Voice and the Actor Assignment 1 - Entry 3: Analysing the Voice of a Family Member and a Famous Person

Voice of the Family Member

For this task, I'll be using my step mum, Jenny, as my subject.

What kind of tone is the voice: She has quite an extensive range of tone in her voice.
How fast or slow do they speak: Slow, clear, and concise. Get's faster the angrier, or agitated she gets.
Do they pause a lot: No, she's often told "Take a breath"
Do they find it hard to project: Professionally, No. Personally, Yes. She's a lot more shy and quieter.
Do they articulate their words: Yes
What is their pitch like: She's definitely not monotonous, she has a varied pitch depending on person/animal circumstance.
Do they emphasise certain words: No
Do they speak in one tone: No
Do they have specific difficulties when pronouncing certain words: No, she has a large vocabulary in several languages.
Do I like their voice: Yes, it's powerful, it's empathic, and very articulate.
Do I dislike their voice: No, I find myself more likely to talk to her, she's always passionate with what she talks about, and her tone of voice matches the mood of the conversation.
Is her voice loud/voluminous: Yes, more times than often, she's been told "Stop shouting" even when she's not.
Is the voice quiet: At times.
Is the voice deep: No.
Is it high/low: It's kind of in-between, but with more feminine traits opposed to masculine.
Is it strong: Yes.
Is it weak: No.
Is it shaky: No.
Is it husky: No.
Is it crisp: Yes.
Is it clipped: No.
Is it drowning: It can be, she can be overpowering.
Is it nasal: No.
Is it squeaky: No.
Is it crackly: No.
Is it raspy: No.
Is it distorted: Only by accents.

Voice of the Famous Person

For this task, I'll be using Nicole Kidman as my subject.

What kind of tone is her voice: Same as my step mum, She has quite an extensive range of tone in her voice.
How fast or slow do they speak: Same again, Slow, clear, and concise.
Do they pause a lot: Yes.
Do they find it hard to project: Sometimes.
Do they articulate their words: Yes.
What is their pitch like: She's quite clear.
Do they emphasise certain words: Yes.
Do they speak in one tone: No
Do they have specific difficulties when pronouncing certain words: No.
Do I like their voice: Yes, I find it calm, passionate, and articulate.
Do I dislike their voice: No, it has a soft and gentle tone which I find very relaxing and assuring. Even if she read the phone book, it would sound the same.
Is her voice loud/voluminous: Sometimes.
Is the voice quiet: At times.
Is the voice deep: No.
Is it high/low: Like my step-mum, it's kind of in-between, but with more feminine traits opposed to masculine.
Is it strong: Yes.
Is it weak: No.
Is it shaky: No.
Is it husky: No.
Is it crisp: Yes.
Is it clipped: No.
Is it drowning: Yes.
Is it nasal: No.
Is it squeaky: No.
Is it crackly: No.
Is it raspy: No.
Is it distorted: No.

Voice and the Actor Assignment 1 - Entry 2: Personal Voice Assessment

How do I rate my Voice?

The rating system for this task started with 1 being the lowest or labelled 'Strongly Disagree', and 5 being the highest or labelled 'Strongly Agree'.

Question one asked if I have a good, clear voice production.  To this, I answered and rated myself with a 5 out of 5, so I strongly agreed with myself that I have the ability to produce a good, clear voice.

Question two asked if I think I have good articulation.  To this, I answered and rated myself with a 4 out of 5, so I agreed with myself that I can correctly pronounce words.

Question three asked if I think I have a good pace with my voice.  To this, I answered and rated myself with a 4 out of 5, so I agree that I can produce a voice with a fast or slow tempo with control and fluency.

Question four asked if I think I have a good variety of tone and pitch with my voice.  To this, I answered and rated myself with a 5 out of 5, so I strongly agree that I can produce and create a strong, powerful, loud voice with control and I can also create a good tone of voice alongside.

Question five asked if I think I have a good breath control.  To this, I answered and rated myself with a 5 out of 5, so I strongly agree that I can have a large amount of breath control when speaking so that there are no pauses in my dialogue unintentionally.

Why did I rate myself with these results?

For all of these questions that I have answered, I gave myself very honest high ratings.  I did this because I do have a very strong, clear and understandable voice. I think that my hard work in terms of fitness also helps, but more so within the breath control. By going to gym and building on my muscles, specifically on my back, it makes my overall posture much better than others. This allows me to breathe properly whilst performing, have very good projection, and also to physically stand tall and have a stronger stage presence when among others.

Voice and the Actor Assignment 1 - Entry 1: Analysis of the Voice

What are the characteristics of my voice?

I think that I'm very well spoken, I portray a typical British accent. I'm very precise in my wording, I have the ability to enhance my voice with emotion. I have a good command of the English language. My tone is good and my diction is clear. I am quite articulate. I have good posture - which contributes towards my breathing, which originates mainly from my fitness level. My vocal 'colour' is focussed. My weakness is articulating the tones of sadness, and upset etc.

I have a habit of, when being chastised, muttering under my own breath comebacks towards what the other person is saying. I speak at a medium pace, but, when placed in a scenario where I'm upset or angry, my pace is accelerated. I think I vary my rhythm, I speak at the same pace as my peers, depending on the situation, circumstance, and topic of conversation. My pitch is strong and precise because of how well I hold myself - due to the fact of my fitness levels, which ensures correct posture. My fitness levels also enables me to breathe correctly, which in turn, ensures me to complete my sentences without sounding rushed and/or short of breath. Where required, I can display dramatic pauses - an example for me, was when I performed the monologue by Skin-Lad in our performance of Jim Cartwright's play named 'Road'.

Unless I'm 100% dedicated to I'm saying, my confidence can falter, leaving my voice quieter and unsure in tone. In articulation, I have a weakness sounding the letter 'r'. I am able to project my own voice depending on the environment of the performance taking place. At times, I can sound monotonous. Because of my current home environment, I have been exposed to a larger vocabulary, more adult interactions, which, in turn, has increased my confidence in front of any audience. Although both of my biological parents are from the north of the UK, I don't in fact possess any of the vocal mannerisms that they would use. I do have a weakness with some accents, a strong example would be the Northern accent in-particular.

In what ways do these vocal qualities benefit and/or hinder me as a stage performer?

I guess all of these vocal qualities benefit my own performance(s) in a way, since it portrays my own vocal stage persona. However, it also hinders me since, because of my weakness with accents and sometimes sounding monotonous, I feel that it reduces my overall presence on stage when compared to other actors who can do accents and not sound monotonous.

What vocal exercises might be suitable for building on my strengths and weaknesses?

Exercise 1: Producing A Humming Sound

By performing a humming sound through the use of, primarily, my throat, it would allow my vocal folds to warm up, resulting in any preparation for my vocalisation performance to enhance.

Evaluation For Exercise

Performing this exercise does definitely make your throat feel a lot clearer, this along with having a drink of water is a great combination. Projecting words also left my voice less strained than if I had said them without having done the exercise.

Exercise 2: Stretching The Muscles

This isn't necessarily a vocal exercise, but it contributes to the delivery of the voice and gives you more focus.

