Workshop (30) - Cutting and songs

"Pretty Women":   Rob and Lewis sang through this song today as they hadn't done it for a little while. It actually sounded really good. They both know all of their lyrics off by heart and are confident with the harmonies.

Backing tracks:   We have now managed to find backing tracks for almost all of the songs now, which are good quality tracks. They are the movie versions so are all in the key we want them to be in. However, almost all of the tracks are on one long track, so I have to cut them on to separate tracks on audacity - though this is a lot easier than trying to find all different tracks and cutting them separately. I shall be cutting all of the tracks over the break.

The final song:   We have cut a lot of the final song as we don't feel it is necessary, we don't have time to set it all and we don't want to use our additional cast members too much (as it would mean more rehearsals to fit them in, which we don't have time for). We have cut all of the lunatics section as it is not necessary and we don't have a chorus and we have cut the reprise of "Kiss me". We cut the dialogue between Todd and Johanna as it is not needed (because the audience is told earlier that Johanna would be brought there), so jumped from Todd killing the Judge to Mrs Lovett screaming "Die! Die! God in heaven - die!". This works quite well as it is the Judge that clings on to Mrs Lovett's skirt that makes her scream. We cut the final section of Tobias singing "pat-a-cake" as we felt this wasn't an effective ending (as we had already agreed previously that we were going to cut the epilogue) - we thought it would be nice to end it on Rob singing the word "naive", and then James killing him and running away.

Site Specific (4) - "The Crucible" research

Play:   "The Crucible"
Playwright:   Arthur Miller
Premiered:   22/01/1953, New York
Genre:   Tragedy
Set:   1692-1693, Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Characters:   4 female, 6 male. (18 total, but 10 mains).
Historical accuracy:   The play is a true story, but very partially fictionalised.

Massachusetts Bay Colony:   I decided to research this as I hadn't heard of it before. It was an English settlement in North America on the east coast. It is now Massachusetts, but it used to be Massachusetts Bay Colony and part of New England between 1628 and 1691.

Synopsis:   The following is from the eNotes website: https://www.enotes.com/topics/crucible
"In Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, Puritan minister Reverend Parris finds a group of girls dancing naked in the forest. Among them are his niece Abigail and daughter Better, who faints upon being discovered by her father. Knowing that they've sinned, the girls claim they were bewitched.

• Given the severity of the claims, a special court is founded to investigate the accusations of witchcraft. Judges are sent from Boston to assist the residents of small town Salem. During the trials, the girls scream and faint whenever one of the supposed witches takes the stand.
• Over a hundred of Salem's citizens are found to be witches. One of them, Elizabeth Proctor, proclaims her innocence to her husband, John. Her accuser, Abigail, was once an employee and was dismissed after Elizabeth discovered that John and Abigail were having an affair.
• Realizing that Abigail has incited this witch hunt to target her enemies, John fights to save his wife. He admits his adultery, only to be accused of devil worship when Abigail denies the affair. John and Elizabeth are convicted of communing with the devil. The pregnant Elizabeth is spared, but John is hanged."

Directing (14) - Set & rehearsal schedule

The picture shows our set for each scene: the circles represent chairs, the squares are tables and the ovals represent the sofa (or bed when it is perpendicular to the audience). We have made our set specific to each location - each location set is different to make it clear we are in a different place, but the same location will have identical set for each time we are in that location. Scene one and seven are the only scenes where we have just one table and two chairs - however, they are positioned differently, not only to show they are different locations, but because the situation is slightly different. Scene one is slightly awkward and tense as the two characters haven't seen each other for years and having a meeting essentially. However, they are still friends and deep down want to see each other - this is why they are at an angle to each other, they want to see each other but don't really know how to go about this conversation. Contrastingly, the chairs in scene seven are directly opposite each other - the proxemics here create a really tense scene full of subtle interrogation. I have blocked scene two so that Robert is sitting on the comfy sofa, whilst Jerry is sitting at his table - Robert is comfortable despite it not being his house (presenting how he feels he hasn't done anything wrong). I directed Jerry to be sitting at the table drinking to show how tense he is. Scenes three, six and eight are the same. Ollie had directed us to be by the table at a tense / awkward part (e.g. when Emma tells Jerry she is pregnant in scene eight), but on the sofa for cute moments (e.g. when they have the talk about throwing Charlotte up and catching her). For scenes five and nine we have positioned the sofa so it is perpendicular to the audience. I thought this would be appropriate as it then just looks like a chaise-long, and avoids the issue of trying to bring a bed on and off. These two scenes with a bed are turning points in the character lives - scene nine is the start of Jerry and Emma's affair, whilst scene five is where Emma's affair with Jerry is discovered by Robert and he confronts her.

As shown in my previous blogs, we have been working a lot on body language and intentions throughout this process. However, I feel we should do some research, sooner rather than later, on 70s clothing and furniture before making decisions on set and costume. We also need to have a discussion soon on how we are going to show different years and different times of year. Our performance is going to be on the 5th May in the hall. The lessons leading up to this need to include research on costumes and furniture, decisions on costume and physical set appearance, discussions and decisions on how to show time, full runs with scripts, line learning, full runs without scripts, and tech and costume runs... so we don't have much left to do! Therefore, we shall stop running through random scenes in the lesson as all the physical direction is complete, but as directors, we shall make decisions soon about how we shall actually do our performance.

Workshop (29) - Random numbers

"Nothing's Gonna Harm You":   In today's lesson James and I went through his song more. We have solved the tuning issues but he was still straining a little bit. The reason for this was because he was pushing too much and he was putting his chin forward. By correcting his stance, we pretty much solved the issue and he can now sing the song really well - though he struggles with the second time he sings "demons will charm you...".

"By the Sea":   We sang through the song first to remind ourselves of how it went. We then walked through the movement that we did, and then did the song and the movement together. This went fairly well, bearing in mind we hadn't done it for a long time. All that is left for this song is for me to learn all the words, and for us to purchase the blue sheet we are wishing to use for this.

Lovett's Death:   Rob and I hadn't done this for ages so we thought it would be a good idea to go over this. We had forgotten sections of it, so had to spend quite a long time on this. However, we eventually remembered it and actually made it better than before - as our timing was better. We also sang through it together, as we had never done this before. For this number we need to sing through the entire song as a group, and to set the rest of this number.

Workshop (28) - My friends

"Nothing's Gonna Harm You":   To begin this lesson (27th March), we cut down a lot of "Nothing's Gonna Harm You". We felt that this song is far too long and repetitive - the audience gets the gist of the song by the first verse and so doesn't need a whole four minute song to present Toby's message. Our Toby is having a little difficulty with this song at the moment, in terms of tuning and the higher sections (as he is not a singer), so he has been given until next lesson to sort it before we make a decision on the song. Therefore, today, I went through the song with James. I taught him how posture effects singing, how to support notes, how to place notes and the difference between head and chest voice. Straining, tuning and head voice were the three main things James was having issues with. We have fixed his posture and facial placement (i.e. not over-opening his mouth and smiling more instead), which in turn has solved the straining issue and the tuning too - but we are currently working on his break between head and chest voice. All of the song actually sounds really good now but we are still working on the section "demons will charm you...", as this is rather high for him (but can't be dropped an octave as it doesn't work for his character).

"My Friends":   Our Sweeney doesn't feel very confident with this song, because his voice is so exposed in it. He feels uncomfortable in this number, so we decided to workshop how we could sing this number. Rob shall sing the first couple of lines solo (as he is happy with this part) but the rest of the ensemble will come in later so we sing in unison - we shall change the pronouns to make the song make sense with other people singing - for example, Lovett could sing "your friends, your faithful friends". By making this song a group number, we would be able to add in harmonies. We came up with a little bit of movement for this as we were making it an ensemble piece. We came up with the following idea: Rob and I singing it whilst others do movement that symbolises the razors. We would like to use silhouettes in this piece.  We have only come up with a couple of movements for this, but we did some arm movements in cannon and some in unison. We want all of our movements to be smooth and fluid to show Sweeney's calm mind set now he is fantasising, compared to his angry outburst earlier.

Directing (13) - All scenes

Scene One:   This scene went smoothly. We got our movement how we had been directed correct - although it is minimal, it is still essential. Ollie directed us to have minimal movement during this scene, to enable our audience to focus on the naturalistic dialogue - a style that we're maintaining throughout our entire play. Ollie directed me to have a slightly longer pause before my line "Sam must be... tall", and to take my time before saying "tall". This is to show that I feel awkward that he has reminded me on how to keep things civil, and also that I can't remember how old he would be. The other part we changed was how I said "Wessex Grove" as this is important, as it is the first mention of the flat, but the audience don't know about it at the moment.

