Monday 16th September
We started the morning off in the Margaret Armstrong Theatre with the second years and did a warm up games, some we knew like for example 'wah', and some that were new to us like 'cat and mouse' and 'chicken in the hut'.
We then started to learn about the stage directions and positions which are from the audiences point of view, such as 'stage right', 'stage left' ,'down stage' ,'up stage and also 'stage centre'. This is all to make sure that that there is no blocking between any characters on stage whilst doing a show.
After that we then got into groups of five and started to do a but of improvisation with certain objects that were given to us. So for example, our group was given a goblet and we had to use our imagination which was he main focus of this task, we only had three minutes to come up with 40 different things that you could do with that certain object that you were given. As the objects started to change it was proven to us that you can imagine anything as anything whilst just out of one single object that your given.
When we finished that, we got into different groups of people and started to do some more improvisation along with some freeze frames that came along with it. When we were given a scene do do by our tutor 'Kelly' and then asked to do a freeze frame which make the scene more tense because of how still we had to be. This was to test our focus for when we were asked to do a freeze frame.
We then got into pairs of two and started to practice and get to know a couple of tongue twisters. When reading these tongue twisters, some of them were a challenge for us and it was important to remember how to pronounce them correctly. We were then given a slip of paper which had one tongue twister on it and try to pronounce it to each other. We tried our best with pronouncing the different tongue twisters, some were easy to pronounce and some were difficult to pronounce, so the ones that we struggled to pronounce is the ones that we had to work on and practice to test ourselves.
Tuesday 17th September
We started off with a usual warm up to get us ready for the day and start of the lesson with the games that we were introduced to such as 'cat and mouse' and 'splat'.
We were then given a scrumped piece of paper which was passed around the room to everyone and we had to use our imagination that it was a baby bird, when it was passed around to us we looked after it and treat is as if it was an actual baby bird. However when we gave it back to our tutor 'Kelly' she threw it on the floor and stood on it with no care what so ever and leaving us all mortified even tho it was just a piece of paper scrumped up, but our imagination was telling us that it was a baby bird because of how we all treat it. We were then given another piece of paper however this one wasn't scrumped up it was just a blank piece of paper with nothing written on it, we the had to imagine this as a love letter from the Victorian times, so when it was passed around to us even tho there was nothing written on the paper, our imagination was still persuading that it was actual love note for the Victorian period.
We were then put into pairs of two and were given a mini script on a sheet of paper with lines A and B and we had to act out the scene that we were given by using Stanislavsky's method 'Magic if' which means what would you do if you were in this situation if that was you. So for example, we had to imagine that B has been on a date and A is extremely curious and whats to know whats happened, even tho B has no idea whats going on.
After that we then went down to our LRC to do some of our independent study time, where we had to carry out some in depth research on any of the following characters such as 'Carrie', 'Sweeney Todd' and 'Mrs Lovett' , 'Clowning', 'Bill Sikes' or the 'child catcher' from 'Chitty Chitty bang bang''. When researching one of these characters that we were doing, we had to make sure that it included (the understanding of the character, who they are, the relationship between them and the victims and what makes them a villain or the character who they are.
Wednesday 18th September
For our warm up this morning to get us ready for the lesson, we played the game 'Lockers' which some of us already knew how to play last year in level 2 performing arts. This game involved serious concentration and a test to see how well your listening skills are, which is useful for when doing performing arts and training to become an actor.
After that we were then put into groups of six where one person had to stand in the middle and we had to create the theme of 'immersive theatre' around them which is when the audience and actors are mixed together which starts to create one big scene and the person in the middle would be classed as the audience. When doing the immersive theatre to the person in the middle would stand there and it was our job to try our best to scare them or freak them out, but we were not allowed to touch or speak to them, the only part of speaking or physical contact that we can do is make certain creepy noises and staring at them dead in the eye which would then freak them out.
We then came up with our full scare act and also had as clever but intense plan, where four different people would stand in the middle and we would come up with different ideas/ways to scare them each time when we repeated it. For example 'walking incredibly slow like a zombie', 'humming creepy noises and songs like (ring around the roses) and also letting out powerful but terrifying screams at them.
We then had the film and TV students come in groups of four one at a time and we then practised our scare acting on them to get their reactions, each time different people came in , we got different ideas which resolved to different reactions from each student who came in.
We then started to look at what character we wanted to audition for and portray for when we do the ghost light tour at Stockton Globe. We were shown different scripts from different scenes which involved different characters like (Bill Sikes, Clowns, Carrie, and Sweeney Todd). In order to want to audition and play these characters, we had to get their (accent, characterisation, personality and posture) 100% perfect.
We were then given a posted note with different characters like (Bonnie and Clyde, Sweeney Todd, Bill Sikes and Nancy, the child catcher and Lady Macbeth). We then got into the groups of what character we wanted to go for, so the people who wanted to play Bill Sikes would go and rehearse his lines. When I went for Bill Sikes, I started to add in little extra bits for the scene that included him and also tried to practice his cockney accent and also being in the physicality of the person.
We then did our second dance lesson with Abbie to get us fit and heathy for when becoming a actor,. We also came up with different ideas on how we can stay healthy and keep ourselves ready and fit. We also learned that its important to look after ourselves and have a clear mindset for when becoming an actor/performer.
Thursday 19th September
We started our warm up as usual to get us ready for our lesson by playing the games of '13', 'The nun game' where we had to try not to laugh, and also 'wah' to test our focus skills.
We then moved onto learning about (Stanford Meisner) where we were given a script to practice our emotions and how we would react if something happened. We were shown a quote from a character saying "I'm sorry, I never meant to do it I swear" and practiced saying them to each other to see what the other persons reaction would be in respond to us saying the line to that person. We showed in groups our performances of us saying the line and the other person responding with their facial expressions/emotions.
Another thing we did to practice our emotions is that we stood in front of a mirror and we were asked to think of a special moment in life, and when we think of that moment, we would capture our emotions when we look at ourselves in the mirror.
We also had a session with 'Tom' where we warmed up by playing a game called 'The village', this was to test our knowledge and our suspicions as to who we thought were the vampires and the other characters in the game. We also did some lip movements, face movements and deep breathes to get us ready. After that, we then went on to learning about 'Bertolt Brecht' where we learned about the similarities between him and 'Stanislavsky' in theatre and where also asked to do some research on the important parts about him and his methods like e.g. 'The Verfremdungseffekt'.
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