19/02/18-23/02/18
19/02/18
This week we were given the task to create a 20- minute production of one of the four musicals we have chosen for our variety performance, my group were given the musical Matilda. Matilda is a modern musical that tells " the story of an extraordinary little girl who, armed with a vivid imagination and a sharp mind, dares to take a stand and change her own destiny." The themes in this production include goodness overcoming evil, independence and finding strength in hard times. I was very happy about being given Matilda, as it is one of my favourite musicals therefore I was already familiar with its plot and soundtrack. Due to the plot being chronological and naturalistic, we found it quite easy to narrow it down to a 20-minute piece by only including key songs and scenes that involved all three actors always interacting with each other on stage. This then lead on to how we cast ourselves as we only wanted to use characters that could interact with everyone onstage, for example if we cast Bruce and Mrs Wormwood then there would be no interaction between them and the plot wouldn't flow well. Therefore, we cast myself as Matilda, Scott as Bruce and Leah as Miss Trunchbull. This meant that as the Headmistress, Leah would always interact with the children (Matilda and Bruce), and as children, Matilda and Bruce would always interact with each other. We also decided that in songs such as Revolting children and Bruce, Leah would also portray a child as this production is made up of a very child heavy cast and these songs are predominantly sung by the children.
After deciding effective casting, we moved on to making an outline for our production, I suggested that we should use multiple songs to best capture the atmosphere of the production, and then add scenes that lead into and out of these songs, with narration throughout to progress the storyline and to ensure our performance makes sense- this was our original outline:
After planning this, we came to the consensus that the best use of our first rehearsal would be to start choreographing Revolting children as this is the only song that the three of us all knew the lyrics to, by focusing on this number first we effectively finished a small section of the piece rather than sitting around trying to learn the lyrics. In terms of choreography, I took the lead as I am the most confident/ experienced dancer in the group and choreographed and taught my other two cast members a simple dance that reflected the lyrics of the song. I took inspiration from a previous production I had choreographed this number in but adapted the movement to be simpler and suitable for a small cast.
At the end of this rehearsal, we sat down and discussed what we needed in terms of costume and props. As we had such a short time frame for this project I suggested that we should all be responsible for sourcing our own costume. To show that we were school children we thought that it would be best to wear shirts and trousers/dresses and we were able to find matching ties from a previous production to make us 'uniform'. For my costume, I did some research and found images of Matilda. Taking inspiration from the costume from the stage musical, I chose to wear a light blue shirt and a dress to reflect Matilda's original costuming, the tie we found in the costume cupboard to remain 'uniform' with the other children, and black jazz shoes as they look alike to school shoes but allow more freedom of movement for the dances.
We then discussed and planned a rehearsal schedule for the week, this comprised of 3 rehearsals: 11-2 Tuesday, 11-2 Wednesday, and 4-5:30 Thursday for a full run. Additionally, we all agreed that learning the lyrics and dialogue at home would allow us to make better use of our rehearsal time as we had such a short time frame in which to complete this project.
Overall, in this rehearsal I think that my group worked well and efficiently as a team by planning our time to its best use and each contributing our strengths to create this production. I think I effectively lead my peers when teaching them the choreography as I made sure that I broke down each of the movements and made it clear as to what movement linked to which lines so that they were easily memorable.
20/02/18
In this rehearsal we focused on blocking and choreographing our second biggest number in the production, Naughty,
21/02/18
Today I had an idea I wanted to try out regarding our use of set in this mini-production, this was to have a small set that served multiple purposes. For example
Singing and blocking Bruce
22/02/18
In this rehearsal, we did a full run through with costume and set. However, we had no backing tracks as we had no one to technically assist us in this rehearsal. I think this run through successfully highlighted to us the issues we needed to address before the performance. For example, I noticed that in lacking a sound operator in the rehearsal that I needed to create a cue sheet for whoever was going to be cueing our backing tracks. *insert image of cue sheet* Other than the lack of backing tracks, I believe that this run through went quite smoothly as we didn’t over challenge ourselves with too much content and we also had created an effective rehearsal schedule that allowed us to be well prepared enough to be able to execute a full run without many hiccups.
23/02/18
Upload and evaluate performance
26/02/18-02/03/18
26/02/18
The focus of this lesson was singing through the songs: It’s a hard knock life, Naughty and Deadwood stage for the first time. Luckily, I knew the two modern songs quite well and was therefore able to focus on adding what I felt was the right emotion to my vocal as I didn’t need to read the lyrics. For example, in Naughty, the beginning section begins with Matilda telling a classic children's tale, so I adapted my tone of voice to sound sweet and innocent which effectively
01/03/18
Choreography task to begin creating movement for the Crapshooter's dance
02/03/18
40 mins- as a group we looked at videos for inspiration for movements and came to a consensus that we wanted a strong focus on props (to throw and to emphasise to the audience the use of child labour in the orphanage) and the inclusion of a unison blanket section to create both a visually and aurally interesting performance.
20 mins- as a group, we experimented with and planned our initial staging ideas that would fit with both the song and scenes (INSERT SKETCH)
30 mins- I found the script/ Lily found the lyrics online and we printed these off and divvied out the parts/solo lines, then as a group, we read through and blocked the first scene.
30 mins- sharing of work and feeding back to the other group.
05/03/18-09/03/18
05/03/18
08/03/18
Choreography task for the Crapshooter's dance, phrase based on jumps and leaps developed through accumulative canon
09/03/18
Character summary:
Name: Miss Agatha (Aggie) Hannigan
Age: 40's
Sex: Female
Class: Working class
Appearance:
Messy hair, orange patterned V-neck dress, dressing gown, keys and whistle worn around neck, neutral heels, scarf tied in hair, smudged/hungover makeup.
Occupation: Orphanage Matron
Family/friends: Rooster (brother), Lily (sister-in-law),
Personality: Alcoholic, malevolent, flirtatious, abusive, mean, comedic, devious,
Likes: Gin, money, flirting
Dislikes: Her job, Children
Relations to other characters: Negative and abusive relationship towards Annie as her guardian/matron, strong family bond with Rooster, negative/forceful authoritative relationships with all the orphans.
Goals: Hannigan's main objective in Annie is to use her brother and sister-in-law, Rooster and Lily, to pretend to be Annie's parents to gain the $50,000 reward that Warbucks is offering to find Annie's real parents. This fact is made clear to the audience in the song Easy Street where the trio explain their disgust at being poor and their interest in wanting to get to what Hannigan and Rooster's mother explained to them as 'Easy Street'. However, as they know she's "down there listening", this could imply that their/her methods of getting to 'Easy Street' may not exactly be legal or moral.
12/03/18 - 16/03/18
12/03/18
Re-choreographing "it’s a hard knock life"
19/03/18-23/03/18
26/03/18-30/03/18
26/03/18
27/03/18
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