Theatre for Children (11) (Scene work // Placards)

Today we polished "The Race" scene, rehearsing it with the official narration and the music. The main things we had to focus on were making sure that our movements were all as slow as each others and making our facial expressions as exaggerated and over-the-top as possible, as this would really appeal to our young audience.

We also devised "Boggis's Chicken House" scene. To begin this scene Charlie, James and I dig our route to underneath the Chicken House. To show us "digging our route", we move our hands in circular motions at all times unitl we "arrive". We "travel" with Charlie at the front of the line, then me and then James. All movements are done in cannon, so when we turn round a corner Charlie would go first whilst I carry on, and then I'd turn when I got to the exact place he turned, and then the same with James. To make our "journey" look more interesting rather than just having narration saying "the foxes arrived", we made a movement sequence:
   -     travel from SL to C digging forwards
   -     travel sideways from C to SR (each actor turning sideways in cannon)
   -     travel forwards around a corner from facing SR to facing SL
   -     travel from SR to C ducking in cannon
   -     travel from C facing SL to C facing F (travelling slightly forward still ducking)
   -     * dialouge between the fox characters *
   -     Charlie jumps to stand up straight where he is
   -     I jump to stand up straight to the left of Charlie
   -     James jumps to stand up straight to the right of Charlie
Throughout this movement section, Oliver narrates to ensure the young audience understand what is happening. Once we arrive there is more dialouge between us three fox characters. We found out that Lewis can do a really impressive chicken noise impression, so he shall make various chicken noises when we jump up and stand in the Chicken House. We decided that when we "take the chickens home" we shall carry placards of pictures of chickens.

As my broken toe was extremely painful this lesson and it wasn't essential for me to be up and moving in the next scene we devised, I decided that I would begin to work on the placards. So this scene didn't upset the children, we decided to have pictures of what they would recognise as "food chicken" as opposed to "animal chickens". I began making these placards by getting some cardboard and drawing a pencil outline of chicken legs and roast chickens. I wanted two placards to be just chicken legs and small roast chickens (for James and I), but I wanted one placard (Charlie's placard) to be of one large roast chicken, as so Mr Fox looks a lot stronger than the fox cubs. The hardest part to making these placards was mixing the correct colours. So far I have done two of the placards, so by next lesson I will have done my third and final chicken placard.

Whilst I was painting the set, the rest of the group began work on "Bean's Secret Cider Cellar" scene. As my character of the fox cub goes home to Mrs Fox, only Mr Fox and the other fox cub go on this journey. On the journey they meet Badger, Mole (Robert) and Rabbit (Lewis). They have worked out another movement section to "arrive" at the cellar. This whole journey is narrated by Oliver again, but also has a creepy piano underscore. This creates tension suitable for our young audience. We didn't have time to go any further with this scene, but Oliver is scripting this scene ready for next lesson. He has told me that at the end of this scene my character of the Rat will end on stage shouting after the other characters in rage. As to make my insults appropriate and suitable for the young audience, I have taken my insults from the new "Insult Generator" on Matilda the Musical's website (http://uk.matildathemusical.com/insult-generator/#main-body).
The insults I found which I like are as follows:
   -     "You malicious evil termite!"
   -     "You foul little worm!"
   -     "You nasty-faced thick-headed stink bomb!"
   -     "You jumped-up nasty-faced newt!"
   -     "You horrible nasty-faced animal!"
   -     "You filthy malicious crook!"
   -     "You lousy vile cockroach!"
   -     "You slimy yucky filthbog!"
Obviously, I won't be using all of them as there won't be time, but I have given myself options, and the rest of the group can say which ones they like the best.

