Theatre for Children (15) (Props)

Today I almost completed the props for FMF. I cut out all of the chickens and the cider jar. I then went over the black pen to make it stand out more and to neaten the edges of the cardboard. I realised that it was important that I re-enforced the chickens and the jar as I didn't want them to bend and get weak whilst rehearsing with them and during the shows. If I didn't re-enforce them, they could bend and possible rip, making them look less professional for the next performance and also being an inconvenience to us. I re-enforced the props by sticking more cardboard to the back of all them, especially to the places where the cardboard is narrower and more likely to bend (e.g. the bones of the chicken legs and the handle of the cider jar). Originally, I wasn't going to paint the rest of the cider jar; I was just going to leave it brown, as the jars are normally a shade of brown. However, as it is a children's theatre piece, I wanted to make the jar stand out more and look a little bit more exciting, so I thought that yellow would brighten it up a little bit. It would also form a contrast to us actors as we are all wearing black.

Storytelling (11) (The Snow Queen)

Today we completed the first scene of "The Snow Queen". Below is what we did...

• "dashed in a hundred million and more pieces" - all lay down
  
  • represents the mirror being smashed into small pieces
• "as a grain of sand" - contract into a small ball
  
  • represents size or mirror pieces
• "evil" - get up
• "the very smallest bit had the same power" - CS is hoisted up by LF, OK, RA and RD. JBC and LC mime pulling him up
  
  • represents the mirror's power as a whole formed by all the little pieces
• "Some persons even got... for their heart became" - CS in centre with everyone else moving in towards him moving their hands in and out quickly twice on each step
  • represents the heartbeat of the people and death slowly encasing them 
• "lump of ice" - form circle around CS
  
  • represents an ice block encasing the heart
• "Then the wicked sprite laughed..." - everyone performs a backbend in accumulation around the circle, starting with me. We all come up to standing at the same time and remain there

The rest of this lesson was spent cutting down the next scene as a group. The scene was far too long so we started cutting out parts that we didn't think we needed.

Theatre for Children (14) (Full run)

In this lesson we did our second full run-through. We worked on transitions primarily and worked out what scenes needed amending. We are happy with the farmers introduction scene as it instantly shows the relationship between the farmers and engages the children straight away (due to the music and comedy routine). However, we were not happy with the next scene - the introduction to the fox family. This was because it was lacking in energy and didn't give a clear introduction to all of the characters. Moreover, we knew that the audience needed to instantly love the character of Mr Fox, so we needed to alter this scene to make him more likable from the very beginning. We have made Charlie's character a little bit less cool, but more cheeky instead, this instantly made his character have more energy and more comical too for our young audience. As we want it to be clear to our audience that Charlie is the main character, we are swapping the farmers introduction scene and the foxes introduction scene. This also means that less transitions are needed as the farmers are on the stage for two adjacent scenes.

The only other scenes we felt needed altering were "Bean's Secret Cider Cellar" and "The Great Feast". For the cider cellar scene, a bit of movement was added for when the animals (excluding rat and Mrs Fox) are hiding behind the cider jars. They form a line going from downstage to upstage (with Oliver at the front, then Charlie, Robert, Lewis and finally James) on the line "dashed behind". On the word "breath" they poke their heads out alternately at different levels, as so all characters can be seen. On the word "breathe" they swap what way they have peaked out to the other side, but kept the same levels. On the word "heart" they all come back in to centre. The purpose for this was to make the scene more interesting for the children to watch and would therefore hold their attention better.

Next lesson, we will be adding in a bit of dialogue between little groups of pairs of characters before "The Great Feast" scene. Rhiannon and I improvised a little section for us two to use, with my fox cub character pestering Mrs Fox whether dinner was ready or not. By next lesson, I hope to have finished making the props so we can rehearse with them. Also, our costumes should be arriving shortly for us to practice in too.

Theatre for Children (13) (Full run)

We began today's lesson by running our final scene of "Fantastic Mr. Fox", the song. Oliver and Charlie had already worked out their movement section last lesson, but James and I established ours today. We began our section by skipping in and being playful. We then did a turn to the left and then a turn back to the right. Charlie joined us both, putting his arms around our shoulders on the line "there isn't anything that I wouldn't do for you". On the next line the three of us do a little hand shake, then Charlie starts "dad dancing" so James and I look at each other and run to the side laughing. Everybody else worked out there little movement sections as well, whilst James and I choreographed ours. Whilst it is not our time in the centre, we stand at the sides and step from side to side smiling. The piece ends with a final position, as if it was a family photograph. We all end waving to the audience.

After this, we altered the farmers first scene. They shall now begin their scene with Bunce running on with a Boggis's chicken leg. Thinking that Boggis can't see him, Bunce begins eating the chicken. Boggis spots Bunce and is not happy. They are fighting over the chicken leg when Bean then enters. They then have a moment of bobbing up and down at different times to the music. The song we are using for this section is "I've got a brand new combine harvester" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjvffx-h2KM).

