Rehearsal Week 3.

The beginning of the week we went back to blocking the four scenes and trying to find the places of comedy and playing about with scenes to see what works and what doesnt. Throughout the week we have spent a great deal of time on walming our bodies and voices up. I found the walm up's benifical for me because I felt my body and voice were connected. The body walm up was a perfect way to wake up me up in the early morning starts and was refreshing to do. The voice walm up really helped with my range. In the play I give my character Honey a high pitched voice and this is a great exercise to walm from vocal cords. Voice walms up range from tounge twisters to saying words in a deep or high pitched voice.

On Tuesday's rehearsal we did dress run with Richard watching our first run through. Richard had some constructive critazism about the run. He said that we could all hard to take risks with the characters have fun with them and not feel so restricted and to change the ending so that it didnt end has a cliff hanger. I feel those new ending fits our edited version of the play and feel like a more natural ending and answers how Maratha and George's relationship's ends up. I also feel that I am finding Honey's character the more that I rehearse. I also feel that when all of the cast are in costume that our characters come to life more. The only charactistic that am struggling with is still her giggley personality. This week we did a couple of runs with different speeds and quality's. One of them was where I had to be giggley, I stuggled to this because in the script there are a lot of things that Honey's character wouldnt laugh at (for example - Martha flirting with Nick).

Abbie also did exercises where we had to greet people which helped to make us use different emotions and body language and this game lead into playing the game where she would shout a body part that we had to lead with. These games really helped us think about our characters bod language and how walk and greet people. Which help to layer each of characters and by Friday when we did our first run with an audience, one of their comments was our detailed our characters were and how they could tell what kind of characters we were playing before we even spoke. There only critasim was the clarity in which deliver our lines. Some of the lines were not articualted enough and some of the jokes were missed because of that, but its hard to deliver clear lines because of the accents. I felt that personally the run went really well. I was a little nervous and that really helped with my characters giggley personality. There were things in there that me and James did that made the audience laugh which was shocking because our characters dont deliver the comedy lines.

Towards the end of week all of the cast and including myself were really run down and tired and we had no energy. Thursday rehearsal tired us all out and by Friday we were really tired. Thursday we did a full body and vocal walm up and then ran the play several time in lots of different ways such has fast,loud,flirty and cutting each other lines of. By doing this we were able to see what did and didnt work and made certain things funny and this brought a whole new comedy element to the play.

Overall it has been successful week and I think having outside opinions has really helped with play has whole. After what Richard said, about choosing and objective throughout the play and sticking to it I think I have decided to choose that Honey doesnt want to be there and cant wait to get home. I feel this week that I have really improved with my chracterisation work and over the weekend I need to work on our deliver my lines and the clarity in which I say them because the Robert Powell is big space to fill.

Katie.

Nearly show time!

So it's been a tiring week as we are performing next week!

We have played around with how our character acts and talks some of which i felt comfortable with others I didn't, such as trying to always get Nick to look at me. I found that rather hard partly because of the sofa we were using and because I couldn't think of much things that Martha would actually do because it's not in her nature to do so.

I found straight flirting much easier to do and felt comfortable doing it because I could adapt it to Martha's way of doing things rather than pushing not only myself but her out of her boundaries.....even though it seems Martha has none.

I also had to use a chinese accent and speak to others as though they were deaf. I know that it is supposed to help with my projection but I don't feel projection is that much of a problem because Martha is a loud character. The only parts I need to remember to project but still keep the intention is when i flirt and speak childish because I do lose it sometimes.

Richard came in to see us on two occasions this week and had us change the end. The original ending left the piece on a cliffhanger which I didn't particularly like as well as the unsolved mystery about the son, but that hasn't been changed as of yet even though I have voiced my concern about that. I do not have the overall say though.

Abbie changed the ending overnight so that we could block and rehearse it the next day. There was also a funny add on, suggested by James which we put it to finish it off.

