17/10/16-Single

This lesson we was introduced to the third scene of Mother Courage. I was put in a group with Alice, Amy and Will. Our group was short of people so we had to improvise with who we had. There were 5 characters to play however we only had 4 people. We decided I would play the amourer, Alice would play Mother Courage, Amy play Swiss cheese and Will would play Kattrin. I think the performance went well however when we was rehearsing, Will did find it difficult to try and play two characters. I think this is something we could have taken a different approach to if we were to perform this again. Also I don't think that there was enough energy in the performance to keep the audience engaged, perhaps this is something we need to focus on more as Mother Courage is all about energy and keeping the audience entertained. In the performance I did use an accent, this is because I want to try and distance myself from the character as much as possible so I don't feel like I'm portraying the character as myself, this will also help make the audience not develop any attachments to the character.
This lesson I learnt that I just need to make sure that I'm putting enough energy into the performance along with my cast.

17/10/16-Double

In this lesson we completed our Character profile. This task was set as unfortunately we were missing most of the cast again. The character profile had to consist of who our character was I.e. personality, past life, what part they play in the musical. My character profile can be seen below

After analysing my character I found that the song 'Ill cover you' and 'Today 4 U' both highlight the different traits of Angel as a character. 'I'll cover you' shows the loving and compassionate side of Angel whereas 'Today 4 U' highlights the fun and energetic side of Angel. Discovering the difference in the songs will allow me to portray Angel in the correct manner. I think I am going to try an convey these emotions using different tone in voice when singing.

This lesson I learnt of the difference between songs in the musical.

13/10/16-Double

In this lesson we sung the main numbers. Everyone was back in class apart from Henri as he was still absent from glandular fever. We sang through 'Seasons of love' and 'La vie Boheme'. I didn't have any problems performing these songs as I feel that I now know them well enough that the vocals come naturally to me. I was also introduced to the song 'Life support'. I immediately fell in love with this song as I know it has a deep emotional meaning. I think that this song will be great for me as I can convey emotion really well however it will be more difficult as I will be singing a song. As an actor you develop new skills all the tike so I think this will be a great skill for me when I'm portraying Angel in other songs. I was also introduced to a number called 'Santa Fe'. Me, Lewis and Cameron are in this song .The beat of this song is very calm and soothing, so I think this will be a nice transition from 'La vie boheme'. I start the number of with the lyric 'New York city', I found the timing of this lyric at the start very hard to remember this caused timing issues when practicing the song. This is something I need to practice at home.  For next lesson I need to make sure I know my timing in the number 'Santa Fe'. This lesson I learnt the skill of singing with emotion.

13/10/16-Single

This lesson we performed our poem to the class, ours was 'Jack and the beanstalk'. I think that the performance went well however it wasn't as slick as I'd liked it to be. But since we was only given two days, the amount we done in the short period of time was a lot. The general feedback from the audience, who were my classmates, was positive. This is because I think I put lots of energy into my accent which was Scottish. I think this made the performance more engaging for the audience and funny aswell. If I was to perform this poem again. I think we could take a different approach to the poem perhaps we could have had the roles gendered so the mother would be Chloe instead of me being the mother. This could perhaps of made it easier for the audience to understand who is who. We could have also used more Brechtian techniques like using Gestus to portray the beanstalk.   This lesson also coincided with Open morning, this meant that parents and children were coming into our lesson to view what we were doing. This was really helpful as it was a new audience rather than my classmates. My group was chosen to perform the first 2 minutes of our performance. As i was performing I was looking at the parents and children's faces, they all seemed to be engaged and enjoying the performance. This is key if I want to perform well in mother courage, I need to make sure I put this much energy into Mother Courage to make my performance engaging. 

This lesson I learnt that if I keep putting lots of energy into a performance it will end up making it engaging for the audience.

12/10/16-Double

This lesson we performed our numbers that we practiced last lesson to the class however this time we received criticism from classmates and teachers. My most common critique was that my last note in 'I'll cover you' needed to have a smoother transition between octaves as i go an octave higher on the last lyric which is 'you'. I think this still needs practice as I haven't been singing for long so my voice is most likely not been trained enough yet. Me and Lewis were both given the criticism that the staging was very awkward between us. I think this is something we need to work on in our time as this will take a lot of time getting use to. The duet is not the only time we interact so we need to make sure that staging is not awkward between us throughout the musical. The only criticism  I was given for 'Today 4 U' was the staging again, the vocals were 'perfect', just the staging I need to figure out what I am going to do when i'm singing. I also sung this song in heels which was quite a challenge itself, however I soon got the hang of it. Henri was still off due to glandular fever which meant that Taylor had to sing 'Light my candle' with an understudy.
This lesson I have learnt what I need to focus on to improve my weaknesses into strengths.

