Finishing up on Commedia!

Monday 18th March

As Mr Fearnehough was absent, we set to work on improving our play. After receiving feedback on it in the previous week, we tried cutting it down by getting rid of the parts that we didn't like. This made me realise that a lot of the things that we though were hilarious turned out, well... NOT hilarious. We also improved some scenes, particulalrly the love scenes. We gave the lovers more text and cut out the zanni, which enabled Abby and Mary to be more concentrated and more "in love". It was important that the lovers get their say as they are the main characters and they have to show the audience that they're in love, which is incredibly important.

Wednesday 20th March

On Wednesday, we did two warm-ups. One was the slow-motion race, which we had already done. This got us all really focused and concentrated. However, the following warm-up was unlike any I have ever done. Its premise is simple. In pairs, you count to ten. One counts the even numbers, the other the odd numbers. Simple, right? OH HELL NO! that was hard, as we had to stare at each other and try and keep count, which is a lot easier said than done. But wait, there's more! Every round, a noise or movement was added in replacement of a number. The speed also increased dramatically which required even more concentration. On the last round, we had to slap each other whenever we messed up. This is when I realised that we were basically acting like clowns do, by taking every mundane task and making it the most serious thing in a row. This taught me that in theatre, everything is very serious and everyone in the ensemble needs to have the concentration (keeping count) and the motivation (not getting slapped) to see it through, even when wwe make mistakes. On the day of the performance, if anyone messes up, we have to keep going and act like nothing has happened.

Thursday 21st March

In this hour we perfectecd our piece by adding the music and rehearsing the play in general. In the music we added, "Eye of the tiger" was put into Mickey and the Zanni's fight scene, "I believe in Miracles" in the "boy meets girl" scene and the jaws theme was added to the cinema scene. Although Jaws wasn't supposed to be in there, I thought  it would be a good idea as it would show that Rose's dad is very angry.

Getting Nearer to FINISH LINE!

March 18,2013 (Monday) We still continue doing our commedia Piece, Mr. F is still not there so, we fix the lovers scene where me and abby met, and we also remove the zanni cause its like been awkward, and also we fix the last scene and we put a little bit dance before we end our play.

March 20, 2013 (Wednesday) Mr. F gave us a warm up first is the slow motion race, which all of us is focusing on what we doing, we do it better than last time, and after that we use the numbering it is called clowning by numbers and we do it with energy, first we are paired and we just count 1 to 10 and after we do it Mr. F change the numbers into an action, in first it is hard but when you do it again and again its kind of easy and when if someone do a wrong action or anything she/he got a slap on the forehead with a sound.
We learned things from this just like:
We need to focus on what we are doing especially when acting and we should focus and concentrated on it. Even though we are doing this we should include the audience participation.

March 21, 2013 (Thursday) We continue our play by adding music, adding some ideas that we think we can  use it and make more sense on the play.

Commedia almost done.... :(

Monday 18th March-

This lesson, Mr Fearnehough was away and we had an hour to carry on working on our piece. We decided to try cutting down the piece as it was too long. We sat down and went through each scene, agreeing on what we could get rid of or keep. We then went through the play from the beginning but didn't manage to get to the last scene. On our list of improvements to make, the love scene had to be improved. Mary and Abby needed to act more in love and more enthusiastic. We did focus on this scene and Mary and Abby did a good job of making it more in love, realistic and loud. We cut out the zanni in this scene where we come in as an ambulance to help Jack from his fall. We reflected on it and found it didn't work because it took too much time, it was not important and it wasn't funny. There was not audience interaction with it and it didn't really fit to the scene. I felt that this was an important scene to work on because it lets the characters Rose and Jack show the audience their love for one another which is the main storyline and as there is so much going on, we tend to forget this.