Scene Two:   The boys have done this scene a lot and they remembered all of my directions really well. I gave a bit more direction on Lewis' emotional journey in this scene so we get the climactic moment at the right time. This needs to be just prior to Ollie's line "Oh, don't get upset. There's no point".

Scene Three:   Lewis and I didn't need any additional directing with this scene today as we have worked a lot on it previously.

Scene Four:   I think this scene went really well today. We all got the movement and our intentions right. However, we worked a lot on eye contact today. We have worked it so Robert is looking a lot at Emma throughout this scene to make her more uncomfortable, and Emma doesn't really know where to look. However, I have found moments when I look directly at Robert in the eye as this doesn't happen often for her. There are only a few scenes which Emma and Robert are in together - this scene, the next scene and the last scene. In the holiday scene, Emma doesn't really make much eye contact with Robert at all, and barely any in the last scene too because she feels really awkward, and can't bring herself to look at him. However, in this scene, she finds a few moments where she is brave enough to challenge his looks, but by the end of this scene, this courage is gone. She holds his stare at the end of this scene but then gets emotional. This may make the audience question whether Robert hits Emma or not - although as a cast we have decided he doesn't, but we are happy for our audience to question this.

Scene Five:   This is another scene which we have done quite a few times and don't really need that much directing on.

Scene Six:   We changed our movement for this scene a little bit. We start hugging centre stage, then sit at the table, but move to the sofa when Lewis says that he spoke to Robert that morning. Lewis moves first, but I follow as I am anxious to find out more information. I remain standing long after he has sat down, until the line "you've misunderstood me". Although still anxious, I sit down at this point as I am too worried to stand but also to show that I don't want him to think that something has happened.

Scene Seven:   The boys have done this scene several times before. We worked more vocally on this scene as the movement is all fiarly simple. I wanted to make sure that the awkwardness was clear - when Jerry asks about Torcello and says "I thought..." and then realises what he had said.

Scene Eight:   This was another scene we had done a lot but we worked specially on the vocals for this lesson. Ollie directed me so that I wasn't too happy at the beginning as Emma is worried the whole scene about having to tell Jerry that she is pregnant.

Scene Nine:   We are really comfortable vocally with this scene now. We just need to work a little bit more on the physicality as we have changed it around so often.

With our version of "Betrayal" we have pretty much finished directing each other and all of the scenes, so it is now just a case of learning all of our lines, so we are ready to perform. We are aiming to perform our piece on May 3rd. We have given ourselves a little while as we all have a lot of lines to learn, we need to practice in the space (as we have decided to perform in the hall due to more space for audience, more space in general and good lighting opportunities), and because we may have a bit more directing to do in terms of hand gestures once we no longer need our scripts. We are also currently debating what we should wear for this performance. In terms of colours, we are thinking that Jerry should wear white, Robert black and Emma a colour in between - this would symbolise how Emma is stuck in the middle but is drawn more towards the light Jerry and doomed with Robert.

Site Specific (3) - First ideas - Temple Manor

In today's lesson we were given pictures of Temple Manor, as this is the venue we are preferring, and split in to two groups to come up with ideas. Katya really likes the play "The Crucible" and thinks that this would work well in this location. We took the idea of a witches ritual and came up with ideas. We thought about making the ritual a motif. We debated whether we should show a recruiting ritual or a sacrificial ritual. We watched a short YouTube clip to give us inspiration - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUGvUhlj-cc. From this clip, we liked the idea of shapes, chanting and unison movements.

Using the pictures for ideas, we thought of three places that our ritual could take place: around the fireplace, outside (potentially using a tree) and everyone on the ground but the leader on the balcony section / top of the steps.

We tried to avoid stereotypes by making out ritual in the shape of a square, instead of a circle. After listening to a couple of pieces we decided on this piece of whispered chanting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsEw9lBiDBg).  We tried doing our movement to a choral piece of music, and then again to the instrumental version of "DNA" by Little Mix, but we settled on the satanic chanting. As there was no real beat for the choral chanting we found it difficult to stay in time with each other, and we decided against "DNA" as it sounded too 'poppy' but we liked the introduction. The movement we came up with was as follows:

• All begin facing outwards in a small square (DSL Lewis, DSR Kat, USR Hope, USL Lorna) with our heads down. Wait for 8 counts. Intriguing start.
• Reach outwards for 4, then pull in for 4. Shows desperation and looks creepy. Swap places with the person diagonally opposite, Kat and I move first (new places: DSL Hope, DSR Lorna, USR Lewis, USL Kat). All reach again for the same amount of counts. All walk in to centre and then move as a group round 90 degrees and walk back out to new corner (new places: DSL Kat, DSR Hope, USR Lorna, USL Lewis).
• Reach outwards for 4, then pull in for 4. Swap places with the person diagonally opposite (new places: DSL Lorna, DSR Lewis, USR Kat, USL Hope). All reach again and then face inwards. Audience expect the same sequence, but challenges their expectation / surprises them when we don't.
• We utilised our groups abilities - Hope is bi-lingual; she can speak Nigerian fluently. Rather than trying to script something clever to chant, Hope spoke in Nigerian in a smooth, low tone. The reason for this is that our audience wouldn't know what was being said and thus may make them feel a bit uneasy - it also avoids cliché dialogue and is different to the chanting track we used. When she says "fall" in Nigerian (which she taught us), we drop one at a time to our knees. We then picked a different movement each, which we repeat whilst we are on the floor. This creates the repetitive feel of rituals.

The other group then told us their ideas from looking at the pictures. We had a practical approach for our ideas, coming up with a short section of movement, whilst the others came up with ideas for a story line. They came up with the idea of using witches to influence a young girl. This girl also owns a voodoo doll and is destroying people with it. They were inspired by the room with a large box in it, thinking that this could be the little girl's room. They also thought of the idea of healing and having a priest character.

We shall develop our ideas next lesson but decided that to finish this lesson we would put everyone else in our movement piece, as we thought it would be a nice piece to keep and potentially use.

Devising (25) - Performance Evaluation

What went well:

• The lighting looked effective - we had different lighting for each story (I had yellow lighting for mine to create an old-fashioned atmosphere).
• The sound cues were all correct and worked well. 
• Our transitions were smooth as we had pre-set all of our props carefully and agreed who would move what.
• Our timing with our movement pieces were good.
• I changed my shoelace section on the floor to make it clearer.
• Our dialogue was all naturalistic. 
• Our characterisation for our own scenes were good, on the whole. 
• Our volume / projection was better.
• I think our spacing was fairly good on the whole - we used the entire space and had good proxemics throughout.

What could have gone better: 

• We could have had a clearer cut off with dialogue at the end of Lewis' scene as there was quite a long pause afterwards. To solve this we could have decided on a clear ending line. However, this wasn't too much of an issue as we all just froze.
• We had an issue with the tables coming on for Ollie's scene. Firstly the table leg got caught in the table - although the start of this section wasn't delayed at all, this could have been avoided by taping the bottom of the curtains down or tucking them right out of the way. Then, the table got wedged by the other table. This never happened before and nothing could have been done to prevent this, however, I felt we dealt with it as smoothly as we could.
• There was a slight issue with the movement in Ollie's scene at the train station - what was supposed to be regimented and organised movement was a bit messy! To prevent this, we should have gone over it a few times before the performance, as this was the part we had done the least. However, it wasn't too much of an issue as it showed how chaotic everything was due to this supernatural occurrence.

Site Specific (2) - Research - Guildhall Museum

Guildhall Museum:   The Guildhall Museum is a building built in 1687 in Rochester. It is a 17th century building situated in Rochester high street, boasting a large staircase and beautiful plaster ceilings.

Pros:  

• Big space
• Suitable for historical pieces
• Good lighting
• Lots of different rooms
• Room with fake sleeping people in hammocks - eerie

Cons:

• Artefacts may distract the audience
• Specific time period - difficult to do a modern piece there
• Busy setting, so unable to use outside space
• Restrictive if doing promenade

Site Specific (1) - Research - Temple Manor

We have now started our site specific unit. In this unit we shall chose a venue and perform either a devised piece or a scripted play. The venues we came up with were the following:

• Temple Manor   -  "The Crucible" or devised?
• Guildhall Museum   -   "The Crucible" or devised?
• Library   -   "Punk Rock" or devised?
• Restoration House   -   "The Crucible" or devised?

The reason we came up with "The Crucible" is because it is a historical piece and we have the right size cast for it. One of our class loves this play and thinks it would suit these venues.

