Our House Show

17th May

Morning of the show. Call wasn't until 14:00 but some of us came in early to get stuff done. There wasn't as much to do because me, Naomi and Raven stayed after college the Tuesday and tidied backstage and organised what's needed in act 1 and put everything for act 2 in the dance studio. Me and charlotte made the gondola boat Maddy uses in the begging of act 2. We got cardboard, and measured out the length we needed the pieces to be. After cutting it out we painted it and left it to try so when Kim came in at 13:30 she could assemble it.

16:30 show

First show. This was for college staff and friends only. It wasn't a big crowd so it didn't react as much as we needed it to. Everyone knew what they were doing. We had a sheet stuck to the wall of prop order and who brings it on and off and when so it was more organised back stage. I think I done really well, the only thing I was told after the show was to be a bit louder and say one of my lines to the audience. The main thing that went wrong was Charlotte skipped one of my scenes with her but the audience didn't notice anything go wrong so we carried on. As this was my first show I was quite nervous at first but after doing this show I felt so much more confident for the 19:30 show.

19:30 show

Second show. This was open to anyone so my family came to watch. It was quite full so it was a little nerve racking but I tried to stay calm and be confident. After the first show everyone was now confident in what they were doing and the energy was high. As there was an audience, there was more of a reaction to the scenes and the jokes. This made everyone feel better as it made them feel more comfortable to perform as they were getting a reaction. The band also played better in this show because we had such high energy and so did they. After this show Kim didn't give me any personal notes but I had to listen to what she said for Mr Pressman as I'm playing him tomorrow. She said Pressman needs to be flirty with Julie at the end of my girl but show despair during the start of the song.

 

 

Our House Rehearsal

16th May


Everyone had to be in by 8:30 to start the run for Nathans cast. In this one I play Mr Pressman so I'm not in the first act much. Because of this, I stayed backstage to help Nathan with costume and help Fran and other people with scenes. This run went slightly better because the other class now knows there cues properly.
During the day after the run, I wrote up a list of props needed in each act and when they come on and off. I then went through this with Kat and both classes and wrote down who could carry stuff on and off. I also helped Nathan and Charlotte go through their scenes and wrote down each scene and their costume and where they changed. I then made the offensive t-shits as well.


Kim, Kat and Sax gave ours notes again after the run.

• Opening number needs to be louder.
• Dialogue needs to be louder.
• More facial expressions.
• Move downstage during dances.
• Fill the space.
• Hold curtain for entrances and exits.
• Drunk my girl scene is really funny and has good energy.
• Keep slurring the words when having a conversation
• Don't pretend to wash a car.
• Stand further forward.
• More ad lib and facial expression in driving in my car.
• Carry on the scene if props are late.
• Don't look so depressed.
• Organise your costume pile.
• Kath walk down the stairs instead of through bad joe group in funeral scene.
• More energy and fun.
• Joe and sarah interact in the ending.
• Don't talk after the songs, go off in silence.
• Pressman have more despair in my girl.
• Joe keep talking underneath my girl

After this dress run Kat made a change to the end number. At the end of the show, Joe and Sarah are meant to go back to Joes 16th Birthday so Kat decided to use the ending idea we did in rock challenge to reverse time. We made two circles around Joe and Sarah and they ran in different directions while the two in the middle changed back into their school uniform like in the first scene at his birthday.

Our House Rehearsal

15th May

Today we did a full dress rehearsal for my cast. This went really well. Everyone knew there cues of when to come on and off. I got to college at 9:00 but the run didn't start till 16:00. Me, Charlotte and Naomi went to the workshop to make more set and props. We printed out the letters and traced round them. Charlotte painted the word 'pressman' and I painted the 'developers'. I painted the skyline along the bottom as well. I traced around the letters for the keep out sign then painted them. Us three then helped Kim do the tech run and set the lights from 13:00 till 16:30.

We then started the dress run at 17:00. We were at college till 21:20. The run wasn't too bad. It was the first time we had the band and the first time trying to run it all the way through. The first act took the longest to get through because it was the least rehearsed all together. After doing this run we realise we had to go through props and figure out what was needed in each act and when it was needed. We had already decided to only keep act 1 props back stage until intermission then swap everything round. We also had to run a few dance scenes more than once because how we had practiced it was different to the music the band played.