I think that this ending is better and that the audience will be able to relate to it better than the previous one.

Eden Trials came to watch a rehearsal to give feedback and vise versa. We need to concentrate on diction and clarity of our voices because sometimes words are lost because of the accents which are ok. They're not great but I suppose they'll do.

Personally though I feel my character has lost her fun and has become to angry because of the direction I have been given. I would like to have more freedom of choice with how I play Martha because I don't see her as this angry character. Martha is fun and just wants to live life. She is a happy person who likes to have a laugh and doesn't take life seriously.

My aims are to have fun, continue the party and to get Nick's attention. I have started to lose my voice because of all the shouting, which isn't good.

The pace has picked up loads though because of some feedback from Richard, so that now instead of waiting until the other has finished we're cutting each others lines and talking at the same time making it look more realistic.

Flyers went out this week too!!!!

they look awesome....the only concern I have is that it states that our play will make you "laugh your god damn head off ".....i don't think that is true because it isn't that funny. It has elements of comedy but I wouldn't say that it is a comedy unless we do a 'piss-take' of it.

Well three more days until show day!

Stretching Out Further!

Hey Crew!

So the update on the last couple of days from my point of view are that I think it's all going rather well! No major concerns or problems that are getting in the way. We just need to really work on getting the delivery of each and every line spot on or else bits of the script are going to get lost and some of the jokes missed. So on the list is clarity and volume, as we are in the Robert Powell Theatre which isn't a small space...we need to fill it!

As we are double-billed with the 'Eden Trials', the idea was brought about that we show each others performances to each other. The feedback that the other group gave us was quite settling. They seemed to enjoy it but the main note was that some of the lines were lost. It feels like pressure has been lifted now that we have shown it to people and had some positive feedback, such as; character relationships being clear, and good characterisation work. However some humour is lost with tiny things like certain bits of blocking, or again, delivery of lines.

So over the weekend, jobs to be done; Work on clarity and delivery of lines.

Until we meet again! James

Directors Notes :) - Today's rehearsal

Hi all,

Though i'd give an update of how today's rehearsal went as we only have the one day of rehearsals left before our tech, its creeping up on us pretty fast but i'm confident we will put on a great show by the time Tuesday comes around!

Today we did a very energetic warm up, starting with the cast stretching, jogging around the room, leading with different parts of their bodies and creating characters that may walk in those ways - they came up with some pretty funny stuff. It was a fun energetic warm up ready to get the actors ready for the long day of rehearsing ahead of us. We then moved onto a vocal warm-up working on breath control and using their diaphragms properly, we also worked on diction using tongue twisters and different vocal warm up games which was also a lot of fun.

We then moved on to do a scene by scene run and I would give the actors a different way to play each scene, allowing them to be as over the top as they liked and to just play around with what i give them and see if it gives them any inspiration for the characterisation for the play. For the first scene I asked them to play it really fast, leaving no drops in energy between lines and to be very loud, imagining we were in the Powell space and the only audience members were sat on the back row. This worked well and showed a large improvement in Andy's projection and I think as a group we seem to agree that the first scene works well with a bit more pace as it shows the snappiness and wit of the two characters and their relationship.

We then did the second scene when the guests arrive and I asked Andy to change his physicalisation for George, telling him to hunch his shoulders and stick his stomach out, I asked James to play Nick with his shoulders touching his ears and to be extremely fidgety, I asked Kirsty to play martha always keeping her breasts stuck out in front of her, and I asked Katie to play Honey with a very straight back, keeping good posture and not bending her back at all really. This worked very well and we could see some great new physicalisation's emerging for each of the characters, playing the scene like this really helped the actors with their comedy, finding larger than life character and new ways of moving. I enjoyed James's performance of Nick very much and have asked him to keep up what he discovered in the physicalisation of nick but a more toned down version, as the fidgeting really worked for him. Also Andy's performance helped him with seeming like an older man even more than he had already been playing.

