Monday 6th Of October 2014 Blog Entry:
Synopsis Of Day:
Lesson 1 & 2 - Physical Theatre And Contemporary Theatre:
To begin this week, we all had returned to our 'Physical Theatre' lesson where we had explored the environment of the classroom as our characters in '13's shoes. For my case, since I had 2 characters for '13', I did this exercise as Martin and I had a real picture of how he could walk, what his bodily habits are and how he could act towards other characters in the play.
This exercise did help me with some of my decision makings for my performance in '13' and hopefully, when it comes to the real performance in November, I'll be able to execute some of the choices I have made to contribute towards my characters, Martin and Paul, to gain a higher mark for my performance.
After I had done this exercise, my teacher made me and the group create their own character profile, to further detail what their characters personalities are in the performance, also mentioning what they are wearing during their time on stage.
I've made a separate Blog Entry to give further, specific detail about both of my characters, Martin and Paul, as too what I want them to be like and look during my portrayal for them in '13'. In terms of my sort of 'prototype' character profile, I gave brief details such as Martin wearing formal wear, since he is one of the Prime Ministers (Ruth) Political Adviser's; and Paul wearing a more casual attire (jumper, jeans, trainers) since he is one of the members of an Alpha Group in '13'.
After having done a brief character profile to work on as Homework for my '13' Reflective Blog Entries, me and the group split up and moved onto rehearsing for a short time before our 'Physical Theatre' lesson had ended.
Me, including some other actors in the room, had worked on Act 2 Scene 7 of '13' which will later on be refined by our teacher, if there is anything to improve, to then be fully blocked so we can move on with others scenes in the play. During the period of rehearsing this scene, I had some more time to go over the script of '13', in hopes of discovering any further information about either Martin or Paul to bring towards my Reflective Blog Entries for '13' to help contribute with my final grade for this production.
After a little while of reading the script and rehearsing Act 2 Scene 7, our 'Physical Theatre' lesson had ended. I had a good time, within this lesson, to do some independent study about my characters, Martin and Paul, to help contribute towards my Reflective Blog Entry for '13' this week.
After a short break, me and the group had returned to this weeks 'Contemporary Theatre' lesson, where we had further rehearsed for '13', but this time with more cooperation from our teacher to help block the scenes so we can all move onto other scenes within the play.
Me and the group of actors for Act 2 Scene 7 had a session with our teacher to give refinement and then fully block the scene. During this session, our teacher wanted all of us to work on our tone/pitch of our voice's during this scene, especially with the character called Sir Christopher, who should be a able to present a more powerful presence than all the other characters in this scene since he is a Military Leader who has to present the best military tactics with the British Prime Minister (Ruth) and American Ambassador (Dennis) to give benefits towards both countries in this time of war within '13'.
After refining and blocking Act 2 Scene 7 with our teacher, I had moved onto Act 2 Scene 11 of '13', which is a scene that is between the characters of John and Stephen, and my character, Martin, is in this scene briefly for his lunch break at the beginning when John is presenting a speech to the general public, I later exit the scene when John and Stephen start to communicate with each other. Since I wasn't really in this scene as Martin very much, I had even more time to take down more notes about my characters, Martin and Paul, to help contribute towards my Reflective Blog for this week by reading through the script of '13' once again, but more thoroughly this time.
Conclusion Of Day:
After a little while of taking down notes for my Reflective Blog and making any suggestions towards Act 2 Scene 11, this weeks 'Contemporary Theatre' lesson and the day had ended. I had a good time during today's lessons to take down detailed notes to work on any future Reflective Blog Entries for '13' to help improve the quality of my final overall grade in this production after the main performance in November.
Wednesday 8th Of October 2014 Blog Entry:
Synopsis Of Day:
Lesson 1 - Principals Of Acting:
To begin with today's lessons, me and the group had returned to this weeks 'Principles Of Acting' lesson, where we had looked towards the idea of something used in theatre called 'Stagecraft' and how we could implement it into our performance for '13'.