11/10/16-Single

In the first part of this lesson we was introduced to Gestus. Gestus is a Brechtian acting technique which is a combination of physical gestures and attitudes. We was given 10 minutes the titles 'Kind politician' and 'Destructive politician'. I think most of us in our group spent too long thinking of ideas than actually doing anything, this put us behind the other group. when it came to presenting our Gestus, I don't think our Gestus was the best it could of been. We then moved on to story telling. We had to sit in a circle. A person would start a story and going anti clockwise we needed to expand the story. Once completed we then had to complete the story again but this time make what we engaging. I think this came naturally to me as I find it easy to become engaging. For the last part of the lesson we was given a poem by Roald Dahl. I was in a group with Cameron, Chloe and Warren. We was given the poem 'Jack and the beanstalk'. I think there was many things we could have done with this poem to make it engaging. We decided as a group that we would use paper to illustrate to the audience what was really going on. For example Cameron had a piece of paper on him saying 'I'm the giant', this makes the performance cheesy and engaging for the audience.
This lesson i learnt what a Gestus was and how we can apply it to Mother Courage.

10/10/16-Single

In this lesson we went through scene 2 of Mother Courage. I was in a group with Taylor, Warren and Will. In this scene. I was playing Eilif, Taylor was playing Mother Courage, Will was playing the cook and Warren was playing the sergeant. The scene contains the Sergeant and Eilif are eating dinner, Mother Courage and the Cook are preparing their dinner. We thought it would be best if we split the stage in half. One side was the tent where me and warren were going to have dinner. In this scene there was a song sung Eilif, to make it fun we thought it would be a good idea to rap the song instead. To create the beat to the rap we decided that we would use items that each character would have. We decided that Mother Courage would have a pot and spoon and The cook would have a tray and knife and the Sergeant would have a pen. I think that hardest part of the rap was finding a beat to rap to. Warren found himself very out of beat, This was probably because everyone was out of time and it was hard to keep up to the beat. I also found it difficult to rap to as the beat was also of key it just wasn't clicking. After help and practice we soon got the hang of it. The acting in this scene was very straight forward and we didn't have any problems with it. I think overall when we performed the scene to the class it went well, everyone was engaged and found the rap funny which is what we wanted.
When we perform another scene form mother courage we need to make sure we keep this energy up to keep the audience engaged.
I didn't learn anything new this lesson apart from what happens in Scene 2 of Mother Courage.

10/10/16-Double

In today's lesson we practiced our own solo and duet numbers. I practiced 'Ill cover you' with Lewis who plays Collins and i also practiced 'Today 4 U'. When we was practicing today for you I found it hard to hit the notes near the end. I think this was partly due to confidence although i was confident when singing 'La vie boheme' and 'Seasons of love', I was with a group of people  I felt the pressure to perform well was shared. Whereas pressure is on only me and Lewis, I think this idea scared me a little which decreased my confidence. Because of this, it made my singing seem forced and I wasn't confident enough in my voice to push myself and reach the notes at the end of 'Ill cover you'. Where the note was forced it wasn't as smooth as I needed it to be so my teacher said I just need to make sure that the note is softer. I need to practice singing this song to make sure I can train my voice to reach the notes. I can hit every note in 'Today 4 U' so I didn't have any problems practicing this song.
We are performing this to the class next lesson so i need to make sure I practice singing 'Ill cover you'.
This lesson I learnt what my weakness is and that is confidence, I need to build up my confidence in order to turn it into a strenght

06/10/16-Double

In this lesson we ran through the numbers 'La vie boheme'  and 'Seasons of love'. We was missing almost half of the cast so it was really hard to go through the main numbers. Henri had caught glandular fever so he was absent fir this lesson. Also I think everyone was lacking effort as they probably felt it wasn't a proper rehearsal as people were missing. I found the lesson to become very tedious as it went on as I felt I was only putting in the effort when singing. Also I had the feeling that some people were tired, this could of been why they were not putting much effort into singing and staging.
We wasn't introduced into anything new so we didn't learn anything new. I think for next lesson when we have everyone back again we need to make sure we all have lots of energy so we're ready to perform straight away. We could participate in a physical and vocal warm up to help this.

