Thomas Albans - Performing Arts Level 3 @tom567855-blog - Tumblr Blog

Romeo and Juliet Evaluation

Shakespeare and Commedia Dell’Arte are two very different styles but ones that do share some similarities. Commedia Dell’Arte is all comedy whereas Shakespeare did both comedy and tragedy.

Commedia Dell’Arte is very over-the-top with gestures, voice and emotions. Commedia Dell’Arte made use of the seven levels of tension. And in those levels there were levels of how intense the emotion was. In Commedia the intensity of these emotions has to be very high for every emotion, there are no small emotions or gestures in Commedia Dell’Arte. The original Commedia troupes would have done shows mostly around improvisation. They had rehearsed lazzis where a certain thing would happen or a certain thing that a character would do such as the master and servant chair lazzi where the master is commanding their servant to find the perfect spot for their chair outdoors. The troupes would go on stage and be told what the story is and have to improvise it on the spot. Servants never do their jobs right either because they are stupid, don’t understand or just can’t be bothered to do it in the first place. Emotions of these servants can change very quickly which is very demanding on the actor as they have to be able to switch between emotions while constantly keeping a high amount of energy all the way through. If anybody on stage wasn’t giving enough energy then it makes the performance look unprofessional and boring which means the audience loses interest. Mime was also sometimes mixed in with Commedia with either no speech or very little speech or just simple noises. Commedia focussed more on the physical aspects of the body rather than the face; this is why every actor would wear a mask or have face paint. Their facial expressions were set in stone based on their character’s mask. Before the actor puts on the mask they have to pull the expression on the mask and keep it even when the mask is on. Pulling the same facial expression allows you to get into their character and holding this facial expression helps to hold the character. Because the masks covered the faces the facial expressions underneath the mask were mostly hidden so the actor has to focus on what their body is doing not what their face is doing.

Melodrama takes a lot from Commedia Dell’Arte such as the over-the-top gestures and body language as well as the difference in class, servant and master. Melodrama adds back in the facial expressions and so the actors do not wear masks (unless it is part of their character). Melodrama still focuses on the physical movements but with the addition of facial expressions. Both their faces and gestures had to be over-the-top. Character voices were also exaggerated and sometimes stereotypical which is something that Melodrama has in common with Commedia Dell’Arte; Commedia Dell’Arte was a type of comedy that would use politics and stereotypes as a basis for its comedy. For example, in Melodrama the villain would usually sound very evil and have an evil laugh that they would always do. Each character would have their own thing they would do to define them as that character. Commedia Dell’Arte also made use of this.

Shakespeare takes the big gestures from Melodrama and Commedia Dell’Arte because the audience had to understand the play and this was done through gestures more than the words they were saying, although the words are still important. Shakespeare would relate more closely to Melodrama because the gestures were not quite as big as Commedia Dell’Arte ones because Commedia was all about comedy whereas Shakespeare’s play were more serious.

In Romeo and Juliet, we all generally worked well as a team. There were times where we all needed to be more professional but times where we all worked very well as a team. There were people in the group that hadn’t learned their lines and this slowed down the overall process and left us with less time to go through the piece and polish things off. But in the end, we did all work together as a group and solve all the problems with the performance including learning the lines and it meant that the performance turned out pretty good in the end. Whenever I could, I asked if anybody else needed help with things such as setting up the staging, helping learn lines or going through blocking. I was always obliged to help. Personally, I stayed pretty well concentrated and focussed in rehearsals and there were only some times where I lost focus but when it came to me needing to focus to do a scene I always got back on track and stayed focussed throughout the whole blocking process. When it came to auditioning for the role I prepared a short piece from Act 2, Scene 2 which is the famous balcony scene between Romeo and Juliet. I asked another actor who was auditioning if they wanted to do a duologue, which the director allows, and they said they wanted to. So we helped each other with learning the lines and preparing for the audition. I did struggle with the lines and didn’t spend enough time going over them which meant I was nervous in the audition which caused me to forget my lines because I wasn’t confident enough with them; that let my audition down.

