The Flint Street Nativity - PART FIVE

October 1st, Thursday

Today we watched the film adaptation of The Flint Street Nativity. We found that it went away from the plot of the play quite a lot and we found this frustrating. However, we did watch it all so we had an idea of what we wanted to include and what we didn't want to include. As I said we weren't overly keen on this adaptation as we found that they had changed around roles and settings a fair bit making it confusing for us as we had read the script prior. After we watched this we got into a circle and carried on reading the script from where we left off last lesson. This was to familiarise ourselves with the script before we officially start having formal rehearsals.
I feel that today's lesson was not that great because we were all quite stressed. I think this is because it is getting towards the end of the week and we were all tired. I think that next lesson we will have to be a lot more patient with each other and be extremely focused and committed.

The Flint Street Nativity (Casting) - PART FOUR

September 29th, Tuesday

In this lesson we found out who we would be playing in The Flint Street Nativity and I found out that I am playing Angel and Angel's mum. Angel was originally called Shamira and she was an indian child but due to my lack of being indian we changed the character to have a mother who is a very well kept mother and Angel is a posh little girl who is used to being "mummy's angel" we changed my characters name to Poppy and her brother's name to Hunter. I think that these names really suited because they are quite upper class names and I feel that the mum would be a posh mother. There is a line where my character is talking about how she is a "coon" that we changed to talking about me being posh. I think after making these changes I am going to be able to play my character properly and accurately and I look forward to playing her in the future.
We started to read through our characters lines and watched a bit of the film of The Flint Street Nativity and we decided how we would change things and what we would keep.
I think that everybody has got the right characters and I'm looking forward to playing the part of Poppy.

The Flint Street Nativity - PART THREE

September 25th, Friday

Today we were working on the scene in Flint Street Nativity where we are acting as the parents. I acted as Gabriel's mum who is a bit chavvy and I think I got in to the role well. The parents are talking about how the nativity went and they are eating mince pies and things. As Gabriel's mum I had to talk with a common accent and act really young. Charlie's character was a single dad so I thought that my character would have a bit of a flirt with him so I did so whilst everyone had their own little chunks of conversation with each other. I felt that this lesson did not go well at all because there was a tension in the classroom that we all tried to dismiss but we couldn't seem to. As well as this the communication between us all was shocking and I feel this really impacted on our performance and I hope that we improve.

Children's Nativity Rehearsal - DEVISED

September 24th, Thursday

This lesson Miss split us into two groups and we had to devise a piece similar to the plot of the Flint Street Nativity because we had to create a scene full of children preparing for their nativity. I played a character who was essentially me when I was a child because I remember distinctively my behaviour as a child and thinking back to it now I realise I was so unintentionally funny. My character was very honest and unsubtle. With lines such as "Jesus can't be brown!" my bossy and blunt character creates a funny scene. I included exaggerated lies that little children tell like "JESUS IS REAL I GO TO HIS HOUSE EVERY SUNDAY!" I also elongated a lot of my words because I've found that children are very whiny and moan a lot. We performed our pieces to the other group and I think that both groups did really well. In fact; I think it's the best we've done yet. I hope that next lesson we all perform this well and that we are all happy when we find out our parts soon.

The Flint Street Nativity - PART TWO

September 22nd, Tuesday

We worked on Flint Street Nativity again today but we played different roles so Miss could see what parts we would suit best when it came to casting. We were put in to groups of two. My group consisted of Charlie, Lorna, James, Kat and I. We performed a section from act 1 and performed it to the other group of the class. I performed the role of the shepherd again.
I would like to perform a different role in future lessons to show Miss that I will happily perform as anyone as I think I am a flexible actress. I hope to play as someone like the angel next lesson.
I think the lesson when relatively well, I came in late so I had to join later so I had no real choice about who I would play but next time I will be in lesson on time so I can have the option to choose soon.

The Flint Street Nativity - PART ONE

September 18th, Friday


In today's lesson we have started our first play that we will be graded and marked on. The play is called 'The Flint Street Nativity'. It is a play about seven year olds getting ready for the school nativity play and they are having funny conversations with each other. I would describe it as if it was Outnumbered but in play form. Later on in the play the children become their parents and you see where the children get their personalities from. In this lesson I played the shepherd which I LOVED! The lines were so witty and I found them so funny. We all read through the script to familiarise ourselves with the play before we started working on it properly.
I think that the play is perfect for our class because it is so different and perfect for all of our sense of humour. I can't wait for next lesson because this lesson was so much fun.

Sweeney Todd Monologue - SCRIPTED

September 17th, Thursday

As homework we were told that we should get a monologue that we would want to perform and bring it in. I chose a monologue from Sweeney Todd where I played Mrs Lovett. It was the monologue before the song "Try The Priest" where Mrs Lovett is trying to calm Sweeney down with a drink after he has just murdered Pirelli. All of the class, unprepared, where called up the front to perform the monologue in anyway they wanted. I tried not to base mine from the film as much as possible and I borrowed Charlie to act as Sweeney because I find he is really easy to work with and I work really well with him. I wanted to play Mrs Lovett in a totally different way to how Helena Bonham Carter does in the film because I wanted to show my range of skills within drama. I tried to make the monologue as flirty as possible by sitting on Charlie's lap, stroking his hair and chin, constantly bending forward over him and kissing his cheek. I did this because Mrs Lovett is supposed to be madly in love with Sweeney and I thought it was important to show this in the short amount of time I had. Miss Cordell, after seeing me perform it the way I would, gave me advice and asked me to perform the monologue in a "posh" voice. I did this as it is important to show that I can vary my performance style as they would want me to do this in an audition environment. I did this and Miss seemed quite happy.
Overall, I am happy with how todays lesson went and feel that it was help to me to watch everybody else's interpretations on their individual monologues. I feel that everyone is settling into their own individual style of performing and I love watching this happen in class.
Next lesson I hope that I will grow in confidence and the class will work well together once more.

