Week 1/2

My performance journey- production diaries

Monday 11th of September 2023

improvisation work

We started the week by working on improvisation- focusing in on each separate skill needed when it comes to actively performing on the spot. I personally really enjoy improvised performing, especially when it comes to comedy acting because it gives the opportunity to add to  what  is already funny and make it more spontaneous and amusing. But when it comes to improvisation there is no time to stop and think, you just have to take everything head on and roll with it, so the first exercises we worked on were about embracing what came to you.

some of the exercises included:

* looking up to sky and pretending something had fallen from above. Spontaneously you had to shout out what had fallen from the sky--- The point of this exercise was to counteract the urge to stop speaking and freeze, by forcing you to say what's in your head automatically. It also helped practise reaction time, and forced your brain to think quickly without hesitation. 

*Being in a circle, and using the centre of it to create a scene that is completly improvised- You formed your own character based on the place the scene was taking place, and then kept re running the scene working together to make sure the improvisation was flowing--- This exercise was really useful, because you had to always pay attention to know when your character would fit in and how they would impact the way the scene was going. It also made you actively think about how you could support another actor when improvising, which I found to be a really useful thing to practise as mistakes are almost always going to happen when improvising so knowing how to assist another actor if they need someone to bounce off of is a really good skill.

Tuesday 12th September 2023

vocal practise 

Currently Tuesdays are being filled with peter pan work, while the rest of the week is mainly focusing on the project that's happen at the globe, so on Tuesday we started working on singing technique- making sure we were well versed in different types of warm ups and what there purpose is/ how long to do them for and which ones to do depending on the situation. I found the warm up practise to be highly beneficial- especially before singing musical theatre song which are quite intense- because I could then know for sure I wasn't going to straight away put mass amounts of pressure on my voice, because I'd already warmed it up properly and thoroughly. We also went over posture and body+ different elements connected to your voice, such as your lungs and mouth- delving into anchoring and how useful it is when belting or singing high into your head voice. Because we are going to be performing peter pan I feel like personally going over techniques/ways to best look after and develop your voice was really useful to prevent people putting strain on their voice and damaging it. Although I have done musical theatre in the past, I've never done any kind of singing lessons or coaching so  some of the information was complete new to me, so I'm really glad that it was covered so I don't make any mistakes that iv previously made when it comes to voice care and control. It's also made me more aware of how important my voice is when it comes to performing in all areas and what the best ways to use it can be. 

13th/14th of September 2023 

work for the globe 

The rest of this week and into most of next week the globe project became our main priority as its under 4 weeks away. To start of building on the project everyone had a historical event linked to horror which they had to gather research on- finding a way that it could or does link to local areas near Stockton. It's important that all of our research was accurate, so that when we started devising ideas we didn't accidently create something that didn't link to our subject. My groups was focusing on the fire of London as our historical event, which was a tricky one because there's not much about "The Great Fire of London" that's massively scary apart from the fire itself, and unlike some of the other events that caused a large amount of deaths, the fire of London (fortunate for them at the time) only caused six. And it's not that the six deaths that occurred wouldn't be significant enough to mention, but placed besides other historical events were the deaths reach up into the thousands it just seems slightly uninteresting when mentioning to an audience. So instead our group decided that going forward we would delve into Samuel pepe and his diary which he used to write down the events of that happened during the great fire of London.  

We also decided that it would be beneficial to write down a skill that we  have (apart from acting) on a piece of paper, so that out tutor Kelly could see what extra skills we had that could be used later on in other projects, it was also really interesting to find out some random unexpected things that people were good at, and I'm excited to so everyone's
 other talents later on in the course.

18th of September 2023--- sections of the whole week 

work for globe project 

For mainly the majority of this week we as a team of been creating and researching more about our historical events chosen, but also some extra ones that we thought would be really effective to add into the piece, one of which was the Burke and Hare story of two psychopathic grave robber killers, who would kill and steal body's to sell to science professor who used them to dissect in lessons. This all happened in Edinburgh which at the time was Europe's leading centre of anatomical study- so naturally licensed body's were in high demand, which is why they made so much money from it. The burke and Hare story is now a key part of our tour at the globe, which I'm really excited for because I find the story so gruesome and fascinating. Even though my main group was the great fire of London, I was highly interested in everything to do with the project, because creating/devising pieces of drama/acting is one of my favourite things to do, so I went away and created a power point just devising random ideas, but my favourite ideas was to do with the children of the titanic. The main concept of the idea was to have two actors play two young boys; one of the boys would be a first class citizen who was aboard the titanic, and the other one be 3rd class citizen who was aboard the titanic. The 3rd class boy would be dressed in rags with Algy and sea weed covering half his face while the other would be perfectly fine dressed in an expensive suit. This is because the 3rd class boy has died on the titanic, unlike the 1st class boy who was saved on a lifeboat- this is meant to be a message on the fact that 57 out of the 60 children that died on the titanic were 3rd class, after not being see as "worth saving" because of there class". To get from the titanic area the audience have to go around the globe and find find pieces of information about children on the titanic and recover there story. I'm currently really enjoying working on our project for the globe, because I love the freedom we all have to come up with really amazing and unique ideas, which is something I'm wanting to do a lot more of in the future besides acting- so this project feels like an element of experience I can learn from and take with me on future projects.

mini historical task

To help us while we were working on our project for the globe we played a historical lying game, which I really enjoyed- not just because it was funny to see everyone trying to act innocent- but because we also picked up on a few more historical facts that seemed unbelievable at first. The game was focused around stupid historical ways people have died (which isn't funny, but in this context was extremely funny) for example one of the deaths was about a Greek boxer who was flatted to death after punching the statue of one of his rival opponents, and as result it fell on top of him. Although the game was really funny, it also helped us work more on our improvisation skills surrounding on the spot questions, which is something that will really help us at the globe, because were going to have to be able to actively interact with the audience throughout the performance so could asked random questions at any time.

  Peter pan preparation

in the mites of  working on the globe project we are still doing little bits of peter pan, so when we full time are working on peter pan we already have a general idea of what we need to learn. Because when doing peter pan we will be required to learn some simple dancing choreography, so to practise for this we collectively as a group re created a  section of the performance of freak flag in Shrek the musical. At first I was a bit apprehensive to mime the song while dancing, because I find it hard to act whilst miming- personally for me it feels like there's a barrier between me and the character due to the fact that miming takes away the physical sound from performing so your mouth then moves differently compared to if you were actually singing/speaking. And because your mouth movements helps naturally guide the rest of the face when showing an expression its makes it more difficult to perform the song. But after we had gone through the song a few times and I had figured out the way the characters face should be moving I found the rest of the performing came a lot easier, and that actively listening to the music at all times when dancing helps you stay with the rhythm- which is something I'm definitely going to take forward when doing peter pan. This task was not just about movement, but also characterisation- focusing in on all the tiny elements you can alter about your movement, posture, face and reaction to fit a character. I also found that characterising the characters from Shrek the musical was good practise for peter pan, because there both musical theatre- which requires the characterisation  to be slightly exaugurated at all times.