1/3/18

given the task of watching two videos Crapshooters ballet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr-xMMI8ie0  and the old globes crapshooters dance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qC2tFmAnYE   ; and writing down aspects of them, you wanted to use in our dance. Here is a list of the aspects of the two dances I wanted to include in ours:

In the crapshooters ballet at the start (0:00-0:17) there are three separate groups that do separate actions in cannon according to when the light comes above them. I believe that this aspect should be used in our own as it forces the audience to look at the three groups individually so that they can build up a richer sense of the atmosphere of the song, compared to I it were all happening at the same time.

Later on in the same video, (0:38-0:40) a person jumps up into the air and throws the dice behind them I believe that this is a great move for us to use in our own production and possibly expand on it.

A few seconds later (1:37-1:40) the dances have one jump up in the air while being pushed away. Their combined momentum allows them to reach a very significant height. I have no doubt that we could replicate that so that the audience could be in as much awe as I was when I first watched the video.

After this (1:50-2:02) there is a very small acting scene in which a man pleads to others presumably for cheating them in a crap game. This scene is in time with the music and contains a fast lift. I believe that inputting this into our own piece would further reinforce the idea of underground gambling and high steaks to the audience so that they feel more involved with the world of the story. In the next video, (1:00-1:05) they have I scene in which a person goes down the middle collecting all of the money from the other people. Including this would allow the audience to further understand that the collective goal of the group of these gamblers is money, or at least the chance of money.

In the next video, (1:00-1:05) they have I scene in which a person goes down the middle collecting all of the money from the other people. Including this would allow the audience to further understand that the collective goal of the group of these gamblers is money, or at least the chance of money.  In addition, we could perhaps add to this idea, since they are all on their knees perhaps we could imply that the gamblers are servants to the will of wealth, and add in a sub message to the dance piece.

Directly after this (1:05-1:10) they have a cannon use of throwing dice. I really like the idea of this as since they are so perfectly in time you can imagine the dice roll at the same speed in which the cannon moves.

27/3/18

After the run through was over we were shown a video of a performance of the song Sit down you’re rocking the boat and told to take notes of anything that we thought would be worth replicating. The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rmAme3WciA

Near the start of the song, (1:06-1:10) all of the background characters do a similar twitch in time with the rhythm of the music. I think the subtlety of this is quite effective, and as a result we should considering incorporating it into our own piece. Also, by Nelson doing it by himself just before (1:01-1:06) I displays his nervous disposition to the audience.

Soon after this is over (1:13-1:17) Nelson commands rows of people to sit down after each time the words “Sit down” is said. This is effective as the repletion of the movement at different segments of the cast complement the repetition of the song itself. In addition, it also adequately displays how Nelson has assumed a temporary position of power by how he is commanding those who we just minutes ago commanding him.

Later on in the song, (2:14) Nelson crouches down at the same time as the rest of the cast stand up straight therefore alternating the levels previously. I believe that we could incorporate this piece of movement into our own as it effectively displays the power dynamic that Nelson exudes, being in control but nervous and losing some of his power as a result shown by the brief switch of levels.

Finally, near the end of the song (2:49-2:254) the cast do a series of moves that are quite similar to frantic assembly’s chair duets in time with the music. This will no doubt increase the energy of the piece; however, if done poorly the lack of synchronicity of the moves could damage the perception of our show. 

music theater performance unit 


Made in Dagenham

4/1/18

On this day, we began by doing another rehearsal of made in Dagenham. We focused on the songs This Is America and Storm Clouds, while also acting out the scenes between. This was due to how we thought these scenes were the ones that needed the most work. When we did our first run through of This Is America one thing was clear, our main singer in the song was not familiar enough with the lyrics of the song to carry it, and that the rest of the cast could not sing it for him, as they were also unfamiliar with it. I tried to rectify this, after the lesson had finished I helped the main singer by printing off the lyrics to the song and went though some f the verses over lunch, singing it with him. As long as our main singer can grow their confidence with this song, I have no doubt that this will be a great start to act two. We later came on to developing Storm Clouds; we had a similar problem in which we had a low volume as not everyone knew the lyrics to the song. This also combined with the effect that occurred due to how high pitch the song is, which inhibits people such as I from increasing the volume as I cannot reach that frequency. We also worked on movement, as most of the song Is spent looking directly at a point in the audience with only pacing from crosscut scenes. We made it so that after: “This ain’t about you”, “this ani’t about the law” and “it’s three thousand families unemployed and poor” we move to a new spot on purpose. Also we were instructed to show signs of desperation in our faces, I believe this works as the whole song is about the metaphorical storm that will come. 

11/1/18

On this day We had another run through of made in Dagenham, like the previous rehearsals kept on cropping up: some people were still holding and relying on scripts, the energy at the start of the show was low and the scene transitions were very slow and unpolished. Due to how it was the year 13’s assessment on group teaching, I made a conscious effort to not take control of the situation as to allow them to have the best possible marks. To improve will volunteer more to take set off from a scene, as there is a large gap between page 28 and page 50 where I am not on stage at all, I could use that time to be a stage hand to try and increase the speed of scene transitions.

12/1/18

On this day, we ran act two of made in Dagenham from the start to page 104. As a result, I was only on stage twice, for the two songs this is America and storm clouds. I did make a conscious effort to help in the movement of set but act two requires less set movement and how many others were given that feedback this was in vain. As a result, I spent most of the lessons going over my lines and doing coursework/blog work.

16/1/17

On this day we began by sorting out costumes for ourselves. I had realised that I would only need three sets of outfits: One in which I was a standard worker for the “made in Dagenham” song, one for an American ensemble dancer for the “this is America” song, and finally an outfit for my main role of Monty. The Costumes I chose are as follows. I chose a white overall for the standard worker costume, this is due to how overalls are mentioned In the song in the line “my overalls protected, it’s the working man’s suit” I chose white as the colour of the overalls due to how it can contrast to the dirt on it to make the dishevelledness of it stand out more. It is also advantageous for me as it means I can wear a white button up shirt under it to allow for a faster costume change without it being too noticeable. The shoes that will go with it are some leather winter boots, which complement the working class feel of this outfit. For the costume of an ensemble dancer in this is America I chose to have a bright blue blazer, a white button up shirt and bright red trousers. The brightness of the outfit complements the tone of the song as it is about Tooley’s cockiness and arrogance from being an American.  The colour scheme of red white and blue is also relevant as they are the colour of the American flag. And finally for the Monty costume I have chosen a brown flat cap, a dark grey coat, a white shirt, a tie, a waistcoat, light grey trousers and black leather shoes,, the same ones used in the standard worker outfit. The brown flat cap and shoes from the standard worker are used to represent how Monty has a connection to the working class due to him being a union rep’ and therefore representing the workers of Ford Dagenham. However, he also has a connection to the bourgeois class as he goes to meetings with managing directors and production managers. This is displayed in his outfit by his tie and waistcoat. I made a decision to include both grey trousers and a grey coat to have it symbolise Monty’s confliction of character. In the first and second act of the play Monty displays both  Sympathies with the women of Dagenham in lines such as “I represent these women”, and also those trying to quell the strike of Dagenham I lines such as “…But we’re all men, and this is our world the world of work!”. I hope that the mainly grey parts of Monty’s outfit should display the ambiguity of his character.

 After this, we did another run through of Made in Dagenham during this run through I noticed some issues with the production that I feel that were need to work on before  the 23^rd of January where the first showing is.

At the start of act 2 the majority of the cast is on the satge on their knee. We have not created a way to get on, I believe that one would need to be implemented in case it takes too long or looks unprofessional due to the small gaps that go from stage to offstage

Even though our first showing of Made In Dagenham is in a week the flag props have not been made yet. As a result, I took this into my own hands, I created flagpoles out of metal framing that I had at home and attached the flag part to it with hairbands.

On this day thee was a standout scene on page 55 onwards that clearly needed some work, two people in it were on script still, and the others unfortunately including myself forgot their queues to their lines. To improve this scene I will thoroughly go over this every day until the first showing. I have advised that the others in the scene to do the same. In addition, the scene is very static due to the small staging that we have for it. However, we should still be able to find a way around this. I believe we could bring the scene into the middle of the stage and have a round table. this would allow us to have more space to work with and make it more interesting as Rita could potentially get up at a point where she gets angry for instance.

At the start of the musical there are a few scenes taking place in the Ford Dagenham factory, these scenes lack energy and fast pacing. I do try to add energy into them but due to me being the Monty character I cannot do such things as cheer when a girl is suggested to come to the head office. Slow pacing is caused by others not knowing their lines, on self-reflection I am pretty confident with my lines in these scenes however, I do not know the script well enough that I could redirect the scene in case it goes off course. As a result I will offer to go though and assist all the other members in the scene with their line learning in the future.

Finally, one of our cast was not here today and as a result did not make a costume for himself. As a result, I went into the costume cupboard and picked out some items of interest for him to wear as the character Bill. In doing so I noticed the state of the cupboard after today’s lesson, I then asked my teachers if I could clear it up which I agreed. The rest of that evening I spend cleaning it up so that it would be easier to find costume and so that the production would go a little more smoothly.

17/1/18

On this day I began by finishing the task of cleaning the costume cupboard, overall I believe that the cleaning process took two and a half hours but I do believe that it was worth it as it has greatly benefited the entire theatre, as costume is now more assessable and easier to navigate.  I do plan to return to the costume cupboard and add more order by perhaps colour coding the items we have, however that would not be a good use of my time seeing that the first showing of Made In Dagenham is less than a week away. Unfortunately after that our scheduled lessons were cancelled due to an undisclosed reason that involved the staff, instead I used this time to go over the head office scene on page 55, to try and correct any faults I had made before.

18/01/18

On this day we focused on the song of Made In Dagenham that needed work on. Most of the changes that were made were minor and did not affect me, but the ones that did I took notes on what I did wrong and rectified it by the next time we carried out the song. Most of this day I was off stage, due to not being in many of the Ensemble songs. However, I did not let this stop my productivity; I instead created four flags for the This Is America song and cleared the offstage area so that we could store props and costume there. I also painted both a lampshade and a large sing grey and white respectively after asking my teacher if she required assistance.  Overall I think this was quite a productive day, however to improve I think I need to take more initiative myself to further the production of ‘Dagenham rather than asking my teachers for tasks, perhaps I will ask them of the problems I noticed on Tuesday.

19/1/18

On this day, we had the final planned rehearsal of made in Dagenham. I did have a few things of note, which I will now list:

During one of the factory scenes, there is a part where Monty is affected by an environmental problem. During previous rehearsals we had planned for there to be a pigeon that falls down onto Monty, however, during this scene I realised this would never come to reality due to us not having the prop and not having the time to source one. Instead, I improvised and had myself fall over one of the legs of the chair as that was the best idea I had at the present mind.

During the this is America I was out of sync with the rest of my marching line, I believe that this was due to how many minute changes have gone on during the blocking of this song:

 We had ourselves turning 360 degrees clockwise after the second cross over, this was cut but not by a person instead most of the other people in the line just stopped doing this so I followed suit seeing how the year above me were getting assessed on their dance devising and I didn’t want to hurt any of their chances.

The scene of the head office meeting that starts at page 55 is the worst scene that I am in, at the present time. This is due to a lack of energy from the rest of the actors and also them not knowing their line queues; Which is worrying seeing how close we are to the show release date. However, I am not exempt of fault in this scene I often fail to accurately repeat the line “So you agree to grant the girls their grading grievance before the grading committee on the grounds that their grading grievance gripes can be grieved in the grievance procedure if they’re grave enough”. While there are occasions where this happens and it continues to hold the same basic message, there are other times where it just becomes alliterative nonsense. I will work on that line vigorously to rectify this problem. 

