Rehearsal Time September - December (First Term)

We completed the setting up of our blogs and looked at the different ways we could structure it or lay it out. After this we discussed our own knowledge of the plot to Romeo and Juliet in as much detail as we possibly could. Leading on from this we were then split up into groups of 4 to create what we thought as a group were the most important scenes, my group decided this to be where Romeo first meets Juliet, their marriage and when Juliet finds Romeo dead of poison.

Today we learnt some improvisation techniques which helped us as a group to focus and to think of things on the spot to keep acting scenes moving fluidly. This is a useful technique as it allows us to adapt if anything goes wrong during the performance and make it seem as if nothing has gone wrong until it is able to get back to what it should be.

We began the lesson with a vocal warm up to relax our vocal muscles and to improve not only our pronunciation of certain words, but the articulation of difficult letters which is useful when performing Shakespeare, which is make up of words we no longer use.

Following on from this, in the Theatre we began by doing some improvisation activities such as walking around with a candle. After we had walked around the room for a sufficient amount of time we then had to chose a line from the play to speak to our candle, the line I chose was "Do you bite your thumb at me sir?".  Then we made a circle and played a game where we had to say someones name and if they said 'yes' then we could move into their pace and so forth. This game is useful as it means you have to be focused to hear the call outs and it's also helpful to learn everyone name effectively.

After that we moved into another improvisation activity where we were led around the room by our hand, then by both our hands, then our left or right foot and finally being led around the space by our shoulders. This exercise helped to warm our bodies up and made us able to move more freely.

Today we began working on choreographing the begging fight scenes between the Montague's and Capulet's which is instigated by Sampson and Abraham. At first we all stand in a line as if to insinuate a stand off with equal people on each side. After fighting the opposing person we then move into fighting the people who we choreographed our fighting scene with. We wanted the fight scene to be as realistic as possible so we tried to mime the movements as lose to our bodies as possible without actually causing any harm to our partners, this would then look better as it would be more realistic.

The actions are as follows:

After the fight we then remain where we finished to show the outcome of the battle. To further improve on the actions we just created we then added sounds to make it more realistic and immersive.

To warm up at the start of the lesson we played various game such as Wink Murder, Grandma's footsteps and improvisation games like Yes Lets. After we were fully warmed up, we continued working on the fight scenes we had started on Monday to try and fine tune them and make it as realistic as possible. After spending more time practising with my partner we added more movements but decided to finish in the same way as we felt it was the most dramatic way to end.

The new movements are as follows:

My partner and I decided to add 5,6 and 7 to make the piece longer and more brutal to fully show the violence between the two families.

To begin the day we continued working on our blogs, making sure that they were set up properly and to update them on the work we have done recently. Then moving onto an acting lesson where we began the lesson by getting into a circle and doing some warm-activities. These included rolling out shoulders backwards and forwards, bending forward until our hands touched the floors or as close as possible this would increase both our flexibility and energy which are both essential to act. Then some people told joke such as "Why did Sally fall off the swing?... Because she had no arms".

After this we then were given our roles in the production, my role is Lord Montague which I find to be a bit of a disappointment as the character does not have a lot of lines in this adaptation of the script leaving me little room to improve on my skills as an actor. After everyone was given their roles we moved onto reading through he script scene by scene with each actor saying the line of their character, this helps us to get a better understanding of the script and thus allowing us to get into our roles immediately. On the line "A pair of star crossed lovers take their life" Romeo and Juliet attempt to meet each other in the center of downstage which then leads to them being pulled apart by the 2 heads of the family, Lord Capulet and Lord Montague when they are closest together. And on the cue " 2 house holds both alike in dignity", the 2 households stand opposite each other as if they are ready to fight. Whilst reading through the script we mode notes on it about the cues and additions that we made.

After a short break we continued to practice our production. We started by running it through acting it our rather than sitting down to the scene of the Capulet party as that is when everyone is on stage, this took us till the end of the lesson.

Refining scenes 1-5 without the use of scripts as much as possible. This included looking more into the party scene which is the ensemble scene and we added the use of slow motion when Romeo and Juliet meet, this draws the attention from the audience onto the 2 as the room goes silent to hear what they are saying, this further shows us the importance of the both of them meeting and how it needs to be the most focused on part of the whole scene.

Today we looked deeper into our characters and came up with some ideas and themes that were not mentioned in the script that would make our character seem more real and ave more of a personality rather than just a character we have to act out.

For example I said this about my character of Montague "Montague is the head of the family and father of Romeo. He and his wife are concerned about Romeo's melancholy at the start of the play. Then to continue building my character I answered these questions:

• Who Am I?: Lord Montague.
• Where do I live?: Montague Household.
• What work do I do?: Run the family and some businesses around Verona.
• Friends?: Prince, Friar Lawrence.
• Family?: Romeo, Lady Montague, Benvolio.

