14/01/19
In today's project workshop lesson we talked about the fundamental elements that make up a good musical including characters, structure and themes. We then used these ideas to help us develop our own idea for a musical then presented our ideas to the class.
Project Workshop
15/01/19
We started off the lesson by talking about what we will be working towards in these lessons and we were given scripts of the beginning section of little shop of horrors. Although I had a rough idea of what the production was about I had not watched the film. We watched some clips from the 1986 musical that showed the musical numbers we would be performing. We also watched the beginning of the stage musical that ran off-broadway. We then decided who the different roles would go to- we debated multi-rolling however we felt we could find a way to split parts evenly without multi-rolling. I was given the part of 'Ronette' who is one of the Doo-Wop girls.
We also started to talk about how we can work as a group to get all the elements for our performance together including set, lighting, costume etc.
Musical Theatre
17/01/19
This term in our musical theatre classes we are working on a song from 'The Addams Family'. In today's lesson started to add on and clean up the choreography for this number. We decided that the second years would play the part of the family and the first years (my group) would take the part of the ancestors who come back from the dead in this song.
Project Workshop
21/01/19
In today's lesson, we started planning the choreography for the numbers we were assigned. I am working on the prologue with Tilia so we began to plan out the staging and dance moves we would like to incorporate into the piece. We used sources such as videos of doo-wop girl groups for inspiration. We wrote all our ideas down on a big piece of paper to keep a record of what we came up with and used diagrams to show what the staging would be like.
Project Workshop
22/01/19
Today we continued to work on our choreography for the prologue and found that a good way for us to start to develop some of the movements was to improvise to the music- we filmed ourselves improvising then watched it back to see what worked and what didn't so that we could decide what will be in the final choreography. We managed to choreograph and stage over half the song in this lesson however we still need to finish it and work out how to incorporate all the characters into the song, therefore, this will be a target for us in the next lesson.
Project Workshop
28/01/19
In today's session, we continued our choreography for the prologue and refined the section we worked on last week. We filmed our progress as we filled out all the lyrics and to make sure we clearly remembered our ideas we wrote down a summary of the movements next to the lyrics on a sheet of paper. Quite a few of our movements link to our repertory starting point being the lyrics of the prologue, for example, we do an action on the lyrics "call a cop" which resembles holding a phone. We also used certain movement motifs such as a raising alternate shoulders on the recurring lyric "bop sh'bop".
We received feedback from our teacher at the beginning of the lesson which was to incorporate choral movements within the song so we will make this a target for tomorrow's rehearsal as we didn't quite get to this point today.
The scene we are working on is the prologue and it is the very beginning of the musical and our performance. In my opinion, this song is more about setting the tone rather than introducing a storyline and characters, therefore, the choreography should mirror both the comedy and horror aspect of this production. My character in this number is Ronette who is one of the 'Doo-Wop' style girls who appear in certain moments for things such as narration or to add atmosphere. In my scene Ronette's function is to work as a part of the team of 'Doo-Wop' girls and to be expressive so that I can successfully deliver an idea of the atmosphere for the audience watching.
Musical Theatre
30/01/19
Today we began the session by going over the choreography from the previous week while our teacher worked with the second years. We then refined last weeks choreography with our teacher and finished the choreography for the song so that we could begin working on our characterisation in the coming weeks.
Whilst watching this video back I started to think more about the positions I want to use for my character and what will look best with other members of the group. In future lessons, I can experiment with other approaches to the choreography.
Project Workshop
04/02/19
Today we carried on practising prologue and tried to make sure we were all in time with each other. We also figured out what everyone else would be doing and added some different things going on in the background, for example, Alex who plays Seymour trips over some plant pots.
Prologue
I started learning Nehemie's choreography to 'Skid row' and we finished learning all of it so we could begin to polish it and figure out if anything needs adjusting.
Skid Row
Project Workshop
05/02/19
Today we began learning Alex and Ella’s choreography for 'grow for me' where we all act as chorus members around Alex as it is a solo song however the choreography cleverly incorporates everyone into the action in this song.
We were also taught the choreography for ‘Da Doo’ by Rina which fitted very well with what we were singing. We still need to figure out how to smoothly move from one place on the stage to another without blocking anyone else but it looks good so far.
