Week 18 Blog ( Week 6 For Shakespeare )

Week 18 Blog, Monday 24th - Wednesday 26th Of February 2014

For today's lesson, we were to continue in preparation for our main production of 'Shakespeare's House Party'. The main focus for today was to rehearse the setting of the performance on stage and work on making it more convincing as a huge house party, and to also work on developing each actors performance, to achieve a higher grade for when it comes to the main performance.

To start with, we had to look at what we would do with the other actors in the scene changes, the main focus for this task was how we were to open each scene, since each scene is set inside the house the party is held in, we thought it would be better to give the characters their own privacy to highlight the scenes and characters. Whereas the opening monologue given by Puck and the opening scene dance routine still needed developing. The opening monologue was to be a speech given by Puck to present the production to the audience. The speech was to be giving the audience an understanding of each of the different plots being presented in this production. This would be a reference to Shakespeare's most famous tragedy, 'Romeo and Juliet', as the opening prologue to the play was to give the audience an idea of what's in stall for them (in the case that the Montague s and Capulet's are rivals). So the idea was to have the monologue be delivered on stage whilst having every other actor enter a freeze frame. The freeze frames were to highlight what the actors characters look like and what will happen in their scenes; the monologue also backs up the freeze frames. 
    
Our next task was to continue with the dance routine, so each cast member can have an idea as to how they want to present their individual characterization's through the means of dance, which would then go straight into the opening scene extract from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. The task of the day was to develop the performance, as well as making the setting relevant to where the scene takes place. The opening scene for the production after the dance routine is called the 'Actors Scene', as it focuses on a group of actors rehearsing for a performance in a Forest, or in the productions sake, the back garden of the house party. So whilst this group rehearsed their scene, our teacher wanted the remaining cast to stay at the back of the stage as if it was to represent the party taking place inside the house. Lighting and props would make the scene more convincing to being set outside the house party, as the first scene would come to an end, we would then be able to morph straight into the next scene after moving off stage after the dance routine.

As the lesson went on, we began to observe the next couple of scenes in the rehearsal. It was important to observe, as it would be essential for each member of the group to listen to others performing strategies throughout their scenes, which could also be implemented into their own scenes. This whole assignment helped each member of the group, since we were helping one another to further develop our acting skills.
    
As today's lesson came to an end, my input was assisting each member of the group, by offering ideas to help further develop their performance's. Along with inputting, with the rest of the actors, improvisation ideas whilst performing in the background for each scene.