One other problem was that we did not have all our costumes in the costume run. The cheerleading outfits still had not arrived; and Dom, the person who I mentioned earlier due to missing the lesson dedicated to costume, had not made a full costume for both Cortina Man and Bill. We have ordered the cheerleading costumes already meaning there is not much we can do to solve this problem but only hope that they arrive before tomorrow. I think if I was brought onto this show at the start of it rather than halfway through I would have been able to speak up and sort out ordering the costumes at least a month in advance, after all, I had my Monty costume fully prepared in the end of November where I was in the dance variety show.  Dom has said that he has clothing that will complete the outfits by tomorrow as a result I cannot assist with that.

After the run, though I also noticed that no one had brought some Jammy Dodgers, which were necessary for one of my scenes. As no one else seemed to want do so, I went a brought some jammy dodgers myself. Since I knew that we would be performing the show three times I had the foresight to buy two packets, as I had no doubt that most of them would get eaten by other cast people on the final day.

At the end of the day, we were told that we would need to come in at 11 tomorrow for another run through. I do think this was a wise choice as I would not say our show is ready to be performed yet due to the problems I have listed above, however I have no doubt that we will be able to make  it so by tomorrow.

23/1/18

On this day we began with another run through of made in Dagenham, as I had hoped the cheerleader costumes had arrived, Dom had brought in items to complete his outfits and people had more knowledge of their line queues than before. Because of these things, I had been able to focus on other problems, and how to solve them.

At the end of the second song, I need to go off stage and completely change my all white overalls into the Monty suit within one and a half minutes. Since we had never had a run through go at performance speed before I did not know that I had this short of time to do so. I came up with the solution to wear the shirt, waistcoat and trousers under the white overalls as this would allow me to change faster as I would only need to disrobe my overalls then put on a coat and hat rather than the entire costume. 

After the third song, my character (Monty) walks off stage, however, within 3 other lines he needs to walk onto a separate part of the stage with jammy dodgers in hand. Since we had never had a run through go at performance speed before I was not aware of this issue. I came up with a solution that I would need to put the jammy dodgers in a corner where I could grab them so that I could come on as fast as possible, this proved tricky due to how much props and other items were in the backstage area.

For all of the show there has been a consistent problem, the set changes have been excruciatingly slow. This Is partially due to how there are not enough people coming onto the stage to take things away, one of the cast Valencia proposed that we create a list of props that need to taken on and off and to attribute a name to each task. She tried to implement that today, however, due to not notifying the entire cast about this decision it was not as effective as it could have been. The parts of set I’m involved in is which the bringing on of one table in the restaurant scene on page 51, and the removal of a chair on page 108. However, the second one I a problem, as making me removing my own chair can take away from the emotional value of the scene. I would have had another person carry it off for me after the scene ended; however, I didn’t want to make any changes at all seeing our first showing was hours away.

Due to how frequent rehearsals had become I had developed a problem, the voice I had portrayed for Monty damaged my voice box and make it painful to continue it for long periods of time without drinking water. To adapt to this problem I had multiple bottles of water backstage that I would drink form when I was offstage. I also filled up my gin bottle prop with water so that I could sip from it during the payday song, and during the restaurant scene on page 51.

On the topic of my voice, I have been given the feedback to increase my volume during the head office scene on page 55. This is due to how it is at the very western side of the stage and due to the long length of the room my voice cannot reach the end at my current level of noice. This should be a simple fix, I just need to speak louder nothing more.

Later on we then performed our first showing of Made in Dagenham, overall I think it went rather well, I used the points of improvement that I listed before to better my part of the performance. As a result, this was the loudest showing I did and the fastest too. (In rehearsal, a full run would take four hours, whereas this only took two hours, excluding the interval.)

I asked one of the members of this audience (Amy Maye) what they thought of the show, this is what they said: “Everyone acted so well, I could only see everyone as their character. For example the voice changes; IE your ascent was good.”…“Each song flowed well into each scene. The scene changes were good and efficient.”…“ Storm Clouds was very powerful.”  After I inquired about what could be improved she said “some peoples mics were a bit far away from their mouth, so it made it harder to hear or maybe they were just quiet”. I shall suggest that for the next showing to either the tech people to increase the voice amplification; or to the actors to sing louder to avoid this happening again.

After just an hour break, it was time for the second showing of the night, this was defiantly the most memorable, but not for positive reasons. During my second scene (the one where I bring in the jammy dodgers), I began to have a nosebleed! Since I had a large amount of dialog, I continued in the scene with myself holding my nose with blood over my hands and face. Unfortunately, as soon as this scene ended I was own within just five lines. Since I had no time to get a tissue, I walked out as normal still covered in blood, as I did not want to ruin the flow of the show or risk putting my other cast members in a position where they would have to carry out a scene without me. During this scene however, there was a part in this scene where I trip over a chair, I carried it out as I normally would regardless of the dire situation. In hindsight, I believe this was a mistake as in doing so some of my blood went onto the floor, which could have been a tripping hazard or could have caused someone in the audience to vomit if they are uncomfortable with that kind of thing. After coming offstage, I cleaned myself off and carried on as usual.

Regardless of my nosebleed, I do think there were some other points that made it a less well performed show than the previous one that day. During this is America, I unintentionally collided with Lily while we were doing the marching crossovers. This has happened before, I believe that this is due to how we created the choreography in a spate room from the theatre and as a result, we did not account for the shorter length that the theatre has comparably. As a result, it is always a tight fit to cross both lines of marchers without collisions occurring. For the final showing,  If need be I shall turn my torso 90degress to reduce the amount of horizontal space I need in the crossover ,as it will cause less of a distraction to the audience than a collision would.

Also, in the final song stand up many people did not know the words to the interchangeable chorus, as a result every chorus consisted with one point of incomprehensible murmuring. To rectify this there is a simple solution, I shall listen to the song when I get home and look up the lyrics and learn then, then advice others to do the same.

I asked one person from this showing’s audience, (Milly Fornasiero) this is what they said: “I thought it was amazing, I really enjoyed watching it, it was very fun and entertaining.”…“there were one or two scenes where while most of the characters where singing the ones who weren’t singing had to talk and I couldn’t really hear them.” While, she does not know dramatic or musical dialect, she brings up a fair point. She states that the dialog crosscut scenes during the song Everybody Out and Cortina where too quiet and were dominated by the sound of the singers and the band. This also connects with the first bit of feedback, it seems we overcompensated for the first problem of the mic’ed singers not being loud enough, and instead created a new one where they drown out the dialog of the scene. I shall talk with the tech people to try and find a sweet spot where neither problem is present.

24/1/18

On this day we had the final screening of mad in Dagenham, undoubtedly this was the best showing of the three. This was due to how there were no major problems involving actors for the whole show.  In This Is America Ruben in the role of Tooley did not mess up the list of American pronunciations, which was notable, as he had done so before for all previous performances and rehearsals. 

Once more, I asked a member of the audience (Rachel Loveland) here is what she had to say: “I really liked the story, although sometimes I got a bit lost due to not being able to see or hear things sometimes. The music was great; I still have some of the songs stuck in my head, although some of it was a little hard to hear. While the characters were really good and distinguishable, I sometimes got lost in what they were all doing because there were quite a few the choreography was simple but effective.” Once more the audience brought up the problem with sound inequality but also brought up the two new problems of the band being too close to the seats; and the back rows being unable to see some of the scenes.

It seems all the major problems with the production stem from the stage design, which currently looks like this:

If I were given the chance to improve the stage, I would make it look more like this:

The reason I have moved the band to the most right part of the room is to reduce the overpowering effect the band used to have when it drowned out all other sound due to its proximity to the audience. This position is also useful, as it will increase the volume of dialog scenes, as all staging is closer than the band, so it will be comparably louder. I also moved around the seating arrangements, while it is not symmetrical, it does allow for more seating and another exit/entrance to the backstage area, which will in turn increase the rate of scene changes.

Overall, I believe that this show made me learn more than any other show I have done and I hope I can improve from this to make all other projects in my future more successful. 

Variety show 

6/2/18

On this day, we had our dace auditions for the Variety show. We were given a unseen jazz dance phrase to learn and then reiterate while being filmed.

I believe that this audition went relatively well, while I did well comparatively in my class I still do think I can be improved. That is to be expected, as I’ve never done a jazz style dance before.

After the audition ended I asked for any notes from my dance teacher she said, “the stretch up and the dynamic drop to the floor had a good energy to it” –Kat. To add to that I also personally think I had good limb extension and good sense of rhythm. Which were both points that I needed to work on last dance unit; I think this displays how I am progressing.

The things I need to improve was the beginning clockwise turn and then leap turn . Due to me being unable to keep my balance, I would have to stop spinning after the first turn and then start again do do the leap. This did not look right instead I should work on my balance and use the momentum from the first turn. Also the final filming of the reiteration of the dance did not go well, I believe this was due to me panicking after I put a wrong foot forward which lead to a successive multitude of mistakes after. However I managed to maintain my character and energy regardless so that my mistake was not too noticeable which was a good move on my part.

8/2/18

On this day, we had the auditions for the variety show. Overall, I think they went rather well.

Before the audition started, I requested if I could do my monologues after my songs, as my Miss Trunchbull monologue was very vocally damaging, due to how loud I needed to be for it. Luckily they agreed, so I wouldn’t have to sing with a damaged voice. My first song, what comes next from Hamilton went very well. Which is surprising as it was the one I had the most problems with preparing for the audition. I think this is due to how the backing of the song is almost indistinguishable from the two other songs that King George does in the musical (you’ll be back, and I know him) so I accidentally interjected words from those songs while practicing. However, due to how I had rehearsed it many times over this did not occur in the audition itself. After that song, I then performed I’ve got you under my skin. This I believe was the lowest point in my audition, as I couldn’t hear the backing clearly and therefore was out of time with it. To avoid this in the future I will be more vocal if I can’t hear the backing of the song.

Due to both the songs being over, I moved onto my monologues, first with the one by Nathan Detroit. This went as well as I expected, I portrayed it in an American ascent, and used all the planning points I made in my preparation presentation: having a moment of realisation at the start,  having the second line as a rhetorical question, and sounding scheming towards the end. After that, it was my final monologue, Miss Trunchbull’s monologue. I believe that this was the highlight of my performance; I was able to keep my volume to over 100 decibels for the majority of the performance and sounded authoritative, menacing and threatening too. While there are no major points that I could think of I asked my teachers to see if they had anything to say. They said that I could improve the way I physically differentiate between Miss Trunchbull and Nathan Detroit during the Monologue section of the audition. I think that this is fair; I portrayed them having the same posture and not doing any major physical moves. If I were to do this again I would have Miss Trunchbull have an exadurated posture, as the whole musical is seen from her perspective, and therefore having miss Trunchbull look like that allows the audience to perceive what Matilda she’s in miss Trunchbull, a charature of an authoritarian adult.