Doing some simple bodily stretches increased the overall movement within my body, since it released any unwanted tensions within it.  It had also given me much more energy and had also increased my overall focus towards both my physical posture and the vocal folds, for better articulation both physically and vocally.

Evaluation For Exercise

Since I go to the gym and exercise quite often throughout the week, I do feel a bit of tension and stress within my muscles around my body. After having done quite a few stretches all around, I felt much more active for any later activities I'd performed, since my body had felt free of movement with no obstacles, such as the stress and tension.

Exercise 3: The Spinal Role

Through doing this, I can maintain a more steady physical body posture and also keep a strong breathing pattern. To start off the exercise, you have to bend your upper body down towards the ground, with knees bent. After doing this, you can choose to flop around your arms, and then after you slowly rise up to correct posture with your head being the final thing to be correctly aligned/balanced.

Evaluation For Exercise:
It had made me become much more energetic in what we were going to be achieveing in this process. My body had felt a lot more relaxed post spinal role compared to before. My body also felt a lot more warmer than before, maybe to do with the spinal role and letting all of the blood go through all of the areas in my body.

What other Vocal exercises will improve your technique? Why?

Exercising your voice every day

It's a common misconception that taking voice lessons will automatically improve your vocal ability. One time, you may hear Simon Cowell on Britain's Got Talent/American Idol, or even your teacher at school, recommend vocal lessons. There is definitely validity in this, however, you have to put forth the effort to make this worthwhile, even singing along to your favourite song won't do it.

I ask myself one question during this analysis: "How can I improve my voice?"

The answer to this question is: Exercise, regularly!

If someone wants to become a stronger vocalist in performance, by having increased vocal range and able to control it with ease, they have to exercise their voice daily. The Vocal Cords are a muscle in the Human Body. Like every other muscle in the Human Body, you will not gain any strength and/or stamina by not working them out regularly.

The Vocal Cords are a unique instrument to use, especially as an actor in a performance. If someone doesn't exercise their Vocal Cords regularly, they will have trouble projecting their voice more than if they had done exercises for it, which inevitably improves that actors performance in vocal terms.

You should work out your voice at least 20 minutes daily (at minimum). As time goes by, and the voice seems to be improving, extend the exercise to 40 minutes or an hour daily.

Alexander Technique

To achieve good posture, a person must remain focused and draw all of their attention to their mind where the building point of good posture begins.  With this being said, there is a good posture building technique used frequently for actors in the Performing Arts Industry called the Alexander Technique.

The Alexander Technique is a way of learning how to move mindfully through life. The Alexander process shines a light on inefficient habits of movement and patterns of accumulated tension, which interferes with the body's innate ability to move easily and according to how it was designed.  It's a simple, yet powerful approach that offers the opportunity to take charge of one's own learning and healing process, because it's not a series of passive treatments, but an active exploration that changes the way one thinks and responds in activity.  It produces a skill set that can be applied in every situation.  Lessons using this technique leaves one feeling lighter, freer and more grounded.

Excess tension in the body can cause a variety of unpleasant symptoms and it can interfere with the body's ability to perform activities well.  Therefore it is not surprising that actors use the Alexander Technique because they are in physical pain (backaches, sore neck/shoulders etc.) and/or because they are performers, much like myself, who want to increase the quality of their singing, playing, acting or dancing.

This technique is along the lines similar to doing meditation exercises, they both relieved my body of unwanted stress and tension, but doing the 'Alexander Technique' had made my body and voice feel much lighter in terms of weight.

This was more obvious to me compared to my voice overall, since I have quite a deep voice, and whenever I spoke, to me, it just felt a lot more lighter and easier to talk than it did prior to performing the 'Alexander Technique'. I think the reason that my overall voice production is a lot easier to develop is because my body is in a full relaxed state, much like when I'm sleeping.  To further evidence this point, in the past, there have been occasions where I've heard one of my family members talking in their sleep, and when listening to their voice, it had sounded much more lighter and well developed than normal, when they are fully awake.  This may have been the same possible effect that I've experienced after having done the Alexander Technique and it makes me realise that if I do this more often in the future, my voice overall will improve.

Perhaps the main challenge facing actors and performers, in general, is stage fright. As the fear increases, the breathing of the individual becomes shallow, and the body also becomes tense and fixed. The Alexander Technique is a form of stress management that generates an inner calm, and a capacity for coping with performance anxiety without freezing. The technique also heightens the ability to incorporate character roles, and enhances stage presence.

The Alexander Technique originated as a practical method to sort out Alexanders personal voice problems. Today, the same technique is still used to eradicate breathing difficulties, avoid vocal strain, generate resonance and improve tonal quality. Vocalists often overexert themselves in an effort to achieve results. Through the Alexander Technique, they learn that less effort brings better results.

Humming a Still Tone

For this exercise, I was required to hum a random still tone which was both best suited for my vocal cords and for me to be able to execute for the longest time.

For the purpose of this exercise, I had chosen to do a deep sounding still tone, since this is the register of voice that I have, resulting in me to be able to go the longest due to being used to that pitch of voice.  I had performed this exercise twice with the second time doing a different still tone that wasn't suited to my vocal production.  For this, I had chosen to do a high pitched still tone, which had cracked at some points, resulting in the air that I'd inhaled to be wasted since I didn't expect it to happen.  Doing this did give me a weird feeling in my throat also after I had performed it, which could mean that my vocal cords either didn't like me doing it or it was trying to get used to that pitch, and due to it vibrating much more, it started to give a weird sensation.

“Why fly so high?”

With this exercise, you to project your voice by performing with different tones and pitches of voice using both your Nasal and Oral Cavity.

The lines you have to say are:

"Why fly so high? Said Naughty Nora, whilst eating an apple, with Zoe the Zebra in the Zoo"

(High/Light Voice)       (Blocked Nasal)        (Open, Deep voice)       (Beating the upper chest)

For the "Why fly so high" part of the exercise, when trying to project a high/light voice, it did

feel like my voice was 'braking' since I naturally have a very deep voice, but after having done

the exercise again, I did manage to successfully pull of a high/light voice for the purpose of this

part of the so called song. 

'Much Ado About Nothing' By William Shakespeare - Character Profile & Study

Character Profile for Leonarto

Name: Leonarto

Age: 42

Gender: Male

Race: Caucasian/White

Place of Origin: Seeing as Leonarto is the Count of Messina, I'd like to interpret that he is actually from Messina. I don't believe there's any mention in the script whatsoever of where Leonarto is actually from, so this is my best judgment.

Physical Appearance (Costume Decision): I'd like to follow this appearance for my interpretation of Leonarto:

• Beige straw hat
• Gold neck chain
• Hawaiian shirt
• Beige shorts
• Green Wellies
• and also the occasional sunglasses for the purpose of the second movement sequence.

This was the final outcome of my costume, featuring me in the silent disco movement sequence as the DJ:



Occupation: Count of Messina and Part-time DJ

Taking over from the original script of 'Much Ado About Nothing', Leonarto is still the Count of Messina in our interpretation, but he has postponed his position in order to properly organise the festival which shall celebrate the return of Don Pedro, Benedick, and other background characters (these are not featured in our performance).

