After so many weeks of rehearsals for our final major project called 'Junk', it was now time to begin the live performance week. Our rehearsal sessions still continued, only this time we began in the college theatre opposed to the usual classroom environment. We started the day with preparations of prop placement and staging directions. I had mentioned in previous blogs of our plan to stage 'Junk' with the audience seated around the stage in a rectangular fashion, with entrances and exits set in between the audiences seating positions. This way we would be able to present the whole drama towards the audience and they would be able to see every little detail, in the setting of the play and in our individual performances. It would also include a slight visual of the stage representing a street environment, and it would also deliver the moral message of the play being a journey for both lead characters, 'Tar and Gemma', a journey of how their lives go from bad to worse.
While the theatre was being prepared by the box office management team, we had the props ready to set the stage, but in the mean
time we continued rehearsals to ensure full concentration and confidence for
the performing side of the rehearsal process. With nearly all scenes blocked in previous rehearsal sessions, our main focus was to
look at how we could improve our performances. In this case I had to develop on my physical presence on stage, since my character, 'Tar', has a lead role in the story of 'Junk' and all the audiences eyes should remain on him for a long duration of the play. I felt that I had already achieved this goal since whilst performing I have to be an angry character filled with rage over the fact that Tar can't escape Junk once he has taken it, I feel confident that doing this will grab the audiences attention over over characters and turn all their eyes onto me.
After finishing our last minute rehearsals, we had a short break and later on we would all return to begin
setting the stage for the main performance. The audience’s seats were set by the box office management team and we began to lay out all of the props and
staging equipment to create our visual idea of what the stage would look like
and make it seem real. With so many props,
listing from a public pay-phone, an old television, boxes,
empty bottles, and many more, our plan to set all these objects on the stage to present it in
the style of a squatters house, which is meant to look 'trashy'.
Mondays session came to an end with many
of us, in my opinion, feeling a positive attitude for our upcoming performance as we came closer
and closer to our first performance of the final project for Btec Level 2 Performing Arts. We had also received some notes from our
teacher, in which explored certain areas in which we needed to improve, whether
it was performing strategies or certain changes needed to be made before the
main performance later on in the week.
Tuesday’s session began at an earlier
time than planned, as our main goal was to do a successful run
through of the entire play without scripts. Having the
stage already set and props already placed, we all got ourselves into our costumes
and prepared ourselves for a full run through of act one.
We decided to take the rehearsal at a mild
speed giving the lighting/sound technicians time to make any changes to lighting or sound cues. The majority of cues had already been
set, but it was now our chance to get to know the cues of by heart so we would know what to
expect for future rehearsals and of course the main performance when it comes to it. As we began rehearsing act one, there were a
few obvious errors, concerning cue times for actors to be on stage, or lighting/sound
cues. But there will always be certain areas in a performance that goes wrong and needs to be improved. Although there was one area that was a positive factor in the run through and that was the
improvement of all the cast members performances as their characters. It was really interesting to see how much the
other cast member had improved in presenting their character, which was a
vast improvement to show how the true realism of the plot within the play as
well as showing the actors commitment to their role.
As the days session went on we completed
our full run through of 'Junk', however after receiving more notes from our
teacher, it became apparent to us, while we may know all of our lines and all
of our stage movements and timings, we still hadn’t achieved the approximate run
time of the play, which was to be one hour and thirty minutes. Therefore after a short break, we aimed to do
another run through, hoping to achieve faster timing. In our second attempt
there were less errors concerning timing, however there was a slight problem
concerning lines, as unfortunately many of us had lost track of our
lines. But overall it was a successful second run
through of 'Junk' and we did achieve the 90 minute mark.
First Performance Day:
Just as we did in our two previous
rehearsal days we arrived earlier to college than usual. Once
every member of the cast arrived we simply started with another run through of
the play, now that all the lighting and sound cues were confirmed and ready for
the main show. It was also extremely
helpful as well because we would also have the chance to see if we were truly
comfortable and confident enough to present the play to our first audience, which were
only a few hours away from arriving. We managed to run
through the play twice before the live performance, and at the end of the very last minute rehearsal
I felt extremely confident to present this play to our first audience.
We started the first performance at three o'clock in the afternoon.
As the audience arrived and took their
seats, all the cast members were instructed to either be seated behind the central seated
audience stand, or at our at our first entrance door way to the stage when it was time for us to come on, but in the case of the
actors who played Tar and Gemma, they were to be seated on the upper centre stage to open the play.
Overall I felt this first performance was
good, slightly imperfect however, as I felt everyone, including myself, could of performed better, but since it was our first performance in front of an audience, I let it slide and hoped the second performance would be much better. But from an audience standpoint, it was a good performance, receiving only positive feedback from both the
audience and our teacher. Resulting in
us taking a break and then we would return to present our second performance.
The second performance began at
seven o'clock in the evening.
Personally I felt that the second performance
was the best presentation of 'Junk'. Out of all our full
run through rehearsals, this performance topped all of them. I personally felt very confident on stage,
and I felt I managed to present an excellent portrayal of my character ‘Tar’. Plus every cast member gave an outstanding
performance as well, backing up my confidence whilst on stage, and truly making all the
characters and the plot as convincing and realistic as possible for the audience.
Second Performance Day:
Wednesday’s two performances were very successful
in the eyes of our teacher, the audience, and ourselves, but now it was time to
give the final performance of our final major project. Starting the day a little later in the
morning as, again, it would give us time to process and remember our staging
and acting in the last two performances. Once again every cast member had arrived and we started the day by playing
some drama games to get our brains in gear for the performance. Then as the performing hour approached nearer
and nearer we set our props and got dressed into our costumes ready for the
final show.
It was one o’clock in the afternoon
when our final performance began.
Throughout this week, I felt I had achieved something great in my life of an actor. We
achieved our final major project in our Btec Level 2 course for Performing Arts,
and we also achieved the best outcome of our final major performances for the course, in the way of seeing the response of our best
abilities in acting, testing our abilities to see if we are capable of portraying
these characters on stage and act in this intense and dramatic production. I personally feel that this play was an
amazing chance to see what we as actors can achieve as well as setting goals, from
any negatives from the outcome of our individual performances, and see if we
can improve for future reference.
This project was a privilege to take part
in and I look forward to see what I can achieve in future projects with other actors or perhaps the same actors I have gotten so well to know throughout this year.
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