Temple Manor:   Temple Manor is an English Heritage building in Rochester, Kent, ME2 2AH. It was built in the 13th century, designed "to provide lodging for dignitaries travelling between Dover and London. It also has a large leafy garden - http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/temple-manor/

Pros:  

• Spacey
• Suitable inside and outside
• Eerie so can build up a lot of tension
• Historical though still suitable for modern pieces
• Ground suitable for wheelchairs
• Not noisy area. No busy high street.

Cons:

• Where would we put the audience?
• Would need to take lighting as very dark
• Limited to outside or inside - not many rooms
• How big actually are the rooms?

Workshop (27) - Chronological order

In this lesson we had intended to run as much as we could of our show so far, but this didn't end up happening! We ended up singing through certain songs a few time and having a lot of discussions - but at this stage, I felt like this was a good use of time.

The first decision we made in this lesson was that we don't need to have "The Barber and his Wife" and "The Barber and his Wife (reprise)" and "Poor Thing". We wanted to keep the two versions of "The Barber and his Wife", to show that Todd and Lovett are on the same level, and that Lovett knows who Todd is - there is also no need for the song "Poor Thing" as it covers everything in "The Barber and his Wife". Although "Poor Thing" mentions his daughter, it is clear later on in our version who Johanna is anyway. By cutting this song, we have made our show slightly shorter. We have also managed to cut more dialogue out prior and post this song.

Below is how we are getting on with our show so far...

Devising (24) - Performance Evaluation

What went well:

• The books and transitions worked well
• The movement worked well in the majority of Rob's scene
• Rob's narration was effective
• The dialogue in my scene was naturalistic
• The right emotion was portrayed in my scene
• The timing worked well for my scene
• The movement in Lewis' scene was effective
• The conversation in Lewis' scene had all the interruptions we needed
• The narration for the motifs worked well

What could have been better:

• Rob's narration could have been louder
• There was an issue with timing during Rob's scene with the movement
• The letter passing in my scene was a little bit messy
• We didn't have as much as time as desired so Rob couldn't learn the piano part for my scene, but this worked okay in the end, as he brought on the telegram - meaning we didn't have to worry about differentiate Ollie as Harry and the postman.
• Ollie's scene could have done with some lighting for when he falls backwards.
• The bags were the wrong way round for mine and Lewis' scene - Lew should have had the white bag for mine, and Rob should have had the black bag for Lewis'.

What we shall ensure for the performance: 

• All music is on a laptop so there are no interruptions or skipping on to the next track
• All props will be carefully pre-set
• We shall all speak louder

Devising (24) - Ollie's scene

Today we worked on Ollie's scene and making it into a whole scene, rather than four motifs. Due to a lack of time, we wanted to keep as much as we could of our motifs - however, we didn't want to end up trying to link something to a stimulus, rather than come up with something from the stimulus. We wanted to have something that linked to the idea of ghosts, as so far we've linked more to the idea of being haunted and stories. We wanted to include three of our four motifs - we decided to scrap our colour motif, as we thought this was weak and didn't aid our story in any way. We kept the other three, but needed a story for these and an event to happen before them to lead into them.

We thought that Ollie's character could become possessed, and thus go through the 'rigorous tests' (i.e. our motifs). We needed to come up with a public place for this incident to happen in, where we could all be involved. The three places / situations we came up with were a theatre tour, a train station and a shopping centre. We disregarded the shopping centre idea as we felt this was too similar to the shop setting in the first third of Rob's scene - we wanted there to be as little links as possible between our four scenes, as they are supposed to be four separate stories (hence our four books at the front of our stage space). We then decided against the theatre idea as we didn't like the idea of having a guided tour, as this had the potential to be very cheesy. Therefore we went with our train station idea. We took inspiration from seeing "People, Places and Things" last year, in how they played their message at the beginning, and then played it again but distorted. We liked this as it was disorientating and unusual. Therefore, we decided we could have the typical notice "please mind the gap between the train and the platform" played a couple of times and getting more distorted on each.

We workshopped some movements for the beginning of this scene. We all come on at different times very naturalistically, but then after the sound effects, we become more abstract. We eventually settled on the four of us doing similar movements, very regimented and orderly - as if we were all under a spell or trance. The three of us would manage to snap out of it eventually, but Ollie would be possessed and not snap out of it. He falls backwards, and is caught by Lewis, after stumbling a bit. We initially thought that someone could have fallen on the tracks and died, and their ghost possessed Ollie. We then realised that this would be hard to show, so decided that the place is just haunted. We didn't want to focus too much on the logistics of it, and instead just wanted to present the idea of being possessed.

However, to make our motifs and the change between each clear, we added some narration. Lewis narrated the first, Rob the second, and me the third. Lewis and Rob's narration started with the same line. They both stated what test number it was, before explaining what the test entailed and the purpose for it. However, my narration was different due to it being the final motif: "Emergency operation. Due to a near fatal incident in Test 72, patient has been rushed to emergency wing. Surgery began 11:15. Patient deceased 11:17."

Next lesson, we shall run our entire piece with all of our props.

Workshop (26) - Johanna

In this lesson we workshopped the song "Johanna", which is sung primarily by Todd and Anthony, with smaller sections sung by the Beggar Women and Johanna. At first we tried having a split stage with Todd singing on one side looking at old photographs, and Anthony on the other singing wandering the streets. The Beggar Woman would come from under the stage and sing her parts, and Johanna sitting on a chair sewing stage right on the stage. However, although this was simplistic and looked okay, we thought it was too simplistic and thought we could do a bit more with it.

To make it a little bit more abstract, as it is a dream sequence for Todd, Anthony and Johanna as they are all pining, we added in a little dance section. We begin with Johanna standing centre stage, Anthony we sing whilst looking at her, take her hands and then dance with her. When Todd starts singing he would take over the dancing with her and they would keep swapping. However, we soon realised that we couldn't do this for the entire song, so we had to come up with something else...

Rhythm:   We decided that we wanted to involve everyone in this number to make the piece feel more workshopped than performed - so we decided that we would include all cast members. We decided to set the rest of the cast in Mrs Lovett's pie shop. We begin this song with a freeze frame - all characters are doing something to show their character (i.e. I am making pies, James is sweeping, and Dan drinking as a customer not Pirelli). We would all them come to life, as it were, and start doing movements as our character. We were inspired by the show "Stomp" to make noises under the song. We workshopped our rhythms and how we would create these sounds: James uses a broom, I have a bowl, Dan clinks his tankard with Ollie. I shake the bowl to mix the ingredients, but hit the bowl on the counter on counts "2, and". We wanted the noises to come in gradually, but all be on different beats. Therefore, we started with the whole beats first, and then added in the "ands" to make the rhythm more interesting. We keep this rhythm the same throughout the entire song, apart from when the Beggar Woman sings, we do the same rhythm exactly the same but double speed. The Beggar Woman enters and exits from under the stage as it is unexpected and very intruding - she walks into the middle of the setting that she is not wanted.

We did want them dancing the whole time, nor did we want Rob slitting everyone's throats because we didn't want it just to be like the movie version. Therefore, we used the Beggar Woman to form a moment - there is now a moment where Johanna and Todd are standing together and the Beggar Woman enters, forming an almost perfect family photo, but it is ironic because Todd then pushes her away and I kick her out back down the steps. To also build on Todd's happiness with his daughter, we have workshopped a section where Johanna is watching Todd shave people - he smiles as shaving them and lets them go, but when Johanna leaves, he looks on at her and slits the person's throat. Although this does add a slight comical moment to the song, it is successful in showing Todd's true feelings and intentions.

To end this number, Judge Turpin leads Johanna down the central aisle of the audience, to symbolise them both walking down the aisle getting married. The rest of the cast leave before this point as their characters.

Devising (23) - Full run

In this lesson we ran the whole of our piece and timed it. Below is the outline of what out piece looked like and how each scene went:

• M - Ollie walking, followed by Lewis:   Looked effective. Though can't flash the lights as frequently throughout the piece - as not allowed to have flashing lights for more than ten seconds for health and safety reasons.
• S - Rob's scene:   Rob had great eye contact for the first section. However, Rob needs to keep his feet flat on the floor at the beginning as to not distract the audience, as they are able to see his feet. He also needs to be a little bit louder in places and keep talking to the audience - as to not lose their attention. We remembered all of the movement and it all went smoothly.
• M - Ollie puppetry:   Movement needs going over and polishing.
• S - Lewis' scene:   Dialogue section was a lot better. Need to do the naturalistic section with the music Rob has sorted with the recorded questions on it.
• M - Changing colours:   Need to sort the projection.
• S - Lorna's scene:   Passing letters needs work to make it fluid. Dialogue needs a bit of work (though this was expected as it was improvised) to make sure it fits with our 1940s setting - i.e. we can't say "yep" or modern colloquial language! We need to make it clear that we aren't in the modern day - we shall do this by using an air raid siren at the beginning and by having the radio prop. We also need to practice this scene with all of our props in place - i.e. the photo frames. Also, our scene was a little bit unclear as it is in a different order, so we have decided that we shall put this scene into chronological order so it is definitely clear.
• M - Hospital:   We need to have a longer bed for Ollie.

