Single - Site Specific - Blog 2 - 28/03/17 + 30/03/17 + 31/03/17

Today we decided to explore our ideas relating to Temple Manor as we preferred Temple Manor as a class rather than Guildhall due to it's darker nature which would give us the opportunity to perform darker pieces/plays. We decided to go for our initial idea of The Crucible as the building suited the style of play and was built a few centuries before the events of The Crucible so it's a very realistic building choice to go for.

After making this temporary decision, we decided to watch the film of The Crucible to grasp the idea of the plot and get more familiar with the time era as only Kat had studied The Crucible before. We began by watching the first act of a stage version however this version expired, so we watched the movie from that point onwards which wasn't too confusing. Watching the movie/play helped inform the rest of us on the story and the lifestyle of those in the 1600's America.

Next lesson, we will work on researching ways to stage our take on the crucible, including costume, staging, and setting.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 18 - 31/03/17

Today we finalised our production of Sweeney Todd by completing the final section which includes the deaths of Beadle, Turpin, Lovett and Todd.

We started with Beadle’s scene, which we felt needed to be quick and merely serve the purpose of the plot. We wanted his death to be insignificant as the only kills that matter to Todd are Pirelli’s as it’s the first kill and he recognises him for Barker, Turpin because he wants revenge and Lovett because she used and lied to him. We had the scene prior his death which was very simple and based in the pie shop and then had Beadle walk up the stairs and the death music play as he walks up. He would exit through the door by the chair and by the music alone it was obvious to the audience that Sweeney had killed him.

Afterwards, Sweeney and Lovett search for Toby, taking them from the pie shop down under the stage into the “bakehouse.” Anthony and Johanna rush up the stairs into Todd’s parlour and he hides her, then leaves to return with a carriage to take the pair away. We then have a blackout where the pie shop floor is then turned into the bake house by removing the table and chairs and dimming the lights. We then have Beggar Woman enter searching for Beadle, who’s body is now on the floor in the bakehouse and Todd appears to find her. She queries with him but he restlessly and quickly murders her to get her out of his way; this creates a great deal of irony considering he murdered his own wife he’s obsessed over for 15 years. During this, Johanna is looking over the edge and watches Todd murder the Beggar Woman; little to Johanna’s knowledge the Beggar Woman is her mother but this is made clear to the audience later which all pieces together in the end.

Todd then rushes downstairs to go meet the Judge who he’s invited as he “knows the whereabouts of Johanna”. As he runs downstairs, I rush up to Todd’s parlour and shout for him and he then runs up the stairs from the bakehouse. We perform the song, which has been very good when we’ve rehearsed in through a sing through. We also changed how I get killed as there wasn’t as much room in the parlour to do our original plan so this led Rob to slitting my throat slowly and pulling a Red cloth out of his hand as he sliced his throat. This looked very effective and worked very well for the “big kill” of the musical.

For Lovett’s and Todd’s death we have it all on the bakehouse floor, in front of the audience. The deaths are simple and stay very true to the story however, instead of Todd being killed by Toby slyly and undetected, Todd senses that Toby is behind him and hands him the razor. This not only signifies that Todd feels like he deserves his death in order to pay for the many sins he’s committed, but he it also takes away a lot of the innocence from the character of Toby, one of the only good characters in the play. Toby the drops the razor and runs away through the aisle in the audience and the lights dim.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 17 - 28/03/17

Today we explored which songs needed something more to them and we felt that My Friends certainly needed something added to it.

Despite it being moving, having Todd and Lovett sing alone, we wanted to fully accentuate the meaning behind the razors and how close Todd identifies with them. We decided to have Ollie, James and I enter during the first verse with a razor each, embodying the razors themselves. We slowly walk down to Todd as we interact with the razors. We get closer and then leave the razors on the table and exit. I feel this portrays the razors a lot more and gives this song a lot more purpose in the show.

Next lesson, we will finish blocking everything by finishing the end section where Beadle, Turpin, Lovett and Todd all die.

