11.02.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

In today's rehearsal I spent most of the time script writing as we needed some more content.  Silvana and I scripted the scene where Marie confronts Jane about David's plan.  We decided to have the start naturalistic and then go into a physical theatre where it starts with Silvana and then Tristan replaces her.  We took some inspiration from Frantic Assembly's 'Things I Know To Be True' with having a monologue whilst still doing physical theatre.  We took specific inspiration from a scene where the main character is doing a monologue and there are hands touching and holding her.  This was the physical theatre we started to create.
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After that I began to script the scene where David and my character first meet in the bar.

SCRIPT WRITING

Scene where Marie confronts Jane about David's plan

Jane - Hi Marie!
Marie - Hi Jane love.
Jane - How is it living with boys for the first time? Hahaha
Marie - Oh my god it's a lot harder than I thought hahah.
Jane - Trust me it doesn't get any easier!
Marie - Hahaha. *pause* I brought you here because there's something I wanted to bring up.  I've heard a little rumour that you and David we're trying to break up Meredith and Harry?
Jane - I-
Marie - Don't worry, I won't tell anybody.  I think that you're a lot better than that, to be honest.  I know it's not my place to say anything because I haven't known you for too long but you seem a little bit off with David.
Jane - What? No... It's fine.
Marie - Are you sure?  You know you can talk to me about anything.
*Into physical theatre*
*Jane's monologue*
Jane - It started two years ago.  He seemed like the perfect man.

Scene where David and Jane meet

*On way out of pub, David picks up Jane's jacket*
Jane - Excuse me! Hey you!
David - What do you want?!
Jane - You've got my jacket there.
David - No it's my jacket.
Jane - I'm telling you it's mine.
David - Trust me.  I'm not in the mood for this now piss off.
Jane - Seriously check the label.
David - Jesus! Fine!
*Jane waiting with a smug face*
Jane - Hmm?
David - Wow I'm such an idiot.  I'm so sorry, please don't think I'm a burglar.  Let me repay you.
Jane - For what? It was an honest mistake.
David - No please let me do this for you.
Jane - Look I'm with friends right now but I'll be here tomorrow night.
David - Okay see you tomorrow... Um-
Jane - Jane. And you are?..
David - David.
Jane - Nice to meet you David.
David - Have a nice night.
Jane - And you.

04.02.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

WARM UP

For the warm up we did the same game as yesterday with the numbers and actions in groups.  There were a lot more people in todays lesson so at the end we joined into one big group which made it easier to think about what comes next but the flow isn't as good.  We also did some stretching to get our bodies moving.

MOVEMENT

Our movement at the end of the yoga scene is quite good but we thought it should be a little bit longer.  We decided to add the Swindon 5 by Frantic Assembly at the end.  Once Louis gets into the position to propose to Amelie, the rest of us do a Swindon 5 through them with the objective to not let them hold hands.  We also wanted to add another layer to this, so every time Hugo and I walk past each other, we hold the eye contact to portray the relationship.

IMPROVISATION

Then to come up with more ideas, we improvised the scene where David and Jane meet for the first time at the bar.  We gave each character objectives to portray in the scene.  Silvana's objective was to stick with me because she doesn't like being alone in big crowds, my objective was to speak to Hugo (played by Louis in this scene as Hugo wasn't there) and Hugo's objective was to just dance and have a good time.  There were a few good points in this scene but we think that this was more of a character development instead of an actual scene to use.

22.01.20 - FEST - Mrs Williams

LOYALTY CHOREOGRAPHY

In this rehearsal, we tried to combine the poems we had from the previous lesson as stimuli to create more for our loyalty choreography.  I think the movement and poem helped give more context but if we were to use it, we'd need more direction because it needed to show some more emotion.

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Louis, James and Tristan.

• I liked their chair duet because it seemed effortless and I liked how fast and smooth it was.
• The movements in their chair duet were good.
• I liked how they intertwined their characters in the piece.

Hugo and Seth

• Their lift was controlled and smooth.

Emma, Silvana and Amelie

• The puppet section was creative and effective.
• The poem worked well within the piece.
• We showed a good storyline.
• We used different frantic assembly methods.

WHAT IF?

What if we intertwined our groups?
What if we had more than one storyline?
What if we include a monologue in the choreography?
What if we used the puppet movement to show Louis and Amelie's controlling relationship?

DEVISING NOTES

We took some inspiration by looking at different pieces of art by Damien Hurst and Tracy Emin, including Bedroom.  The idea of art being totally subjective is a great place to start a piece.  We used the piece Bedroom to create a short piece of theatre which lead up to the bedroom looking like the piece of art.