Storytelling (9) (The Snow Queen)

STORYTELLING:

-   Multi-media                                                  -   Music (live & recorded)
-   Projection                                                     -   Movement / Dance
-   Physical Theatre                                           -   Communal voice / Chorus Speaking
-   Monologues / Thought-tracking                    -   Sound effects / Sound scape
-   Placards                                                        -   Props
-   Dialogue                                                        -   Story-teller


THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING A STORY:

-   Target Audience (Age)                                   -   Location of performance & set
-   Suitability to age and space                            -   Actors strengths & weaknesses
-   Access to sound & lighting


PROGRESSION OF IDEAS & DECISIONS:

Firstly, we had to decide whether we wanted to make an original story or do a classic story. We were tempted to do our own story originally but decided against it as we know that we are a very opinionated group and it would take a long time to make decisions and also we have a fast approaching deadline for this piece. Therefore, we decided that we would do a classic. We started discussing children stories but we knew we wouldn't want to do a children's piece (as we are currently working on our children's theatre piece) so we considered taking a more unconventional approach, and doing a twisted/dark version of a children's story. We did joke about doing a version of the recent children's movie/musical (or movical) "Frozen". We instantly decided against this idea but we did then think of the fairy tale "The Snow Queen", by Hans Christian Anderson. We read the first scene of the story and instantly saw potential in the piece, as we thought of ways we could engage the audience (the story could have lots of movement in for the audience to watch whilst listening to the narration). "The Snow Queen" tells the story of two young best friends, Kay and Gerda, who live opposite each other. They always spend time together. However, one day Kay gets a shard of the sprites magic mirror in his heart and eye causing him to see everything as horrible and he forgets those he loves. He gets manipulated by the Snow Queen and gets lead away from his home and is completely lost. Gerda goes out on a long journey to try and find him. On the way, she meets an old lady in a cottage, a talking crow and a princess. Eventually, Kay and Gerda meet again and they are so happy to see each other.


FIRST STEPS IN CREATING OUR PIECE:

We noticed that the story is in seven parts and we have seven people in our group, therefore we decided that we could all narrate a scene each. By constantly using narration, we would ensure that we were telling a story as opposed to devising. Whilst one person narrates everybody else would take part in a movement piece. This would give the audience the story to be told and to listen to, whilst having something interesting for the audience to watch. We decided that it could get boring having similar narration every time, so we thought that some narration could be live, whilst other sections could be pre-recorded. We have decided an order for who shall narrate each scene. The class voted me to narrate the first scene and Oliver for the final scene; the full order is as follows: Lorna, James, Lewis, Robert, Charlie, Rhiannon, Oliver. Each actor decided if they want to pre-record their narration or not and what they want to happen, movement wise, in their scene.


SCENE ONE

I decided that I wanted to pre-record my narration so I could be involved in the movement piece. I wanted to begin my scene with everyone standing in random places in the performance space, facing different directions. My idea for this was that I wanted the audience to be confused as to who was speaking but also to slightly build tension as they would have no clue what would happen next. We would all stand still until the word "reflected", when we would change our direction - turning 180 degrees. There we would stand momentarily until the words "poor and mean", when we would do two contractions, lowering our stance on each. Here we would remain until the words "magnified and increased", when we would then exaggerated the position we were holding (but making our overall stance higher). This was all we had time to stage during this lesson, but my homework is to continue choreographing this scene.

The Flint Street Nativity - Play, by Tim Firth (11) (Character development // Script work)

17/11/15

Today's lesson was spent making set.... aka, painting nativity scenes! We got some paints and made our nativity scenes as if we were our characters, therefore my one had to be fairly good, whilst Rhiannon's characters one would probably make Gabriel more important than Mary and Lewis's character's painting would have lots of stars on it. We made sure that our pictures matched what it said in the script; therefore we ensured that a couple of paintings had "John Burgeon" (but not mine as Mary asks who he is) and that one painting was a picture of a duck with an ice cream.

19/11/15

In this lesson, we did the adult section but all swapped parts. This was so we not only thought about other characters attitudes, but so we could see someone else's take on our characters. For this exercise Katya and I switched roles, so I was Shepherd's Mum whilst she was Mary's Mum. I thought Katya took a very interesting approach by making Mary's Mum's character more common. I liked how she gave the character a more sarcastic approach, however, I personally feel that Mary's Mum would be a little more caring and a bit more upper class.


20/11/15

Today we ran the play from the beginning up to the end of Act One. However, this time was the first time we did it completely without scripts. Although we obviously had to focus on getting our lines correct, we were told to focus on our movement and making it as convincing as possible.