Single - Site Specific - Blog 1 - 24/03/17

Today we began Site Specific and brainstormed ideas on where we can perform. We came up with a few ideas which are very local such as Temple Manor, Restoration House and Guildhall. We briefly looked at images of Temple Manor and Kat said it would be a very good place to perform The Crucible due to it's old background and stone brick walls. 

We also thought a library would be a good place to perform as they're not only very accessible but can be cheap or possibly free to hire as they're owned by Medway Council; we thought we could possibly perform a play like Punk Rock

We split off into two groups (Kat, Ollie, Hope, Rob/Ollie, James, Lorna, Me) and looked at the pros and cons of both Guildhall and Temple Manor.

Below are some images of Temple Manor followed by pros and cons:

Pros:

• disabled Access
• plenty of space
• outside and inside opportunities
• out of the way from busy roads so quiet
• eerie household
• historical
• modernisation available

Cons:

• lack of lighting
• limits us to dark plays
• the performance would have to be promenade 

Below is photo of the room in Guildhall along with pros and cons:

Pros:

• Big space
• Historical
• Lots of room for set
• different rooms

Cons:

• artefacts could distract the audience
• specific for time period and genre 
• only indoors
• restricted 

Single - Devised Unit (Ghost Stories) - Blog 16 - 24/03/17

Today we performed our piece to be assessed and we below is my evaluation of our performance.

Rob’s scene:

• Rob spoke with good volume when opening and narrating the scene however, I feel that he needed more diction in his speech as some words were lost for me and I was standing beside him.
• Ollie and I, again, used different leg movements when walking around the shop. While I lifted my feet up normally, Ollie dragged his foot along the ground to meet the other as he walked. Although this showed a clear difference between our characters, it looked a bit odd from the audience’s point of view in a previous runthrough so we should’ve specified which we would do!
• Ollie and I were supposed to meet at the centre at a certain point in the music as this may affect the timing of the whole piece. However, when Rob and Ollie were masking each other’s movement just before this – to make it explicitly clear that they are the same person, just in different places in time – they took too long and if we waited for Ollie to make it to where he needed to be for us to clash, it would have been out of time with the music. Still, to counter this I stepped backwards naturally so that we clashed earlier, thus resolving what could’ve been a big issue.
• The transfer of Rob’s character’s trademark notepad – another key symbolism of the character – went well this time with Ollie successfully taking it when left on the till counter by Rob and then with me taking it from the back after Ollie runs off after his necklace gets stolen and leaves it on the unused chair.
• The entire cash machine section went very well as always, the only problem we thought of was my facial expressions during the robbery. According to Ollie, I didn’t look like a man who was being held at gunpoint.
• The final torture section was very good and was extremely tense. This controversial section did well to captivate the audience.

Lorna’s scene:

• I believe the order of scenes may have been confusing as a few audience members asked questions about the plot afterwards. To make this clearer, we should’ve gone in chronological order.
• We successfully performed this scene naturistically which allowed the audience to connect effectively to the scenario.

Lewis’ scene:

• Our movement went very well and represented the emotions of my character very effectually.
• The dialogue sounded more natural than it has before but could’ve done with being more naturalistic. Also, there was no clear end to the dialogue as I had finished my movement but the others continued talking but there was some sort of awkward pause. We should’ve rehearsed this more to prevent.
• Ollie’s scene:
• Our movement at the beginning went very well and it was clear what was happening.
• Mine and Rob’s speech logs throughout the scenes could be improved as Rob spoke quite casual while I spoke very professionally. Also, I said the word progress twice in the same sentence and said it differently both times.

Ollie's scene:

• Our movement at the beginning went very well and it was clear what was happening.
• Mine and Rob’s speech logs throughout the scenes could be improved as Rob spoke quite casual while I spoke very professionally. Also, I said the word progress twice in the same sentence and said it differently both times.