While he isn't the Count of Messina for a short period of time, this means that Leonarto can use/test his most used hobby at the festival, this being a Disk Jockey. He hasn't been a DJ for too long, Leonarto only picked it up when he went to a party, before the plays events, and saw the local DJ playing. This inspired him to learn how to play a musical instrument, which inevitably came to be the DJ stand.

Though not being too hard a process to grasp, he has only been practicing for a few weeks before the festival took place, meaning that no-one has seen him play. His first time in front of anyone was in the Silent Disco movement sequence of our production. Whilst performing, he was complemented by the Messenger, whom had come over and shook his hand saying the words "Nice song, man!"

Monetary Status: Very Wealthy, perhaps too wealthy!

In the original take of 'Much Ado About Nothing', Leonarto owns a whole estate which the play takes place in, he has also held parties in his house in many other interpretations that we've watched in class. This of course means he's fairly rich, which makes sense along his occupation as the Count of Messina. Leonarto has so much money that the word 'Money' isn't part of his dictionary. He doesn't even need to worry about how much he spends. This is why he spends all of his so called earnings on parties, arranging festivals, weddings etc. Leonarto only wants the best, and he will spend any amount of funds towards getting it.

Does Leonarto have any sort of relationships?

Seeing as Leonarto is of quite a high status, maybe not as high or around the same level as some characters e.g. Don Pedro, he generally, I feel, is just friends with everyone around him. This is, of course, excluding Borachio and Don John for the reason of Act 2 Scene 2 by form of the whole scene. The whole conversation between the two characters in this scene suggests that they want to ruin the wedding between Claudio and Hero, which would inevitably physically "kill" Leonarto to see this happen to his own daughter.

Although, for our interpretation of 'Much Ado About Nothing', I'd like to picture that Leonarto's best friends are Don Pedro, Claudio, and perhaps Benedick from the simple reason of how we acted out in Act 2 Scene 3. There's obviously a lot of banter and playing around going on in this scene towards Benedick, whom is listening in on their 'acted' conversation.

Leonarto is already good friends with Don Pedro, seeing as he hosted a party in the original play to celebrate his return, and also his soldiers, from the war that took place. I'd think that Leonarto is starting to picture Claudio as his own son. Obviously, due to the plays plot, we know that he is marrying Leonarto's daughter, Hero, so it would be practical for Leonarto to get to know Claudio better and treat him as his own. Benedick is Don Pedro's leading commander from the war, so he is of higher status than the other soldiers in the play, also suggesting that he could have relations with higher status characters such as Leonarto. I'd like to think, from our interpretation of the play, that the two characters don't talk very much, but when they do converse, it's mostly banter.

Does the character have any particular interests?

Seeing as he's comfortable enough playing on the disk jockey set between Act 2 Scene 1 and Act 2 Scene 2, I'd like to think that Leonarto's key interest, and perhaps outside of scene hobby, is being a part time DJ to go along with his duties as the Count of Messina.

Another key interest of Leonarto's is that he likes/tries to look 'cool' in social interaction. As we can presume from my costume choice, Leonarto is quite colourful and he's very 'out there' when compared to the other characters on stage.

I believe that the final thing that Leonarto loves partaking in is acting. From our interpretation of Act 2 Scene 3, when Balthasar leaves the scene, the whole conversation between Claudio, Don Pedro, and Leonarto is all part of a big act to get Benedick in love with Beatrice. However, Leonarto takes this too far because of his 'inexperience' in acting.

Does the character have any particular dislikes?

I'd like to think, from my interpretation of Leonarto, that he has no dislikes towards anything. Leonarto, to me, is a very open-minded person, and takes on anything which he thinks will amuse him, or others, for a while.

If there is any sort of dislike that I can think of, it's that I'd know Leonarto would absolutely hate to see anything happen to his daughter. Leonarto wants the best for Hero, as he should being her father, and he'll go through hell and back to get whatever she wants in life.

Character Study for Leonarto

What were the Inspirations for my portrayal of Leonarto? (also mentions physicality and vocalisation notes)

The Dad from 'Friday Night Dinner':

This is a kind of difficult topic to talk about since, at first grasp of playing Leonarto, I didn't really have any inspiration, I sort of just did my own thing with the character. I remember from earlier rehearsal sessions that the way I said my lines came across as very aggressive, which isn't right in the slightest. I was told to be more like a 'Mac Dad', which is basically where you think you're funny when you're really not. This was when I got told by Matthew Todd to grab some inspiration from the dad character in 'Friday Night Dinner'. Here is a clip of him to show how he is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BekwAtZjExc

When looking back at this video a second time, I could only look towards the personality of the character. Whilst he is indeed funny, he was also quite aggressive and very much an attention seeker in my opinion. The only sense of inspiration which I actually grabbed from this character was the randomness of him. Having done the performance, there were quite a few random moments for my portrayal of Leonarto on stage, particularly in the movement sequences. This combined with my ridiculous, very 'out there' costume choice, made it even more funny and relatable to the audience members.

There's one particular bit in the second movement sequence which I absolutely loved doing, which is right when I come on stage. I enter the stage miming along with the song choice we had for the sequence, the mime act included me playing a drum set and alongside playing a guitar, I repeated this act about 4 times before lifting Frankie in the air. Whilst doing this act was very attention grabbing, I had a very good reaction from the second live performance when the parents came to watch us, I remember that as soon as I came on stage, the audience were immediately laughing, and I could only think it was because of me.

This left me feeling quite pleased with my performance, since leaving the stage with more satisfaction than I had hoped to achieve and getting a very good review of my performance from multiple parents when I had left the theatre afterwards.

Frank Gallagher from 'Shameless' (the British version):

Another inspiration, which Sally told me to take interest in, was the character of Frank Gallagher in the British TV programme 'Shameless'. She had mentioned this inspiration of character to me quite early on in the rehearsal process and this was the video that we had watched:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx3Zdl_V3zo

This inspiration does make sense, looking back at it, since I remember not really having much physical traits to the character of Leonarto at first, and obviously from this clip, we can analyse that Frank Gallagher is a very physicalized character, whilst he's talking. He uses his hands a lot when he breaks the fourth wall and is talking to the audience about what's going to happen or is happening in the episode.

Analysing it more and more, this reminded me of the character called Scullery in 'Road'. We had performed 'Road' in the previous year for our last production, and I think that Scullery is a great example to compare against Frank Gallagher, as he also speaks to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, to inform the audience as to what's occurring in the town.

I didn't really take as much inspiration from this character compared to the dad from 'Friday Night Dinner', but what I did take grasp of was the hand play. I'd like to believe I was using my hands quite a lot in my performance whilst I was speaking, which did help when I was adding the emphasis and inflection to certain words. I felt that this made my performance of Leonarto come across as being more believable in a way, I'm not just doing a casual act, but I'm becoming the character himself, placing myself in the situation he's in and doing what I think he would do in those circumstances.

When we had received feedback from Sally before another one of our performances, she commented that I came across as understanding what I was saying more than anyone on stage. This may be one of the reasons why perhaps? I can't really say what she saw that made it seem like I knew what I was doing, but I would like to think that this is the reason. Hopefully, when I get my grade back for this assignment, she could give me more context on what she meant when she said this, so I can try and carry it over to the next performance(s).

Analysing Leonarto's Personality

For my interpretation of Leonarto, it helped me more when I looked at the full script of 'Much Ado About Nothing' to find out what other characters were saying that is relevant towards me to receive a full understanding of how I should perform the role in respect to the original author's desires. Here, I'll mention a majority of the personality traits of Leonarto, showing analysis from the script, whilst also using the diagram which I had mentioned in Week 3 of my 'Much Ado About Nothing' By William Shakespeare Full Weekly Blog Study:

1. Leonarto is Honourable

I had received this information about my character from the text, which is delivered by another character announcing relevant information. The character in question is Don Pedro in Act 1 Scene 1.

He had this quote to say:

"You have it full, Benedick. We may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herself.—Be happy, lady, for you are like an honourable father."

I had used the website called 'nofearshakespeare' to translate this text into a modern audience interpretation.

This is what the same quote came out to be said:

"Ah, he got you back, Benedick! Leonarto clearly knows your reputation with women. Seriously, though, the lady resembles Leonarto so much that there can be no doubt about who her father is. Congratulations, lady: you resemble a most honourable man."

      2. Leonarto is Polite (but serious at the same time)

I had received this information about my character from the text, which is delivered by another character announcing relevant information. The character in question is, again, Don Pedro in Act 1 Scene 1.

He had this quote to say:

"That is the sum of all, Leonarto.—Signior Claudio and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no hypocrite but prays from his heart."

Using 'nofearshakespeare', the same quote translates to this:

"And that’s everything, Leonarto.—Claudio, Benedick—my dear friend Leonarto has invited you all to stay here at Messina. I told him we’ll stay for at least a month, and he says that he hopes we’ll stay longer. I think he’s actually serious, and not just being polite."

     3. Leonarto is Respected

I had received this information about my character from the text, which is delivered by another character announcing relevant information. The character in question is, once again, Don Pedro in Act 1 Scene 1 (this is the last time!) but also Benedick in Act 2 Scene 3.

Don Pedro had this quote to say:

"Well, you temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonarto’s. Commend me to him and tell him I will not fail him at supper, for indeed he hath made great preparation."

Using 'nofearshakespeare', the same quote translates to this:

"Oh, you’ll soften as time passes. While you’re waiting for that to happen, though, hurry to Leonarto’s. Give him my respects, and tell him I’ll definitely be there for dinner, since I know he has gone to great lengths for this meal."

Benedick had this quote to say:

"(aside) I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence."

Using 'nofearshakespeare', the same quote translates to this:

"(to himself) I would take this as a joke if the old man weren’t saying it. Mischief surely can’t be hiding in such a respectable man."

How does this all affect my implications for performance as Leonarto?

I guess this had affected my performance in some way since I had always pictured Leonarto as being quite an honourable, and also respectable man. These quotes all had affects on my physicality of the character, I stand tall among others and portray a sense of proudness within myself. I have a strong stage presence because of this. It heavily expresses my movement, which is both calm and muscular at the same time, I get to the point of what I'm doing instantaneously, using as much physical moment as possible. It also makes a compliment to my vocal ability as the character, I speak in a strong, collective, and well thought manner, showing as much expression, emphasis and inflection as possible to give more meaning and purpose to the lines I have to say.

'Much Ado About Nothing' By William Shakespeare Full Weekly Blog Study

'Much Ado About Nothing' By William Shakespeare Blog Week 1

Introduction:

For our first performance on the second year of the course, we will be performing extracts from the play 'Much Ado About Nothing' by William Shakespeare. This is one of Shakespeare's most recognised plays by way of it's comedic value, intriguing characters, and multiple storyarchs.

The play follows the story of a family, a character named Leonarto's family, as they all gather to witness the return of a character named Don Pedro, the royal prince in the time of which the play is set, as he travels back home from war. The play then leads into a romantic comedy, leading with multiple personalities, such as Claudio and Benedick, as they try to win over the loves of their lives, Hero and Beatrice. The two couples offer two interesting plotlines, which is complimented by the plays dialogue and sudden rivalry between certain characters by cause of the plays events. Events transpire to lead to a happy ending, where the two couples have both been married and announced their relationship to the world they live in.

The Casting Process:

Before acquiring our roles for the extracts we are performing for this assignment, we all needed to reacquaint our mind with the plays plot and understand certain characters motives throughout. To achieve this, we had watched the Josie Rourke's adaptation of 'Much Ado About Nothing' on the Digital Theatre website. I had definitely heard of the play before through past experiences, but I had never actually seen the play with my own two eyes, and seeing as it's a romantic comedy, I was immediately hooked.

This interpretation of the play stars both David Tennant (playing Benedick), and Catherine Tate (playing Beatrice) alongside various other cast members to portray their characters. The performance between the two actors was exceptional and well executed. The banter was top notch, the relationship between the two characters brought an atmosphere which I have never seen in a play, and I felt that every time they came on stage at the same time, I knew something was going to go down which would inevitably turn out to be the most comedic parts of the whole play.

This adaptation of 'Much Ado About Nothing' is set in the 1980's and features many modern day props and imagery. The whole play took place on a giant rotating sphere stage with 3 pillars going along it. I'd never seen this type of staging before in a play, so it definitely gave me a sense of gratification alongside the already intriguing story until the very end of the play.

After watching the play, I was anxious to begin the rehearsal process for the extracts chosen for our piece and to get our characters to perform as. From the characters I had witnessed in the Josie Rourke adaptation of 'Much Ado About Nothing', I had wanted to be Benedick most of all. Although he was a lead character and came off to be quite enjoyable to play, I wasn't the only actor in the room who wanted to be him specifically, in fact, most of the men wanted to be him. When realising this, I had the intention of gaining another character, which is what inevitably happened.

I had received the role of Leonarto for the extracts of Act 2 Scene 1 and Act 2 Scene 3. I was pleased to have achieved this role as Leonarto is one of the more older characters in the play, and when watching through the digital theatre website, I felt that the actor praying him came across as having a lot of authority on stage, I could tell he was the one in charge of everything. Because of the supposed older age of the character also, he would be more mature, which definitely suits my own personality to an extent.

After receiving our characters, we would start to begin the rehearsals the following week, and I cannot wait to see what we would all come up with, since this is our first comedy performed at college, I'm definitely intrigued on how we would all execute the comedic moments of the play in our own interpretation. But for the week leading up to it, we would read our new scripts, analysing what each character is saying and to learn our lines as quickly as possible to help us embody the character more so before the real performance begins in November, which is not too long away.

'Much Ado About Nothing' By William Shakespeare Blog Week 2

Understanding the Language of the Play:

Although we had all watched the play the previous week, we still had an issue of understanding the language of Shakespeare. To fix this, we had all went to the college library to discover and analyse what our characters our saying in Modern English translation, so we can get a sense of what the scene entails.

