05.03.2020 - FEST - Mr Lemon

DRESS REHEARSAL 

We did a dress rehearsal in front of a few members of staff and students.  I'm very happy with how this turned out and people seemed to enjoy it.  I hadn't eaten anything all day but I had 2 coffees so my body was shaking a lot.  I'm glad this happened in the dress rehearsal and now I know that I'll eat something before hand.

REHEARSAL

We then did some touching up on some scenes which Mr Lemon's help.  He gave us some raw audience feedback as he hadn't watched the show yet.  Some things we need to work on before our final performance on Saturday are:

• Mirrored Chair Duet 
• This is a little bit out of time so we need to make sure we fix our synchronicity
• Hugo and Amelie train scene
• They needed to look more like family and less awkward
• Louis, Tristan and James fight scene
• They needed greater reactions and slow down some parts to build up tension and make James's character more dominant and controlling
• Enhancing Seth's character

RUN THROUGH

We then did a full run through to see if we could apply these new changes to the performance.  I wasn't in the right mindset and I was muddling everything up.  I think I lost a bit of faith so I needed to just get my head back in the game and think properly.  Overall I think we did quite well.

04.03.2020 - FEST - Mrs Williams

RUN THROUGH

We did a run through once we got into costumes.  As this was the first time putting on the costumes, some didn't fit or were too difficult to move in so some people have to try get some other things to wear.  We didn't do a warm up so we weren't more flexible or energised.
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NOTES 

• Didn't warm up so too tired at beginning
• Like the overlapping lines but need to look at the way they say them
• Need a transition between fragmented monologue to the mirrored chair duet
• Need to include the relationship between Jane and Dave in fragmented monologue and include Dave's jealousy
• Need the boys to react more to Meredith and Jane's monologues
• Need to show that the boys being up all night
• Then need to show the passage of time from 7am to Jane coming into the bar
• Laurent saying 'she doesn't have friends'
• Laurent and Charles need more energy in their voice
• Scene 9 and 10 need help
• Charles hair in eyes
• Could have the Brighton folk in the brother's bar - Marie planning the wedding
• Fred puts the music on because joke didn't make sense
• Need a scene between Dave telling Harry about Meredith cheating to Harry telling Meredith to get up 
• Possibly have yoga with Marie and Meredith planning wedding
• Charles react more to the speech to Marie
• Have music playing after everyone says Happy Engagement - plays - all awkward and silent with "I think I wanna marry you" playing - Fred turns it off
• Jane accents

SCENE 2-3

There isn't enough of an introduction to my character so we've decided to add in a little bit of context into the boys' fragmented monologues.  When they say "boys", Amelie and I come in and hug our significant others and James explains our relationship.  This is a good transition to scene 3.  James also suggested that we start the mirrored chair duets too soon so with this new transition, it works quite well and lets us have the music playing for a little longer.

SCENE 5

We've added in a short monologue for my character before she goes into the bar to see Dave.  This shows the passage of time as the scene before makes it appear that it's very early in the morning but this technique helps to show it's later on in the day.  I felt like my character was too much like myself so I've exaggerated an accent so that the whole characterisation is different.

WARM UP

After lunch we did an actual warm up.  First we did some solo stretching to loosen our bodies and then we got into pairs.  In these pairs, one person had to hold the other person's wrists and try to keep them away from touching their shoulders.  We then switched who was holding and who was trying to hit the shoulders.  Then we did an exercise where we had to hold hands in a circle besides one person.  That person had to try touch a specific person in the circle but everyone in the circle had to keep that person safe.  It was a lot of effort and warmed us up.

SCENE 9 

This scene is a bit lost within the plot so we've attempted to rephrase it and make it more prominent.  Then we did some improvisation with Amelie, Silvana and I to pretend we see each other for the first time in a while.  After completing that scene, it just still seemed a bit too lost so we've scrapped it and now they're going to see each other in the bar.  We had to change a few lines from the previous scene to make it work however, it's not too much.  Now it goes from Seth and Silvana's scene to a split scene of the bar, then James shows the passage of time in audience address and then Seth and Silvana being in the bar planning the party.  There isn't the meeting point now which helps.

RUN THROUGH

We then did some more run throughs to help us some more.  In this run through, we tried altering some scenes as we went along.
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03.03.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

WARM UP

We started this rehearsal with a quick game of splat.  We made sure to keep it quick as we wanted to have as much time to go through our piece as possible.

RUN THROUGH

We then did a full run through.  I think this is our main focus to get a load of run throughs done by Saturday so we are as smooth as possible.  This one went pretty well but it's just still not as smooth and flowing as we were hoping for.  We changed a few things about the physical theatre in the prologue and epilogue by making them all a little bit longer.  By making them longer, it makes the movements look more emotional and showing more of a relationship between the characters.  Before we changed this, it looked a bit too choreographed and it looked like there wasn't a good enough relationship between them.

