Entrances: We had a long discussion on where everyone should enter. We discarded the idea of James entering from the side door to the hall and performing on the floor, because we felt it didn't grab people's attention enough - we want this song to be very catchy as its purpose is to advertise and persuade people to buy the elixir. For this reason, we wanted this number to be quite different, so we tried having James enter from under the stage. This would have been good because it was different, but we didn't think it was as eye-catching and attention-grabbing as the second idea we tried out. We tried and decided on having James come out on stage, coming out through the curtains. However, as we have the front of the stage open, James can't enter from the middle as he may fall down the stairs leading under the stage, so therefore he come out slightly to the left (when looking at the stage). The fact that a scene has just happened on the floor prior to this song, it works that James enters from the stage, as it is on a different level and therefore changes the audience's focus point. Rob and I shall be entering this song from the back of the audience, in the aisle, as this is where we walked to after our scene. For Dan's song, he shall enter also from the curtains (as Dan is who James works for), but instead of simply walking through the curtains, he shall burst through them, letting the curtain fly away from him. This worked really well when Dan tried it, as Pirelli is supposed to be very eccentric and over-the-top, so this entrance works well. 
Using the audience: James' number is about advertising and trying to sell "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir". We tried the number with James just singing it from the top of the stage, then walking down and singing it to the audience, while walking along the floor. Although he did it really well, we thought we could do more with this number. As we felt the first way would only really include the first row of the audience, we tried it again but with him using the whole audience - he would use the aisle and go up to various members of the audience with a couple of bottles of "elixir" (i.e. apple squash in our version, as it is supposed to look like "piss"). As Todd and Lovett are supposed to receive a bottle that is passed round, we needed to think about who we could give the bottle to, so we would end up with it. We considered having Lewis in the scene (but obviously not in costume as the Judge) and he could be sitting in the audience, be given the bottle by James and then pass it on to us. However, this idea wouldn't work as Lewis is in the scene before as the Judge. We then thought that we could involve more of the Year 12's in our piece. Although we are already using two of them (for the beggar woman and Johanna) we thought we could borrow more of them to help play other minor roles and parts of our production. We have decided that they can sit at the back of the audience (as they can then leave at the back of the audience easily if they are going to be used for minor parts too) and have the elixir passed to one of them, and they can then pass it along the line to Rob and I (who will be standing in the isle. We shall get the Year 12's to shout out things as well - for example, when Sweeney asks "who's for a free shave?" they can shout out. We shall use two of them for the competition to be (supposedly) shaved on stage. Songs & Dialogue: We have decided to use the movie versions of both of these songs in this scene. The reasons for this are to ensure our production isn't too long, as these songs involve a lot of chorus (and we don't have time to teach the Year 12's parts) and because the additional parts of the songs aren't really necessary to the story. We didn't feel the need to include any parts about tooth-pulling as this is not essential to the plot at all. We also cut out a lot of the chorus parts, but we did need to keep in one as it mentions the location of Todd's establishment, to which the Beadle then repeats later on. We couldn't do this dialogue in the lesson as we didn't have any Year 12's or Ollie, so we focussed on the songs and the section of dialogue between Todd, Lovett and Pirelli. We paid attention to intentions and objectives of the characters, as this determines how certain lines are spoken. The main example of this is when Pirelli says "instruments like zees once seen cannot soon be forgotten" - Dan says this line in a low tone and almost through his teeth, implying that he knows who Sweeney is, even if Sweeney doesn't recognise him. By getting Dan to say his line like this contrasts to how he says his next line as it is to the audience directly. This makes Dan's character more unpredictable, the scene tenser, and foreshadows what is to come later on (i.e. Pirelli and Sweeney's fight, resulting in Pirelli's death). We also workshopped how Dan performed the line "by God". Initially he sang it whilst doing a signing of the cross traditionally, but then we tried it again with him doing it across his "customer" with his razor in hand. The second way was more comical so we kept this.
Exits: Rob, Ollie and I shall exit together out of the hall door on the floor after we have finished our dialogue section on the floor. However, prior to this, we workshopped how and where Dan and James would exit. We first tried them going back through the curtains, with Dan pushing James through the curtain. We thought this would be appropriate as Pirelli is angry with Tobias, but also as this is where they entered. However, we found the second way more comical. Dan and James walked down the steps from the stage on to the floor. Dan pushes and kicks James to get him to move faster down the steps below the stage, but in between each violent act, Dan blows kisses at the audience.
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