Single - Devising Unit (Ghost Stories) - Blog 7 - 31/01/17

Today we decided to scrap what we came up with yesterday as we felt that it was very basic and needed more thought put into it. Although we will keep in mind the good things we can take away from what we created such as the fade in/out of the lights to represent the passage of time.
We then started working on our scene for the suicide scene. We wanted this to be a physical section but not dance-y. Although something like an extravagant dance would look nice, we didn’t think it would be very effective at portraying the emotions of our character. We wanted to show not only how the murder of Lee Rigby haunts Danny but how his previous life events affect him mentally too. 

Below is the movement we came up with. 

• The piece begins with Rob sat at a table with a notepad, trying to write his suicide note as Danny Cornelius. Ollie, Lorna and I are scattered across the stage in different places and levels looking depressed; Lorna on the floor, me on a chair and Ollie standing on a chair. This is to show the elevating levels of Danny’s depression.
• Rob performs a short monologue where Danny asks himself what does one put in a suicide note. When this monologue ends, Rob stands and Lorna sits where he once was whilst Ollie and I take our chairs we were using to the back.
• The music transitions into a slower beat so Ollie and I walk back into the scene quite robot like, taking one step or performing one action per beat. The setting has changed into a shop and we Ollie and I pick up a few items and place them on the counter for Lorna to scan. This is all very abstract movement despite being a naturalistic setting. I exit the store first and then stop midway across the stage, Ollie then catches up and once we’re level, I stick out my arm in front of his chest, we both squat and as we rise I turn to face him.
• I push his chest and tug at this chain, which Ollie then takes off and gives to me. I push him away slightly and I hold out my knife arm threateningly. I then walk off briskly towards the table and Ollie walks off in the opposite direction. By this point Lorna has set up the table so it’s on its side facing stage right. During this entire shop section, Rob has relevant speech relating to what’s happening.
• I walk over to the turned table as the Danny now and interact with it as if it were a cash machine. Lorna enters from the back and looks towards me she steps backwards until we’re back to back and she raises her gun up to my head. Ollie is standing behind the table and for the next 10 seconds, he rises hands me money, I lift my arm over my head and give it to Lorna. After these 10 seconds, she turns to face me, pushes me and runs off. Ollie and I lower the table down so that the legs are facing upwards, and during this whole section Rob again has relevant speech.
• Ollie and I stand in front of the table at either end facing each other and Lorna is on her knees on the table; representing Lee Rigby. Using hand puppetry, we both manipulate Lorna. We raise up each of her arms and throw them down, we raise her up by her shoulders then let her droop down, I lift her up by her chin and have her face left. She then goes into a sort of back bend and Ollie slits her throat where she falls to her knees facing back to the right.
• Ollie steps further away and pulls her forward off of the table and laying face up. We circle her and then Ollie mimes handing me a knife. I stab her 3 times piercing her stomach and as I connect with her stomach her torso and legs lift up. Ollie and I then lift her up but through her down almost immediately.
• We finish the murder section by Ollie stabbing her a few more times resulting in her death. During this torture scene, Rob lifts the table back up to normal and continues speaking.
• We then have a blackout and when the lights come back up Rob is standing in front of the table with Ollie and I standing to the side of it holding rope across Rob’s neck. Rob “finishes his suicide note” and then Lorna, standing behind Rob on the other side of the table, pulls his head down and Ollie and I lower down which leads to Rob falling back onto the table dead.

Next lesson, we will try to collect ideas on what our third main scene should be about.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 4 - 30/01/17

Today we spent the lesson workshopping a few scenes which only a few of us are in. Whilst Rob and Lorna worked on the scene between Mrs Lovett’s Meat Pies and My Friends and James worked Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir, Ollie and I worked on the dialogue before Ladies and Their Sensitivities and the song itself. This entails the court scene, Turpin telling Beadle of his intentions on marrying Johanna and Beadle telling Turpin of Todd’s barber shop. Below is the outline for blocking of this scene:

• Ollie and I stand on the stage by the black flats during the court scene, on “Court adjourned,” we start walking down the steps.
• We perform the rest of the section walking around the floor as if we’re walking through the streets of London.