After developing this scene, we began our first full run-through. This run was used to see what scenes needed the most work, which ones we weren't confident on, what transitions needed sorted and to see if our music choices worked. The scenes that need the most work are "The Great Feast" and "The Chase". All doubts that we had have now been sorted (e.g. where we need to come in from, and how we are going to end a scene to go into the next one). The transitions were better than we expected today, despite a lot of them being guessed! The music we chose was very effective! We decided to have some eerie music for whenever we dig towards the farms and back and a choir singing the sound "ah" as if being enlightened/rejoicing whenever we arrive in the right place and see what we've been longing for (e.g Boggis's chickens!).

What we need to work on as a group is having more energy throughout our performance (as our audience is very young so have a short concentration/attention span) and getting off of scripts by next rehearsal. We would also like to start rehearsing with all our props and costumes as soon as we can as to get used to them and to sort any problems we may have with them sooner rather than later. We also set ourselves and each other some individual tasks and improvements. What I need to do is learn my lines for "Bean's Cider Cellar" scene, make my voice even more exaggerated as Rat to have a bigger contrast to the fox cub, and to finish making the props.

London Riots Devised Piece (Performance Evaluation)

On Monday 23rd November we performed our London Riots Devised Piece. Overall we were pleased with our performance, although there were areas for improvement. Below is an evaluation of what went well, what didn't go as well as planned, and what we would do differently next time if we were to do it again (and time and money were not an issue). The numbers refer to what scene the comment fits with (1 = "ill Manors"; 2 = Tom & Rhi duologue; 3 = Lew & Ash duologue; 4 = Emotional turmoil scene; 5 = Dan & Tom duologue; 6 = Toby & Lorna duologue; 7 = Consequences; 8 = MP speeches; 9 = "ill Manors" reprise; G = generic / the piece in general).

WHAT WENT WELL:

• 1) Lew's fall down the stairs was very convincing.
• 1) Transition from "chavs" to gorillas was very smooth, making the scene run more seamlessly.
• 1) I did this movement scene to the best of my ability. As my toe was still painful, I decided to stay sitting on the table, and use my upper body to show that I was acting as a gorilla. 
• 1) The whole of our performance space was used well.
• 1) Siren integrated into the music track was very effective. Gave us the cue to exit, so we all left at the same time, making the transition smooth. The siren also gave us a reason to leave, we didn't want to get caught by the police.
• 2) Tom & Rhi's body language was very effective and convincing. 
• 2) The contrast between moments of quiet compared to when they both spoke over each other added to the audience's feeling of being uncomfortable and confusion. 
• 3) Lew used his shuffling body language to portray that the police felt uncomfortable. 
• 4) Animation was effective and timing was strong between movement and lighting.
• 4) Mine and Tom's duet scene went well regards my broken toe. This scene was VERY painful, but I continued to the best of my ability. 
• 5) Tom & Dan's use of pauses were very effective. They allowed the audience to take in the situation and reflect on it themselves. 
• 6) I thought my questions made my character believable as I had researched these to make my character as believable and as convincing as possible.
• 6) Toby's use of breath was effective to show how difficult the situation is for his character and how much he is struggling. 
• 7) We were all still when the lights came on, rather than still moving into our freeze frames.
• 7) I think mine and Rhiannon's facial expressions were effective in this scene. 
• 8) I maintained my voice and attitude during my speech and used my body language to suggest that I am sympathetic yet am demanding action to be taken.
• 8) I managed to maintain a straight face during Toby's comical mini monologues. 
• 9) We achieved the combination of gorilla movements and MP voices. 
• G) The lighting was very effective, creating the appropriate atmosphere for each scene.
• G) The majority of our transitions were smooth.

WHAT DIDN'T GO AS WELL AS PLANNED: 

• 1) I physically couldn't do as much as I would have liked to in this scene because of my toe, but I did what I could to the best of my ability.
• 3) Lined paper (preferably that had been written on) should have been used to represent the witness statements, as from where I was standing (at the opposite end of the room) I could see that it was Lewis's class work (due to the ginger bread man outline!).
• 4) The music was played four counts to early, so the boys had to rush a little bit (and do weren't in time with each other all the time) as so the rest of the piece would be in time. 
• 4) During the duet with Tom, I ended up limping a little bit due to the amount of pain I was in, but I tried my best to continue without making my pain obvious. 
• 6) Although Toby put in so much emotion into this scene, he could have spoken a bit louder as to ensure he was audible at all times. I was probably too quiet as well as I got engrossed in his emotion and forgot about the volume. Although we could hear each other, the audience may not!
• 7) In this transition into the MP scene, Rhiannon's top came off as she removed her hoodie. Thankfully she was wearing my vest top underneath, but the idea of the top (that came off) was to make her look smarter.
• 8) Not everyone managed to keep a straight face during Toby's monologues. 

