Workshop (10) - First 20 pages

Boat discussion, experiment & decision:   For the song after the Prologue, involving both Anthony and Sweeney, a boat is needed. The two pictures show the two ways we tried for this setting. Both images involve a sail being made with a red sheet, but we shall purchase a white sheet to use for the performance. Although the first boat idea required less people for it to work, we decided against it as we didn't think it looked as effective as the second boat. We came up with the second boat by using the sail idea but also from liking the idea of creating levels through the use of stage blocks. The first boat would have looked slightly better if the sail was facing the side too (but the photo shows us mainly experimenting with the use of the sail), but we couldn't create sides to our boat with just stage blocks, so we needed to use material. The second picture isn't exactly how we are doing our boat either, as the sail shall be a lot higher up. It is also a lot easier to set up the second boat, as the stage blocks are in the same position as the beginning of the show, for Sweeney's coffin. Instead of us all running off at the end of the Prologue, we shall now get the material together and get ready for the boat to be assembled. The boat appears in formation on the very last word of the prologue. We don't want it to be clear we are going to make a boat until it goes up. To show the boys getting out of the boat, I move to the far right stage block and hold the sail facing left, whilst the boys move their positions 90 degrees and lower the front down further. Meanwhile, the steps have been moved (by either Dan, Taylor or Alice) and put to the far left stage block, so Tom and Rob can just step off of the boat. The boat would then dismantle, as it were, and Tom and Rob would then sit on the stage blocks (that were within the boat) for the next scene.

"No Place Like London" - Todd solo:  This song happened whilst sitting on the stage blocks. Rob will sing the whole song sitting down to Tom. Meanwhile, there shall be the flashbacks presented behind them. We discussed having this happen in silhouette, but decided against it as wouldn't work in our performance space. We also discussed using projections but decided against this as we wanted to be more physical in our approach. A possibility would be to have Rob involved in the flashback movement whilst singing, but we thought this might over-complicate things. We decided that as James is of a similar build to Rob, he could wear the same costume and be Sweeney in the flashback movement - he'll just have to face away from the audience at all times during this. We didn't block this flashback today though as we do not have Taylor in our lessons (or Alice) as they are in the year below and their timetable does not fit with ours. Therefore, we skipped this song and shall come back to it at another stage.

The Pie Shop:   The pie shop setting shall be created during a frantic scene whilst Rob is singing his solo part to himself and during the music afterwards too. In this chaotic section, everyone shall be moving about in the scene and moving stage blocks and chairs around Rob to create different paths. The purpose of chaotic movement here is to present the chaotic streets of London, to show Sweeney travelling and to hide a scene change! Meanwhile, the entire time, I have been hiding behind what turns out to my counter / work-top in my shop. As we dismantled the boat after the boys got off it earlier, I ran stage left, putting the sail material over the top of the counter, and leaning the broom (which was the pole to give the sail its support) up against the side of the counter. I then remained hidden behind the counter up until my first line for "Worst Pies in London". There was no point trying to stage this number when I didn't know the song of by heart yet, and I also hadn't developed my character fully yet (which is essential for this song as it is definitely a character song). However, we knew that we wanted me to end sitting on a chair at the same table as Sweeney with my feet up. We ran through the scene after this and then into "Poor Thing". In this lesson, I sang the entire song sitting down whilst watching Sweeney move about the shop. I think this was quite nice as it showed my character as intently watching him to see how he reacts to everything I say. We then ran through the scene afterwards. It was very dry, as it was the first time we had done it - our characterisation was very weak but we shall be working on this next lesson. However, we changed setting in this scene - to get Rob into the room above shop, I literally pull him up the stairs to show him the razors.

Songs & Next Lesson:   So our show isn't ridiculously long, we shall be cutting parts of them, but using the movie versions of the majority of them. Next lesson, we shall workshop our characters more to establish how we are going to play them.