". We the. Did this again but inuded the dialogue as well as all of the songs.

We then cleaned all of the dances up but the singing in "Skidrow" wasn't good at all but I think that everyone needs to learn their words so that they can be more confident with the singing.

We also found out that everybody will alway be onstage meaning that we will all have more stage time.

Tuesday 5th May

Today we worked on the opening of the show by learning the choreography to the opening number-"Little Shop of Horrors." I found this number challenging but I think that I can do it with some practice. I feel that the choreographer (Dan) made the right decision by making the number have a lot of dance in it as it's the opening of the show and has to have the wow factor so we entertain the audience straight away.

5th May

Today we worked on Silhouette and we have decided that we would do Goldilocks and the Three Bears. When we first workshoped this, I didn't think that we would actually use this as a technique because I thought that because we only have a limited time to rehearse, it would take us a long time to rehearse. This is also another technique so we can vary all of our techniques rather than keep using the same ones.

We started to do a copy of our silhouettes today. The first one we did was the forest. This involved two trees that are both made up of 3 people and then two people with their hands and fingers creating grass on the ground. We used multiple people to make these objects to make them larger and to have more branches for the trees, and have more blades of grass and it makes it look less human aswell.

We then created other objects like a chairs and tables with people bending and sitting in multiple positions. I find that the more flexible that you are, the more versatile you are when it comes to actually making these objects and you can bend into more positions.

30th April (Da-Doo)

Today we worked on "Skidrow" to make sure that everybody knew what they were doing. We then moved on the song Da-Doo. I decided that I would be a shop assistant to the Chinese man that is talked about in the song. This is a very easy song to do and I don't think that the cast will need much practice. I think that this number won't need any more work done on it.

Children's theatre research: Theatre

In this clip, we can see that in Dora the explorer, they use song and dance to portray how they are feeling and what they are going to do. This helps the kids stay engaged throughout the piece and stay entertained whilst they watch the performance and it also makes sure that the story keeps on going at a reasonable place with it making sense. We should use this because the kids will then stay entertained and it will also meant that the story can progress at a reasonable pace in an entertaining way. This will also break up the performance so that our whole piece isn't just dialogue making sure that the kids don't get bored.

They also break the fourth wall a lot with lots of audience interaction so that the kids can get involved and feel like they are part of the story and feel like that they have helped the characters out leading to them also feeling happy after the performance as they have helped the character through the story. We must do this because this is the thing that keeps kids engaged throughout the whole story and make them feel like they are part of the story and makes sure that they always know what is going on. This also makes the kids feel like they have achieved something and make them feel welcomed on the journey that they are experiencing with us.

They also use exaggeration with everything that they do meaning that they make every gesture that they do big and over the top. The fact that they do this might mean that to the adults, it looks a bit weird and unrealistic but to the kids it helps them understand what is happening and helps them to enjoy what they are watching. I think we should use this sometimes as it would help them stay focused on the story but if we do this all the time, it may look a bit stupid after a while and the kids may not understand as we may be overdoing it.

YouTube clip: http://youtu.be/lRymeAEFhuw

Children's theatre research: TV

In this clip, the presenter always directly addressed the viewer so that the kids always feel like that they are being talked to and don't feel left out or get bored. He does this so that they feel like the are being directly spoken to so it feels like a parent or close friend actually saying it to them. Also, this presenter talks slowly so the kids never get lost or confused on what is going on. On the other hand, he doesn't speak too slow otherwise the kids would get bored easily and quickly. I think that we should keep in mind the speed of our performance and how quick we speak so that the kids definitely understand what's going on and don't get too many things happening at once for them to understand. He also introduces himself to the audience as the narrator but uses his first name so that the kids now feel like they know who he is and feel like they can trust him on telling this story. I like this idea because it makes the kids feel like they now know the person who is telling them this story rather than a stranger.

The story has lots of rhymes in it so that the kids find it enjoyable to watch. With the rhymes it makes the story much more easy to listen to. If we used a narrator, we could use this so that the kids would be able to stay engaged with the story all the time and wouldn't get bored as they are listening out to the rhymes. They also never complicate the names of the characters. I think that we should definitely use this so the kids never get confused on who's who.

YouTube clip: http://youtu.be/0UwFcuLwSEs

Tuesday 28th April

Today we danced through the song we sung through yesterday-"Skidrow." Because not everybody was a trained dancer, the choreographer (Dan) decided that he didn't want to make the number a full dance number. I think that this number looks really good and that I just need to remember to remember the movement that we have set and make sure that I know the words to the songs.

28th April-Goldilocks and the Three Bears

To begin our lesson, we ran through Little Red Riding Hood once to make sure that we knew it and then we started to brainstorm different ways to tell our next story, which is Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Here are some of the ideas we came up with:

• Physical Theatre
• Puppetry
• Silhouette

We decided that we would workshop silhouette. This would involve a narrator talking the whole time for when the people in the sheet are transitioning. We did this as we already had a sheet and a light to silhouette with. We didn't have any puppets to practice or workshop with and physical Theatre may confuse the kids as they may be too young to understand some of it.