Theatre for Children (10) (Forum Theatre // Script work)

14/11/15

Today, James was put in to the farmers scenes properly. We all took part in a forum theatre of the "Plan for the shooting" scene. Areas that we (Charlie, Rhiannon and I) thought could do with improving the most were James's stance, Robert's and James's reaction to Lewis's entrance and the slapstick section. I tried to help James with his stance, as I had developed my stance for Bunce when I used to play this role. James had a great stance when he was stationary, but when he had to move or interact with another character, his stance would go from Bunce back to James. I thought Robert's and James's reaction to Lewis's entrance was very comical (with James jumping up in to Robert's arms and being held by him) but not very practical; we didn't think this lift would be possible or safe when Robert has his costume on (which will involve padding). This lift was then changed into a hug as it was safer and more practical. The slapstick section was great but we have tweaked it a little bit just to make it that slight bit more exaggerated and more funny.

Whilst James, Robert and Lewis continued to work on their scenes after our feedback, the rest of us decided to re-script the opening scene for the foxes: "Mr Fox". We decided to re-script his scene because we hadn't rehearsed it in a long time so we had forgotten parts and so the scene didn't feel natural, but also so we could add in some narration. Furthermore, we wanted to make sure all the fox characters were introduced properly so the audience understand who we all are from the start. We feel this is essential so they connect with our characters.


16/11/15

Achieved this lesson:

• OFFICIAL COSTUME LIST
  
  • Established who has what and what we definitely need to buy
• "THE SHOOTING" SCENE
  
  • Accompaniment:
    • Drumming whenever there is no dialogue to create tension and atmosphere
  • Dance-based:
    
    • Farmers rolls and positions as well as use of cannon
    • Mr Fox uses back bends and jumps
• "THE TERRIBLE TRACTORS" INTO "THE RACE" SCENE
  
  • "The Terrible Tractors":
    
    • Narration and Fox cub used to establish the farmers have tractors
  • "The Race":
    • All in slow-motion to "Chariots of Fire" theme, with narration over the top
    • Begins with foxes putting on sweat bands and getting into a sprint start position
    • Foxes run in slow motion whilst the farmers mime driving their tractors in slow-mo
    • Foxes cross "the finish line" and celebrate, running away
    • Scene ends with the farmers being angry but Boggis crying.
• THE BEGINNING OF "THE GREAT FEAST"

Theatre for Children (9) (Scene work)

Today I shared my idea of who should be in each scene to avoid complications. Everyone thought this was a good idea and so we took it on board. Robert and Lewis took James to get it up to speed with the farmers scenes. They told him the synopsis of the scenes and focused on one of them (scene three), getting him in the blocking.

Whilst the three of them did that, Rhiannon, Charlie and I went into another room and started altering the "Starvation starts" scene. Our first step was to remove James from the scene, so any lines that were both of ours became just mine. Next we had to script a reason for James's characters absence, and how to bring him back in to the next scene. The reason would be that he has gone to bed because he's got a stomache ache through sheer hunger. To bring him into the next scene, at the end of this one, Charlie will say "Freya! Get your brother, we have work to do". Charlie decided that he wanted to name his fox cubs, we wanted them to begin with an "F" so he chose Freya and Freddie. We also thought that it was essential to script the argument between Mr and Mrs Fox sooner rather than later so Rhiannon and Charlie could keep practicing this scene. The reason for this is that we have to be careful with what we say, not only so it is appropriate for our young audience, but also so it doesn't upset any of them. We wanted to keep the argument light hearted so the children don't get upset and/or so they don't start disliking Mr and Mrs Fox (as we want them to like these two characters but NOT the farmers or the rat).We wanted to include a joke but then decided against it as it wasn't appropriate for their ages. We were going to have Mrs Fox say to Mr Fox "yeah?... well you've got little ears" and he would reply "I'll have you know I have average sized ears". Although we found this amusing, it was probably a good idea not to put this into our children's theatre piece!

