Rehearsal Discovery... The Changes

Today was our third rehearsal, which went pretty well, it was performed to Nick and Michael, which was a good thing as they both had some great constructive criticism.
The most important thing that was noticed was that the connection between the actors was not strong enough and the emotions of each actor are not on display. The thought process was being lost and it soon becomes just a piece of dance that has no relevance to acting. As a director I have been trying to encourage the whole 'bringing on the emotion' however it still has not sunk inn, so it seems. The solution is to go through the whole performance without any dance moves, basically to act it out, there are no words so it will be purely using the face, body language and feeling the emotion. Once this is achieved, the audience will have a deeper understanding as to what this piece of theatre is saying.

The Changes:

Through this rehearsal some changes were made and they are as follows.

1- Chris will be taking things off the Plat bit by bit in scene 3.
2- Chris will be stage left along with the Plat, rather than being centre.
3-Chris will not be hunched down, he will remember to keep his back straight.
4- As the girls start the ensemble dance, Lucy will not want to be part of it at first, then the others invite her and she slowly joins.

All in all I am happy with this rehearsal and I am excited for the next one.

Here is what Lucy may be wearing for the show... It's very bird like ;)

Idea's For Projection

The Flower is Blooming!





The Flower is Dying



The Beautiful Stars and The Sky



The Changing of the Weather, The Storm

First Rehearsal - The Process

Our first rehearsal was Monday 9th May. We started the session with handing out the scripts for everyone to read to get an idea of how this theatre piece will go.
We then started the session with a warm up. This warm up consisted of, breathing exercises and stretching, this took about 10 minutes.
It is very important to warm at the beginning of each rehearsal to allow the actors to focus on the task ahead.
After the stretching and breathing, we did an eye contact exercise.
The actors had to use the space in the room to walk around whilste always keeping in eye contact with someone, the idea of this exercise was to build an energy.
This lasted for 10 minutes.
The next warm up was a physical movement exercise, the actors had to listen to the music that was being played and allow themselves to feel free and move with the music, naturally going with what their bodies wanted to do. It's more of an instinctual exercise and allows the actor to let go and feel free, again to build a bright positive energy.
The actors also had to look at each other and try and connect with one another through dance.
This lasted 30 minutes. It did take Lucy a while to loosen up and let go of her inhibitions, however everyone in the room encouraged her to be part of the energy and eventually she was.
After this warm up the group was ready to start working on the 3 scenes.
Through this rehearsal we managed to block each scene, we also had a go at some movement and dance, which seemed to work well.
The next rehearsal will focus more on specific dance moves, our task as Directors is to look up some tribal dance moves and throw them in at certain points of the ensemble dance, scene 2.

Ten's Project- Prep Work...

On Thursday May 5th Makeda and myself took ourselves to Edgware and bought all the props and art materials that will be used for our Project.
We went to a few cheap £1 shops, there we purchased fake flowers, confetti, glitter, butterfly stickers, two different colours of wool, and some scarfs.
All these materials will be used to make the plat and also will be used on stage during performance. The confetti will be thrown by the dancers during the ensemble dance.
The next shop we went to was a a beautiful material shop, this was a perfect shop in regards for making our plat, we initially had an idea of making the plat out of rope but we came to the conclusion that it would be to difficult to get lots of rope for a cheap price unless we knew someone that owned a boat which neither of us did.
Making the plat out of material was far more feasible and available.

We also went to an art shop where we bought super glue and material glue.

On Monday May 11th Makeda came round to my house and there we started in building the plat, from this first art session we came up with some ideas of how the plat will look and how it will be built.

Below are the props and materials we purchased!