General:

• Most set changes were good as everything was put in the right place however they could’ve been faster.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 16 - 16/03/17

Today, we worked out the Johanna reprise. We were originally going to have Tom and Rob, but we felt this wasn’t a very interesting way to perform this. We decided to create a rhythmic piece based a lot on the musical Stomp. In Stomp, they use everyday objects like trashcans and brooms, as percussive instruments and this is something we wanted to replicate in Johanna Reprise. We wanted to get every character involved with this number to somewhat show the characters going about their daily actions; we felt that this would how that despite life going on as normal for everyone else, Todd and Anthony obsess over Johanna.

The noises we used were Mrs Lovett whacking a rolling pin on her counter, Toby sweeps the floor with his broom, Beadle walks around and stomps his stick down violently, Judge Turpin banging on a stage block representing a gavel, Johanna tapping on a case she’s packed for fleeing with Anthony and Dan and Ollie M as patrons of the pie shop clinking mugs. Upon practising this we felt that it sounded great and worked very for the scene. However, when it came to Beggar Woman sections, continuing at our regular pace would’ve sounded odd so we decided to be sporadic with our noises, speeding up and slowing down. This sounded very effective and worked well with the tempo of the song. I felt this was a good way to make a simple song more complex.

Next lesson, we will review the other numbers we’ve already done and we will workshop them also.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 15 - 13/03/17

Today we experimented with different ways to show the murders within the show and how we can create the illusion of blood.

We recognised that we have 6 deaths within Sweeney Todd that are seen by the audience: Pirelli’s, Ollie Marshall’s (citizen) Turpin’s, Beggar Woman’s/Lucy’s, Mrs Lovett’s and Todd’s. We wanted to be sure that every death would be somewhat different so that the audience are always impressed by each one. This is far more creative way to approach this rather than them all dying the same way.

With Pirelli’s death, we already have him being choked which meant we didn’t need to worry about anything like blood and for Mrs Lovett’s death, we were considering during her dance with Todd prior to her demise, she gets spun which and Todd lowers her down as if he were to kiss her but then Todd snaps her neck instead. Although this isn’t true to the original story, we felt artistically it looks more effective to end her life so suddenly and it’s a lot more realistic as trying to represent her burning in a furnace would look too cheesy.

This left us with 4 deaths left to deal with. We wanted all of them to be different as we felt that it would make them all independent of each other and not just the same thing again and again. Also, we could show the magnitude of the kills with different ways of killing the characters rather than the same thing every time which suggests the deaths are all equal. We thought instead of going obvious with fake liquid blood, we should go for something more outside of the box yet still conventional. This is where the idea of using red material came into play. Not only is it easy to manoeuvre but it also looks impressive as well.

We thought for Ollie M’s death, as it’s not major, it should be quick and simple. We came up with the idea of him sitting in the chair, it being spun around and the white dust sheet around him is lifted and the underside is red. Ollie would then exit and the chair would swivel back round empty. For Lucy’s death, we have Taylor holding the ball of material in her hand and when Todd swipes his knife at her she reaches for her throat and lets the ball unfurl and drape from her hands as if the blood were dripping from her throat; this is very suitable as this death is very quick and in-the-moment.

For Judge Turpin’s death, we need it to be major compared to the other kills as this is the man Todd has wanted to murder for years. We thought about having a physical theatre piece for this part but we felt that it might be too complicated; just because it needs to be a very bold moment, it doesn’t mean we need to go fully abstract with it. However, our final idea we have Todd stab me, followed by 2 other cast members pulling red material from my chest (which they already have balled up in their hands) and then Todd slowly pulling out the last strand of blood out from my neck.

For Todd’s death, we thought we could have a very simple slitting of the throat from Toby but we then thought that any young child wouldn’t be so suave about murder and after all his thoughts of Todd being a demon, he’d surely want to stab him several times to be sure he’s dead. So, with this, we have James stab him in the throat once and then run around him stabbing him more and more. We discussed having fake liquid blood for this scene as this would be effective to show how much blood Todd has inside of him due to his bloodlust on his hunt for Turpin.