Our piece ran today at about 17 minutes. We were fairly happy with this time as we didn't run our naturalistic section of Lew's scene. One concern we have with our piece is the motifs - it dawned on us that these might not be clear to the audience. Our first decision was to somehow put these together to form one scene, rather than four motifs, so our piece as a whole flows better. We then thought about these mental health motifs and questioned how they linked to the stimulus. I then thought of old-fashioned treatments and wondered if the idea of ghosts could be implemented somehow. Then Ollie came up with the idea of being a ghost of yourself - something that has changed you so much that you aren't recognisable as you. We liked this idea and agreed to think about it leading up to next lesson to bring some ideas to try out on Thursday.

However, when reflecting on our entire piece, and asking for feedback from the other group who watched our run, it dawned on us that it is not clear when one story ends and another begins - the audience may think it is just another scene. We then discussed how we could do this. We thought about using blackouts, but thought this could still look like just another scene. We then considered having a flip chart at the side with writing on, but thought that we could be more cunning with it. The idea of a flip chart made Ollie think of having a giant story book at the side, which then made me think of having four books (a book each). These four books could be lined up along the front of the stage - before that scene starts, the main person of said scene would pick open the book and leave it on the floor open, and then walk back to the book after the scene to close it (whilst the next person opens their book). This will hopefully make it clear that each person has a different story (as well as this linking directly to our stimulus "ghost stories"). Whilst the main person is opening their book, the other three could set any props needed for the following scene, to make our transitions as smooth as possible.

Workshop (25) - Deaths

In this lesson we workshopped all of the murders that Sweeney commits (apart from Pirelli and Lovett, as we had already done these). We felt that we wanted to go a bit more 'outside the box' with how we decide to show Sweeney killing people. The three main ideas we had previously were to use lighting, fake blood or a piece of material from out of the victims collar. We knew that we wouldn't be able to use lighting as this would be too difficult with the spacing and we thought that we could do more than just lighting. We initially discarded the idea of fabric and went with the intention of using fake blood, as we had wanted to be quite naturalistic for the majority of our show (apart from character's dream sequences and transitions). However, fake blood does have its down-sides - it is messy, can be risky to pull off and could become too repetitive. We therefore decided that we would spend this lesson workshopping what we could do instead.

We re-visited our idea of material and came up with the five following ideas:

1. Material from victim's neck:   We thought that the victim could have red material down the inside of their shirt, with just a tiny piece at the top of their collar, so Rob is able to pull it out. Rob could hold his blade by the victim's neck and, with the same hand, pinch on to the material and swipe it out whilst miming cutting their throat. This looked effective, though was a bit quick - however, this would be okay for kills that weren't as significant (i.e. Beadle, beggar woman and person in "God that's good").
2. Material in half from neck:   We liked the idea of pulling material from the victim's neck, but we wanted to slow it down somehow. Therefore, I thought that the material could be folded in half and tucked in the victim's shirt. Rob would hook his fingers into the small loop formed (by having the material in half) and slowly move both hands outwards, so the material came outwards to the sides with his hands - forming a sort of arch. Once the material is out, Rob could then put the material down on the victim, so the main part is round the front of their necks, with the ends over the back of their shoulders, thus symbolising how they have bled to death.
3. Material from Rob's sleeve:   Just for experimenting purposes, we tried doing the same as the first way, but instead of having the material come from the victims collar, we tried having the material start in Robs sleeve. This meant that Rob would have his hand resting lightly on the victims chin and use his hand, with the razor in, to take the material and pull whilst slicing outwards. This looked really effective and avoided the chance of the material being visible and potentially falling completely down the victim's top during the show. This would work well for the quick kills.
4. Material unravelled:   Another way we tried was having the victim holding the material scrunched up in their fist. When Rob then mimes slitting their throat, the victim would hold their throat and then let the material unravel slightly, to represent the blood coming from their neck and pouring down them. We wouldn't be able to use this idea for characters who have a full scene before this (i.e. Pirelli and Beadle), as they wouldn't be able to hold the cloth during the actual scene.
5. Full sheet as cover:   We practised with the plain red sheet, as we haven't got the sheet that we would need for this. We discussed having a sheet that's white on one side and red on the other. The white side would be shown to the audience as it is placed over the victim as a sheet (as if to protect their clothing from any hair). However to present Sweeney killing the victim, he would swing the sheet up and round to show the red side. The sheet would then land on them and Rob would turn the chair around for them to get off.

We spoke about having a motif. We thought that each of the main characters, when they are killed, could have a certain prop that they leave in the tonsorial parlour - i.e. Pirelli could leave his purse, Ollie his cane, and Lewis his gavil.

We realised that the deaths could all be slightly different. Obviously, Pirelli and Mrs Lovett's deaths are different as they are Todd's first and last kills. We wanted the significant people to have the bigger deaths, so we thought that Turpin should have a more dramatic death, so potentially us our second method. Whilst, the less significant characters, such as the random men he kills quickly, could just use number five. We debated whether we could put a plastic sheet down for when we use fake blood on Rob, that we could hear the dripping sound. However, this would be more appropriate for film than theatre, so we decided against trying to get the sound of dripping. However, we shall use fake blood for Todd as the audience won't be expecting this and it makes Todd's very significant.

Devising (22) - My scene

Today we managed to complete my scene. My scene is made up of four mini scenes. We didn't want the piece to be chronological (inspired by Pinter's "Betrayal") and we wanted to combine naturalistic and abstract moments.

1) Harry visits:   This is the one scene out of our entire devised piece that almost contains a literal ghost. In our first scene, that we created last lesson, Lewis is on stage during our naturalistic dialogue, but is unnoticed by me, but noticed by Ollie - this turns on the stereotype of a loved one haunting their partner, in this instance, Harry is being haunted by Lewis. Lewis on stage during this scene, serves two purposes: 1) showing the audience that Harry has stolen the letters to Stella from Charles, before Stella knew of them; and 2) shows Harry as being haunted by Charles because Charles is angry with him, and perhaps Harry feels guilty.

2) Charles leaving:   For this scene, we wanted a completely naturalistic scene (as we have been abstract in some form with everything else so far), to show that Stella's life has been normal to this point. This scene shows the moment that Charles leaves for war. Lewis and I agreed roughly what we wanted to say in this scene and then decided to improvise the rest of it - this is to make our scene as naturalistic as we possibly good.

3) Telegram arrives:   We decided that we would have a split screen for this scene. On one side, Lewis is lying flat on the floor, with his legs together and hands on his belly, to present him as being in a coffin. Meanwhile, I am sitting at my table, drinking when Ollie (with a hat on, so he is not being Harry) walks to centre stage with a yellow piece of paper - a telegram. I take it and sit down at my table and look at it (whilst Ollie has walked off); overcome with emotion, I slam it down and walk to stage left - swapping places with Lewis. Now on the other side of the split, I kneel down (right next to where Lewis was) and pray - this is to present me at his grave side. Meanwhile, Lewis is now ghost-like in my house, and takes off the telegram and photo frame. We decided, whilst doing this scene, that from the start of this scene, there would be a photo frame, with a picture of Stella and Charles in it. When Lewis takes off the telegram, we thought that he could take off this photo frame to show that he is no longer in Stella's life. We didn't want any dialogue in this scene as we wanted to just have the piano playing - we didn't feel dialogue was necessary as it could all be done with our movements. We thought dialogue would take away from the emotion of this scene.

4) Harry and the letters:   At the beginning of this scene, I would stand up a photo frame with a picture of Stella and Harry in to show that they are now married. This scene is set forty years after the war. This scene begins with Harry walking in with the post and joining Stella at the table for breakfast. He is awkward and Stella questions why. Harry leaves briefly to return with the letters from Charles that he had stolen. Yet again, we wanted our dialogue to be very naturalistic, so we decided to improvise it again - this actually worked surprisingly well and we were happy with what we had created. The scene ends with me looking at the letters and slamming the photo frame (containing the picture of Stella and Harry) face down on the table, to show that Harry means nothing to me anymore.