Kim, Kat and Bernie gave us some useful and good notes afterwards.

• Everyone needs to use the whole stage more and come further downstage.
• When bringing on the sofa in our house make sure its behind Kath.
• Go through props and designate them.
• Make sure the movements are sharp and strong during the opening number.
• Keep the wing curtain closed and hold it open for each other to stop it flying out.
• Dialogue must be louder - especially when there's underscore.
• Loud energy during Baggy trousers instrumental.
• Use your phone as a prop when you're meant to be on the phone.
• Get a business card to use.
• Shoes must be worn in the whole show.
• Julie needs a typewriter on her desk.
• Someone make offensive t-shirts.
• Make sure you're standing in the lights and spot lights during your scenes.
• Ray needs to be a bigger character.
• Sing louder during encouragement.
• Tyres need to come on quicker in driving in my car.
• Lawyers wear pencil skirt, heels and blazer.
• No feather bowers in the show at all.
• No wearing plain white shirts - except baggy trousers and Reecey.
• Less black clothing.

After these notes I took on the jobs to make the offensive tshirts and write the prop list and cues.

 

Variety Show Burlesque

In the variety show, I was in two dance numbers. The first number was a burlesque duet with Megan that we choreographed with the help of Bernie and Kat. Me and Megan decided early on that we wanted to do a dance piece together and we decided that we were going to do it based on a dance from a musical. The stimulus and theme for the piece was the music and film Burlesque. To show this we done a little bit of research into burlesque and we noticed that most of them use chairs. We then choreographed the first chair section using a few movements from the film. The first two pictures are positions we held. These are similar to what they do in the actual dance to the song. We couldn't pick a song from the film so we decided we wanted to find a mix of multiple songs. After looking online we couldn't find any we liked so I created the song. Our musicality was good as we hit movements on the beats. When we first choreographed the dance we rehearsed in the dance studio however, when we had to show the teachers in the theatre we realised we had to practice in there because of the spacing. Once we realised this we talked and picked times to meet after college and lesson to rehearse in the theatre. However, after watching the performance, we still could of done with more practice. There was one section of the dance we had to change because of the spacing and it involved a lot of traveling and there wasn't enough room. 

Rehearsal 1

This was the first section of the dance we choreographed. During our lesson we went to the dance studio, listened to the track I created and watched some burlesque videos to get inspiration and ideas from. We decided we wanted our opening to be a chair section.

Rehearsal 2

During this rehearsal, we worked with Bernie to create the next part of the dance.

 Final Performance

Our House rehersal

This week we started running the show from start to end. We finished blocking the whole of our house. Kim let us take control and input our ideas and we made most of the final decisions. This worked well and everyone listened to each other and took all ideas on board. We spent about two weeks going through scene by scene blocking this. We did this with each cast so everyone knew what they had to do.
We then started running it with songs for the first time and we kept our scripts. This went really well and let us go through blocking properly of every scene and song. We got a lot done this week and in Thursdays lesson we went off script. We ran the first third of the show with one cast then ran it again with the other cast. This is going really well so far. Everyone is getting use to their lines and knows their cues. I sometimes needed prompting on my lines and so did other people so over half term I'm going to study my lines and get them down, so I know them off by heart and know all my cues. We also spent time going through songs  for an hour with Kim on the piano.

Our House rehersal

This week we finished blocking the whole of our house. Kim let us take control and input our ideas and we made most of the final decisions. This worked well and everyone listened to each other and took all ideas onboard. We spent about two weeks going through scene by scene blocking this. We did this with each cast so everyone knew what they had to do.

Our House Rehearsal

The class has now choreographed the dance for baggy trousers. The piece is a development from what my group created previously (Baggy Trousers first group choreography). It uses the same ideas and movement phrases we created before however, as we done it with the whole class we were able to develop the piece. We kept the movement quite basic and simplistic so its available for everyones abilities. This piece fits with the theme and works well with the music. Me and megan choreographed the duets everyone do using different fighting movemens, like slapping kicking and dodging. We also pulled some movement from the actual production like the ending, walking movements and some motifs. During our next dance lesson were going to teach the other class the dance because not everyone from our class will be in it. With practice and refinment the piece should turn out well.