Stagecraft is used in theatre to present the whole balance of a performance, towards an audience, to give a more naturalistic and realistic vibe with the actors portrayal of their character's. We viewed the balance of our play, '13', as a plate, since Mike Bartlett, the author of the play, wanted it to be performed in a circular fashion. Me and the group had experimented, with our teacher, the stagecraft for '13' and how we could implement the circular fashion within each actors performance for their character's.
After experimenting, our teacher wanted all of us to look at, and realize, what our individual characters objectives and obstacles are for each scene in the play. For the objective within a scene, any character could be working towards gaining something and the obstacles are there to block them from accomplishing their objectives.
The whole group had worked with this idea of objectives and obstacles within some improvisation scenes, where our teacher called up 2 different actors and they would be given a made up scenario with one character having an objective whilst the other would be the obstacle blocking that characters path towards his/hers objective.
After a few scenarios implementing the made up characters objectives and obstacles, our teacher had moved onto something much different. I view this next task as 'The 10 Stages Of A Scene' because our teacher wanted us to work with the environment of the stage to help create dramatic moments/tension within a scene.
Our teacher had asked for a single volunteer to come up onto the stage to perform a dramatic scene with tension. I was the only one within the whole group that had wanted to go on stage to give this an attempt, which surprised me when I thought about it, because the point of being an actor within the Performing Arts Industry is to be open to volunteering to do things, much like this, so you can gain more skill within your performance, nonetheless, I went on stage and waited for my teachers instructions.
The scene I had to perform involves my character committing a suicide attempt, because of a made up reason which I had to think about. My teacher wanted me to perform this scene first hand without any instructions see what I'd do in this situation. The scene I had performed was pretty quick, and now that I think about it, the scene didn't really present any dramatic moments towards the audience. Because of this, my teacher had given me 10 different stages within the scene to help create more dramatic tension within the audience resulting in a much better performance. The second time round was much slower and the audience did confirm that it was indeed more tense to watch. My teacher did say that my original performance was good, but because of how quick it was, it just didn't create any dramatic tension within the audience at the time. Because I had volunteered to do this, I have gained a good skill which I could possibly implement in my performance for '13' to create that dramatic moment which the audience might have been waiting for to happen within the performance.
The final task for this lesson was to work with 'Transitive Verbs' which our character could relate to within a specific scene. A Transitive Verb is there to describe something that a character is doing within a scene towards another character, for example, I looked back towards Act 2 Scene 11, which I had performed in for Monday's 'Contemporary Theatre' lesson, and how I had acted towards the character of Sir Christopher within the scene. I came up with the phrase 'I Promote You' (You = Sir Christopher) since within the scene, because Sir Christopher is of a higher official member of the political party, I looked up towards him and presented my thoughts, which were mostly positive, towards his ideas to help 'Promote' him so Ruth, the British Prime Minister of the play, would also agree with his intentions.
After performing this task, our 'Principles Of Acting' lesson for this week had ended. I have learnt a lot about performance techniques within this lesson, as well as improving my skills on-stage, to develop dramatic moments within a scene. I have also gained some more knowledge about my character's in '13', and how they could both act towards others in the play to help improve my overall performance, since it's mostly physical because I don't have many lines in the whole play.
Lesson 2 - The Historical Context Of Performance:
After a short break, me and the group had returned to our 'Historical Context Of Performance' lesson for this week, where we were going to witness/show the presentations the whole group, as individual partners, have worked on the past week showing a specific context idea behind '13'.
I had witnessed the different presentations and had wrote down notes on several contexts within '13' such as 'The War During 13', 'Moral In Politics Within 13' and 'Biblical Relationships Within 13'. Unfortunately, me and my partner didn't have time within the lesson to preset our findings for the 'Relevance Of Contemporary Society Within 13' to the group, so our teacher had suggested we present it in tomorrows lesson, granting me and my partner more time to help refine it to become a better overall presentation.
