19.12.19 - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

OPEN DRESS REHEARSAL
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Our open dress rehearsal went very well.  I think the fact that there was an audience there made the experience so much better and they all seemed to enjoy it.  I think that I really tried to make every movement exaggerated as the audience was very young.  After performing to them, we received some lovely letters from a Year 3 class.  This boosted our confidence and made the cast a lot less worried for the final performance.

REHEARSAL
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After our open dress rehearsal, we decided that one of the things we needed to work on was our end bows.  We quickly took to this and then had to clean up the set before the performance later that day.

PERFORMANCE
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The final performance went really well and I'm very proud of Split Clarity.  There were some occasional slip ups, however, we improvised our way through it.  For example, Hugo jumped on the earlier music than he was supposed to but when that happened, Louis and I improvised and made it look like we were frightened by the wolf in that piece of music.  I, yet again, tried to really exaggerate my movements and make my through-line objective of wanting to eat the bird or get food from the humans, obvious.

18.12.19 - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

WARM UP
In the warm up, we played a focus game called Samurai.  There are two groups of people with one leader from both and the leader has to do a specific action to which the other team will do the corresponding movement.  If the leader claps, the other team has to spin around.  If the leader puts both arms up, the other team has to do a squat.  If the leader kicks, the other team has to jump.  If the leader puts their arm in a direction, the other team has to follow that direction.  I found this game very fun and interesting and I did quite well in it but I struggled to keep a straight face throughout.

REHEARSALS
Today, rehearsals went a lot smoother.  My character didn't look like as big of a role as the rest of them so we did an improvisation game where my main objective was to get a burger that my class mates had.  I struggled with this exercise in the beginning but after a while it really helped me form my through-line objective the day before the show.  With this new objective, I made some drastic differences to my choreography which is a lot better than what I have been rehearsing for months.  I'm glad I've now changed it and I'm prepared for the performance.  The rehearsals with the orchestra went a lot better as now all of the musicians were there and we were a bit more used to the instruments and timing.

17.12.19 - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

REHEARSALS
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WARM UP
For the warm up we did the same Sally song as yesterday and two other songs.  For the Sally song, we did lunges for the first part of the song and squats for the second half.  My legs were already aching from all of the squats we did the day before so I really struggled.  Mr Lemon told the cast that your mind quits before your body, so I really wanted to keep going to prove to myself that I could do it even when my mind quit.  By the end of the song, I ended up crying because I was in so much pain, but I felt stronger and happier afterwards.
We did Love The Way You Lie by Rihanna and Eminem:
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Every time Rihanna sang, we held a crunch position and every time Eminem rapped, we did sit ups.  This was a lot easier than the Sally song we did in my opinion as I have stronger ab muscles than leg muscles.
We also did Thunderstruck by ACDC:
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In this song, every time the word "thunder" was said even in the word "thunderstruck", we had to do a burpee.  By this time we were all absolutely worn out so we struggled to carry on.

REHEARSAL
For the rehearsal, we had a bit of a tough time, especially Tristan, the narrator, to adapt to the orchestra as this was our first rehearsal with them.  One of the musicians wasn't able to make the rehearsal which was even more difficult and stressful.  Some of the music was faster and some was slower than the recording that we had previously been rehearsing to.  For example, my music when Tristan says, "In a twinkling, the cat climbed up the tree" was significantly faster than the recording.  Despite all of this, we still managed to make things work.  Our first run through was even worse than the day before, so all of us got down hearted for a bit but then we pulled ourselves together and did a much better second rehearsal.

16.12.19 - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

WARM UP
Today was our first rehearsal from 6-9pm.  This was quite challenging as I'm not used to rehearsing this late but I had quite a fun time.  For our warm up, we were introduced to a workout to a song:
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When the song said "bring Sally up" we had to stand and when it said "bring Sally down" we had to squat.  Mr Lemon made sure we were in the proper form.  This was so difficult for me as I'm not very physically fit.  Ms Trono told me that a part of being an actor is having that physical ability and strength so I will be doing more exercise in order to increase my fitness and stamina.

