13.01.20 - FEST - Ms Trono

RELATIONSHIPS

• In-laws
• Bar tender and customer
• Friends
• Husband and wife
• Parents and children
• Siblings

HOT SEATING

Tristan - 30 year old physiotherapist from London.  He played rugby with 1 sister, 1 half-sister (21y/o) and 1 brother.  His dad died and his mum married again. 

• Charles Brown
• 30 years old
• Physiotherapist
• Likes his job - gotten better over the years
• Had a bad rugby injury and wanted to help people with injuries
• Broke shoulder and collar bone
• Watched his dad get pulled from a crashed car
• Dad pushed him into rugby - brought them close
• No one to talk to when his dad died
• 2 siblings (1 boy and 1 girl) 1 half sibling (girl)
• Not bad relationship with siblings but strange relationship with half sister
• Half sister - bit of a hippy

James - Bar tender

• Frederick Normandy
• 35 years old
• Bar tender
• Doesn't like his job
• Bar tending for 5 years
• He needed money and its an easy job
• 6 days a week
• Few consistent customers
• On day off - read, sleep
• Good upbringing
• Liked studying
• No more family 
• Only son left to uni and travelling 
• No siblings
• Parents died
• Doesn't have wife
• Lives by himself

Silvana - Charity Worker for homeless

• Marie Trainer
• 30 years old
• Work at homeless shelter
• Sell paintings for money
• Abstract pieces
• 100 euros per piece usually
• Has a friend that sometimes exhibits in gallery
• 1 old friendly guy - Jeremy - always has smile on face
• Older sister and parents
• Likes helping less fortunate people
• Been privileged and gone travelling and seen people less fortunate so wants to help
• Lives in Chelsea, London

Seth - Opinionated 

• Jeffery Wilkonson
• 42 years old
• Doesn't do anything because he made enough money to retire at young age
• Doesn't want to talk about how he made so much money
• Racing motorbike
• Crashed Harley Davidson and broke arm
• Well off upbringing - 5 bedroom house and private school
• 1 brother - passed away - overdosed
• Only brother on drugs
• He has done drugs - apparently all
• He can control himself 
• Rides motorbike in spare time
• Makes friends everywhere
• Very social
• Passing by London on the way to Scotland to see old friends from school
• Lots of enemies
• Off the radar
• Scared they will find him but has a way to protect himself

Hugo - far right

• David Loth
• 28 years old
• Doesn't work - money from father - real estate
• Plays golf and tennis
• Likes cars - fave - Lamborghini 
• Goes to car shows
• Mum passed away when young
• Older brother but he is in Australia - doesn't see him much
• Brother had bug fight with dad and went off rails
• Far right - wants Brexit and votes for Boris Johnson
• No love interest
• Doesn't date many girls
• Goes to strip clubs
• Quite social and laddish
• Worried girls are after his money

Louis - anxious stationary worker

• Harry Thomas
• Run an office for shipping stationary
• 26 years old
• Well paid job
• Spends a lot of time with fiancée 
• Go on walks, meditates, plays with grass
• Girlfriend introduced meditation
• Wants a stick insect because of positive energy - girlfriend said
• Didn't believe in any of this stuff before girlfriend but trusts her
• Still takes anti-anxiety pills without her knowing
• Had anxiety since he was young
• Started taking pills mid teen years
• Girlfriend says they kill brain cells 
• Girlfriend calls herself spiritual doctor
• She has no qualifications
• Been together 2 and a half years - known for a lot longer
• She is 24 years old
• He believes her theories etc.
• Friends aren't girlfriend biggest fan

Amelie - Homeopathic lady

• Mary Wood - changed to Meredith 
• 24 years old
• Doesn't work - only does activities she enjoys - gets money
• Renowned for herbal remedies
• Everyday grass - lots of benefits - drink like tea - back pains, dislocated knees
• Husband bet life on any remedies
• She needs to tell him what to do 
• Lived with mum - not any more
• Mother doesn't approve of her - narrow minded
• Practice goat yoga daily 
• Makes baskets out of feathers
• Never remembered father - died when 2

Dental nurse - Jane Stephens

• 26 years old
• Enjoys some bits of occupation - likes to talk to people
• Earns good money
• Good and well family - close family
• Has a partner - just dating
• Considers her partners lifestyle as fun
• Likes golf
• Likes her job a lot - long hours
• Had a little girl that almost bit her finger off (worst moment)
• Loves coffee
• "Doesn't need a lot of friends"
• Lost some friends because of boyfriend
• Would like to marry him but isn't going great at the moment
• Boyfriend doesn't believe in marriage

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.

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.