At the very end of the audition, we had a question and answer section. This went very well in my opinion. Some examples of this are the question “Would you say that the shows we have chosen would have a same link running throughout all of them?” At 7:20, I answered by saying how it would be a good idea to have a theme that ties all the shows to together, but if there is not a very present theme we can use the interval strategically reduce the jarring affect to the audience. This could happen in-between Calamity Jane, and matilda as they dramatically change the time period they are set in. However, with that same logic you would need to have an interval between Guys and dolls and Annie ust as much. Or you could break the show apart based on themes instead. Having one section being about rebelling against the status quo with productions such as Matilda; and having the other section being about the struggles of love like in LA LA land or Guys and Dolls. Keeping all this in mind I’ve come up with a potential running order for the show

I have sectioned the first half to be about breaking the status quo. With the productions of Annie and Matilda having the children rise up against the adults such as Miss Trunchbull and miss Hannigan. Calamity Jane also fits nicely into there as it does have the similar theme of breaking norms by having an independent woman make her own way in the west, but also tie it into the second half of the performance as it contains a love story in it. However, I have put it in between Matilda and Annie as those two productions have very similar aspects; such as the time period, the age of the main characters, and the idea of being oppressed by adults. By having Calamity Jane in between them it should decrease comparisons of the Annie and Matilda to each other by the audience

Another question was “How did you prepare for the audition? For the audition?” In my answer, I did mention how I had seen both the musical of Guys and Dolls and Matilda but I failed to disclosed how I had actually watched all six of the musicals of the variety; here is evidence of that:

That being said I did make some clear mistakes in the interview section; at 7:59, I mistakenly called Miss Trunchbull Matilda by accident. If I were to do another audition of this style, I would take measures not to repeat that.

Here is a link to the video of my audition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLl8RU1N6TfpJVP1SbCjY0Gn9bnh5qHIpP&v=ZEybyOpjsfE&app=desktop

19/2/18

On this day, we were given the task to make a small 20-minute production of one of the four musicals that are in our variety show. My group got Matilda, which I am happy about, as it is the one I am most familiar and its plot can easily be simplified to fit into the time constraints of 20 minutes. Immediately after our task was set we talked about casting for our production. Luckily, this was a very easy thing to decide as it just so happens that in our group each one of us auditioned for a different major character in Matilda on the 8^th of February. Therefore, we cast the production of me in the role of Miss Trunchbull and Matilda and Bruce in the role of my two other cast members. We would also take on the role of other children during the major songs such as school song or revolting children, the reason we choose those three characters is due to their importance to the plot. Matilda in essence is a story about a child rebelling against the adults who mistreat her as a result you would need Matilda and Miss Trunchbull at least. Bruce on the other hand, is used as a way to display the malevolent way that Miss Trunchbull effectively abuses her students by acts of imprisonment and force-feeding. After this was all decided, we moved onto the skeleton for the plot. Here is our outline so far:

As you can observe there is a large amount of narration, this is done due to the time and cast size constraints in our production. Therefore narrating over the less important details such as Matilda’s life before her school life starts can be efficiently summarised so that the plot can continue. Also, we have chosen to do a large amount of songs as we believe that this will capture the feel of the production better than, a collection of dialog scenes would.

We choose the songs we did, as they are the most memorable of the musical. As a result we believed it would be disingenuous to portray the musical without them. However, I am worried that we may not have time to learn and choreograph movement for everyone in the time frame. Personally, I believe just having school song, and revolting children would be enough.

After this was done, we came to the collective agreement that the best use of our current time would be to choreograph the revolting children dance for the rest of the lesson. Due to my two other cast members taking A-level dance and also having dance experience before attending college I left most of the devising to them as I felt it would be best to leave it in the hand so the most experienced people considering our small time frame that we have to work with. However, that is not to say that I didn’t contribute anything in this time period. I made the suggestions of having metallic poles for the kids to playfully use as swords, for there to be a metal framed block in the middle so that we could use it as a platform. In addition, I also made the suggestion of having traditional English school uniform (White button-up shirts black skirts/trousers, and coloured ties) to fit with the theme of the song. I was able to find the ties from our last production Made In Dagenham so that we could reuse costume so that we could focus our time on other pressing matters in the short time span that we had.

After the lesson ended, I made the suggestion of having more rehearsal time before or after our scheduled lessons. After discussing what times this would be possible in we came up with three times that we would be able to rehearse before our showing of this Friday: 11-2 Tuesday, 11-2 Wednesday, and after 4 until needed on Thursday.

Overall, I believe today that my group and I displayed excellent team working ability, with every person in the small group contributing their own part to the plan of the production. Others made the choreography or revolting children and suggested what songs we should do in the production, whereas I made choices on props set and costume as well as narration placements and dialog use.

20/2/18

On this day, we had a rehearsal of Matilda that I orchestrated to be in periods 3 and 4. IN this rehearsal, we began by going over Revolting children a few times. However, after realising that our time would be better spent focusing on other aspects of the production we then decided to start work on Naughty, the first song of the entire production. Due to how both other members of my cast had considerably more dance experience than me we came to the collective agreement that I should take a spot on the floor so that I could read the book as my other cast members danced behind me. So that I did not waste my time while they were devising their dance. I used the time to start developing a script that I managed to complete and print out that day. This I believe was a very good use of my time as it allows the whole cast to have a very clear idea of what they need. While creating the script I made a conscious effort to keep dialog to a minimum, as I do believe that I may be asking too much of my other cast members to recite masses of paragraphs and dialog just by memory within two days. We disbanded soon after. I do feel confident about being able to complete this task in the short time period that we have, as according to my skeleton we have devised half of our production already within two days. If we continue with this gradient of efficiency, we should be able to finish it all by Thursday, ready for the showing on Friday.

After our scheduled lesson, time had ended all of my cast and I stayed behind so that we could run though our Matilda production before performing tomorrow. It went rather well. I believe that to improve I need to familiarise myself more with the songs, as I did have a few moments in which I could not recall the lyrics. We also were able to time our production; it was about 11 minutes long. As a result we came the collective agreement to lengthen the piece by having a I piece of narration at the end. I came up with the idea to mention about how Matilda was adopted by her form tutor miss honey and the others came up with the idea to silently carry out the scene behind me. Due to us adding in another character, I brought in one of my cardigans so that the audience would be able to distinguish between ours multiple characters better.

23/2/18

On this day we had to perform our production of Matilda to the rest of our class. A video of this can be found here: XXX. Overall, I believe it went quite well, we stayed on script consistently and we worked our way out of all tech and set problems during the performance. That being said, there were moments I wish we could improve on.

During the first song, we came in to early after “A little bit gory”, and missed a phrase in the song meaning that we would have to repeat ourselves later. I believe that this was due to the minute amount of sound from the backing that caused us to become uncoordinated with it. We could have prevented this by hooking the backing to the speakers in the theatre so that I would be clearly herd by everyone.

Another thing that was problematic was how during the cake scene, the person in the role of Bruce forgot their queue leading to an awkward pause. This was most likely caused by how we had only done one full run though beforehand. To improve I would have suggested doing a line circle (In which all the actors sit in a circle and say their lines chronologically without any of the movement) on the day before to make sure we were all ok with our lines and queues for them.

Finally, During the Bruce scene I ended up laughing on stage. I believe that this was due to not being in the right state of mind as just beforehand I had watched all of my other classes performances, which heavily relied on comedy. I think I should have worked around that by offering our group to go first as this would avoid that happening again.

That being said, it was clear that our audience did enjoy our performance; this can be observed by how they clapped along near the end of revolting children. As a result I do believe we made an adequate performance.

I think this production that was created within 4 days displays two things greatly: My ability to work well within a team and my ability to create and add onto ideas for the group. If our group dynamic was less efficient, I believe that it would have been impossible to achieve this in the limited period we have.

The main lesson I will take away from this performance is the amount of progress a cast can achieve in a small time frame, as every person in our cast was trying their best and we managed to create about 20 minutes of rehearsed content. This will no doubt come in useful in the variety show.

26/2/18

On this day, we had our first singing lesson for this unit. We gathered around the piano and went over how we should sing: “Naughty” from Matilda, “It’s a hard knock life” from Annie, and “Deadwood stage” from Calamity Jane. For my first ever exclusively music-based lesson I believe it went rather well. I sang along with the right timing and correct frequency for the majority of the song.  However, I still could have done better, I believe I would have been able to do a better job of coming in on time for “deadwood stage” if I had done prior research on it. To avoid this problem occurring for my next lesson I will listen to these three songs multiple times on YouTube. After the lesson was over, we were told to also familiarise ourselves with the song “Sit down you’re rocking the boat”; which I will listen to just like the other three.

2/3/18

On this day we, were split up into groups and told to work on an ensemble song and two scenes either side for the variety show in May. Like most pieces of group devising, I incorporated my own ideas as well as allowing others to the same and expanding on those ideas myself. For example, I came up with the idea to have four beds at the start of the scene so that we could act as if we were sleeping at the start of the scene (which is what happens in the script).  It would also allow us to incorporate levels in the dance. Furthermore, I suggested the idea of using mops and blankets a dance props, so that we could dance while cleaning, after all that is what the song is about. Another person came up with the idea to have one of our cast dress up as a dog in the last scene. I expanded upon that idea by suggesting that the cast member that plays the dog should do so like they don’t want to; coming onto the stage with a can of red bull and a cigarette sighing, so that it reaches its peak comical value. By the end of the lesson we had created our staging, we had cast ourselves and given out lines and song solo part, we had made a list of props and was aware on what we needed to improve on. The only thing that we did not really achieve was devising any choreography for the song which I think is what we need to focus on in the future. However, the amount of stuff that we managed to complete in this lesson displays my competence in devising in a group setting as if we were not as functional as we currently are; I doubt that we could have completed so many aspects of the performance. At the end of the lesson, we were given this sheet:

In which next lesson we would pan on what aspects to focus on for the next few lessons that we have for these two scenes and ensemble song. I have already stated that I believe that our top priority should be on devising movement in the song, as that will take the most amount of time and is one of the only aspects that require us all to be there as we can work on other things like our accent or learn our lines on our own time.

5/4/18

On this day, we had another lesson on the two scenes and song from Annie. For the first hour, we were unable to use any performance spaces due to them being used by other groups and the time. Instead, we started by doing another read through of the script to allow ourselves to become more familiar with the material. In addition, we worked on our accents; since the original musical is set in 1930’s New York, we would need to emulate that with our voice.  Furthermore we did some editing to the script, cutting out a minor conversation between an Apple Seller and Annie. We chose to do this as it did not add anything to the story and could even confuse the audience. We also wanted to expand on the idea that the ‘dog’ in our production is a homeless man by heavily suggesting that the dog ‘pound’ that the police officer mentions is a prison so that it fits with our adaptation of the Sandy character.

After a small break we were able to start devising movement for our song. This went rather well, we did this by playing the song over and over again improvising moves at the same time; and then noting all the movements that we liked and then had the whole group do them together. While others contributed ideas, I did as well. I suggested that on the song line “it’s easier than putting up a fight” that one of my cast members should push me off my seat in an aggressive manner so that it would fit with the lyric. Once again, this displays the effectiveness of my groups dynamic when planning and devising.

8/3/18

On this day, we were tasked with creating a plan for the next upcoming rehearsals of our two scenes and song. As we only had three, two hour, lessons left we would have to use our time efficiently. This is the timetable that I created:

As a member of our group as recently been ill, she has missed out on the last few lessons on this task. As a result I believe that 20 minutes is an appropriate time to fill her in. In addition it allows us to revise what we did so that we become more familiar ourselves. The next thing on the timetable is to devise the second and last scene of the musical. This is on the near end of the list as we currently have done nothing more than a read though of this section and as a result we need to work on this so that it can be show ready by the end of next week. I have must myself in the role of director as I am not a character in this part of the script, so therefore I will be able to direct without having to break character.  Up next on the list is re-blocking the first scene, I believe this is nessercary as the way it currently is, is not at a high standard. People’s placements obscure the audience’s line of sight on people, the energy of the scene is off and quite frequently there is a long pause in between lines. I believe that with half an hour we can get this to be at the level we need it to be. At the end of the lesson I have left 40 minutes of spare time, so that we can go back to either the first scene, second scene or the final scene in case it is needed to do so. If this isn’t we can use this time to go over costumes and accents as both of those need to be addressed.