We worked on how to make objects like beds and chairs. We learnt that we could space out and that we could easily make the objects bigger by either getting closer or further away. We do have to be careful of this though because it we move to far away from the sheet, the object could distort too much. We tried to do the sections with the three beds and I think that it looked really good considering that this was our first attempt at silhouette and that  none of us thought that we would look too god at it.

I think that we should definitely use silhouette as it is a simple yet effective way to tell a story as long as we have somebody narrating the story.

Monday 27th April

Monday 27^th April

Today, we learnt our first song for “Little Shop of Horrors”. We learnt the song “Skidrow”. We learnt the song section by section with going through all the harmonies separately. I got allocated a solo line. We first used the cast recording and then used the backing track. We then had to learn all the different types of harmonies for the song as that was how the song was written.

I play a homeless member and I’m part of the ensemble for this song and I sing the line:

“When you buy your tokens you go”

I’ve thought that my character would seem like an innocent person who lives on Skidrow and just wants a home but can’t afford one

My targets:

·         Learn the solo line-this is so that when I sing this, it is to the best to my ability and I can try and show off my vocal ability

·         Learn my harmonies-this is so that the song sounds good when we sing it. This is also so that I don’t let the cast down

24th April

Today we finished the first out of our three stories. We finished Little Red Riding Hood which we are going to perform for primary school children.

We added some much needed scenes. We added the wolf and Little Red meeting each other the first time. We decided that the wok should be quite sinister and even a bit posh. I think this is a good idea as we don't want to have a wolf that shouts and is loud as it may scare some of the children. The wolf then sends Little Red the wrong way on purpose so he can go the quick way. We also narrated over this part to make sure that the Wolf's intentions are clear.

We then created Grandma's house. We only had enough people for the bed and the door but this should hopefully keep the children engaged as they will have to use their imagination. As we performing the story to little children we thought that we definitely couldn't use the version where the wolf eats grandma so we thought we would use the one where he locks her to n the cupboard. As we didn't have a cupboard, we decided that grandma would be trapped underneath the bed. This could also make the kids exited because it's an ending to the story that they have never heard of before which would also keep them engaged.

21st April

Today, we worked on Little Red and added three people who were away when we first set the piece. This then gave us a chance to go over everything and make sure that we have perfected everything. This also meant that the overall piece was improves aswell with us pitt no in movement for "off to see our grandma" making it more visual for our young audience to enjoy. This also means that we have used another story technique of dance.

Vaudeville

Before the American civil war theatre in America was dominated by burlesque and acts that featured many risqué things. People mainly go there to drink and the acts were more for middle class men.

In 1881, Tony Dastor wanted to create a more family show featuring a wide variety performances in one night. He removed all the bad language and risqué to to make the target audience open. He banned drinking in theatre to make it more family orientated.

He found out that they could make lots of money with cleaner productions and kept on putting performances like this. As the years went on, more and more amusements became available.

The purpose of these performences were so that they don't get any emotional attachment. The sole purpose was to  entertain. Even though there were new acts available, most of them were slapstick comedy.

As the years went on, Vaudeville became more and more popular appealing to many different audiences and featured a variety of performers. However these were stereotypical performences make them look bad. Although it was popular, the competition was from silent movies. A lot of the Vaudeville theatres As it became less common.

Vaudeville had been re-born as New Vaudeville from shows like Royal Variety and Britain's got talent. The presenters are stars stars that are funny to keep the comedy element.

What makes it New Vaudeville:

Voices

Over the top physicality

Comedy sketch

No character relationship with the audience

Often recognises that the audience is there (breaks the fourth wall)

Evaluation:

We did 39 steps and our piece was set at a theatre. I liked it because it's fast paced and there's no pauses. We had a piece from 39 steps. Our piece was wait two performers 

Our piece was about people in a theatre putting on a show. I like that everything is also over the top and big so I think that the audience would enjoy it more. I also like the while idea of the slapstick comedy so that people can really relate to the subjects and still laugh at what's going on.

Friday 27th March

This week we had a rough idea on how we could start our performance for our children’s theatre piece. We then put the detail into this and completed this in full. The techniques that we are using in this opening scene are audience interaction, basic dialogue and a childish chant so they can remember. This will then hopefully get them involved with the story and get them ready for story time.

We then would create the scene for our first story “Little Red Riding Hood”. Our group was in charge of making the river. I had the idea that the river would be slanted so that one person would have a puppet on each arm with fishes on them pretending that they were under the sea. There would be then other people who are hidden behind the sheet with fishes on sticks which would also be shown over the river. This idea was not used due to another idea with the river being lifted up and everyone would be the fish underneath the river.

