'Shakespeare's House Party'
Our second assignment was drawing to an end, and this week was the performance week of our Shakespeare assignment. Having the theatre for ourselves to rehearse, our teacher didn't hesitate to get rehearsals underway. We had to focus on a few scenes and a few actors that needed developing to make their scene more convincing for the performance. More convincing in the sense that it needed to link in with the other scenes and keep that feeling of a house party atmosphere. This was all achieved very well, with each cast member prepared for their scene, we then turned to the dance pieces. From the last few rehearsal weeks we had the whole movements under our sleeves, it was only a question of, again, making them more convincing.
What our choreographer wanted was for each cast member to keep the house party atmosphere flowing, keeping a positive attitude, and present the idea that all these characters are good friends who haven't seen each other in a while. With a slight adding of dialogue to signify that their all enjoying the dance, their all pleased to see one another, and they love this feeling their experiencing at the moment of dancing. Another contributing factor was to keep the characterisation active whilst we were dancing, so my character Valentine was to have his eyes in the sky and keep a positive attitude.
Monday's rehearsal was focusing mainly on developing the certain scenes and our dance pieces, whereas Tuesday's session was to focus on practising and practising for the main performance, then receive notes from our teacher as to what we need to work on. With a few errors here and there, each cast member worked on their minor problems.
Our assigned job roles were also due in this week, so costume managers were to ensure that each cast member handed in their own costumes. Prop managers had to ensure that each prop, that is needed for every scene, is ready for use in rehearsals and the main performance. So every prop was at its position ready for to taken by their owner/actor. Sound and lighting managers were to hand in the cue lists, they created, ready for the technician to set into the computer.
With everything ready on stage and back stage, we began rehearsing. Just like the plan, to focus on incomplete scenes and develop every scene to it's potential, the first set of rehearsals were updates to develop the scenes. A slow developing rehearsal lead to a technical run through. Again it was a slow run through as the technician was just getting use to setting the lighting cues and the sound cues, ready for speech or movement cues. We then received some notes from our teacher as to how we could make the whole performance more entertaining for the audience and what we could change develop, performance wise. The first day of rehearsals concluded with a positive attitude, knowing what everybody had to do to make their performance pitch perfect.
The following day was another day of rehearsals, but today's main focus was developing our dance performances. After the previous week working on the choreography of the dance pieces, this rehearsal was to work on developing the performance of the dance pieces. To present the characterisation of our characters, as well as the key factor of presenting our individual characters objectives. My characters objective was to gain the trust of his best friend, so my aim was to keep a positive characterisation throughout the dance performance, as well as sticking to the choreography of dance movement. The rehearsals took the majority of the day, but I thought it was well spent because we managed to rehearse each set of movement, received a decent idea of how to present our characterisation and objectives, whilst rehearsing to the music, with near perfect timing.
To conclude the second day of rehearsal we had another technical run through of the show, ready for the main performance the next day.
The rehearsals came to an end and now it was time for one final run through before the main show. A final rehearsal was helpful, to keep all physical and verbal movement prepared for a main performance. Plus we received more notes from our teacher which help us be more aware of what others are doing on stage and how to present certain lines to make it more entertaining for the audience.
Finally it was show time. With a positive reaction from both audiences and equally positive outcomes from out teacher and choreographer, we managed to complete this assignment, and walked out with a smile.
However there was a few moments during the performance I think I could of improved on certain verbal and physical points. For example I think I could of improve on how loud I was speaking on stage and work on pronunciation. Physical wise there was a few moments when I forgot certain dance steps, however over the course of the show I was able to improve to make it seem it was more of a comedic mistake, rather than a accidental mistake. In the way of making it seem my character was really in the moment and just went straight back into the dance with the rest of the group. Rather than just me as an actor blanking out and looking disappointed on stage, making it more obvious that I made a mistake.
But over all I really enjoyed performing in the 'Shakespeare's House Party' production, and I think it was another well completed assignment.
With everything ready on stage and back stage, we began rehearsing. Just like the plan, to focus on incomplete scenes and develop every scene to it's potential, the first set of rehearsals were updates to develop the scenes. A slow developing rehearsal lead to a technical run through. Again it was a slow run through as the technician was just getting use to setting the lighting cues and the sound cues, ready for speech or movement cues. We then received some notes from our teacher as to how we could make the whole performance more entertaining for the audience and what we could change develop, performance wise. The first day of rehearsals concluded with a positive attitude, knowing what everybody had to do to make their performance pitch perfect.
The following day was another day of rehearsals, but today's main focus was developing our dance performances. After the previous week working on the choreography of the dance pieces, this rehearsal was to work on developing the performance of the dance pieces. To present the characterisation of our characters, as well as the key factor of presenting our individual characters objectives. My characters objective was to gain the trust of his best friend, so my aim was to keep a positive characterisation throughout the dance performance, as well as sticking to the choreography of dance movement. The rehearsals took the majority of the day, but I thought it was well spent because we managed to rehearse each set of movement, received a decent idea of how to present our characterisation and objectives, whilst rehearsing to the music, with near perfect timing.
To conclude the second day of rehearsal we had another technical run through of the show, ready for the main performance the next day.
The rehearsals came to an end and now it was time for one final run through before the main show. A final rehearsal was helpful, to keep all physical and verbal movement prepared for a main performance. Plus we received more notes from our teacher which help us be more aware of what others are doing on stage and how to present certain lines to make it more entertaining for the audience.
Finally it was show time. With a positive reaction from both audiences and equally positive outcomes from out teacher and choreographer, we managed to complete this assignment, and walked out with a smile.
However there was a few moments during the performance I think I could of improved on certain verbal and physical points. For example I think I could of improve on how loud I was speaking on stage and work on pronunciation. Physical wise there was a few moments when I forgot certain dance steps, however over the course of the show I was able to improve to make it seem it was more of a comedic mistake, rather than a accidental mistake. In the way of making it seem my character was really in the moment and just went straight back into the dance with the rest of the group. Rather than just me as an actor blanking out and looking disappointed on stage, making it more obvious that I made a mistake.
But over all I really enjoyed performing in the 'Shakespeare's House Party' production, and I think it was another well completed assignment.
Great work Frank. You have been very thorough in your blogs continually throughout this project. Keep up this standard of work in the next project and you are sure to do very well.
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