To finish, Tom and Rob sang through Johanna (Reprise) which sounded brilliant. The song is lovely and simple so we definitely now won’t add movement to it; we’ll simply have the pair stood singing. 

Single - Devised Unit (Ghost Stories) - Blog 15 - 10/03/17

Today we finished Lorna’s scene by creating three more sections. We wanted this scene to be in a different order as this fragmented timeline works well with our stimulus. Below are the four sections in order.

• Harry stealing letters
• Charles leaving for war
• Receiving the death telegram
• Revealing the letters

For the second scene, we have me walking in with my case leaving for war and I’m saying my last goodbye to my wife. The third scene has Lorna receiving a telegram notifying her of my death. During this, I am lying on the floor as the dead body, then when Lorna leaves the telegram and walks towards where my grave is, I stand and walk over to the house side of the split-screen. I then place down the photo frame of us both. The final scene takes place 40 years later and Harry (Ollie) enters with the mail. He confesses to Stella that there’s more letters, goes off and comes on with the letters he hid. After he apologises and exits, Stella is devastated and slams down a photo frame of her and Harry.

We feel that this is a very effective ending to the scene and I believe that the audience will be able to understand the flashback.

Next lesson, we will will perform our piece to be filmed and assessed.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 14 - 10/03/17

Today, we spent the entire lesson singing through all of the songs in the show (up to “By The Sea” as this was all we had time for). This helped us all with going over tricky parts of different songs which we wouldn’t have time to go over when working on the scene.

For my song with Todd, “Pretty Women,” we did extremely well with only one timing error towards the end of the song. From “Blowing out the candle,” to “How they make a man sing,” we found the timing very difficult as it’s different for both characters.  After a couple more tries, we got the hang of it but we will meet at lunchtimes so rehearse this in order to get it right.

Besides Pretty Women, no other songs had any issues; the opening song during our prologue is the only other song I sing in which went very well too. All the other songs went incredibly well too and I’m confident that we’re making great progress leading up to the final weeks of rehearsals.

Single - Devised Unit (Ghost Stories) - Blog 14 - 09/03/17

Today we wrote the dialogue for our first section of Lorna’s scene and blocked the movement to go with it. We first came up with the script which took us a while as we wanted to make the dialogue as natural as possible. In this section, we have Harry (Ollie) visiting Stella (Lorna) and offering comfort.

Below is our dialogue:

We thought that instead of Harry coming along as another lover out of the blue, we wanted him to be the cause of Stella’s willingness to remarry. We have adapted the story so that now, Harry is intercepting the letters from Charles which leads to Stella thinking that Charles hasn’t bothered to write. Stella then ends up marrying Harry. We wanted to show in this section that Harry is intercepting the letters. We originally thought of having Ollie and Lorna run their dialogue and I enter as the ghost of Charles (as the real Charles is obviously at war) and place letters in Ollie’s pockets to show him intercepting them. However, when trying this out, we felt that not only was it difficult to do, but that it wasn’t clear that Ollie was intercepting the letters. Instead, I now go to hand Lorna the letters but Ollie takes them out my hand before they get to her. I attempt to ‘deliver’ four letters and then leave the last one on the table which Ollie takes.

Next lesson, we will work out the rest of the scene.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 12 - 06/03/17

Today we had an extra hour afterschool so that we could runthrough somethings with Taylor and Alice, so we got a lot done!

Firstly, after setting up the stage, we experimented with our idea of being able to go underneath the stage and go up onto the stage through the trapdoor as opposed to the walking back out through the entrance. We placed a ladder underneath the stage below the open trapdoor, placed warning signs around the trapdoor, and tested it. This worked incredibly well and this allowed us to be a lot more experimental with the way we have characters enter and exit. For example, if someone exits from the stage curtain, they can appear again from underneath the stage by climbing down the ladder which wouldn’t be visible by the audience at all!

