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Performance, Musical Theatre Project 

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Part 3, Musical Theatre Project 

Bibliography

•Musical theatre staging / the ensemble: Deer, J (2014) Directing in Musical Theatre– An Essential Guide. Routledge. Chapter 2: ‘Imagining the Chorus’

•‘Welcome to the Rock musical number video: www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Come From Away performance ‘Welcome To The Rock’ | Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcI1EKE01S0&t=118s [Accessed 20 May. 2022].

•‘Omigod’ musical number video: Gilmar Estevam (2018). Legally Blonde The Musical (Pro-shot MTV). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiX-EJA8n4w. [Accessed 20 May. 2022].

•Come From Away | Now on Broadway. (2019). Come From Away | Now on Broadway | Official Site. [online] Available at: https://comefromaway.com/about.php[Accessed 23 May. 2022].

Image 1: Broadway San Jose. (2021). Come From Away | July 12, 2022. [online] Available at: https://broadwaysanjose.com/shows/come-from-away[Accessed 24 May. 2022].

•Image 2: McCarthy-Miller, B., Mitchell, J., Hach, H., Brown, A., Bundy, L.B., Borle, C., Orfeh and Blake, R.H. (2007). Legally Blonde: The Musical. [online] IMDb. Available at [Accessed 23 May. 2022]. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1125194/.

•Image 3: Theater West End. (n.d.). Can’t Stop Our Beat: An Afternoon of Broadway, featuring Laura Bell Bundy. [online] Available at: https://theaterwestend.com/events/laurabellbundy  [Accessed 24 May. 2022].

•Image 4: www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Come From Away performance ‘Welcome To The Rock’ | Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcI1EKE01S0&t=118s [Accessed 20 May. 2022].

•Image 5: rakuten.tv. (n.d.). Rakuten TV. [online] Available at: https://rakuten.tv/ie/movies/the-killing-of-a-sacred-deer [Accessed 24 May. 2022].

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Part 2, Musical Theatre Project 

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Part 1, Musical Theatre Project 

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part 3

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part 2

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Part one

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Evaluation Blog part 1

Our performance went better than expected given the fact we performed from home. In terms of tech, we were satisfied and thankful for working together. In the actual performance there were two accidental mishaps that happened. The first one was, we had prepared a disclaimer that didn’t end up being heard. This was slightly concerning since the audience wasn’t informed about any of our trigger warnings, including eating disorders and mental health issues. The second was towards our last section, six years after the pandemic there was a small glitch to the music but it was resulted quickly.

Overall both Sophie and Caitlyn were lovely to work with, during an online performance accidents are most likely possible. In terms of teamwork, my group and I had great chemistry so we worked well. We did face communication issues at times, but it was understandable due to the current possible struggles faced from the Coronavirus outbreak. I would say a weakness that wasted much of our time was overthinking how to physicalize the piece instead of getting up and start blocking. Another struggle was connection issues which nothing could be done and being aware of the space when it came to frame. We were all quarantining so we had a tiny workspace. This was frustrating when working with the camera especially on our movement sequences and dancing, we tended to get out of frame. Another challenging part would be that we were the ones creating the script, therefore it changed a lot. Thankfully our tutor, Sita, gave us great guidance on finalising the structure, ques and lines. I found it very helpful on my free time to write down my ques in order to make a rehearsal process and character development.

A frustrating part would also be on our third section where we used placards to cover the camera in order to clearly show each character’s experience. My order of coloured placards did not arrive on time so I had to improvise with different coloured shirts. This was a bit risky because in times, the colour green would look like a shade of blue and the colour red would look like a shade of pink. The position of our hands holding the placard did get uncomfortable so it tended in times to raise higher than necessary and also in times the viewer could see our fingers in frame. In terms of strengths, the style of our performance in a form of an interview interacted directly with the viewer because of the use of direct, up close eye contact to the camera. I also thought adjusting our computers and the statues we used made the the viewers curious for our next action. The different order of our spoken line kept the audience on its toes. Distinctive mood shifts were effective, there was a change of up lifting music being entertaining and fun shifting to pessimistic music showing the loss of hope due to the sudden Covid-19 pandemic. If I had the chance to perform this show again I would defiantly make some changes.