On the next day, we will begin by having half an hour of compiling ideas, for both the choreography that will come directly after but also for collecting all the videos that have taken ideas from so that we can source them in our blog. After that is an hour of choreography, hopefully this is enough time for us to finish the dancing for our song.  After that is completed we should be able to do a full run through. I believe this to be important as it will allow us to see what parts of the task need to worked on. We will take notes on what has to change and then try and rectify them in another full run through before the lesson ends.

On the final day we will have 30 minutes to share costume ideas, and get costume from the colleges costume cupboard. After that is done we can spend a small 20 minutes perfecting our 1930’s we York accent. When all that is done I have planned for us to take 10 minutes to share notes of improvement with each other before going into run through. From then on we will repeat going through a full run through, taking notes of improvement, sharing them and then repeating the process.

If our 6 hours is not enough I have created a table after asking when the people who were in my group and in lesson that day when they were available, so that I could find out if we needed extra time where that extra time would be. Here is that table:

From this I can determine the three best places to have extra rehearsals would be:

Monday after lesson 2-4

Tues before lesson 12-2

Friday after lesson 11-1

I hope that this will not be needed but if so, it is nice to have a plan.

9/3/18

A few days ago I got the casting of “Rooster” from Annie; today I was given the task of making a character summary for them.

Rooster is a con artist that is mainly notable for impersonating Annie’s biological parents to try and cash in to the $50,000 reward.  After this happens, Rooster tries to kill Annie so that she doesn’t break Rooster’s cover. This is unsuccessful, as Rooster is stopped by Miss Hannigan (his sister) after her change of heart. The age of Rooster is never revealed. However, I would assume that he is a similar age to his sister miss Hannigan who is stated to be in their 40’s. Rooster has an eccentric personality. In the 1990’s film version Rooster occasionally impersonates the sound of a Rooster (hence his nickname) that suggest he might be slightly psychotic. This is reinforced by how he ends up trying to kill a child out of anger. Rooster does not interact with too many characters in the musical. He has a relationship with his girlfriend; he steals from his sister, and kidnaps the main protagonist Annie. Rooster is solely motivated by money, and does not let conventional morality stand in his way. This can be seen by how he steals from members of his own family and tries to kill a child, It is very clear that Rooster is from the lower classes, from how he has to ask his sister from money and steal when turned down. It’s clear that rooster has two goals: the first is to get money by any means necessary; the other is to use that money to get a house on Easy Street so that he can fulfil his dream. Another notable fact about this character is how just before the musical begins Rooster escapes from prison.

This happened at the start of our lesson. Meaning that my plan for it would have to be adapted. Thankfully, I had 40 minutes spare time at the end and since the small task briefing and task itself only too about 40 minutes I was able to make it work. We managed to devise movement for the second and final scene and re-block movement from the very first scene. I believe that this was a very good use of our time, as now all the scenes around the song don’t require too much work. Now we can focus our efforts on the main song on Monday and make improvements on the Friday. 

That being said, I believe that we worked well as a team with devising and re-blocking as we managed to keep the scene in motion and complete doing so within the shortened time frame. To improve I believe that we could have been more efficient if we came to the lesson with a pre prepared plan for the scenes rather than sharing ideas on the day. While this may be a more efficient use of time, I believe that sharing ideas allows us to incorporate everyone’s ideas rather than just one person dominating the create conversation.

To make sure this kind of thing did not occur again I checked in with my teacher so see if she planned to have this kind of thing appear our next two lessons. They said that they planned to have a 10 minute start to both lessons in which we would do a small amount of blog work. As a result I realised I would need to change our group’s timetable.

12/3/18

On this day we had another lesson on our two scenes and song, which needed to be performance ready by Fridays lesson. The start of this lesson did not go according to plan, the blog section that I had prepared 10 minutes for, over extended to about 35 minutes. Also due to the second year drama A-level exams being this week, they were occupying the majority of our performance space. After we had finally set up our staging we only had one hour and 10 minutes left to finish the choreography of our song. I began the 10 minutes by suggesting two things to my group.

The first was a move from this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cexhpgf2TZw (0:54-1:00). I believe if we incorporate their use of cleaning utensils it would allow the dance to have more variety of movement. Not only that, our mastery with them will allow us to send the message to the audience that these orphans are familiar with having to do forced cleaning and that Miss Hannigan does this kind of thing on a regular basis.

The other was from the same video at (1:55-2:00), in which they use blankets as dance props. I belive that like using the mops this will send a message to the audience that the orphans are forced to clean a lot by Miss Hannigan and are mistreated by her too.

For creating the rest of the dance we did what we normally do in group devising, I incorporate ideas such as the blanket or mop ideas, other contribute their own like throw exchanges with the mops over getting into formations.  Again, I think our group dynamic was very good as it allowed us to finish the dance choreography in the lesson. To improve I believe we need to take action to make sure all our groups ideas are heard, due to how I sometimes feel that some others and I dominate the creative process. This can be solved easily just by asking those who have not contributed anything yet so that they have an opportunity to speak up without fear of interrupting anyone else.

In retrospect, I also made some mistake on this day. I came in early in hopes that I could build the set before the lesson started and look for costume in the costume cupboard. However, as I have already said, this was closed off, as it was performance week for another class. I should have seen this coming and prepared over the weekend instead, so that we could have more time to choreograph our dance and go for a complete run through.

The extra rehearsal time I made after the lesson was cancelled. This was due to how only four out of the 11 people that are in the production were able to stay behind. Tomorrow, I have planned for us to have a 12-2 rehearsal hopefully we can use this time to get everyone ready for the deadline in three days.

13/3/18

On this day, we had an extra rehearsal that I had scheduled. This went quite well. We began by filling in some of the people that are in our production but are not in our group. After that, we were able to have a full run through. I made some notes about the run through and how to improve on them.

The obvious note is that quite a few people do not know their lines. I believe that this is only due to how we had printed out our scripts nine days ago.  I have quite few lines, only consisting of three singular, and two unison; as a result, I have learn all of them. I have offered my help to those who are struggling. However, they said they learn lines better alone. Therefore I can do nothing myself to solve this problem except have faith in my cast.

Another point of note is that one of the people from another group had come in to play the dog character. However, due to their busy schedule they have not been able to come to any of our rehearsals. As a result, I believe that the most sensible option is for me to take over in his place. After we meet Fridays deadline we could teach it to that person if they so wish.

One more note I had was how after the it’s a hard knock life song ends the clear off of staging and set is extremely slow.  I believe that this can be resolved if we allocate a series of item that everyone on stage at that time is responsible to clear up.  Unfortunately, I will not be able to assist with this, as I need to quickly get off and change into the dog costume. I will make sure that we give set moving roles to everyone on Friday. 

Finally, I asked the others if I could improve anything, they said that during the song that I am not in time in the section that we switch the mops over with each other. I believe that with another dance rehearsal on Friday I will be able to stop this and synchronize up with the rest of the cast.

I hope that we can amend all of these and be show-ready by Friday.

15/3/18

On this day we began by planning the next two weeks in which we will cover phase two of our musicals (mine is Annie). Unlike the first phase with was two scenes and a song between this instead was just a collection of scenes.  Since we had no script given to us I took the initiative and created one myself. I began by transcripting two scenes that involve Annie meeting Mr Warbucks and Rooster and Lily meeting up with Miss Hannigan respectively. They can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiN7WZwu6-U and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az0h0YJ23T8 . I also made a few changes to reduce the size of the scene due to how we only have two weeks to create them, and to quicken the pace of the plot of the musical. After realising that two weeks may not be enough to over these two scenes in I drew up a table of possible time that we could have extra rehearsals this is the table:

As you can see, the only day worth having an extra rehearsal on would be Wednesdays before lesson (12-2). With that in mind, here is the plan for the next two weeks or six rehearsal time slots:

From my time working on the first phase of Annie, it has become clear that before going into any form of blocking, devising or development that it is in our best interests to instead sit down and talk about what needs to be done or improved. Hopefully, by having a 20 minute pre-rehearsal meeting every lesson we will be able to share everyone’s ides, leading to a more unified group objective.

On the first day I have scheduled in a 30 minute table read. I have done this to allow the rest of the group become familiar with the script that I produced; but also so that we could extange ideas about the script itself.

After this was over I plan to them go straight into creating movement for the Warbucks scene. No doubt, there will be plenty ideas present due to the pre-rehearsal meeting and the table read. And while I may already have my own vision on what these scenes should look like I will make a conscious effort to combine it with the rest of my cast members to avoid being autocratic. I chose to have work done on the Warbucks scene first as it is the longest scene and as a result will require the most amount of work. If production talks a longer time than expected, I will be able to change the timetable accordingly.

On the next day, as soon as the pre-rehearsal meeting is over I plan for us to have a small 20 minute run through of the Warbucks scene before continuing on. This is to avoid us forgetting how we structured that scene, and allowing muscle memory to sink in.

When this is over I have planned for us to them begin work on the next scene, the Rooster and Lily scene. This scene is shorter comparatively to the Warbucks scene so as a result it should take less time to develop. However, from a deeper analysis, it may not. The Warbucks script gives small physical instructions such as answering phones or moving paintings; however, the Rooster and Lily script gives none of this. As a result, more freedom is given to the group to come up with ideas, which will mean that I will take longer for us to settle on the way the scene plays out.

In the final minutes of the lesson, I have planned for us to collect ideas on how to improve both scenes so that it is still fresh in our minds since they were both done within an hour of this, and so that we can work on them the next time that we are all together.

The next day we will be working on both scenes equally, working on the notes we collected from the previous rehearsal.  I have prepared the final time slot to be overrun by these improvements if necessary. However, if this is not needed e can use that time to go over lines as I doubt any of our group will have learnt their lines out of habit within a fortnight of having the script.

On the penultimate day, I have scheduled time in to think about and acquire props and costume. I have done this on the second to last day rather than the last to avoid a repeat of what happened last time with myself being the only one who had sorted out costume for themselves.

When this is over I believe we should continue work on the scenes and record our final run through as evidence for our course.

On the final day, like my plan for phase 1 with consist of us doing run through and then taking notes to improve then doing it again with the notes in mind. And this will continue indefinitely until our lesson time runs out.

17/3/18

On this day, we had the final rehearsal of the first phase of Annie in our variety show. I am very happy with the way the show is heading and I believe that we are performance ready.

However, there are still some problems that would need addressing before the show beings. The most obvious one of course is costume, as of now I am the only one with a costume for it is a hard knock life. We need to prepare props too, such as having six mops/brooms, a suitcase and a wine glass for Miss Hannigan to drink out of.  Also, the timing in which another cast member and I exchange brooms/mops is slightly out of time with the rest of the cast, while it has slightly improved from last rehearsal it is still noticeably different.

I do not think that coming back to this anytime soon is a good idea though. We have many other sections of the variety show to go through which demand more attention due to our limited period of time.

Hopefully, I can continue this level of efficiency both as an individual and in the group so that we can complete the next two phases in the same amount of time; as I have no doubt that if so the show will be of high enough quality to perform.

22/3/18

On this day, we were tasked with creating a table of which parts of the variety show would be based in physical theatre and what would be musical theatre. Here is my table:

The Crapshooters Dance – The crapshooters dance movement is mainly traditional jazz in a way to present a story as a result it is clearly in the style of musical theatre.