REHEARSAL
We found out today that Georgia has been in quite a serious accident which means she is unable to do the show so Silvana had to step up to her role.  As Silvana had to take on Georgia's role in a previous rehearsal where Georgia didn't show up, she was already very familiar with the choreography which was helpful.  Silvana really embraced the duck role and accepted the stress, hard work and dedication that came with it.  For this rehearsal, we spent a bit of time helping Silvana with her new role and did our first full run through with costume.  This run through wasn't as smooth as the one yesterday which we were quite upset about as we wanted to prove how hard we worked on Sunday.  After the first run through, our morale was pretty low because we were annoyed with ourselves but we didn't let it stop us.

15.12.19 - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

WARM UP
For our warm-up, we all followed Amelie and Silvana doing stretches and exercises.  These were very effective and warmed up our bodies.

REHEARSAL
Today, Amelie booked a dance room for the cast to rehearse in so we spent about 3 hours rehearsing.  We did a run through and then decided which parts needed the most amount of work.  We choreographed the hunter and wolf's scene but Seth didn't know what to do as he wasn't in the rehearsal when we choreographed it.  He took on the dance quite well and Georgia and Silvana were helping him.  I was quite distracted in this rehearsal as I wasn't as needed that much.  We also helped to block Tristan correctly and involve him more in the scenes.  This breaks that fourth wall, however, we made it very entertaining for what we believe children would want to watch.

12.12.19 - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

REHEARSAL
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In this rehearsal, the wolf character came back from time off so we spent most of the lesson helping him with his blocking, choreography and making his movements larger and more exciting.  As our play is directed at young children, we need the characters to have over-the-top and large movements to keep them excited and interested.  We helped Hugo with this and made his body language more extreme.  It looked much better by the end of it.  We also decided to play with the music a bit and have Hugo move in time with it.  Most of his music is slow and eerie but there is one part in this section where his music becomes quite a fast beat.  We made Hugo walk in time to the music to make it more interesting for the audience.  The cast was quite distracted and out of it today, however, Hugo carried on throughout.

11.12.19 - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

SHORT CLIP OF REHEARSAL
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REHEARSAL DISCUSSION
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This rehearsal was a very tricky one.  The cast's morale was down as we were expecting the two main characters to be there (as those parts are the ones we need to work on the most).  There was a conflict between the theatre company but things were resolved that night.  We decided to spend our time on the parts where we have interactions with the characters who were available for rehearsal (which ended up being 5 of us).  The part we worked on the most was my interaction with Amelie after the duck dies.

10.12.19 - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

DISCUSSION IN REHEARSAL
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REHEARSAL
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We believe that the beginning and end is quite smooth so we decided to work on the fighting scenes with the wolf.  Our lack of characters made it quite difficult to rehearse the parts we wanted to.  Georgia, as the duck, is in the first half and Hugo, the wolf is in the second half, so without either of them it was very difficult to find things to be able to rehearse.  Our space was also quite inconvenient as it is a lot smaller than the auditorium where we will be performing.  We also wanted to focus on linking all of the scenes as we've worked on each scene separately.  We also need to work on the procession with the amount of space provided in the auditorium.
We decided to rehearse in costume as we needed to get used to the tutus and leotards etc. We did a full run through at the beginning to see what needed the most work on.  Louis and Amelie spent a bit of time cleaning up their interaction with each other.  Silvana and Amelie helped Georgia with her entrance. We then spent a bit of time on Silvana and Seth's hunter's scene.  Then we helped Louis and Amelie with their interaction with the hunters.  I liked the idea of having Louis help Amelie down off the tree so we tried it a few times and decided to keep it.  We made the overall interaction with the hunters a bit more choreographed and into a routine.  At the end, we spent some time choreographing my movements for when I climb up the tree.  This is so much better now than how it was before.
I'm very happy with the way this rehearsal went.  The entire cast was dedicated and motivated and it really shows as to how much work we got done.  We were all sharing ideas and helping each other succeed.

09.12.19 - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

REHEARSAL
In this rehearsal, we covered the movements from the duck coming out of the pond and then getting eaten by the wolf up until the procession.  There was a bit of confusion as to why the duck was getting out of the pond in the first place, but now Georgia understands her character's motif and it's smoother.  She thought that she was getting out of the pond because she was scared of the wolf, but now her objective is to instinctively fight the wolf, then realises how scary he is and runs away.  I think we need to fix the section after the duck gets eaten as the wolf isn't doing much and it's a bit boring, especially for a young audience.  I think the rehearsal, despite the little working space we had, went quite well as the cast was more lively and energetic today.