Finally, we continued rehearsing 'Prologue'.
Prologue
Musical Theatre
07/02/18
Today we carried on rehearsing our routine for Addams Family and also began working on a new routine to 'I hope I get it' from a chorus line that contrasts the Addams family in terms of style which I found I particularly enjoyed.
Project Workshop
11/02/19
We began the lesson by going to the prop cupboard to source props which might be useful
in our production of The Little Shop of Horrors.
We found lots of artificial flowers and plant pots as well as a cash register to use in the shop,
a table which was a suitable size for the one we needed for the edge of the shop which also
doubled as the store where “the plant” was initially bought.
We also found a trellis which I decorated with artificial green ivy and ribbon. I also wrapped
some artificial flowers into the structure to give the illusion of a wall of flowers.
We sourced the costumes we would be using – my costume is shown below.
We then continued rehearsing our songs and perfecting our choreography.
We found lots of artificial flowers and plant pots as well as a cash register to use in the shop,
a table which was a suitable size for the one we needed for the edge of the shop which also
doubled as the store where “the plant” was initially bought.
We also found a trellis which I decorated with artificial green ivy and ribbon. I also wrapped
some artificial flowers into the structure to give the illusion of a wall of flowers.
We sourced the costumes we would be using – my costume is shown below.
We then continued rehearsing our songs and perfecting our choreography.
Singing Lesson
11/02/19
Today we ran the musical numbers with our choreography and found the backing tracks we
would be using in our performance.
We got feedback from our teacher which was to concentrate on our projection while
singing.
Project Workshop
11/02/19
Today we came into college and did some independent rehearsals. I changed the
choreography for 'Prologue' to make it more visually appealing and more suitable for the
music. We then had our acting lesson with Monique where we showed her the full section we
would be doing with the acting scenes and songs. She gave us some notes and our target
was to put in more energy, but additionally, for the doo-wop girls she wanted to see a
clearer difference between the characters in the acting scenes and the characters in the
songs – as the songs are the sequences where we turn from background characters into the
Doo-wop girls.
After our acting lesson – myself, Tillia and Nehemie, went back over the choreography that
we were assigned by Rina for 'Da-doo' and made sure we knew exactly where we were and
what we were doing.
We also adapted our transitions from one space to another to make the choreography flow more.
Our adapted choreography is shown below:
We are out of sync in some of the moves so this will be something to focus on in rehearsals after half term as it is a key element of the doo-wop girls that they are synced with each other.
Project Workshop
26/02/19Project Workshop:
We started by running the whole of the section for Little Shop of Horrors through. We were given a few notes by our teacher - for me that included, making sure all of the Doo-wop girls had the same footing when doing our routines. We will put in extra rehearsals to make sure each of us know which foot to start with.
We rehearsed with the backing tracks we were using to make sure they matched up with our choreography.
We also added a few more bits of staging into the acting scenes. In our log session we started planning the lighting for the songs we were assigned. Here are my lighting pans for 'Prologue':
Acting:
We continued rehearsing LSOH in the lesson - we then filmed it and our acting teacher told us she felt we should be wider spaced in the first number to make sure we don’t block each other, and that we should also be bigger with our movements.
28/02/19
We rehearsed the Adams Family and worked with an instrumental track to make sure we all knew what we were singing and whether our projection was good enough. We then moved onto the routine from’ I hope I get it’ from a Chorus Line, where we recapped the choreography of what we had learnt. Myself and Rina were each given twelve beats to choreograph following what we had already learnt and we added our choreography onto the routine.
Project Workshop
04/03/19
Project Workshop
Today we ran through Little shop of horrors twice, the first time we ran it through with the mirrors and re-capped everything after doing a quick vocal warm-up. The second time we filmed it and shut the curtains taking the notes Shelley gave us after the first run through. My note was to make sure I direct the last part of my line to the audience to make sure they engage with what I’m saying.
We then watched the footage back of our performance and we were each assigned a person to give constructive criticism to, I was paired up with Ella and got the following feedback:
We then watched the footage back of our performance and we were each assigned a person to give constructive criticism to, I was paired up with Ella and got the following feedback:
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