What is left...   We have now created all of our material for our devised piece. We now need to polish everything, work on our transitions and time our piece.

Workshop (24) - Sing through

In this lesson, we sat down as a group and sang through as much of the show as we had time for. We used backing tracks for those that we could find, and used tracks with the vocals on for those we couldn't. We couldn't do all of the songs as we didn't have all of the cast present, nor did we have the time. Below are the songs we did, how they went and what we have left to do:

• Prologue   -   Sounded really strong. All of the main cast (our actual double class, so not including Dan, Tom, Taylor or Alice) know this song off by heart. Full cast have sung and performed this number in full together. All that is left is for the additional cast to learn the song fully.
• No Place Like London   -   Rob portrayed the right feeling with this number. This number has been staged, all that is left is for Rob and Tom to learn it off by heart.
• The Barber and his Wife   -   Rob sang this song beautifully; it fits perfectly in his range and is a comfortable song for him.All we have left to do for this number is to stage the transition during and after it, and for Rob to learn it off by heart.
• Worst Pies in London   -   I struggled with this number today as it was a track I wasn't used to, so the timing was different. I struggle with this song anyway because of the timing but I am getting there with it. This is definitely the hardest song for me to sing. However, we have set this number, all I have left to do is learn it fully - both lyrics and actions.
• Poor Thing   -   I found this number hard today because of track issues again, but am fairly happy with this number otherwise. I need to learn the lyrics and it still needs to be set (but this will require full cast).
• My Friends   -   Rob and I managed to get our harmonies spot on this lesson. We are happy with this number and I think we both know it without needing our scripts. We just need to stage it.
• Pirelli's Miracle Elixir   -   This number is fully staged and James knows it very well, but at times struggles with the lyrics, as it is a very 'wordy' song - so he just needs to get used to it really.
• Wait   -   We decided to cut this number down as it is quite long and we don't need all of it as it is very repetitive and doesn't move the story along. All that is needed with this number is for us to go over the staging of it (as I originally sang the whole song) and for me to practice it so I remember what parts I sing and what parts we have cut.
• Ladies in their Sensitivities   -   Ollie is speaking the song prior to this to the music - which I really admire him for as it is a hard thing to do. He had a listen to this song today but probably won't do it as it is quite challenging and doesn't aid the plot.
• Pretty Women   -   The boys sang this lovely. The harmonies on the whole are spot on - but they need to work on the ending, as it is quite challenging. They have staged it and pretty much know it without needing their scripts.
• Epiphany   -   This number is fully staged now and Rob is so good at it! This song really suits him, but he needs to learn it off by heart.
• A Little Priest   -   We have also fully staged this number. We managed to get our harmonies and timings right for this number, but we still need to learn it off by heart and practice it, because it is very fast. We also need to practice the dancing side of this too!
• God that's good   -   James and I got the majority of this right, but issues lie with the part where we sing different tunes. We have staged this number and almost know it off by heart, but we need to work out how we are going to solve these issues.
• Johanna (Quartet)   -   Some of us stood in for people that weren't there, so Rob could sing this song. He seemed to know this song quite well - we just need to get everyone to sing it together and stage it.
• By the sea   -   I think I sang this one okay, but I still need to learn it thoroughly. However, we have staged it all now.
• Not While I'm Around   -   We are currently having a few issues with this song at the moment, but it is all staged. We just need to spend a bit more time on this number to decide what we are going to do with it.

Devising (21) - My scene

Music:   The first decision we made this lesson was to have Rob speak the opening stage direction before playing the piano. We thought that Rob could have just written this stage direction and is now playing music to go with it - as if he is a composer for plays. This fits with our abstract style throughout our entire devised piece. We thought it was quite Brechtian for Rob to do this, before launching in to an abstract scene with naturalistic dialogue. Our devised piece as a whole is quite strange in the fact that our scenes are either completely abstract, or have abstract movements with naturalistic dialogue. We also decided against our idea of me pausing and playing the music by using the radio prop, as if the timing is wrong it would look dodgy and it wouldn't look realistic as we would need sound effects for the buzzing sound they make when you tune them - therefore, we shall just keep it on the table as part of the set, to help the audience understand our time setting of this scene.

Dialogue & Letters:   We are satisfied with our dialogue for this section as we have made it very naturalistic. The relationship between Harry (Ollie's character) and Stella (my character) is made clear through the dialogue. After Stella states that Charles hasn't written, Harry doesn't say anything and instead puts out his arms to let her fall in to them - we thought this was effective as it could suggest that Harry feels guilty but it could also show that he is devious. Meanwhile, Stella is just relieved to have someone there, but seems quite pleased that it is Harry - it is the first and only male attention she has had since her husband has left. We therefore thought that there could be a short section of intimacy, in which, Lewis could take the letters that he's been writing and place them on Ollie's person, as if he's trying to give them to me but Ollie keeps getting in the way. We then thought that we don't really need to have the intimacy section and instead Lewis could be placing the letter on Ollie during the dialogue section. We don't want to spoon-feed the audience what is happening, as it were, and instead let them work it out for themselves. By having Ollie receive the letters from Lewis during the dialogue, there is no need for the split screen, which we like as we didn't feel it was necessary as everything is implied during the dialogue (it also means that we can use a split screen elsewhere in this scene if we choose too. The letter passing is clever here as Lewis moves slowly (almost ghost-like) and tries to give the letters to me but Ollie manages to get them. I act as if I don't see the letters as it then shows that Ollie in fact stole the letters without me knowing even of their existence. For example, one point Lewis goes to pass the letter into my hands, but Ollie has gone to place his hand on my arm to show support, but takes the letter while taking his arm back.

Workshop (23) - Lovett's Death

Beadle's death:   As we hadn't done it in the space, we looked at Beadle's death. The actual murder of Beadle (and all of the other character that die in the chair having their throats slit) is simple - Rob mimes cutting his throat, and then spins the chair to face the back for Ollie to get off unnoticed and walk through the curtain behind, for Rob to turn the then empty chair to face the front again. We were confident with this part, but hadn't tried Ollie supposedly falling down the chute. We tried this in two different ways. The first way we trued was Ollie jumping off of a chair (that was positioned just behind the curtain) and then falling to the floor just in front of James. The use of the chair made it appear that he was coming downwards from above, but it was a little bit dangerous, as he had further to fall and it was less controlled. Therefore, the second way we tried was him doing the same thing, but instead jumping off of a chair, he would just jump and slide. This worked a lot better as he had more control over his fall, it was safer and it still looked realistic. We went over this fall a couple of times to ensure that he was landing safely, to make it look realistic and to ensure that Ollie's jump wasn't visible from any angle to any of the audience.

Lovett and Todd's exit and entrance:   After Lovett has spoken to Beadle and Todd, and the two men have gone upstairs, we needed a way for the three of us to exit before Toby's scene. Rob and Ollie would have to stay up in the tonsorial parlour - we discussed blacking out this section of the stage, but realised that this wouldn't be possible as we can't get a complete blackout in this area. Meanwhile, we also tried and then disregarded me bending down behind my counter (as if tidying) and staying there until after James' section before getting up again to begin my scene with Rob. However, this looked strange and awkward so we decided against this. We then tried having the three of us continue doing what our characters would do, but all in mime - i.e. Rob shaving Ollie and then killing him at the appropriate time, so Ollie could then jump down into James' scene, and I would be cleaning the shop becoming anxious of the sounds from the bakehouse. This worked a lot better than the first idea, but we thought that there would be too much going on, and it would distract the audience away from James' scene. Therefore, we decided that we would all freeze in the positions we finished in - me in the shop cleaning, Ollie in the chair and Rob preparing the razors. However, Rob and Ollie would have to move at the end of James' first line - Rob would have to turn the chair around for Ollie to jump down into the bakehouse at the right time.

Entering the bakehouse:   We tried three ways for Rob and I to enter the bakehouse for the final song. The first way we tried was us going down the steps under the stage, to then go up the ladder to get onto the stage. This created the effect of us walking down into the bakehouse, but took far too long, and you wouldn't be able to hear us singing at this point. We then tried Rob and I going up the steps on the right of the stage to go into the bakehouse, as we climb the stairs, the curtains would then fully open, as this is the last location we use. Although this did work better than the first way, as we could be heard singing and it was practical, it looked like Rob and I were just going into Todd's tonsorial parlour. Our third and final idea was Rob and I climbing up the boxes on the left to get on to the stage. This was perfect as we could be heard singing and it looked believable.

