Singing 13th March

Our main focus this lesson was to learn 'Everything you Didn't Do' By Jamie Cullum. 

Before learning this, we started my looking at vocal warm ups. In the lesson before we had done more research on them and came up with a couple individually. My ones were about developing range. We then showed our techniques to the class and teach it to them. This was useful as it meant that we all got to learn and try a load of different rehearsal techniques that we hadn't necessarily come across before. 

We then started to learn 'Everything You Didn't Do'. We listened to the song first to get a general feel for it, before doing it ourselves. This was helpful because it meant we got a feel for the tempo and the different sections of the song. 

We split the songs up into the sections when we learnt them, the verses are very similar so once you've learnt one, you have pretty much got them all, the same goes with the chorus.

For next time we look at this song, I want to be able to improve my projection, and I think as I learn the song more this will come more naturally. I can also use some of the rehearsal techniques I learnt at the start of the lesson to help with this.

Friday 13th March Dance

In this lesson we carried on from doing 'The Peaks and the Pollicles' from Cats. We had already been working on the dance and we started with going over the movements from last week. Then we added in some new movements. One of the bits that we added in was a slower section of the song in which we dance in pairs. My partner is Holly Hopkins. This adds a new dynamic to the dance because of the change of pace. We added a bit at the end where there is a face off scene between the paps and the journalists. The movements we do here link with the lyrics and it works really well.

My targets for next week is to work on my extension as I feel that this is something that is lacking in my rehearsals and will therefore effect my performance.

Tuesday 17th March

In this lesson we ran through the first 30 minutes of the play for both casts. The first half an hour contains the Victoria scene, lift scene and pretty much the whole guard and oathtaker scene. For me this means that it just the lift scene. I am in this scene in both performances although it is not a long scene nor is there much dialogue when I am in the other casts performance. My cast went first. It was the first time we got to practice our entrances. We come on early when Lisa is on the phone, we did this because it meant we could rush into the 'lift' without it looking too messy from the wings. We have a square of light at the front of the stage which is our 'lift'. I decided that I would deliver my lines overly loud because it is such a cramped space it makes it more comical the louder I speak. We also got a chance to get used to our entrances and exits, these are important in the lift scene because they have to be pretty sharp to keep up the levels on confusion.

19th March

We were in the exhibition hall for this lesson. It meant that we didn't have the space we were used to but it wasn't a problem.

We started off with a warm up which got everybody a bit more into the mindset of getting some work done. Most of the class went to work on their scenes, however me, Taylor, Amber and Olivia were talking to Rachel about our production roles, becuase I am marketing with Luke we talked about getting in local schools to come and see some rehearsals and run throughs. I then looked up the head of drama for the local schools and made a list for contacting later. 

We then watched the other classes performance of their scene. I enjoyed the physical theatre element of the chosen section and the interesting traverse staging.

Then we performed our chosen scene, we decided that we would do from the start into part of the guard scene, my only part in this is the lift scene, and because Luke wasn't here that day it meant that I got to do it and was was a great opportunity for me to perform it to an audience. I went really over the top with the voice in the scene and I was happy with how it went. I also thought the movement had the humour in it that we wanted as it is meant to be a funny section.

10th March

In this lesson our main focus was to work on the Brittany scene. We had worked on it previously but it was a good chance for everybody to work on it again with everybody knowing their lines and with there being more chance to work on the movement as this is a very important part of this scene. Because the idea of the scene is the characters confusing Lisa, it means that if it has a fast pace and lots of confusing movement, then it is easier for Lisa to be confused.

We worked on some movement in this scene in times where there is lots of confusing, one of the main points is when I am on the floor and Biffer trips over me and then we proceed to run about in lots of confusion, but it has to be with the intention of confusing Lisa, not just random running about. Also at the end of scene, when everybody goes off to battle, because I have to come back as Vince very shortly after, I leave on my line "We don't stand a chance" where I run up through the audience and can then come back down dressed as Vince.

In this scene the thing I need to focus on is non-verbal communication because I don't have that many lines but I still need to show how my character is feeling. Using the states of tension is good in this scene because there are times when the mood of the scene changes very quickly and so to be able to show the change in mood through my movement is vital.

March 24th

In this lesson we looked at act 2. It was only the second time we had looked at this act since the first lesson we blocked. Becuase we had mainly been focusing on the first act up until this point I was really struggling with my lines. Because of this I didn't feel that I could as much into my acting as I would have liked. Because we went first in this rehearsal, it didn't give me an opportunity to observe my opposite. Although I felt that my acting took a backseat for lines, I did get the opportunity to look at different ways of moving around the space. In the section where I get quite angry we had it so that I would stand up and walk away from the bed with a tone in my voice that showed I was angry but was subdued in volume because I would still be in a hospital so wouldn't be able to shout. This worked really well, and I felt that it was easier to deliver the frustration that Vince is showing when adopting this tone. What I will be working on for the next time is making sure I am line perfect so I can focus on voice. In this act and part of this act especially, I think that movement isn't as important as voice, because this is a naturalistic scene and people tend not to move so much and it shows good contrast between acts.

Thursday 26th March

In this lesson we focused on the oath taker scene. Because me and Luke aren't in this scene it gave us a good opportunity to run some lines for the goat scene. It was really helpful to have this time to ourselves as it gave us the chance to try out different ways of portraying our character and having the other person there to get feedback from and to work on ideas that they may have had. In this time I decided that I wanted to play the Goat as a sly character being very shady. This means that I will have to think about my posture as a sly character will tend to be hunched over for example. I would also focus on voice. I think that my choice of voice will be smooth and slow paced.