Drama with Rachel Maddix 6/11/12

We started off the lesson in the music room where we spent an hour improving our blogs then in the second half of the lesson we were back in the drama studio. We recapped the order of scenes for the Snow Queen and which locations were in which corner of the room. We went back over who was which character, in the piece i am (in order of appearance) the flower witches 'child', snow queens minion and a village person in Lapland. Rachel then asked us to go to the location in which we first appear in, for me it was the flower garden. We then did a speed walkthrough of what we thought we would do, but we kept stopping when people wanted to add in ideas, we kept doing this a couple of times and then we split off into our first scenes to organise properly what happens in that scene. In the flower garden scene we decided that we needed to somehow educate the audience about me and Abi not actually being the flower witches children and that she kidnapped us and used her special camomile tea to make us forget the past. We pushed this point across by me and Abi telling our mother (Lindsey) that we'd both had a dream the night before about a family, not knowing who they were etc.

We had about 10 minutes to configure each scene to work out what to say, how long each scene goes on for and what everyones doing. In the village gossiping about the finn-man scene we configured a short string of movements to make it more interesting and we put chorus speaking in there for added effect.
Once we had spent that time working on the scenes we did a couple of runthroughs of the whole thing and we all thought it was quite successful. I think there should be another scene for the snow-queen and Kai though because they only appear in the first and final scene.

I thought this was a successful lesson because we got a lot figured out about the scenes. It was also productive to practise each scene in the actual order they occur in so that it improves how well we know the running order.

Flower Witch scene
Props needed: Flowers, teapot, watering can, mugs, camomile tea, vase, household objects.
Objective: To help Gerda escape once the flower witch is asleep.

Minion scene
Props needed: Minion costume, minion staff.
Objective: to be obedient.

Robber scene
Props needed: Robber mask, loot bag, jewellery.
Objective: to capture Gerda and rob her of all her costly posessions.

Character profile
-Name: Icelandier the Snow Queens minion/servant.
-Character traits: obedient, devious, mysterious, evil.
-Appearance: crooked back, limp, mask, small, icey, white outfit.

The Snow Queen (Worthing 2012 Version)
Scene	Title	Contents
1	Grandma’s Introduction	It's a cold winters night, Beth and Joe are young children listening to their grandma (polly) tell them a story about the snow queen.
2	Snow Queen Kidnaps Kai	Lizzie turns Kai's heart cold and kidnaps him. Beth realises Joe is gone and Grandma gives her a few magical items to take on her travel (a flower and a hankerchief)
3	Magic Flower Garden	Me (Daisy) and Abi (Lily) live with our 'mother' (Lindsey). We want to let the audience know that she isn't actually our mother and she kidnaps children for snow queen, snow queen let her keep me and lily. Beth comes to flower garden, smells flowers, starts to feel faint, flower witch gives her camomile tea to make her forget, she falls asleep, but Lily and Daisy help her escape.
4	Snow Queen collects Flower Children	Snow Queen comes to flower witch to see if Gerda is there, flower witch doesn't realise she'd escaped, snow queen angry, takes Lily and Daisy away, makes Daisy her minion.
5	Palace and the Princess’s Party
6	Snow Queen Plots & Plans	Snow queen orders minion around, asks Kai if he remembers Gerda, he doesn't she tells him she is a horrible girl, she then instructs Kai to go to the robbers and tell them to rob Gerda and hold her hostage when she comes through the woods and tells her minion to make sure everything goes smoothly.
7	Robbers in the Woods	The robber girl (Emily) tells Polly to pretend to be hurt in the woods, all the other robbers and minion hide, Gerda and Crow come along and try to help Polly, everyone robs Gerda, throwing her in cage with Reindeer, Polly lets Gerda & reindeer out with key.
8	Journey to Lapland
9	Minion Reports	The minion reports back to the snow queen saying that Gerda escaped and pleads for forgiveness but the snow queen freezes him/her.
10	Finn Man’s Wisdom & the Gossips	The village gossipers are gossiping about Finn-man, tell Gerda where to find him, Gerda and Reindeer speak to him and find out where to go to find the snow queen and Kai.
11	Ice Palace Rescue & Release	Gerda, Reindeer and Crow get to ice palace, don't know what to use to open gate, ask audience, gate opens, reindeer escapes, crow gets frozen to save Gerda, Gerda asks to see Kai, snow queen instructs Kai to kill Gerda, Gerda cries on Kai, the ice in his heart melts. Reindeer returns and uses his special magical antlers to melt all the frozen statues and kill the snow queen. All the children escape and run back to their families.
12	Back to Grandma	Gerda and Kai return home, happily ever after.