Easy Street – Easy Street in all three versions filmed (1982, 1999 and 2014) focus on movements that are slick and stylised, but also not too much so that they seem out of place when they interrupt the scene to exchange dialogue. The movement itself is used to displays levels of power in all the characters in the song. In the ’82 version, Miss Hannigan is displayed as running after Lily and Rooster, trying to keep up with the couple; whereas in the ’99 version Lily takes this role seeking the validation from the siblings. Due to how the dance incorporates storytelling elements it should be classified as musical theatre.

Luck be a Lady– while this dance does only feature one person it is still in the style of musical theatre as it displays to the audience Sky’s plead to the concept of luck to help in due to the high stakes situation he got himself into.

Revolting Children – this song will be more aligned with physical theatre rather than the alternative due to the stylised movements of the dance; these moves with cause the audience to be more focused on these moves rather than the audible components.

Deadwood Stage – this song, like Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat is focused on us getting up and sitting down from select spots. As a result it is not in the style of traditional musicals making it a physical theatre piece.

Fugue For Tinhorns

Hard Knock Life – Our group created the dance mainly using props like blankets and mops, and incorporated it into our dance. This diverge of the traditional way that dance numbers are done and as a result of its avant garde nature its physical theatre.

24/3/18

On this day, we had a filmed discussion and development of the song of Naughty for our variety show. The video of this can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDLJihMPJX8&feature=share  . Overall, I believe my contribution to the group was acceptable, I contributed my own ideas such as myself picking up the books when the chorus begins as well as letting others incorporate theirs, like when my peers created a circular movement phrase. In addition I made a conscious effort to offer my help in experimenting with new ideas or volunteering to be parts of movement, which is visible throughout the video.

To improve I believe we need to watch the video back as a collective and then exchange ideas on how we can better the song’s movement. Even while performing it I noticed that some people were doing separate moves to the rest of the cast, this needs to identified and then changed as it looks unprofessional. Furthermore, I don’t think everyone knew the lyrics to the song, which is understandable, unlike me who had to perform this song once before in February, some of the cast had never been exposed to this song before. I think we can solve this by having perhaps 30 minutes at the start of a rehearsal to go over the lyrics as a collective.

A video of the final run through of the day can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn2lQNDBB9E&feature=youtu.be

26/3/18

One this day, we began by creating a plan of phase three in a group setting. I was in charge of dividing out link scenes to the cast so that they could write them. I noticed that there were 8 link scenes and 16 members of the cast so as a result I came up with the idea of every scene having two people work on it allowing the best parts of each one wrote to be merged together to create the best possible version of the scene. Here is a table of what each person is doing that I created:

In the second half of the lesson, we continued with developing the movement for the song Naughty. I was mainly tasked with bringing the person who sat on the right of me up to speed as she was formerly unable to join in due to a leg injury.

A video of this can be found here: XXX

I think this lesson allowed me to clearly observe the problem of this musical number and hopefully we can use that to fix it.  Most noticeably, is that not everyone is doing the same choreography so as a result it looks very messy. Most likely due to how a few members of the cast we not in on the first day we began movement for it. I believe that as long as group attendance is high this problem will rectify itself and that it won’t need human intervention.

Another problem I noticed is that line that were intended to be sung solely by one person have been taken by the group, possibly because of joining the song number after the briefing about who is meant to sing what.

We have about six months until the show is first aired, and I believe that we can easily make this song and all the others into a performance standard by the performance in May.

17/4/18

On this day, we were given two tables to fill in. here they are:

  

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4
	Plan: Create costume for all three characters	Plan: Learn all lines by the end of the week	Plan: Continue going over my lines and help those who cannot remember them.
What I did: Created a tailored script so that I could learn my lines better	What I did: Learnt all lines by Monday and created a list of all props and costumes for the whole cast.	What I did:  Since all lines had learnt, I focused on assembling all the costume that I would need.	What I did: I went over my lines every morning before rehearsal, and was vocal that I would be happy to help anyone with their lines if they wanted it.
What I need to do: Use the tailored script and my text to speech app to learn all my lines by the show date.	What I need to do: Make sure all the cast follow up on their promise to source their costume.	What I need to do: Continue with line testing to reduce the chances of misremembering them.

I was also given another to fill in about my characters in the show. Unfortunately, I do not have any large character roles. As a result the largest character role I have I LT ward, a police officer used in the dog scene after it is a hard knock life.

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4
	Plan: To complete my policeman’s costume and sound more  authoritative as the character.	Plan: to collaborate with other members of the scene to allow of more interaction to further display the characters differences.	Plan: Turn around to the dog to further extenuate my authority
What I did: Make a tailored script so that I could learn my lines, allowing me to focus more on characterisation rather than knowing what I need to say.	What I did: I managed to get the policeman’s hat, therefore completing the costume for the role. I also projected my voice more, and used closer proxemics to increase my characters authority.	What I did:  I managed to talk to the member of the cast that plays the character of the dog. When I walk off, he mocks me in character. This allows for further characterisation on both of our characters. It displays his lack of respect for authority, but still displays my characters authority by making it so that he only mocks me when I am not looking.	What I did: While the plan had me look back at the dog, I later did the exact opposite. Here is why, after I exit I need to change my costume so that I be ready for the next four scenes. However, to do this I need the maximum amount of time possible to do so, as a result I now walk offstage as quickly as possible to reduce the chances of me being late to come on in the next scene.
What I need to do: I still need to finish my costume for the police officer. I do have a friend that has a poilcemans helmet that would work for the role. However, it is still needed for her production so I will have to get it next week. I also got the feedback that I needed to sound more  authoritative  in my role of the police officer.	What I need to do: I need to talk to the other members of the scene so that I can juxtapose my character with theirs. Allowing my character to further reinforce how out of place the dog character is.	What I need to do: I could further reinforce the status of my character by having me turn round and face the Dog character while he’s mocking me and have him freeze. This would display how my character still holds the authority to stop any other characters from mocking them.

I also have a minor character of Kate, one of the orphans Annie lives with. I have made a character table for them as well:

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4
	Plan: Finish costume and be more mocking to Annie.	Plan: Use closer proxemics and grab Annie’s note	Plan: Excaudate my character to increase the energy of the show.
What I did: Become more familiar with lines so that I can focus more on characterisation.	What I did: I make my character sound more sarcastic and more spiteful so that the mocking of Annie did not feel out of place. This worked very well on “But its 4 o clock in the morning” and “yes miss Hannigan”	What I did:   Grabbing Annie’s note, and combining it with my spiteful portrayal of Kate, has completely changed the character, and I think for the better, I believe if I continue this or make it more overt then I can create the high energy performance that we need for the variety show.	What I did: I made sure to  exaggerate  the spitefulness of my characters lines, however seeing how few lines I had I made a conscious effort to also exaggerate my movement when I am not speaking I am still displaying my characters emotions and feelings to the audience.
What I need to do: Finish off orphan costume, sound more like you are mocking Annie.	What I need to do:  Use closer proxemics when making fun of Annie’s note, potentially grab it from her hand.	What I need to do:  exaggerate  my character so that I can bring the energy of the cast up and make the show more entertaining all around.

	Themes and storyline	The unspoken thoughts and motives in the play
Annie	Annie gets adopted by Mr Warbucks, who later puts out a large monetary reward to whoever can find Annie’s biological parents. Miss Hannigan, her brother Rooster and his partner all pretend to claim to be Annie’s parents in an attempt to cash in on the reward. Mr Warbucks later realises that this is not the case and saves Annie from them and adopts Annie permanently. The Musical deals largely with the theme of hard work and its counterpart of trying to get what you want the easiest way possible. Mr Warbucks is the embodiment of the hardworking attitude who works tirelessly every day whereas Rooster looks for the easiest way to obtain wealth rather than work at for instance a job. Instead he pretends to be Annie’s parents to make a few thousand, and as a result is portrayed as a antagonist. This is of note as the musical is set in economic depressed America. So many people were struggling to make by, the musical teaches that we should try our hardest and then we will succeed and warns us not to give into the temptation to pressure the easiest and possibly the immoral way out.	Annie is primarily motivated by the need for her to find her parents. However, as the musical progresses this changes. She eventually grows to adore Mr Warbucks and ends up treating him as her father instead. Rooter and Miss Hannigan are primarily motivated by the desire of an easy life, metaphorically referenced as “Easy Street”. This is due to how they feel cheated by how they were born into this world poor and as a result are entitled to a life of wealth and luxury.
Guys and Dolls	Nathan Detroit need $1000 to rent out a warehouse to host a game of craps, to do this he bets sky the same amount that he can’t take a girl from the mission to Havana with him. After sky does this he falls in love with Sarah and is deeply sorry when she finds out Sky only took her for a bet. To make amends sky promises to get a large group of sinners into the mission house the next day. He does this by betting on it in the game of craps that Nathan is hosting.  The musical ends with Nathan and Adelaide getting married with most of the gamblers being reformed. Guys and Dolls mainly deals with the theme of redemption, and whether it is possible to change someone else. We can see this from the mission trying to stop the immoral act of gambling, or Adelaide trying to make Nathan more into a family man. The musical sends out a message that if you want to change someone you must come to them at their own level, rather than as an outsider. We first see this with Sky ass he takes Sarah to Havana, he does this after coming to the mission himself and giving useful advice to them. Sarah then follows him to Havana and then begins to follows Sky’s suit of drinking and partying. One other example is how the mission reforms the group of gamblers. They manage to get all of the gamblers into the mission house due to how sky made them a bet on it. The musical makes the claim that to realise that their actions are wrong you need to use their own actions against them.	Nathan’s character is split between two main motivations. On one hand, he wants to provide for his wife. This is why he intends to host the crap game at the start of the musical. It is of note that Adelaide does not need to be provided for though, she is a very popular dancer and as a result makes a large amount of money. It is only because Nathan feels emasculated by that fact that drives him to do these actions. However, he is also motivated by wanting to settle down and start a traditional family with his fiancé Adelaide.
Matilda	Matilda goes to school, but is greeted with one of the most horrible teachers ever, Miss Trunchbull. After Matilda goes against her head teachers rule multiple times the pupils of the school follow suit and begin to revolt against her. Eventually Miss Trunchbull leaves and her Niece Miss Honey takes the Head teacher position. The Musical heavily focuses on the idea of authority, and advocates the challenging of it. Matilda represents the idea of freedom and individualism which combats the ideology of Miss Trunchbull who is portrayed as objectively malicious and horrible; and through the other throw of Miss Trunchbull by Matilda the musical inspires the audience to combat the authority in their own lives.	Matilda is motivated by her thirst for knowledge, which is what lead her to ask her father to take her to school. She sees Miss Trunchbull as a threat to her learning and as a result systematically destroys her by creating unrest within the school, and pretending to be Miss Trunchbull’s dead brother, to scare her. Miss Trunchbull is not portrayed in a positive or sympathetic light within the musical. As a result, it is hard to recognise what drives the character forward. However, it is implied that she killed her own brother to inherit his mansion and wealth, which could suggest that all her actions stem from the same desire; That of wealth.
Calamity Jane	Calamity Jane is a frontiers woman that has a adverse relationship with the deadwood sheriff Wild Bill. She is contracted by someone in the town to find Adelaide Adams and escort her to Deadwood. However, Calamity un intentionally brings along her maid (Katie brown) instead as Katie impersonates Adelaide in an attempt to be able to for fill her dream of performing on stage. When Calamity Jane brings back Katie the town gets upset about her impersonating Adelaide, but Calamity manages to convince the townsfolk to give Katie a chance. Due to the performance Katie attracts  the eye of both  Wild Bill and LT Danny (an army solider new to the town). However, unknown to these three is that Calaimty has a romantic interest in LT Danny. And mistakenly assumes that when LT Danny states he going to announce his engagement, that she is going to marry him rather than Katie. After it is revealed that LT Danny is marrying Katie Calamity feels upset, as does Wild Bill and they both talk about how sad they feel. They eventually develop feelings for each other and become a couple, ending the musical. The musical deals mainly about the theme of traditional gender roles. Calamity does not wear traditionally male clothes and makes no effort to feminise herself, this is played for comedy but it is also shown as an aspect that Wild Bill finds amusing and endearing about his partner therefore sending a message of individualism to the viewer.	The main motivator of the characters of the story is love and infatuation. Calamity is motivated to impress LT Danny the same way Wild Bill is motivated to impress Katie. However, the musical gives out a message that love is fickle and can change quite quickly. This can be seen in how LT Danny manages to convince Katie Brown to marry her within a few minutes of meeting her, and also can be observed by how both Wild Bill and Calamity Jane stop their feelings for Katie and LT Danny respectively and instead develop them for each other.