We then did the third scene and I asked Andy to play it loud and confidently and always cutting in on Nick's lines as Andy as the actor already knows what he is going to say so could easily just come in with his lines straight away not letting Nick finish. I asked James to play it nervously, and with a stutter. Asking the actors to play the scene like this really worked for them and we found a lot more comedy in the scene, this exercise helped Andy in his interrogation of Nick and gave him much more authority in the scene which worked very well for him. James having a stutter for Nick worked in showing the status between the two men characters, when playing the scene like this, there was an obvious contrast in their two characters which was really interesting to watch and we could see status and age difference in their performances today more than any other rehearsals. I have asked James to keep his stutter and fidgeting for Nick's character and see how this works for him during the run through's we will be doing in tomorrows rehearsal. During this run Andy also said one of his lines in a deeper huskier voice and I asked him to try and keep the voice up during the rest of the scene so that I can see how it worked and it had an immediate effect on his comedy timing for his character and worked well in showing his age and personality. I would also like Andy to continue using this voice in a run we do tomorrow and we will agree then whether to keep it or not.

We then did a run of the fourth and final scene and I asked Andy to play George with the same voice he had just found but with a murderous feel to him, I asked Kirsty to play it chinese and as though she is speaking to deaf people; i chose this because when Kirsty plays the chinese accent she becomes a much bigger character and I wanted her to work on that more with Martha and also this would help her volume even more as she is the loudest of all of the characters. I asked James to play Nick as a nervous woman, because I wanted him to lose having so much masculinity as Nick and I asked Katie to play the scene as though she was constantly being tickled as Katie still needs to work on Honey's giggly personality. This scene worked really well and there was a lot of energy to it, fun and comedy.

I think that doing these exercises have shown the actors that they can start to have more fun with their characters and explore more over the top personalities for them as we want to make the play a fun, energetic adaptation, and i think after today's rehearsal we are definitely getting there.

We then also did a speed run at x30 the speed that they usually deliver their lines, almost so we pretty much couldn't understand what they were saying as they would speak so fast. This worked well as again it gave more energy to their performances and also gave the actors a confidence boost at how well they knew their lines that they could get through the whole play with saying their lines extremely fast. They managed to perform the whole play like this in 15 minutes, which could have been less if there weren't so many giggly moments at how funny they all sounded.

Today has been a good rehearsal with plenty of energy, I do not think that we have over rehearsed our play but instead kept it fun and fresh to us still and I do not think that anyone has become bored of performing it or watching it as we are constantly coming up with new ideas and keeping energy and pace at a much better level now.

Tomorrow's rehearsal will be concentrating on polishing the performance, making sure actors know when to have drinks in their hands, when they need to have finished drinks by in order to pour themselves another one etc and hair and make-up will also be worked on. We will also be doing a few runs and I will be giving notes and then tightening up any lose sections, once that is done we will have another fun run of it where we can continue to see the characters build in energy, physicality and comedy.

Last rehearsal tomorrow guys! :)

x x x

Abbie

Even further on

Hi guys.

Over the last two days, we have progressed in many areas and the play seems to be fitting together.

For a more suitable conclusion, we have added a new scene that was rehearsed and fitted in with the remainder of the play. Personally, it seems to work and has potential to be extended if necessary to add more humour.

The rehearsals have been working on our speech, delivering it faster and faster. My speech is one thing I've tried to slow down, amazingly the faster I delivered it, my voice had more clarity, my words did not get mumbled up and my accent seemed to be a bit better. (Although I still ain’t sold on it) One thing I have to careful of is not shouting the lines, but projecting them to ensure our audience can hear every word, as the Robert Powell Stage is huge. Reflecting on this exercise, the play seemed to become more alive with the pace. Certain parts of it did not seem to benefit from the fast delivery, as the intention of awkwardness was lost. At some point we will have to identify the sections that do not require the pace, more silence or awkwardness, but we will have to be careful to ensure we do not lose the audience's attention.

