Act 1 finished

Lesson 8- 3rd April

In this weeks lesson we completed blocking act 1, so the next weeks will be for cleaning up.

I think this weeks lesson was successful because:

• I new all my lines and was confident with them although I did have my script in my hand just incase 
• I new my staging and blocking 
• Everyone seemed to work hard and stay focused 

knowing my lines really helped me get to grips with the blocking more because it forced me to know my queues and rely on others more meaning we worked more as a team, in comparison to relying on my script. I learnt how to keep an audience engaged by keeping up the energy using my physicality's and voice.

Things i'm going to do for next week:

• Learning my lines fully, so i am confident without a script
• Keep others energy levels up as after a while the energy sometimes drops
• Work more with Romy (Estella) to get their relationship more clear to the audience 

Extra Rehearsals

Lesson 7- 31st March 

On Monday we had an extra two hour rehearsal to help us along with our play.

From this lesson i learnt that communicating with the others alongside you is key in making sure you are all on track and can be fast with moving on with the play. Not just focusing on my character and feeding of of others physicality's and characterisation not only benefits me as an actor but the whole play becomes more real and true as we all start to believe what we're doing and this ultimately lifts the whole performance. It also makes us unite more as one group of actors and allows other people to understand what we're doing making us better on a whole. 

On reflection from this rehearsal i think that added rehearsals builds the characters and scenes and are needed in order for us to be confident and comfortable with our lines and what's going on around us.This is a photo of a scene where Joe comes to Satis house, I enjoyed doing this scene as it's the first interaction Miss Havisham has with another character besides Pip and Estella. I worked with using strong physicality's to show my character through sitting on a chair but also to make getting up and venturing around more interesting.

Thrust Staging

Lesson 6- 27th March

In this weeks lesson we started by running the play from the beginning all the way up to where we got up to last lesson. Again this was more of a perfecting lesson as there were still parts that needed to be gone over and changed slightly. We went onto one of my scenes which was nice as I had an opportunity to try out some new ideas and work more on my character choices.


I also looked at performing in a thrust layout and how to be mindful of the audience in this performance space. I have not performed in this kind of layout before and I now know that I have to be mindful of what the audience can see, what the audience can hear and the interaction between the actors and the audience. From this weeks rehearsals i have learnt how to engage an audience into what's going on on stage using my positioning, meaning that all audience members get the same experience wherever they are sat.

I also learned that by pushing your character, and making bold choices this dominates the stage more and makes the performance 100 times better, for the actors as they are able to feed of each other and push themselves harder by seing their fellow actors working hard, also making it a lot more enjoyable for the audience.

Perfecting Scenes

Lesson 5 - 20th March (after break)

We began this weeks lesson by walking around in the space- changing our physically to our characters and pushing ourselves, our bodies and our energy. This helped us refresh our memory and get focused. I found this really useful as this was just a couple of minutes to have to ourselves, to remember all our previous exercises on building our character and to add any changes or ideas we had come up with during the break.

We began by going over the scenes we did the last rehearsal we had, unfortunately we didn't get to do any new scenes as we used this week to go over and clean up the scenes we have already done, this was necessary as we had not done these scenes for some time so to make sure we had not forgotten any of the work we had done the previous weeks or to go over any bits we were not sure about we took this time to clear this up. Although I felt like we needed to push on and get through some more of the play we needed to finish simple blocking before we added detail and moved on. However a benefit of doing so, meant that the material we do have is polished and we know exactly what were doing.

One scene that has been sharpened up the most is the Gargery parlour dinner scene, this was quite messy last time we went over it and I know some of the actors were confused by parts so by going over it over and over again it became stuck in their heads and cleared up any doubts or confusion, by doing this it all adds up to the finish result being the amazing production we all want it to be.

 At the end of the lesson we filled out a self assessment. Writing out what I was good at and my targets really helped see what I had to improve on. My targets where to go over my lines as I am still not 100% comfortable with them, feel more confident in my characters choices and go over the meaning of my lines so I can understand them more clearly.