WHAT WE WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME:

• All wear zipped hoodies to make changing easier.
• Ensure we have all appropriate props pre-set before the performance.
• Ensure timings for music and cues are all written down.
• Make sure that we project enough so that everyone can hear.
• Not get injured before the performance!!!
• Keep rehearsing scenes we have a tendency to laugh in when we shouldn't.

The Flint Street Nativity - Play, by Tim Firth (13) (Songs)

Today we continues working on songs. However, this time we found some backing tracks to try them to.

Rhiannon and I sang through our song "A Way To Kill Mary". It is to the tune of "Away in a Manger", which my character sings the traditional lyrics, whilst the character of Gabriel sings/speaks her own alternative lyrics. I have to sing the first two verses, then I play the next verse on my recorder, and then the verse after that I "la" and dance to, and the final verse I sing again. We tried this to two different backing tracks, both in a different key, but I realised that it has to be the original key as I am playing it on recorder and can only place it in that key.

Afterwards, Robert and I sang our song "Watch How Mummy Does It". This parody is to the tune of "Once it Royal David's City". We managed to improve our song a lot from last lesson, as we managed to make sense of more of the song, and almost got the ending correct. However, we still aren't confident on the ending, so will go through this together.

Afterwards, we sang through the song "Massive Newt", which is to the tune of "Silent Night". We also staged it this lesson too. We didn't have much to do on this song as we did this last lesson.

Finally we did the adult song "I Wish", which has choruses from "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" and the solo parts are to the tune of the characters child's solo. We managed this song okay last lesson, so today we decided to stage it. We worked out that during every chorus, the cast will move around, perhaps getting a mince pie or pouring another glass of wine. Whenever someone has a solo they move forward into a particular one of the three spot lights. When everyone leaves just before my solo, I end up on stage and sing my solo sitting down, depressed. The scene between Ollie and I then  takes place and then there is a little bit more of the song, however, we didn't have time to stage this part today.

Storytelling (10) (The Snow Queen)

Today we continued working on the first scene. We have slightly altered parts of the scene but I added a lot more to it today. We didn't manage to complete this scene as we had to ensure that we all turned the same way to make our piece look professional. Below is what the scene now consists of and the reasons I made these choices... (Seven masks are in a straight line at the front of our performance space for later use in the scene)

• Start in a circle, facing in. Right hand on the person on your left's right shoulder.
  
  • Intrigue audience. They have no idea what is going on and therefore may feel tense.
• "let us begin." - Move to random positions facing random directions.
  
  • Audience are confused as to what is beginning. Also, no idea who's voice is speaking. Adds to eerie atmosphere.
• "reflected" - Turn 180 degrees (over right shoulder)
  
  • Fitting, makes sense as the movement represents the word. Shows literal change.
• "poor and mean" - Two contractions.
  
  • Body shape become uglier and shows progression of power of mirror.
• "magnified" - Exaggerate last position.
  
  • Movement represents the word. Show increase/magnification of mirror's power.
• "In this mirror the most" - Walk to straight line at front.
  
  • We represent the mirror's face.
• "their faces" - Pick up mask.
• "distorted that they..." - Put mask on.
  • Represents how you can't tell who we each are. Identity disappears.
• "recognised" - Turn 180 degrees to face back (over right shoulder)
  
  • Even harder to tell who each of us are. Emphasises the idea of missing identity.
• "and if anyone had a mole" - Move to circle, facing out.
• "magnified" - Form levels and reaches in different directions.
  • Adds depth, magnifies weirdness. No longer uniformed and clean.
• ""That's glorious fun!"" - Walk quickly to line at front.
  
  • Represents excitement, yet has an element of being sinister and threatening.
• "If a good thought passed" - Cannon of left arm sweeping from right to left.
  
  • Symbolises the thought gradually coming to the sprite.
• "then a grin" - James smiles and points to his mouth
  
  • Little bit of humour to release tension momentarily.
• "All the little sprites..." - Move to formation (RD & JBC front / LC, CS & RA second line / LF & OK back line)
  
  • Represent school classroom. Formation specific to allow for next lift.
• "They ran about" - CS holds arms out strong, as LF & OK lift him, by his arms. RD, JBC, LC & RA split to make room for the lift to move forwards and back. CS moves legs to look as if he's running.
• "fly up to the sky" - CS lifted by LF (left shoulder and arm), OK (right shoulder and arm), LC (bottom) & RA (legs). RD & JBC mask lift.
  
  • Symbolises flying.
• "that it flew out" - Drop CS (safely!).
  
  • CS represents the mirror 
• "dashed" - Everyone lies down.
• Represents the mirror being broken. 

I decided to cut down certain parts of the script to make it more suitable. I cut out some lines whilst the lift was taking to place so we didn't have to hold the lift for so long, thus making the lift easier as safer too. I ensured that these lines were not essential so it didn't effect the story line and the scenes to follow.