Wednesday 20th March -
We began with two warm-ups today. One was the slow motion race which we had already done before. This was good to get the group focused. The next warm up was a clowning activity called Clowning by numbers. We were put into pairs and had to take turns one by one counting up to 10. It sounded easy but it actuallly wasn't. We thought we had mastered it until Mr.F added in actions like clapping, spinning, weird noises into different noises. It got very difficult! We then had to perform it for everybody and it we messed up, that person would get a slap on the head by their partner. This activity was really good to help with concentration and team work.It also was a way of putting on a comical performance. I felt like this activity got me ready to perform. We had to stay serious about our performance and carry on if we messed up and got slapped.

• we have to be serious about our performance otherwise the audience won't and it will also look messy
• being serious about something that is obviously stupid is funny in comedy too.
• If you feel stupid or silly, then you are doing it right!
• The slap was a good way of adding comedy too as the audiences loves to see the actors fail and get punished for it

This exercise can be used in our piece "love wins all" because we have to be serious on stage, keep up when we mess up and help out eachother. 

We spent the rest of our double lesson adding music into our piece. At the end we needed a finishing number and we picked a song which was I'm a beliver by the monkeys. We had a dance to it and it is a great way of adding in different aspects instead of just acting which is what commedia is about! All kinds of performing!

Thursday 21st March-

For this hour we conitinued working and perfecting our piece.We had "eye of the tiger" for the fighting scene at the beginning between the two hipsters and mickey. We got our fighting moves in time to the music and the fighting was shorter and didn't drag on as much.In the cinema scene, i didn't realise but Axel played the Jaws theme tune when something bad was going to happen. We didn't expect it and it fit the performance SO WELL! I made us laugh so much so hopefully the audience will find it as funny as we did. 

REHEARSALS, REHEARSALS, REHEARSALS

Monday 18^th of March 2013:

This week our main goal was to finish rehearsals and get the commedia piece finished. Mr.Fearnehough was not here on Monday so we decided to carry on the list of improvements we had. One of the main things was to cut down the piece because we had so much. We also fixed the love scene and managed to make it funny we went by this and made Abby and Mary act it out and then we would each say a positive and something they could change to make it better. We also removed the Zanni out of this scene because it did not work as well as in rehearsals and personally I’m glad because I’m a Zanni and I am in practically every single scene. We then added the Zanni at the end of the scene when Jack asks Rose to the Cinema.

Wednesday 20^th of March 2013:

When Mr.Fearnehough gave us his feedback he said that he was a bit confused with the last scene and to be honest we were too. So as an ensemble we decided to work on the last scene and make sure that not only the audience understood but we did aswell. We changed the scenery around to show exactly that we had changed setting and we were no longer at the cinema but at rose’s home. We added a humour bit where Mickey tries to reach over for Rose but is just pushed to the ground in an FBI way by the Zanni and is then dragged off by them.  Mr. Fearnehough also said that it would be good to add an incredible ending and we decided we should use a music number and came up with the song ‘I’m A Beleiver’ from the film Shrek. We decided that we were going to choreograph a dance and dance with the audience. We are a bit nervous that certain audience members will not be comfortable with doing this which could ruin our light-hearted fun-filled and extravagant ending. 

Thursday 21th of March 2013:

We decided to finally bring the music in which I am so happy about, Axel and I had the role of sound and I personally wanted to add the music as soon as possible so there could be lots more enthusiasm on stage. The music we used worked really well and it made everything so much more fun and interesting to act to. For the first Zanni scene with Mickey we wanted a fighting song and we came up with the ‘Eye of the Tiger’ which worked perfectly and Lydia and me didn’t even plan this but we came up with synchronised moves when the music came on which we are now going to use in our piece. Another piece of music we are using is ‘I Believe in Miracles’ which is played in the scene where Rose and Jack meet for the first time which was HILARIOUS TO WATCH. The music worked so well and was so funny to watch the two lovers meet.  Axel surprised us by playing the JAWS theme when Rose’s father finds the two lovers at the cinema, using this showed how angry he was to find them there.  At the end of the scene we played the ending song and it was funny to watch some people that didn’t know the moves properly which made it funnier to watch!

