10th February

In this lesson we started off with a warm up. This started with a walking in neutral and then adding layers on top which involved a stretch, drop and running to the wall. We then added another layer by doing it in one of our characters from the play. I chose to do mine as the goat. We then did the whole thing in slow motion. This was helpful because it really made us think about our characters movements to every detail which can then be transferred to when we run scenes. We then went back to normal speed movement but added in greetings and rejections. This made me think more about character interactions. For example the goat would greet Lisa because of the 'friendship' he wants with her, but may be dismissive of Jane because she is taking the place of Lisa in the 'BAU'. The warm up exercise helped me in thinking about how he would do this. We then delivered one line from our character to a member of the other cast as if it were confidential. This was useful as the goat because I picture him as a sly and manipulative character and so it may be that some of his lines are delivered in this way to Lisa, an example of a line that could be effective like this is 'just be quiet and you might just enjoy yourself!' because of the slightly creepy feeling of the line. This warm up could help me with my character development because of the way you can change the way a line is delivered to give in more emotion just perhaps by saying it as if it is a secret.


We then looked into the staging of how the play is set. We set up staging block around the outside of the stage at different heights as though there were castle turrets. In the first act they could be used for characters to stand on or sit on. Me and Luke had the idea of the Goat being tethered in the high up corner turret, but being there a bit earlier than his first line but in the darkness so it is not obvious he is there. Kim also mentioned the idea of the blackboard paint and how boards would be all around the turrets and these will be drawn on to show what something is, for example the hot dog stand, and can also be used to write specific lines on that can then stick with the audience through out the first act. During the second act, these will the be moved to the rig, which will be away at this point, and they will be Lisa's therapy boards in her hospital room.


Me and Luke then went into the classroom and ran our lines for the Goat. The warm up was really helpful with the movement aspect of this. Having Luke playing the Goat as well is good to compare ideas with and if he does something I think works really well it means I can take the idea and work it into my performance.

Tuesday 3rd February

In this lesson we looked at the Britney scene and we looked at our character for this scene in more depth. We talked about what each character represents. I said that my character, Inhibitions, is short tempered because of when he shouts during the parliment scene. I said that his overall energy level is a 3 at the start as there is not much movement. It goes up to a 6 when he shouts an then remains at a 4 for the rest of the scene. 

We then looked at running the scene with only movement. However this din’t work because everybody was a different points in the scene, especially during dialogue parts between Britney and Lisa. 

We than blocked the scene with movement which was a lot easier as everybody knew where we were in the script.

After this we looked at the mood changes within the scene. We split the text up at points where we felt that the mood changed, for example there is a different mood from on page 64 when Lisa starts to get angry at the violinist, this bit is quite serious because shes upset, and then when Biffer starts falling over and so on, on page 65.

Singing 6th February

In this lesson we did our singing assessment songs. I sang ‘Close Every Door’ from Joseph. The first time I sang it I got out of time with the music and had to stop. The second time I was happy with the performance. Although I was nervous I think that this didn’t show during my performance and I sang in tune and in time. I was happy that during the Acapella section I didn’t get out of time because sometimes in rehearsals I had come in too early. I think that my characterisation in this performance was better than it had been in most of my rehearsals. I think that I could have projected better during my performance and if I had another attempt this would be my main focus. Because it is a powerful song I wanted to get this across in my performance, I think I did this rather well but not as good as it had been in some of my rehearsals. Overall I was happy with the performance because my timing, intonation, breath control and characterisation was good. All of the lessons about techniques really helped me in the rehearsal process and the performance.

Thursday 5th February

In this lesson we did a read through of the first act. We did this as a whole class and because my opposite cast member was not there, it meant I read all of the lines for my character. This was helpful because it meant that I got a chance to see how it worked with the way I imagined the different characters voice. On the other hand, I did not get a chance to see how Luke did it which meant that I couldn't gain any ideas from him on certain bits that I thought worked really well.

The read through also gave me the opportunity to see how other cast members delivered their lines and how that affected the mood of the scene and how my characters would in turn respond to that. When reading through the script by myself, I found myself delivering the lines differently than people in the class which is why I think the read through was really useful.

After we finished the read through, I worked with Holly as Victoria on her scene. We were looking at things like movement and pace of the scene. We both felt that becuase of the lack of movement and any real oddity, it seemed like this scene starts before Lisa is in Dissocia, and it also seems very formal. Becuase it is before Lisa knows what is going on, there is an air of confusion about the way she talks, but she also seems to dismiss some odd things, such as Victor asking for a glass of urine. I think this shows that even in the real world, Lisa can sometimes not tell what is abnormal and what is normal

Friday 30th January Dance

In this lesson we only had half an hour because of reach week. I had hurt by back during my drama performance the night before so I couldn’t dance which was a pain because it was a good time to run through the whole thing. Although I couldn’t dance, I walked through where I would be during the dance and it was good for me to be able to see everybody running through the moves so I could still see what I would be doing. We have a rehearsal on Monday lunchtime and hopefully my back will be better by then so I will be able to dance.

Friday 30th January Singing

I had my one to one with Kim today to work on my solo song. I went through it and Kim said that I should be putting more emotion into it so I worked on this the next couple of times. We also had to work on cutting the music because they did not match the lyrics that I was using. We made do for the rest of the one to one. The thing that I am most worried about it that after each two lines of the verse the pitch goes down and the next time it goes up so I have to remember which time it does what. I have another meeting with Kim on Monday so hopefully I will have got it with the new edited music by then. 

Tuesday 27th January

In this lesson we worked again with our opposite cast member to show our movement sequences we had come up with for the Britney scene. We came up with the movements for homework separately and put both of our sequences together to make one. This really helped with thinking of abstract and unnaturalistic movements that would work well in the Britney scene because of its hectic nature.

We then came up with three ideas around how the movement could be incorporated into the performance and specifically in this scene. My first idea is that the ‘Parliment’ bit on page 63 could have lots of movement to show the ‘hubbub’. All the characters would move with fast movements to show the hectic nature. Because of the Alice in Wonderland like themes than run through the play I had the idea of changing places like in Alice in Wonderland. All the characters would change places other than Lisa who doesn’t understand what is going on. This could also be done in slow motion to draw emphasis to Lisa’s facial expression and confession. Another idea I had is that when Inhibitions notices he is naked from the waist down that this could also be done is slow motion and it give more of an opportunity to show facial expressions for him and all of the other characters laughing at him.