The resource I had used for the purpose of this task was a website called 'No Fear Shakespeare' (http://nfs.sparknotes.com/muchado/). Through this website, I could look at all of the scenes within the play and fully translate it into modern day language. This indeed helped me to understand my character, Leonarto, much more. Furthermore, by the words he uses, I can get a sense of what kind of characterisation I can interpret for my performance as him. By using 'No Fear Shakespeare', I had only analysed my scenes, Act 2 Scene 1 and Act 2 Scene 3, to use for when I return to rehearsing in the classroom and as evidence to me analysing my role, which would further increase my development of character. From the notes I had gathered, here are some of my lines from the two scenes translated into modern day English, I shall add the original text first with the translation added afterwards.

Act 2 Scene 1:

"Then half Signor Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signor Benedick's face." - "So, the man would talk half as much as Benedick, and be half as serious as Don John."

"By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue." - "Really, niece, you'll never get a husband if you keep saying harsh things about people."

"Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly." - "Niece, you are exceptionally perceptive."

Act 2 Scene 3:

"No, nor I neither, but most wonderful that she should dote on Signor Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours, seemed ever to abhor." - "I didn't either. But how wonderful that she should be so fond of Signor Benedick, whom she has always appeared to hate."

"O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body. We have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian." - "Oh, my lord, when wisdom and passion are in one body, it's ten to one that the passion will win. I am sorry for her, as I should be, since I am both her uncle and her guardian.

"Nay, that's impossible, she may wear her heart out first." - "No, that's impossible. Her heart will break first."

By doing research on Leonarto's lines, I can understand that he is very much a 'family man' character. He cares a lot for his daughter and his niece, Hero and Beatrice. By knowing this, it may help my portrayal of Leonarto if I was to research the common mannerism's of dads. One that I can definitely think of right off the bat is the horrible dad dancing which we all have to unfortunely see at some stage. There are scenes that include parties/discos within 'Much Ado About Nothing', so I may be able to include this mannerism for these particular scenes.

Looking at How to play Leonarto:

When I first got the chance to rehearse as Leonarto, I wasn't entirely certain as to how I should perform as him. At first, I was being very expressive and having a high status on stage, much higher than others. But I wasn't entirely comfortable with what I was doing. When I asked my teacher as to how I should perform as Leonarto, she recommended that I should come across sort of like Frank Gallagher, the father character from the British drama series called 'Shameless'. I had watched the show before, and I do understand Frank Gallagher's character, but I was afraid that I'd be acting too much like Jack Sparrow from the film series called 'Pirate of the Caribbean'. I find the two characters to be quite similar, from the way they speak and how they act towards people. If I was to take Frank Gallagher as my inspiration for Leonarto, I have to be careful to differentiate the characteristics of the two characters within my performance.

Here I'll include a video of Frank Gallagher to show how my teacher wants me to act in my scenes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx3Zdl_V3zo - Skip to around 30 seconds to see his scene.

I'm sure that in the coming weeks of this new production, I will embody my own interpretation of Leonarto and to hopefully portray an exceptional performance as him.

'Much Ado About Nothing' By William Shakespeare Blog Week 3

Character Analysis Diagram:

To start off this week, Sally had laid out a quite detailed diagram showing what she all wanted us to discuss in our character profile/study. The diagram looked like this:

Information from the Text	What does this reveal about my character?	Implications for Performance
Could be stage directions		Your interpretation – for example: you could deliver your characters lines with a sarcastic tone opposed to being serious.
Could be something your character says	Meaning/Information
Could be something that another character says that is relevant to yours		Movement and Use of Voice – exploring movement choices and what you’re doing with the voice.
Any Rhetorical Devices?	Does this change the meaning of the scene/character?	How does this affect  the performance overall?
Verse or Prose?

As we can see, there's a bunch of information that we all have to process here. So, whilst we're looking into our scripts for this week, I'll try and find as much information related to my character, Leonarto, as I can so I can make a decent start on my character profile/study.

After discussing the character analysis section of this session, we moved onto more rehearsals for our scenes. Unfortunately, the information/feedback I took from this session was quite limited for the purposes of both my scenes, but I can understand this as we're only on Week 3 and my teacher hasn't really got an idea set on what we should do in our scenes. Nonetheless, here's the feedback that I'd received for both of my scenes:

Act 2 Scene 1 Feedback

• I need to make sure that I'm staying focused on the conversation between all the characters, and, more specifically, in mine and Frankie's duologue as Beatrice.
• We all needed to relate more to the audience - I'm sure that the more we rehearse this scene, the more comfortable we'll get with it, hopefully also meaning that we'd relate more to the audience.
• I need to stay more involved in the scene, at the moment I'm just sheltering myself behind the boxes on my part of the set.
• The pace needs to be faster, and the comedy needs a lot of work, especially with Frankie. Sally recommended her to study Catherine Tate's performance of the same scene playing as Beatrice to take a few notes on how she can be more funny.
• There were little to no reactions to what Frankie was saying in the scene, this needed to change quickly - This I can understand happening, not many of us have had much experience with Shakespearian text, meaning that we don't understand what certain words mean. I'm sure that as we begin to analyse what all of our characters are saying, we can react towards them in the correct way.

Act 2 Scene 3 Feedback

• I need to overplay the character of Leonarto more, much to the level of Luke whom is playing Benedick. I should play more with my hands as, at the moment, they're in my pockets. I need to be more 'actory'. The whole scene is an act towards Benedick, so I need to essentially become a crappy actor as it'll make the audience laugh more.

For the next session, Sally had spoken to all of us about using language techniques such as Iambic Pentameter since, at the moment, all of us sound quite dry in our dialogue. Another note to take on is that most of us sound as though we haven't barely read the script, meaning that our words can come off a bit slanted. Sally recommended using the Iambic Pentameter technique in order to learn our lines with ease, and to also get our heads around how Elizabethan actors would have performed the original interpretation of 'Much Ado About Nothing'.

'Much Ado About Nothing' By William Shakespeare Blog Week 4

In this week, we had all looked at using emphasis and inflecting our words as we all still sound a bit dry. I had the task of looking in my script and underlining any words that I could do this to. Below, I will list all of my lines, but underlining the ones which I will use emphasis/inflection on:

Act 2 Scene 1 Emphasis/Inflection Used

"By my troth, niece, thou wilt never (emphasis) get thee a husband if thou be so shrewd (Inflection) of thy tongue."

"So, by being too (emphasis) curst, God will send you no horns."

 

"Well, niece, I hope to see you (emphasis) one day fitted (emphasis) with a husband."

 

Act 2 Scene 3 Emphasis/Inflection Used

 

"No, nor I (emphasis) neither, but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signor Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours (inflection) seemed ever to abhor (emphasis)."

 

"By my (emphasis) troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves (emphasis) him with an enraged (inflection) affection, it is past the infinite of thought."

 

"O God! Counterfeit? (emphasis) There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it."

 

"What effects, my lord? She will sit you—you heard (emphasis) my daughter tell you how."

 

"I would have sworn it had, my lord, especially (emphasis) against Benedick."

"No, and swears she never (inflection) will. That’s (emphasis) her torment."

"This says she now when she is beginning to write to him, for she’ll be up twenty times a night (emphasis), and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all."

