The Musicians: Diary Week 4

 Tuesday 11th May 2021

Today we started our day with a game of Splat but we thought we play this game a lot so we decided to play the same game but with a twist. Normally in a game of Splat the person in the middle points at someone and says splat- they then have to duck and the two people next to them have to say splat. Whoever is fastest gets to stay in the game but the other person is out. In our new version of this game the person in the middle shouts a random topic and two people say something related to it, for example if you are the slowest or you say an answer that is incorrect you are out. I really enjoyed this version because it gout our brains working more than they would during a normal game of Splat. After a few rounds we were ready to start our Like There's No Tomorrow rehearsal. 

Today we wanted to concentrate mainly on the family scenes as we have been focusing on the scenes with lots of the ensemble in so it was time to switch things up a bit. Members of the ensemble weren't really needed for theses scenes today so I started to write down my monologues about Tchaikovsky in my book because that makes learning monologues easier for me. Then Declan kindly offered to go over mt other lines with me so I could get a bit of extra bit of rehearsal in whilst everyone else was working on what they needed to do. This was very beneficial for me so I could see what scenes I needed to spend more time on and what scenes I knew perfectly. Towards the end of this mornings lesson me and all of the other 2nd years sat down with Kelly and had a conversation about costumes for the show and The Musicians T-shirts that we were planning on getting made. We needed to figure out what costumes we needed to buy out of the money we made from 'Babes In The Wood' and how much each of us will have to pay for the T-shirts if we wanted them after using the rest of our shared money. Eventually we decided we would buy all of the costume everyone needed then see what we have left then look at the cost of the T-shirts.

During lunch we all sat around one of the tables that was used for a prop and did a read through of the play as a bonus rehearsal and to prepare for our next lesson. The more we went through the lines the more the pace and flow improved. Today we only had time to go over the main scene we have been working on again. I played as Rosie first but I was more prepared this time than ever because we have been practicing a lot and I'm finally getting used to raising my voice about everyone's- this is good because I will definitely need it when it comes to rehearsing in the theater and actually performing it in front of an audience. Then me and Sophie switched roles and I got another taster of the energy of the orchestra and got to build up Rosie's annoyance from the other side of things which was really fun and completely different. 

 Wednesday 12th May 2021 

We started today with a vocal warm up with Tom which me and most of the other 2nd years were really excited about because we haven't done this exercise since our 1st year. The warm up includes moth stretches, humming, tongue twisters (that took us a while to get right) and songs which go around the group like a cannon with different groups that start after each other. We had to quickly teach the 1st years the songs and the actions that came along with them as they have never done this before- they really had been missing out and I think they enjoyed doing it as much as we used to and still do. Also this another great way for us to bond with the first years before the show because every show is a lot better when the cast get along and have a good connection- it really reflects in the acting so it is necessary!

Next we went straight into our acapella part of Pinball Wizard and finally decided after a few attempts where would be a good time to switch to the normal song by The Who- we would make the switch ready for the second verse of the song. Our next step was to add a bit of choreography to the song but we needed to be careful because we still wanted our characters to fully let loose but also didn't want it to look too messy, after all we are in an orchestra and wouldn't want something to be disorganized. We added a couple of parts where we would all do the same thing but most of the song was up to everyone individually to do what felt right as long as we were still having fun as we should be at the end of the play after achieving something that seemed impossible. We still need to create a better atmosphere whilst performing this by being more comfortable with letting loose and building up the energy however, I think we made really good progress with this scene and I'm feeling more confident about the performances as the days go on. 

After lunch we realised we had a very important decision to make about the way the stage will be set out for the show. We originally decided that we wanted to perform it in the round to give us more of a challenge because there would be an audience all around us. The reason we wanted to do it like this is because we wanted to make sure that everyone in the audience can see something at all times but as we rehearsed we started to question more and more if we could pull it off properly with the small amount of time we have left. We discussed changing the layout of the stage to thrust which means we will have audience on 3 sides but we were still unsure so the only logical way to decide was to try and perform in thrust. After having a quick run through with the new staging idea we realised it would probably be more practical with the tough schedule we are on at the moment and it still challenged us but we didn't have to worry about having our backs the audience as much. So our final decision was made- we would perform the play in thrust. This is what the staging would look like: