After Troy

In today's lesson we looked back over all the pictures and research we had done previously and decided on what location and time period we wanted our piece to be in. Eventually we decided on modern day and an abandoned underground station. We liked the idea of having our piece set in modern day as it makes the audience feel slightly more connected (rather than having the whole piece set in ancient Greece). However, so the audience understands where our piece was supposed to be set (to make the characters names make sense), we will have Greek graffiti on our set. The abandoned underground setting causes an uncomfortable and eerie atmosphere.

After we decided our location, we began to create our prologue. We wanted our prologue to display the carnage during the battle of Troy and the depression of the women of Troy. We wanted to show how times changed for the women during the war.


-We decided to perform our scene to 'Nightmare' by 'Avenged Sevenfold'


Our scene began with Lorna, Kat and Hope walking into the middle of the stage holding rolled up sheets (symbolising a baby).
One the first double bass trill Ollie Kelly and Charlie run to Hope and pull the sheet away from her, then on the second and third Ollie M and Lewis then James and I run in and pull the sheet away from Kat and Lorna.
The girls then separate and run towards the sides and the back of the room, the boys then use their sheets as a barrier and push the girls back into the circle in the middle of the room. We created this to give the idea of them trying to reach for their babies to save them.
To finish off the our scene we created a torture scene for the three girls whilst Lewis and James walk around trashing the room, as if they are destroying the houses of the Women of Troy.  

Dr Faustus

In today's lesson we began to work on the physical theater side of our Faustus unit. We began by working on the '7 deadly sins'. We began by setting our scene, we decided we wanted to have our staging in traverse (like a catwalk). We decided on this staging as we had never tried it before and thought it would work well with our physical theater ideas.
We decided that we wanted Ollie (Faustus) at one end of the traverse watching TV, and we decided to set our deadly sins out like TV ads luring Faustus in. We agreed on breaking each sin down and saying parts of each rather than each person having a sin, as we have 7 sins and 6 actors (excluding Faustus) therefore to make it fair we shared the lines equally.

Our 7 deadly sins include:

• Pride 
• Envy
• Wrath 
• Gluttony 
• Lust
• Sloth 
• Greed

We began with sloth (as it was the first one that came up in the script). We decided to research 'sloth' to find out exactly what it was, so we could act out the exact style of sloth. We found out it was based on laziness. Therefore we agreed on laying on each other, and every time someone speaks, we all move to a new position on the floor 

We began to consider transitions between our deadly sins. Our second sin is gluttony, we decided to have Mephistopheles circling us with food,tempting us to take food )like Gluttony), at this point we would all leap up from our places on the floor and take a piece of food from the bucket and take it away and scoff it. We decided unless we were speaking we would be walking around the stage still eating our food moving like our bodies are so heavy.

Dr Faustus

In today's lesson we received the cat list for our new Physical Theatre Unit of Dr Faustus


Faustus - Ollie Kelly
Mephistopheles - Rhiannon David
Murdock - James Borg-Clancy
Cornelius - Rob Andrew
Valdes - Lewis Fisher
Evil Angel - Charlie Sanderson
Good Angel - Lorna Clark
Scholar - Charlie Sanderson
Lucifer - Lewis Fisher


When receiving Cornelius I decided to research my character a bit more and find out why he is important to Faustus. I found out that he was a scientist (like Valdes) who was intrigued by the underworld and necromancy. It was Cornelius who gave Faustus the information he needed to contact Mephistopheles.
We then spent the remainder of the lesson reading through the script and getting an understanding of what Dr Faustus is about.  

After Troy

In today's lesson we were researching different locations for our 'After Troy' piece. We decided we wanted to set our piece in a more modern time rather than ancient Greece.
Therefore we began to discuss how and where we wanted our piece to be set, to do this we wanted to create a collage of pictures so we can choose where we want to set our piece.

-I decided to go for a horror scene style setting. I chose 3 different location pictures that I feel we should set our piece in, they included:  A Lake, A Forest, A Cave

I chose the cave first, as it was like the setting for the actual After Troy, however I wanted mine to be set in times, therefore we would have a horror cave with graffiti all over the walls. For my lake, I had the idea to set it in a secluded area with mountains. Also my forest was very similar.
I like the secluded dark horror idea, i think it works very well with the mood of the piece we are doing based on the scenes we have done so far. For Example- Our first scene with Kratos and Mestor. Kratos talks to Mestor about turning the oceans black and moving boulders, this is what gave me the inspiration for my Lake picture.

- Other peoples ideas included, a run down town (e.g- Twydall) WWII and an underground.

After Troy

In today's lesson we were split into groups and given a scene from our new script 'After Troy'.
Lewis and I had a scene involving 'Kratos' and 'Mestor'. We discovered from this scene that 'Mestor' was the king, as I was given the character of Mestor. I decided to play Mestor as quite a stuck up character who is quite short with 'Kratos' and expects him to do whatever he wants.
On the other hand 'Kratos' is quite a stuck up character himself, however he's a joker. Therefore Lewis decided to portray Kratos as very sarcastic. Therefore our piece revolved around 'Mestor' bossing Kratos around and 'Kratos' mugging him off. In our scene Kratos is teacher Mestor about the women of Troy.