 

Week 22: Almost done with Commedia

Monday-Mr. Fearnehough was on a trip, so we continued rehearsing our commedia piece. It is getting down to the wire, so we are trying to get our piece trimmed down as it was too long and too confusing before. We also need to get the music and costumes added in, but on Monday we worked on the love scenes, as this was a fairly weak part of the piece. We worked on using BIG reactions and emotions between the lovers and having them use less dialogue and more movement and emotion. The love scene, where Rose knocks Jack down, had been kind of awkward and difficult to follow, with the zanni running in to bandage Jack up. That part was cut, to make the story flow better, but Rose and Jack were given time to work on falling down (Ouch!) and solidifying the romantic lines and gestures that they were going to use in that scene. I found the scene easier to do without the interruption of the zanni, it followed better, it also felt more logical because why would two strangers still hang out after an incident like that? 
Wednesday- Mr. Fearnehough had two warm-ups for us today, Slow Motion Race and Clowning-By-Numbers. The slow motion race was calming and focusing, while the clowning got us active, energetic, and ready to perform. 
Clowning-By-Numbers: In teams of two we alternated counting the numbers 1-10. Then slowly substituted actions for some of the numbers. When a person messed up (was too slow, did the wrong action, or said the wrong number) they were smacked on the forehead. 

Things we learned

• if you are serious about something the audience will be interested in it as well, and be concerned about the outcome, no matter how trivial the activity is.
• Acting very serious about something dumb is funny the audience knows exactly how dumb you are acting and will find it hilarious
• React strongly to the other person, this will keep the action up and give them something to react to. It also gives the audience a better show
• The more ridiculous you feel the funnier you are.
• Audiences want to see you get punished. If you are perfect then you may lose the interest of the audience

There are many ways we could use this in our Commedia piece 

• Remember to keep the action up and react to one another
• Be serious on stage (try not to laugh at one another or you could ruin the scene)
• Feel free to step out of character and "punish" another actor during the scene (audience will enjoy it)
• Messing up is not the end of the world, just react in  character and move on the audience will laugh!

Then we spent the rest of the day working on adding in the music. At the end of the piece, which ran through quickly, we added a dance number. This will encourage audience participation and work as our curtain call. We also managed to work out the ending. Finally! 
Thursday- we continued rehearsing, and working on getting the music added in. It seems like every time we work on the piece we come up with new ideas, for songs or lines or actions. Sometimes they are good and sometimes they are bad, and sometimes they  are good but don't work with the piece.

We have come a long way from last December, we have made up an entire performance, put together props, costumes, playlists, and choreographed routines. We have grown as an ensemble and individually as actors and theatre students. This project has taught me a lot about commedia and acting.

Music!

This week in theatre was a week straight of intensive rehearsals. On Monday Mr. Fearnehough was still absent, but as an ensemble we decided to continuing working on the list of improvements that we gathered last week. Our first priority was to reduce the total length of time by 10 minutes, additionally we needed to whip our comedic timing into shape because some of the scenes, like the restaurant scene, which were dragging on with the dialogue going in circles. On Monday we also fixed the love scene. Though initially we thought it would be funny if the zanni came and ruined the romantic moment between Jack and Rose, however when we were working on the scene in rehearsals, the objective of the scene (which was for Jack and Rose to fall in love) was lost by the silliness of the zanni. After finding this problem we fixed it by removing the zanni and adding dialogue for Jack. At the end of the scene, instead of just asking Rose out to the movies, he makes a grand gesture that appears to be a marriage proposal but then surprises the audience by his simple date request= LAUGHS.