06/10/16-Single

In this lesson we performed scene 1 of 'Mother Courage' to the class. This was in the groups we was placed in when we was first introduced to the play. We was given the task of applying what we had researched about WW2 to the play. I do not think we applied our research correctly as the performance was just the same when we performed it to the class. If we was to perform this scene again I think our group should focus on getting to know our characters better. This would allow us to know how we should portray our characters to make them more understandable to the audience. However at the same we need to make sure the audience do not make emotional connections to the character which is what Brecht wanted his plays to be like. If we want to portray Brechtian style then I think this is something that we need to focus on. I also think that I was not confident enough when portraying Mother Courage. I think this made the performance lack effort and just made it really boring for the audience.
This lesson I have learnt that i need to make sure I understand the character and that i am confident when portraying them, this will allow me to be engaging.

5/10/16-Double

This lesson we practiced staging 'La vie Boheme'. This song is the second major number in the play 'Rent' that contains all cast members. Staging this song was quite difficult as we needed to make sure everyone can be seen on stage and no one is masked by anyone. As the song is set in a restaurant it was decided by the director that we should all be sitting down at tables. Maureen (Alice), Joanne (Lorna) on one table, Mimi (Taylor), Angel (Me) and Collins (Lewis) on another table and finally Rodger (Henri), Mark (Cameron) on another table. Benny (Will) is on his own table at the back. The waiter who is played by Tyler is running around the restaurant to create a busy atmosphere, he needed to do this anyway as he was singing our orders as he takes them.There was also another part of the song I had to character sing, I did find this a little hard as I had to character sing this part and its difficult to remember, however I did set the task to myself that I need to go over the lines of the character singing and practice it at home.
This lesson I didn't learn anything new apart from the staging of the number La vie Boheme.

4/10/16-Single

This lesson was mostly theory as it was based on research. We was set the task of creating a PowerPoint/ word document of a historical war that we could apply to 'Mother Courage'. I was in a group with Alice and Joe. We decided we would apply World War 2 to Mother courage. An image that was of a bombed house in World War 2 made us think that this is why Mother courage could be travelling with her cart, because her house was destroyed and this is why she and her family have been made refugees. Also we came across picture of children being evacuated, this made us think that possibly Mother Courage's children could in fact be evacuees and not her real children. There were many other wars we could have researched and potentially applied to Mother Courage however we felt that World War 2 was a perfect fit for the era and style of play. As this was a Bertolt Brecht play, he could have been portraying what it was like in Nazi Germany using some of his experience when he was fleeing Germany. Even though it wasn't set in 1930's Germany, we know how Brecht set his plays in different eras so he couldn't be caught by the Nazi's for discriminating Hitler's actions
This lesson I didn't really learn anything new as we was just applying the play to a war.

 

3/10/16-Single

This lesson we just repeated what we done last lesson which was Mother Courage. We was shown a video of another We got into our previously assigned group I was playing Mother Courage. I think this was a challenging character as it is the opposite sex. However this is a way to portray Brechtian theatre as he used cross sex rolling. I had to focus on my movement as I had to make sure it was feminine. I'm quite feminine in my actual movement anyway so this was already easy for me. Also the facial expressions and posture soon came quickly to me. When we was rehearsing we decided that we should create levels to make the scene less boring for the audience so we created mother courage's wagon with table and chairs. We had Alice, who was playing Kattrin, on top as we wanted some focus on her even though she doesn't say anything. This way the audience wouldn't get emotionally involved in the characters. We rehearsed this the whole lesson as we needed to make sure that we all knew what we were doing.


This lesson I learnt how I need to portray Mother Courage as a character without the audience becoming too emotionally invested.

03/10/16-Double

This lesson we just practiced 'Seasons of Love' and was introduced to a new number in the musical. We needed to make sure that we all knew where we was situated on the stage as we all come into the song from the wings. Although whilst on the stage we also needed to make sure our vocals were up to musical standards as well. So we decided that we would be our best if we completed a vocal warm up. We completed a physical warm-up as well, this included press-ups and sit ups and stretching. We also completed a lot facial exercises  like moving our jaw a lot to reduce tension when we are singing. This would allow us to sing more freely without feeling a strain on our throats. Then we completed a range of vocal warm-ups, this included "Sally saw" and moving up and down octaves to train our voices. We was also introduced to the number 'La vie Boheme'. This song contained all cast members, it is also a really upbeat and fun song so we need to make sure we put a lot of energy into the song otherwise it will be boring and dull for the audience. The introduction was only brief so we was told we needed to learn our parts in the song at home. Here is the song if you have not heard of it before:

29/09/16-Double

This lesson was mostly performance. We was fully introduced to the first song of the musical (Rent). The song was called 'Seasons of Love'. At first we just sung the song without any movement as we needed to focus on the harmonies of the song first. Once we had completed this our teacher decided that we needed to start staging the song. He decided that we should all enter from the wings of the stage before we start to sing. Then we stand at different angle to try and make some sort of differentiation between every character, basically so the staging doesn't look boring to the audience. Once we had figured out the staging there was still something not right with the harmonies according to the teacher. He decided that I should sing in a higher octave as I could reach the notes some of the girls were hitting. This actually made the harmonies better as there was a balance in the vocals.