Commedia De'll Arte

As we have our performance on Monday, we decided to use this lesson to make sure we have everything for sorted. We began with props, we decided what props we needed (e.g- saucepans, plastic cups etc.) and who would be in charge of getting them.
We then moved onto scenes, we decided we wanted to add more scenes into our piece. We decided that we needed more Lazzis to ensure we stuck to the style of Commedia dell'arte throughout our piece.


We went through our scenes and worked out which ones were already Lazzi's, we have 'Olive Oil cocktail' as a Lazzi, we decided we wanted to add another Lazzi as one wasn't enough.
We came up with our 'plate disaster'  scene. This scene included Zanni and Brighella walking around the restaurant. As Brighella picks up a plate from a customer and gives it to Zanni, he licks it puts it back down on the table.

Commedia De'll Arte

In todays lesson we went through our scene list of scenes we wanted in it, what scenes we already had and what scenes we still needed to add.


Our scenes include-

- Tidying the Kitchen
- Prawn Soup
- New Waitress
- Syrup
- Tasty Notes
- Welcome critics
- The Cupboard
- Extendo-fork
- Olive Oil cocktail
- Zanni's entertainment


Currently we only have 'Welcome Critics', 'Olive Oil cocktail and 'Extendo-Fork' left to create.
We have began to think of ideas for our 'Olive Oil cocktail' and our 'Extendo-Fork' scenes. We decided that Harlequin would have created a super long straw to drink apple juice from the kitchen without Brighella seeing him, however she works out quite quickly what he is doing and moves his straw out of the apple juice and into the olive oil.
Our Extendo-Fork scene was a similar idea. However Harlequin walks around the restaurant with an extra long fork and takes food of peoples plates.

Commedia De'll Arte

In today's lesson we began by running all of the scenes we have so far to see where we wanted to add new scenes or expand scenes we already have.
We ran through our opening scene with Doctor and Pantalone bickering about the restaurant and when the critic would be arriving. We got this idea from 'The Muppets' with 'Waldorf and Statler' constantly belittling each other and everyone else. We decided to expand this scene with more bickering, we discussed characterising and decided that we wanted them to be constantly arguing even when they're not in the scene to give off the comic effect of their characters.
After this we decided to go back over the 'Prawn Soup' scene. We decided not to change or add anything to this scene as it was the best one we had so far, it continued to show Doctor and Pantalone's relationship and began to show Il Capitano's traits as well.
Afterwards we ran the 'syrup' scene, where Zanni attempts to style his hair. We decided to make some changes to this scene, instead of having Il Capitano come on and threaten Doctor, we came up with the idea of having Brighella come on instead (as Il Capitano already has a lot of scenes). Instead of threatening Doctor, Brighella decided to come on and shouted at them instead, showing more of her characters side making her distinctly different from Il Capitano.


- After this we discussed what was needed for the performance and what we needed to do next.

get all the props

get costumes

devise a scene between Pantalone, Brighella and Zanni

Commedia De'll Arte

In today's lesson we decided to run the entire piece from beginning to end as we were rapidly running out of time before the performance and we hadn't had a full run though yet.
Unfortunately we were unable to work on our silhouette piece today as we had to use the hall, however we were still able to run through all the scenes. We tried to work through the scenes without the scripts, in my opinion baring in mind this was the first time we were running through without scripts, I believe we did quite well as we only needed a few visual cues and prompts as we went through, the majority of the scenes were done without scripts.
For our next lesson we quite desperately need to use C6 to work on our silhouettes as these were the main visual attraction in our piece and we hadn't worked on them yet. We also need to go through scenes 5 and 6 again with no scripts without stopping.

Single Performing Arts Lesson (8th March 2016)

In today's lesson we created a scene order and had a full run through, but pausing after each scene to make notes on what needs improving. 
- Our scene order:
                            "Party Scene"
                            "Before the Game Show"
                            "Game Show"
                            "After the Games Show"
                            "Chasing Pavements (Dance Scene)"
                            "Confession"
                            "Chasing Pavements (Dance Scene) Reverse"
                            "Abortion Clinic"

We thought it would be interesting to start with the Party scene as the audience would think the rest of the piece would be fun and crazy (as it starts with Ollie and Lorna pretending they were at a party), thus making the shocking scenes to come more hard-hitting.  We decided to go with our "Game show" scene next as this is the scene that would make the audience feel the most uncomfortable, and having this scene after our "Party" would form a massive contrast in atmosphere causing the audience to be weary of what's to come. 
As the three parts of our "Game Show" scene are dialogue based, we decided to go back into another movement piece next so we went for out original scene that the entire story is based around our "Chasing Pavements Movement Scene" followed by our confession scene and finished off with our sound scape. 


The picture shows the ending of our piece after the sound scape, we decided to use a motif and -go back to our child like states (E.G- Holding the book) and Lorna and Kat became embryos again as if they are going back to before the birth or the abortion leaving it to the audiences imagination on how the story should end, weather the baby was aborted or not.   

