Shoreham Shakespeare Festival:
I helped others learn their monologues, one example of this is when my friend was struggling to memorize her lines i went through it with her line by line and allowed her to recite to to me whilst i corrected any words/lines that she got wring. This helped her to get the correct words in her head and also have a chance to practice saying it in front of someone else so that when it came to the performance date she was prepared and ready to perform. We took turns doing this, i found ti easier learning with someone else as you are able to give and receive peer feedback to improve your work. As well as this before performing my monologue i introduced my own piece with the name of the play and character i was playing, this was better than just starting the monologue with no setting whatsoever, the audience are able to at least know what the monologue is form and possibly understand it more.
Brighton open air theatre:
We got to the theatre venue at 9am on the day of the performance, this was so we could set up all of the set before rehearsing. We had a large tree made of wood, chicken wire and paper macshe, this was in different pieces that we had to assemble once there. I helped contribute to this by supporting part of the tree while it was being put together. During the rehearsal process i went to collect materials such as newspaper to help create the tree, everyone in the class had a part in helping create the tree and was a group effort, this was helpful as we were able to spend more time actually rehearsing scenes rather than spending too much time on set. Furthermore once we got to the venue, as it is surrounded by woodland area, i helped collect leaves, branches and twigs that had fallen and were on the floor to make the tree area look more realistic. I think this was a good idea, as it was a mixture of artificial and natural products to make a full set that fitted well in the story line.
How did i help to shape the content of The Tempest?
For this production i made my costume, i was given a sample dress that i sewed red material and found other accessories to enhance the costume. Originally my dress was just black and white, however i needed to add red to match the rest of the royal family characters, i spent time on this during lessons and at home. Making my costume allowed me to think about my character further, i was able to think about my characters personality and what she would be likely to wear, this helped with my character development and costume construction.
I attended music rehearsals where i contributed ideas such as what instruments could be used as well as harmonies. This was especially in the song "All we do" i worked with Emily in making an arrangement for this that would work for the play, we created a two part harmony that included a drum beat, we also found parts of the song that were going to be repeated as well as creating a round with the melody and lyrics.
During movement rehearsals i had a lot of input into the choreography that was going to be included in some of the physical theatre scenes. Originally we tried fitting our lines into a movement sequence which we created using a piece of rope, this involved fast dynamics and quick movements. Because of this to make sure that we were able to put full effort into the speech and movement, we decided to have them separate so that it wasn't too much at once. To have both things separate it allowed us to drag out the scene more and prolong the shipwreck. I came up with jumps rolls and travelling sequences to create different ways of travelling across the space to create the shipwreck scene. I also helped create choreography in the banquet scene, i worked with Emily to create movement that would fit in with the greedy and grotesque mood we wanted for the scene. I really enjoy being able to give a choreographic input to a performance, i feel as though this is something i am good at and i appreciate being able to develop my skills in different projects and performances.
I worked outside of rehearsals to establish character relationships outside of rehearsals, one example of this is when working with Emily who played Antonia - who i plan to kill the king with. We wanted to establish a strong relationship where the audience would clearly see that we are close friends who would do whatever it takes to get what they want. We worked on making our lines bounce off of one another to make our characters seem very confident of themselves. In my opinion i think these rehearsals paid off as when performing i felt very confident of lines and i think we worked together well to tell the audience about who our characters are and what their aims are.
How did you make the most of the creative and artistic possibilities fully?
In site specific performance often you have to adapt the performance to the space you are using, this is mostly when performing outside as there are particular factors that affect the performance when outside. For example when outside there is no walls to create acoustics and therefore the sound is carried by wind and to be able to be heard by everyone in the audience. As well as this because it is a pubic area, there are other factors like member s of the public walking around the surrounding area perhaps with pets and children that may make a lot of noise, a performers in this space we need to keep focused so these things do not distract us from the performance. Also if this does happen you need to project further to ensure that you are heard over this added noise.
Furthermore we had planned to enter some scenes from behind the audience, because we do not know exactly where the audience are going to sit and therefore we cannot exactly plan what path we are going to take. This is something we had to improvise where we were going to go and what part of the seating had the most space to walk through without coming into too close contact with audience members.
As well as this, the staging is thrust and mostly we had rehearsed end on, therefore we had to make sure that all of the audience can see what is happening so some of the angles that we were performing at needed to slightly change. We also needed to spend time getting used to the proxemics in the new space so that we could perform to the best of our ability. I think we did this well and our final performance worked really well in the space and all of the set and props were encorporated into the storyline really well. Overall i think mine and the groups performance was good and i was happy with my work and contributions to this project.