We then started the actual storyline for “Little Red”. We have a narrator and we have an ensemble that is in every scene creating the forest and other parts of the scenery. This will make the kids use their imagination with making the ensemble looking like the part of sceneries. We then decided that we would add a song. We then changed the words to:

“We’re off to see my grandma, my grandma who live in the woods,

  I hear she feels sick, and feel a bit ick, oh what am I going to do?

  I’ll take some treats into the woods, and make her feel better just like I should

  because, because, because, because, because, my name is little red riding hood.

  We’re off to see my grandma, my grandma who lives in the woods.”

I think that the children would recognise the tune and would enjoy the new lyrics and would be able to stay into their heads and it would help them with enjoying them.

Choosing our stories

The photo below shows a brainstorm of stories that we all came up in class that we could perform for primary school children after telling the children a basic synopsis so they understand what is going on. We  decided to take a short discussion we decided to take a vote on which three stories that we could do. The first story that everyone chose was "Jack and the Beanstalk". I think that this will be a really good idea because it has lots of characters and we could make almost like a musical as we could add song and dance.

The second story that was chosen was "Little Red Riding Hood" I think that this is really well known and we could also add the musical aspect. We could also add some other characters to male it more entertaining for all of the children.

The last story was a difficult decision for the group because me and a couple of others wanted t do "The Ugly Duckling" but others wanted to do "Goldilocks". I wanted to do "The Ugly Duckling" because I think that it could be funny and entertaining for the children. More people wanted to do "Goldilocks" because they though that the children wouldn't get confused and would feel that it could also be more song and dance orientated.

Story Telling

The photo shows below show a brainstorm of the theme that we could do our children theatre piece. We decided to choose to introduce the book. We started with Freya and Toby pretending to be teachers in a assembly to talk about healthy eating. After this, two people come in saying "We got the book!" leading to a change in the atmosphere in the room, this will then hopefully get all the children exited.

These two people say things like "are you bored boys and girls?" and "Shall we have some fun?" We then get them to put their hands in their air to make sure that everybody in the room gets exited. We will also be addressing the audience to get them involved so that they will be involved with us. Two people then sprinkle glitter over Freya and Toby so it looks like magic dust. There will also be a spell that they have to recite the spell for more audience participation to make the story move along.

Friday's lesson

Last lesson was our final week on work shopping techniques for storytelling. We brand all of the elements of the past few weeks  together. We started to make up a story with that class and everybody in the class would then follow on and tell a bit more of the story. We had to make sure that our story would appeal to different audiences. We had to focus on various age groups. Some exams were primary school children, teenage girls, teenage boys and men down the pub. This meant that our tone of voice would have to change and the content would have to change so the language would be relevant to the age or gender of the group to make it more suitable and interesting for the group.

After this we had to work more on movement. The class was split into two groups where one had to make a magical forest and the other had to make a magical undersea world. I had to make the undersea world. Our group started with a soundscape and which led to a short dance. We decided to go over the top with the facial expressions to make sure that we got our primary school target audience and make sure that they stay interested.

I liked what we did today as it gave us a whole overview of what we did during these workshops. This now means that we now how a better understanding on how to address our target audience and keep them interested.

Lesson logs

On or first lesson back, we looked at acting through our eyes to make our acting much more realistic to the audience on how we feel and how we are able to connect with them more. We had to think of a past experience and then look at a partner and make sure that only our eyes changed and none of our facial expressions has changed. The partner would point out if anything else had changed and you would have to revert back to your original position. We then made sure that we went into a scene with using our eyes the most and noticing that sometimes, the small features like the eyes can be more powerful than moving your whole body.

Next lesson we did speech. This his how you talk. We went into a line and we really emphasised on our vowels. We each had to say a vowel each and keep on doing this until everyone had said every vowel. We then had to say tongue twisters but act like we was saying it to like 10 year olds. We then got back into our line and said this one by one whilst overlapping each other making us think and we had to make sure that we was saying the tongue twisters right as well. We still had to make sure that we weretking like we was talking to 10 year olds. We then had to put an emotion of our choice into it aswell meaning that we had to go over the top to make sure that the audience would stay interested.

The next lesson, we started to act like  objects. We weren't allowed to think of what we were doing, we had to go straight into it. One person was like the feature of the area and the rest had to be parts of the area. Like if the feature was lava, the rest of us had to act like other things in a volcano. We could be like tumbling rocks or other lava or parts of a volcano. Others included being snowflakes, polar bears and penguins. We moved into objects to make it harder to imitate an animal. This helped be as an actor because when you act as an object, it's your interpretation on what you do. You just have to make sure you do it with confidence as nobody can tell you that it's wrong.

We had also looked at examples of storytelling to primary school children like when we watched a clip from the CBeebies where we watched the presenter tell the story. We then discussed the techniques that she used and talked about how we could put certain elements of that performence into ours.