Q1. What was your experience of participating in the workshop? What characters did you read in for? Why do you want to play these roles?
-I found participating in the workshop fun, although it was quite scary performing in front of everyone staring at you, and quite a bit of pressure as I knew I was competing for the part against TJ. I read in for Mark and Adam. I read in for Mark, not because I wanted to play as him, but just to try him out. I wanted to play Adam because he seemed like quite a challenging character to play and I like to challenge myself.
Q2. What was your experience of observing the workshop? Who were you most impressed by and why?
- I found observing the workshop quite interesting to see everyone performing as the characters they want to be, and it was interesting the way they interpreted the character and how they all acted individually, and for those who acted the same characters, most of them were different. I was most impressed by Romy and Eloise, as they brought the character Leah to life, and the way they performed seemed very realistic.
JJ Steadford
Sunday, 2 December 2012
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
Truth on stage
The focus of the workshop was thinking about creating truth on stage
Q1. Why do we want to create truth on stage?
-We want to create truth on stage because it makes the play and characters more realistic, therefore will engage more with the audience as they will be able to feel it.
We started a session by playing a game called 'Id don't believe you'
Q2. Why did we play this game?
-I think we played this game in order to sort of build our confidence when performing humorous or sad depressing scenes in front of an audience. We also did this to help us to convey our emotions in different situations, and get us thinking on the spot, using improvisation.
Q3. What did you learn from watching it?
-I learnt that it is quite hard to change your emotions, and think of things on the spot. Sometimes silence is really powerful in acting, is what I learnt when watching other people perform.
Write about one of the people that took part in the game ( Chem, Tyler, Kimberly, TJ, Skye and Ursula)
Q4. What situation were they entering the room from?
-Tyler was entering the room when realising that All of his things were gone.
Q5. How were they able to show truth?
-Tyler was finally able to show truth at the end when he used nothing but silence to present how he felt (except for when he said 'that was his favorite chair', which was obviously sad as his dog had just died.
Q6. What did they change each time they entered the room?
-I noticed that Tyler tended to use less and less speech in each time he entered the room.
Q7. Were they successful in creating a truthful performance? How? Why?
-Tyler was sort of successful in the end, because he was doing really well, and I believed it for a while until he said 'that was his favorite chair' which sort of made the whole thing slightly humorous, and ruined the depressing atmosphere. He was doing well because he used silence and his whole body language was just depressed and slumped as he went to sit on the chair. It was successful because that's the kind of thing most people would do if their dog had just died, also the audience believed..........most of it.
After the break we explored breaking bad news using non-verbal communication.
Q8. What is non-verbal communication?
-Non-verbal communication is when you communicate with someone without speaking, so it could be through body language, facial expressions ect.
Q9. What scenes did you create and who did you work with?
-I worked with TJ, in our scene we showed a man telling another man that his baby had just died, in order to show what we were doing we started with me walking up and down the stage out of sight of TJ looking worried, and then I walk over to TJ, he runs up to me nodding his head hopefully, and I take my hat off and shake my head, he then begins crying, hitting the walls and attempts to run over to the surgery room, I pulled him back and sort of shook him around a little to sort of shake some sense into him, and we walked away with our arms round each other.
Q10. How did you make sure the scenes were truthful?
-We made it truthful because that's the kind of thing people would tend to do in real life situations, I believe.
Q11. What other pair did you think were successful and why?
-I thought Tyler and Ursula's one was successful as they had something different, which was a couple splitting up and they were really upset about it, I think they were successful because I believed it, and I'm pretty sure everyone else in the room believed it.
Look up Stanislavsky, find a picture of what he looks like and create a short fact-file on him.
Name: Constantin Stanilavsky
D.O.B: 17th of January 1863
Inventions: Stanilavsky method
First independent production: Leo Tolstoy's the fruits of enlightenment (1981)
Plays directed: The seagull (1898), The three sisters (1901), The cherry Orchard (1903)
Died: August 7th 1939
You worked on a piece of text. You explored Leah's first monologue. You worked with a partner to work out the subtext of the monologue. You need to upload the text you annotated to show what you did.
Q12. What is subtext?
-Subtext is thoughts not expressed directly in the text such as emotions and tension. It is the unspoken content under the spoken dialogue.
Q13. why did we work out the subtext of the monologue?
-We did this in order to try and guess what we thought that the characters were thinking as they are talking in their dialogue, it also helps to give us a greater understanding of the characters, which will help us to act as the character and to know what they are thinking
Q14. Did it help you to have better understanding of the character?
-Yes, because we sort of have an understanding of what they are thinking, therefore giving us an advantage when acting as them.
Q15. Why will a truthful performance be be important to our performance in DNA?
-So that if the performance is truthful it will make the performance more realistic, therefore the audience will believe it, making it a more engaging performance, and more interesting for the audience.
By JJ Steadford
Q1. Why do we want to create truth on stage?
-We want to create truth on stage because it makes the play and characters more realistic, therefore will engage more with the audience as they will be able to feel it.