We also worked out how Todd would cut throats in his chair and have the bodies exit slyly without the audience noticing. We’d have the victim die, the seat would be swivelled round so that the back is facing the audience, Todd would lift the sheet across his clients front and hold it up as if he were examining it. While the victim isn’t visible, he exits behind the curtain and when Todd lowers the sheet, he swivels the chair back round to show and empty seat ready for the next shave. The sheet works extremely well as before, when the victim left the chair they were seen from nearly all angles and although the audience would obviously know this is what was happening, it still looks unprofessional and we want to create a proficient performance.

We also completely blocked out “God That’s Good,” the opening to Act Two and introduces the recent illegitimate upgrade Mrs Lovett has made to her business. We had plenty of issues after our first idea but below is the finished plan.:

• Dan and Ollie K start sitting at the table and chairs in the centre, Rob by Sweeney’s chair, Lorna by Lovett’s counter, Ollie M (a spare cast member who has volunteered to step in for this scene) is sitting on the stage block staircase and James on the table Ollie and Dan are sitting at. We’d all be in a freeze frame besides James who starts addressing the audience with his opening “Ladies and gentlemen speech.” Once he finishes (“just inside of this door!”) we all unfreeze back into the now busy shop environment. James interacts with Dan and Ollie, taking their pies away from them, taking a bite from one and telling them all about Mrs Lovett’s business.
• On “Toby//Coming!//Ale there!” Alice and I enter from the main stage door into Mrs Lovett’s shop and Toby comes to us giving us pies and ale. On “nice to see you, dearie, how have you been keeping…” Alice and I are sitting on the stage block staircase and converse with Ollie and Lovett. During this Taylor, the beggar woman, will enter from the curtain and come towards us. On, “Toby! Throw the old woman out,” beggar woman gets a bit too close for comfort to me and Alice and James throws the old woman out.
• During, “Eat them slow…” Toby and Lovett serenade Dan and Ollie K, while I suggest to Ollie M that he goes to Todd’s parlour for a good shave. On, “Hold it- Bless my eyes,” everyone freezes excluding Lovett, Todd and Ollie M. Ollie M is midway through climbing the steps to Todd’s parlour and Lovett gets happy as this means more meat, which means more pies, which means more customers. Once Ollie M is greeted by Todd and Lovett starts singing again, everyone unfreezes and continues. Taylor makes her way back into the store and hinders Alice and I again and on “Toby” Throw the old woman out!” Toby removes Taylor once more and thus the end of the scene.

Below are the issues we encountered before:

• We originally had Ollie K, meet Todd for a shave and I and Dan in each other’s places: Dan with Alice, me with Ollie. However, we felt, although we’ll be out of costume, Ollie and I would look far too much like Turpin and Beadle and Ollie’s throat being slit with this misinterpretation in the audience’s mind would cause far too much confusion later when Beadle appears whom the audience would then already believe to be dead.
• Before, James entered from behind the audience but we felt that this didn’t work well for movement and having him up high on the table resembles quite well to his original “Ladies and gentlemen,” from Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir.
• We did have Taylor enter from the main stage door too but she wouldn’t be very noticeable by the audience as the stage block staircase is only 5 feet away from the door so her hindering Alice and I would be completely missed. Up on the stage however, she can be seen by all and James throwing her out is loud and easily seen also.

We also completed The Epiphany too! Before we weren’t sure of what we’d be able to do but as we had Taylor and Alice, we had a much better idea of what we could do. Below is what we have blocked:

• Rob jumps down from the stage on “Finished!” and the entire chorus enters the stage and walk from end to end in varying speeds as if we were on the streets of London; Taylor and Tom from underneath the stage, Alice and I from stage right, and Ollie and James from stage left.
• While walking, we all completely blank Todd out as we’re only visions in his head. Todd sings at us violently, threating us with his razors. On, “I will have vengeance,” we all stop and Todd looks up to the skies and sings in woe.
• On, “Who sir? You sir?” Todd comes up to our frozen bodies and threatens us; we ignore him completely. On, “Not one man…” we all exit in our pairs, James and Ollie stage right, Alice and I stage left, and Taylor and Tom under the stage. Whilst we do this sings to the skies again. On “And I will get him back…” Todd sings threateningly, swiping his knife outwards. On, “And my Lucy lies in ashes,” he falls to the floor and keens one last time.
• To end and transfer into A Little Priest, Lovett is stands at the top of the steps with Dan’s body and says her line.

