5th December - year 13 T.I.E assessment

Today the year 13's showed us their T.I.E pieces which were created from old Irish stories. There were four groups and around 5 people in each group. The names of the groups were 'The Feather', 'The son of liam', 'Selky woman' and the 'legend of Fin Mc Coal'.

The Feather

Storyline: In this piece from what i saw, it was about a boy who wins a feather and then takes it back to his mother who then asks him to get the bird the feather came from. A witch keeps hold of the bird but manages to control the boy and changes him.

Characters: Charlotte who played the step mum had a very effective tone of voice, she made it obvious to the audience that she was not happy with her step-son and only wanted to get rid of him. Megan who played the witch didn't speak to add a mysterious nature to the character, i felt this was a good character development because it adds effect. Dylan who plays the boy who wins the feather was very energetic and made it obvious that he was a young boy and that this feather had really excited him and how he was eager to get the bird.

What worked: I felt that how they used puppetry worked well, and when they did do this Megan and Dylan worked well together and they didn't once fall out of unison.

What didn't work: I didn't fully understand the storyline. I feel that they could of made the story a bit clearer.

The Son Of Liam

Storyline: In this piece from what i could see, it was about a family, the step mum having magical powers and who doesn't like the son, turns him into a swan.

Characters: Patrice spoke a bit too fast, i didn't catch some of the points that helped the description of the story. Alice came out of character.

What worked: Good use of props. I liked how they used the cardboard around their necks as it showed clearly throughout the scenes who was who and it added effect. The chair duet was effective and the character were clear. How they used the sheet for a rug and to represent the sea.

What didn't work: 

Selky Woman

Storyline: It was about a man who had everything and lost everything and then fell in love with a woman he met. The woman had hit her head and had forgotten that she was half seal.

Characters: All characters had strong, loud and clear voices. It was obvious each one of them knew the story well and that they had rehearsed it well and thought clearly into the ways they could present the story.

What did work: I thought the ukele was very good and conveyed the mood of which he felt at different points in the story, i like how it was played underneath the other members of the group who told the audience the story of his life in small short sentences. I liked how they used a narrator throughout. I liked how they used physical theatre for trees, doors etc. I also liked how they used the signs, their variety of props, i thought it was comical and the chair duets were good.

What didn't work: The main point of the story was the fact that she was half-seal but i didn't understand that part and the end of the story confused me a lot.

The legend of Fin Mc Coal

Storyline: I didn't really get the story, the only part i really got was that there was a magic fish that two mean fought over.

Characters: I feel that they had very strong loud voices and each of the members in the group stayed in character throughout.

What did work: Humorous, good use of chair duets, freeze frames, levels.

What didn't work: Sometimes not clear when acting and when not. Speaking over eachother. Drags out a bit. I found it much harder to follow then the others.

Tuesday 11th December 2012

Today we had our auditions for 'Grease' which we will be performing next in musical theatre. For the songs i had prepared two solos, Roxie from Chicago and Kiss the girl from The Little Mermaid. We performed the songs to Lena and Sam, and then later on we performed our monologue to Rachel, i chose to do the female monologue, which was Frenchies. It was only a few lines long but we had to show clear American accent and perform it. We also told Rachel which parts we would prefer, i would like to play Sandy or Frenchie.

Singing assessment

Today we had our singing assessment with Lena, it was our first milestone, we had to show her our practise routines in distinction and range, so i sang 'la' in rising range and sang 'unique newyork' and 'red lorry, yellow lorry' in rising range as well.  We were filmed as well, we were meant to sing the 3 songs we had prepared, 1 being a duet 2 being solos but because Lena sat in in our auditions on Tuesday she didn't feel the need to hear us again.

MT year 12 all that jazz rehearsal

Singing workshop with Stefan 25/10/12

Today we had a singing lesson with Stefan which Lena organised. He introduced himself then instructed us to lie on the floor with our knees bent and feet flat on the floor with our hands on our stomach. He told us to relax and release all tension from our body. He told us to take a deep breath in and out and feel it with our hands. He spoke about our diaphragm, where it's located and how it works. We then took a deep breath in and had to release it with a sigh, releasing with a sigh made the output very short, so then we released with an 'sssss' which we found lasted much longer, we also breathed out with a 'zzzz' sound which also lasted much longer then the sigh. He asked us to try different pitches and we repeated the process several times. We then stood with feet on the floor but with knees fully bent with our bum rested on the back of our calves, we then did the same exercises but found it a little bit harder, we then stood up a little but still with knees bent and arms limp, then standing up with an arched back and limped arms and then finally we stood up straight with correct posture and we all found it was easier to do the exercise when lying down.

He then spoke to us about the fake vocal folds and how it's very difficult to sing if they are contracted so he said we should think about a funny joke or something that would make us laugh to retract the fake vocal folds which enabled us to project our voices. When we did this exercise i could actually feel the difference.

We then learnt the song from Sweeney Todd and split into two groups to sing it. Then two people from music played the piano accompiament.

We then sang Kambaya and 4 people got up to perform it to the rest of the group but with different emotion, for example Charlotte and Lauren from year 13 sang it in an angry way then a sad way to eachother.

I really enjoyed the singing workshop with Stefan because it's taught me about different styles of singing and how i can improve my voice for Lena's assessment and also the Grease auditions.

Pictures for the snow queen performance 4/12/12

 

On the 4th of December we performed our Snow Queen performance for the nursery children who were aged 2-4, I feel the performance went well and it lasted 40 minutes which was a perfect ammount of time for children their age to sit still and watch. The children interacted well when we asked them questions in the performance for example Beth (Gerda) asked the children if the Snow Queen had taken Joe (Kai) they all responded with yes.

Here are some pictures i took before the performance, i have a picture for each corner scene and a group picture of all of the year 12 musical theatre group in full costume.

-The flower garden

-The Snow palace

-The robbers forest

-The palace

Review on 'Beautiful burnout' by Frantic Assembly

We went on a college trip to southampton where we saw the performance 'Beautiful burnout' by the company Frantic Assembly. It was about boxing and showed the difficult training leading up to the title fight. They used minimal staging, they had a raised rotating stage block. They also had a washing machine and fridge which rose from the block for the mothers scenes. Additionally to add to the boxing training scenes they had 2 punch bags on a pully system which they could pull onto stage when needed. It was a multirole performance, performed by about 8 people who took on various different roles. The performance used physical theatre, mainly to show their exercise routines in boxing. They used very upbeat loud music when they did their insync routines to build atmosphere. They had tv screens on the back wall in which they showed different images for example when they were doing their routines they showed a stopwatch. As for lighting they used strobe lighting, over-head white and blue lights and floor lighting.

I really enjoyed the performance, even though i don't really know a lot about boxing or have ever really been a fan on it Frantic Assemblys energetic take on it made me enjoy it. I especially liked how they presented the training, it made me as an audience member want to get up and exercise with them! i think the actors and actresses used fit very well with the specific parts, they were all very fit and it showed me how in shape you need to be to be a boxer.