On Wednesday we decided to tackle the finale or ending of the whole piece. The problem was that the ending kind of blended with the last scene and it was unclear why all the characters ended up at Rose’s house. We changed the dialogue so it’s as if the zanni bring Rose home and Mickey chases after, still trying to win Rose over. However when Axel and Jack come back into the scene, Mickey makes one last ditch attempt to physically grab Rose but then the zanni tackle him (me) to the ground and drag me kicking and screaming off the stage. Then Rose and Jack get a final moment together and Jack picks her up and twirls her around. Then the magic ending begins and the awesome song “I’m a Believer” from Shrek comes on and all the players run back on stage and begin dancing. At first we were going to just leave the ending like this with us doing “random dancing”, however on reflection we decided it would be more in the spirit of commedia dell’arte to involve the audience. Now after we run on we each grab an audience member and begin dancing with them. Then when the chorus hits all the actors begin a choreographed dance, push the audience members off, and then take our bow.

Additionally throughout this week we added in the music, which in a word is BRILLIANT. For the scenes that were boring or dragging a pop of song really added the needed energy to the scene and to us as actors. For example in the fight scene between Mickey and the zanni the “Eye of the Tiger” plays, then when Jack and Rose first see each other the song “I believe in miracles” plays. We all had a bit of a surprise when Axel started to play the Jaws theme during the cinema scene when Rose’s father discovers that she was there with Jack. However I think today during rehearsal we need to finalize the scene changes, the reactions of the characters while they watch “The Notebook” because I don’t think the movie is coming across, and the use of the signs/placards with emotions that we introduced during the week with words such as “Eww, boo, d’aww (which apparently needs to be changed to “aww”).

Improvisation

March 11, 2013 Monday. We do an activity that called improvisation, and i learn more about it, and on how we need to learn ourselve in improvising because we need it for our commedia play and i learn the DO's and DON'TS in improvising.
Do's
- We need to carry on on what our team says
- Make the scene have different scenarios that have more ideas to say
- Sare ideas to your groupmates

DON'TS
- We don't include the real names
- We don't stop talking for a long time, it takes the audience bored

Sometimes, i have a lock of word to say and not agree on what my teammates say about me, so i think i ruin the play and the audience might think that she is wrong on what she say about me. So i learned more alot of things, we can use and and this is really important to our play.

March 13, 2013 Wednesday. Mr. Fearnehoug discuss about the imporvisation in our play before the holiday, and we have many things to give an improvisation.

• Add in Playfulness in improvisation (BUT in mask)
• Figure out scene changes (BUT energy was good)
• Shorten some scenes: remember order on story (posters on the sides)
• Get audience involved ith signs ("Boo", "Ahh")
• Fix last scene, on the sofa
• BUT the hoover scene dragged on, ON REFLECTIONS though it worked in rehearsal it didn't make sense during the performance.
• Always face the front
• Don't slide chairs on during scene changes (squeaky sound)
• Guita scene, MORE OVER THE TOP, make it ridiculously melodramatic
• Louder Voices (Zanni voices really energetic, project well)
• Maybe a little too long (cut back about 10 min, to 1 min)
• Pantalone face downsatge
• Reaction's Rose (really reject Mickey)
• Dragging=good for initial date
• Pantalone should have monologue
• use Upstage arms and legs
• Jack stands like a girl

March 15, 2013 Thursday. Mr. Fearnehoug is not here, so we do finish and discuss our last scene.

Improvisation and Improvement!

Monday 11^th of March:

We spent the entire lesson back from the holidays on improvisation activities. We were separated into 2 groups, at for the first few times Mr.F would give us a sentence and we would have to go from there. He then gave us an object and we had to use that as a different object in the teams’ improvisation.  For the last improvisation activity we were given a scenario and from that we had to work from that and entertain the other group.

After we finished everyone one of the scenarios, sentences or object we talked about each one and said the positive and negative things about our improvisations. We then were told to create a list of DO’S and DOESN’T to do during improvisation.

-          DO Always work with your team. (go along with their ideas and build on what the other person says)

-          DO Listen to your team!

-          DO React to each other

-          DO create a relationships for the characters.