Wolf chasing duck

Hunters Makeup - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

MY INSPIRATION

My Pinterest board for makeup

WHAT I DID

To create the hunters' look, I simply added some dark browns and blacks in splotches on their faces.  This was to make them look muddy and dirty.

 

Wolf Makeup - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

MY INSPIRATION

My Pinterest board for the makeup

WHAT I DID

I went around the outside of his face with a black liner on a brush making lines and stripes as I went. I also extended this under his cheek bones and added it onto his eyebrows.  Then I lined his eyes and extended that down to the inner corner.  Under that, I added another line and filled in the gap with white.  I then added the lines and stripes coming off of the lowest line.  After that, I filled in his nose and added the line down his cupid's bow.  I then finished it off by added white lines wherever I had the black lines.  For the actual performance, I will apply the liner closer to his hair line so it doesnt look as disconnected.

Peter Makeup - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

MY INSPIRATION

My Pinterest board for the makeup

WHAT I DID

For Peter, I liked the idea of rosy cheeks and freckles.  I added a lot of blush onto the apples of his cheeks in a circle.  I then scattered some freckles over his cheeks.

Grandfather Makeup - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

MY INSPIRATION

My Pinterest board for the makeup

WHAT I DID

I made Seth do different facial expressions to see where the natural contours and wrinkles would be on an old man.  I first made him make an angry face, causing two lines between his eyebrows.  I then made him raise his eyebrows to form the wrinkles on his forehead.  After that, I made him scrunch up his eyes to get the wrinkles around there.  I lastly made his smile to get the smile lines.  I blended these lines a bit and then added some concealer to his eyebrows and eyelashes.

Duck Makeup - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

MY INSPIRATION

My Pinterest Board for the makeup

TIMELAPSE

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WHAT I DID

First I applied a bronzer to her crease and dragged it outwards slightly.  I then took a darker brown and darkened the crease.  After that, I concealed her eyelids then applied a yellow, shimmery eyeshadow over the top.  The reason I concealed before was to brighten that yellow colour, however, the eyeshadow I have isn't very bright or pigmented so I will need to find one that is.  I then blended the yellow eyeshadow into the brown in the crease.  I then added a dark brown/black to her outer corner to give more dimension.  After that, I applied a shimmery, teal blue under her waterline and added a subtle blue highlighter to her inner corner and over the teal blue eyeshadow.  Finally, I added black eyeliner with a wing.  I think that the eyeliner would possibly be better without the wing as Georgia's eyes suit it more.  For the actual production, I would give her stage makeup as well.

 

Cat Makeup - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

MY INSPIRATION

My Pinterest board for the makeup

 


As head of makeup, I have made a pinterest board for the looks I would like to do on each of the characters.  I even tried out the cat makeup on myself to see what would look good.

WHAT I DID

For the eyes, I did a brown, light smokey eye and dragged the darkest shade under my waterline and then pulled that down to create an animalistic look.  I put white highlighter in my inner corner and dragged that down till it reached the brown line.  I did winged eyeliner to add to that cat eye effect.  I believe contacts would be a good idea.
For the face, I added a lot of bronzer (which is quite hard to see in these photos) and also contoured my nose to be wider than normal.  I put a black liner on the tip of my nose and pulled that down my cupid's bow to my top lip.  I extended my top lip out and put 3 dots on each side of my cupid's bow.  I then finished off with adding 3 whiskers on each cheek.

 

Assignment 1 questions

Sound Designer/Technician 

• Who is this person most likely to be in contact with the most and why?
• The sound designer and technician is most likely to be in contact with the director the most.  This is because the director will share their vision with the sound designer and technician and they will then have to create what the director wants.  There will most likely be quite a few different drafts of these sounds and the sound designer and technician will work together with the director until it is all up to standards and portrays the message the director is trying to make come across.