Single Performing Arts Lesson (3rd March)

In today's lesson Lorna, Ollie and Kat caught me up on what I missed last lesson, They showed me the start of the party scene they had been working on and they fitted me into it. Therefore in today's lesson we decided to work on and complete the party scene.We split off in our group, as Kat and I went off to learn our script for the party scene and Ollie and Lorna continued to work on and perfect the dances moves.
Once Lorna and Ollie were happy with their dance Kat and I read our script over the top of the dancing to see if the timing worked together with the two pieces.

Once we altered the speed of the narration to fit with the dance and we were happy it worked Kat began to work on the story book to gives us a prop to use and I wrote the script up making it easier to read when we were performing.
We decided we wanted to have a change throughout our piece to show the characters starting off as kids and growing us as the performance went on, therefore Kat called the story book "The Princess and the Party" to make it sound as childish as possible.
As we wanted to show all throughout the piece the idea of sex through movement and sound, we agreed on the "Fifty Shades of Grey" version of "Crazy in Love" to be played over the dance to further imitate the idea of sex.

Double Performing Arts Lessons (24th February and 2nd March 2016)

24th February
We began today's lesson by going back over Lorna's scene, all we needed for this scene was to record and perform with the narration and perform with the masks. Lorna decided she wanted to make an instrumental piece playing beneath her narration as her scene was very movement based, she believed a moving piece of music would add something extra to her piece.
-Lorna chose "7 years" by "Lukas Graham" for her piece and we ran through her scene with the music playing in the background. In my opinion I believe this piece worked very well, as it is soft which matches the mood of her scene and the movement works very well with the piano riff.

2nd March
We began this lesson by running through Lorna's scene again however this time we used her narration she had recorded for this lesson, we also used the music again to see how it worked with the narration over the top of it. Baring in mind this was the first time we had gone through the scene without any scripts I believe we were successful with it as were made minor mistakes that we quickly ironed out and the music worked very well with the narration. As Lorna's was a very short scene the time of the piece was just enough to fill the scene without having to be put on repeat.

After Lorna's scene we moved back onto scene 2 which was James's scene. James decided he wanted to perform his scene live without narration, luckily we didn't have to try and learn James's piece around the narration, so if the timing is off he is able to slow down or speed up his speech depending on the movement. However overall I believe James's piece worked quite well. We still have a couple of minor timing issues we need to work on but that is easily fixed in the next couple of lessons.

Double Performing Arts Lesson (26th February 2016)

We began this lesson by finishing off our masks, we added elastic to the back of the mask to keep them on our faces when we are moving around . We then decided to do a character warm up with our masks to give us more of an idea of what are characters will be like in our performance. I personally believe the masks really help with our focus during the lessons as they help to keep us in character, therefore if we want to speak as ourselves we have to turn to the wall and take our mask off and then talk in the hopes it won't destroy the illusion of having our characters different to our real selves.

We decided as we were getting into the idea of characters we ran a character profile exercise in the hopes we will pick up character traits to help us with our scenes.
We then ran through a physical warm up, this is important for us to reduce the risk of getting an injury.

After this we brainstormed new ideas for our scenes. We spent the lesson creating a thought chart of how we want our scenes to work and what we want in them.
We started with the setting- We agreed on two different ideas we would create scenes for and see which one we preferred, these were a wedding story line and a restaurant story line. We used this lesson to work on the restaurant idea, we worked out who we wanted in our restaurant to match our characters personalities, therefore we decided on  guests, manager, head chef, dishwasher and waiter. 
We decided we wanted The Doctor and Pantalone to be the guests, we wanted Brighella to be the manager, Il Capitano to be the head chef, Colombina and Harlequin to be the waiters and Zanni to be the dish washer.  

Sinlge Performing Arts Lessons (25th and 26th February 2016)

25th February
To begin today's lesson we decided we wanted to complete our movement section for our sound scape and also we began writing our "behind the scene's" section after our game show.
We decided we wanted to make a rehearsal schedule to ensure we kept up to date with everything we want to include in our performance with plenty of time. We intend to stick to this schedule as best as we can, in the hopes we can complete everything still giving up time to rehearse and perfect our performance.
We decided we wanted to video our movement piece for our abortion clinic, so we could go back over it and see how it looks, therefore we know what looks right and what works, so we know what we need to add or take out.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7QEITNY004&feature=player_embedded
(The link shows the video of our scene)


I believe the message we were trying to put a cross was a bit confusing at first. The idea was supposed to be Kat and Lorna doing the movement at exactly the same time to show they were the same person, however even for me watching it back over it was a bit confusing what the movement was supposed to be without having it explained to me. However I believe the fact that it was supposed to be a hospital was clear because of the audio, however it is clear that we still need to put more work into this scene.



