The Musicians: Diary Week 7

  Tuesday 1st June 2021

Today we started at 10 ready for Like There's No Tomorrow rehearsal. The first thing we did was a run through of the prologue as it was the first ever scene we blocked out for the performance- nothing much has change with this one from the film we just needed to make sure the audience can see what is going on. After going off from this scene we transit straight into the school scene and we need people bringing the chairs and tables on and then off again. We spent a while discussing who would be best to do this job. After this we went through the transitions and the only problem is people remembering their cues and taking/ bringing stuff on/ off at the right times. The transitions is the thing that needs the most work in the play because there is a lot of people and it is not something we had done before turning it back into a stage performance. 

There is another scene which we haven't worked on yet where Maru reads a story from her story book. Tom came up with an idea to hold up a white sheet and shine a light on it and act it out with just our shadows through the sheet. We decided to go down to the theatre because we needed more room to block out this scene properly. Chelsea was the little girl, I was the mother/ villager and Tom and Declan were also villagers. This scene is about a mother and daughter who plant a tree but the village suffers a drought and the mother ends up dying, so the tree becomes a memorial for her but then the village take advantage of the fruit until the earth starts drying out until a crack appears- a story similar to the one from Ashers village. Henry and Josh hold up the sheet at the front of the stage and the light is shone from the back of the stage, whilst we all act of the story Izzy (Maru) reads. Next we decided we wanted to add more emphasis when bad things are happening in the village to help the audience understand what is going on. We did this by getting a red sheet and putting it over the light when needed- this was Declan's job. Here is a video from this rehearsal:

After lunch we went over scene 8 to make sure the energy was still at the right level- we had to go through this a couple times as not everyone was in and had to take note of when we would enter as if everyone was in. This made the scene a lot harder for us than it already was but we pushed through and made as much progress we could with the given circumstances. The last thing we did before going home was rehearse another one of our weaker scenes which is the very final scene where we meet Asher for the very first time.  In this scene there is a lot of reaction needed form the audience including a few lines but mainly improve. We worked through the appropriate times to cheer for Bobby and figure out when we finally go against her. This part was especially difficult as a lot of what Maru, Fin and Asher say is extremely heart felt and their acting is so good that it makes us want to side with them straight away, but we have to stick by Bobby's side until the family and a few members of the audience decide they have finally had enough of Bobby's lies. I think we made some really good progress today and I can't wait till the day of the show and perform in front of an audience in the theatre after being away from the stage for so long! 

Friday 4th June 2021

Today we came in for 'The Musicians' rehearsal and started off with a few games of splat to warm us up. Then Kane came up with an idea that we would work around the space and when he would shout 'stop' we would say one of our lines from the show to the person closets to us. To practice projecting our voices he then changed it slightly so we had to say our line to the person furthest away in the space. After this it was time for us to do a full run through with Sophie and Kate W as Rosie and Alex. The rest of the ensemble went backstage and waited for our cue to enter the stage- we realised we were making a lot of noise and it was probably because we were very excited about getting to perform this for the first time in the theatre. Although it was very exciting we had to quieten down as we wouldn't be able to talk backstage on the nights of the actual show as you can hear almost everything backstage. 

The energy was high when we entered but Kelly told us we needed to be a lot louder so we could be heard as we are used to performing this in the dance studio which is a very small space compared to the theatre. This is something easily fixable so we weren't too worried about this piece of feedback. We had to miss out one of the characters lines as he wasn't in today which made it a little harder to remember our cues but I was very impressed with how well we did considering. On the night if we missed any lines out the audience wouldn't actually know because only we know the script so it would be fine as long as we didn't make it obvious. Apart from this the delivery of the lines felt very natural- it had to seem like it was the very first time we have said these lines which is hard after the amount of times we have rehearsed. During the Tchaikovsky piece Kelly said that a few people seemed stiff compared to the rest which really stood out as the rest of us fully let loose and let the music take over us. 

Then we left the theatre and went for a lunch break so the 1st years could do a run through of their show with both casts. Before we left we got a surprise- our Musicians T-shirts had arrived!!! We just had to get some photos with them on. 

After the 1st years had finished their run through it was time for us to do a second run through with me as Rosie and Kate D as Alex. This time around the volume was a lot better and our voices filled up the theatre meaning we were getting used to performing in a bigger space. The problem this time was the pace was too quick and we needed to slow a few of the lines down to keep the comedic value. This was probably down to the fact it was getting close to the end of the day and we were running on a time limit. We quickly went through the first couple scenes and the flow was really good so we were happy to leave rehearsal at that for the day.