"Oh, when she had writ it and was reading it over, she found “Benedick” (emphasis) and “Beatrice” (emphasis) between the sheet?"

 

"O (emphasis), she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, railed at herself (emphasis) that she should be so immodest (inflection) to write to one that she knew (emphasis) would flout her. “I measure him,” says she, “by my own spirit, for I should flout him if he writ to me, yea, though I love him, I should.”"

"She doth indeed, my daughter says so, and the ecstasy (emphasis) hath so much overborne (emphasis) her that my daughter is sometime afeared (emphasis) she will do a desperate outrage (emphasis) to herself. It is very true."

 

"Oh, my lord, wisdom (emphasis) and blood combating (emphasis) in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian."

 

"If he do fear God (inflection), he must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear (inflection) and trembling (inflection)."

 

"Nay (emphasis), that’s impossible. She may wear her heart out first (inflection)."

To go alongside the language technique of adding emphasis and inflection to certain words, there was also something else which I had learnt from my voice teacher, Karen, which would add even more meaning and purpose to the lines I was announcing rather than just saying them. What she taught me was the language ability of "Thought before Speech".

I had tried using this technique in some of my lines and the one that stood out to me the most was this line from Act 2 Scene 3:

"She doth indeed, my daughter says so, and the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeared she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true."

To put this technique into practice, I used the moment of thought before saying the words "ecstacy", "overbourne", "afeared", and "outrage". By doing this, I felt that saying this line had much more personal feeling/emotion and purpose towards it, since my overall tone of voice deepens and become almost sad, simply because I'm worried about Hero being afraid for Beatrice.

'Much Ado About Nothing' By William Shakespeare Blog Week 5

In this week, we worked on the overall setting of the play, the props that we would use, and we had also decided what theme of costumes we were going for.

The setting of the play will take place in a modern day festival, featuring the kinds of clothing and music you'd see at one. Here is a collaborative photo featuring all of the actors in my group as their character:

Here are two more photo's featuring the first and second movement sequences in our production:

'Much Ado About Nothing' By William Shakespeare Blog Week 6

In this session, we started off by thinking of some costume ideas for all of us. As it's in a festival setting, we observed some images on Google of what people wear at certain festivals in the modern age. Sally suggested for the characters in the band to have some inspiration from the real band called 'Mumford and Sons'. After discussing for a while, we then ran all our scenes from the very top to show some possible improvement that can be done. For this session, we were given a feedback sheet which would help us to evaluate a certain actors performance in their role for the play. In Act 1 Scene 1, I was observing Jake Colley, whom is playing Leonarto. Jake had a few issues with his role before we left for half term, he was constantly mumbling his lines and there wasn't any real emphasis added to any words, if anything, they were placed on the wrong words. So after the scene was performed, I had given this feedback to Jake:

• To start off, Jake's lines were a whole lot clearer than when I last witnessed the scene. This shows good practice of the lines and he could have done some possible mouth exercises so he opens his mouth more and doesn't mumble.
• The negative side to Jake saying his lines clearer was that he still talks way too quickly. I found it hard to understand what he was saying for some of his lines as the scene progressed. He also did this with the jokes, and this made it not funny as I completely missed out what he was saying. If he was clearer, and also much slower, it would be funny. I hope that before we perform this to a live audience that he rehearses his lines so he speaking much more slowly as this would benefit his overall grade for this assignment.
• As I have already said, Jake needed to add emphasis to some of his lines. I definitely did catch him doing it a few times, but perhaps on the wrong words. There was one line that I observed in the performance: "Do not, Sir, mistake my niece." Jake added no emphasis to this sentence and I think this line would flow so much better if he was saying it slower and using emphasis on the words "not" and/or "Sir". By doing this, it would add much more impact to the line.
• There was a moment where Sophie Nickerson's character, Beatrice, was talking within this scene to both Jake and Matthew's characters. During this moment, I observed Jake and he was only just standing there listening to what Beatrice had to say. I thought it would be a lot better if Jake had more purpose to the scene in this moment. In the scene, from the very beginning, he is holding a clipboard, I think it would look better if he was interacting with this object whilst Sophie is saying her lines instead of just standing there looking at her, and for the moments where she says something with more impact, especially towards Benedick, both Jake and Matt could have a bigger reaction towards her.
• And to top it all off, I suggested that he works on his tone and inflection more, as all the words just sound the same and his overall language isn't that exciting.

After this scene had finished, we moved on to my first scene, which is Act 2 Scene 1 in the play. When completed, we had also received feedback from certain people in the audience who were observing a single person performing. Here was the overall outcome for each actor in the scene:

• Feedback from Joe Bennett: A note for everyone was that the reactions were a bit delayed towards Beatrice. He mentioned it as it's the thought of we're having to react towards Beatrice other than reacting because what she is saying is funny and unexpected.
• Feedback form Sally Barlow: Everyone's language needs to be amplified. Sally did comment that she liked Frankie's overall performance as Beatrice, but she also needs her language amplified.
• Jake Colley to Issie Rutter: Needs to project more. Some of the lines that Issie says are projected well, but the majority of them turned out to be too quiet for him to hear.
• Frank Hussey to Frankie Howard: Needs more comedic reactions. More banter needs to come from Beatrice, back and forth between all of the characters in the scene, it'll be more funny and it contributes towards Beatrice character more so. Frankie's overall posture as Beatrice was good also.
• Sally Barlow, Matthew Todd, and Joe Bennett to Me: For Leonarto, I needed to act more like a 'Mac Dad', which is trying to be funny when I'm really not. Matt suggested the inspiration of the dad character in a show called 'Friday Night Dinner'. Joe was impressed by my overall authority on stage in the scene, I stood tall and looked as though I was the one in charge.
• Lewis Kneller to Frankie Howard: Lewis had said that Frankie looks around too much in the scene and she's not making enough eye contact with the other characters.We all needed to work on the overall pace of the scene as it does go a bit too slow and/or fast in some places. The emotions performed were good. At one point, Frankie's hair was covering her face, so what may help is to tie it back or put it in a different style. Once we're all in costume, I think that the scene will perform much better.

After concluding the feedback for Act 2 Scene 1, we then moved straight onto my second and last scene in the play, Act 2 Scene 3. For this scene, we also had some feedback given from the audience, here's what was said:

• Donna A'hern to Joe Bennett: Donna had suggested that Joe needs to do more in background when he's not saying any line, because, at the moment, he's just standing there doing nothing. I think it would be a good idea if he looked over the adaptation we watched online and to observe the actor playing Claudio to grab some ideas of what to do in the scene. He also needs to work on his body language. There was a lot of times where Joe had crossed his arms, which portrays a negative and closed off image. Claudio needs to be much more open within this scene. A note for everyone is that they shouldn't come out of character and that Joe and Brandon in-particular need to go over their lines more.
• Sophie Nickerson to Luke Engelen: Sophie thought there was a lack of focus with Luke's monologue as Benedick. He kept putting on a Shakespearian voice which he doesn't necessarily need to do as his voice is posh enough already. There was good thought process when he got to talking about hair within his monologue. He was really believable when he told the audience what he thought of Beatrice. 
• All Audience Members to Actors Performing: Good reaction when I dropped the box lid on Luke's head. There was a good moment when Phoebe, as Beatrice, walked in the scene and Luke reacted towards her much differently than Benedick would have done before he knew Beatrice loved him. Luke had changed his whole attitude on stage completely for this moment and it was performed well. Me getting too carried away was funny and performed well, Lewis said I acted like a lad when I said the line "O, my lord, wisdom and blood, combating, in so tender a body."

In the second session of this week, we had shown what we had all done for our scenes to our voice teacher, Karen. We had shown the scenes to her in a random order, mainly going from the last couple scenes back to the beginning. Having our voice teacher review our scenes helped much more as she could focus on if we're all pronouncing our words properly, for example, at one stage, Luke Engelen has to say the line "the" in his monologue for Act 2 Scene 3, but what Karen heard him say "da". Just little things like this would help us more with our scene, and it also helps the audience to understand what we're all saying to them.

I had taken many more notes from Karen towards the same scene, here is what she had to say to all of us:

• The first main problem was that Karen couldn't quite hear Joe when he starting saying his lines. Whatever caused this she didn't specify, but nonetheless, he needs to be a bit louder on his projection. He also needs to practice his lines along with Brandon since, towards the end of the scene, there's a duologue between the two and Joe forgets his cues.
• Karen noticed that both Brandon and Milo were pronouncing the word "lord" as "lort".
• There's a moment where Joe says the word "remember", but for this run he said "member".
• Brandon needs to work on words that include the letter T, it's not quite coming out and the words don't sound right.
• A note from Karen to me, which is quite positive, was that I had really nice energy within the scene and had good use of smiling throughout. Taking this note compliments my development of character, as I want my take on Leonarto to be much like a jolly middle aged guy that has fun in everything he does.
• A note for me, Brandon, and Joe is that we need to make it more obvious that we want Luke to hear what we're saying. Perhaps need to overact more than we are.
• Like I said in the previous paragraph, Luke needs to work on his lines as he said "da" instead of "the". He also needs to work on the letter F.
• Luke's tone in the scene is mostly the same throughout, although he is inflecting his words quite well, he does need to be lighter with his voice at some points, specifically the bits where he speaks of Beatrice. Karen described it as being more front of stage language.
• For the speech after me, Joe, and Brandon leave the stage, Luke needs to act romantic, much like the character Romeo in 'Romeo and Juliet'. He also needs to show much more emotion and act more truthful, as Karen doesn't fully believe that he loves Beatrice as well as he says.

At the start of the next session, Sally was talking to all of us about Objectives, or as she put it, Targets to achieve in our scenes. Each character has their own individual purpose for the scene, and the purpose requires them to achieve some sort of objective/target. Sally asked us all to think about what we're all trying to acheieve in our scenes, and to strive after it whilst we're up on stage acting for today's session.

With this in mind, we ran through Act 2 Scene 3 once more to receive these notes:

• Lewis Kneller to Joe Bennett: Great energy, but still needs more work on Projection. He also needs to work on his stance a little more as he tends to close himself off with his arms, Claudio should be much more confident and open. Really good stage whispers, the audience were still able to hear what he was saying whilst doing it. The dance for when Milo's character, Balthasar, is singing is executed well, but he could try with interacting with Brandon's character, Don Pedro, more for this sequence. When he was on his knees imitating Beatrice, he had great energy again. Forgetting his lines towards the end of scene put him off character quite a lot, try not to do this.
• Sally to Joe Bennett: Needs to be day dreaming more within the scene, that should be one of his objectives as Claudio. Joe's moment of imitating Beatrice was funny and well executed, but it then goes back to stale acting when finished.
• Sally to all in scene: All of us dance along while Milo sings, maybe even sing with him if you know the words. The scene needs to be much more merry then it is. There not very much happening physically within the scene, needs to be worked on more. Banter needs to "run like a train", act more tipsy also. Need to be much more aware of Luke hiding behind the box. Need one laughter after another, Pace also needs work on as it's a tad slow at the moment.
• Matthew Todd to all in scene: Should be laughing constantly at what everyone is saying.
• Issie Rutter to Luke Engelen: He needs to put more emphasis on the "T" in Leonarto, he skipped over it completely and my name came out muffled. Luke needs to work on his tone of voice more, it doesn't necessarily sound monotone but it could do with some more work. He was starting to react before we even started talking about him and Beatrice. He should keep rubbing his head after I hit him on the head with the box lid, it'll add more comedic value. "This is no trick" needs to be louder. He should play more with his hands, at the moment he's playing with his tie and putting hands in his pockets. He needs to play around more with his reactions whilst behind the box, not just facial but physical also.
• Matthew Todd to Luke Engelen: Need much more work on reactions, he tends to do the same ones over and over. He needs to differentiate what he's doing.
• Sally to Me and Luke Engelen: Me and Luke sitting down at the same time leaning on the box whilst Milo is singing created a nice picture. Luke needs to stop touching his face, needs biger reactions also.
• Jake Colley to Me: When imitating Beatrice with my high pitched voice, it started off well, but I then rushed it to the point where it was kind of hard to hear what I was saying. There's a lot of moments where I'm just standing still with hands in my pockets, I shouldn't do this, Issie Rutter recommended that I should put my hands behind my back and put my chest out to look more formal. By doing this, I have a much higher status on stage compared to the rest, since, at the moment, I'm quite passive. At the start of the scene when I entered and said my first line, I had a bunch of energy, but as the scene progressed, it started to sound monotone.
• Sally to Me: "I am sorry for her" - it's meant to sound like a joke towards Benedick, at the moment, I said it as though I was really sorry.
• Matthew Todd to Me: Keep the tone of voice high throughout.
• Sophie Nickerson and Donna A'hern to Milo Welch: Good relationship with me at the beginning when we enter. His arms were crossed when he was talking to Brandon, which came across as aggressive and closed, Balthasar should be more open. Donna said that Milo is saying his lines to Brandon very aggressively. The singing sounded like it was improvised.
• Matthew Todd to Milo Welch: He was mixing Don John characteristics with Balthasar's, he sounded quite lairy when he shouldn't be. Pronouncing the word "levi", it's supposed to be pronounced as "Lee-V". 
• Sally to Milo Welch: Need to be more humble with his lines, especially the part where he talks about his singing. The cues sound a bit off while he is singing.
• Phoebe to Brandon Timson: He rushed his lines and the words were merged together, if he opened his mouth more he would be able to get all of the words out. We all needed to have more empahsis on words. The pace goes down to a normal conversation the further on we go in the scene, and it gets quite boring to watch. Brandon slouches too much, probably because he had his script in hand. He's shifting around too much. When Milo was singing, he did a jig, it looked out of character. He needs to genuinely laugh when Joe imitates Beatrice.
• Sally to Brandon Timson: Needs to learn his lines, this will help the overall pace of the scene as it's "killing it". When Brandon says the line "I pray thee, get us some excellent music; for tomorrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber-window", give Milo some money to compensate him for the efforts. Brandon needs more hand signals before the banter begins. We all need to be more aware that Luke is hiding right next to us. Need to rehearse the banter more, needs to be much tighter. The scene is very serious, when it should be sarcastic and funny.