Overall, I feel good about the experience, I feel that I gave a good contribution to the group and had good work ethic. Like all member in my time I became both leader and a follower during rehearsals. There were some areas that could be developed. I would consider making a bigger contrast between the characters, they needed to be more developed in terms of acting. In terms of the movement, the second sequence where we rip our hearts, symbolising hope, it could have been more effective if the character Yellow played by Jack didn’t rip his heart so it doesn’t show only a negative aspect but a positive one. It was a unique experience one not to be forget. I still haven’t adapted yet because I am used to working with my teammates in person. This style of performance educated me how to interact with an audience though a screen. Creating a piece of theatre from home helped me to encourage myself to think outside of the box. It has also made me understand that in complicated scenarios simplicity is key.

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Rehearsal Blog 4

4. Off script run through.

For our first script off run through, we set a goal to have an off book rehearsal and memorise the movement sequences. I was a bit concerned at the start because I struggled memorising the movement due to connection issues I was dealing with; I was worrying about any possible delays because I kept talking over my teammates. Order was a little harder to memorise than usual since we created the script therefore, kept changing. I memorised my lines with the previous que so I kept confusing the order. Due to the camera image being distorted at times, it was difficult to synchronise. Clear articulation and pace was a main struggle due to my current difficulty of my Greek accent becoming thicker as a result of me having to my return home. I soon overcame this because I took my time to understand my character and figure a pace that works with how red (my character) was feeling.

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Rehearsal blog 3

1. The movement sequence

In this blog I will talk about the second half of the show in which we did our second movement sequence. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic our show was performed and viewed from Zoom. Due to this unfortunate circumstance, physical contact was not allowed. Our group struggled finding a clear way of showing an interaction with each other that could also be relevant to our theme. We started debating about the purpose of each section and how would we express it through movement.

With the repetition of the questions we moved on our next section, the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. We decide to play with perspective. Our characters looked directly to the camera with similar facial expressions. We also synchronized our movement as we adjusted the camera in our rooms, we moved back and forth from the camera to create a change of pace within the performance as in the first half we are static.

To give the sense that the interview was conducted from home during quarantine, in between questions we did actions that you can do from home. For example, red and white was reading a book, blue was going through vinyls, yellow and green did household chores. It was a simple and effective idea since when each person was speaking, it was from an exaggerated close up angle therefore avoiding the confusion about which characters line it was.

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Rehearsal Blog 1

Creating the survey

The first step that we had to do as a group in order to follow the verbatim approach was to create a survey. We thought due to Covid-19 restrictions, creating a consensual survey were performing art career paths could respond anonymously would be the most respectful way to proceed. We typed and used the following questions:

Question 1: How old are you?

Question 2: Have you had any experience in the performing arts industry?

Question 3: Would you consider the performing arts industry a real job?

Question 4: Were the people around you supportive of your career choice?

Question 5: Have you ever faced discrimination based on your career path or from others in the industry?

Question 6: Do you believe the government provided adequate support to the performing arts industry during this pandemic?

Question 7: What were your thoughts on the cyber first campaign advert?

Question 8: Describe yourself before the pandemic?

Question 9: If you had a friend or child interested in pursuing a career in the performing arts, would you support and encourage this choice?

We decided to share the survey on our Facebook accounts. In the span of 2 days over 70 people responded. We picked the ones that really stood out to us and started creating characters and altering the script.

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Rehearsal Blog 2

1. Talking about staging inspirations.

On the 10/01/21 we discuss about staging our performance. The first idea thatI had on my notes that day was influenced by a trailer show Bryony Kimmings created with her partner called Fake it’til you Make it. This show was created to talk about chronical depression and anxiety. Her fiancé Tim Grayburn is the one who confesses suffering from this psychological disorder, six months into the relationship. To star on the show, he preferred to not look any audience member in their eyes. Therefore, during the performance the audience had to focus on body language and not his eyes. This was an interesting way to interact with the audience because they relied to a motion paired with a head piece, dance or homemade music. Every single medium had the purpose to show his emotional journey, confessing truths and the struggles faced.

One of our questions was encouraging people to open up on any possible discrimination from the performing arts industry. From reading the responses, we realised that there the issue of discriminating an individual in this career path is far more serious than imagined.

There was a concerning percentage of discrimination victims having lack of support from family, friends and teachers. Bullying was also involved for their body type, ethnicity, that resulted to mental health issues, eating disorder and giving their dreams due feelings of unworthy. Peoples experiences had to be handled with respect due to the sensitive nature of this issue. For this circumstance, I proposed the idea of using hats to physically symbolise emotional shifts and affects it may have on an individual may have. Although we all thought it was a strong idea for our show, we ended up thinking through video it would not be as affective for the story we were trying to tell not needing it since we our performance had already advanced passed this idea.

