Drama: Week Three

Monday 22^nd September 2014

Today we did a warm up as usual, and some more tongue twisters.

We did some more work on pronouncing vowels and projecting our voices by using our diaphragm.

We played a game in pairs where you take it in turns to lead one another around by the nose. To do this, you place your index finger about six inches away from your partners face, and make slow, controlled movements with it. Your partner has to keep their nose at that same distance away from your finger constantly, and go wherever you lead.

This exercise requires a lot of concentration and teamwork. You need to be focused in order to follow your partner’s finger immediately it moves and maintain the correct distance between their finger and your nose. It requires teamwork, because if you don’t work together, you can’t get it right. You need to be as synchronised as possible. Making eye contact with your partner can help build a strong focus between the two of you. You also need to use your peripheral vision in this exercise and be aware of the space around you, so that you don’t crash into other people.

We did improvisations in groups of four. We were given two tasks to do in our groups. Firstly, we had to pick a film and do a freeze frame representing it. Then we had to do a short re-enactment of one scene from the same film. The film that my group chose to do was the Matrix.

We were also given our assignments on this day. We were put into pairs and each given a script, a short excerpt from a Greek play. I was put into a pair with Jerome, and  the script we were given was a scene from Eudipedes’ Medea. We were given some time to rehearse our script and familiarise ourselves with it before going home.

Tuesday 23^rd September 2014                                       

We started the day by doing a warm up and then doing some vocal work. We did tongue twisters, including “Red lorry, yellow leather, red leather, yellow lorry” and “Irish wristwatch, Swiss wristwatch”.

Then we had rehearsal time. Jerome and I worked on learning our lines and trying to familiarise ourselves with our parts and the scene, and we ran it quite a few times, giving one another feedback and developing ideas on how to perform the script.

Once we had spent some time rehearsing, we sat down and watched Didi and Brandon do their scene from Trojan Women. They then did an exercise for us all to watch in which they had to read out their script again, but do it in some different styles. At first they had to just speak their lines to one another as if it was a normal, toned down conversation, then they had to be flirtatious, and then they had to be drunk.

We had more rehearsal time after that, and then we each performed two minutes of our script to everyone else.  

Once we had finished doing practical work, we watched an interesting documentary on Greek theatre. 

Wednesday 24^th September 2014

Today we elaborated further on an exercise we did a few weeks ago.

What we had to do was each choose a fairytale or myth and think through the story of it in our minds so we were clear on the beginning, middle and end.

Then we paired up and told one another the story of our chosen fairytale or myth. I was in a pair with Nuray. She told me the story of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I told her the story of Hansel and Gretel. Next, we joined together with another pair, and one by one we told our partner’s story to the other pair. The pair we joined together with was Katy and Brandon. Brandon’s story was Cinderella, and Katy’s story was Tangled, the Disney adaptation of Rapunzel.

Once we knew all four stories, we had to choose one of them. 

We chose Cinderella. Our task now was to prepare and rehearse a short performance of the story, summarised so it wasn't too long.

Each group then performed their story to the other students.

Later on in the day, we had to do our stories again, but this time we were only allowed to use physical theatre to tell the story. I feel that this exercise really helped me to develop my physical theatre skills. Not only did it make me consider different ways of presenting the story, but it also allowed me to put them into practice and get used to using physicality to act. I really enjoyed it.

Again, each group performed the new, physical theatre version of their story, and we all gave feedback to each group. 

This is the feedback which our group received:

• We portrayed our characters clearly
• We used our rehearsal time well, as it was well structured and rehearsed
•   Our transitions from scene to scene were smooth

We also wrote log books of everything we did on this day and on the previous Wednesday. 

Drama: Week Two

Monday 15^th – Tuesday 16th September 2014

We did more on articulation on these two days. It was nice to work on it because practice makes perfect, after all. We did more tongue twisters such as

 “Can Khan call Khartoum? If Khan can, can he call quickly?” and

“Thirty three thousand frying flying fish, frying.”

Obviously to say tongue twisters properly you have to articulate and make sure you pronounce every word and syllable clearly, but it also takes a lot of focus. It was fun, though.

We also read out a poem by Roger McGough called “Let Me Die a Young Man’s Death”.

We read out a line of the poem each, as we had done the previous week with Ozymandias.

Later on in the day, we worked further on improvisation.

