Costumes: Would it be better to where full costumes or should we wear blacks and be representational with small items? I would have preferred to have us all in full costumes as the audience would get a better understanding of the show, the characters, and would become more engrossed in the show. This would have worked if we had a larger cast, however, as some of us have to multi-roll, we shall be taking the representational option with our costumes.
Page 112 - 114: This scene is between Beadle and Anthony, but involves a passer-by too. Dan will be playing the passer-by, as his main character, Pirelli, had been killed a long time before this scene. Our first question was where should we set this scene. Our four options were either on the stage, under the stage, on the floor facing the audience, or on the floor facing up at the stage. We instantly decided against under the stage (as this isn't practical as it is a scene with more than one person) and on the stage (as the scene directly after this scene happens on the stage. We decided on doing it on the floor, and Tom would shout towards the audience, to suggest that the audience were in the madhouse. The other decision we quickly made about this scene was that Tom would run away at the end of the scene, rather than being beaten up by the police. We didn't think it was necessary to show Tom beaten up for this section. By getting Tom to run away, we save time, we don't need to worry about forming a convincing piece of stage combat, and we don't need to worry about multi-rolling and quick changes. We workshopped how Ollie would play Beadle in this scene. The first time round, Ollie was quick aggressive and really raised his voice at Tom. On their second time, Ollie didn't shout at all - instead he was really measured, which made him creepier. They decreased the distance between them to increase tension and to make Ollie seem creepier.
Page 136 - 137: This is Fogg's asylum scene. As we don't have Alice in our lessons, I stood in for Alice today. We decided that everyone (apart from Rob and I, as we are in the scenes just prior and just after this scene) would play people in the asylum. We have staged our scene starting with Dan and Tom walking down the aisle of the audience towards the stage. This therefore involves the audience in the scene - as if they were in the asylum too. The rest of the class shall be positioned randomly on the stage, but Alice would be seated on a chair on the stage (to make it easy to move about with her; to make her one of the last people to get to; to ensure she is visible the audience). The main part that we workshopped for this scene was Fogg's death. We questioned why Anthony says he "cannot shoot" Fogg. We decided that we wanted Fogg to be holding Johanna close to him, so Anthony cannot shoot because he might accidentally shoot Johanna. So Johanna could get hold of the gun, we decided that Alice would elbow Dan in the stomach to be able to get out of Dan's grasp to the grab the gun. After trying this, we thought that Johanna looked a bit too gutsy, bearing in mind she has been presented as very vulnerable and fragile throughout the show. Therefore, on the second attempt, as I elbowed Dan, I dropped to the floor as if that really exhausted me. I would then quickly crawl over to the gun, whilst Dan held his stomach. As Dan recovered and went to come forward, I would shoot him from on the floor.
Page 127 - 134: This scene involves Mrs Lovett locking Tobias is the bakehouse, and then her talking to Beadle. As we can't do full scenes under the stage, as there isn't enough room and the audience wouldn't be able to see much, we do the scene on the floor. Instead of going down under the stage, I change all of my dialogue to future tense - e.g. I have changed "Now the bake oven is here... always be sure to close the doors properly, like this. Now here's the grinder" to "The bake oven is in there... make sure you close the doors properly! Next to it you'll see the grinder". James would then walk down the steps to under the stage, and I would shut the doors behind him and then lean on the stage, as if my heart was aching from what I had just done. To show the bakehouse scene we tried doing a split screen - one side would be Lovett's pie shop and the other would be the bakehouse. This did work okay, but we thought we could be more clever with this so decided we would use the stage. As James walks down under the stage and I close the door behind him, James would then go up through the trap door to be on the stage. When it comes to the bakehouse scene, the curtains would open on stage about halfway to reveal James using the grinder. By staging it in this way, the audience can see everything that is going on, there is enough space for this scene to take place, and it is practical as it is not in the way of the pie shop setting or tonsorial parlour. Also with this section of script, we cut all mention of pianos and bells, as it is not necessary for the script, it take up time and would involve us having to get a piano on set as well - there is no need for any of this.
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