LOYALTY CHOREOGRAPHY

We spent some more time on our choreography with the poem but wanted to make it fit with our piece and the characters within our piece so we switched Amelie with Silvana and James took Silvana's place.  This shows the dynamics between James and I fighting over Silvana's attention.
After that, we created the potential opening scene with different Frantic Assembly methods.  We were in pairs to show the more dominant relationships between the characters.  The couples are, in order, Seth and Tristan, Silvana and James, Emma and Hugo, Amelie and Louis.  We each went off in our pairs and created a quick movement sequence with only one starting point which was the running into the scene.  I think we progressed very well and it turned out great.  I also like how we each had a line to incorporate in the movement.  I think the overlapping is really cool as well.
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21.01.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

In today's rehearsal, we used poems as stimuli for our choreography.  There was one poem on an abusive father to his son, one on a relationship and one on someone dying.  We chose the one by ... about someone dying but it was very abstract so we altered it to be more fitting to us which we will carry on in tomorrow's rehearsal. 

20.01.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

In this lesson, we spent a bit of time going over everything we had previously done.  We then rehearsed the loyalty choreography we made from last lesson and performed it to the group.  After that, we discussed the points of which group we liked.

Seth and Hugo

• They made the storyline very clear
• Their clamp lift was smooth

Louis and James

• Their round, by, through was really smooth and effective
• They incorporated the chair duets and lift well

Amelie, Silvana and Emma

• Our hip lift looked very effortless
• The chair duet showed the theme of loyalty

15.01.20 - FEST - Mrs Williams

BRAINSTORM

Loyalty

• standing by someone at all times
• cheating on s/o
• compromising beliefs to defend people you're loyal to
• brand loyalty
• biological family vs the people who actually raised you

IMPROVISATION

Tristan and Emma

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• Silent entrance - showing the desperation
• Narrative enigma
• Shift of emotions from angry to wanting help and advise

Louis, Amelie, James and Hugo

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• Amelie entering 
• Amelie being very controlling - parental controls on phone etc.
• Bar tender character knowing everything
• Relationship between Louis and Amelie's character
• Conflict in Louis - whether to stay in bar or go with Amelie - apparent in walk
• Wedding in the air but it never quite happen
• Possibly the morning of the wedding but doesn't go right.

Seth, Silvana and Hugo

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• Betrayal of trust 
• People finding out
• Misunderstanding - Hugo not knowing and then calming down once understood - shift
• Introduction of Hugo's character

5 POINT PLOT IDEAS

1. Bar scene with Amelie, James, Hugo and Louis
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?
5. All together at house party - find out all know each other

WARM UP

We did some warming up after lunch which we had planned in the previous lesson.  In our pairs we lead a warm up.  It was important to get our bodies warm and moving around as we were doing Frantic Assembly.

Seth and I lead some stretches and also used the song Roxanne by The Police.  Every time it said "Roxanne", the girls had to do a push up and every time it said "red light", the boys had to do a pushup.

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Amelie and Silvana also lead some stretches.

Hugo and Tristan made the group do push ups for 1 minute as well as sit ups for 2 minutes.

Louis and James used the song Love The Way You Lie by Rihanna and Eminem.  When Eminem was rapping, we had to hold a plank position and when Rihanna sang, we would break.

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At the end, we played a hand game where everyone lies on their stomach in a circle facing the middle with their hands in front of them.  Then everyone put their right hand over the left hand of the person to their right.  Then we would go round in a circle and everyone would tap the floor in order of the hands.  It gets very difficult because you think that your hand is next when it isn't.  Whenever someone messed up, they would have to get up and run around the circle before everyone has slapped around the circle.  If they didn't get there in time, they would have to do 10 push ups.

SWINDON 5

We tried a Frantic method from Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.  We started by having all of us walking around in a big figure of 8, trying to weave us together.  Then we added in points where we would change from walking forwards to walking backwards.  We then had Tristan in the middle who's objective was to get our attention but we didn't give it to him.  His next objective was to pick up a book from the ground but the rest of us had the objective of not letting Tristan pick it up.  This could be used in a panicky scene where the person in the centre feels like they can't get a hold of something or they're frustrated.  We also thought that this would be good in a train station, a school hallway and a busy hospital.

LIFTS

We moved on to lifts by Frantic Assembly.  The first lift we looked at was the hip lift.  One person had to have their arm around the other's waist and squat down to get their hip below the other persons.  Then they would take a step and then, with pressure applied to the hip area, would lift the other person up.

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The second lift we looked at was the clipboard lift.  One person had to squat to get their hips lower than the other persons and then the other person would put their arm over their shoulder and clamp it together.

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The last lift we looked at was the one rock lift.  There were two people standing opposite each other and one was squatted down.  Then the other would go up to them and press down on their shoulders and lift one leg up.  Everyone else would then lift the person from underneath.  The person in the air could then let go of the first person's shoulders.