SOUND CUE

Louis and I spent some time making the sound cue for our performance.  We struggled a bit with finding out how to explain when the sound cue is and when the sound should stop or fade out.  We eventually got it done.

02.03.2020 - FEST - Ms Trono

WARM UP 
For our warm up, we played the 1,2,3 game again.  It helped us get our head into a concentrating mode so we could have a good run through.

RUN THROUGH
We did a run through for as long as we had time in the lesson.  We did very well but yet again we need to focus on some of the scenes to improve.  We will focus on these scenes in our after school rehearsal.

01.03.2020 - FEST - Own Rehearsal

WARM UP

In this rehearsal we made sure everyone had learnt their lines before so we could have the smoothest and most effective rehearsal.  We warmed up with a couple games of splat.  We played with high energy to get in the mood and so we were all warmed up.

RUN THROUGH

We spent the whole rehearsal doing run throughs to see which scenes needed working on.  It was quite difficult to do the entire run through as we had a cast member who wasn't able to come.  Some aspects of the plot we thought could be improved were the bar scene.  We think that these movements could be a little more synchronised as it looks a bit muddled up at the minute.  We also need to work on some scenes like the plotting scene between Jane and Dave. 

22.02.20 - FEST - Mrs Williams

WARM UP

For our warm up we did some sprints from one side of the room to the other.  After a few sprints, we added in a jump in the middle of the room.  We had to run to the middle, jump, run to the end of the room, run back to the middle, jump again and then run back.  After a few times of that, we had to jump up then touch the floor and run.  Finally, after a few times of that, we did a few runs with touching the floor, then jumping, then touching the floor again.  This made us all warm and ready to work.

MIRRORED CHAIR DUET

We first started off by doing the mirrored chair duet between Louis and Amelie, and Tristan and I.  We've already learnt the choreography for this chair duet but I think Tristan and I need to practice this a lot.  We aren't confident enough yet so this really needs to be improved so that Amelie, Louis, Tristan and I are all in sync.

RUN THROUGH

After the mirrored chair duets, we did a run through of everything we had done from start to as far as we got.  This went quite well but we needed to sort out the order of the plot and our fluency from one scene to another.

PLOT CHANGES AND ORDER

We've changed the plot a bit to make the ending make more sense.  Before, we didn't have a complete understanding of what happens to our characters and it was all a bit vague.  This is the new scene order:

• Prologue
• Fred's monologue
• Bar movement involving everyone
• 3 boys fragmented monologue
• Mirrored chair duet
• Jane and Meredith's fragmented monologues
• 3 boys argument
• David and Jane plotting
• Jane planting seeds inside Harry's mind
• Swindon 5 train station 
• Meredith asking Laurent to walk her down the aisle
• Charles explaining why he doesn't want to marry Marie
• Swindon 5 train station
• Laurent, Charles and Marie talk
• Awkward bar scene - David ranting, Laurent there, Fred splits it up
• 3 boys singing Sweet Caroline - David tells Harry that Meredith is cheating
• Harry and Meredith get into fight
• See Charles and Meredith's past relationship as Charles comforts her
• David's reveal of lies about cheating - Jane breaks up with David
• Harry and Meredith happy
• Charles and Marie argue but then propose
• Laurent and Jane happy

ENDING

We finished off our rehearsal with figuring out the ending to our piece.  First, we had a scene in the bar where David needs to get through all of the people he's hurt.  We used physical theatre with round, by, through to show this.  Then once he passes Jane, Meredith and Harry, he gets to Fred at the bar and downs a pint as Jane, Meredith and Harry give him a hateful stare.  He gets another pint and sits at the edge of the stage, centre stage.  Jane, Meredith and Harry walk up to him until he's enclosed and then walk away.  After this, Fred has a monologue describing what all the characters are going through.  Then the prologue we have at the start is done again, but as an epilogue.  We are also with different characters depending on our new relationships with people.  Then, in this physical theatre movement with lifts and round, by, through, we find a good position to freeze in to show the relationship between the characters.  After that, we all come together to do a bow.