26th February
Unfortunately last lesson we ran out of time to work on our continuation of the Game Show scene, as we were busy with our abortion clinic scene. Therefore we decided to move away from the movement scenes today and work on all three parts to our Game Show.
We began by sitting down as a group and beginning to plan a script for the 'behind the scenes' (after the Game Show) scene.
We wanted to top the un-comfortableness and the inappropriate nature of the Game Show in our final Game Show scene, with the intention to make the audience feel uncomfortable. We wanted to keep this scene short but affective, giving each person only 1 or 2 lines each, but making it uncomfortable for everyone in the room (including confrontations and swearing).
In our next lesson we will run all three parts of our Game Show and film it, so we can see what we want to add or remove from our scene.

Single Performing Arts Lesson (23rd February 2016)

23rd February
To begin this lesson we decided as we hadn't been over our first scenes in a while we wanted to refresh our memories on how much work was put into our original scenes, therefore we decide to have a full run through of the scenes we have so far.
We started off with our intercourse movement scene, moving onto our dialogue scene with the friends. As we had spent a long time on these two scenes even though we hadn't gone through them in a while we were still pretty confident with what to say.
Therefore we decided we wanted to spend more time on the scenes we hadn't worked on as much, which were the Game Show scenes. Although we knew what was going on in these scenes it was clear they hadn't been practised as much as the previous scenes, therefore we needed to go through the dialogue more and the staging.
We realised that trying to do to much work in a short space of time wouldn't benefit us in our performance therefore we decided to dedicate next lesson to the game show. So we could brush up on the opening and the actual game show itself and potentially include an after the game show scene as well.
Therefore instead of re going over our scenes again, we agreed to record the audio for our Abortion Clinic scene. We discussed noises that would be typical for this particular scene, and we came up with a list that included- A heart monitor, a heart beat, a therapeutic voice (breath in/breath out) and breathing). We designated an audio to each member of out group- Lorna- Heart Beat Monitor, Katya- Breathing, Ollie- Therapist (Breath in/Breath out) and Rob (Me) Heart Beat.
We then decided to begin developing a movement section to go with the sound scape, so the audience had something to watch whilst listening to the sound scape. However, we didn't finish this movement section this lesson, so we made a plan to complete it in the next few lesson.

Double Performing Arts Lesson (22nd February 2016)

In today's lesson we decided that now he have completed all 7 stories we would run them all and see how much more work we would need to spend on each of our stories.


-- Therefore we started with Lorna's story- We ran through with minimal mistakes, however as it was the first story we hadn't gone over it in a long time, we were a little unsure on movement at times, however we were able to over for each other successfully and complete the scene. Therefore for this scene all we needed now was for Lorna to record her audio and run through with the audio.


-- We moved onto story 2- (James's story)- We spent the most time on this scene so we were all reasonably okay with it. However we still needed to practice with the projection sheet, and make sure our shapes looks good whilst behind the sheet. James also decided to cut more out of his scene during the week, therefore we needed to practice over with the new updated script. Therefore for this scene all we need now is to work with the sheet up and make sure it all runs smoothly.


-- Our third story (Lewis's story) is also quite well organised, the only improvement we need to make on Lewis's is to get Rhiannon up to date on our performance as she has only gone through this scene once. Therefore for this scene we need to fit the scene around Rhiannon (who is the Snow Queen) and get it up to date with her included in the story.


-- Story four is my story. There is still more in my story that is needed to be but out, as I had the longest story and even after a lot of cutting is still too long, and difficult for everyone to learn in the short space of time we have to do our performance in. I also still need to record my audio and run through the movement again to fit with the recorded audio to insure it runs smoothly and together.


-- For Rhiannon's story, we needed to neaten up the movement to make it work with the speech in the story. However apart from that we were pretty much up to date with it, we knew which key words we needed movement on and which lines we would be repeating along with Rhiannon, therefore all we had to do was match the movement to the audio.
-- In story 6 (Charlie's story) we needed to do a lot of work on the movement, we needed to add movement in, too match his narration. Charlie Decided he wanted to use similar techniques to Rhiannon, to have key words to included specific pieces of movement, therefore we needed to decide what key words we wanted and included movement with.
For Oliver's scene there is no movement, he wanted to use projection therefore I would need to set up the projection and lighting and run through the scene, to make sure it looks affective for Oliver to narrate around it.

Double Performing Arts Lesson (15th February)

In today's lesson after our physical and character warm ups we began working on out new scene that we planned in our last lesson. Our scene began with James (Zanni) picking up a bottle he found thinking it was hair gel, however it turned out to be super glue. He spotted Rhiannon (Colombina) and started rubbing the gel through his hair in an attempt to impress her, however he found his hands got stuck to his head.
We decided to have a comedic phrase where Colombina turns away from Zanni and he begins struggling yanking his hands trying to un-stick them from his head, however every time Colombina turned to look at him, he would be flexing or doing sit up, as if he was working out.
Eventually Colombina spots the pot of glue and realises what Zanni has done, therefore she goes over to help him and in the process gets her hand stuck to Zanni's head.
At this point in the scene, the Doctor is introduced. He begins to go on about the chemicals in the glue and why it sticks until Colombina interrupts him and asks him to help her get un-stuck, by doing this the doctor helps Colombina but gets himself stuck to her. Then Zanni decides to grab hold of Colombian's leg (in order to thank her for helping him).
After this comes the introduction of The Captain (me). The Captain enters to The Doctor bending Colombiana over trying to pull his hand off her shoulder.
However this was meant to be perceived as a more funny/sexual act, therefore The Captain reacts to this act by challenging The Doctor to a duel.

