3/04/14 show time 2!

Today was show day with the blue group it was a repeat of yesterday's warm rehearsals and a 9oclock start, with photographer taking pictures while rehearsing. 

The first mid morning rehearsal went well but abit slow leaving everyone feeling abit uneasy about the 2oclock show. After the afternoon show we got feedback from rob and josh here is my second feedback 

I think the 2oclock show went well again as yesterday's show, we got many laughs especially in hangelas scenes as she really played her character well and overly crazy she's amazing at being dramatic. After our 3 hour lunch break we came back for the 7oclock show energy had died down slightly due to the lack of audience however we 'uped' the pace and put our all into it and really enjoyed our last ever show on Midsummers night dream and the response from the audience. When the show was over it was slightly emotional for everyone, all the hard work that we put in over the 3-4 months had come to an end. 

My classmates and I worked extremely hard on this production and I must admit the outcome was immense, how such a difficult languaged play could be made into a modern understood production. I will be looking forward to putting many more performances with my drama class in the near future. 

2/04/14 show time!

Today was show day for red group and myself I was crazily nervous we had a 9oclock start which is 3 hours earlier than our normal time table to get extra rehearsals and get pictures done while doing the scenes, this was difficult as everyone was trying to concerntrate on their scenes but still trying to achieve thd perfect snaps for the school website. We had two shows,one at 2:00 for the students and the other at 7:00 for parents and friends. We had a few slip ups in the first show, for example one of my colleagues leaving the stage leaving my other class mates to improvise however they got through it without the audience noticing however the show went very well gaining many laughs and tense moments for the audience the end out come from the audience was great I believe the audience actually understood Shakespeare Although being honest there were quite a few scenes we could've improved on but I think it was nerves that got the better of some of my classmates. After the show we got our feedback here they are

After the performance we had a break and then came back an hour before the second performance to get ready and go over a few things.

It was then the 7:00pm show for adults and outside friends, the show went really well the outcome was different and their was less laughter with think this was due to the different type of audience (older) and everyone was less nervous slowing down the pace and really getting into the deph of the scene, although it went well there was a big slip up when I'm playing with demitrias pretending to be Lysander and hypnotising them (spell) Toriek exited the wrong way leading Sam to come on the wrong way and accidentally dropping to the floor as he stumbled over me, but we picked it up and I improvised a cheeky laugh while he said "you tripped me Lysander" making it seem as if it was planned. 

Overall I enjoyed working on the play with the red group as there was many stressful moments and exciting outbursts during rehearsals and in the play. 

1/04/14 Midsummers night dream final rehearsal.

Today is our final rehearsal before the shows commend everyone is experiencing a mix of emotions from stressed to excited to agitated to happy. 

We came into lesson doing a whole run through of both groups tweaking minor things for it to be perfected for tomorrow we had our first dress rehearsal. You could really see the difference in the acting as we were all so excited and energised for tomorrow we changed into our costumes, While rehearsing we made use of different props on stage like pillows,flowers and staging in general after we had done a run through twice we went back upstairs to the studios and me and Mario went over out scenes while Toriek gave feedback. 

Here's a few pictures..

31/03/14 Mnd performance week

It's 2 days before the performance we came in to college a hour earlier than usual so that we could get as much rehearsal time as possible. we were in the theatre and rehearsed on scenes and tried to get through the whole play Getting used to the space around us was very important because we are so used to rehearsing in the drama studios, every action and speech needs to be over exaggerated even if it feels unnatrual From what I saw both groups have improved quite a lot and the flow is a lot better.

24-27 march Mnd

On Monday my class and I split into our groups as usual rehearsed certain parts. Later on in the day we went to watch the music courses first year performance. After we then used our Physical Theatre lesson to rehearse the play. We have now come to the conclusion that Mario will be playing Oberon with myself throughout both plays as roni has been unable to attend college and is at too late of a date to catch up and develop the scenes we were meant to play together. 

25/03/14

On Tuesday we went through the whole play from beginning to end After we had finished,we then got feedback from Josh. My feedback was to slow down my lines and physically show that I am not human Once the day was over a couple of us stayed back to rehearse a few scenes.