If I had more time I would work more on using more gestures and going through every line and finding a gesture that I could do that would help to get what I’m saying across to the audience. As a group, we would all spend more time rehearsing and polishing scenes off so that we would be more confident with all of our lines and scenes and cleaning up some areas of weakness such as the ball scene. In that scene we had many issues such as not being in time and actors not projecting enough over the ball music. The last thing I would spend more time working on is the emotion in my voice. I would spend more time getting into character and the feelings that my character would be feeling and then using that emotion to go through my monologues. I did do some of this but if I had more time I would spend even more time doing it and that would make my character more believable. In the next project I will push myself and make my performance more interesting by using more emotion memory and gestures. Using both of these things are very good ways to make my individual performance much better and entertaining. I will also push myself to try new things such as singing.

The target audience for our play was everybody who was interested in Shakespeare, from people at school who are starting to learn about it up to adults who may or may not have seen a Shakespeare play before. There was no explicit content or gore so this play would suit a wide range of people. Our audience did enjoy the performance overall. There were just little problems that needed working on such as entering at the right time, remembering cues and being confident with lines. Other than that, the blocking and stage combat were very interesting and the venue added to the overall immersion of the piece.

Strengths:

Projection – I found my projection was quite good and the audience could easily hear me over the noises such as birds and the wind.

Lines – I was good at remembering my lines and at one moment where I forgot what line came next I remembered a couple lines ahead and carried on from there which still worked and got the important information across to the audience.

Emphasis – I emphasised certain important words so that the audience think about those words more. For example, I exaggerate the word ‘deep’ in the line ‘adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs’. It stresses just how affected and sad Romeo is.

Tension – I showed clear tension during my fight scene and it was very clear that I hated Lord Capulet and that I was very angry and wanted to kill him. I felt the tension in my hands and with the adrenaline we both used a lot of energy for the stage combat.

Etiquette – With Lady Montague we showed clear etiquette. She had her hand on my hand and I always led and was in control. During those times the men were in control and always led.

Status & Posture – I clearly showed my status through my posture and body language. It was very clear to the audience, based on their feedback, that I was very upper-class and full of myself and in control. I barely ever looked at Lady Montague and constantly had my back straight, chest pushed out and chin up. It was clear I was important and the leader of the family.

Weaknesses:

Emotion – My emotions were clear but I felt they needed to be much stronger especially at the end. I felt I needed to show much more sadness in my last scene because my character finds out so much bad news: Lady Montague dead, Romeo dead and that Romeo married Juliet. For example, I could have tried to cry or kiss Romeo’s forehead. During the time it takes to walk onto stage I could used more emotion memory to get into the feelings my character would have felt and shown this emotion through my voice and body.

Rhythm & pace – I felt that sometimes I spoke a little too fast for the audience to try and make sense of what I’m saying. I think I needed to slow down a bit to allow time for the audience to take in the important parts of what I’m saying before I say the next bit.

Iambic pentameter – I could have tried to make use of iambic pentameter rather than only emphasising certain words to see if it would have worked better.

Gestures – I could have used more over-the-top gestures and thought about one or two gestures to go with each line I’m saying to help the audience to understand what I’m saying. I’m giving the audience important elements of the plot so it’s important they understand.

Classical Theatre Evaluation

Over the course of the past few months we have researched and practised four different types of classical theatre. They are: Commedia Dell’Arte, Greek Tragedy, Melodrama and Shakespeare.

Firstly, Shakespeare lived through the 16th and 17th centuries, between 1564 and 1616. He lived through two monarchs. Queen Elizabeth I and King James I. During his time the dictionary didn’t exist so words were spelled just how they sounded and not always spelled the same way every time. Shakespeare contributed over 1700 words to our dictionary today. He experimented with words by changing nouns to verbs, verbs to adjectives and connecting words that wouldn’t normally be connected together. Theatre was different to how it is today. Back in his day people paid for a better seat or if they paid the lowest price then they would stand up with the peasants on the floor. Shakespeare had to get the attention of his audience because they would be constantly talking, shouting or just having sex while the show is on. This is why Shakespeare constantly liked to make characters repeat themselves which is why the characters would seem to rant on stage. Because of everything that was going on it was important to be heard so projection was very important as well as gestures. The gestures needed to be over-the-top as the language was very complicated so to get their meaning it would be done through gestures so that the audience could understand and follow the plot. Without the gestures the audience would become easily bored and lose the whole plot of the play. It’s the same case for projection, when characters say important plot elements they need to be heard by the audience otherwise they won’t understand the play. The actors also had to know what they were talking about and understand the play otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to get the story across to the audience. The actors are the storytellers so if the actors don’t understand the story then the audience won’t understand the story either.

All of these factors are just as important today as they were back then. The modern actor needs to first understand what they’re saying especially as the language is fairly complex compared to what we are used to speaking and reading in this era. Shakespeare used a lot of metaphors in his language and involved a lot of words to say the same thing that we might say in just a few words today. His pieces are mostly similar to poetry and follow the same rules. To make poetry sound more interesting and engaging you would follow a rhythm or beat. A meter in poetry is a pair of syllables where one of them is stressed and the other one isn’t. Therefore an iambic pentameter is five pairs of meters. The first syllable would be stressed and the next one not stressed and that would be repeated through the whole line. This is subtle and unnoticed to the audience but it makes the poetry sound much more interesting. Sometimes certain important words in the language would be stressed; words are most important in a line to the audience. Emphasising certain words makes words stand out to the audience so they think more about what the character is saying and what it means.

There are some similarities between Melodrama and Shakespeare. They both use over-the-top gestures to get the story across. Similar gestures would have been used in Shakespeare to what we use today in Melodrama. In contrast, Melodrama does not use complicated language that Shakespeare used; instead Melodrama uses language similar to what we would speak in everyday life. Sometimes in Melodrama the focus is more on the gestures and body language more than the language such as in mime. In Melodrama there are no sad emotions in the same way that naturalism would make use of sadness. Everything in Melodrama would be fast paced and everything would be done with energy no matter what it was. Whereas in Shakespeare there are common themes in some of his plays such as death in his tragedies. Melodrama doesn’t focus on dark topics such as death, usually. The plot is more important in Melodrama than detailed characterisation of the characters.

Shakespeare also shares some qualities with Greek Tragedy. Shakespeare was influenced by Greek Theatre during his time and had taken some of his ideas from Greek Theatre. For example, Shakespeare sometimes made use of a chorus in his pieces just like Greek Theatre would have done. But Shakespeare didn’t focus on the chorus in the same way Greek Theatre does. Shakespeare simply used them to give the audience a little background of the piece whereas in Greek Theatre the chorus is involved almost all the way through a performance, they were almost constantly on stage. In Romeo and Juliet, the prologue involves a chorus that tell the audience the story of Romeo and Juliet before it even happens. The chorus says there are two feuding families and that Romeo and Juliet want to be together but they can’t. The chorus even tell the audience what happens at the end, that they both die and then the feud ends. Shakespeare did this so that the audience didn’t feel too much for the characters and focus more on the plot and the messages held in the piece.

Greek Tragedy makes use of big masks that had very big facial expressions on them. The did this so the audience in a big amphitheatre would have been able to see the actors more easily. Any facial expressions without masks would have just been lost to the audience sitting at the back so the masks replace them. Big gestures were also needed just like in Shakespeare and in Melodrama. Bigger gestures were used for the same reason that masks were used, so the audience at the back could see and understand the play. Just like in Shakespeare, gestures were used to get across the plot of the play. Greek Theatre and Shakespeare had a very similar language style. Greek Theatre involved a lot of ranting on stage just like Shakespeare did. But Greek Theatre had a simpler language and didn’t use quite as many metaphors as Shakespeare did. The language of Greek Theatre aimed to be simple to the audience so that it could complement the gestures to get across the plot of the piece. Greek Tragedy also involved a lot of death. The audience were always left with a message at the end, called the catharsis; this was designed to get the audience thinking about what they saw on stage and what the message was. It made the audience feel better about themselves because they weren’t going through what was happening on stage. Melodrama contrasts with Greek Tragedy as Melodrama didn’t make use of masks and neither did Shakespeare. Melodrama used simple language but didn’t rant on stage quite as much as Greek Theatre and Shakespeare did. Melodrama was comedy whereas Greek Tragedy was serious and dark. Shakespeare did a mix of tragedy and comedy thus sharing similarities with both Melodrama and Greek Tragedy. Melodrama has a structure and makes use of stock characters just like Commedia Dell’Arte. There was always a hero, villain and a damsel in distress. The plot structure was always the same, there was a reason for the hero needing to fight the villain because the villain has caused them considerable pain and suffering. Then at the end the villain gets his just desserts. This was done for entertainment rather than for catharsis.