Blood Brothers - SCRIPTED

September 11th, Friday

In this drama lesson we were put into groups of three and were given different scripts to work on. My group consisted of Charlie, James and I. We were given a section of script from Blood Brothers (Act 4 scene 2) James played Eddie, Charlie played Mickey and I played Linda and the Narrator. Charlie and I had scouse characters so we attempted the accent and I think we did a really good job. Ash helped direct the scene by putting forward ideas. We set up the stage like a living room: two chairs joined together to represent a sofa and a singular chair to show an arm chair. The door was behind the sofa. This made it easy for Eddie to enter without Mickey seeing him which is appropriate for the line "guess who?". When Charlie leaves and I enter I sit on the "sofa" so that James can join me showing the audience he is trying to be intimate with me but it is failing.
James found this really awkward and as a result we had to practise this section a LOT! I feel that because it was one sidedly awkward we were not able to put across the message intended because I was not able to take it seriously because James wasn't. I think that in future I would want to feel that there is a mutual maturity so that we can not feel awkward whilst performing because Ash said that it looked "very awkward" in the final performance, later on.
After performing this section I have found out that I work really well with Charlie and I am comfortable with most of the people in my class.

I Don't Like Mondays - DEVISED PART TWO

September 10th, Thursday

Today we carried on devising our piece. We included a black cloth to represent death as our motif. We thought we could put that alongside the physical theatre aspect of the performance and perhaps include the audience in our production by sitting them in the stage area making them part of the "class" as such. I decided it would be a good idea to ask the audience questions like "what is 2x1?" to make my teacher role stand out and really include the audience. I picked on Lorna Clark and Toby Saddleton in my piece because I know Toby pretty well and Lorna is in my form and I was still learning names in the class.
In the end scene we run the black cloth over the audience to show that they are being killed and this fits in with the symbolism of death. Our repetition in the performance was the line "I don't like Mondays" and our physical theatre was alongside the song we were given as stimuli and this rounded the piece of nicely. We included red lights to symbolise danger and we got Ashley to turn the lights on and off and the appropriate moments to create dramatic tension and suspense.
I feel that this lesson went well because we kept running through the piece and rehearsing it through speed runs and cue practises. I feel that our performance will run smoothly and will be effective because we are all staying focused. I feel that I am getting to know my class well and this is important to create effective performances in the future.

I Don't Like Mondays - DEVISED

September 8th, Tuesday

In this drama lesson my group that consisted of Ollie Marshall, Rhiannon, Charlie and I  were given three stimuli. Lyrics, a photo and a quote that were all based around school shootings. The song in which the lyrics were taken from was the song 'I don't like Mondays' inspired by Brenda Spencer's school shooting in the 70s. She said that the reason she killed people was because she did like Mondays, it livened it up. At first, my group decided that we were going to create a piece based on the Columbine shootings but later on we changed the story line to one that was based on Brenda Spencer. We were told we had to include three techniques and we chose to include a motif, repetition and physical theatre. We chose to focus our repetition on the main lyric "I don't like Mondays" as we thought that the characters in a school scenario, such as teachers and pupils, would not like Mondays.
We were given two days to devise the piece in preparation for our performance at the end of the week.

9/11- DEVISED

September 4th, Friday

   In this drama lesson we were given some lyrics to devise a piece with. The lyrics were "It's all about that one moment, the moment where it all becomes clear. Suddenly you're a stranger and it's time to let go." We were split into groups of 5. My group consisted of Lorna, Ollie, Ollie K, James and myself. We created a piece based on the 9/11 terrorist attack  against the twin towers. We started using the cannon technique by standing in a line and choosing a line to say. My line was "the moment where it all becomes clear". We performed it like we were getting ready to go to work. Ollie Kelly did a voice over explaining that we did not know what was going to happen to us. When James said the final line "it's time to let go", James and I reversed to down stage centre and put our backs to the audience to represent that we had passed away. Ollie and Lorna were left in centre stage holding each other showing the audience they are mourning. A news flash was played whilst we were all frozen. Ollie M and Lorna walked towards myself and James and we performed a mirrored physical theatre piece. When we had finished doing our various intimate moves, to show the love between our characters, James and I returned back to the back and faced the curtain to show the audience that Ollie and Lorna had let us go.
  I feel that this performance wasn't as good as it could have been because we were limited with time and we didn't know each other very well. I think that if we knew each other better that we would have been more experimental with our physical theatre piece by perhaps adding in lifts. Next lesson I plan to work with some different people to get to know the class better and start building a relationship with people so that in our future performances we are more trusting of each other and therefore will hopefully push the boundaries a bit more.