We only had one real issue with this scene and that was whether we can have Dan in this scene. We originally wanted to have Dan as a chorus member but we realised this wouldn’t work for two reasons. Firstly, there isn’t any way he can be in this song and then be back up on the stage to be a dead body for A Little Priest. Secondly, he would need to be in costume for A Little Priest but in blacks for The Epiphany. So even if he could make it up to stage in time, he would need to quickly throw on his cape which isn’t enough time at all.

Finally, we went through the prologue with Alice and Taylor here to show them what they do and then ran it with them which went very well.

Single - Devised Unit (Ghost Stories) - Blog 13 - 03/03/17

Today we discussed our ideas for our final scene for our piece. Originally, our idea related to the media and how they represent body image for young women, however we felt that it was extremely similar to the scene based on the paparazzi as they both relate to the media haunting our main character.

We then came up with the idea of a woman (Lorna) being haunted by the guilt of remarrying and sees visions of her passed husband. We thought this suit very well to our stimulus as Lorna’s not only haunted by her guilt but she’s also seeing ghostly visions of her husband which really stays close to “Ghost Stories”.

• We started off by trying to devise movement but we thought that although we’re good with movement pieces, we can’t do a movement piece for every single scene as it doesn’t make our piece very diverse. We spent some deciding how we were to layout our story and below is a basic outline of the scene:
• Stella (Lorna) and Charles (Lewis) are happily married but Charles is conscripted to join the army. Charles reassures his wife and proceeds to leave for war. Throughout his absence, Stella waits and waits for a letter he’d promised he’d send.
• When she discovers her husband is dead, her childhood boyfriend and pal, Harry (Ollie) comes to help her get through her rough time. She eventually falls in love with this man but throughout the course of their relationship, she starts to see visions of her previous husband. Her guilt overwhelms her and we see her breakdown.

We said that next lesson, we will work on dialogue for our scene as we wanted this scene to be heavily dialogue based. We also wanted Rob to play the piano for this piece as we felt this would make the scene more effective if the underscore was played live. The song Rob’s playing is, “Comptine d’Un utre Été-Die fabelhafte Welt der Amélie Piano”.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 11 - 03/03/17 ADD VIDEO

Today we blocked everything for the quirky number, “By The Sea”. With this song we wanted to create an illusion, much like in The Epiphany, to show that this clearly isn’t reality. We experimented with ways we could show this but we wanted to do something different compared to cast members walking in and out of the scene which would simply be copying The Epiphany. We thought about using a sheet like the boat in the opening prologue but we felt that it wouldn’t work unless we had plenty of things to do with it. So we used one we already have and experimented with it to see what we could create with just one sheet. From this we came up with:

A swing:

A hammock:

Wedding canopy:

And water (obviously the sheet would have to be blue): 

Below is the outline of how the scene will go:

Lorna and Rob start upstairs in the barber shop and the song starts and Mrs Lovett is all over Todd. On, “Where I’d really like to go,” Ollie and I enter from the side and hold open a blue sheet facing the audience and James is walking behind it but only his upper body is visible and he is pretending to swim. Mrs Lovett and Todd also start walking down into what was once their pie shop.

On “By the sea, Mr Todd, that’s the life I covet”, Ollie and I lay the sheet on the floor and wave it around like it’s a river and James is splashing about it in childlike. Lorna then proceeds to join him and on Rob’s line, “Anything you say,” he steps into the river begrudgingly and has a small splash.

