Our House - SHOW WEEK - DAY 2 - Dress Run (x2) and finalising the end scene

Today we started the day by going through notes that our performing arts department took whilst watching our first dress run.

These consisted of:

• Bringing the 'Our House' dance downstage
• Ad-lib during fun rowdy dance/song numbers.
• Be closer together when setting 'Driving In My Car'
• Personal Note: Get a phone prop to use in the 'Driving In My Car' scene
• BE LOUDER - In terms of dialogue - especially when the bands playing as its very hard to hear
• Higher amounts of energy during 'Our House' and 'Wings Of a Dove' make it seem fun and enjoyable
• More colourful, varied costumes for the last scene and throughout the show.
• Explore ore with the stage space as we tend to stay upstage making it harder to hear as well as making us look uncertain and as if we don't know what we're doing.
• NO FEATHER BOAS!!!! Too much mess and seems cheap
• Personal Note: Be even more expressionistic with my characterisation - Have fun and experiment - don't be afraid!

In the afternoon after we had done our second dress run with the other cast we went through transitions into and out of every scene. Including what set needed to be brought onstage in order to prevent long blackouts and slowly paced moments which we had during our dress runs. We also worked out who would be taking on and off the set. This mainly consisted of the year 13/14s as the main cast (unless off cast) couldn't bring on set as they were usually involved in that scene. By also working out transitions we also worked out when Good and Bad Joe would need to be changed and how we would go about doing this. Cleverly someone put hooks on the front of the stage meaning we could hang the coat and hat that the Joes would be wearing. Making a quick and efficient way of transformation as well as keeping pace and preventing the over use of blackouts.

From doing our second dress run some constructive criticism that was given was that the ending seemed a little too tamed and didn't have much high energy considering it was the finale. Therefore our dance teacher suggested that we run in two circles around Joe and Sarah whilst the off cast Joe and Sarah helped change them into their costumes from the very beginning. This was to show that the finale is in fact the beginning of the story. We just got a hypothetical perspective of what could happen depending on what Joe did in the first place.

WWW

• By going over transitions it meant that a lot of us understood the process of the performance and where people needed to enter and exit in order to not get caught up with set. It also meant that we wouldn't be panicking over loss of time from trying to find people to bring things on and off. Meaning there wouldn't be any awkward pauses onstage whilst we were waiting.
• I started to get a good feel for my characterisation and had more fun with how my character would say certain lines. I experimented with pace and pitch to vary my dialogue making it sound more interesting and engaging for the audience.
• By having the band play the music meant we got a real feel for the musical numbers and it almost boosted our energy levels by having a stronger ensemble behind us. It also meant we knew how much time we had to do certain things before singing. For example, in 'Driving in my Car' we tend to adlib before the scene starts. By having the band we know how much time we have before we have to be in our positions ready to sing. By having the band it also meant we knew how loud we had to project in order to be heard over the underscores.

EBI

• Personally I need to experiment more with the space. And potentially branch out a little more and become my own character. As at the moment I'm relying on being a 'sister' character and acting as more of a follower than an individual.
• Another personal note: I could start experimenting with emphasising certain words in my dialogue in order to make it sound different/give it a different meaning. By doing so this could change the atmosphere/mood of the scene which would be interesting to witness as an actor as well as watching from the audiences perspective.
• WORK ON ALL OF THE DIRECORIAL NOTES FOR THE NEXT PERFORMANCE
• Have higher energy levels for wings of a dove, possibly directing some of the lyrics at audience members as if telling a story - this is a form of a different technique and would vary my acting i.e. breaking the fourth wall and storytelling (to an extent)