Week 29

Tuesday 14th May 2024 

Warm up 

We started of the day by doing a warm up style that one of our students had been working on-focusing actively on listening to your co actors and what their character is saying instead of just focusing entirely on your questions and next line. This is a common habit that some actors will fall into, of focusing so much on Learning their lines instead of reacting to what's being said to them. This can make a performance quite flat and it takes away from the emotional connection between the two characters. 

The exercises we did that focused on this was based around the idea of ignoring someone when they're talking to you. for this we got into pairs and were told to start off by actively ignoring the person telling the story and vis versa for the other person. We then were told to interrupt the person telling the story, listening to a certain extent- but actively ignoring and telling another story. We were then finally told to forget our previous instructions, and fully listen to the person talking to us. I found this to be a really mind opening warm up as it showed us all how much more you can understand about how your character feels, when you fully listen to the information you're being told. 

Sining for Radium girls

Songs are something that we've incorporated within our Radium Girls performance to add a stronger sense of emotion and dimension, so spent some time today polishing up the opening song- steal away. We were focusing on making it crisp, but soft and harmonic- running through the two separate harmonies again and making sure they're seamless. We then put some time into making the song sound like church music- very eerie and controlled. This was then videoed to be potentially used as advertising for the play. 

Rehearsals 

We then moved on to rehearsing- starting with cast 1 act two, as we've covered act 1 quite thoroughly. In cast 1 I'm a radium girl instead of Kathryn, so focused on a bit of ensemble work in the first scene. The first scenes is meant to be quite busy in the background, with people walking in and out spreading news etc- which I personally don't think is getting achieved so hopefully we'll be able to give some more time to making this scene really interesting and jam packed. This scene is also the first scene of act 2, so without power or interest it won't create a powerful start for act 2. We then moved on to the next few scenes in act two, one of which being the board meeting scene were in cast 1 I play a board member. I find this scene really fun to do, as the character I play in it is a complete opposite to Kathryn- being on the opposite side of the table to her in this scandal. I also love this scene as it relies on background reactions whilst Dr Knef and Mr Roader are arguing to make the scene pop, and I'm really enjoying breaking down the sharp and snappy dialogue within it. 

Wednesday 15th May 2024 

We spent the start of the day focusing on our presentations for Thursday, just going over our plans in our groups and what we want to include in our presentations. My group decided on splitting up the information, and individually talking about our own ideas for what we think will be effective. We then went away and wrote our own pieces of information and then later on stitched them together. 

We then moved on to learning another song for our show- still following the theme of church songs, whilst adding in a creepy demeanour to fit the saddening creepy vibe of the show. This song is called Lord of all hopefulnesses, slotting in after act 1 scene 3, following nicely after we find out hoe ill Irene is. I personally really love this song here in the play, because it also acts as a transition- making the scene with vey silk and flowie 

Scene 7 Act 1 running through 

We've gone through act 1 scene 7 quite a few times now, focusing on the blocking and character relation/connection. But when running through it today I really wanted to focus on character mindset for this scene, and how to flick into the headspace Kathryns in when she enters the scene compared to the one we last see her in: scene 3. This is something I'm trying to get better at in rehearsals as there's only a small gap before performing this scene- meaning there's only a small gap to get into this headspace, so doing quick run throughs of this scene are really helpful as they force me to channel heavy emotion quickly. 

Thursday 16th May 2024 

Link to presentation 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MFN2GoxOepD3voOo-fOmtdqFqM87txKiZxAw3dpAdEE/edit?usp=sharing