Set and Props Designer

• Why must this person read the script in detail and do contextual research before beginning a job? In a larger scale production, can you tell me 3 different roles in the props team and what they do?
• The set and props designer must read the script in detail and do contextual research before beginning a job to make sure that they are prepared.  The script will usually give a large amount of clues to the set and props used within the play.  Doing other contextual research will help make it more factually correct and/or accurate.  For example, if a play is set in the Victorian times, the set and props designer would need to do a lot of research on the items used in Victorian times and what houses looked like, otherwise the audience wouldn't be immersed in the experience.  In a larger scale production, in the props team there will be a prop master, prop maker and prop storeman.  The prop master is responsible for purchasing, acquiring, manufacturing, properly placing and/or overseeing any props needed.  The prop maker physically makes each prop and they make a large variety of different props from jewellery to furniture.  They also may alter already existing props, such as distressing an object to make it look older or worn.  The prop storeman deals with organising the delivery, transport and storage of all hired and bought props for the production.  They must also organise the the props storage area in accordance with the production schedule. 

Director

• List 3 people that the director needs to collaborate with pre-production and what needs to be said.
• The director must schedule rehearsals with the actors to make their acting/tone/objective/movement completely portray what the director had envisioned.  The director will give the actors advice and different exercises to help them create the piece of work that the director wants to convey to the audience.  They will also collaborate with the sound designer and/or technician.  The director and sound designer/technician will discuss the sounds that the director wants throughout the play.  The sound designer/technician will then go off and make these sounds in creative and practical ways.  If the director doesn't like what the sound designer has come up with, the director will arrange another meeting and discuss the areas to improve on and give constructive criticism.  The director will also meet with the lighting designer/technician for the same reason, however, this time with lights instead of sound.

Things I Know To Be True

PLOT/THEMES

• Rosie comes back from her trip in Europe to see her family who live in Adelaide.  We are then introduced to her overprotective mother, loving father, business savvy sister, brother who wishes to transition and criminal brother.
• Rosie's sister, Pip, decides to move from Adelaide to Canada to take up a job for 12 months and has to leave her entire life behind.  We then find out she'd been having an affair.
• Rosie's brother, Mark, tells his family he wants to move to Sydney and transition to Mia.
• Rosie's other brother, Ben, has been stealing money and spending it on cocaine.
• Rosie's parents, Bob and Fran, try to help all the children with they problems.
• The children don't appreciate their parents' concerns and excessive worry which is why they needed to move from Adelaide in the first place.
• Rosie then decides to take up a creative writing course in Brisbane.
• Soon after she left, Fran with all her stress and fatigue, fell asleep on the expressway and flipped her car and died on impact.  
• The family then reunites in Adelaide to attend her funeral and support Bob.
• Relationship, family, marriage, heartbreak, sense of belonging, tragedy.

STRUCTURE

• Naturalistic and non-naturalistic - moments of dialogue as well as moments of direct audience address and physical theatre.
• Linear timeline - chronological, with ellipses - shown through physical theatre, direct audience address monologues, music
• Sort of cyclical structure - Rosie talking about the things she knows to be true before coming back to Adelaide and after her mother died.

SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS

• The first scene of Rosie explaining her trip to Europe - heartbreak she felt foreshadows the events in the play.
• Meeting the family - sets the base of the play, we get some exposition on the relationships of the characters.
• Pip explaining she wants to go to Canada - after she's left, Fran reading the letter Pip wrote admitting to having her affair - Fran lies to Bob about the letter - foreshadows lies that the family keep from each other.
• Mark telling his parents and Rosie about transitioning to become female - a lot of selfishness is shown from both parties - Mark wants the entire conversation to be about him coping and doesn't think about it being hard for his family to deal with all this information at once.  
• Finding out Ben is a criminal - see a scary and threatening side to Ben - "I want mum" shows he relies on his mother for help but almost abuses it 
• Fran dying - so tired from trying to help her entire family and just as things appear to be getting better, she falls asleep on the expressway and dies.  

ACTING / MOVEMENT

• First scene physical theatre - shows relationships between family members and portrays the way Rosie was feeling without her needing to say it.
• Table when Rosie gets home - transitions from garden to kitchen in a smooth way.
• Physical theatre - showing the passing of time.
• Fran and Bob dancing - the proxemics of how close they are emphasises the love they have for each other (even if it wasn't always there).
• Monologues - providing exposition on the play and also showing the situation from a different point of view.

