Tuesday 25th November

 Today we were firstly given a drawn plan of our set for the musical. Because we performing inside in the theatre firstly then going outside to our outdoor venue, we have two sets. The first plan is of the inside set and the second, the outside. In these drawings, all of the possible entrances and exists are highlighted clearly and numbered to ensure we all understand where these are because they have changed from our old location if the woods. 

The inside location, which we only use for  the very first scene looks like this on paper: 

This layout for the theatre is more or less straight forward. The circles represent tables where the audience will be sitting round. This way, the performance will be intimate with the audience, helping them to connect to each character and their story. We didn't have to make too many corrections in our scripts for this because we were always going to use this space for the first scene, unlike the outdoor space which has now changed.

The set design for the outdoor woods looks like this: 

This design is more in depth, technical and filled than the indoor set design. In this, we have a total of 9 exits which have changed since our last we changed wood venues therefore, as a class we went through the whole of the script from scene 2 to 5 and worked out, chronologically where everyone had to enter and exit. This way, there was to be no confusion about which entrance or exit was equal to one in our old venue for the woods. I feel that now we have done this, everyone can feel more confident with their scripts and what they're meant to be doing and when. 

My main exit is number 5, which is from the back of the set.

Our other task this lesson was to get into our production role groups and discuss what we have done towards it and what we need to do to move it forward. I am doing publicity and marketing with Holly Hos, Bryleah, Taylor and Amber. Each of us now have assigned job roles;

 -Holly Hos- needs to get hold of a professional camera from another department in the college and will take a head shot of each person in the class and also, a fully costume and characterised picture of each member of the cast for the programme. 

 -Bryleah- has designed a poster for the musical to put up around the college and plans to use original photos she has taken herself to use. We plan to take a picture of trees and branches and photoshop the words 'In To The Woods' in to then in either a red or green colour. This will attract people from around the college, getting then intested so that they come and watch our performance.

 -Taylor and I- we are going to contact some local businesses about gaining sponsorship for our performance. We will offer a page or a half page of our programme for their company to be advertised on, in return for some money to go towards our performance fees.

 -Amber- she is going to focus on the programme and what is written on the pages. For example, gathering character bios and what our teachers have to say about being a part if choreographing and shaping In To The Woods as a whole performance. 

Collectively we are all going to think about how we want the tickets to look and how much we will be charging for them.

We went round asking the cast also, if everyone is okay for their costume and props for the performance. Collectively, we managed to agree on how would get hold of the props if they were particularly difficult or in easy to find. Also, we decided in Thursday everyone will be bringing their costumes in for pictures to be taken potentially and a full run through will happen.

Overall, I think today was a productive lesson and everyone benefited from recording our new entrances and exits and equally, good things came out of having mini production job meetings within our groups. 

Variety Report planning

Report in to the origins of society- Planning

Variety performance is a set of entertaining acts put into a show for the benefit of an audience. These acts can be anything from dance, singing, acting or a specific skill such as juggling, beat boxing or an animal act.

Variety performance dates way back to the 18^th century and prior when the public used variety events as a social gathering at the end of a long week. Now a days, 21st century variety performance is best known for its annual show called The Royal Variety Performance which is shown in London’s Palace Theatre.  This show is one of the world’s most famous and highly respected variety events, which you must be invited to appear in.

Vaudeville is a theatrical form of entertainment, usually performed in a variety related show. American vaudeville was very popular in Canada and The United States from the last 19th century to the early to mid 20th century, 1880s -1930s.
A typical vaudeville act will include a variety of different and individual acts which have no link or intended connection to each other, like a narratively structured piece of theatre.

Black History Month Evaluation

Black history performance final written evaluation.

Jack's solo

Today I worked on my character, Jack's solo called giants in the sky. Below is my annotated script at this stage, after roughly 20 minutes of blocking rehearsing and staging.

Gaints in the sky solo

Today I worked on my solo as Jack with Kim, called Giants in the Sky. This song is about how Jack has found a new exciting world and being a young boy, wants to tell everyone he knows and meets about his discoveries. 

With Kim, we ran through the song and distinguished which parts were to be sung with stacarto and legato.

Articulation, diction and breathe control are all important elements that I need to think about to make this song work both for my voice and for the audiences pleasure. 

Thursday 20th November 2014

Today,we had a short lesson of an hour. We all went outside to rehearse and run through the entrances and exits of scene 3. Today, everyone worked well together to get through this process as it was slightly broing as we had done this before however had to change some parts because we are now in a different location for the woods. 

To improve on today, I think everyone needs to run through their lines individually just to ensure we are fully aware of them. Recently we have been concerntrating on specific scenes that I think some members of the cat, including myself just needed to re familiarise themselves with their lines, entrances and exits.