-          DO Help your teammates

-          DON’T REPEAT YOURSELF

-          DON’T USE REAL NAMES

-          DON’T IGNORE YOUR TEAM MATE

On reflection after all doing this exercise I think we all found it a bit hard to start improvising because we did not have set characters and there is the same problem of the ‘Cop in the head’.  I think my team could of worked better and listened more to what Mr.F was saying when he was counting down the time we could have had to talk and make things better in our improvisation. I realised after doing this that I was more comfortable doing improvisation when we were working on our commedia piece.

Wednesday 13^th of March:

Our double lesson was a discussion of the areas of improvement for our commedia piece. Mr.F read out his notes from when we performed to him before the holidays which were very helpful to listen to:

What was said:

-           - Figure out the scene changes and who will be moving what.

-          -  Shorten some scenes and everyone should remember the order of the story of by heart. A poster has now been created on both sides of the studio so we know exactly which scene comes when.

-          - Get the audience even more involved!

-          - Definitely fix the last scene! (a bit messed up, and wasn't quite understood why we were all there)

-        -   Make scenes like the hoover scene more understandable.

-      -     Roses (Isabella) reactions need working on.

-        -   More romance when the lovers meet

-      -     Re think what chairs we should use in cinema scene

Thursday 14^th of March:

Mr.F was not in so we started working on the last scene and tried to make it better and more understandable to why all the characters have ended up in Roses house :p

Improvisation 101

On Monday we had an entire lesson during improvisation activities. There were several things that I realized, and are thus the DO’s and DON’TS of improvising. You must always work with your partner or group, which means to go along with what they propose and then build off of it with your own ideas. My group of Lydia and Mary sometimes had trouble coming up with new ideas, but if we had simply exaggerated our reactions to each other it would have been easier. That brings me to my second point, which is that the most important rule of improvisation is to LISTEN!! In our group there were several instances when another member of the group mentioned something, that on reflection I probably could’ve built off of had I paid more attention to what they were saying instead of thinking of what I was going to say next. The same point was evident with the other group, because they did not listen to Mr. F when he was counting down the time they had to confer with each other. Another thing I learned not to do, was not to get bogged down in the dialogue and get caught in a circle of the same thing. For example my group was given the starting line of “That’s really hard”. I started the scenario by falling on the ground and then saying “That’s really hard!!” ; however we continued to use that same scrap of dialogue throughout the whole rest of the 1 minute. Just like in our commedia production, pace and comedic timing is very important so we could work on our timing in improvisation to know when its time to pull the scenario in a new direction.

                On reflection, though I found it just as difficult to begin the process of improvising in the role of Mickey in the commedia piece as it was in the improvisation exercises, once I had a base of some sort in my commedia character it became much easier to improvise his actions. This taught me that as an actor I feel more comfortable when there is something to base my acting off of. For example in the commedia piece my super-objective is to be arrogant, rude, and cowardly and thus whenever I’m unsure of what to do I can think of the over-arching path for Mickey and then follow that. Additionally I found the class time improvisation exercises difficult because I didn’t feel prepared to instantaneously come up with a character, so it was more related directly to me. Another pitfall was the use of our real names, which completely defeats the purpose of improvisation and should be avoided at all costs. The rest of the week  followed with a discussion of areas of improvement.

·         Add in playfulness in improvisation (BUT still in mask)

·         Figure out scene changes (BUT energy was good)

o        Could integrate into change like in Oh the Humanity

o        Know what to bring on (a specific piece of furniture) BUT characters can still mess it up in improv

·         Shorten some scenes: remember order on story (posters on the sides) should cut out approximately 10 minutes

·         Get audience involved with signs ( “Boo”, “Ahh”), then improv when exactly to use the signs

·         Fix last scene, on the sofa; This is one of the main areas of difficulty because it is the falling action of the piece. We began working on this on Friday, because we need to make it clear to the audience that it is the end of the play.

·         BUT the hoover scene dragged on, ON REFLECTION though it worked in rehearsal it didn’t make sense during the performance. We are going to change this zanni scene, though they are still free to improv and do it during the actual performance.