Greek Tragedy - Electra Script

Romeo and Juliet - Script

Romeo and Juliet - Job Lists (30/3/17)

Romeo and Juliet - Job Lists & Schedule (Performance Week)

Romeo and Juliet - Tapton House Risk Assessment

Romeo and Juliet - Task Sheet (16/3/17)

Romeo and Juliet - Task Sheet (13/3/17)

Romeo and Juliet - Blog 5 (3/4/17)

This week is the performance week and the tech week of Romeo and Juliet. On Monday and Tuesday we ran through the whole performance with everything like set, costume and props. In this runs we found various areas that we all need to work on. The main problem as a group was lines. Many people in the group didn’t know their lines very well and this meant the prompt was being used a lot. Lines was the main issue with the performance; everything else such as blocking was fine and the director said that once we’ve become confident with our lines the performance will look really nice. I found that I stumbled on my lines a couple of times but I just needed the start of the next line from the prompt so that I knew what came next. My problem was that I knew what the lines were but I just couldn’t remember what came next; once I received the first word or so I could easily pick myself back up again. For me it is just a matter of going over my lines over and over so that I am more confident with them and can remember what comes after what.

This week the level 2 performing arts group were coming to help us with the performance by doing our front-of-house as well as showing the audience where to go to the next scene once the one they were watching had finished. As part of my role for Tapton House, alongside checking performance areas, was to show the level 2s around Tapton House so they knew where everything was such as the refectory, toilets and where all of the scenes were taking place. Once all of my jobs were done by checking performance areas and double-checked them as well as showing around the level 2s, I asked the group setting up Juliet’s bedroom if they wanted help. I had helped them last week as well so I thought to help them again especially as I knew exactly where everything needed to go for the bed as well as the chairs for the audience. Setting the room up was much quicker than it was before because we all knew exactly what we were doing this time because we had done it before, it was just a matter of doing it the same way.

After these run-throughs a lot of us left with little confidence in the performance and thought that it wasn’t going to go very well. But everybody went away with the knowledge of what they needed to improve on and when it came to running through the performance again before the performance it was a lot better than we all thought it would be. Lines were much better than they were before and the whole performance was a lot smoother than it was earlier in the week. Everybody had worked on their own roles and lines before the performance and that meant the whole performance was greatly improved; we all worked well as a team. I also went over the feint again with both Lady Montague characters and made sure that they were comfortable with doing it on the grass. Originally, we were going to be doing it on the concrete but the whole scene was moved onto the grass which I thought was very important for us to do because it is much safer for the fight as well as the feint to be on the grass. One Lady Montague didn’t want to stress their back too much so they didn’t want to do the feint so they decided to go on the floor with despair and shock instead which I think did work, so we decided to do that. Another factor for doing this was because the costume that the actor playing that Lady Montague wore was very long and it could be too much of a hazard to feint in case either the actor in the dress was hurt or the costume was damaged, or both. The other Lady Montague was more confident doing the feint so we decided to leave it as a feint just like before.

I found some strengths in my performance this week in tech run. The first one is remembering blocking. I always knew exactly what I needed to do on stage and when to do it. I had no issues remembering where I need to stand or what I needed to do physically. As well as this I also found that I was good at travelling from scene to scene without being spotted by the audience. I made sure I knew exactly where I needed to be for my next scene, how to get there and when to be there for. I had no trouble doing this. My third strength was physicality. I found with my costume that my physicality was easier to hold because I felt more upper-class and posh. I have my left hand on my back with straight fingers while my right hand is holding my walking stick/sword. I found my left hand to be very helpful in holding my posture as I was using it to push slightly against my back which reminded me to push my chest out and keep my chin up. It felt like a natural posture that my character would be holding.

There were some areas of improvement that I need to continue working on ready for the final performance. One of those is practising my lines. I have all the lines in my head but I need to become more confident with them so I know exactly what line comes after which. I have no trouble remembering the line itself, but when it comes. I will practise my lines at home as well as between scenes in the performance to make sure that they stick in my head. The second thing I need to work on is projection. My projection could be pushed even further and it is very important for the audience to hear what I’m saying otherwise they won’t understand the key parts of the plot that I’m giving to the audience and then they lose interest and stop focussing on the performance. The final thing I need to work on is emotion. I have done emotion exercises previously in rehearsal and I need to make use of these to feel more in the moment of my character and what they would be feeling. For example, during the last scene Lord Montague not only discovers his wife dead but not long after that he discovers that Romeo is dead next to Juliet; not only that, he finds out that Romeo secretly married Juliet. This is a lot to take in for one person all at once so this would need to be shown through emotion. My character would be very devastated. I will make use of one emotion exercise where you try and put yourself in the character’s shoes and think about how it would make you feel in the moments before you go on stage. We did this exercise by counting to 20 and the higher the number the more emotion you feel. I find this a good technique to use so I will try and make use of it in the performance.