Something that worked really well today was then stay with me song, sung by the witch the Rapunzel. We ran throughout the staging and dance of this scene in our new woods location and it still had the same effect, working really well to portray a ghostly and mysterious feeling to the audience. The only thing we had to re organise with this song was our exits which had to change slightly due to the new location. After we had made these changes, I wrote them down in my script, that way I will not forget where I am exiting. I am now exiting back through the audience, following Bryleah playing the Baker.

Finally, we went through the death of the cow scene, which we needed to go through the refresh our memories. After doing this, all three of us, the baker, bakers wife and I were totally happy and confident with this scene, the staging of it and how the lines are to be delivered. However we need to go through how the lines are delivered in our own time to ensure we overlap each other properly because this is how the scene is meant to sound, hurried and quick moving. 

All in all, a productive hour of In to the woods rehearsing. 

Tuesday Tech rehearsal- 18th November

Today in musical theatre after college had finished, we had our first tech rehearsal outside in our new location for the woods. The whole cast gathered to go through songs with the outdoor sound system, blocking scenes with lighting in the dark and seeing the logistics of where everyone will be sitting and where our entrances and exits are.

Firstly we had to put the seating area up for the audience. We used wooden stage blocks to do this and layered them in an upward stance, much like the lay out below. 

 

Photo link- https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgreSyl6qqgKFw03qdDtYnQLwz6uhEKoIvjvGkweMwcyefuMZ1qHk1QCtRGVI3KN1_U5zfzQiw5kB9SCaxrpiIf2J5drrwTi9znSuRRQmrz8dSvM06F2eOtyUdKIRd5b86cVaQsiPp8GrPw/s640/blogger-image--1980210465.jpg

Taken from google images

 

 

 

We layered the blocks up so that the back row were the on highest and so forth. When we had done this, which took over 200 pieces if staging, the whole cast got on the audience seating blocks to ensure we could all see from all angles, which we could. 

Next, we all split off in to small groups of roughly three or four and were given a certain job to do. Most of these were DIY based, for example I had to build a tower with Luke, Taylor and Jess. We were given metal raised staging which we, similarly to the audience seating, had to build up so that Rapunzel and the witch are able to climb to the top to act their scenes. 

Later in the rehearsal, when it has got dark, we tested out the new lighting system, which actually looks really professional and well set. 

We ran through the finale piece which we found out everyone needs to be more familiar with the words for. Despite this, the finale is shaping together nicely, what with people putting more effort in to their character now which is bringing it to life.

First impressions of production role

My production role is publicity and marketing. I chose this area to be inclined in because I enjoy publicising performances and shows by gaining sponsorship from companies and getting the word out there about dates times and what we are about.

Myself and Holly worked together this week to create Facebook and Twitter pages for In To The Woods the musical. 

Twitter- @intothewoodsmt

Facebook- https://m.facebook.com/ittwsealighttheatre?ref=bookmark

On both of these social media websites we plan to regularly post about the latest information about our musical and also, to keep in contect with all of the cast. 

Also, This week I have spent some time creating a list of possible companies we will contact, asking for sponsorship in return for advertisement of their company. 

The list of companies we will contact;

-Local Tesco store

-Local Waitrose store 

-The black horse, Binsted 

-Local newsagents 

This is only a brief list if ideas I have put together. Other members of the publicity and marketing team will come up with some others, we will have a meeting next Tuesday to build on and disuss our ideas further, hopefully enabling them to materialise as soon as possible. 

Bryleah has created a draft of a potential poster we could use to advertise the musical around the college. She is going to show us this tomorrow and after we have taken some pictures of our own to avoid copyright laws, we will get these up to raise awareness in the easiest place, the college.

Homework task questions

How is your role effected by the context of the play?
For my character Jack, I have to adject my costume, as do all of the other characters in this musical because we are acting in the woods. This is obviously an outside location and we are perfroming in the winter time, December, therefore it will be cold. I will wrap up in warm attire for these adjectments to be met.

How does the play fit in to the musical theatre genre in general?
In to the woods is a musical due to the whole play being acted and sung to music, whcih is a typical trate of a musical. We have also the junior script, to make the play more appropriote for younger audiences.

What do you need to rehearse more?
I need to rehearse my solo, Giants in the Sky, the staging in our new location and the vocal side, with Kim.

Are you supporting the less confident and less experienced learners?
Yes I am, by contributing ideas into the group when others are stuck on what they should do at certain moments and also, helping people outside the class, to learn thweir lines and memorising their entrances and exits.

Are you develpoing confiednce in your performance skills?
Yes I am considerably. At the begining of this year, I was not fully confident to perform infront of people I didn't know very well however, as this year has gone on, I have developed a strong relationship with my fellow students and am now happy to perform full out in front and with them.

Am I using the correct movements for the musical?
I believe I am making large movements well, which is typical of a musical therefore yes.