 20/4/18

On this day we began by doing another run through of Deadwood stage so that we could teach it for those of our cast who were absent in previous rehearsals. I believe this was an effective use of our time due to that. After this was over we had a vocal only run of both Deadwood stage and Sit down you’re rocking the boat. Then when this was over, I suggested that we did a run through of the Annie scene and it’s a hard knock life as we had not done so in over a month. As a predicted, this run through was of a much lower quality of what we had previously been able to do. I hope that we will be able to go other scenes like these more frequently; as by not rehearsing them we stand the chance of forgetting how to do them.

23/4/18

On this day, we began by splitting into smaller groups to focus on the smaller songs of the show. I was in the group of ‘I can do without you’. We began by watching the song on YouTube from the 1950’s version, which can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlqdEca3hks  and started listing things we wanted to incorporate into our own version of the song. The list we came up with looked like this:

The ones that were my idea were the exchange of power. I liked that when one of the two characters was speaking that they would be able to manipulate and move the other person, until a new verse started; which would shift the power dynamic of the song. I believe that this accurately displays the anger that both parties have at each other and allows the audience to view how similar they are to one another.

I also put down the idea of having both people draw their guns at each other right at the end; as the rise in tension from just pushing each other to threatening to kill each other was very funny, at least to me. I believe that this could also display to the audience how she is not afraid of violence, therefore making it an accurate portrays of the character.

After this was over, I decided to allow those who were performing to create it on their own and decided to use my time effectively and create a list/table of both props and costume with assistance from a few other people:

The tables can be found here:

I hope that these tables will incentivise people to realise how important it is to get costume and their prop ready as we are only 3 weeks away from the final performance day.

27/4/18

On this day, we had a full run of the variety show. The first act was recorded to be  40 minutes long, whereas the second act was 23 minutes long. This is a good time to be at, though it should be noted that the size of act 1 will decrease soon due to the faster scene changes and lack of pauses to figure out whose line is it or things similar to that. I think the run went rather well, I have a lot of points of improvement which I will list now.

To begin with, the person that was in charge of the opening narration did not have the narration learnt, nor did they have it written down to read. This was not by any fault of my own as I had asked them in person a week before today, and continued to do so in person, with texts and phone calls to try to get them to send it to me. However, in retrospect, I should have had a contingency plan for this situation; I should have written my own narration for the start of the musical. Went it was revealed that they had not brought it I decided to ask it I should read out an opening part of narration from my 20-minute musical of Matilda back in February.  I will continue to ask for the narration, however I will start work on my own just in case.

Later on in the show, I needed to do a quick change after the end of it is a hard knock life into a police officer costume however, I did not have enough time to do so, I was only able to change into a white shirt. I believe we can make this work if I have my costume right at my exit so that changing costume is faster, and make sure the actors on stage take more time before my cue so that I have more time to change.

During the Crapshooters dance, there is a duet between myself and another member of the cast, I believe that this need some work on it as at the movement, we are not doing the same moves as the others who are doing this duet nor are we doing it looking polished. Spending just 10 minutes on this should be enough to rectify it.

At the end of the first act, there is the song windy city. Due to us never really blocking it I did not know that all the cast were meant to be on. It was not until the scene has started that I noticed that I needed to be on. I didn’t go on then as I would have been unprofessional and decided to wait in the wings, which I believe was the best decision I have made at that point. I will now know that I need to be on during the song, so this situation should not repeat itself.

At the end of the lesson I offered to transcribe all of my teachers notes of improvements, here is the list I compiled:

·         Harri’s narration needs to be sent to me, also Kim wants it to include some of my narration that I did too

·         During the scene before revolting children. Everyone needs to be louder, rowdier and more energised

·         Tamsin need to be a more evil version of Miss Hannigan

·         Instead of having two steel blocks and two tables, we need eight steel blocks for the annie portion of act 1

·         Tamsin needs to come on faster for “court you”

·         The line “putting up a fight” should be choral

·          All orphans need to laugh at Isadora’s impression of miss Hannigan

·         Lily and august need to mess around with the dog more so that Leah has time to change into the police outfit

·         Leah needs to have her police costume near her exit to reduce the time it takes to change

·         The dog scene between Jamie and Ruben needs to be scripted (please send it to me)

·         Sarah Browns speech needs to be more loud and preachy (think Samuel Seabury from Hamilton)

·         People should have umbrellas and walk past charlotte during her speech to display how the speech is on the street 

·         People need to load while walking past charlotte so she has to speak up to be heard

·         End luck be a lady with people in position for crapshooters

·         People should be shouting and acting at the sides of crapshooters ballet to give it more energy

·         Calamity Jane scene was “terrible”. The crowd needs to be choreographed, Leah needs to be on at the right time, and everyone needs to be drinking something. Ruben needs to learn his lines. Also to make the scene less static people should grab stuff from the bar.

·         Scoot should run down at the side during deadwood stage.

·         All people need to make more out of falling out of the carriages in the song

·         “Happy times are coming” is only charlottes carriage

·         Work on centre cart fall (Olivia)

·         Naughty is too crowded at back, move some people more closer to the audience

·         Transition after naughty needs work (re-blocked) also it needs to be closer to the audience

·         Add dialogue before Easy street

·         Dom learn easy street lines

·         Sarah brown scene needs to be less “Caitlin” also less “Caitlin” in miss honey

·         Olivia’s epilogue should end with only her head in the spotlight

·         Sit down you’re rocking the boat needs work

·         Scene transitions need to faster

Hopefully, we can use them to make the show performance ready in two weeks.

Videos of these rehearsals can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuV9vGLMk4I&feature=share

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WGLChV5BKU&feature=share

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuXxfFZj1ik&feature=share

30/4/18

On this day, we focused on creating movement for windy city. I think this was a good choice as this is the only piece of the variety show that we had not created movement for prior to today. As a result, we now have a basic outline of the entire show, which is a nice place to be seeing the performance is two weeks away. We began by creating set for the song in the style of a western bar. The set ended up looking like this:

I believe that this set works well as it is easy to bring off and on since the entire cast is on for the scene and 12 of us come on, meaning they are capable of bringing the table and stalls needed for the scene.  After this was done, I had the idea of bringing glasses into the scene as I remember that this was one of my teachers notes last lesson “everyone needs to be drinking something”. As a result, I brought enough glasses and bottles for everyone. However, this did have a downside. When we were practicing the set transition one of the glasses fell of the bar stand and landed on the floor smashing. This could have been avoided if I had notified the rest of the cast to be careful with these real glass cups or if I had brought some other kind of glass that had would have had less chance of breaking such as a glass made of plastic. However, I don’t think that would have been a good idea as it would have been historically inaccurate as plastic was made a century after when calamity Jane is set.

After this was done we were told to go to three different points  out of the four possible options:

I chose to go form D to A, A to B and B to C.

After this we were told as a crowd to follow along with a small dance lead by Calamity. While I may have taken me a while to learn the dance a I was near the back of the crowd meaning I couldn’t see all that was happening, I do believe I have now got it up to a satisfactory standard.

Almost all of the rehearsal was recorded and can be found here: XXX

Before the lesson ended I updated the costume table and I now looks like this:

Hopefully the coloured cells should be all green by the time of the performance.

Speaking of costume, I believe I have managed to make all of mine, excluding my police costume, here is them right now:

Firstly, I have created the Guys and Dolls costume within the parameters that the cast and set. The all black should draw attention to the purple tie, which would be favourable as that is the set colour of the Guys and Dolls musical. In addition, the Black elasticated jeans allow for the movement necessary for the dance numbers I will be performing in them.

Secondly, the Matilda school uniform carries the same principle of drawing attention to the colour dedicated to the musical, in this case blue. The choice to substitute black trousers for grey ones were done it avoid a large colour contrast which could have taken away from the effect of the blue tie. Furthermore, the baggy aspect of these clothes draws attention to how it is standard school uniform and therefore more believable as a costume choice, in addition to making me look younger and therefore school age.

The baggy aspect of the clothes to indicate youth was also used in the orphan costume. It should imply that the clothes were cheap and that the character that is wearing them is impoverished. The rips in the clothing also reinforce this idea. A few members of the cast have stated that while the rips of the clothing are very fitting, the shirt seems too clean for an orphan in the 1930s. Perhaps I may dirty it up before the performance.  In addition, the shirt contains parts that are red and therefore fit with the colour of Annie (red).

Finally, I have created a western outfit with a long skirt and a jean jacket. I am not particularly happy about this outfit as in the picture it does seem very dark and therefore not fitting to the upbeat and energetic songs of calamity Jane. Perhaps under the stage lights, the outfit will seem brighter than the morning light in which I took the photo in, meaning that I would not need to change the costume.

4/5/18

On this day we had another full run through of the variety show. I believe that this run through was a lot smoother than the last one, however it still has many problems which I have made into a bullet point list below.

·         In the song Revolting children we need to be louder and less “boring”.  Also in last chorus consider running up the stairs.

·         Rip up books in Revolting children

·         Charature your character

·         Harri needs to do the voice over at the start

·         Revolting children needs vocal work

·         Set changes need to be faster

·         It’s and hard knock life needs  to be louder

·         Need to re-block luck be a lady for Dom

·         Windy city needs to be louder at the back when the scene begins.

·         Everyone needs to be in costumes

·         Both the song and scenes of easy street need more work done

·         People are singing at the wrong points of deadwoods stage

·         We need to use the correct backing track for sit down you’re rocking the boat.

I decided that an easy way to speed up set transitions would be to clear out the backstage part of the theatre leaving us more room to take away and move on set.

 9/5/18

On this day we had a final lesson to prepare our two dances before the dance performance that night. We began by going through the crapshooter’s ballet, which went fairly well, the only noticeable mistakes I made were right at the end when we move into the triangle formation I was slightly out of sync with the rest of the cast. I will work on this so that it does not occur within the dance show itself. After we did this we went onto the other song that we would be running that evening, sit down you’re rocking he boat. This was considerably worse than the first dance. I believe this is due to how we had never used a backing trck in which they were not singing themselves. This as a result, made us out of time with the pace of the song slightly. In addition, many of the cast commented on how the backing sounded like it was out of key to us. If true, then it would have forced the cast and I to sing at a frequency that is not natural to us.

After this was over began doing another full run through of the variety show. However, due to clutter backstage and also time constraints we decided to do a run through without any set or costume. While this would allow us to focus on more pressing issues of the show like characterisation and singing; I believe that this was not a good idea as our set changes are still very slow and I am the only person in the cast who has all their costume with them 6 days from the performance date.

