Week 16: More Maskmaking and the First Run-through

Monday-We returned to the art block to work on our masks. Mrs. Wilkins showed us lots of different techniques to shape them. She reminded us that it is important to consider how the mask will look from different angles- the side, underneath, top, and symmetrically. I think that this is important to remember for all aspects of theatre-look at the performance, set, prop, costume, or make-up from different angles and make sure that all visible sides are presentable.
 
Wednesday-Mr. Fearnehough gave us the double hour to work on our commedia piece. It started with Halley giving us a movement class. She showed us the eight directions of movement, different hand gestures, reflection of movement, and directional lunging. Lydia was sick that day so her absence made Bekki's job more difficult, she did not have anyone to tell jokes with, pull pranks with, but still did good on her own.  Mr. Fearnehough told us that we would be performing our "rough draft" piece for him the next day. Then, he left us alone to figure out what we were going to be doing. We worked together well, except sometimes we had so many ideas to do one scene that we couldn't decide how to use them all or which one to pick. It was really good to finally get to work on the acting and fitting in the technical aspects, start putting the pieces together. This also showed us things that we need to work on. For example I realized that I  need to practice singing my character's song (badly). It also helped me to realize what props and sets we would really need. For instance, I realized that for the  theatre we would only need chairs as the set. As we devised I was able to see what props we needed as well. One interesting thing that I noticed as we were devising was our tendency to make it a musical, especially after most of the class had protested having any singing in it at all in the beginning. This picture of a tongue-tied bear shows how I felt when I was attempting to improvise for this performance.


Thursday- We did the first full run-through of our play, "Love Wins All". It went pretty good for being a first complete run through, although there are parts that need work.

1. We did not know our scene order well
2. Our characters were not well defined
3. We need to be more expressive (use bigger movements, louder voices, and more elaborate, descriptive lines)
4. We need to incorporate audience participation (in the run-through the audience was ignored)
5. We need to decide who will be moving which set piece and decide what our scene changes will look like
6. More Zanni and lazzi!-more silliness
7. The male characters need to be more male (I should not stand like a girl when I am playing Jack)
8. Face the audience
9. One thing that I know I had difficulty with was the "cop in  my head"-allowing myself to get into character and act like that character with out worrying what people think or if I look dumb.
10. Mary and me need to work on our "love" scenes. (Be more lovey-dovey)

Even though the run-through was rough and needs work it has some parts that are already amazing!

1. Halley and Axel's movement (they both moved like their characters)
2. The plot of the piece is good
3. Bekki's lazzi were good (she just needs Lydia's help to amp it up)
4. The lines that we had were good and with once we  get more comfortable with our characters I think that we will have more to as well.
5. Mary did great as the completely bored and disinterested  girlfriend and the lover.