26/03/14
On Wednesday we were with Sharon and during that lesson we were just answering questions about our physical theater performace with Josh.After I had dance rehearsing our revelation piece for tomorrow I am very nervous but excited at the same time as my drama class has not scene me perform anything else but acting and can't wait to see and hear their opinions. 

27/03/14
On Thursday we had extra rehearsals after our scheduled timetable and then went to watch the Level 3 dance group which I performed In, the show went really well however we decided to go off stage early as all of our minds went blank halfway through but the audience did not realise which is thankful.

The drama show is literally less than a week away so everything is tense and everybody is on edge and stressed wanting to get everything to perfection. The energy is buzzing throughout class.  

20/03/14 Mnd

Today we went through a few short scenes including my own when puck is on his way to deliver the good news that he put the spell on Lysander to make everyone in love only to find out later he made things worse.  He then comes across the mechanicals rehearsing and turns bottoms head into a donkey for fun. 

During this scene rob gave me feedback on saying my lines differently and making a clear understanding of what it meant "what hempen homespuns have we swaggering here" in translation "what the hell do we have here? What's going on? What mischief can I cause?" 

We decided from the feedback to pick up the script when the mechanicals are reading it so it looks like the script is floating in the air freaking out the mechanicals and getting a laugh from the audience by their facial expressions. At the end of the scene when bottom walks of stage I wave my wand/magic potion to indicate I'm the one who magics bottoms head. 

18/03/14 Mnd

On Tuesday I worked with both groups working on the plays from beginning to the end.After that was done we saw which scene needed the most work It was the lovers scene in the woods where Sarah and Andrea fight and have arguments and the final scene where the Lords and attendants including Theseus and Hippolyta watch the mechanicals play. This scene needs the most work as it is dragging badly and has no interest to the audience I think the way this scene can be improved is the lovers up their pace and feed off of each other quickly  There also needs to be a lot more energy. 

After lesson myself and Toriek decided to take it upon ourselves to develop the blue groups fight scene with hangela and killah, making it dramatic and funny with punches and kicks and not forgetting slaps with it being slightly slapstick we added in Connor and Eliot picking up hangela as she screams along the lines of scrapping killahs eyes out hangelas legs dangle in the air as if she's running on the spot.

The scene now looks fantastic and very on edge for the audience we are yet to show rob and josh the improvement and see what they think. 

Romeo and Juliet performance

We started off this piece by josh giving us the music track and running round in the spot letting our bodies control out thoughts and portraying it through movement we each then thought about what the piece meant and how we could put it in a story a lot of people were saying 'the lion king' me and Toriek then started brainstorming a few ideas and decided to persuade and tell the class that we should do Romeo and Juliet as it is a dramatic piece and everyone knows it we then got told we had to add certain movement techniques like the fetal position,flocking etc. 

After that we thought of ways to construct and choregraph the Romeo and Julliet performance and decided to change it into a tribal Romeo and Juliet to match the music. 

The story of Romeo and Julliet is a romantic tragedy due to law and order as well as social reasons Romeo and Julliet cannot be together. So we decided to use tribes to portray the obstacles they face as well as showing the stages in which the tragedy happened.

There are ways we can improve but the most important thing is the timing when romeo and Juliet first meet and there's a circle around them, once we get it right we'll be fine.

Combining the story and the technique was inspiring but flowed very easily the fetal positions show the birth of Romeo and Julliet which can also represent the beginning of the performance.The middle of the performance is shown when the both the tribes see Romeo and Julliet making love, and try to break it up by stomping and clapping Before that part the tribe leaders had already had a confrontation. Once the tribe leader of Julliet's people finds out, he kills Romeo and that represents the end of the play.

Everyone drops to the floor then looks up at Juliet the only one left standing, thinking about all the damage the tribes have caused and what devastation is left behind. 

I think the performance went extremely well. L3 and the older group L3 met in the theatre to show our physical pieces we quickly warmed up and had a quick run over of the performance keeping our energies up, we performed after the older group. 

13th of March Mnd

Today we went over a few scenes that needed work on, exploring different ways it could be played. 