TECHNICAL DESIGN

• Different lighting - sometimes a low light with a spotlight (usually during monologues) - sometimes a brighter light covering the entire stage (when the family were in the kitchen in the beginning) - sometimes a blue light (usually during times with physical theatre).
• The garden - signified the passing of time (through the seasons with the rose bushes) - at the end, when Bob had lost everything (his wife dying and the children all leaving him) ripping out the rose bushes.
• Bridge - only used once for Mark's monologue - water signifying rain drops coming down on him.

Dealing with Clair

PLOT/THEMES

• Clair, a real estate agent, is helping the couple, Mike and Liz, sell their house.  They ask Clair to accept the first offer.  A perfectly good offer is made, however, then a potential buyer, James, enters the scene and offers a higher bid.  All ethical notions go out of the window and Clair is stuck in the middle of the couple's double dealings and receives too much male attention from both the buyer and seller.

STRUCTURE

• Non-linear - The story wasn't in chronological order from what I saw.  It was quite hard to tell as there appeared to be 2 story-lines, however some points seemed to be as if these 2 story-lines were happening at the same time, like when the Italian girl and the investigator wire up the house to hear all conversations going on in the house.  At the end there was a jump in time from when Clair appears to be dying on the floor to when Mike and Liz get another estate agent to help them sell the house.
• 2 narrative story-lines - What occurs within Mike and Liz's house and the investigator.
• Dramatic irony (audience knows outcome but characters don't) - There are a few lines during Clair's phone call that signify something will happen and then this is anchored by the unwanted male attention from the buyer and seller of the house.  There is also a very poignant part when Liz says to her husband that he would "rape" Clair.  Even though the husband isn't the one to kidnap her or rape her or whatever happens at the end, it still foreshadows events.

SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS

• Clair's phone call - seems to be studied by investigator and foreshadows events later on - also sets mood and tone for play as eerie and ominous.
• The Italian girl's Italy call - find out she's involved in the investigation.
• Mike and James giving Clair too much attention - foreshadows events later on in play.
• James and Clair playing snap - clearly unprofessional and they both know it - finally seems like a tipping point which it is.
• James on the phone - see Clair on the floor barely moving - find out what happened to her.

ACTING / MOVEMENT

• The set was a model village with a room behind it and a walkway on top of the room.
• The actors would use the model village space as if it was a room in a house and interact with the model houses as if they were seats, rooms and props.
• The first scene, containing Clair's phone call had interesting movement as it portrayed a passing of time.
• The proxemics of the character revealed a lot without having to explicitly say - for example, James and Mike would get very close to Clair indicating their interest in her.

TECHNICAL DESIGN

• As I said before, they had a model village which they used as if it was furniture and seats etc in a house.  
• The stairs to the bridge were used as part of the house and underneath that was the investigators room.
• There were also model trains behind the wall upstage to signify Clair's house by the railway. 
• Most of the time there was quite a plain white lighting, however, right before the very end, all the lights went off and there were people in masks with torches on stage and walking around in the audience to make it more interactive. 
• Liz's shoes were set in a parking lot of the model village as if they were parked there but she changed her footwear when getting changed for James to come over.  Clair wore 3 outfits, a towel, blazer and skirt and blazer with trousers.  The investigator wore a plumber's outfit as a disguise to get into the house.

03.12.19 - Peter and the Wolf - Ms Trono

WARM UP

For our warmup, we started with a game of Splat to get our blood pumping and bodies moving.  This helped with our energy later on when rehearsing as we were all ready and warmed up

REHEARSAL

In this rehearsal, we solidified our movement for after Peter lets the rope down for me to put over the Wolf.  This time we had the actual tree we intend to use, however, it was quite difficult as the tree was taller than we expected so throwing the rope over was hard.  We came up with a solution to throw the rope out of one of the holes in the tree.  This seemed to end up working, but then we faced another problem.  When I have to jump out of the tree, I have to make sure I jump more forwards than up like I was doing before as I would hit the tree.  We then carried on to do the procession and just went over our movements.

Peter and the cat with the rope