Week 49

 Monday 10th February 2025  

Today we continued on our rehearsals for our shows, starting off by putting my time into running through our blocked normalised scenes and ironing them out. This for me was mainly the second scene as it includes a football scene without an actual football that we've had to choreograph, finding it quite difficult at first to get the football mannerism right, because obviously theres not actually a football. Me and my scene partner JJ rehearsed this prior so when it cam to running it through today we finally got the hang of it fully which I'm really happy about. After this we then went back over scene 4 trying to add the naturalistic flow into it more as currently we feel its lacking that realism. 

I then spent the rest of the session rehearsing with my DNA cast, blocking my tracks for Brian in the first scene. It’s been quite difficult to make sure I spread my time evenly across the casts I’m in, so have made sure to stay back for longer on certain days when I know my other casts are free so I can give them my time so we can all progress with the project. Monday is a main day for this, along with a Tuesday after my Bright Young Things rehearsals I’m also sure a Thursday will be okay as well- although it depends on how free the rest of the cast is. It’s a hard task spreading myself across three different rehearsals- but I’m already becoming a better team player, along with my progression on my time management and not wasting the free time I have. The DNA rehearsal was really productive from today and I’ve got a better grasp on Brian’s crying, along with his later scene of being out of it. 

Tuesday 11th February 2025 

Most of my focus today was spent on our Bright Young Things rehearsals, using most of our second year session to continue blocking the scenes and rehearsing what we’ve already got. We made some really good progress this session and I’m really enjoying exploring the role of Hester and all the individual details for this character. I haven’t learnt the script yet which is becoming a priority, because I personally really struggle to perform or be consistent when looking at a script so have that as something I need to get done really soon so that I can focus more on the what I’m doing instead of what I’m saying.

Wednesday 11th February 2025

Viola Spolin Task 

We started Wednesday off with some Viola Spolin Practitioner work- focusing on letting ourselves go as performers and becoming more spontaneous and free within our craft: using her methods of improvisation to do so. We started off by creating a devised piece in groups using two juxtaposing sentences- having to include both the sentences within our piece. After Devising a scene we were then told to turn what we had created into a musical- using Viola Spolin's method of sining what you're saying to re build up and alter our scenes. This was quite challenging at first especially because the scene me and my group had divided originally was definitely more on the naturalism side, showing a relatable concept of a family at dinner getting into a bit of an argument. This meant that when turning it into a musical and singing all our lines we had to really focus on what it was we were trying to convey, so not to lose the concept completely because of the more comedic dramatic effect the constant singing added to the piece. I really enjoyed this activity, and definitely felt a lot less anxious and more ready to begin rehearsals for our multiple productions. 

Rehearsals for Normalised 

We had a really productive rehearsal day for Normalised this session- spending the majority of my time with Normalised on Wednesday as that's one of the main main rehearsal days for it. we got to put two of the sam and Rosa scenes on there feet, which is something I'm really happy about as there some of the scenes within the play that at times can feel a little bit cringy or awkward for the audience. This is something that we're trying to make sure we prevent when rehearsing them, but they went really well and I think me and the actor playing Sam have got a good hold on the balance between awkward for the characters and awkward for the audience- so I'm currently feeling okay about those scenes.

Movement - Physical Theatre 

We ended the session today by continuing our work with movement and creating a short movement piece that we can eventually all put together as part of the showcase. To help us do this we got some stimulus images that were there to gives us some ideas or concepts we could base our piece off. I personally really enjoyed doing this activity and felt like it was quite a good way of creating something meaningful without words. I also felt as if a lot of it relied on trust and weight within the space- using the ensemble equally, we all had to balance each other out. It's really fun to get to learn the diversities within theatre making, and for me I feel movement isn't one I get to try or work with as often so I really enjoyed getting to in this session. 

Thursday 12th February 2025 

Today we got to film our table scenes that we've been rehearsing for the past couple of weeks, spending the first half of the session learning about and focusing on this. Table scenes are really difficult to execute as an actor, and can also take a while to film due to continuity reasons- so getting the chance to put one into practise is brilliant for my development as a performer and gives me a free chance to delve into one without the anxiety of making mistakes or doing something wrong. 

Normalised transition work 

When rehearsing normalised we've realised that the transitions for this show make the flow of the performance a little bit cluncky, as it has a lot of written in black out and scenes that begin in the middle of random moments. As a way to improve the transitions and build up the subtext of the show we have added in moments of music and instrumentals- I really like this choice because it fleshes the show out more and creates small moments that are really meaningful and further communicates character connections within the plot.