The run through itself was similar to the few others we had done, there was no Narration written at the start of the show, so my contingency narration was read instead. There were pauses when people forgot or did not know their lines. And there were times in which a person started at the wrong point of a song.

However, that being said the focus of the run through today was characterisation, and that was greatly improved, everyone was a lot more energised and more entertaining to watch. I hope that the other aspects that need to be improved can be done so in the 10-hour rehearsal tomorrow.

At the end of the evening, we had our dance show to conclude our work on our jazz unit. I will list everything that went wrong, and all that went according to plan:

To begin with, Our crap shooters performance can be found with this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQqCuoKjGvI&list=PLl8RU1N6TfpKQZ6h7Rywft6Enp74oSyPc&index=1 between (14:53-18:10)

And our second perfomance of the night, sit down youre rocking the boat can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_nwIFgUzFk&index=0&list=PLl8RU1N6TfpKQZ6h7Rywft6Enp74oSyPc between (29:38-31:19)

Near the start of the crapshooters dance, there is a part where the back line, of which I am a part of, joins in with the moves of the other two lines. In this run through my timing was almost perfect. I believe this displays my growth within the Jazz genre of dance as in the early rehearsals of this dance piece my timing was one of the biggest points of improvement I had.

The next point of note is the cross over to kneeling at 15:52, while the timing itself was good there was a noticeable problem, I was too far forward compared to the rest of the line.

To fix this for the variety show in six days, I will simply need to travel more when sliding so that I fit in with the rest of the line.

Soon after this was over there is a point in which one of the other members of the class needs to throw their hat to me and then I need to throw it back to them. In the performance through, neither throw was successful; the first didn’t go far enough so I had to have it handed to me by the person standing next to me and in the throw back it skimmed along the floor. I believe most of these problems are caused by the far distance the throw has to go over an I believe by changing the people throwing to be ones who are closer together in the line we can stop this happening in the future.

When this is over it is not too long until there is a point in which another cast member and stay in character in the back of the dance. After the show was over I did get praise about how I stayed in character in this song, which can be seen throughout. However, it brings up another problem many of the other cast members are not keeping in character and instead just stood at the side-lines. Hopefully, they can change this before the variety show so that the dance has more energy throughout.

Looking back at the video at 17:10 I noticed I brushed my hair out of my face, in dance this is very unprofessional and I should have not of done it. I will make sure my hair is up tighter for the variety show performance.

Next was the part in which I do a duet with another member of the cast. In rehearsals this was a very big point of improvement, however in this performance nothing really went wrong. Again this is another example of my growth with this genre of dance.

Soon after this is over there is a bit in which we are in a triangle formation and we slide back and forth. In rehearsals I did struggle to keep in time with the rest of the class however, it’s clear from watching the performance back that this is no longer an issue.

However, just after this there is a point in which , however I was slightly later than the other people in my line making it messy. I previously came up with a solution to this problem by having the front part of the triangle formation jump first however; this was not put in place. Instead the way I need to get this right is to count the seconds from when I come on to when I jump so that I am in time.

Even, though the dance did have a few minor points of improvement I believe I went rather well. However, the second dance did not.

To begin with, the music came on too fast as we were meant to have a small part of dialogue beforehand. When I realised that the music was going on I decided the best thing I could do was say the last part of the dialogue so that the cast would know that we would have to continue regardless. I believe this problem occurred due to never doing a tech run of the dance or the variety show. Hopefully all these kinds of problems won’t occur after our tech run on Monday. 

The second thing of note is how we are out of tune with each other; this is most noticeable at 29:25. I believe this is because of how it has only been recently that we have used a backing without vocals in it. And also have been changing the pitch of the backing back and forward leading to confusion from me and the cast. Hopefully this problem will fix itself as long as we keep rehearsing with the same backing so that the cast knows what key to sing in.

Another point of improvement is how I am too quick to start turning my head at 29:40, this makes me out of time with the rest of the group and I will wait a second longer from now on to solve this problem.

Once again I move my hair out of my face, this time twice one at 30:07 and the other at 30:25. Again, I will solve this issue by making sure my hair is done up tighter during the variety show performance.

After this was over, we had another issue about timing at 30:35 all of the cast joined in late. I believe this was due to how they were focusing their minds on the physical actions rather than on singing and as a result were late. However, this cannot happen in the variety show.  More rehearsals will allow the cast to become more familiar with the song and as a result not even need to think about the actions or words and be able to do it out of muscle memory.

That being said, there are parts of the song that did go well, such as the chair set up. In earlier rehearsal this was a point of improvement as the chair circle was slightly different each time. However, it now is good and requires no more work and is an impressive ending to the dance show and hopefully will be a good ending for the variety show too.

I asked one of the people watching the show (Rachel Lander) what they thought of the performance, they stated: “The dances were really good. They were really energetic and high energy and everyone seemed in time”. They noticed similar things to me; I have already discussed the energy level and timing of the dances. When I asked them to say what could be improved or altered about the show they responded with: “make sure everyone knows what they are doing [laughter]” I believe that they are referring to parts of the Crapshooters dance were people are standing by the sides unsure of what to do.

This is something we definitely could improve on.

10/5/18

On this day, we had a 10-hour rehearsal to prepare for the variety show in four days. I began by arriving early and making a full contingency narration in case the person in our class did not make it in time here is what I created:

Full contingency
All Annie had ever known was her life as an orphan, with no family and very little friends she had to rely on herself making her Independent and a force to combat her foster carer Miss Hannigan, a perpetual drunk and hater of children. 
Calamity Jane, a notable frontiers-woman has been tasked with finding a popular star performer Adelaide. However, unknown to her is that the girl she has found is not Adelaide but her Cleaner instead. 
Now we turn over to look at someplace else. In New York City, there is a new force on the streets, the Mission. Who have one goal in mind: to clear up the streets and turn the common sinner into a god loving Christian.
But our story begins with someone else; Matilda went to a school like no other. While her class teacher Miss Honey was kind and sweet, Matilda’s head teacher Miss Trunchbull had a very different attitude towards her students. She used a form of discipline that involved fear, torture and intimidation. But Matilda was not going to put up with that for long.

After this was over, I painted the stalls so that they matched the black of the other stalls used in windy city. In addition, I was requested to make a timetable for the day so that we could work on all the parts separately. Here is what I came up with:

(12:00- hard knock life -12:30)
(12:30- fugue for tinhorns/ I can do without you/ tomorrow -13:00)
(13:00- Lunch -13:30)
(13:30- deadwood stage -13:45)
(13:45- sit down you’re rocking the boat -14:00)
(14:00- luck be a lady/ Windy city/ Easy Street -15:00)
(15:00- Naughty -16:00)
(16:00- Costume – 17:00)
(17:00- Full runs, notes, repeat -21:00)

There are some sections of the timetable in which multiple songs are being worked on; This is due to how they involve very little of the cast and as a result can be done along songs of a similar size.

The actual day allowed us to improve almost all aspects of the show. That being said there are still many parts that still need to be improved. Here is a bullet point list:

·         We currently have 12 black chairs and two blue ones. We need to go to the rest of the college and source two more so that they have a unified style.

·         Since the Variety show is intended for a family audience we should avoid saying words like “shit” to go with the target demographic

·         Currently it is still unclear to the class what parts of the music will have pre-recorded backing and live band backing. This I important as a live band leave room for mistakes and can repeat sections of music to give multiple queues if needed whereas a pre-recorded version cannot.

·         There are more than enough hats for the show, however, those who need them need to come on with them.

·         I need to learn what parts of deadwood stage I don’t sing

·         Naughty dancing needs work. A right now it looks unrehearsed.

·         The luck be a lady dance also looks unrehearsed

·         All set transitions need to be faster

·         All steel block lids need to be painted black

·         Backstage needs to be more orderly

I also made a table to check if everyone had the costume that they needed for the performance here it is:

11/5/18

On this day we had another run through of the Variety show, since this was the last day of rehearsal we would get before the day of performance it was very important we made the best use of our time.

I suggested the idea of changing the people who throw the hats to be closer together to reduce the chances of something going wrong. However, this did not happen do to the cast being wary against too many changes so close to the show.

To begin with, at the start of the song it’s a hard knock life only a few of the cast members sing it at the correct time, while we do all join in soon after the surge in volume makes it seem that the cast does not know when to come in and therefore unprofessional.

Another point of improvement would be to work on the luck be a lady dance; Since some people start to put out their right leg when others, put out their left first. We instead need to standardise it to make it more synchronised.

In addition, in windy city the background cast have a tendency to be too loud, to not move enough and to form lines. All three of these are bad for the performance. The background cast being too loud makes it harder for the audience to listen to what is being said in the scene itself. The lack of movement in the back makes the scene look too static and therefore less interesting; and the formation of lines makes it look to regimented and therefore not natural, and also lines have a reputation in stage performances of being lazy.

During Deadwood stage the same problems persist. People keep singing at points which they are not supposed to. I believe the best course of action to resolve this is to have a singing only run through of the songs and make sure no one is singing out of turn.

Today we made a major change to the song naughty; instead of carrying on four steel blocks, we instead are going to be using four chairs. This was done in an attempt to shorten down scene transition times, as they were quite long. However, this creates a new issue near the end of the song I and a few other members of the cast have to do a martial arts style dance on top of the blocks/chairs. If we are going to be using chairs then it could become a safety hazard, as there is a very large chance of me falling of the hair as some of the moves involve full turns and standing on one leg. I believe that we may need to edit the dance phrase a bit for the people on chairs so that there is less risk of falling off of the chairs.

Finally, in sit down you’re rocking the boat there is a point after “thank the lord, thank the lord” in which it goes straight into the chorus of the song again. However, the majority of the cast don’t begin singing at the right point which makes the start of the chorus look weak, and unappealing to the audience.

If we can fix these problems in the morning of the performance day, I do think the performance will be a lot better as a result.

14/5/18

On this day, we had our two performances of our Variety show that we have been working on since the 5^th of January. I came in early so that I could do a few things before the final rehearsal in the evening.

I began my day by helping a few other members of the cast help paint the steel blocks and set up the four signs which look like this:

After that, I was instructed to begin learning my contingency narration in case the cast member who was meant to bring it in and learn it would not. Surprisingly, this did not take very long at all. Within five minutes, I was able to recall all of it at will. I believe this is due to how I wrote it myself and as a result already knew what I had done by memory of me making it. Regardless, I believe that this displays my growth in lining lines and monologues faster than before I joined the course.

I have made a character table similar to my other two however, this one has time fields of shows/rehearsals rather than weeks.

Final rehearsal	Performance 1	Performance 2
	Plan: Get closer to the other cast member so that you are both Lit up.	Plan: To improve, I need to add a more storyteller like tone to my narration.
What I did: I managed to learn the Narration within 10 minutes and performed it out to the audience.	What I did: While I managed to be closer and be in the light, my performance was somewhat flat. I believe this I due to me only being tasked with this 6 hours beforehand, so I am focusing more on recalling my lines rather than adding character to them.	What I did:  I managed to add a better tone to my narration and exaggerated my character too. Looking back, I would have like to go even further however I think it is important to note that I only got a few hours to prepare for this, and I believe I would have been even better if I was given more time to prepare.
What I need to do: Since there are two of us in the fore-light it hard to get us both lit, as a result we need to be closer together.	What I need to do: To improve, I need to add a more storyteller like tone to my narration.

Just before the final rehearsal began a few others and I got together to edit the dance phrase near the end of Matilda. This was done to reduce the chances of someone falling off their chair during the performance as this could seriously injure them. This was achieved by having those on chairs not do the turn in the dance and going on one leg for a reduced amount of time. I believe that this was a good use of our time as I put down that this was one of the points of the variety show that needed work on.