This lesson I wasn't really introduced to anything new so I couldn't learn anything new. However I learnt the lyrics to 'Seasons of Love'. Here is the song if you have never heard of it before.

29/09/16-SIngle

Today in this lesson it was again theory based. We presented our presentation to the class, I think we presented our presentation very well as the everyone was engaged. After we presented ours we had to watch other people present theirs. I listened to make sure any I didn't know about i could write down. Once everyone had presented their presentation, our teacher had their own presentation that they showed us. This was full of extra information about Brecht and his past that we did not know about. For example Brecht escaped Nazi Germany when he was young and fled to America. After this we was introduced to a play by Brecht which was 'Mother Courage'. We was put into a group of 5 which was Joe, Alice, Hugh, Callum and me. I was going to play Mother Courage as Brecht was a fan of cross gendering actors. Alice was going to play Kattrin. Hugh was going to play the sergeant with Joe playing the Recruiter. Finally Callum was going to play Eillif. We briefly touched performing our scene we was given as it was the end of the lesson.


This lesson I have learnt that Brecht influenced Epic Theatre. Brecht used his technique to develop his Epic theatre. One of his most famous technique is breaking the fourth wall. This is where they make the audience realise they are still watching a play and they don't create emotional connection with characters.

28/09/16- Double- Character Profile- Angel

Today I found out that I was picked to play the part of Angel in our musical that were doing for our unit, musical theatre.




Angel is one the main characters in the musical and most probably the most memorable. Some characters refer to Angel as He and She. Angels gender is never confirmed in the musical however some believe him/her to be gender fluid and some believe Angel to be transgender . Angel is HIV positive and finds love with Collins after finding him beaten up on the floor. They both attend a group Life support meeting for people with HIV. This is where their relationship develops further. Angel is a very loving and caring throughout the play. Angels role in Rent is tot teach the others about love and how it is the most important thing. Angels and kindness and charity instantly reaches the heart of anyone he reaches.


Towards the end of the lesson we briefly listened to 'Seasons of love' and went over who and how we were going to sing the song all together.


Today I didn't learn anything new apart form getting the character of Angel.

27/09/16- Single

This lesson was again mostly theory based. We was set the task of creating a PowerPoint from our research we had collected between lessons. However we had to get into groups of three, I was in a group with Taylor and Alice. We had find out information about Brecht some of these was his intentions with his plays. For example, His intentions was to try and portray social and political problems that was occurring during the society of his time. It was mostly Anti-War plays he created, one f his most famous anti-war plays is 'Mother Courage'. Other information had to include Brecht's Techniques and some History of his background. We are going to present these presentation on Thursdays lesson.


I didn't really learn anything new form this lesson apart from information from researching  about Brecht. A

Brecht

26/0916-Single

In this lesson we didn't do any performance based activities, it was all theory based. We was put into a group of 4 and we had to come up with skills that every actor needs in every stage of their career. Some of these stages were 'Auditioning', 'Performing' and 'Rehearsals'. Some of the skills we came up with can be seen in the photos below.

 

After we had completed this task we was then ask as groups to put all our ideas together so we would be able to take down any skills we did not currently have. There was some new skills that i took down like 'Ability to take criticism', this is crucial as an actor as you need to understand that not everyone is going to like your acting however you need to be able to improve your acting if it needs work, this is also called Constructive criticism.

Right at the end of the lesson we was given the task of researching some information about Brecht for our next lesson.

This lesson i have learnt all the necessary skills that are needed throughout the stages of an actors career.

26/09/16-Double

This lesson we auditioned for our parts, as previously said I am going for the part of Angel. I think that the audition went really well, vocally I think I hit the right notes at the right time. However I don't think I was portraying Angel correctly. I don't know why, I just didn't feel a connection when I was performing as Angel I think this would be something I should work on if i was to get the part of Angel. I was asked to perform only perform one song so of course i chose to perform 'Today for you' as this is the character i really wanted and the character i could portray the best. I even wore a bra, if that doesn't say commitment to a audition I don't know what does. Before I auditioned I needed help to walk more feminine, so a girl in my class called Lorna helped me do this. We practiced to the song, Today for you. I didn't really learn anything new this lesson as it was only auditions apart from learning how to walk more feminine.