Monday 15th Of September 2014 Blog Entry:
Synopsis Of Day:
Lesson 1 & 2 - Physical Theatre And Contemporary Theatre:
To start off the day, we had our Physical Theatre lesson, where we looked once more upon the 'Uncle Vanya' scripts we were given on the previous week. For our first task we only had to keep rehearsing more on what we had done last week, and in later lessons on Wednesday and Thursday, we will be adding new things to the script to make it more of a challenge to perform.
After a short period of time with the 'Uncle Vanya' scripts, we moved onto our next task which was to receive the name of our first play for our first main performance for the Level 3 Acting Extended Diploma course.
The play we will be performing is titled '13'. At first, I felt confused as to what the number 13 could mean for this play, which was then followed up with our teacher asking the whole class what it brings to mind. One person stated that it may be a biblical reference and that is exactly what it was.
The play '13' is along the lines the same kind of story as the one with
Jesus and his 12 disciples. Jesus died leaving his followers and friends
abandoned with no leader, and after a period of time, Jesus resurrected
from the grave. The play '13' has the story of a character called
John. John has a group of 12 other friends that he regularly communed
with. One day however, John had died with reasons unknown to both the
other characters and the reader. All 12 friends of John's had gone to
his funeral to say their last goodbyes. Then, somehow, after a long
period of time, John has come back from the grave and started visiting
all his old friends who are both angry and confused as to why he has
come back. John then rallies a large group of protesters to fight
against the political and democratic parties to help bring a brighter
future to the rest of mankind.
Conclusion Of Day:
We had spent the rest of today mainly looking at '13' and planning as to how we may perform it in November, which isn't very long away. Our teacher suggested that we may have to cut out a lot of scenes since this play has 5 acts with a lot of scenes and lines in them, excluding the 5th act, which only has one scene but with all 12 characters, excluding John, presenting a large monologue.
Wednesday 17th Of September 2014 Blog Entry:
Synopsis Of Day:
Lesson 1 & 2 - Principles Of Acting And The Historical Context Of Performance:
After having our study day on Tuesday, we had returned to College to pursue our second 'Principles Of Acting' lesson where we had once again looked at naturalism and Stanislavski, but we had also looked at Frantic Assembly's performance of a play called 'Stockholm'.
This play was very well presented and was very narrative in terms of the tone of voice that the actors on stage were giving. This play was unique with this narrative tone of voice as the actors had used their Physical Theatre skills, in Frantic Assembly fashion, to project what they are talking about with very dynamic and fluent movements. We didn't get the chance to watch all of it though since we ran out of time for the lesson after 52 minutes of watching it, but we will return to it either in tomorrow's lessons or next week. Our teacher also said that we will look at another one of Frantic Assembly's plays, which I had seen before in the BTEC Level 2 Acting Diploma course. The play is called 'Lovesong'.
This play is a very interesting watch, it has an intriguing story that grips the audiences attention since there is so much going on with the actors on stage. I can't wait to continue watching 'Lovesong' in future lessons since it'll help me learn more about how Frantic Assembly present their use of Physical Theatre which is known famously throughout the world as something much different than normal Physical Theatre groups.
Lesson 2 - Performing Arts Business:
After our lunch break, we returned to our 'Performing Arts Business' lessons where we were hopefully going to be doing more productive work about the Performing Arts Industry. Our teacher had given us all a task to complete during the class and if we didn't finish it we do it as homework. The task was to complete a career path for a selected job role in the theatre industry. For this task, we had to work with a partner, and we were given strict instructions to not work without them. For me and my partner, we were given the job role of 'Set Designer', so we went right at it and started researching different courses at selected Universities/Drama Schools for this role and how the career could expand in later life. For this task, my partner had created and developed the task on a power point presentation whilst I was accomplishing the same but on a word document to give a more detailed narrative when it comes to our turn to present our findings in next weeks lesson.
By the time the lesson had ended, me and my partner had not finished, but we came with the decision to come in early on Monday morning to finish the work as we both don't have Microsoft Word/PowerPoint on our home computers.
Lesson 3 - Developing Voice For The Actor:
After another break, we came to our 'Developing Voice For The Actor' lesson where we were all going to learn more about our breathing pattern and discover exercises that will help give us all more control with our breathing. Our teacher had a presentation, that was set up on Moodle, about the Respiratory System. This presentation had diagrams to show us specific areas in our Respiratory System that will help us develop our breathing so we can project our voice more when it comes to performing. Throughout the lesson, we had all taken down notes to help us with a Portfolio document that we will all do later on in the coming weeks to show our teacher what we had learnt in these lessons.
Conclusion Of Day:
To end the lesson, our teacher had done the same meditation exercise she had done on the previous week to help relieve any unwanted stress and tension we had filled in our bodies. I had learnt a lot in this lesson about how I can improve my breathing pattern so I don't have to give pauses during any dialogue when I speak, either in real time or on stage when I'm presenting a Monologue.
Thursday 18th Of September 2014 Blog Entry:
Synopsis Of Day:
Lesson 1 & 2 - Tutorial And Performance Workshop:
To start off with today, we had our second tutorial lesson where we had watched part of Frantic Assembly's performance of 'Lovesong'. As with each of Frantic Assembly's performances, they always present something different for each one they perform. For this performance in particular, they have implemented the feature of having the older variant of the couple Bill and Maggie with their younger counterparts performing alongside them, but they view it more as a flashback and have no interactions with them. There are moments in the performance however where one of the older variants, either Bill or Maggie, would interact with the younger Bill or Maggie, this moment would be viewed as a sort of dynamic dance where the actors on stage would dance with fluency and ease. For these moments especially, Frantic Assembly have implemented many elements of theatre. These elements are things like the use of Lighting and Sound (Music).
After watching about 45 minutes of 'Lovesong', we moved onto looking more into our first production for Level 3 Acting Extended Diploma, the play called '13'. For this session and the next, our teacher had picked out several scenes from the play and had made each one of us perform as characters from that scene to see if we 'fit together' with their made up personality or have developed it so that we have several on stage at once to give a more entertaining performance. Not much more was discovered in these lessons for today, but at the end of the day, our teacher had decided as to what roles we were to perform as for '13'. I was given the character called Martin whom, from my short time reading part of the script, is some sort of security official for the Prime Minister. I had made it so when I performed as Martin to my teacher as a practice rehearsal, I had made him give off a comedic vibe. Since '13' should be the genre of Tragicomedy, I thought that this would be a perfect opportunity for me to show off my comedic humor in a performance.
Conclusion Of Day:
After receiving our roles, my second week on the course had ended. I have learnt a lot from this week about both Frantic Assembly and our first production for this year '13'. I hope that next week we can start doing rehearsals as I think it will be a lot of fun with my new classmates and I can have the chance to finally get into my characters shoes to see how he performs.
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