Lovett's death:   The stage directions state that Mrs Lovett dies by Todd pushing her into the furnace. We thought of how we could do this practically. We thought of having gate on stage to act as the furnace that Rob could push me through, but this would be very difficult to make it look realistic - it also would be challenging for me to fall through the gates safely. We therefore considered having a red light illuminating a section of the stage, and have gates either side of it, that I would then step back into. This would have been safer but wouldn't look realistic. We wanted this death to be realistic, as our whole show is naturalistic (though exaggerated) apart from transitions (i.e. Todd travelling Lovett's shop, as we use round-by-through) and character's dream sequences (i.e. "Epiphany", "A Little Priest" and "By The Sea"). We therefore though about Todd slitting Lovett's throat, but decided against it - Todd's first kill and last kill should be different to his other murders: he strangles Pirelli but slits everybody else's throat. We didn't want Lovett to be just another kill - as she is his last kill, and a very significant one as she lied about his wife (resulting in him killing her not knowing that the beggar was in fact his wife). The other idea we came up with was Todd to snap Mrs Lovett's neck. We thought this was rather gruesome and could look really effective. We wanted to have another dance sequence before her death, as she is fantasising again, as Todd assures her that "there's little point in dwelling on the past". We kept some of the same choreography from "A Little Priest" as the tune is repeated in this section, but just before my death, we needed the characters to get really close, so we did another waltz sequence (so that Rob was holding me close) so he could snap my neck more easily. This worked quite effectively. However, so I didn't have as far to fall we tried doing a lunge before his breaks my neck so I was less likely to hit my head on the floor as I fall. We have now ended this piece with Rob holding me and lowering me down, whilst getting close to me (as if about to kiss, to completely lure Lovett in) just before snapping her neck - this makes it more painful for Lovett as she was so close to getting what she wanted, as well as safer for me.

Devising (20) - Mine & Rob's scene

Today we spent the first section of this lesson working on my scene. We kept the movement we came up with last lesson as a starting point for this lesson. We thought about who Ollie is - we knew that Lewis was my husband that dies, and Ollie is the new lover, but we weren't sure about the whole telegram thing. We then came up with the idea that he could have been an old friend who I have history with and later end up marrying. We questioned whether these letters would have been stolen or just not delivered. We thought that Ollie could have stolen the letters and only given her the one about his death. We shall come back to the letters later on to decide for definite what we want to do about them. However, we did decide that we would like our piece to be non-linear. We also wanted a straight drama scene.

We thought that we could set up a living room with a table and a couple of chairs. We looked what we had in the cupboard and happened to have a war-time radio prop! We put this on the table and thought that I could pretend to put it on and Rob starts playing the piano for our physical theatre sections, but I turn it off before a straight acting scene. We began trying to write a script. We said that for this scene, I could be alone drinking, when I get a knock at the door - this would be Ollie visiting. I could tell him that Lewis hasn't written (but Ollie knows he has as he has stolen the letter) - meanwhile we could have a split stage where Lewis is in the corner with a spot on him writing letters. Also to show that our piece is set in the war-time, we thought we could start with an air-raid siren. We also didn't want our piece to be linear, so we shall create a variety of short scenes.

Forum Theatre:   We then met with the other group to do some forum theatre. As we haven't created much of my scene, we decided that we would show them the opening of Rob's scene. The first question they raised was who was Rob talking to - the audience or himself? He tried it both ways, but it actually worked really well with him saying it all using strong eye contact with the audience. He said the first line quite conversational but did the whole thing staring at the audience. Another point raised was that people were unsure at the start of the shop scene who was playing Rob. Therefore, at the beginning of this scene, Ollie picks up Rob's book from the table and carries it under his arm as a folder. Lewis shall also do this in the cashpoint scene.  

Workshop (22) - Almost full cast

"Worst Pies in London":  We began actually staging this number, as the song is very challenging vocally with the timing, so by having set movements makes this song so much easier. Below is what we created:

• "A customer!":   Pop up from behind the counter and look at Rob. Unexpected entrance. Very exaggerated and shows her unpredictable nature.
• "- fright I thought you was a ghost":   Go over to him.
• "Sit ye down. Sit!":   Force him to sit on the chair.
• "Did you come here for a pie, sir?":   Go back to the counter.
• "What is that?":   Fling a bug, of some sort, out of the pie.
• "No you don't! Heaven knows I try, sir!":   Slam bug on the first line, then act as if nothing's happened by leaning over with hand on the desk still. On next line, brush hand down self. Very grotesque shows how unhygienic the time was.
• "But there's no one...":   Give him the pie, then walk back to the counter to get the ale. Then walk back and pour it whilst singing. Give him the ale.
• "Is that just disgusting?...":   Sing this in his ear quite angrily. Angry and frustrated how the pies are no good.
• "The worst pies in London - ":   Walk back to counter ready for fast section.
• "And no wonder with the price of meat what it is":   Head under counter to pick up the dough and then slam it down on the counter on the beat after this line.
• The 'grunts':   Kneading the dough.
• "Wouldn't do in my shop":   On the line prior to this I would have accidentally dropped the dough on the floor, so on this line I would bend down to pick it up. On the two beats after this line I would blow the dust off the dough, and then slam it back down on the second beat. We spoke about using two different pieces of dough - the second one would be behind the counter ready for me to pick up (to look to the audience as if it was the one I had dropped) but it would be covered in flour to make it look like the floor was really dirty and dusty.
• "And I'm telling you them pussy cats is quick":   Put dough back under the counter.
• "No denying times is hard, sir":   Lean on the counter and sing to Todd, a little bit flirtatious.
• "Only lard and nothing more - is that just revolting?":   Head back over to Todd and then sing in his ear, as before.

This was as far as we got with this song. We didn't quite finish the ending of it as we were debating should I end leaning on the counter or perching on Todd's table.

"God That's Good":   In this rehearsal we had the entire cast, apart from Tom (Anthony). However, this was perfect for our number "God That's Good". We firstly experimented with James' entrance. We tried him entering from the back of the audience, through the aisle and singing to and interacting with them. The second way we tried was him entering from behind the curtains and singing on stage. The final way was James entering from the main doors and running up on to one of the stage blocks that acts as a table. We decided against the idea of him coming from behind the audience and singing to them as we have already done a lot of audience interaction and don't want to make them feel uncomfortable. We also decided against him coming out from behind the curtains, because we didn't want to over-do it, because James and Dan both entered from here separately for Pirelli's first appearance. Therefore we decided to go with James entering from the main doors and singing on the block. We also needed to decide how we were going to make it seem like James was outside, so his line "just inside of this door" would make sense. In our first version, we had James in line with the first row of audience and sang this line there, before walking in to the scene - this didn't really work that well as the audience couldn't see James singing. Therefore, we tried and went with James singing it all on the table, but everyone else is frozen - I am under the stage not visible, Rob is up in the tonsorial parlour frozen and both Ollie and Dan are sitting at the table (that James is standing on) frozen. Everyone starts moving in the musical interlude just after the line "just inside of this door"; Rob continues cleaning his razors and I come up the steps carrying a tray of hot pies. Just prior to my line "nice to see you dearie", Lewis and Alice enter from the main doors and sit down in the restaurant. The other part of this that we workshopped was Taylor's entrance - we first tried her entering from the main doors, which worked fine, but we decided to go with her entering from on the stage top right, and coming down to see the customers sitting on the blocks (Alice and Lewis). Taylor would then be able to beg the customers and interact with them, and James would then chase her up the blocks to exit where she entered.

"Epiphany":  We had already staged the beginning of this number up until when Rob jumps down on to the floor. We tried having everyone impersonating Rob and doing similar movements, but this took the attention away from Rob and didn't convey the right sort of feeling - we wanted to show Rob as completely crazy and not in control of his mental state anymore, therefore we wanted to show Rob as completely different to everyone else. This is how we then came up with the idea of everyone else looking the same and being quite regimented whilst Rob moved where he wanted to. Everyone enters from different directions after Rob's line "finished!". They then walk from stage right to stage left and vice versa - everyone is walking in horizontal lines, whilst Rob weaved wherever he wanted. When Rob goes into his dreaming part, where he is keening over his daughter Johanna, everybody stops walking and they then don't walk off until the rest of the song - we wanted to keep the movement quite simple so it doesn't distract the audience away from Rob. Meanwhile, after I have envisioned Rob as having stopped being threatening towards me, and he is on the floor keening, I go to look at the dead Dan, and move him to the top of the stairs. I stand at the top of the stairs to say my line "that's all very well but what are we gonna do about him", and then I kick him down the stairs. This puts Dan in the right place for the beginning of "A Little Priest"

"A Little Priest":   This was the first time we had run this number in the space. Initially we had planned that Dan would have been put on the large stage block in the pie shop, but we soon realised that this would restrict his movements and would be dangerous. We found this number quite challenging in the space, as there was a distinct lack of it! As we have stage blocks and chairs on the floor, to form the pie shop, we have fairly limited floor space. However, we didn't put all of the chairs away, so we can set the audience a little bit further back - but this shouldn't be too much of a problem, as we wanted our audience in rows of semi-circles, thus enabling us to have more space without our audience being too far away. This number didn't go too well today as we were quite worried about the spacing and were unsure on where we should be moving. What we have left to do for this number is to learn the lyrics (so we can do it with a backing track), practice the waltz and rehearse this number with all of the set in place (so we know where we are going and are less likely to have any accidents).