After taking these notes into consideration, we watched some Frantic Assembly video's to give us some inspiration for the second dance scene of the play. The video we watched was for the movements they used in the play called 'The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-time'.

For the last session on this week, we started to run through scenes that needed some major work. We first looked towards the girls scene which stars Sophie Nickerson, Frankie Howard, Donna A'hern and Issie Rutter. I didn't take many notes on this scene, but what I did take note of in-particular was for Sophie's monologue at the end of the scene as Beatrice. The opening of the monologue needs to be much bigger "What fire is within thine ears!?", she should act more disgusted, when at the moment, she's just saying the line with no emotion added to it. Phoebe had added onto this saying that she was acting more sad opposed to surprised.

After this scene was finished, we returned to Act 2 Scene 3 once more to have a few more notes:

• Phoebe Matthews to Me: Keep up the banter. I need to do my imitation as Beatrice without breating too much, I need to speak on the in-voice opposed to the out-voice. She liked the reaction after I hit Luke on the head with the box lid.
• Issie Rutter to Brandon Timson: Don't hit Luke on the head again with the box lid, it wasn't funny. 

Unfortunately, we didn't do very much in this session as a group, but what I did do during this session was look at my lines, to play with the words I say and discover any more moments where I can add emphasis along with developing my character of Leonarto.

'Much Ado About Nothing' By William Shakespeare Blog Week 7

In this session, our objective for the day was to get the second dance scene finished as our performance is next week!

We moved straight onto the part where we're all standing at the back behind the 4 boxes and we turn. We blocked movements after we turn to go along with the beat of the song. The first beat is us turning and looking at the audience, the second we look at Joe (Claudio), the third beat we look back at the audience, and for the fourth and final beat we look at Joe again to see him go towards one of the boxes to pick up Hero's jacket.

This then transitions to the wedding scene, but this is still a part of the dance sequence. As Leonarto, the father of Hero, I am to walk Issie (Hero) down the aisle to Joe (Claudio) and give her away to then stand behind her. Luke does four movements to go along with the beats of the song, and then he steps aside to show the struggle between Hero and Claudio. We're showing this by way of having the two swinging against each other, Joe then let's go of Issie on the fourth beat allowing me to catch Hero and lower her to the floor to signify that she's unconscious. This leads into the plot line where Claudio thinks Hero is dead. Whilst I'm doing this, everyone is to react in their own way, as their character, towards Claudio. When I've completely lowered Issie to the ground, we see both Don John and Don Pedro exit the scene in four beats. After this, we all exit the stage to transition to the scene between Matthew (Benedick) and Phoebe (Beatrice) when they confess their love for one-another.

After finishing the second dance sequence, we moved onto working our scenes more. We first looked at Act 2 Scene 1, my first scene as Leonarto, to look for any more improvements to be made.

• All of audience to Frankie Howard: She needs to develop on Beatrice's characteristics. She also needs to add more emphasis on her lines.
• Sally to Me: Make sure that the boxes for the DJ stand are slightly further backstage at a slight angle. Add emphasis to these words: "Well, niece, I do hope to see YOU one day FITTED with a husband".
• Joe Bennett to Me: I'm quite snappy with all my lines, which is very good.

For the next session, Sally had let us all know about how we'd have different music clips for each transitions of scenes in our production. She had also designed this background name prompt to let the audience know who's who. I thought it looked quite smart, and I cannot wait to see it being used. Here is a picture of what it looks like:

After this, we then did a full run-through of the play, taking down feedback notes for each scene that we did. For this, I was observing the other Leonarto, Jake, to see what needed improving. The only complaint that I kind of noticed in his performance was that he was saying "Benedict" and not "Benedick".

Sally had made a note to a majority of us that we needed "more specificity" in our movements for the 1st movement sequence. "More muscularity is needed".

After doing this, we had a look inside the main theatre, working with all the stage space. I had made the note to both Brandon and Joe that we need to move much more whilst performing in Act 2 Scene 3 as we're mostly standing in the same place.

'Much Ado About Nothing' By William Shakespeare Blog Week 8 (Production Week!)

Before the main performances were to begin, there were still a few bits and bobs we all needed to sort out in our scenes. Here are all of the notes that I took to ensure we'd make this a very good production:

• Everyone is still moving when they doing their pose under their character names between scenes, Sally doesn't want this, we need to be still. I recommeneded to everyone that they should use their peripheral vision to see their names rather than just looking at it to get to their pose position as quickly as possible.
• Some actors need to speak up a little bit.
• We all need to hold our bottles as if we're not spilling our drink.
• Some actors on stage are slightly underplaying their roles, it's almost as if it's naturalistic, which isn't the performance style we're intended on using.
• People need to remember: if we mess up, it doesn't matter, the audience won't know anything, we just got to make sure we cover it up well!
• Notes for Act 2 Scene 1: Me and Frankie need to speak up a little bit, slightly too quiet. I needed to play more on my sarcasm. There's a bit where Donna is miming a cocktail shaker, and this looks odd to Sally so take it out! The overall blocking of the scene for me is quite restricted, 3/4 of the time I'm behind my DJ stand. Make the effort to come out more front stage. We all had nice bits with giggles and laughter. We need to open the scene more towards the audience.
• Notes for 1st Movement Sequence: There's too many backs showing whilst everyone is getting their drinks before the main act. Donna and Joe should try and have their silhouette show on the projector screen when he proposes, it'll make a nice atmospheric touch.
• Notes for Act 2 Scene 3: The very start of the scene between Luke and Frank is dragged out way too much. The part where Frank goes the wrong way is milking it too much. Luke needs to put more thought process into his monologue when he describes the perfect woman. I suggested to him about what Karen taught us, by using the 'Thought before Speech' technique. When the rest of the actors come on stage after Luke's monologue, he's not really hiding very well behind the boxes. Milo sounds too stroppy, he shouldn't be like this in the slightest. Milo shouldn't lean on Brandon, he needs to treat him as a higher class citizen, he's a fresh, new singer, but he's not very confident. I had a nice bit whilst Milo was singing where I was pulling faces to signify how bad his singing is and then immediately smiling and nodding when he turned back towards me. When Luke says his line at the beginning of the song, he needs to act more amazed and disgusted by his singing at the same time. When Brandon sits down on the box, he becomes too passive, he should lean back on the box and relax. I should lift the box lid before hitting Luke with it earlier so there's no pause in my dialogue. Try not to look at Luke when we're all sitting down. Whilst sitting, we still need to keep up the act. We all need to sit forward more on the boxes, not at an angle. The pace of the scene slowed down once we sat on the boxes. The three of us need to be louder and more obvious before we walk offstage. Luke needs to work on the gags in his monologue. Phoebe was too quiet once she had walked onstage. Phoebe needs to match Luke's status onstage - have bigger reactions towards him. Luke needs to try and not touch his face too much.
• Note for the 2nd movement sequence: The whole thing is very messy. The lift doesn't go up at the same time for both sides.