Lesson 4- My first scene as Miss Havisham

Lesson 4 - 13th February

In this weeks lesson we introduced Miss Havisham and Estella and began working on the scene where Pip visits Miss Havisham's house for the first time. This was exciting for me because I haven't acted as my character yet so I finally got to test out all the practice of physicality's I have had in previous lessons. We started by setting a way for Miss Havisham to enter onto the stage in a visually effective way, we decided that I would come on and stand next to the chair that I would later sit on, with my back turned to the audience. this made it more effective as when I turned round and sat on the chair it signified a change of setting ( from going upstairs to my room into my room). 

 

 Testing out my voice and physicality was really interesting for me, but a big learning curve as I could see what worked and what didn't. I found that my voice was a sharper and more bitter than the original voice I was going for ( the BBC adaption of G.E), I preferred it and my director liked it as well so I found this really helpful.

In this lesson we also were given sheets where we had to pick one person and asses there rehearsal level and characterisation. Zion and I worked together. I watched her throughout rehearsals and could see that she was focused and listened to feedback given to her by her director, she also was learning her lines and adding detail to her character even though chorus still making her character strong and her own. My feedback was also positive however points I need to work on for next week will be to work even more on my characterisation and work with different voices and physicality, by testing these things as much as possible I know the end result of my character will be the best it can be. Doing this task helped us to see what we were doing well and what areas we needed to improve on,  by giving us an insight into what others thought of us. This was successful as i now know what i need to do in order to gain a distinction in the rehearsal process and how to improve my character in during reearsals.

Physicality's

Lesson 3 - 6th February

We began this weeks lesson by walking around the room in neutral and then changing our physicality to our characters. I began walking as Miss Havisham by leading from my nose and walking with confidence and poise but as i was walking around, i thought about  her back story and although she is rich and confident I thought she would be a bit more hunched and light so I changed from leading from my nose to leading from my shoulders this created

a stronger looking character to me.

Next, individual characters such as myself (Miss Havisham) and Magwitch walked around the room whilst the rest of the group watched. Whilst the characters were walking around they made their lines louder and made their physicality stronger. From this activity I learnt that performing and rehearsing in front of others is an excellent way to focus on your character, but also to get others opinions on your choices and ways to improve. From this one simple exercise I bettered my character physicality's and also thought more about the thoughts and feelings of the character while I was displaying her appearance.

 

We started off where we had left last week, the battery scene and started work on the Gargery parlour scene, where I become a part of the battery physically and then go off. This created a smooth and interesting transition between scenes which ultimately creates a much better looking and feeling play.

Energy Level- Lesson 2

Lesson 2 - 30th January 

In this weeks lesson we began by walking around the room in neutral and then changing our bodies into our character. Walking around as Miss Havisham helped me to incorporate all the physicality's f the character I had learnt in the previous week and become Miss Havisham at a quicker pace . We then stood still with our eyes closed, as we breathed in and out we breathed in our character, their inner thoughts, physicality's and facial expressions. this was a calm and successful method that got us to become our character. This meant we were more focused as a group and were in the right zone in order to get straight on with our work.

First the opening where all the cast come onto the stage and the beginning of the graveyard scene where Pip first meets Magwitch. After working on scene 1 my charcter isn't seen until a few scenes later so most of the lesson consisted of running over act 1, note taking and learning my lines which i found just important as acting as in order to make the end play the best it can be I need time to look through my parts of the play and also look at the parts i'm not in to help pick up on things that could be done slightly differently or thing some of my ideas that would benefit from an audience point of view.   

Later on we started work on the battery scene, which is when Pip returns to Magwitch with the objects he had asked Pip to get for him. This was a challenging scene, as we had to think of ways to create the battery with no props. So instead of using real objects we used our bodies to create the things that would be in the battery, like an old cannon, boxes and guns. We did this by getting in small groups of 3-5 and physically creating the objects. Once we had done this we had to place the objects on the stage to create an interesting visual experience for the audience while still keeping Magwitch and Pip visible. My group made a battery of an English cannon to do this we lay down in a straight line and joined hands, we angled our bodies forwards so that the audience could see the main characters and could see what object we were creating.

This is a collage of pictures from this weeks lesson.

The top right (my group) and bottom left pictures show some of the physicial objects we made for the battery.

From this weeks lesson I have learned that even if you are not acting there is always something to do such as note taking, idea sharing and personal development your character. I have also learnt that after a while working on a scene may get tiring but to ensure that your piece is the best it can be keep your energy level up.