On, “Think how snug it’ll be…” the family step off of the sheet and Ollie and I lift it up and lay it on the stage block behind us which was a table in the pie shop before. By the line, “we’ll have chums over every Friday,” the family and Ollie and I are gathered around the table, which has the sheet as a homely tablecloth.

For the next verse, Ollie and I lift up the sheet and hold it over our shoulders as a swing again and Lorna pushes an unenthusiastic Rob as she sings about seagulls. On, “But a seaside wedding,” Rob hops down and Ollie and I hold the sheet above them as a wedding canopy and they stand as they are ready to be wed.

Below is a video of the final scene:

Single - Devised Unit (Ghost Stories) - Blog 12 - 02/03/17 ADD VIDEO

Today, we worked on Ollie’s motif scene’s as they haven’t been run in a while and we need to make at least one of them longer. We felt that the first one, where Ollie walks around the stage slowly, can’t be changed much as it is very simplistic. For the second one, the puppetry hand movements, we changed the movements slightly to make it more interesting and longer.

We changed it so that the doctor lifts up Ollie’s hand once and let’s go to let it fall, repeats this once more and then lifts up the hand and mimics tying a knot so the hand stays there. The doctor turns it over so it’s facing palm up and clenches their own fist twice which Ollie repeats. The doctor checks Ollie’s pulse on his wrist and then writes a note on their smartwatch. Whilst doing so, Ollie clenches his fist again, uncommanded. The doctor slowly looks at the fist.

For the third one, where Ollie names the colours he sees, we kept it the same as it didn’t really need changing. However, with the final scene, the one where we move Ollie’s head and kill him, we thought it looked a bit naff so we decided to try something different. We wanted something to fail so we’d have to “operate” on Ollie. The scene starts with Ollie on a table unconscious but with his eyes wide open. Rob, Lorna and I each have 3 movements we perform on Ollie in sequence with each which appear to be medical as we attempt to bring him back. For me, I continually lift up his legs and rotate his ankles. After our 3 move sequence, Rob mimes using a defibrillator to bring Ollie back to life but this fails. He shocks him 7 times, but only 3 Ollie reacts to, while the others, he lies there dead facing the audience with his eyes open still. All of us doctors exit and we leave a 10-15 second gap and Ollie will react a couple of times to the shocks despite them happening about 30 seconds ago. We the have the generator sound gets louder and as it gets louder the sound of the light fuzzing cuts out and we have a sound effect of a lightbulb smashing which is in sync with a blackout, thus the end of our entire piece. I think going through the motifs has made our piece so much more mature and is a lot more entertaining. Next lesson, we will work on our third and final scene! 

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 10 - 01/03/17 ADD VIDEO

Today, while Lorna, Rob and Dan continued on with A Little Priest, Ollie, Tom and I worked on Johanna.

In this song, Anthony ganders at the Johanna which angers Judge Turpin and he orders Beadle to “dispose of him”. We staged this so that Alice (Johanna) is standing on the right on the stage, locked away in her bedroom and Tom (Anthony is standing on the floor, just in front of her singing up to her. We realised that his back is facing the audience in this part which removes all the emotion so we have him looking upwards facing the audience as it’s still clear that he’s singing to her.

Ollie and I enter from under the stage as if we were just randomly walking and we stumble upon Anthony without him noticing and we walk closer inspecting him. On “I’ll steal you Johanna,” I look at Beadle and look back at Anthony which is a clear order to attack him. When Tom finishes singing, I cough to which he turns into a strike from Beadle’s cane. Fallen to the floor, Anthony is forced to face me by Beadle. After telling him to leave and never come back, I walk back to my home and talk with Johanna closely followed by Beadle after he threatens Anthony once more. We all exit excluding Anthony who sings his last verse and exits.

Below is a video of this scene and finally a finished “A Little Priest.” The only thing that needs to be done with A Little Priest is to rehearse the waltz midway through as this could do with improvement.