Bibliography:

1. Bryony Kimmins, [Video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmuBRJnysbM [Accessed 8 February 2021]

2. Bryony Kimmins, [Video] Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q-U [Accessed 9 February 2021]

3. Tom Marshman, [showreel][video] Available at https://vimeo.com/391780412[Accessed 9 February 2021]

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Research Blog 1

 In terms or research, Tom Marshman and Bryony Kimmings had a main role in educating us about Verbatim theatre.

  We had the opportunity to have a seminar with Tom Marshman where he introduced us to looking into issues usually coming from people and groups that are not easily heard or noticed from the general public. He taught us the process of creating a verbatim theatre piece. Marshman would organise a tea party with for example, victims or survivors of a very difficult situation and interview them. He then took their words and created a piece projecting and emphasizing on the struggles these people faced. This usually becomes a one man-show where he is using costumes, movement and at times he even lip-syncs. This way he is communicating clearly specific issues to the audience. 

 Bryony Kimmings work combines cabaret, stand-up comedy and performance art. She is an artist that experiments and works with different performance media: theatre, video, dance, music and cabaret. She does autobiographical work and verbatim theatre. Kimming’s work mainly helped us on how to theatricalise our piece and the ability to use different mediums to represent different stories, feelings and voices of the people that need to be heard.  

This research had a very positive effect on our group because we had a clear understanding of our goal and we became eager to shed light on an untold story. We decided to unfold the lack of support and discrimination a person from the performing arts is going through and how the government neglected the performing arts industry during the coronavirus pandemic. Due to our current situation we all had to isolate and stay quarantined. This limited our options in relation to extended interviews we could have as materials that we would afterwards process and create our performance.  Instead we decided that the best way to collect answers was to create a survey where people could anonymously and safely open up and discuss their experiences on the given topic.

 Bibliography: 

  Tom Marshman, [showreel][video] Available at https://vimeo.com/391780412 [Accessed 8 February 2021]

Dey. M. Making Solo Performance,  Bryony Kimmings, pp. 17-51

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Influences Blog 2

2. Influences - Other artists who have inspired the work you are making and how.

 Blog 2: 

After learning about the process of verbatim theatre, we as a group decided to re look into materials from our weekly tasks in order to get inspired in terms of staging the piece. 

We got very influenced from a digital performance called USER NOT FOUND: A video podcast created by Danté Or Die . This was a very unique performance because we could only listen to a single character speaking without ever being able to see him. There were however different images that helped us understand and feel what emotional shift the character was feeling. This gave us the inspiration to use the paper hearts for transition scenes to symbolise hope with optimistic music playing in the background and for our second movement sequence we ripped our paper hearts symbolising the loss of hope during the coronavirus pandemic. We got very far with creating our own ideas but we still needed to figure out a way to communicate everything to our audience. 

Our idea was to make our performance in the form of an interview. We all came up with the concept based on our own experiences in drama. We organized a survey to collect people’s stories and use them to create a verbatim show. Tasha, our teammate, proposed to us to look into an interview Vanity Fair did with Billie Eilish. Vanity Fair interviewed Billie once a year for four years to show her massive progress as a music artist. Our group followed the same type of interview but with a different set of questions and topics. This idea provided our show with a good layout, pace and flow. It also successfully broke the fourth wall as it was performed by looking directly into the camera and creating the impression that the performers are directly looking at the audience.

Lastly, we were influenced by the “Cyber First Ad Campaign” that suggested that people in the performing arts industry should retrain for another career as the performing arts is not seen as a real job from the Government's point of view. In 2015, a campaign was featuring a ballerina tying her pointe shoes with the quote “Fatima’s next job could be in cyber. (She just doesn't know it yet)”. This ad re appeared in 2020 during the coronavirus outbreak and generated a lot of anger from people in the industry, the Government apologised but nothing else was done. We used this material on our script to highlight this issue.

 Bibliography:

  HM Government, 2020. Cyber First - Fatima the Ballerina. [image] Available at: <https://images.app.goo.gl/HBTeZeeaThtt5gYJ6> [Accessed 6 February 2021].

 User Not Found 2020.perofmance [Video] Avaliable at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcCvR4y2yk8 [Accessed 8 February 2021].

Bibliography Eilish, B., 2020. Same Interview, One Year Apart.

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Blog 5: 18/11/20- Relationships exercise: To be uploaded to Blog before class/ ready to share in class two possible ideas for your short play.