Romeo and Juliet - Blog 4 (27/3/17)

This week was the week where we had received our costumes from Nottingham Playhouse. We spent a whole morning sorting out everybody’s costume and trying everything on to make sure that everything fits and that nothing would have to be swapped or changed. We found that everybody had something to wear from the Nottingham Playhouse and most of the costume did fit. My costume all fit me fine and I personally quite like my costume. Wearing this kind of costume makes me feel a lot more upper-class and posh and this affects how I play my character; the costume helps me to get a good feel for my character and that meant I felt I was better able to play the character than if I didn’t have costume. Due to the style of the era the costumes were quite restrictive and it meant that some people can’t find it very easy to move around. It is important for the people doing very physical roles in the performance, such as the fight scenes, to wear clothing that isn’t very restrictive and this had to be taken into account when hiring the costume at Nottingham. My costume is only a little restrictive and with the addition of the walking stick/sword it makes movement even more tricky. I find that when I have my walking stick I have one less hand to do things with such as gestures or shaking people’s hands. I have to move my walking stick out of the way by putting it on my arm when I shake Lord Capulet’s hand at the end, for example.

At the end of the week we visited Tapton House again and took everything that we needed for the performance over there. We didn’t have enough time to do a full run through of the performance because we were all setting up various areas of the set such as Juliet’s bedroom, the ball and the tomb. Setting these areas up is much-needed practise because afterwards we all knew exactly what we needed to do when we set it up next time and found some small problems that we will have solutions for the next time we set the staging up. Due to timetables and teaching in Tapton House it meant we couldn’t leave the staging up until the performance day so we would have to take it down again and then set it back up again before the performance. My role at Tapton House is to check the performance areas with two other group members for any objects or obstructions that would affect the actors or audience in the performance; this would include things such as sharps in the area like knives, needles, etc. We have been instructed to let the director know of anything that would obstruct the performance area or of any sharps so they can deal with it. After this job was done and we double-checked all of the areas, I checked how the group that was setting up Juliet’s bedroom was doing and I offered to help them. So I helped them with setting up the bed as well as clearing the room of the tables and setting up the chairs for the audience, this sped up the whole process.

I found some areas of strength and some areas of weakness during this week. Firstly, I found that I was good at working as a team. I was always trying to be helpful and didn’t want to stand there doing nothing when I could be helping other groups. Another strength I found is that my costume enhanced my characterisation of Lord Montague. Wearing the costume made me feel more in character with both the era as well as the character which made me act more upper-class and posh. It made me think more about my physicality and posture. The third strength I found is that I was good at is diction. I find that my diction is very good when I’m on stage and my voice is clearly understood by the audience based on the feedback I’ve previously received from my peers and director.

Finally, there were some areas of improvement that I need to work on for the tech run and final performance. The first one is learning lines. I do know my lines but I need to continue practising them so that I become more confident and familiar with them; so even if I do forget a line on stage then I am easily able to pick it back up again. I will focus on practising my lines outside of rehearsals. Another thing I will work on is projection. My projection is good but could be much louder. It is very difficult to project outside because of other factors such as wind carrying away your voice or the sound of birds being louder than you, for example. I will push myself to project much more when I’m outside in rehearsal and at home. The final thing I need to work on is use of gesture. It is important for this style that I work more on being over-the-top with my gestures because gestures is how the audience understand what you are saying more than by the words you say. The language is complicated so therefore gestures need to get the same message across that the words you are saying are as a lot of the audience members won’t find this kind of language come natural to them. If there are no gestures then the plot of the story could very well be lost. I will go over my monologues and think about what actions I could do for each key line I say, then I will practise this over and over until I have learned the gestures along with the lines as well.