Upon performing this scene for the first time to the group, there was one thing that was made clear to us: we were lacking a lot in characterisation. We were told to think about our characters, and think why they are saying what they’re saying, how they’d say it, and how they would stand while saying it. We agreed that we should both spend some time discussing how we will play our characters.

In terms of voice, I am a big fan of how Alan Rickman played the role, however, this is the same tone of voice that he uses for most of his characters so I felt that I needed something more personal for this character. I began to think of how I wanted my character to sound; Judge Turpin is clearly a very intelligent and rich man to be able to be a judge so this needs to be reflected in his voice with a rich dialect. He’s also very sinister; sentencing a young boy to death by hanging after frequent petty crimes isn’t necessary at all. I feel a deep voice will be very effective at portraying this. After this, I began to envision this character sounding a lot like Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, very deep voice and very self-dignified. This is how I am intending on playing my role as Turpin.

For movement, I feel that Turpin would be very slow as he is so powerful as an individual that he doesn’t need to worry about what speed he walks at. I feel like his movement would be very direct too as he’s very driven towards marrying Johanna which I feel would make him a motivated person in all aspects of life including his movement. He would also walk freely as he is the Judge whom everyone fears; no one’s going to tell him what to do as he has power over most people in London.

After keeping this in mind, we performed our scene again and our feedback was a lot more positive. After thinking about our character more, this allowed us to portray them more believably.
Next lesson, we will work on blocking Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir and The Contest.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 3 - 27/01/17

Today we started blocking the section which follows the prologue right up to "Mrs Lovett's Meat Pies." This involved the creation of Anthony's ship, the travel to the pie shop and the pie shop scene itself as well as the transitions which come with it. We decided, however, to save the travelling through London section for when we had everyone, including Taylor, Dan and Alice, so that we can properly devise rather than say that, for example Taylor would do this and Alice would... etc.

We began workshopping how we'd like to represent the boat which I had prepared an idea for prior to the lesson. I thought that when we scarper during the prologue, some of us would go to the stage block staircase and take it apart it to create the boat. The two large blocks would be turned on their sides so that the tops are facing the audience, this would happen to the smaller block also and then the final two-step block would stand at the end to create the peak of the boat. Tom and Rob would stand behind these blocks as if it were the side of the boat. We also wanted to have the sails as well so we placed the blocks closer to the stage and had James sit with a pole on the stage. Attached to the pole was a sheet of material which Ollie and I both wave either side by holding an end and standing behind the sheet. This is what this version of the ship looked like:

However, we thought this looked very basic and that it could also be mistaken for a train (this was Rob's initial thought when seeing the block layout). We also thought that we could be a lot more creative with this task so we put our heads together and thought of something else.

We next, tried to think of a way that is more fluid in terms of transitioning from the prologue. We wanted to create a way of making it possible for Rob to stay where he is for the entire of the transition so his coffin is almost transformed into the ship. We replicated our idea of using material and used a large sheet of black material to portray the ship. We attached a pole to the centre and had James sit at the foot of the coffin holding it upright, then Ollie and I would grab either end and stand behind the coffin and to the side. When trying this, we felt that Tom and Rob were tiny inside the ship and you could only see them from the collar bone upwards. This is the blocks used for the coffin were too small. We resolved this by using the bigger blocks and having a smaller one at the front for James to sit on during the prologue and the ship scene. This elevated Tom and Rob much more so you can their bodies more but not too much of them. Below is how this looked:

We wanted this ship to look as impressive as possible so having as much of the chorus hidden as possible would be essential in achieving this effect. We hid Ollie and I by having us sit at the head of the coffin/the back of the ship and still holding up the sheet. Lorna, at this point is holding the sail pole up so that Alice, Taylor and Dan can stand behind it and wave the sail. Below is a photo of the final boat:

For the section where Sweeney steps off of the ship with Anthony and they part ways, we wanted to cleverly dismantle the boat as opposed to just taking it offstage. When Rob starts walking down, Ollie and I stand in line with James who also stands and we arrange our sheet as if Rob and Tom are walking down a staired plank to the pier/dock; Ollie would raise his side up higher, I would lower my side down and James would find the midpoint and keep it as one straight line. Once Rob and Tom are down on the docks, Ollie and I let go of the sheet and go under the stage and James follows carrying the sheet. We wanted to have it so that we can use the trapdoor behind the curtain so that we can travel from underneath the stage straight to behind the curtain. However, this involves having a stepladder underneath the trapdoor which may cause health and safety issues. We will have this worked out by next lesson.