This was the furthest we had done through the scene so far. During this lesson we went back over this scene to see what we could add. We began by refreshing everyone's minds on the scene to see what we could add. We decided we wanted to add more comedy into the scene at the introduction to The Doctor therefore we decided to have him going off on a rant about glue and what chemicals are in the glue (why they are stuck) before he is stopped by Colombina and brought back to the subject of the script.
We also added more pause between The Captain's entrance and the realisation of Colombina, The Captain and Zanni to make it more hysterical for the audience.

Single Performing Arts Lesson (11th February)

In today's lesson we sat down as a group and discussed what other scenes we wanted to add or needed in our performance. We agreed that the game show would be the centre of our performance everything leading up to game show affect what happens after the game show. Therefore we decided to work on a scene that would lead us into the game show. A 'behind the scenes' based scene.
The picture shows the script we created for this scene.

This scene was created with the intention to pre- shock the audience, hoping the actual game show will be an ever bigger shock for them as they think the 'behind the scene's' scene is bad enough and it wont get any worse. Then when the 'game show. is the real shock it will hit the audience harder.
We also wanted to show a contrast between all of our characters off and on stage. For example- Ollie and Lorna are brutal to the contestants behind the scenes and they don't care about how anyone else feels, however when they are on stage they become all smiles as if nothing is going wrong and the whole situation is normal.

Double Performing Arts Lesson (10th February 2016)

In today's lesson we began working on the 5th section to our story 'The Snow Queen', section 5 was Rhiannon's scene.

Rhiannon decided she wanted her scene to be spoken rather than recorded. Her chosen technique was movement, she also liked the idea Charlie had to have people people copy specific words in the script. However instead of just picking random words out, Rhiannon decided to nominate a character to each person-
                       Lorna- Little Robber Maiden
                       Lewis- Gerda
                       Rob (me)- Gerda
                       Ollie K- Gerda
                       James Reindeer
                       Charlie- Pigeon

These characters we chosen because they had to most dialogue in the story, therefore Rhiannon decided she wanted us to read out the words from the script that we would, to make it more understandable for the audience to know who each character was.
We then decided to have a run through of the script reading out parts out as they come along in the script. We deiced instead of just reading it through it would be better to begin performing our scene along side the dialogue.
To incorporate the movement into the piece Rhiannon decided she wanted us to make movements on specific key words she says during the script (for example on the verb "dazzled", we all cover our eyes as if we became exposed to something dazzling.) We also included constant movement as well as gestures (for example when Rhiannon talks about 'the carriage' we clump together and sway side to side as a group as if we were in a carriage).
This is a good way to keep the audiences attention because it gives them a visual representation of the story as well as a verbal one.  

Double Performing Arts Lessons (5th February and 8th February 2016)

5th January

In today's lesson I continued with my mask. I began painting my mask. I researched different 'Il Capitano' masks for colour ideas. I finally found a picture I wanted to base my mask off. This mask has symmetrical (black and red) diamond shaped eyes with a gold nose and forehead. After analysing the picture I began drawing out on my mask where I wanted each colour of paint to go. I considered different shapes and decided I wanted to create half a diamond shape past the eyes and the nose joining the corner of the eyebrows to make it look symmetrical and have the entire cheek in the designated colour (red and black) to make it stand out more. I also decided I wanted to paint the eyebrows the opposite colour (E.G- black cheek with a red eyebrow and a Red cheek with a black eyebrow) to make them stand out more.

I began by putting masking tape over the lines I drew to make sure it is flush and in a straight line. I covered the eyebrows with masking tape to ensure they don't get paint on them.

For the remainder of the lesson I decided to begin painting the sides of the masks with the red and black paint I had previously decided to use. (The picture shows the progress I had made by the end of the lesson).

8th January

In today's lesson I finished off painting my mask, I began with the eyebrows. I added more masking tape in an attempt to keep the two colours separate to give it the most affect. I tried to blend the fore head in with the eyebrows a bit to add a bit of contrast to my mask, however the black paint overpowered the gold colour of the eyebrows making it look untidy.

I was able to wipe the majority of the black off and re-colour however there was still an overpowering feel of black in the left side of the forehead.

 Apart from that I was very happy with the way my mask came out and next lesson I will finish off with detail using pens to show a clearer separation between the two colours.

Single Performing Arts Lessons (4th February and 5th February 2016)

4th February
In today's lesson (as we were missing Ollie) we decided to begin creating our boxes for our Game Show Scene 'Keep or No Keep' ( the abortion Deal or No Deal) I attempted to get hold of 3 boxes and begin painting them red to look like those from Deal or No Deal, however we were unable to get some at this time, therefore Lorna began sketching out the numbers we would stick on the front of our boxes.
I was able to find a picture of each of the numbers (3,6 and 21) from the TV show so Lorna would be able to replicate the exact way they are on the boxes. Therefore As Lorna and I began to paint the box numbers, Katya continued to expand our script for our game show.