12th march, story telling

In today's lesson with Sharon we came in and it was assessment day for our fairy tale story telling assignments, I was last in the class to perform my story as we went by register order

I think my story went extremely well as I had many of laughs and feel the audience connected to the modern dah language I used and scenery however I still gained tense silent moments creating impact on my story when little red riding good and grandma had been eating and little reds boyfriend hears mumbling upstairs.. This is a funny but tense moment as little reds boyfriend is thinking completely opposite to what has actually happened to little red riding hood. 

We didn't get our marking on the day as we had to close the lesson early and watch the award ceremony down stairs. After lunch we had dance and was told we will be performing a piece called 'revelation' a famous dance about slavery and the people praying for freedom. It is an interesting piece and I will be doing more research into it to get a clear feeling and portray it through the dance piece. 

10th march mnd & physical theatre

During today's lessons with rob we started the lesson with a warmup red group worked in the theatre so we could get used to the space and run through the play fully from beginning to end.

First we started with a little warm-up session which was us getting into a circle and one by one saying a line from the play with a lot of emotion.After we got on with the play.

Later on that day we had a physical theatre lesson with Josh where we continued to work on our physical performance Romeo and Juliet tribal version 

Myself and terek come up with the idea of using the story Romeo and Juliet as a background as everybody knows the story and it's very dramatic and would create impact to anyone watching. 

begining march week resumption.

We have just come back from half term, during half term rob our teacher told us that we have to be completely off of script as the show is in about 3-4 weeks time, during half term i had a strict self motivation to learn all my lines to make it easier for when i got back.          

We started each day of the week with warm up vocals such as ooh oo oor and tongue twisters, I need to work on my ths to pronounce them words clearer and articulated. 

This week has been slightly difficult getting back into routine as the 2 week break has made myself and other colleagues forget certain things and everything's abit more relaxed which is not helpful as the show is only a few weeks away.                       

Febuary overall, midsummers night dream.

febuary overall has been very intense for everyone and myself.
coming off of script this month has made things a lot more challenging as ive only just started learning my lines however its made me 'up my game' and learning on spot with someone prompting is benefiting me and making me pick up my lines a lot quicker. we have two groups red and blue group both doing midsummers night dream but devising it differently with their own creative twists as you know i am in blue group but now have to do red groups puck also as lucia has decided she doesnt want to continue in the drama course, this has put a lot of stress and pressure on me as i have to devide my time to both groups equally adapting to their ways of doing the play but still keeping my character fresh, however even though its more pressure and time i have to spend im very excited about being apart of both plays as it gives me the oppurtunity to play puck differently each time showing his different personalities and also seeing how both groups handle problems.

with started our context essay gathering reasearch on shakespeare, his time era the theatre and its political and social factors then leading on to midsummers night dream and about rehearsals.
i've started researching into shakespeare and found out abit more about him and his time era and some inordinary things that took place in that time such as woman not being respected as highstatus but queen elizabeth the 1st was running the country. men/boys would play women in theatre performances. and shakespeare was known to have children..

also during this month we've worked with sharon on our story telling ive chosen to do little red riding hood and base it on the original groosem twins tales. the original is harsher to children ears with the grandma actually being eaten alive and little red riding hood slicing open the wolves belly and filling it with rocks, the wolve awakens later and drops down dead.

in my twist the story has a comical twist set in modern times with a 'gangster ghetto' theme but still keeping the the groosem twins original story ending.

heres my story planning and a draft of my story.

04/02/14 to 06/02/14 mnd

in todays lesson we came in and started with some warm up games
we played a game similar to musical statues. one person stands and theres one chair they need to aim to get to however other people sitting down need to work together without talking to stop that person from sitting on a chair. the whole point of this game is to be focused and work together which links to actually being on stage as if something goes wrong 'slip up' someone has to jump in to carry out the flow. this is a good game as it builds energy and focus in the room.
 after a few warm up games for vocal and for physical purposes we split into red and blue group.

during rehearsal ive discovered/got feedback from rob that my character is very cheeky and mischevous but always trying to impress oberon (his master) ive changed puck into a girl figure as i think i can play it better and link more with emotional feeling.

ive had a discussion with rob about puck having a wand and wings, i think this would have major realistic effect with the scenes and intrest the audience as it makes it more realistic that puck is a mystical creature, without the wings and wand it would make it harder for the audience to establish what puck is.
however rob disagres and believes that i should use my body and facial expressions to demonstrate this.