In Thursday’s rehearsal, we had the chance to play more with our characters. My physicality aspect seems to be getting there, just need to maintain the consistency of it through the play with hunched shoulders and sticking my stomach out. My voice also became quite interesting as well, discovering a deeper tone, which is potential to work on.

Talking to the director and producer on Wednesday morning helped me a bit, I know the lines and blocking of each scene and now need to have fun with the role. By this I mean playing around with mannerisms that I could occupy myself with, whilst the cast play the scene. Also try to find objects that can distract George from his wife, continuously describing the Bette Davis film she can't remember.

We have time to make this show really work to the best of its ability.

Swifty

Further Still

Hey Crew!

So a week before our show and we decide to change the ending! It's great! Again not trying to give too much away but it's completely different to the original ending but as we all agreed, alot better. So this is now blocked and learnt to the same standard as the rest of the play. We also acted each scene in a kind of 'Fast Mode', super-speed, to see where more energy worked, it also helped us with our clarity and volume as we where talking so fast but still had to get every word across.

I had a few more ideas for my character too. Like perhaps he has a stutter as he is quite nervous or constantly itches somewhere like his neck when he feels pressured etc. Not sure if they work or not yet though but I'm going to keep on working on them and other ideas and see what works and what doesn't.

I'm also in charge of our lighting and sound, I forgot to mention in my last post. Lighting wise; as the play is set in a living room our lighting is going to be very simple, white wash, maybe slightly dimmed, and a couple of lamps on stage. Sound wise; the play is set in the 50's so we are thinking entering music perhaps Frank Sinatra, which will change once the play is ready to start to something that will play throughout the performance in the background, and then similar music to the entering music to be played for the audience to exit.

Until we meet again...James

Production Manager's Notes - Week 3 - Day 2

I added a slideshow of rehearsal pictures onto the blog yesterday so that they are more easily accessible and so that I am no longer cluttering my posts with multiple photographs from each day.

Today's rehearsal started with Andrew and James showing the rest of us what they had done when they worked independently on their scene yesterday. They had added some nice moments, such as Nick going to sit in George's chair, but they still need to be careful of the jokes as some of them are lost because of the delivery.

Abbie then got the cast to do a warm-up. They started by walking around the room, shouting lines from the script. They then moved on to the greeting game, where they walk around the room and when Abbie shouts stop, they have to greet each other in a certain way - such as, best friends, biggest fan, blind date, drunk, an animal, hate each other, in love and as their characters.
She then got them to stand opposite their partners, across the room from each other and say their lines to each other, starting quietly and getting louder. As they got louder, they moved closer to each other. This helped us to see how George and Martha can be around each other when they start arguing.

We then did a full run of the play for our supervisor (Richard Talbot). He gave us some notes after the run. His main notes were; what is our interpretation of the piece? He suggested that we should either find a section from the rest of the play or devise a section to end the play, rather than ending on a cliffhanger, as some members of the audience may feel like the play hasn't ended and may be left wondering what happens next. He also suggested that the actors try to talk with very exaggerated accents just to see how far we can push them until it gets ridiculous.
Abbie's notes on this run were to make the characters much bigger and to work on the parts where lines were dropped.

We discussed the ending of the play and Katie had a good idea of what we could do. She suggested that Nick and Honey should leave after George exits and that Martha should shout "GEORGE!" up the stairs. Abbie wasn't keen on leaving it there and added that maybe George and Martha should have a bit of an arguement and then start flirting, before the play ends with a kiss.
Abbie is going to work on the ending tonight and it will be rehearsed tomorrow in time for our supervisor to watch another section of our rehearsal.

We then ran from the guests entrance to Martha and Honey's exit with really big characters. This seemed to give the actors more energy than they had previously and made the scene more interesting to watch.

After talking about hair and makeup, we decided that we will test it all out on Friday and if we can't make Martha's hair reflect her character, we will go back to the idea of having a wig for her, which we will buy over the weekend.