week 1

Monday 11th September

Lesson 1 - Rob

The first thing we did in this lesson is to get to know our ensemble. We did this by standing in a circle  and stating our names, breakfast and a skill. this brought us a little closer together as an ensemble.

Our second exercise in this lesson was to get into pairs and play a game named '1,2,3'. In this activity we had to letter ourselves 'A' and 'B'. The person lettered 'A' had to start by saying '1', 'B' then had to carry on by saying '2'. Both A and B had to go back and forth saying 1,2 or 3. In intervals, Rob would call out a replacement action, such as ' replace 1 with a clap' or 'replace 2 with a stomp'. This really started to test our concentration. This activity helped us work not only on our following instruction skills but also on our concentration skills.

We then discussed what things we dislike about shakespeare and how the can be improved. Here is what we came up with:

In the next activity we had to get into new pairs and again letter ourselves 'A' and 'B'. In this activity we had to create an improvisation where A had to tell B about the girl of his/her dreams that A had only met that day. B was supposed to act like he/she didn't care or had heard it all before. In this activity I was A. To really push the story along, and relate it to Romeo & Juliet, I described her through her looks and talked about how her parents don't like 'my type of people'. The talking about her looks relates to scene 1 in the play, where Romeo is talking to Benvolio, and Benvolio says 'By giving liberty unto thine eyes: examine other beauties', and the other part refers the the altercation between the two households.

We then read the shortened version of the play that we will be performing on the 21st of November. we read through until scene three (because the lesson was coming to a close). We were then given homework to read through the rest of the script and start to think about what characters we may want to play.

Lesson 2 - Sharon 

We started off this lesson by playing sommore ensemble games to get to know each other even more.

In the second part of this session we got into pairs and told each other  short stories from our lives. after this we joined with another group and retold our stories to the others that joined our group the stories we have shared. after this we had to choose a story and create a improvisation around the story. All of the groups performed in front of the class and got good feedback and constructive criticism. My group was told that our flash back technique was very well executed but to make it more smooth, we were also told that it is quite confusing to change characters during a scene change. If we apply this to our later work then this will make our characters and scene more believable. 

After this we discussed, as a group, what things make up a good story. We then came back as a class and shared what we discussed in our groups. These are the main points we collected:

this concluded our last session for that day.

Tuesday 12th September

Lesson 1 - Rob

This was a contextual lesson. In this session we logged onto all of the school database apps for students (e.g. pro portal, moodle, etc,). We also set up our blogs.

Lesson 2 - Sharon

We started off this practical session by walking around the space in neutral. Neutral is a state where an actor is still or moves around the space without telling a story. To do this ones feet must be square with their shoulders and their face should always be in a neutral position (😐). This makes it much easier to create characters around this state. We then did some breathing and vocal exercises to practise our enunciation and speaking speed.

We then got into groups of 4 and told the story of Romeo and Juliet between each other. In the same groups we wrote down all the main points in Romeo and Juliet. We were then told to pic 3 moments in the play, that we thought were the most important (my group picked the party scene where R and J meet, the marriage scene between R and J and the death scene of Romeo and Juliet) and create 3 still images that best captured the scene. After this was done we were then told to add a line of dialogue from the play to each of the still images that best sums up the scene.

Wednesday 13th September

Lesson 1 - Sharon

We spent this lesson with the second years. We played a lot of games to boost our concentration. The first game we played was called "yes let's". In this game each first year paired with a second year and lettered themselves 'A' & 'B'. A starts with a statement beginning with let's..., then B says 'yes let's' then both A & B act out the action of the verb A said to do and vice versa, we joined 3 more groups to make a group of 8 and continued the game. 

We then took part in mirroring movement exercises. At first we did it in groups of 4. We first lined up horizontally so we could only see the leader through our peripheral vision. For me this was very good practise because as we came onto our first reversal I realised that using our peripheral vision is very important. We then got into pairs and did the same exercise opposite our pairs. this taught us to always be aware of other actors on stage so one never misses a cue. We also continued this activity while miming alongside telling a story. this taught us to listen to dialogue for cues also.

We ended the session by playing a game called wink murderer, this helped us to become closer as an ensemble.

Thursday 14th September

Tutorial lesson - Sharon

In this session we were told to get into pairs and think about 10 things that would be important for a class/ensemble and a college. Here's what we came up with: 

As a class, we came together and then chose the top three

Lesson 1 - Rob

First we played some more ensemble games:

After the games we started developing the opening scene of the play (fight between Sampson,  Gregory, Abraham and Balthazar (with temporary cast). this exercise allowed us to see that we need to look over our scripts and find out the motive of characters on stage. For example Tybalt's intent in the opening scene is to show his hatred towards the Montagues.

We finished the session by reading over our blog assignment for the first 4 units which this piece covers.

Lesson 2 - Sharon

We were given Romeo's 'under the balcony' monologue. At first we read it as a group, each person would read from one punctuation point to the next. this helped us to get the beat of Shakespeare's writing. We then were put into groups and each group read a section of the monologue in unison. this was to test if unison reading was a good idea (for the chorus maybe?). We then were split up into our different groups and each group had to perform their part of the script as they see fit. My group went for more of an active piece than a passive one. This means we were up and moving while lines were said, acting out Romeo's words. We then performed our pieces as a whole ensemble going through the whole monologue from group to group.

this concluded our sessions for that day.