We finished the lesson by Lorna and Rob working on Mrs Lovett's Meat Pies with James helping and Ollie and I went off to read through some of the Turpin and Beadle's dialogue to get ourselves more familiar with the characters and their scenarios. Next lesson, we will work on the dialogue before Ladies And Their Sensitivities and the song itself while Lorna and Rob work on their scene.

Single - Devising Unit (Ghost Stories) - Blog 6 - 26/01/17

Today, we worked out how we would portray an alternative to 9/11 and changed our mind on abortion.

After researching Rob brought forward the idea of Lee Rigby, a man who was slaughtered in the streets by Islamic State supporters. Rob will be performing a monologue written as Danny Cornelius, a witness of the murder of Lee Rigby. Below is the research we found:

"A man haunted by seeing Lee Rigby hacked to death in the street was found hanged, an inquest heard. Danny Cornelius, 38, was described as an isolated man during the hearing. Unemployed, single and childless, he would often stay at his grandparents' home in Elwill Way, Istead Rise, Gravesend. The court heard that he was a victim of two armed robberies as a young man. Firstly as a teenager, his gold chain was stolen at knifepoint, and on another occasion just a couple of years later he was forced to withdraw money from a cashpoint and hand it over, on both occasions by young black men. After that he began to suffer with paranoid schizophrenia, and when his friends started to get married and have children he became disconnected from them."

While Rob wrote his monologue, the rest of us discussed our ideas on the topic of abortion. Although we thought that abortion is a very interesting idea to go with and there are lots of ideas we could test out, we decided to choose something else as abortion is a very touchy subject which may offend some people in the audience. We thought that domestic abuse would be a good idea to go with as it is something that is a recurring issue and it's something we felt more comfortable to perform.

We began discussing a short storyline for the scene:

• A couple (Lorna and Lewis) start of very happy, but soon, Lewis starts becoming impatient due to work stress and is suggested that he becomes violent once or twice.
• In the end, Lewis leaves Lorna. Distraught, she can't believe what's happened to her and decides to blame herself for him leaving her. This leaves her socially awkward and afraid of starting a relationship.

We wanted to have a slow movement piece featuring many tableaux showing the stages of their relationship. Below is our movement:

• Lights up, Lorna and Lewis are standing next to each other and they embrace. Fade to black.
• Lights up, the pair are lying down at a picnic, Lewis feeds her a strawberry, fade to black.
• Lights up, the pair are getting married, with Rob as the priest, fade to black.
• Lights up, Lewis is on his computer sending emails etc. Lorna comes to spend time with Lewis but he tells her to go away, fade to black.
• Lights up, the pair greet a male friend, Ollie, Lewis goes for a firm handshake whereas Lorna goes for a very friendly handshake. Noticing the pair look very happy chatting, he pulls her closer to him quite aggressively, fade to black.
• Lights up, Lewis is on the phone to a work colleague and has a notepad to write down info, Lorna enters trying to talk to him and but he, like, last time tells her to leave, fade to black.
• Lights up, Lewis is talking to Lorna and telling her that things aren't working so he doesn't want to be with her. Distraught, Lorna tries to persuade Lewis to stay but he has already made his mind up and exits, fade to black.