"Prologue":   As we had almost the whole cast at this rehearsal, we did the prologue, as it involves everyone. We put Taylor and Alice into this number, as they had never done it before. Taylor enters with me from under the stage, as we are the two women who love Todd, whilst Alice enters from top stage right, as this is where Turpin's house is supposedly. We are also using Alice and Taylor to help with the sail - I hold the centre, whilst they both hold an end each and sway it to make it look like its moving (this means that Ollie and Lewis can focus on holding the sides of the boat at the right height.

Directing (12) - Scenes 8, 9 and 2

Scene 8:   We went over the beginning that we did last lesson and the first two pages and then continued through the rest of it. We worked on our movement - we didn't want it to be too static during this scene, so Lewis is quite fluid and calm with his movements to show how relaxed he is. Contrastingly, I am a little bit rigid with my movements to show that I am uncomfortable, as this is the scene when I tell Jerry that I am pregnant. We also looked at how Lewis would say the line "I'm very happy for you" - we didn't want him to sound disappointed, but we wanted the audience to almost feel sorry for him.

Scene 9:   We had spent a lot of time on this scene previously, so we were already confident on a lot of it, but we worked on the ending today. We decided that I wouldn't sit down at all during this scene as my character feels really awkward. At the end when Lewis is sitting on the bed and I have walked over to him, he shall hold my hand in both of his, and then he would stand up before we hug. We worked on the moment when Ollie walked in so it looked convincing.

Scene 2:   I directed the boys on their character's intentions and the meanings of certain lines. They have done this scene before but we spoke about certain lines and movement. Robert says to Jerry that they "never played squash though" - we discussed what he could mean by this (assuming that there is definitely a meaning to this as otherwise it is a bit random and strange that it is brought up a lot throughout the play). We wondered is it anything to do with the fact that squash is quite a violent sport - the fact that Robert has always been calm with Jerry but has wanted to arrange a game of squash, also ironic that he now speaks of playing squash with Casey. We then thought that it could be something to do with playing games, but couldn't think of how this would link in. We then realised that it could mean because Jerry has been meeting with Emma so often, he doesn't have time to play squash with Robert - this would make sense why Robert says that he can't play squash with Casey. We then looked at how Robert winds up Jerry - we found that the two main points Robert says to get a reaction from Jerry are that he says how he hits Emma and when he speaks about Casey. I said that I didn't want Lewis to get up when he is told about Robert hitting Emma, as I want the audience to feel the tension between them, rather than see it - the audience would want Jerry to hit Robert at this point, but the fact that he doesn't makes the situation more powerful and hard-hitting.

Workshop (21) - By The Sea

The screenshot on the left shows how we workshopped the "swimming" section. This happens at the beginning of the song. For the next section that says "we'll have chums over ev'ry Friday", Lewis and Ollie put the sheet on a table (that would be on the floor for Lovett's shop) and then they and Rob and James would sit down at the table. Whilst I mime bringing over some pies.

Devising (19) - My scene

In this lesson, we worked on my scene. The beginning of our lesson was very discussion based. We were firstly concerned that using a section of a script for a scene may be taking the easy way out, as it were - also when looking for sections of script (as we agreed that we could be clever with it, like how we were originally planning to do Rob's scene with the monologue from "Eight"), we found only section of the "Kindertransport" script. Moreover, we felt that by doing this script, we were heading further away from our stimulus of "ghost stories" and more towards "humanity in crisis" - although we looked at how you can be haunted by things for the other scenes, we felt that we could do something that linked even closer to the idea of ghosts (rather than stories) for our last scene.

Instead of doing a piece inspired by "Kindertransport", we took the idea of war and losing family members. Although we were worried about being cliché by using the idea of ghosts, we felt that this scene would be the ideal opportunity for this. We decided that my character would be an old lady who lived through the war but she lost her husband to it. At first we thought that she could be haunted by things she hadn't done in her past - but realised that this would be drifting away from our stimulus again. An earlier thought was that she could be married to someone she doesn't particularly want to be with, because society wouldn't let her marry the man she wanted to because he was above her - however, we decided against this as it was going away from our stimulus again.

We decided that my character would be an elderly lady who lost her first husband to the war, re-married, but is haunted by him and his love - she is unhappy and thinks about him so much, that he is practically with her all the time (bit like a child and an imaginary friend). We wanted to use music for this piece, but also wanted a lot of it set in the 40's. Therefore, we didn't want to use music from a phone, so instead Rob shall play piano for us for this scene - we thought that this would be in fitting with our time period and could also work as my character being haunted by what she hears. We thought that this would be acceptable for Rob to play piano during this scene, as he had a lot of dialogue for his scene and also has a lot to do in Lewis' scene and two of the motifs too.

As a group, we really struggle with creating strong dialogue. Therefore, we decided that we would work on the physical aspect of this scene to create our story, and then add dialogue to it later. We thought about having dates read out at random points and narration, but realised that Rob's scene was all narration, so we would just work on creating quality dialogue later.

However, we got quite a long way with this scene today. We didn't want it to be completely linear, so we began with me walking forwards (as an elderly lady) with Lew and Ollie already standing at the front. As soon, as I get there, they then turned around and left to opposite sides of the stage. Originally we did a section where I would bend down and place a lily on the floor, as if at my husband's grave and Lewis would put his hand on my shoulder and I would shut my eyes and go to reach his hand with mine, but by the time I get there, he would have moved - I thought we could then have him touch me on the shoulder before leaving to go to war later on in the piece. We liked this idea, but shall include it later. We thought that we should establish the relationship first. So as I arrived and the boys left, I then did a slow turn, but on this turn, I completely altered my physicality to show that I was a lot younger. As I got to facing stage right, I would see Lewis and run up and hug him. This would show him returning from training, but he would then tell me that he was having to leave for war - it was no longer training. I would hold both of his hands and then move towards him, but he would walk past behind me - as if he had moved through me, almost ghost-like. He would then do a slow-mo section to show fighting and would stand with Ollie. Ollie and Lewis would do a turn and swap places - Ollie would then deliver me a telegram.

This was where we got up to this lesson. We might not necessarily do all of that in that order, or we may add bits in between, but we are really happy with the strong start we made on this scene today.

Directing (11) - Scenes 5, 6, 7 and 8

Scene 5:   Hotel room. Venice. 1973. Summer. Emma & Robert.

• We did the majority of this scene last lesson, but we finished it today. The first bit that Lewis directed us on today was the following section: "can you remember?" "No." "You can't?" "No." "How odd." Lewis wants Ollie and I to do this section really quickly, to portray Robert as almost interrogating her. This makes Emma feel more uncomfortable and thus prompts her to own up about the affair. 
• We all agreed that we want Robert to be quite eerily calm throughout this, but there are a few moments where we see him struggle - the mention of the flat, that it was five years and the realisation the Ned might not have been his son. If Robert shouted at all during this scene the audience would probably dislike him further. The audience do feel sorry for Emma in this scene, due to the awkward situation and the intimidating Robert, but we want them to then question themselves on their feelings towards the characters, as they remind themselves that Emma has in fact cheated on her husband for five years. 
• Lewis also directed me to have more movement in the scene - we agreed that Robert shouldn't move for the majority of this scene, as he is being quite controlled (though he does move for the bits that hurt / surprise him - the three sections mentioned earlier), but I move near and at the end of the scene. Throughout the scene I have been sitting on the bed, with my knees gradually getting closer to me as I get tenser, but by the time I tell him how long the affair has been going on for, my back is to Robert as I am sitting on the edge of the bed. At the end of the scene when Robert says "are you looking forward to our trip to Torcello?" Lewis directed me to stand up and walk to the side as I am overcome with emotion that I can't sit down for any longer.