We did an exercise called post cards. In this simple game, you split into groups of about four. Rob then gives us the name of a country, and we have about a minute to come up with a freeze frame which we think represents that country.

We also did an improvisation where you had to get into pairs and have a conversation, but part way through the conversation you have to act like you’ve just realised the other person has bad breath. We also had conversations in pairs where you had to act like you had a secret crush on the other person.

We played a similar improvisational game to one we did last week, where we performed an improv in pairs, with only an environment and one scripted line each to work with.

Wednesday 17^th September 2014

We spent this entire day telling our stories based around an object to the rest of the group.

We told our stories, which could be either true or false, one by one, and presented the object our story revolved around to the other students. We then had to vote and guess whether we thought people’s stories were true or not, and we gave feedback to one another on our story telling skills.

This was my story:

Last year, during the summer, I was on a train journey from London to Penrith, which is a small town in Cumbria. It was quite a long journey, and whilst I was on the train, my phone ran out of battery and died. There was no wall socket to charge it in at my table, so there was nothing I could do.

In order to tell the time throughout the journey, I decided to get my little pink alarm clock out of my bag, and put it on the table. I had it with me because I take it wherever I go travelling, as my grandparents bought it for me quite a few years ago, so it means a lot to me.

The whole journey was fine, and when we got to Penrith station, I got my luggage and got off the train. But as I stood there on the platform, I realised that I had left the clock on the table. The train hadn’t pulled away yet, so I quickly got back on with my luggage, and went over to the table. I got my clock and made my way back down the carriage, but before I made it back off the train, the doors closed and we set off again!

I stayed on the train until the next stop, Carlisle station. While I waited to reach Carlisle, I called my mum and told her what had happened. She wasn’t very happy, but she left Penrith station, where she’d been waiting to pick me up when I got off the train, and she drove to collect me from Carlisle instead.

It was a bit of a messy situation, but at least I got my clock back!

The end.

This story wasn’t true, but the majority of the class guessed that it was. Some people saw the flaws in my story though, and worked out that it was a lie!

Some of the feedback I was given was as follows;

·         I needed to work on the structure of my story more, because I contradicted myself. After saying that my phone died on the train, I later said I used it to call my mum on the way to the next station. Oops…

·         The manner in which I told my story was convincing

·         The detail in my story was good

It was an interesting little project to work on, I really enjoyed it, and the constructive feedback I was given by the rest of the group was helpful.

Thursday 18^th September 2014
 

Unfortunately, I didn’t make more specific notes on this day, but we worked on more of the same stuff we had been doing over the past week and a half. 

Drama: Week One

The first week of our course was focused mainly on getting to know one another and learning to work together. We did a lot of drama games and improvisation to build our confidence and have fun as we got to know the course, tutors and other students.

Here is a brief rundown of each day:

Monday 8^th September 2014:

On the first day we did a lot of improvisation.

In blog and tutorial we set up our blogs and users on the college system.  

Tuesday 9^th September 2014:

We started the day by doing a basic warm up, and then focused on articulation and projection.

We practiced sounding out different vowels and consonants and worked on projecting our voices loudly without a glottal being audible.

To practice throwing our voices we did an exercise in which you imagine yourself throwing a bucket of water over a hill, at the same time as doing the corresponding action.

We also did some tongue twisters to develop our articulation.

After warming up our voices and bodies, we were each given a copy of a poem named Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe.

We took turns and read out a line of the poem each, trying to put into practice the vocal skills we had been working on. We also tried to portray emotion in our reading out of the poem, and it came together quite nicely.

We were also put into teams of about six and given a short quiz to do. This was enjoyable because it got people working together and showing their competitive sides a bit!

We did some improvisation as well.

We would go up into the performance space in pairs and improvise short pieces of drama. We were taught the importance of not blocking, and had to get used to the idea of going along with whatever the other person suggested in the improvisation. 

To add a little more interest to the improvisations, everybody wrote down an opening line and an emotion.

When you went up to do an improvisation, you picked out an emotion and opening line at random from the ones that everyone had written, and had to use them in the improvisation. We were also given an environment which our characters had to be in, and that made it more fun to play around with.

We also played an improvisation game called Goalie.

In the game, one actor stands on stage and takes on the role of the “goalie”.

People can volunteer to go up and start an improvisation, and the goalie has to go along with whatever that person’s idea is.

On this day, we also had the opportunity to watch some of the second years’ short pieces.