12.02.20 - FEST - Mrs Williams

MOVEMENT SEQUENCE AND CHAIR DUET

We created a movement sequence for the opening bar scene.  We got into pairs which would work the most realistically.  I went with James because even though I start dating Tristan, we hadn't met at this point and that is what happens in this scene.  The other pairs were Louis and Tristan, Amelie and Silvana and Hugo and Seth.  Within the pairs, we had to create a set of movements to a count of 8 so that we could put it in a loop.  For example, with James and I, my counts were, grab the beer glass, take a glug, cheer, slam it down and slide it to James.  James had the same amount of beats as I did but he was being a bar tender so cleaning the glasses and filling them up with beer.  James and I slid the glasses at the same time so the other person caught it.  I also had to play drunk as I drink more and more.  I came into the scene first, then Louis and Tristan, then Amelie and Silvana and finally Hugo and Seth.  Every time the pairs went up to the bar, I had to interact with the partners.  When the boys came, I had to try flirt with them and when the girls came, I tried to dance with them.  After the 3 pairs came up to the bar, Tristan came back up and I did a chair duet with him.  This was to show how we met.  We wanted to make the chair duet look as fresh as possible with a real connection.  One way we showed this was through having our faces extremely close together.  It was quite difficult to make this chair duet as we weren't on staging blocks.
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For this scene, we used the song Friday I'm In Love by The Cure as a stimulus.  We liked the fun atmosphere it brought out of the characters and the scene.
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After this scene it goes straight into a scene between Tristan, Louis and James where they have an argument.

PROLOGUE

We decided that it would be best to change the characters around a bit so Tristan was now playing David instead of Hugo and now Hugo was playing Jeff (now changed to Laurent), Meredith's sister.  The prologue we started with now didn't work with the new story line so we had to change some things round a bit.  I stayed the same but now had to teach Tristan the choreography that Hugo had previously.  After that, we went into the bar scene we created this morning and fragmented monologues between Tristan, Louis and Harry.

SWINDON 5

Then we created a Swindon 5 piece to portray the train station when Laurent goes to see Meredith in London.  It started off very choreographed so everyone was evenly spaced apart and we didn't have specific characters, it was more neutral.  Then after testing the waters we gave ourselves specific characters.  I was an old lady so I also walked very slowly and people overtook me.  We also added the specific places so it didn't look as if we were walking around aimlessly.  We had a cafe downstage left, the departure board downstage right and the platform upstage left.

FULL RUN THROUGH

At the end we had a full run through of the material we had so far and it worked out really well.  We also timed it to see how much content we had and it came to around 15 minutes.  This was a lot better than what we were expecting.  I think we're all a lot more motivated and excited.

05.02.20 - FEST - Mrs Williams

WARM UP

We did a massive warm up with the another year group.  We started off by doing the game samurai which is about concentration.  The class splits into two groups and there is a leader for each group.  The leader then does a movement which the other team has to reply with another movement that correlates.  If the leader punches, the other team must cross their arms.  If the leader kicks, the other team must jump.  If the leader claps, the other team has to spin.  If the leader moves their arm either way, the other team must move in the direction of his arm.  If the leader puts his hand up, the other team must squat.  We then did another warm up which was to move around the space until the teacher said something and then we did what they said.  When the teacher said to clear the space, we had to run to the closest wall.  If they said opposite, we would have to sprint to the other wall.  If they said shell, we had to curl into a ball on the floor.  If they said sprawl, we had to have 3 points of contact on the floor.  If they said neutral, we had to stand in a neutral position and if they said favourite we had to point to a specific point in the room.  Then the teacher played Bohemian Rhapsody and we had to sing throughout the activities.  It warmed us all up and motivated us.

PLOT POINTS

Louis gave us some more plot points which were very useful and gave us a great place to start from when creating the other story lines.  He created a story for Silvana, Seth, Hugo and my characters.  Some of the points he thought of were that Hugo and I are in a relationship but Hugo spends all of our rent money on clothes etc. and then we get evicted so he tries to get us to live with his brother but my character and his brother don't get along at all so I say that I don't want to live with him.  I then go and live with my sister and then when we're more stable I want to get another apartment with Hugo but he's more interested in the rich life with his brother.  We then break up and then I realise how great life is being single and then Hugo wants me back.  We then both realise that we're better off without each other.

IMPROVISATION

We tried to do an improvisation of the bar scene like our Party Quirks exercise in the improvisation unit.  This was to show us going in a bar and meeting some of the people.  We each had objectives for our characters.  My objective was to somehow portray that I had slept with the barman who was Silvana's ex.  I found it quite difficult to show it without straight up saying it.  We then decided to dissect this scene into two different ones as there were too many conversations going on at once.  One of the scenes was focused on my character and her sister Silvana and the bartender.  Silvana and I already knew our objective but James didn't so we tried to show him through the scene.  I started off quite slow but then figured out ways to portray it in a comedic way.  The second scene was Tristan, Louis and Amelie.  Tristan's objective was to get in between Louis and Amelie.  Yet again it was quite slow to begin with but then they came up with some great ideas.  We then improvised some more scenes related to Louis' ideas about Jane and David.  We improvised the scene between Jane and David (played by Louis today because Hugo wasn't here) about when he tells her that they're getting evicted.  After a couple of tries with different ideas, this turned out quite well.  We then did the scene between Jane and Marie which went well so we decided it would be best to script it, and then the final discussion between David and Jeffery.  We thought that it would be best to keep these scenes quite short as there is no need to waste time just to get an easy message across.

