Avenue Q Reflective Blog:1

In this rehearsal, we had to block our performance on the stage in the theatre as the space is much bigger than the spacing in the drama studio therefore will look different as we have to fill the stage.
From memory we did a full run through of the performance using our own idea of where we think we should be; when we should, be keeping in mind the change of space. After this Inez helped give us direction and positioning so that each song transitioned into each other smoothly, this is so that we do not lose the audience's focus, because if we do it means they've lost connection with the story we were telling them and they would not understand the following scenes. What worked well was we took direction well and quickly adapted to the space given understanding we only had a limited amount of time to do this. Including the full run through of Avenue Q, we had to add incorporate tech as, so we had to be patient whilst Tyler went through each song and logged what lighting should be used at which point and on which person. The only thing that was a cause for concern was our vocals and harmonies in some of the songs. For example ' I Wish I Could Go Back To College', this is because some people did not know the harmonies in the boys group which then threw the other boys off and then in the girls group lower and higher, we kept singing each others harmonies or the same harmony, even though we have rehearsed it many times. In my opinion harmonies can sometimes be challenging because it only takes one person to sing the wrong note and its ruined, but if done correctly is effective and sounds really good. To resolve this we all gathered around the piano for some help from Tom to ensure we all knew what our harmonies were. To implement vocal theory I had to make sure I was singing the right harmony so that I didn't throw my group off or conversly help remind someone the right harmony they should be vocalising. I also needed to make sure I was projecting my voice and singing with clarity and character.

Avenue Q Reflective Blog :2

Directing and Choreographing Movement

In this rehearsal we were told to independently devise choreography to the opening song to Avenue Q, as I had no main role I took the opportunity to help direct things because I could see the performance externally as a audience would. What worked well was that I could use the genre of the play to my advantage to be as creative an as playful as possible. In my opinion it reminded me of our take of Beauty and the Beast that we performed last year.So I had to keep in mind that everyone had to be doing some sort of movement not just the main characters because we would be being watched at all times. What challenged us was we found it difficult to work cohesively, I think this is because we were under a time limit to have this choreography completed and every one wanted to implement there ideas to the peace but we had little time to incorporate and execute every ones. This evidently caused time being wasted and distraction from the piece. How we resolved this dilemma was by starting from the beginning with what we had and quickly trying the idea which was most preferred and if it didn't work then we would use the other idea. This rehearsal was not really much about singing but about working together and implementing our knowledge of Musical Theatre as performers and using the stage and all we have been taught to produce a second year level performance.

The Night Circus Reflective Blog :3

During lessons and outside of lessons, myself and Malachi have been dedicated to achieving and executing a strong lift for the perfomance.

We did have lots of trials and tribulations and also changed the lift many times and attempted different ways of achieving the lift but we finally achieved it in the end. What worked well was that we both trusted eachother enough to work on the lift because it can be very dangerous and we needed to remain confident and focused. We also watched videos on youtube of professional contemporary practitioners to gain inspiration of different lifts we could try. The first lift we tried was simple I had to hold on to Malachis leg as he raised my legs and I was hanging upside down. However we wanted to adapt this lift so that we could challenge ourselves.

 To adapt the lift I had to use my core to lift myself up so that I could sit on Malachi’s shoulder. The problem that rose with this was that I struggled to be consistent with lifting myself. I found it challenging to pull myself up quickly. 

Because of this we decided to revert back to the original lift. Some time after, we had to incorporate Edward into our lift because we discovered he hadn’t had anything to do in this time. They tried to lift me and then put me on their shoulders so that I could do a backflip into standing, but again this became a problem because the lift wasn’t balanced, my weight on Malachi and Edward was not equal. As the performance was drawing near we had to make a decision on which lift has proven to be more successful and use that one the in performance.

As a class we had to all help lift Gerromme so that we could create the illusion of him magically being lifted into the air without being seen and disappear without being seen. The first lift was Gerromme being raised to the guy then dropped onto the arms of four people. I was one of the four that had to catch him. The first problem was that the distribution of weight was uneven. The four people were not positioned correctly in a way that would be safe for everyone and Gerromme, to resolve this we decided to kneel down so that we would all be receiving Gerromme at the same level. The issue we discovered with this was the drop was too forceful and didn’t look neat. 

We then changed the lift again so that Gerromme would appear to be flying, as a unit we all helped raise him, move him from one side to the other, whilst extending our bodies.After this we lowered him into the cluster as if he disappeared. This was the most effective lift as it was the safest and was also more appealing. We implemented physical theatre into this lift by using our bodies to create an abnormality, we extenuated our bodies and rocked whilst Gerrome rocked to help translate to the audience what is actually happening and the reason for our movement.

Avenue Q Reflective Blog :4

This rehearsal was our last rehearsal for singing before our performance, the problem was that an exterior production which involved members from our class were also rehearsing for a upcoming performance. This effected the rest of the class as we could not do a full run through of Avenue Q as people were missing from the lesson. What made it worst was that we had to do this rehearsal in front of first years as a little preview, I felt upset about this because it wasn’t showing our best and as the olders in second years you will automatically want to set an example. With that being said the class pulled through, we did the best we could, filling in for the missing people, but we mostly choreographed some movement with Inez and blocked the staging for the songs so that we knew what we were doing and could tell the rest of the class when we saw them next.

What worked well, is it showed that we could work as a team and support eachother so that we didn’t embarrass ourselves. We had to remember that our audience hasn’t seen this production before and therefore would be none the wiser. Avenue Q is playful and fun, so it helped to relax more and just perform even though we knew what was wrong.

The Night Circus- Written Requirements

What is Physical Theatre?

A form of theatre which emphasizes the use of physical movement, as in dance and mime, for expression. - Google.

Physical theatre can sometimes appear as dance. The performers use the physicality of their bodies to immitate settings and props and characters - displaying a storyline to the audience.

Physical theatre skills consists of lifting, carrying, building shape and physical objects. It is often performed in a abstract style using movement in a stylised and representational way.

Practitioners such as DV8 are well known for using physical theatre to explore complex aspects of human relationships and social cultural issues. Their work is often described as existing crossroads where dance, sound and drama meet.

Some forms physical theatre combines dialogue and physical movement, for example a major company in physical theatre , called Frantic Assembly use this technique. They use a substantial  amount of dialogue for the play but the impact and effect is a result of the movement used.

The Night Circus:

The Night Circus is a fantasy novel written in 2011. The author of the american novelist is called Erin Morgenstern. The story tells us of a mystical circus called “Le Cirque des Rêves” (The Circus Of Dreams). This particular Circus appears without notice and leaves without warning. The Circus has fans who refer to themselves as dreamers - they are intrigued by this circus so much as if they are in a trance. However the story truly unfolds when their is civil rivalry within the circus. Two powerful magicians groom two protégés to go head to head on stage to prove the better performer therefore proving the better teacher. The competition continues, with no sign of finishing, no sign of losing and no sign of a winner being determined. The competition begins to effect other performers and spills into peoples personal lives , provoking anger and revenge. No one can leave the circus.

When I think of The Night Circus, I invision couple driving down a long, dark ,deserted road and their car breaks down on the road side. Alongside the road is a deep forest, filled with endless trees. The couple think they’ve noticed a flickering light within this forest and think it’s help. So they venture into the darkness, until they stumble across a balloon - just floating in mid- air, with no owner, but silence. The girl goes to grab the ribbon attached to the balloon and without warning the circus appears in front of them in full effect. However they are the only ones at the circus, their are no other people trying to go to the circus, the gates open. The couple nervously head towards the gates, they were scared but they were so deep into the forest there was no way of finding their car, they prayed this would be the aid they needed. They took a step inside and the gates violently closed behind them. The circus disappears.


How does the movement help to tell the story?

Just like Frantic Assembly, we used dialogue combined with movement. Although the narration told the story, we showed the story. We didn’t allow the audience to think for them selves, we wanted them to engage into this mystical tale. The music helped create an atmosphere in the room, it sets a tone of mood because of it’s eerie effect it tell the audience something daunting is going to happen. The lighting helps with the speed of things. This circus is dark and mysterious, full of hidden secrets, the lightening captures key parts of our movement therefore bringing the darkness to light. It keeps the audience interested as they don’t want to miss anything. It sets a schedule for us as performers to know where we need to be when we need to be in order for the performance to be effective for example : “then comes the light” the light is cued and we immediately raise our heads to look, this is effective because it makes it more believable. We narrated the piece ourselves, we had to use our best scary story telling voice, for me, I tried to keep my voice quiet but clear, because I felt that it implemented the impression that I was telling a secret or a warning of a terrible tale. It also helps the audience to stay concentrated and understand the movement, otherwise it would just be a elaborate piece, with lifts and running and abstract movement they wouldn’t understand.

Avenue Q Reflective Blog : 3

In this lesson, the girls and the boys were split into two and were given the task to independently learn a solo song, one for the boys and one for the girls. The girls were given “ Fine, Fine Line” a song from Avenue Q sang by Kate Monster and the boys were given “Schadenfreude” sang by Gary Coleman and Nicky.

In my opinion a problem I faced was trying to learn the lyrics around noise. A technique for myself is sitting in silence, reading it through line by line and repeating eachline then adding the next to it, so that way its memorised. However a group of girls were learning the same song, using their own techniques and across the room the boys were rehearsing aswell. It through me off a little bit and I began to worry I wouldn’t have learnt the song well enough on time to perform in front of Tom.
How I resolved my problem was by asking to leave the room so I could focus properly.

When it came to performing the song, I was a bit nervous and I think that got the better of me. My feedback was that I started off strong and was getting the words right, but my vocal projection let me down and towards the end of the song I was too quiet. For me, I think that I was probably so focused on getting the words right that I became uncertain of what line was next which led to me being quiet. However I was in the top 3 to be the soloist, which I am proud of. It just shows me next time I have to just go for it and push myself, I have to implement vocal projection and clarity.

The Night Circus Annotations

I thought there'd be no space to annotate on the paper, so I will try to annotate following the pictures above.

Paragraph 1:  A group of the class run on to stage and use the physicality of their bodies to form a tent like shape, indicating the arrival of the circus to the audience, acting as the narrations says.

Paragraph 2: The shape unfolds and encases three people within it, using their bodies to form a wall around them. The people who appear trapped, use their arms and legs to try to push through the wall .The wall represents the trees.

" Black and white.." the rest of the performers enter the stage and create a fence by linking arms. There are three lines, therefore creating three levels.

"colourless world" as an ensemble we lift our heads up staring directly at the audience, as if something has been awoken. 

Paragraph 3: Here a series of actions and movement happen. For example Edward pulls my hair back. This is all fast. I move away from the group and run towards Malachi, he lives me to his neck and turns around enabling me to back flip into standing. The connection here is that we are the distraction. "painted or powdered or treated with some other circus trick."

Paragraph 4: we do movement as an ensemble following word after word. 

Paragraph 5: We turn to stage right in cannon. A clock is created front stage and those that were backstage act as the ticking of the clock and walk around the now formed clock, then exit the stage.

Paragraph 6: Everyone runs back on to stage and stands still, back turned away from the audience. A spotlight falls on Edward as he fidgets. The rest of the group follow the narration creating a series of movement in unison. 

Paragraph 7: Ticket booth is created. "Closed and barred" A gate a formed to represent the circus being closed. 

Paragraph 9:Everyone runs onto the stage to form a cluster.

Paragraph 10: We look up at the sky as a unison, this is so we are on time with the lighting.

Paragraph 11: We form the tent again, Lanya and Ryanne walk between us. The cirus is now open.