After this we discussed the idea of having a scene afterwards where Lorna is at work and a colleague asks her if she'd like to go out for drinks with him, but she ends up rejecting this because she's scared of this potential boyfriend leaving her later down the line.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 2 - 25/01/17

Today we began working on the prologue for Sweeney Todd! We first mind mapped ideas on how we'd want to perform the prologue and below are our ideas:

We decided to try the idea of a funeral as this foreshadows the death of Sweeney. Once we arrive at the coffin, we will turn to the audience and arrange ourselves in a V formation. On the line, "Hold it to..." we all sharply look to the right and slowly drift back to looking forwards. On the line, "Freely flows..." we all raise our arm sharply and lower it back down slowly. We then remain still throughout.

Below is a video of this version of the prologue:

Although we spent quite a lot of time on this prologue, we felt that it was far too simple to the point of it being rather boring. It doesn't do much to represent the story and we feel that we could devise something better. Also, we agreed that lifting the coffin to the stage would be too difficult to do whilst singing.

We began to look at our alternative idea of having us enter from different areas of the stage space. We wanted to make this impactful though, having character entrance points mean something. Although we're not our characters at this point, besides Rob, the audience would relate us as actors to our main characters. This led to us discussing how we'd stage some of our later scenes so that we can place characters entry points in the prologue.

With the ability to use the steel decking we wanted to put Sweeney's barber shop up higher as it not only is above Mrs Lovett's Meat Pies but also to highlight it's importance. We thought it would be effective to have Dan enter from Todd's shop as Pirelli is the first character to die at the hands of Sweeney. We wanted Judge Turpin's house to also be up high so we placed this section on the other side of the stage but without Steel decking; this is where I would enter. We wanted to Taylor and Lorna to enter from below the stage as they are two of the most mysterious characters in the show. We wanted Ollie and Alice to enter from behind the audience as Alice's character would be kept as far away from anything as possible by Judge Turpin and Ollie's character is often told to keep an eye on her. We wanted Tom to enter from the side of the stage space as he enters the story very conveniently so we wanted this to reflect in his initial entrance to the stage. Finally James wouldn't enter at all but start sitting on top of the coffin as he plays Tobias, the murderer of Sweeney, so we thought this would be effective to have him start sitting on the coffin, foreshadowing the events to come.

Below is a diagram of all the entry and exit points:

During this new prologue, we have James sing the first two lines and then Tom and Dan enter and finish the verse with James. Next, Lorna sings the first line of the next verse and I enter and sing the next line. Then everyone else enters and sings the rest of the verse. By this point everyone is by the coffin lying on the floor with the foot facing the audience. We all lower down to crouching and watch the coffin intently. James stands up and faces the audience. On, "swing you razor..." James raises his hand up as if he's holding a razor and the rest of us slowly stand and look at the knife. On, "hold it to..." James mimes throwing the knife to the right and the rest of us sharply turn to face the audience as opposed to the knife. We sing the rest of the chorus to the audience and during this Rob stands. When Rob starts singing Sweeney's solo section, we all scarper to our original places and finish the song.

 Below is a video of this version of the prologue:

I feel that this version of the prologue is a far sight better than our previous version as it not only foreshadows events to come and reference to our characters, but it just looks more interesting and is more fun to watch.

Next lesson, we will work on the next section up to "The Worst Pies in London."

Single - Devised Unit (Ghost Stories) - Blog 5 - 24/01/17

Today we redesigned the motif idea and discussed what else we could have for our three main bulky scenes.

For the motif scene we wanted to use typical things that psychiatrists would do to examine mentally scarred patients. We wanted to start off with the original scene of me walking across the room following Ollie with a clipboard. Below are the three other motif scenes we want to have:

• Ollie is sitting in a chair and a doctor would use hand puppetry to lift up Ollie's arm and test his hand by clenching and unclenching his fist to be sure he still "works".
• Ollie stands in the centre of the room and doctor stands beside him with a clipboard. The lighting in the room would change from white to a colour and then Ollie would name that colour and it would switch to another. This would be in a very dead and monotoned voice, said quite slowly with plenty of pause between the colour change and the naming of the colour; this is testing Ollie's perception.
• Ollie is standing in the centre and a doctor is standing beside him. They move behind Ollie and turn his head with their hands, first looking left, right then up and down. If this were to be final scene, we'd have the doctor step back from Ollie and the light would fade to black. Once there is a black out, there'd be short flash of light back to a black out in which a bone cracking sound effect sounds, and Ollie twists his head to the side making it look like he's breaking his neck.