Production role.
My production role is publicity and marketing. Our group have discussed in the lessons what we plan to do, which is contact as many local businesses as we can to get as much sponsorship and money for our musical.

How have my ideas shaped to performance?
Personally, I don't think my contributions have been heard or listened to particularly. I have made contributions towards the performance process, especially when we are blocking/staging parts. I feel my ideas are not listened to when forming the performance.

How are my energy levels?
I sometimes feel I am tired during musical rehearsals however, the thought of the show coming together and my fellow cast members really help and support me through the process.

Are you prepared?
I have been preparing by learning my lines and learning my songs however no one has yet rehearsed in their costume.

Are you approaching the performance with the correct attitude?
Yes I believe I am, I am learfning my lines, entrances, exits, songs and the whole play with a positive attitude and I believe it is paying off through the work I am producing. When rehearsing, I put my full concerntration into the rehearsals to ensure I am fully aware of whats going on at all points. This way, it makes learning my lines easier because I am aware of the content and learning my entrances and exits therefore, becomes easier and more managable.

What decisions were made this week?
We made a lot of decisions to do with the technical rehearsal. Such as we are going to stage the production now we are performing outside. Also, we decided how we would put up the seat for the audiences to sit on, the lighting and the volume of sound we needed to achieve a good level for the audience to hear.

Dance- introduction ITTW dance with Kat

Today in our hour dance lesson with Kat, we learnt the full choreography for the introduction to the woods scene which is at the end of scene 1.
In this dance sequence, included are many large movements which is typical of musical dance. This type of movement is usually featured because it needs to be clear to audiences what the characters are feeling through their movements and to ensure the movements are clearly seen by everyone.
We included lots of moves that revolved around marching, because travelling in the woods is an action that is heavily used and relied upon during the course of our performance.
Kat has cleverly choreographed certain sections to fit the lyrics and content of the song.
For example, we have a line that says 'There is something in the glade there' at this point, everyone turns their body and head towards the woods and points in that direction, creating the effect that the woods are real and actually not just in our performance.

ITTW 11/11/14

Today we had a very busy day in rehearsing for In to The Woods. We had our timetables lesson to rehearse and also used time after school, 4pm-7.30pm to rehearse scenes whilst perspective student and parents for 2015 were looking round the college.
In todays lesson, we worked through developing scenes 3 and 4 and bringing out the characterisation that will help engage the audience in our musical when we perform it later in December.
In the lesson, as I am not in scene 4 until the end, I worked with Holly and Jess to learn my lines and develop my understanding of the scene. We had a descussion about the scene and how some of the other characters interact with others and build relationships together.
With my lines in scene 3, Jess really helped me to understand the meaning of them and how my character jack would have been feeling at the time he delivers them. For example, especially the line I have to say "You see. I promised you more than the five gold pieces I gave sire. Now, I'm taking my cow". I now understand, particularly the end sentence a lot better than I did before. I know now that jack is to deliever the last sentence with passion and a sense of relief as he can now claim his cow back.

At the after college rehearsals, we focused more on scene 4. In particular the song 'stay with me' and approximately the final 4 pages of the scene.
For the song stay with me, we have done work on dancing around the Witch and Rapunzel whilst they sing and perform the song. This dance sequence is very ghostly and non naturalistic and sees us perform dance moves of a floaty and flowing nature. This idea of mysterious and flowing moves works weel as a back drop to the song, which is emotional and heart felt. It works because the dance moves melt in to the background, however compliment what is being sung and said.
Secondly, we rehearsed the end of scene 4 which is a dramatic scene to say the least. For this scene each character involved really push themself to achieve the best performance they could out of the scene and situation. We did this by throwing ourselves into the acting, not holding back or being to shy or apprehensive as to what we were about to say or do. I found this method really helped me.

Homework

Assignment Brief

Black history month performance video

Part 1 16/10/2014.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rg1wRyQX3PU

Part 2 16/10/2014.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6GIDMvFJX4I

Development of scene 1 and 2

The development of scenes 1 and 2 was more or less straight forward and to the point. As the whole cast had made notes on their scripts directing themselves to be in their places at the correct time, all that was left to do was tidy the acting up and the majority of people had leant their lines for both of these scene, said and sung, making the process much more straight forward for everyone.

In the development of both if these scenes, Grainnenhelped everyone to really draw their characterisation skills out of them, to produce the best acting we could. She did this by encouraging us to think about how our character may be feeling at a certain moment in time and also,referring back to our individual super objectives for our characters.

Grainne also helped us develop these scenes by making us repeat a few lines at a time if it didn't quite look right or wasn't perfect. We figured that if we rehearse every single line in the musical to perfection, then perfect practise makes perfect, concluding hopefully a fantastic musical with high quality acting, singing and dancing. 