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LOYALTY CHOREOGRAPHY

Using this music as a stimulus, we then had the task to create a piece about loyalty using Frantic Assembly's methods.  We could use the ones from last week as well, such as chair duets and round, by, through.
This is what we've created so far.
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08.01.20 - FEST - Mrs Williams

ART

In the beginning of today's lesson, we tried to improvise a scene from Art and a scene that is spoken of but not included.  We were 2 boys short today so the remaining 3 staged the "waving away cigarette smoke" scene about Marc's wife Paula.  The 3 girls (including me), then tried to improvise Paula waving away the cigarette smoke which is mentioned but not included in the play.  This was all to help create a theme or characters for us to go off of.

DINNER PARTY

We then had an improvised dinner party with contrasting personalities to hopefully give us some more inspiration.  Louis, Hugo and Seth were friends from school, now adults, with their three girlfriends/fiancées/wives.  This exercise was very useful in developing some of these characters.  The improvisation part of it was funny and surprising with some people's ideas.

WARM UP

Later on, we did a warm up when we had a bigger rehearsal space where we could move around.  We started with finding 3 different focus points around the room, then we were just walking to each one.  Then we had to run from no.3 to no.1, slo-mo walk backwards from no.1 to no.2 and then go from no.2 to no.3 with our bodies as close to the floor as possible in creative ways.

CONTACT IMPROVISATION

In this exercise, we got into pairs.  With our pairs we had to find three points of contact on the other's body.  Then we added these together into a sequence and then used the Frantic Assembly Shift, Through, Round to add to the sequence.  After that, we explored eye contact.  This set of movements had so many different meanings just by changing the point of focus.  For example, when both people looked into each other's eyes, it made the bond between the people look very strong, but when someone looks away it could portray a lack of trust.  We collectively decided we liked this a lot and wanted to include it in our piece.

MONOLOGUE

There were 6 different sheets with 2 different columns to write a monologue in.  Each sheet had a sort of relationship between 2 characters and each column was to be from their point of view.  We then had about 2 mins to write whatever we wanted on the sheet and then move onto the next.  I found it quite difficult to start the monologue but after changing sheets, it got easier as there was already something to go off of.  After we went around to all the sheets, we read out the final product.  We got some pretty good monologues, characters and relationships to use for inspiration.  We liked the relationship between a bar tender and a regular customer the most.

Chair Duet - Mrs Williams

FRANTIC ASSEMBLY
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We took inspiration and a lot of tips from this video to help us form our chair duets.  There were 9 people in our group so we got into pairs with one group of three.  We each made a chair duet and then found a way to link it all together.  I found this exercise very fun and interesting to find different points of contact and ways to link things together.  I found it difficult at the start to figure out a way to make our movements rapid but smooth however, the video helped with that a lot.

OUR CHAIR DUET
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Practitioners - Mrs Williams

STANISLAVSKI

• Emotion memory - reliving experience (made actors go mad as it was too traumatic)
• Units and objectives - super-objectives (whole play), through-line (smaller objectives)
• Actioning - if there is a line of text that's not coming across as real, add an action to make it real

STRASBERG

• Changed emotion memory to sense memory - thinking about senses rather than actual experience so actors don't go mad

BRECHT

• 1896-1956
• Grew up in Nazi Germany
• Called out propaganda and got exiled
• Berliner Ensemble
• Three Penny Opera
• Caucasian Chalk Circle
• Good Woman
• Didactic theatre - teaching, to change society
• Epic theatre - alienation, V-effect - turn off audience's emotions but turn on their brain
• "What there is shall go to those that are good for it"
• Characters talk in 3rd person and use direct audience address

PUNCHDRUNK

• Theatre group in Britain
• Started in 2000
• Founded by Felix Barrett
• Promenade theatre - walking
• Site specific - the place is the stimulus - graveyard, school, forest

ARTAUD

• Theatre of cruelty
• 1896-1948
• Known work - The Theatre and It's Double
• Went to Paris in 20s and met the Surrealists
• Acted in a couple of films
• Surrealists rejected him
• 1926-1928 - co-ran Theatre Alfred Jarry - producing work by August Strindberg
• 'The Cenci' - incest heavy
• 1938 - The Theatre and It's Double - surrealism, symbolism
• Psychological and human stagnation - restore theatre to its original destiny - fused together dance, song, pantomime in a perspective of hallucination and fear
• Theatre of cruelty - "in which violent physical images crush and hypnotise the sensibility of the spectator seized by the theatre as a whirlwind of higher forces"

BOAL

• Brazilian
• Forum theatre, invisible theatre and image theatre
• Forum - bringing people from audience to fix scene and make it better
• Invisible - scene with actions protagonist would like to try in real life, potential real life situations
• Image - short scenes, 1-2 minutes, strong imagery

BERKOFF

• 1937 East London, Jewish
• Extreme physicality is used to make sense of the poetic language
• Uses iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets etc.
• Flowing poetic but horrible scenes
• Uses experiences

FRANTIC ASSEMBLY

• Founded 1994
• Work reflects contemporary culture
• Non-naturalistic
• Combines movement, design, music and text
• Frantic method - direction through movement and physical awareness can be implemented in moments of stillness - physical theatre