5th February
We started this lesson by continuing with our Game Show, we decided to begin performing the scene begging to stage it. However we thought it would be a good idea before staging to become more into our characters therefore we did a character swap. This was very helpful because it showed us how other people believed our character is portrayed.
I struggled with grasping my character because in the script I had to completely flip out and scream at everyone else on stage, and even after watching Lorna play the line how she believed it was portrayed I was still unable to completely flip out for no reason. The louder I got with it and the more I tried to sound angry the more over the top and unrealistic it sounded. Therefore we discussed what i could do to flip out and make it sound realistic. Kat suggested I take  a few minutes to think about things that make me angry and use all that anger on my script. to make the anger real.
This idea worked, it was the best run I had of the script, I was realistically angry, by raising my voice but not too much that it becomes too made up. In my opinion I think the tone of voice makes it work well with the topic we have chosen.
Overall I think we are happy with the characters and the scripts we just need to work a little more on the staging of the game show.

Double Performing Arts Lesson (3rd February 2016)

In today's lesson we began on Charlie's section of the story, he decided he wanted his narration to be recorded rather than spoken making it easier for him to be part of the scene.
In this scene Gerda is on her way to Finland when she comes across a house and meets a lady who gives her advice to help her on her way to Finland. A reindeer took her there and abandoned her in the middle of "dreadful icy Finland", without her boots or gloves (which she had forgotten to take with her).
Charlie decided he wanted to use a completely different techniques in his story, so he chose 'choral speaking'. We sat down with our scripts and pens and worked out when would be best for us to use this chosen technique.
We decided that every time the 'Finland woman' or 'Snow Queen' came up in the script, we would all say it at the same time, as these two women are used most frequently in this scene.

As the picture shows we also decided to highlight 'miserable', 'creep', 'diminutive', 'dirty' and 'barefooted'. We also included the phrases 'she knew it by heart', 'splinter of glass' and 'large bright tears'. 

At the end of the script it says "Little Gerda repeated the 'Lords Prayer'. At this point Olly and I quietly echo the beginning of the lords prayer ("Our Farther who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven") until Charlie says the last word in the script (shattering). 

After this we decided we would begin staging this scene. We decided we wanted to have the audience along the wall facing us from the front, however we decided to separate the audience so that each of us (in the performance) can stand behind a member of the audience.This worked well because we each have separate lines to speak therefore the audience will be unaware when each of us speak keeping them on their toes as we say our lines right behind them. 

Single Performing Arts Lesson (2nd February 2016)

We began today's lesson by looking back over the scenes we had and what new scene we wanted to work on.
So far our scenes include:
                                        Intercourse scene
                                        Party scene
                                        Pregnancy Confession scene
                                        Game Show scene
                                        Abortion Clinic scene
                                        Future scene (what would have happened if the child was/wasn't aborted)

So far for our scene we have completed our 'Intercourse scene' and our 'Pregnancy Confession scene'. We have started but haven't completed our 'Game Show scene' and our 'Abortion Clinic scene', and we are yet to begin devising our 'Party scene' and our 'Future scene'.

We began discussing staging. Lorna suggested a few, such as proscenium arch and thrust. However we decided we wanted to be different, therefore we decided to go for our own type of staging. We decided we wanted the audience positioned as if they were in a clinic waiting room. We decided against proscenium arch as we wanted a more unusual and more complicated type of staging, as the topics in our performance are complicated and challenging. However we also discussed using a traverse style of staging as well. However we decided against it, as it wouldn't work for our dance scenes (Love Making) as we would like people to see it from mainly the front.

Single Performing Arts Lesson (28th January 2016)

In this lesson we started by going through our scenes we had previously planned. We discussed techniques that we wanted to add and techniques we had already included. 

We realised we had used movement a lot more than any of the other techniques we had previously suggested. Therefore we decided to create a breakdown diagram of our scenes so far to see what techniques we could add to the scenes we have already. 

So far our piece includes movement, dialogue and soundscapes; however, we don't want our piece to be too movement based so we have decided to create a more scripted scenes to explore characters in more depth to enable us to explore and include different ideas and techniques into our performance.

Kat and Olly came up with an idea to include more dialogue into our performance. They created an idea for an abortion game show. We began by discussing different game show ideas to fit the theme of our piece. We decided on three ideas. They were The Weakest Link, Who wants to be a millionaire and Deal or No Deal. We began by discussing 'Who wants to be a Millionaire' but realised there weren't enough characters in the game to involve everyone. Therefore we began looking into The Weakest Link, we used it as a template and brainstormed ideas for the outcome of the game. Therefore the winner of the game would choose if the baby would be aborted or not. However we realised that we wouldn't have enough people to make the game effective.

The last game we had was Deal or No Deal, we began by discussing what characters we would need in the game and decided we would need a Banker, a Host and 2 contestants. 

