BTEC Perfoming Arts - Logs

On Wednesday we performed our play for the Directors Challenge: Purple by John Fosse.  Overall, I think it went really well and there was no major slipups, no huge forgetting of lines or staging errors, there was a few pauses and silences but because of the nature of the play I think these were seen as intentional and just built the tension in the scene.  Something that I hadn't acknowledged fully before the actual performance was the dry humour of the script. I had been quite oblivious to this and focused quite heavily on the kind of dark, emotional aspect of the script and not realised the comedy of it. It wasn't until I was performing and I heard the audience laughing at certain moments, I realised this and therefore the real performance had a slightly different atmosphere to the other times we had rehearsed it.  One moment in particular was when The Boy starts playing his solo on his guitar, because the actor playing The Boy was so inexperienced at playing the guita...

 On this Monday, due to a training day we were able to have a full day rehearsal. I was only able to attend the morning because I had lessons at my guest school in the afternoon. However, I was there from 9 till 12 and we were able to block the entirety of the final scene with me and The Boy and by the end of that rehearsal we were able to perform it  without scripts and with a certain sense of realism. The last scene is really quite violent and graphic, the stage directions of the script direct The Boy to drag the girl around the room by her hair and throws her onto the floor. Our director had decided to go against that and didn't think that it would work with our set and actors so we went for a different approach, one that could easily look believable, create the same tension and dangerous atmosphere and obviously be safe for both of us to act.  So he decided that the boy would  push me up against the door with his right hand, strangle me, throw me onto a chair, ...

 On this rehearsal we were supposed to be doing a script free run-through whilst our teacher watched.  However, due to some people knowing very few of their actual lines we had to postpone this run-through for another time. So most of this rehearsal was spent learning lines, going over small bits of staging and making plans for fitting in extra rehearsals because it became very evident that we needed more time and we only had 2 weeks before performance. Because most of my speaking parts are with The Boy, I spent most of that two hour rehearsal helping him learn his lines because I knew the majority of mine. But it was actually quite useful to have a rehearsal that was focused solely on lines in which I could go over and over the script and really ingrain those lines whilst helping him to learn his lines. I also gained a better understanding of his lines from having to go over them and brake them up into smaller bits and decide what the intention was behind the words he was s...

On our final Wednesday rehearsal, we were able to do our script free run through in front of a teacher and  get that feedback that we needed to continue the development of the play before we perform it in a weeks time.  Before our teacher came in to watch the run through, our director spent a long time on the middle section of the script which I'm not a part of and because this section is so big and it has more characters in, it takes longer to perfect lines, ingrain the staging and work out the logistics of each key moment.  When watching this middle scene be directed I focussed mainly on the directions given to the character of The Boy because I think it's really integral for me as an actor to understand the difference between The Boy in the final scene and in the first scene because obviously there's a lot that happens in this middle scene and that definitely affects the way he behaves in the final scene. The Boy gets tantalised and emotionally tortured as well as bein...

 On our final rehearsal before the performance on Wednesday, we had about two hours to go over any final pieces that needed improving. Because we spent quite a long time on Saturday working on my scenes with The Boy, the majority of this rehearsal was spent on the middle scene with all of the band members and the actor playing The Singer wasn't there so I filled in for her. We focused on the moment where the Drummer takes the Boy into a headlock and humiliates him, says that he is going to shave all his hair off. Before we worked on this The Bass Player and The Singer had a very unrealistic, muted reaction to the abuse taking place so we really had to work on building up the pace of this scene to make it more realistic and make their reactions more shocked, fluid and natural.  So we decided that The Bass Player and The Singer would have a moment where they looked each other in complete shock and confusion before they approached The Drummer hoping that he would stop the aggress...

 On Saturday, 10 December we were able to have a full cast, full day rehearsal in which we were able to address a lot of the feedback given to us on the Wednesday rehearsal and do multiple run-throughs and focus on peoples characters. One of the main problems with the performance at this stage was the pace of it because people still weren't completely sure on their lines and the blocking it was still quite fresh in our brains so the pace really lacked. Therefore we started the day with we about three maybe speed run-throughs that condensed the 20 minute play into about 7. This was really useful in being able to pick up the pace of certain moments especially in the group scene when there's all four band members in the room. To further tackle this problem, our director also made the decision that overlapping lines would be a good idea to just add a more natural vibe to the dialogue because it was sounding really rehearsed and slow and lacked the energy that was needed. This was...

Full vlog:

For the directors challenge at N2C, I have I have been cast in the play Purple by Jon Fosse. This is a play about a teenage boy band, it explores the relationships the members have with each other and a girl. Upon the first read of the script, it's a very interesting play, there is a lot that is not said. It's mainly about the emotions of the characters and the relationships between them, there is a lot of tension and emotion.  It's quite short, I think I'll last under half an hour and it's all in real time as it's all very realistic, in a naturalistic Stanislavsky style.  I'm going to be playing the character of The Girl, I think I'll be able to connect with her character as she is a teenage girl and I'm a teenage girl and being a naturalistic performance I think that will work well, but for the same reasons this might be difficult because I don't want her character to be just like me and without the need to put on an accent or wear a complete...