Romeo and Juliet - Blog 3 (16/03/17)

Today, we went to Tapton House which is our venue for the performance. We had a look around the whole place and our director gave us a tour; our director took us around to all of the rooms we would be performing in as we have chosen to do our scenes both inside and outside of the house. That means the audience will be moving around to the next scene while the actors are already in positions for the next scene while waiting for the audience. It is important for us all to know exactly where each scene is and how to get there without being seen by the audience so we had to get to know the place. After the tour we went through a risk assessment sheet which involved thinking about the safety of the actors, the audience and the historical building itself. For example, safe combat practise and safe stretcher use. These are very important things we need to practise doing for the performance otherwise we’re not going to be safe and somebody can get injured or hurt as a result.

To give us an idea on where we would be moving from scene to scene the director took us to where all of the scenes were happening all in order. This was pretty complicated as there were many room changes so this is something that I will have to write down for my character so that I know where I need to be and when. As well as this, as I get to know the place I will learn exactly where I will have to go to get to my next scene without the audience seeing me. Going to the scene a minute or so before the previous scene is finished gives me time to prepare and go over what happens in the scene and to make any last minute checks for props and set, for example.

As we didn’t get time to go over any of the scenes we didn’t do any acting today. My initial thoughts on the session were excited thoughts because I was looking forward to seeing Tapton House which has a lot of history behind it. I’m happy at the thought that I will be performing there and have that good experience behind my back. I personally like to learn the history behind places like these and I did learn a few things about the place that I didn’t know. For example, George Stephenson lived at the very big house between 1838 and 1848. In 1840 the first public steam train was revealed in which he helped build and design. He created the world’s first steam engines for the railway. Although its history isn’t related to Romeo and Juliet I still find this fascinating. I found myself quite intrigued with the whole place and looking at the amazing details that it has such as the beautiful wooden hand-carved fireplace which is in the room which will be Juliet’s bedroom. This will make the room look more realistic and would make the audience feel more immersed in the performance which is what we aim to do with our promenade-like performance. Once the fireplace is dressed up a bit more with props such as a clock and flowers it will look even better.

As for my personal performance, even though I hadn’t been acting today, there are things I know that I need to work more on in my own time and in future rehearsals. The first thing I need to do is learn my lines. This is very important because without the lines the plot can’t continue and the audience is left confused. These I will learn when I have free time outside of rehearsal. As well as this I will work more on my physicality. I have been experimenting with many different physicalities and have been struggling to decide on one that I will stick with so this is a goal for me to do during the next rehearsal and then to use it in rehearsal. The third thing I will work on is my voice. My character is very upper-class so my voice has to reflect that; I will research the era more and find clips and audio of what they’re voices may have sounded like and I will try and copy them myself. Once I have picked my accent I will practise speaking my lines with it until I am confident enough with the accent that I can just use the accent without thinking too much about it and that it is consistent.

I have some areas that I find I am good at and have strengths in. One strength I have is working professionally and well as a team. I am good at listening to people and working well as a team. I try and work well with people and try not to have any arguments and even if I don’t like somebody I work with them anyway and just do it. Another strength I have is remembering my blocking. I can remember exactly what I need to be doing on stage and when I need to be doing it. I’ve made a note of what my blocking is on my script to remind myself if I forget. A final strength I had is projection. I am good at projecting my voice and having good diction at the same time. From a distance I can project well enough that the audience can clearly hear and understand me.

evangelinecullperformingart-blog

Romeo and Juliet - Map of Tapton house/where we will be performing the scenes.

Romeo and Juliet - Blog 2 (9/03/17)

The first thing we did in this session was warm-up our voices; this was important because we were going to be singing and learning the funeral procession song. If we don’t warm up then we will stretch our voices and this could hurt our throats. We did an exercise where we had to copy the tone on the piano with our voices, going up and down the piano and with our voices. Another exercise we did was where we sung to a really fast tune, we sang the words “many men” repeated over and over to the rhythm of the music. This was a difficult exercise as the tempo was very fast and it was hard to keep up as well as keeping the diction at the same time. Once we had warmed up we started to learn the funeral procession song. This song is from the film Sense and Sensibility and the lyrics are from a real poem. It’s called “Weep You No More, Sad Fountains”.