After receiving notes on the contexts of performance within '13', our 'Historical Context Of Performance' lesson had ended. I have received a bunch of information about '13' which I could include within my Reflective Blog Entry for '13' this week. I have also received notes, from my teacher, as to how me and my partner could give a better presentation, so I'll be working on that for the time before presenting mine and my partners findings.
Lesson 3 - Performing Arts Business:
For today's 'Performing Arts Business' lesson, our teacher had wanted me and the group to look at what 'Personal Statements' are and to create our own one within the lesson to then later on finish it as homework until next week's lesson.
Conclusion Of Day:
Other than receiving feedback from our teacher about certain pieces of work some people had not yet submitted, our 'Performing Arts Business' lesson and day at college had ended. As mentioned before, I had learnt a bunch of performance techniques and improved my overall performance skills alongside, also learning more about my character's, Martin and Paul, to help develop my Reflective Blog for '13' this week.
Thursday 9th Of October 2014 Blog Entry:
Lesson 1 - Tutorial:
To start off the day, before we went back to rehearsing/blocking more of '13', our teacher wanted to give us all a guide/demonstration on how to use proper Bibliography (giving reference) within our Reflective Blogs. This session, again, ties into the Plagiarism session our teacher had brought us through in a previous lesson, but it was mainly to give us all a demonstration on how we give reference to something we have 'quoted' and then talked about in our Reflective Blog Entries. Our teacher then showed her own Blogs that she has been typing up for her own education, and she had used this form of Bibliography since it is considered more professional and it makes the structure of any piece of work more 'neat'.
After showing us about Bibliography, our teacher had moved on to show all of us the assignment briefs for both the Blog Entries and the main performance, which we will all be marked on to present the final grade for this production. Our teacher had explained that the only way to get a Distinction for this production is to be able to get both a Distinction grade in the Blogs and in the Performance Criteria. The assignment briefs are included for me to view at home on Moodle, so whenever I get home after college, I will look upon these assignment briefs to alter any previous work, and future work, I have done to a higher standard to hopefully be awarded with highest marks for this unit on the course.
After a brief discussion and any questions that our teacher needed to answer, our 'Tutorial' lesson for today had ended. Now that I can work alongside these assignment briefs, I can now easily work out how I can present my Blog Entries to top notch standard to, again, hopefully be awarded with the highest mark possible for this unit, being a Distinction.
Lesson 2 - Performance Workshop:
After having a lunch break, me and the group had returned to the 'Performance Workshop' lesson for this week. In this lesson, our teacher wanted us all to present a life secret/fact about ourselves to, I guess, make us all more open to the group and getting to know more about people in their private time away from college. The fact that I had brought to this lesson, since I don't hold any secrets, is that I haven't been abroad on holiday for 4 years. I do hope that this number doesn't increase in the future since I would love the chance to go to either America or southern Europe in the next year or so for a family holiday.
After everyone who had either a secret or fact to share about themselves, we had all moved onto rehearsing/blocking for our play, '13', once more. Our teacher had further refined the whole of Act 1 and has blocked each individual scene and it was up to us, as the actors, to remember each and every piece of movement and vocal presence within a scene to present the best performance to our audiences in November.
Since I already had all of my scenes in Act 1 blocked, there wasn't really much I could do in terms of rehearsing until next week, when we are all going to move onto blocking Act 2 of '13'. What I had done instead for this lesson was that I read through the script of '13' in a private manner once again, very thoroughly, to hopefully discover any more research findings which I could include on my Reflective Blog Entry for '13' this week. I found s bunch of information out of this session which I can talk about in this Reflective Blog, and I'll make sure it's all included when it goes up on Blogger after I have finished it.
Conclusion Of Day:
After writing down my research findings about my characters in my notebook, the 'Performance Workshop' lesson and week at college had ended. As I have previously mentioned, I found a bunch of information which I can apply towards my Reflective Blog for '13' this week and I'll be looking towards those assignment briefs to make sure I'm hitting each criteria correctly to hopefully achieve the highest mark for this unit.
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