After this was over e had our final rehearsal of the variety show. Just before we began a run through I was given two new roles, I now had part of the opening Narration to say, and during Naughty I was now lifting one of the cast members as another had to do a quick change during the song.

Looking back on the rehearsal it wen rather well. I recall one of my cast members saying that this was the best run though we had done, at the present time at least. That being said, there were points to improve on which I will elaborate on now:

To begin with, during my portion of the opening narration I was not in the area of light meaning that my face was partially un-lit. This can easily be rectified, I just need to come closer to the X marked in tape on the floor.

I also got a piece of feedback that said that while I was a got choice for me to steal Annie’s note, the reading of it between people was too slow and therefore made the scene feel unnatural. This can also be easily fixed, the cast and I just need to be faster at interjecting our lines after our cues.

While I didn’t get any feedback on it, I did notice the bands version of sit down you’re rocking the boat had a much slower BPM than the pre-recorded version. While this is not a problem, the fact that the cast and I were not prompted on it made the song in the run through worse as a result. I suggested that we have a singing only rehearsal of the song so that we could adjust to the new tempo, and after this happened the rest of the cast did seem more in time with the new tempo.

Variety show 1^st performance: 4:30-5:45

Overall, I believe this show was the best performance I gave compared to all the other rehearsals and shows.

I kept in sync, during the dance numbers and sung at the right frequency during the songs. I also improved from the last rehearsal by making sure I was in the light during the opening narration and being faster to say my lines during the note reading in Annie.

That being said, it was not a perfect performance. After it was over one of my teacher gave the feedback that I need to give more characterisation during my opening narration part. In addition, near the end of naughty, I was knocked off my chair by another member of the cast who ran past me.

I spoke to one of the members of the audience (Isabel Holmes) to see what they thought of the show here is what she said:

“Overall I found the show very successful and entertaining, I really enjoyed the dance numbers as everyone was in time with each other and the music. Also the proxemics between characters in scenes were very good. Specifically, the audience interaction through Lily and Ruben were very good, as well as how you and Harriet addressed the narrative in the opening of the show (through your emphasis of words and tone of voice). My favourite scene from the show was “Naughty” song from Matilda, based on the ensemble singing and strong dancing, which makes it very professional and entertaining.”

I think these are all valid praises, I then asked her what could be improved or altered about the show, she responded with this:

“There were times when a few people were out of key (but that can be explained as they were out of breath from the dance numbers). Sometimes in ensemble pieces people would be drowned out by the volume of others, so to improve you could practice singing at the same volume. Also there are a few scene transitions that were quite long in blackout. To improve try and incorporate the transitions into the scene (which is what you did with a few of them) but maybe try and do it with all scenes”

She touched on things similar to me such as the set transitions being too long.

Variety show 2^st performance: 7:00-8:15

Overall, I think that this showing, while not better than the previous, went quite well.

To begin with, the opening narration was the best I’ve done yet. I combined to two pieces of feedback I received that day, I stayed in the area lit and I made sure to excaudate my character.  As a result, I believe this went as well as possible.

The next time I was on was during it’s a hard knock life. While I did improve by utilising previous feedback and interjecting my lines faster during the reading of the note, this part of the show did not go as planned. I messed up some of the actions during the song around 18:40. Excluding this, I believe I did a good performance of the song by singing in tune and doing all other pieces of movement correctly.

Soon after, the crapshooters dance began. The dance almost went exactly as planned. However, at one point I threw the hat at a wrong angle and as a result ended up hitting one of the cast members. This was my fault, no one else’s. While it is true that I did suggest a plan to reduce the chances of this by having the people who throw hats be closer together in the lined set up, I proposed it too late in production to implement it. I will take this as a lesson in the future.

Directly after the crapshooters dance was over the show transitioned into the windy city song. This was in my opinion our greatest performance of the song yet. This is due to our use of former critiques and points of improvement. To begin with, we were given the feedback to keep background nice at a minimum but also avoid becoming static and the back. We took this into heart during the show which made the scene look more visually compelling while at the same time making the dialogue of the scene more audible.

After the interval was over, we did the song deadwood stage. While in the production of the show I was worried that this song was not visually interesting enough; based on questioning some members of the audience after the show was over this was not the case. Perhaps if the song continued on for a longer amount of time they would have become less entertained by it. This is why I believe it was a very smart move to only have a shortened version of the song in the production.

When this stopped and a few minutes had passed we performed naughty for the last time ever. Considering that I had been assigned this role within the same day I am very impressed with how well I have assimilated into my role in lifting another member of the cast. This is another example of me being able to adapt and work for the betterment of the show, regardless of timing.

To end the show we had the finale song of sit down you’re rocking the boat. Looking back on the video I can safely say that there were no noticeable faults with this song. All the solos were done in time and in key and chorus that began after “thank the lord” began at the right part too. I do believe that slowing down the tempo of the song was a good idea as it made the dancing feel less rushed and therefore more orderly.

I will take two main lessons away from this production:

·         Do not have props or costume that need to be thrown on stage

·         Do not have the majority of your set black if you have a non-lit backstage area

I will elaborate:

In the final showing and in numerous rehearsals of the show there is a point in which a hat is thrown to me and I then subsequently throw it back. I believe that this was a bad idea from the start. There is the real possibility of missing the catch or subsequent throw and as a result could derail the show. In addition, since this does not add anything to the narrative and does quite little for establishing tone I believe that it should be cut and I will make sure nothing similar occurs in productions I am in, in the future.

Secondly, the choice to make all set black was a very poor choice in my opinion. While it was acceptable on stage, the fact that backstage was not lit at all made it a hazard. The black set mixed with the blackness of backstage made it almost impossible to navigate and prepare set to be moved on. As a result there were a few noises from backstage were someone had dropped, knocked or collided with a prop or a piece of the set. This can be resolved in the future by avoiding either black or dark colours for set of by having backstage be lit. I will suggest both in the next production I am in.

18/5/18

On this day we did a character exercise. To begin with, we worked on proxemics. We got in the role of the character and were instructed to stay as far away as possible to the characters that your character dislikes and to be a close as possible to the characters that your character likes. I was in the role of LT Ward, a police officer. As a result, I tried to avoid all of the characters that did not abide by the law, Rooster for being a con artist, Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson for being gamblers and Miss Trunchbull for breaking child protection laws. The characters I tried to get closest to were characters that confronted to the law the most such as Sarah Brown- head of the Mission and Miss honey- form tutor of Matilda.

After this was over, we were then put in a tension exercise. In which our teacher would call out a number between 1 and 10 (one being the lowest and 10 being the highest) and told to act as that character with that corresponding level of tension. Since I was now in the character of Kate (one of the orphans), I thought a good way of displaying a lack of tension would be sleeping, since this is the first thing we ever see of this character. Later when the tension level was called out to be four I decided to walk at a normal pace, but hide within groups of people from the cast member who plays Miss Hannigan. We then broke out into proxemics again, while it was clear that I should avoid Miss Hannigan I struggled to find anyone that my character would want to be near to. She would not want to near any of the other orphans as Kate is never shown to have any friendship with them and later on makes fun of Annie for still believing that her parents are coming for her. She also would not want to be near any of the people from the other musical, as she had never met any of them. This gave me a moment of realisation, Kate as well as many of the other orphans are extremely isolated and know very little of the outside world. I wish I came to this realisation before the show, as I would have incorporated it into how I portrayed the character.

Soon after we were given a scenario to react to. The scenario was a fire in a cinema. Since I was in the role of Kate at the time, I believe the thing she would do was to bolt for the fire exit of the room as she does a similar thing in the variety show when miss Hannigan arrives. That being said, I did think that if I was in the role my police officer character then I would open up the fire exit and tell the others to go through it shouting something like “stay calm everyone, out through here”.

After a small break, we were given the task of going into small groups and creating a small scene in which there is subtext which is revealed by a narrator. A clear situation that came to my mind was the “does this dress make me look fat?” dilemma. We then added onto it with more questions until we had a script that looked like this:

Tamsin: Does this dress make me look fat?

Caitlin: No it shows off your curves

Leah: Caitlin was lying. The dress did the exact opposite but due to Caitlin’s social conditioning she did not want to hurt Tamsin feelings.

Tamsin: Are you sure it makes your butt look big?

Caitlin: Your butt looks great

Leah: Caitlin was unsure what to say, was a big butt good now? She decided to play it safe and ambiguously complement her.

Tamsin: Do you think I could get away with wearing this dress without shaving my legs?

Caitlin: Yeah they’re only like light aren’t they?

Leah: Tamsin leg hairs were not light, and were quite noticeable to those around her.

Tamsin: Do you think I should buy a jumpsuit instead?

Caitlin: Nah, the dress really suits you

Leah: Caitlin is now bored and is answering as quickly as possible, as she wants to go home.

Tamsin: But doesn’t it bring out the redness of my face?

Caitlin: Nah put on some make up and you will be fine.

Leah: Caitlin was thinking about food.

A video of this can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1530305447043538/permalink/1929966010410811/ . The purpose of this exercise was to think about how we could add subtext to our own characters. I think I could do this with my LT Ward character. I could try to suggest that when I say “Or else he goes to the pound” I am referring to prion rather than a dog pound. This would make scene as in the fiction of the show the dog character is not a dog but a hot dog salesman that is mistaken for one.  

21/5/18

On this day we were told to think about the intentions and objectives of our charters. Here is what I came up with in the lesson.

LT Ward

This character has the long term goal of making Chicago a safer and more conformist place. This is of note as the musical takes place during the great depression therefore; crime was at the height of the century. It is no wonder then that LT Ward is very overbearing, he intended to arrest a hot dog salesman for causing a scene. This is displayed in the line “Or else he goes to the pound”. While in the original version of Annie this had no underlying meaning, since our production has made the dog character into a person dressed as a dog, the quote gains the implication that the “pound” is a metaphor for a jail.

Kate

This character has no major goals apart from getting by. Her lack of goals is partially caused by her mistreatment from being raised by Miss Hannigan. It is no wonder then that she lashes out at Annie; it is the only time in her life that she feels that she is in control. Like a lot of bullying, it comes from the need to feel powerful as in their own life they actually very powerless, in the case of Kate it is due to her being under the boot of Miss Hannigan.

The Narrator

The Narrator that I play that starts the show, was not written to have goals or intentions outside of conveying a story to an audience.

We were then told to think about subtext within the musicals we did within the variety show. Our task was to figure out what lines were subtext and what the underlying meaning of them was. Here were a few I found:

“We’ll be back to get her soon” This line that is spoken by my character is a quotation from Annie’s note. The text states that Annie’s parents will return promptly, however the way that Kate states this she implies the exact opposite. She is making fun about how Annie’s parents have not been back in 11 years. As this is not directly stated and is implying through a quotation it counts as subtext.

“… or else he goes to the pound” This line is spoken by LT Ward. While in the original musical it had no subtext, due to our production changing the dog into a man. The line receives the subtext that “Pound” is an implication of “prison”. The reason that LT Ward does not explicitly state that the dog character is going to prison is most likely done so that the police officer can avoid explaining to Annie the justice system and to avoid this comes down to her level and play along with her

“Don’t it seem like there’s never any light” This line is my only singing line and can be located within it’s a hard knock life. The literal interpretation of this would imply that Kate simply can’t always see light. However, like in most media light is used as a metaphor for hope and purity. The fact that she doesn’t always see it displays how she is losing both her purity and hope due to the undesirable conditions she lives in.