As the three of us were scripting the argument, Oliver started scripting some narration for our physical theatre scenes. We agreed as an entire group that physical theatre would be a nice technique to include in this piece. This was because it would be something a bit different from the rest of the piece, creating some variety, and therefore helping our audience stay interested, as they have fairly short concentration spans. The four of us (Oliver, Rhiannon, Charlie and I) decided where in the piece physical theatre would work. We found three places which would be appropriate for purely movement with a bit of narration: "The Shooting", "The Race" and "The Great Feast". I thought to ensure the piece has variety (thus helping with our audience's concentration span) we could use three different types of physical theatre. For "The Shooting" scene, I thought this could be a little bit dance-based (e.g. back bends for Charlie when he dodges the bullets, and rolls for a farmer trying to get to the best position to shoot him). "The Race" scene could be all in slow motion. We could get sweat bands and be putting them on in slow motion and prepare in a sprint-start position whilst Oliver narrates and then the "Chariots of Fire" theme song could play whilst we start the race. For "The Great Feast" scene we could use the Frantic Assembly technique of Round-by-through to represent a busy and manic atmosphere.

London Riots Devised Piece (12)

12/11/15

Today was interesting...

We began this rehearsal by discussing what we needed to work on. One aspect of our performance we needed to work on was transitions. Another area for improvement was our confidence with the whole piece but mainly the first scene and its timing. Therefore we decided that we would do a full run through and stop at the transitions we were unsure on. However, during our opening scene there was an accident...

As Lewis fell down the stairs (intentionally as this WAS part of the performance) he fell differently and landed on my foot. Although it was obviously unintentional, this incident was a result of a lapse in concentration. Lewis was focusing on his fall and making it look realistic that he wasn't aware of his surroundings. Unfortunately, the rehearsal had to be paused as I had to go to A&E. I had an X-ray and found out I had broken my little toe. It was then cleaned and strapped up. I have been told that it will take two to three weeks for the bone to heal. There was also a lot of blood as my toe had also split open underneath (due to the pressure - a little bit like squashing a grape!).

Whenever I get an injury I always carry on if I can, however I could definitely not carry on with this run-through. Thankfully this was not our actual performance of the piece. If this was a live performance, there would be no way that I would be able to continue, so the piece would have had to be stopped. If the performance was the next day, I still would not have been able to do it, but they could have altered the piece to still make it work (basically, someone take my notes and perform the interview scene with Toby, and someone could watch the rehearsal video of the "emotional turmoil" scene to learn mine and Tom's duet).

As I am out of action for a little while, I shall keep my foot elevated as to decrease the healing time. Although I cannot walk or do any movements, I shall take part in the run-through by performing  my spoken scenes sitting down.


17/11/15

In this lesson we did a full walk through of our piece (although I was having to sit out, I still read my lines). We have now really improved our transitions, making our piece flow a lot better. We did this by having a top-tail run, so we did the beginning and end of every scene, so we focused on our transitions. By doing the start and end of each scene too, we got a clearer picture of when these transitions happen and in what order they are. We also decided what we are doing for costumes. The boys shall be wearing tracksuit bottoms, whilst Rhiannon and I will wear leggings. We shall all wear hoodies with a shirt and tie or blouse underneath. The hoodies will remain on for the entire piece until our transition from the consequences scene into the MP speech scene, when we shall remove the hoodies whilst walking backwards during the blackout. The hoodies will be thrown to the side.

Storytelling (8) (Greek Myths)

Today we performed our version of the Greek myth "Perseus and Medusa". Before we performed this we had to script the narration. We decided to set our piece in a museum, so the narrator would be a tour guide, whilst the audience were visitors to the museum exhibition. As our target age group was 10 year olds, we made sure that the script wasn't too gory and didn't have language that was too complicated for them to understand. Lewis was the tour guide, so to avoid Charlie and I just standing there watching the stop-motion video, we decided to be statues in the museum. Our first position was of Perseus and his mother. When the narration described a different part of the story containing different characters, Charlie and I changed to a different freeze frame. In total we did four different freeze frames. We tried to make our transitions as smooth as possible; we even used the Frantic Assembly technique of round-by-through for two of them.