Miss Cordell suggested we research other plays or films that include a similar theme of a horrific way to show people off to the public, therefore Ollie suggested we had a look at a piece he had performed before called 'Ten Tiny Fingers, Nine Tiny Toes'. The scene Ollie was thinking of was about two pregnant women (Dot and Lucinda) who were both being forced to have an abortion (Dot because she is from the bottom class and Lucinda because her baby was missing a toe). The nurse in this scene is called Orderly. Orderly has no morals nor any understanding of how the women must be feeling. 

Orderly is completely heartless and doesn't see anything wrong with abortions at all. Orderly moans at the women for crying, stating that they were making an awful noise. Conveniently, Ollie performed this role when we did this scene so already knows how to characterise this type of role, so Ollie would work very well as "the  Banker". 

In addition to making the audience feel uncomfortable about the topic being discussed we want to "glam up" the topic in a completely inappropriate way (without offending anyone though). We got inspiration for this idea from the film "Hunger Games", in which each contestant is introduced in an over-the-top way despite knowing that only one of them shall survive. We want the audience to be shocked at how such a topic is presented. 

Double Performing Arts Lessons (29th January and 1st February 2016)

29th January

In today's lesson we continued to build up our Commedia De'll Arte mask. Previously we had began to mold the 'Plaster Paris' to our faces to get the shape (so they fitted to our faces only) and layered them with 3 layers to help them keep their shape. 

Therefore the next for us was to draw on our masks where we wanted our eye holes to go, so we could cut them out before we make the mask thicker and stronger.

After this we were given the option of designing our masks (noses and eye brows) or to add more 'Plaster Paris' to bulk up our makes and make them stronger. 

I decided that for this lesson I would make my mask stronger, to lower the risk of it breaking, therefore next lesson I will begin to add features to my mask, based on the research (pictures) I found on my character. 

1st February

In today's Lesson I worked on the facial features on my mask, I decided to start with my eyebrows. I had previously researched about my character and I found out that he pretends to be mighty and strong but the minute someone challenges him he gets scared and runs away. I also found out that he thinks he is far up in the pecking order however this is delusional  as he is stupid and he is nearer the bottom. 

Therefore I bared this in mind whist designing my eyebrows. Eventually I decided to place my eyes slightly higher up on my forehead to show the fear in my character. I also decided to place one eyebrow at a slightly different angle to the other to show the stupid characteristics my character possesses. 

After choosing where my eyebrows would go, I began to layer them up on my head in the appropriate places making sure they are big and thick. Having them thick is important because if i turn my head to face another actor I still need the audience to be able to see my facial expressions. 

Once I had layered on my eyebrows thick enough, I layered them with 'Plaster Paris' to ensure they stay in place. 

I then began to work on the nose, as I had previous found out that my character is stupid and scared, the rule in Commedia De'll Arte is the more stupid the character is, the longer the nose. Therefore I decided to model my nose of the one in the picture (above) by shaping a piece of paper into the shape of a cone (roughly) and layer it in 'Plaster Paris' to keep it in place. 

(The picture shows the results)  

Double Performing Arts Lesson (27th January 2016)

Last lesson we we asked to research a famous narrator. We started this lesson by discussing the narrator we chose to research and why we liked the way they narrate. I decided to research Brian Blessed as my narrator. I chose him because he is very unorthodox. His voice is boomy and recognisable. Other members of the group (like James) chose to take the more obvious approach with Morgan Freeman.

We discussed using our chosen narrators, what makes a good narrator, so Miss Cordell suggested we watch the 'Reduced Shakespeare Company'. This company tells the entire works of Shakespeare in an easy to understand and more engaging way. As a group we agreed that we liked the way the narrator sat on the stage with a literal book but had other actors to help him tell the story. The other actors were key to the performance because they added movement to the piece and make it more interesting to watch.

(The video we watched)                                

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XR1qWLaagU

After this we moved back onto 'The Snow Queen'. We read through Ollie's scene and discussed what techniques he wanted to use. As Ollie's script  is spoken rather than recorded, he decided he wanted to use  the same techniques used in the video we watched and read his script out of a book aswell. He thought as his scene was the last one in our story he would end the entire production with him closing his book, as if it was a story inside a story. 

We were given jobs to do for the next lesson, I volunteered to create the 'Mise en Scene' for the performance to go towards my film studies work, so I agreed to go home and create a layout for how and where I believed the lights should be placed.  

Single Performing Arts Lesson (26th January 2016)

In this lesson we decided we wanted to run our dance phrase and our scripted scene. We started by running through the scene again a couple of times to refresh everyone's memories and make sure we are all on the same page. We worked through the dance slowly at first to make sure we had the timings right before performing it at the right speed.

Once we had performed then both enough times that we were happy with them we decided to perform them both together. We were happy with the two scenes and agreed to start something new. We discussed different techniques and what one we believed would go well with our performance and the ones we had already included. 

We agreed on a soundscape as we had used it in a previous scene and it worked really well. We then discussed what sort of scene we thought it would work well in an abortion clinic scene. Therefore we brain stormed the sorts of noises you would hear in a hospital (abortion clinic), we came up with a heart monitor beeping, a clock ticking, footsteps, a heartbeat, and a baby crying. We then made these noises and quickly realised that we were going to need a sound effect of a baby crying as none of us could make this noise sound convincing.

We then decided to put some movement to it to make it look more interesting. We decided to stand in a straight line and move in a square shape, swapping positions with the person next to us.

I suggested that we should include some different acting techniques because our entire performance so far is based on movement and we should include some acting as well. Therefore we stopped with the soundscape for now, However we didn't have enough time to start on a new scene idea so we decided to go over the  dance into the scene and film it so we can see what its like ourselves and see how we can improve it.

After watching the video, we then realised that we forgot to stage it how we did before (with both pairs in different corners). However, we have decided to change the staging to fit the performance. We decided to make sure that Ollie and Lorna do their first dance behind Kat and I therefore we are visible as they are on a higher level than us because we are sitting and they are standing.

Double Performing Arts Lesson (25th January 2016)

We started this lesson by running the opening scene we devised last lesson. However we believed it lacked energy and it wasn't exciting enough for a Commedia De'll Arte piece. We realised quite quickly (after running it again) it wasn't exciting enough because none of us were in character, therefore we continued with a couple of character warm ups. The first exercise we did was sit in pairs and tell each other about our stock characters (their characteristics, their relationships with other characters and how they move).

For our second exercise we started to study Lazzi (comedic movements). We went off in groups (Lorna and James) (Olly, Rhiannon and I) and (Lewis and Charlie). 

My group decided to go down the idea of a sword fight (as Il Capitano is know for having a sword), We began with Il Capitano trying to show off in front of Colombina to show up The Doctor. However when the Doctor challenged Il Capitano to a sword fight he cowered away,at that moment Colombina took the sword off Il Capitano and dueled with The Doctor because she didn't want him to feel like he'd won.

We then performed out scenes in front of the rest of the class and got feedback. Miss McSherry advised me to use my body expressions more and not my face because when we have our masks they wont be seen. She also advised me to keep my face to the audience and not the other people I'm performing with. She told me I can glance over at them when I'm interacting with them but keep the majority of my focus on the audience as they will want to see the front of  my mask not the side or the back. 

Double Performing Arts Lesson (22nd January 2016)

We began today's lesson with a warm up and a focus exercise to get us all motivated for the lesson. After we completed our warm ups we performed our scenes we had worked on previously. Olly and Lewis's was my favourite scene. It was about The Doctor and Pantalone planning to kill Harlequin. This was my favourite scene because I believe they understood their characters better than the other groups and it was a funny and believe scene that quite easily be used in a real Commedia De'll Arte performance.

Although I believe Lorna, Charlie and My scene was also good because it was funny and well directed. However we still need work on our characters. Our scene was also about killing harlequin but it was accidental. I attempted to boss Brighella around but she was having none of it and she challenged me to a duel. As my character is scared of everything I was trying to escape and Brighella attempted to stab me but i moved out the way and accidentally killed Harlequin (who was innocently walking behind.)

The other groups (James and Rhiannon) piece was clever as they used no speech and only movement. There piece was about love as they threw their loves hearts to each other.

After watching the three scenes and getting notes/feedback, we decided to begin working on our first scene. We agreed that we wanted to begin the show with harlequin lying dead on the floor and the plot of the performance would be the flash backs of each character to find out who killed Harlequin. 

Our opening scene is staged as: 

-   Harlequin center stage - dead. Zanni SL is asleep.

-   Brighella walks in and finds Harlequin. Thinks he's asleep then realises he's dead.
-   Brighella calls Doctor on. Doctor does diagnosis.
-   Pantalone walks on and blames Brighella.
-   Brighella blames Il Capitano, who enters then blames Columbina.
-   Columbina enters and blames Zanni.
-   Zanni enters and prods Harlequin. Brig is angry. Zanni blames Columbina.
-   Everyone points at different people. The pointing swaps.
-   Il Capitano is certain that it is Doctor and Pantalone.

Single Performing Arts Lesson (21st January 2016)

In today's lesson we completed our scripts for our scene we worked on in the previous lesson. We have created our scene so that our two duologues overlap. In the end we stuck with our original idea of having one pair speaking and the other miming to add the effect of the contrast in conversations. (E.G-  Kat's character sees abortion as a solution to an unwanted pregnancy, whilst Rob's character is completely against abortions and finds the whole matter entirely serious.)
Once we had written this script, we did a read through. 
However, as we were focusing on our lines we were not in character. We then read through the script again but this time in character. Unfortunately, at this time, we felt the scene was a little bit flat so we separated the dialogue again (with the intention to create two conversations.)
However, we did actually prefer the original idea of having the conversations overlap as we thought this was an interesting and different style of writing script.

Lorna then suggested we swap characters and read other peoples lines in the hopes it would give us some inspiration in the way our characters act. (We got this idea from our 'Flint Street Nativity' rehearsals when we swapped characters).
We then spoke about creating a soundscape here but we didn't get this far as we were focusing on character building and development.