Week 21: Back from Break and Moving on

Monday- Mr. Fearnehough introduced us to improvisation. He conducted an exercise that divided us into two teams. The first exercise he gave us a starting line, in the second he gave us a prop, and in the final one he gave us a scene. While we did not do very well in this activity, it did teach us a lot about improvisation   

Do...

1. Build on what the other person says
2. Be supportive and willing to go with whatever others say
3. React to each other and to the audience
4. Mime props
5. Create fake names, relationships, etc. for the characters
6. Trust your teammates and work to help them out (don't leave them hanging)
7. Use movement and volume change to increase the interest level
8.  Listen to each other, if you do not then it impossible to build on the others ideas

Don't...

1. Repeat the same line/action again and again... (this creates a rut)
2. Get stuck in the gym or a fight/chase scene (these should be avoided because they are difficult to escape)
3. Go too crazy. Normal things are easier to act and can be even more interesting
4. Shut down the other person. Even if the character you have picked is very closed off, if you continue to ignore or refuse to interact with the other characters nothing can be built up or grow (also the others will give up) see yes but game
5. Use real names (This removes the make believe element and pushes the person back towards acting like them self

Awesome Show with amazing improv.

I liked watching the others attempt improvisation and I even surprised myself by slightly enjoying parts of improvisation. I think that we learned a lot, but we were still slow on ideas, and maybe a little nervous letting go with each other. I liked that this game was similar to the show "Who's line is it Anyway?". I think that our group should work on being creative more spontaneously. Maybe with a written story, e.g. a short story/script that has to be written in a short time. This would take away the acting aspect and help creative juices flow, then maybe team stories/scripts for collaboration. 

Wednesday- We discussed our run-through of our commedia piece from our last lesson before the holiday. We focused on the bad things because we need to better the play.

Feedback on our First Commedia Run-Through 

• Add in more playfulness in improvisation (BUT still in mask)
• Struggle with spontaneity, is it easier in mask?
• Playing a character and not judging yourself
• Easier to have a base in character or story
• Figure out scene changes (BUT energy was good)

          -Could integrate into change like in Oh the Humanity
          -Know what to bring on BUT can mess it up in improv
          -Shorten some scenes: remember order on story (posters on the sides)

• Get audience involved with signs ( “Boo”, “Ahh”)
• Fix last scene, on the sofa
• The hoover scene dragged on, on reflection though it worked in rehearsal it didn’t make sense during the performance.
• Face the front (remember mask must face audience, no side-facing)
• Don’t slide  chairs on during scene change (squeaky sound)
• Guitar/love scene, more over the top, ridiculously melodramatic
• Louder voices (Zanni voices really energetic, project well)
• Maybe a little too long (cut back about 10 min, to 1 min) must keep PACE
• Pantalone face downstage (you are important character, have power downstage)
• Rose's Reaction (react to Mickey, energy x1000, really reject Mickey)
• Dragging=good for initial date, BUT not more dragging in the cinema scene
• Pantalone should have monologue to audience to tell story of Jack’s money, turn directly to audience (think Gollum)
• Use upstage arms and legs, keeps body open to audience, doesn’t block
• Hoover/scene does not work, not funny
• Meeting of lovers, must be lovey-dovey, over the top, need physical contact
• Jack stands like a girl (sorry everyone)
• “All you need is love!” shout at audience and get them involved
• Drop in movie and music quotes/lines (add in musical moments, “We are never ever getting back together” “What makes you beautiful”)
• Chairs in cinema…did it work
• “Mickey’s got the money” downstage and louder and center

We have a lot of things to work on, but that is expected. I think we are doing very good, and are getting more comfortable with one another. It is going to be difficult getting back into our piece after the break, but I know that we can do it! 

Thursday-Mr. Fearnehough was gone so we were left to work on our commedia work. We worked on finishing our masks and putting them into the display case. We discussed the ending of our commedia piece.