Scene 6:   Flat. 1973. Summer. Emma & Jerry.

• Discussed set. Agreed that for the flat there shall be a table and two chairs stage left, a sofa slightly off-centre, and a table stage right. 
• Lewis and I had done this scene before, but Ollie re-directed the part where I say "do you think we'll ever got to Venice together? No. Probably. Not." As I am about to put the table cloth on, Lewis takes the dirty glasses off the table and into the kitchen. It is here that I ask my question, but I don't realise he has gone because my back is to the kitchen door - when I get no response I realise that he has gone and answer it myself before his return.

Scene 7:   Restaurant. 1973. Summer. Robert, Jerry & Waiter.

• We have done this scene a lot so there was no real direction needed for this lesson, as we had covered all the main points before - such as the intention with the lines.

Scene 8:   Flat. 1971. Summer. Jerry & Emma.

• We didn't complete this scene today as we were focusing on the beginning, and making that seem natural. Ollie has directed Lewis to enter with a briefcase and newspaper, saying "hullo" as he throws his newspaper on the sofa and puts his bag down.

Devising (18) - Motifs & Research

We devoted the vast majority of this lesson to our motifs, and the remainder to a discussion about my scene.

1. Our first motif we had already devised - this was Ollie walking from one side of the room to the other, followed by Lewis who joins in a little bit later than Ollie's entrance. 
2. We had a rough idea on what we wanted for our second motif - we knew we wanted to do some sort of puppetry. We changed our chair from our first version, to me on my hands and knees to form a seat as this made our motif more abstract, as the puppetry isn't very naturalistic. Our puppetry section contains Rob controlling Ollie's arms, checking his reflects and his pulse. Every movement that Ollie does is because of Rob controlling him. However, before our blackout at the end of this motif, we wanted something that Ollie could do by himself - after some experimenting, we just wanted Ollie to clench his hand into a fist - this is because it is small enough that it isn't too cliché and over-the-top, but it is enough for the audience to notice.
3. Our third motif is practically the same as the one we had previously created - however we have developed it slightly. Instead of Ollie just listing simple colours to me, he shall get brighter as it continues - i.e. he will start with colours such as "blue" and "yellow", and will eventually lead to "burgundy" and "magnolia". At the end of this motif, there will be a flash of bright light and Ollie will look directly at me.
4. We have completely changed the final motif. Initially, we were planning on Ollie doing a variety of head movements. We took inspiration from our physical theatre hospital scene in "Dr Faustus" - we aren't doing our version to music though and aren't making it seem such a chaos. Instead, Ollie lies on a table, and we all have three movements that we shall repeat (I mime putting a mask on his face, giving him an injection, and taking his temperature). After this, Rob mimes using a defibrillator - on each touch Ollie lifts his chest up. This happens four times, but then Ollie doesn't move on the next few. Therefore, Rob, Lewis and I walk away, but as we walk off Ollie starts doing the same chest movements again. On his last one, his head falls to the side to face the audience.

Having decided against the abortion and the domestic violence ideas, the only other idea we had before this lesson was body image expectations... however, we were unsure on this idea as we thought it might be too similar to the idea of media. We therefore came up with three new ideas: religion, adultery and World War Two - the ideas seem random and completely different, but we wanted something quite unexpected but something that haunts you. We also want this scene to contain quite a lot of dialogue as our other scenes are heavily movement based. We therefore thought that we could do a section of a play from one of these topics. We were all interested in the war, so we ended up coming across the play "Kindertransport".

"Kindertransport":

• "Kindertransport" is a play by Diane Samuels.
• Kindertransport was "an organised rescue effort that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindertransport.
• Play's setting: November 1938.
• British government set us a programme to allow Jewish children safe entry to the UK. They were separated from their families, and moved to a different culture in Britain, and were spared the death camps.
• In the play, daughter of Helga and Ernest, Eva Schlesinger, is transported to Manchester and moves in with single mum Lil (until her parents have got enough money to move to England too).
• Lil and Eva fall out because Eva skips English classes to go round to posh houses to try and get her parents a job. Lil and Eva eventually make up, and Eva starts to lose her Jewish roots as she eats ham.
• When Eva is in her late teens, Helga arrives and is told by Eva that she is now adopted by Lil, English and called Evelyn. Helga is "offended and upset" she won't go to New York with her family, and tells her her dad is dead. They argue, and Helga leaves - followed by an "imaginary vicious, angry argument between Helga and Evelyn in which Evelyn gets out all of her hatred for Helga, and she proclaims that Helga IS the Ratcatcher."
• Meanwhile, in the present, "Evelyn's daughter Faith is uncovering her Mum's secret past and they have an argument, which eventually comes to rest. All of this takes place in the attic of Lil's house, which supposedly represents Evelyn's psyche."

We shall have a look at this script and see if we can do anything with it for my scene.

Workshop (20) - A Little Priest & Johanna

Johanna:   Whilst Dan, Rob and I were working on "A Little Priest", Tom, Ollie and Lewis worked on "Johanna". They worked on their staging and attempted it in a couple of ways before coming up with their final way, the version they filmed. They worked on their characterisation to make Beadle come across as really creepy and to make the audience feel sorry for Anthony.

A Little Priest:   

• Dance section:   We experimented on what we could do in a dance break. We tried doing a Waltz, but Rob isn't exactly a dancer! We then tried to do more of a slow dance, but this didn't really work well with the song, as it was too romantic, when they are supposed to be having a laugh and being excited. We therefore tried holding hands and doing a little swing from side to side while singing to each other - we thought that this worked better than the slow dance as it fit with the piece, looked good and conveyed the right sort of feeling. However, we do have a couple of dance breaks - we didn't want each dance break to be the same, so we decided that on one of them we would Waltz, as when it is done right it would work really well for this song - this means we have a lot of practice to do!
• The Ending:   Originally, we had the ending where we would do the kicks with Dan and then we would drop him and walk forwards and sing out. However, we wanted to do something that would should how sadistic our character are - we tried having us sing to each other and then out to the audience, ending with us putting a foot each on the dead Dan - however, we thought we could be more cynical. We finally decided on us dropping him, me walking over to the counter and picking up a butcher's knife - I would then hold it in the air over Dan and Todd and I would smile at each other. We would then end on a black out here.

Directing (10) - Scenes 3, 4 and 5

Scene Three:   Flat. 1975. Winter. Emma & Jerry. End of their affair.

• Ollie wants the audience to feel sympathy for Jerry, so Lewis was directed to say his "in the summer, wasn't it?" more innocently, and if he is worried that I will snap back at him (which I do).
• Following the idea above, Ollie directed Lewis to go to put his hand on my shoulder on the line "I know it seems-" as if he is trying to calm me down and be caring, but I lean away from him when I cut him off and put him in his place. The tension is then clearly visible. 
• On my long line beginning "you see, in the past...", I was directed to turn to face Lewis and take his hand whilst speaking to him. This shows a change in my character's feelings to take the audience on more of a journey, and to present that she doesn't really know what she wants - she is perhaps reluctant to end the affair.
• "It was never intended to be the same kind of home. Was it?" - I had previously said this line in a bit of a bitter way, as if I was going to say that it was a flat "for fucking". However, Ollie re-directed me to say it as if this was the first I knew of him not wanting it to have been a sort of home - I therefore said this line quite upset, which worked well for my line that then followed. However on my second sentence, I altered my tone to show that I am thinking and 'realised' what his intention for the flat was.

Scene Four:   E & R's house. 1974. Autumn. All three. Tense scene in living room.

• We had done this scene quite a few times together so we all knew the intentions and objectives for each character, however, we changed the staging slightly. Instead of me being forced to sit next to Robert on the sofa, I now perch on the arm of the sofa furthest away from him. This shows how uncomfortable Emma is in this scenario, but is also symbolic of her danger.
• We discussed how horrible Robert is to Emma in this scene, especially after their conversation in the next scene - where he says to Emma "you should have lunch with us one day and chat about it," whilst in this scene, he says hoe "you don't actually want a woman within a mile of the place, any of the places really".

Scene Five:   Hotel room. Venice. 1973. Summer. Emma & Robert. Affair discovered by Robert.

• We added a little bit more movement into this scene. This is the same as the last scene, in the fact that we have both done this scene before and are aware of our intentions, objectives and subtext, but we could add more movement in. Lewis directed Ollie to get up at one point and read over my shoulder, as this instantly makes people feel uncomfortable. 
• We didn't finish this scene today, but shall continue with it next lesson.