We then discussed the ideas we had for our first scene. We first thought that terror can haunt a person for a long time so we linked this to terrorism and to different bombings. We originally wanted to base this on the monologue from the play Eight which is about a man who gives 10p to someone so they can buy a Mars Bar, this is the same man who leaves the shop and goes on to blow up a bus; the 7/7 bombings. We then went on to the idea of 9/11 as I didn't think we should base our piece off of another play as that ruins the originality of our piece and it wouldn't be as creative. Next lesson, we will report this to Ollie and start working on the bombings scene.

Triple - Musical Theatre Unit (RENT) - Evaluation - 23/01/17

Rent Evaluation:

Act One:

Opening (Tune Up #1, Voicemail #1, Tune Up #2, Rent):

I felt that the opening was very strong and conveyed the emotions of our characters very well to begin with. My entrance was noticeable although I feel I needed more volume to be heard over the music. This is because I am standing next to the speaker at this point so if I were to perform this again, I would either stand further away from the speaker or sing louder.

Today 4 U/You'll See:

I feel that Today 4 U went very well! We had lots of energy and we all interacted with each other well when Owen comes on as Angel. During You’ll See, Owen and I looked very lost throughout as we didn’t have many lines. Also at the end when we’re all supposed to say “We’ll see” only Cameron does so as the rest of us forgot. Besides this, the rest of the song went very well.

Life Support/Another Day/Will I?:

For Life Support, Cameron managed to get the timing right for the fast section at the beginning which kept spirits high throughout this section. Everyone in the chorus could be heard during Another Day when we sing “I can’t control...” For Will I?, Henri and Owen left the stage at the right time which had been an issue a few times in rehearsal.

Santa Fe/I'll Cover You:

This part of RENT was probably the best section for me as my character. Santa Fe was full of energy and showed off my full range of vocal abilities. The movement was purposeful which stopped the number being forced.

I’ll Cover You was simply flawless. This was the best time we’d ever done it before with nice sounding harmonies, romantic movement and a believable kiss to end it.

Act Two:

La Vie Boheme/Happy New Year:

La Vie Boheme was a very impressive opening to Act Two with plenty of energetic movements. However, when it came to the “...brothers” section, Owen and I looked very awkward as when we kissed, we staggered before doing so making it look forced.

Happy New Year was purposeful and had plenty of movement which represented mood of the scene. Our separation between certain characters and our spacing displayed our relationships very well.

Without You/I'll Cover You (Reprise):

Without You was, in my opinion, one of the best numbers in the entire show. Taylor and Henri’s singing mad the scene extremely emotional as well as the miming in the background of the scene. Despite being non-verbal, our movement scene did well to display the emotions of the scene, not to mention the conflict between Maureen and Joanne and Benny’s redemption.

I’ll Cover You (Reprise) was the best it’s ever been. I feel I conveyed a great deal of emotion through this song and my facial expressions supported this. Towards the end, I lost volume as I went too high and I started to crack but I pulled this off into stuttering and crying which I felt worked well.

Goodbye Love/Seasons of Love:

At the last minute, I changed how I enter in Goodbye Love from walking in slowly into a run. This shows that I could hear my friends arguing from some sort of distance. I feel that my tone of voice during scene shows my disgust towards my friends and could possibly reveal that I leave my friends. This, of course, unconfirmed in our version as we end at Goodbye Love.

Seasons of Love was also very good! It was a brilliant ending to the rollercoaster of emotions which is RENT!

General Notes:

• Due to technical difficulties, the mobile phone used for the music in the performance received multiple notifications throughout the show which were sounded over the speakers which not only played a tone, but lowered the volume of the song playing at the time while the tone sounds.
• There were some errors regarding set/props such as two blocks being brought on for Owen to stand on during I’ll Cover You (Reprise) and props being left on the table after Will I? when they needed to be removed for Santa Fe.