It was interesting and helpful to watch them perform.

Wednesday 10^th September 2014:

This was the first day of lessons that we had with Sharon.

We started the day by warming up, and then we walked around the space in the room and had to freeze when we were instructed to by Sharon. This exercise made us more aware of and familiar with the space we were working in, and kept us on our toes, making us listen carefully in order to be able to freeze on time.

After we had warmed up, we split into pairs, and played a game where we had to mirror one another. We stood opposite one another and took turns to lead.

Whoever was leading had to do slow movements and gestures and their partner had to mirror them exactly and try to keep in time with them. The objective was to be so in sync with one another that if you looked at the pair you wouldn’t be able to tell who was leading.

We then worked on this further by going into groups of four, and doing a similar exercise, only this time, we had to stand in a line side by side, all facing the same direction. Again we took it in turns to take the lead, but it was trickier to keep in sync with more people, using only your peripheral vision to see what the others were doing.

This exercise built trust, teamwork and concentration.

After this, we split into pairs again. Now we had to tell our partner the story of our holiday. Once we had exchanged stories, we teamed up with another pair, and had to tell them one another’s stories.

We then had four different stories to work with, and we had to come up with a short piece of drama based on one or more of our holiday stories.

We had some time to prepare and rehearse our piece, and then we took it in turns to perform. We all gave each group feedback on their performance.

Our next task was to split into groups and make a spider diagram of everything we knew about physical theatre.

Once we had done this, we went back into our groups of four which we performed in. It was now our task to perform our piece again, only this time we couldn’t talk, we just had to use physical theatre to tell the story.

Again, we rehearsed for a while before performing for one another and giving and receiving feedback on the performances and the use of physical theatre in them.

The homework we were given for next week was to prepare a short story, true or false, based around an object. We would have to bring in the object next Wednesday and tell the story to the rest of the class.

Thursday 11^th September 2014

We started the day by warming up and doing some voice exercises.

Then we learnt about subtext and objectives.

We did some improvisation then, keeping in mind what we had learnt about the objective and the subtext.

We worked in groups of four, and had to prepare and perform a four line long improvisation. We each had to choose one line and one line only from a selection we had been given, and then we built a scene surrounding those four lines.

Then we split up into pairs.

We were given three short scripts to choose from. We had to learn the lines from our chosen script and then improvise the rest of the scene ourselves.

Once we had prepared and rehearsed, we took it in turns to perform.  

Technical Theatre

Today in Technical Theatre, we learned how to rig and de-rig a light.

Here is what we learned about rigging the light:


1. The first thing you need to do is check that your lantern is fully equipped with all of the accessories it needs. For example, you should never use rig a lantern which doesn't have a safety chain attached.


2.Once you have made sure your lantern is fully prepared, take it with you to the lighting bar.


3. Place the lantern onto the bar and secure it by tightening the wing screw attached to the G Clamp.


4. Loop the safety chain around the bar, a few times if it is too long, and secure it back onto itself.


5. Focus and position the light so it points where you want. You can use the handle at the back of the light and the turning knob on the side to move it without touching the actual light.


6. On the top of the lantern you will find another wing screw. You can untighten this and it allows you to move the lantern during rigging and focusing, but then you must tighten it again to make sure that the lantern is secure.


7. Now you can plug the flex into the socket. If there is excess cable, you can wrap it loosely around the bar before plugging it in.


And this is what we learned about de-rigging the light:


You basically do the steps you just did, but in reverse.


1. Unplug the flex from the socket.


2. Take off the safety chain.


3. Untighten the wing screw and remove the lantern from the bar.

We were taught the names of different lights and what they do.

1. Fresnel: Fresnels are very commonly used lanterns. They provide a short edged beam of light, which you can adjust by moving the lamp.
2. Profile: Profiles can provide a very direct beam of light. You control the light in a profile by moving the lens. You can further control the light with gobos and iris's.
3. Flood: Floods can light large areas of the stage, but you can't control the beam of light from them.
4. Parcan: Parcans are like floods, but not as intense. The beam from the Parcan can be controlled using the lamp itself.
5. Follow spot: Follow spots are also very commonly used. The beam of light they provide is a circle which can focus on an actor and follow them around the stage.

We were also taught the names of some different accessories.

Barndoor
Gel frame
Safety Chain
Gobo
Iris
Gel
Shutters