Write two paragraphs (max. 200 words each), one for each of your main characters discussing what they think of the other. Write it in the first person, so that it’s conveying the individual’s voice and perspective/attitude. If they have only just met, or their relationship changes during the course of the play, pick a particular moment in the play as a starting point.  Use the following points as a guide.

 -   How do they know each other?

-   Two (at least) positive comments about the other character

-   Two (at least) negative comments

 Mario:

Do you remember the first day we met? On this after party in Paris? I noticed you right away but of course, I couldn’t come and introduce myself to you because my mother was there so I couldn’t risk any suspicions. I fell for you immediately that night…Your eyes were very honest. From the first moment, you were straightforward, you liked me so you flirted with me openly. I got so nervous, guys would rarely come up to flirt with me because they are unaware of my sexuality. Who would have thought that six months later we would be a couple and going on a vacation in Mykonos? I know we were struggling a little bit because you want me to be honest about my sexuality and I am not ready to open up about it yet…you get annoyed at me… I feel pressure. I think coming to this island was a great decision, I get to experience how our relationship should really be like… (Word count: 166)

 Manuel:

  Si! Of course I remember il mio amore, you looked so good at that party, how could I resist you? My first impression of you was how shy you are …I thought it was so cute! You are so innocent…you have this charm…I was so intrigued by you. When you first told me you haven’t come out of the closet still… I was shocked. How could an attractive uomo like you not allow himself to be free? We would be walking at the streets of Athens and I can feel your palm sweating because you are so scared of what people are going to think! Fall in love like you deserve! I’m so happy that we came to this island, look how free you are! I’m so proud of you for trying to be open about your sexuality… I know it’s hard for you…but I promise you are not going to regret it! (Word count: 155)

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Blog 4: 11/11/20 – Dialogue exercise and table. To be uploaded to Blog before class/ ready to share in class two possible ideas for your short play

Dialogue Exercise (200 words max) and table

Write a short monologue for your main character explaining after they’ve been stopped for speeding, attempting to get themselves out of a ticket. List five things about the character’s personality that an audience should be able to get from this piece of dialogue. NB. You can include occasional generic responses from the officer, but they should be minimal prompts as the focus here is on bringing out the character’s voice.

 Mario (God Bless Business Trips…)

(Mario in a state of shock) Good afternoon Officer…um… my apologies in advance for going over the speed limit. (his head is facing downwards; he starts talking very quietly) My friend and I ... we saw my mother today…she is unexpectedly in the same island as me. She is not aware that we are here which is why we were rushing to leave and I went over the speed limit. Though I was stressed, I should not have done this! I am a very responsible driver… you can check my record if you need. Please forgive me Officer, I will never repeat this…it was truly intentional. Let me know how we can resolve this manner. (concerned) My mother would be very unhappy with me if she ever found out that I’ve been stopped for speeding and getting a ticket. I take full responsibility, I’m hoping that you can be generous enough to maybe let me and my friend go and I promise I won’t repeat this again.

 Five things you want an audience to see from this about Mario:

1. He is scared of his mother

2. He is polite towards the police officer

3. He takes responsibility for his actions

4. He is shy

5. He is does not talk openly about his gay relationship

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Blog 3: 19/10/20 – Character body outline and characteristics table: To be uploaded to Blog before class/ completed before class/ready to share in class.

Character Body Outline and Table

Complete the body outline below for one of your characters, developing the idea of character personality in terms of the public and private self. What is the personality that the audience will see projected; what are the private thoughts and feelings going on in their heads.

Factor

Mario (God Bless Business Trips… )

Age?

17

Sex/Gender?

Male

Class?

High class

Location/region where born/raised?

Born and Raised in Athens, Greece. Lives in Athens

Background/Family?

He is an Only Child. Lost his father when he was seven. His mother, a well of woman with a career in Fashion design. She adores her son but doesn’t his gay.

Education?

Good education, high achiever. Passed A Levels with an A on year 1.

Career?

Still in school, wants to pursue a career in the arts.

Personality?

Very shy since he is living a double life because he hasn’t come out yet. He wishes to become himself.

Social life?

He is socially awkward because he never feels comfortable enough to project his sexual identity

Worst memory?

His dad’s death.

Happiest memory?

The day Manuel became his boyfriend.

How would they like to be seen?

He would prefer to not be noticed.

How do they come across to other people?

 Good looking with unclear sexual orientation.

What do they want?

To have a peaceful vacation in Mykonos with his boyfriend and be himself.

What is their biggest fear?

Facing his mother and his social environment as a gay man.