I think what helped the cast develop these 2 establishing scenes was that everyone was encouraging towards each other and helped one another through the process. We did this but supporting each other with encourage comments and the use of giving constructive critisism. Also, after a solo or duet performance of singing, we would all congratulate the cast members on a solid attempt at singing ear song. We also had one person in the class on hold to prompt on stage if any character forgot their lines at a certain point, which is more than likely because we have only been learning mr for a month or so. 

Introduction to In to The Woods dance- with Kat

Today, we worked on our introductory dance to the woods, which we perform in the theatre, however by the end we get the audience up off their feet, making their way to the outside performing space.
The dance contains over sized movements to emphasise the meaning of excitement as all of the characters are making their way into the woods to find their fate as it were.

Kay has really helped all of us in the process of learning this dance, by showing and teaching us at a slow and understandable pace, giving us enough time to take in the moves, memorising them for future reference and giving us the opportunity to bring out our characters whilst moving, which can be a difficult task. 

At the end of the dance, the whole of the cast who are on stage at this point which is everyone, not including the wolf and the witch, move forward into the audience, ushering them all up out into the woods. We have worked this with Kat to be jolly and upbeat for the audience to get energy off us, the cast that builds up over time to create a great atmosphere for everyone to feed off of. 

ITTW Blocking scene 5

Scene 5 is the finale of the musical, therefore the ending two songs are the most important and should be the most eye catching for the audience to watch.
In this lesson, we rehearsed these songs and the staging of them. For the finale number, the whole cast stand in a semi circle surrounding Cinderella on a chair.
I will be entering from the back of the trees, walking on with the whole cast.

ITTW Blocking scene 4 with Grainne

Today in our lesson, rehearsing for our musical In to The Woods we were blocking scene 4. This scene in some ways was challenging to block and stage because most of the characters in the musical feature in it.
In this scene, my character Jack, The Baker and his wife, Witch and the mysterious man have a serious and intense scene which sees truths about certain characters come out. Everyone in this part of the scene in particular had to concentrate on their characterisation skills to convey their emotions and feelings at that moment in time.
Myself in particular, had to block a scene with Jack's cow, Milky-White which turned out to be an emotional scene.
the scene between us two is tricky because i only have a limited number of lines to ay however have to convey my feelings through these short lines. I do this also through facial expression, especially on the line 'She's milking' where i use a facial expression to show feelings of being overjoyed and relief.

ITTW 30/10/14

Today in our rehearsals for In to The Woods, following on from our last lesson on Tuesday, we blocked scene 3. In this scene there a few musical numbers we worked closely on, including mine.

My solo, as Jack sees him talking about his experiences up the beanstalk. With Grainne, I talked through the meaning of the song from Jack's perspective, which really helped me to build a better understanding of my character and what he would have been feeling whilst singing the song and being up the beanstalk. It also helped me realise how important this trip up the beanstalk was to Jack now he had something worth something for the first time in his life, gold. Especially tying in with the following scene, a conversation between Jack and the Baker, seeing him trying to buy his beloved cow back. 

In my solo I used my facial expression to inform the audience of my characters feelings at that moment in time. 

I was directed to continue moving around the stage, conveying excitement through my body language, as if I was a 12 year old boy, which definitely worked well because that is something a young boy would be doing.

Finally, for my solo, myself, Holly Hop, Olivia, Henry, Paris and Bryleah worked on a piece of physical theatre, lifting me up on a line of my song which suggested Jack was at the top of the beanstalk. after experimenting with a couple of different techniques of doing so, we managed to lift me, showing levels, by standing on Holly and Henry's knees. Behind me, livvie was holding my legs in place to ensure I didn't fall and Paris and Bryleah were with one hand, holding my arms and with the other, weaving them in and out from behind me, giving the effect of a beanstalk. This worked well as a piece of physical theatre to add to our musical, adding levels, forcing focus on us upon the audience and creating a non naturalistic effect with out it looking un realistic so to speak. 

ITTW lesson 28/10/2014

Today in our lesson rehearsing for our musical, In to the woods, we as a cast blocked the whole of scene two. 

Blocking is a technique which helps both the cast and director to establish where the actors will be coming in stage from, be whilst on stage and where they exit. As a cast, we have found this to majorly help us as it has given is enough time to write notes in our scripts helping us in future rehearsals to remind us of our staging.

In today's lesson particularly, I, particularly worked on characterisation of Jack, whilst acting. I had previously worked on my character however not properly whilst acting with the rest of the cast. I worked with Taylor who is playing Jack's mother, on their relationship and portraying to the audience the feelings Jack's mother has towards him. We did this by rehearsing an argumentative scene between the two of them. We used our voices, projecting them out to the audience to convey anger and rage in both halfs. Also, we used sudden and oversized movements to convey to the audience what was happening in the scene, the fact Jack had not listened to his mother.