To teach us this song we had an assistant with us who has had singing experience in the past and has learned the song so he could teach it to us. This was my very first time singing out loud in front of people before other than singing hymns when I was younger. This is my first professional performance and/or time on stage where I will be singing which means I am not very experienced and I was quite nervous as we started because I wasn’t sure how well I would be able to sing and if I would be able to hit the notes or not. We learned the song line by line and kept going over the line until we had learned it well enough to move on. The hardest part of the song learning for this song is the dynamics of high and low notes. There are times of high notes then quite low notes, you have to be able to stretch your voice to sing the song with the original notes. Some people couldn’t go quite high enough so they would stay on the same note and thus create harmonies which did sound quite nice. As I grew confident with the song I pushed myself further to try and reach those higher notes; the notes I reach may not be quite as high as they are originally intended but I can get most of the way and this is how I will sing it when it comes to the performances. Learning the second verse was much quicker than the first verse because most of the notes and rhythm were exactly the same as they were in the first verse just with different lyrics.

During the break time I asked to go over the song with the assistant to see what I need to improve on. I went through the song a couple of times with the assistant as well as on my own. I was proud of myself because it is my first time singing a song in front of anybody on my own. The assistant gave me feedback and said that when I feel more confident and just go for it I sound a lot better than when I hold back. There were glimpses during the song where you could tell I was confident or not so confident. When I am confident I project more and give more energy in the notes as well as push myself further to hit the higher and lower notes. He said that once I become more comfortable and get to know the song I will be more confident and I will sound even better.

In the afternoon, I went with both Lady Montagues to rehearse and go through the blocking of all of our scenes to catch the Lady Montague up that hadn’t been able to come to some rehearsals. We recorded these scenes and uploaded them as evidence. We also spent some time practising the feint really slowly so we knew how to stay safe and exactly how to hold and fall onto each other. We did this slowly so we could build trust with each other. Lady Montague is the one feinting in the scene so she is in control of the feint. It is important to trust each other so that Lady Montague can trust me to hold her weight as she goes to the ground. Lady Montague will be falling slightly back into my arms and I will lower her down slowly. What makes this real is the reaction and gestures that Lady Montague uses when she feints as well as my facial expressions as she feints and is recovering on the floor.

After this, I spent some time with the assistant again to work on my monologue, the one which starts, “many a morning hath he been seen...” I stood at one corner of the room and everybody else stood at the opposite corner. The purpose of doing this is to work on my projection; the people stood at the other end of the room should easily be able to hear and understand what I’m saying. I find that the more I project the more emotion I can put into what I’m saying. The more I project the more energy I give it; because the performance is outside it is necessary to project really loudly so that everybody in the audience can hear because it is very easy for your voice to be lost because sound doesn’t travel the same as it does indoors and the wind can carry your voice away. So it is very important I work on my projection. Although, I need to become more familiar with my monologue and lines because sometimes they are holding me back as I don’t fully know them yet. As I become more confident with my lines I will become more confident with my projection and emotion so I aim to come off script as soon as possible. I will work on my lines in my free time between rehearsals.

In terms of professionalism, I turned up to the rehearsal on time and ready to learn and with all the equipment that I needed. I wore my blacks and had my script as well as a notebook and a pen and pencil to make notes.

I found many strengths in my performance in this session; the first strength I had was projection. I am much better with projection than I used to be and this is a very important skill I will need for the performance because it is outside. The second strength I found was emotion. I found that the more I projected the more emotion I put into my monologue. This meant that it was more clear what my character is feeling when he is talking about Romeo locking himself away from his father and the rest of the world. It is clear he is trying to remain strong but is struggling and cares for his son. A third strength I had was hitting notes. I found that I was good at hitting some of the higher notes in the song. I will continue to practise and see if I can push further to hit some of the even higher notes without stretching my voice too much.

There were some areas of improvement that I need to work on. The first thing I need to work on is line learning. I need to practise my lines and learn them between sessions so that I don’t have to have my script on stage. My script gets in the way when I am acting and this slows down the scene, causes me to lose character and makes me look down at the script instead of at the audience or other characters. The next thing I need to work on is the song. I am getting more and more confident with the song but I need to practise this in my own time and also learn the lyrics. I need to be very confident with the song for the performance so that I can focus more on putting emotion into the singing rather than trying to remember how to sing it or what the lyrics are. The final thing I will work on is gestures. I feel that my monologue is a bit dead in terms of gestures and I’m not doing enough to show what I’m saying to the audience. With this style you have to show what you’re saying through gestures so that the audience can more easily understand the plot. I will go through my monologue and once I’ve learned the lines I will come up with some gestures to go with what I’m saying as well as adding that emotion in at the same time.

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Thomas Albans - Performing Arts Level 3