SCRIPT

Jane and Marie discussion

*Jane and Marie sitting down*
Jane - Ugh! David!
Marie - What's he done this time?
Jane - Blown all our money.
Marie - *Gasps* On what?
Jane - Clothes and shoes.
Marie - He's so stupid.
Jane - But guess what's even better?
Marie - What?
Jane - He couldn't pay our rent and now we're evicted.
Marie - I told you he was bad news.  Why do you never listen to me?  Didn't I tell you?  Huh?  I'm always right and you never listen.
*Silence*
Marie - So where are you planning on living then?
Jane - Yours?

WARM UP

For our afternoon warm up, we did something quite similar to this morning with the teacher giving us instructions but this time, when "favourite" was called, we had to point at James and he had to face the audience in neutral.  Then pointing just went to looking at him.  We did this with a few other people as well to see which looked most powerful.  I think that it looked most powerful with James.  We also did a game where we all held hands and one person stood in the middle of this circle and then one person on the outside had to try touch the person on the inside but the people holding hands had to try protect that person.

FREEZE FRAMES

We then did some freeze frames.  The first one was of the bar scene which everyone was involved in.  The other freeze frames didn't involve everyone so the other people just pointed at the scene.  Then we made another set of freeze frames for the second plot line in which the first freeze frame was the same.  We then tried to come up with a third plot line / freeze frames for the barman.

RUN THROUGH

We then did a run through which was difficult for my character as Hugo wasn't here so I did the movements at the start by myself.  The rest of it went well and it was helpful to see where we were at.

IMPROVISATION

We did some improvisation for the scenes involving Frederick, Charles, Meredith and Harry.  The rest of us did some script writing and compiled it all in one word document.

03.02.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

WARM UP

We started off the rehearsal with a warm up for our minds.  We were in a group of 2 and 3.  I was in the group of 3 so we had to go round and count up to 4 so each time we would say a different number.  We had to concentrate and try be as quick as possible.  After mastering that, we replaced the numbers with actions.  I became more difficult but very fun.

RUN THROUGH

We tried to do a run through but it was very difficult due to the lack of people.  It didn't really go to plan and we all got frustrated and had a lack of motivation.

IMPROVISATION

We then decided to try improvise some scenes.  These were mainly based on the characters Harry and Charles.  The first objective that Tristan had was to plant seeds of doubt in Louis' mind.  This didn't end up working so they changed the objective.  The new objective was that Tristan would try to get Louis to be like how he used to be and drink beer but Louis' objective was to not drink beer.  They then decided to include drinking a shot which looked quite good.  The part about Tristan planting seeds wasn't really working so Louis decided to quickly play Charles instead of Harry to give Tristan some ideas for the piece.  We then came to the conclusion that Louis and Tristan need to script the scene of them in the bar, Silvana and I to script the yoga scene and Amelie to write a monologue about her doubts.

YOGA SCRIPT

*Doing yoga whilst boys are doing their scene*
Marie - Wow what a great class
Jane - Yeah... so Meredith, how's it going-
Marie - With Harry? It seems pretty serious
Meredith - I guess... I mean it's nothing special
Jane - Oh right...
*Jane and Marie look at each other confused*
Marie - Anyway... Love that ring you've got there
Meredith - Yeah it's 100% vegan and made from reeds of hemp when I was in the Himalayan mountains, truly connecting with myself.
Jane - Wow I'm more of the diamond type but to each their own
Meredith - Diamonds?? So tacky
*Jane and Marie look confused again and long silence*
Marie - Could I try it on?
Meredith - Why?
Marie - Oh I've been meaning to buy myself one of those. Save the environment and all hahahah.  I just don't know what size to get.
Meredith - I made this one myself.
Marie - Oh right...
Jane - Yeah I agree with Marie, but I don't know if hemp is really my colour, do you mind? *clearly looking at ring*
Meredith - Sure... I guess
Jane - Mmmm.. I don't think it suits me.
Meredith - Yeah I knew it wouldn't. See I have a calm blue aura so green compliments it, but you... one minute, let me check.  You have a violent orange aura so it clashes.
Jane - Oh okay never mind.  You're right, okay see you next week.
Marie - *whispers* We're coming next week?!?!?

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.

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.