We then had to look through the script to see if there were any lines that matched the ideas of what we thought our character was like, for example:

Montague is: 

• Aggressive - "Thou villain Capulet, hold me not, let me go.
• Respectful - "Alas my liege, my wife is dead tonight.
• Concerned - "What further woe conspires against mine age.

Then to finish we  had to create a backstory for our character without using the script which would then help us to get a better understanding of how the character should be portrayed and who they got to the potions they are in now I said this for Montague 

"Lady Capulet and Montague have an affair which results in the birth of Juliet which Lord Montague is unaware about due to Lady Capulet not telling him and the concern he feels already for his son Romeo, in shame and fear of Capulet finding out Lady Capulet passes on her motherly role for Juliet onto Nurse which his why their relationship is so distant. As she grows up both Montague and Capulet think that Juliet is from Capulet descent therefore it is never spoken about again. The morning after the affair Montague discovers that nearly all of his bossiness have been bought our by Capulet thus beginning his hatred for him and his intent to kill him at any chance, this also fuels the feud that would go onto last for much longer.

Continuing on with what we looked at yesterday which was looking deeper into the character that we are playing, we began the lesson by putting it into action and using what we had created to apply it during rehearsal, before I used to play Montague in a more relaxed respectful state but analysing the script more helped me to understand that I feel he should be played in a more violent aggressive way due to his past with Capulet.

The line where I confront Capulet (Thou villain Capulet, hold me not,let me go") on the streets of Verona is said to intimidate him and show that Montague's complete intentions are to kill him, drawing my sword as soon as I see him further helps to illustrate this. 

Talking about objectives and the magic 'if'.

Instead of having a lesson with just the Acting class we had a split lesson with the 1st Year Musical Theatre group to show them what we had created so far for our production and for them to show us theirs. Before this though we warmed up in a circle with stretches and various vocal exercises including the pronunciation of articulated letters and tongue twisters, whereas for stretching we rolled down our spines and let our hands touch the floor whilst swaying side by side and bouncing out heels lightly to increasing our flexibility.

We then had to work with someone from the opposite class and talk at them about our commute to school with the intention of getting them to stop speaking without raising our voices to quieten them . After we had both said our stories to each other we had to add movements along with lines to show them to the rest of the students. Me and my partner decided to do the same mornings as we originally had but to meet each other after missing the bus and walking to college together that way instead. After a short rehearsal period it was then performed to the class and we were given both positive and negative feedback on how our improvisational skills could be improved and what had worked well.

We then moved onto another practical lesson where we created a bio for each of our characters which we would then have to demonstrate with our partners.

This is the bio that I had created for my character Montague, it lists his general information, what he looks like and his likes and dislikes which include his dislike of Capulet but his fondness of his son Romeo. It mentions his clothes that he wears which is of high standard but lesser than what a Capulet or member of the royal family would wear such as Prince. In addition it also shows where he lives which is in a relatively high class area, Covent Garden. Montague's character was described my partner Molly who plays Lady Capulet, after she had described my character to everybody and I acted out actions along with it, I then read out her character's sheet and what she had come up with.

Went to Conway Hall ykno

At the workshop we were shown 5 guidelines to follow during acting:

1. Cheat with your feet - turn your feet to face the audience and adjust your position onstage so that you can be seen.

2. Embrace the audience magnet - don't perform too far upstage, bring the action downstage so it is easier for the audience to see and hear what is going on.

3. Kiss or kill position - only stand face to face, or really close, to someone unless you are either going to kiss or kill them. Spread out and use the stage, and open up to the audience.

4. Land your lines - make sure to project so that the audience members at the back and can hear.

5. Stay in character - make sure that even when walking on and offstage you stay in role.

Began this lesson by jogging around the room to raise our heartbeat and to warm our bodies up, then continued stretching to increase our flexibility so that we could perform our actions and movements better an d with more fluidity. Then some tongue twisters to improve our speaking ability, such as articulation and pronunciation. 

Then as usual we started rehearsing  and refining the scenes that needed more work.

Began by writing up the health and safety risks of the Romeo and Juliet production.

In Sharon's lesson we did the tutorial on what we think the college is like and how our experiences have been at the college so far, questions such as:

• 1. What information and support were you given when you enrolled to the college?
• 2. Do you think the enrollment process easy, do you think it was well organised?
• 3. Do you feel safe at college?
• 4. Would you recommend WKC to others?
• 5. Do you enjoy your lessons?
• 6. Is the work interesting?
• 7. Do you have a good relationship with staff?
• 8. What could we do at WKC to help achieve your qualification?
• 9. What could we do at WKC to improve your experience?

After that we were able to secure a tech and dress rehearsal for 1 run-through which was not that great.

Today neither of my teachers were in so we worked as a class independently on the scenes where people did not feel the most confident about them.