We started a session by playing a game called 'Id don't believe you'
Q2. Why did we play this game?
-I think we played this game in order to sort of build our confidence when performing humorous or sad depressing scenes in front of an audience. We also did this to help us to convey our emotions in different situations, and get us thinking on the spot, using improvisation.
Q3. What did you learn from watching it?
-I learnt that it is quite hard to change your emotions, and think of things on the spot. Sometimes silence is really powerful in acting, is what I learnt when watching other people perform.
Write about one of the people that took part in the game ( Chem, Tyler, Kimberly, TJ, Skye and Ursula)
Q4. What situation were they entering the room from?
-Tyler was entering the room when realising that All of his things were gone.
Q5. How were they able to show truth?
-Tyler was finally able to show truth at the end when he used nothing but silence to present how he felt (except for when he said 'that was his favorite chair', which was obviously sad as his dog had just died.
Q6. What did they change each time they entered the room?
-I noticed that Tyler tended to use less and less speech in each time he entered the room.
Q7. Were they successful in creating a truthful performance? How? Why?
-Tyler was sort of successful in the end, because he was doing really well, and I believed it for a while until he said 'that was his favorite chair' which sort of made the whole thing slightly humorous, and ruined the depressing atmosphere. He was doing well because he used silence and his whole body language was just depressed and slumped as he went to sit on the chair. It was successful because that's the kind of thing most people would do if their dog had just died, also the audience believed..........most of it.
After the break we explored breaking bad news using non-verbal communication.
Q8. What is non-verbal communication?
-Non-verbal communication is when you communicate with someone without speaking, so it could be through body language, facial expressions ect.
Q9. What scenes did you create and who did you work with?
-I worked with TJ, in our scene we showed a man telling another man that his baby had just died, in order to show what we were doing we started with me walking up and down the stage out of sight of TJ looking worried, and then I walk over to TJ, he runs up to me nodding his head hopefully, and I take my hat off and shake my head, he then begins crying, hitting the walls and attempts to run over to the surgery room, I pulled him back and sort of shook him around a little to sort of shake some sense into him, and we walked away with our arms round each other.
Q10. How did you make sure the scenes were truthful?
-We made it truthful because that's the kind of thing people would tend to do in real life situations, I believe.
Q11. What other pair did you think were successful and why?
-I thought Tyler and Ursula's one was successful as they had something different, which was a couple splitting up and they were really upset about it, I think they were successful because I believed it, and I'm pretty sure everyone else in the room believed it.
Look up Stanislavsky, find a picture of what he looks like and create a short fact-file on him.
Name: Constantin Stanilavsky
D.O.B: 17th of January 1863
Inventions: Stanilavsky method
First independent production: Leo Tolstoy's the fruits of enlightenment (1981)
Plays directed: The seagull (1898), The three sisters (1901), The cherry Orchard (1903)
Died: August 7th 1939
You worked on a piece of text. You explored Leah's first monologue. You worked with a partner to work out the subtext of the monologue. You need to upload the text you annotated to show what you did.
Q12. What is subtext?
-Subtext is thoughts not expressed directly in the text such as emotions and tension. It is the unspoken content under the spoken dialogue.
Q13. why did we work out the subtext of the monologue?
-We did this in order to try and guess what we thought that the characters were thinking as they are talking in their dialogue, it also helps to give us a greater understanding of the characters, which will help us to act as the character and to know what they are thinking
Q14. Did it help you to have better understanding of the character?
-Yes, because we sort of have an understanding of what they are thinking, therefore giving us an advantage when acting as them.
Q15. Why will a truthful performance be be important to our performance in DNA?
-So that if the performance is truthful it will make the performance more realistic, therefore the audience will believe it, making it a more engaging performance, and more interesting for the audience.
By JJ Steadford
Wednesday, 21 November 2012
JJ's DNA Q&A
Firstly in groups of 5 you created a 1 minute version of the play ‘DNA’Answer these questions:
Q1 - Why did you do this?
I believe that we done this in order to gather a better understanding of the whole play, and gather the key information of the play, and perhaps find out a little bit about the characters that we could may have a chance of playing
Q2- How did it help you?
It gave me a thorough understanding of the characters and the play
Q3- What did you notice about all of the pieces that were created? Were their moments that were the same?
I noticed that many moments between the groups were all quite similar, they all had roughly the same point, we all had an idea of what we thought were to be the key points in the play. We discussed the role of the postman - a character that is never seen and doesn't speak.
Q4- What is the importance of this character in the play?
He was very important because the children blamed a fictional character for Adam's death, they made up someone that they believed to be fake, nothing but someone they created, an imaginary character. Also it is quite interesting how they make someone who doesn't have a speaking role, or is never scene such an important part of the play. You created 4 huge ROLE-ON-THE-WALLS for the characters: Phil, Leah, Brian and Adam. Answer these questions:
Q5- Why did we create these?
We done this to get a better understanding of the certain characters that we were working on. In my group we were looking at the character Phil on the posters we wrote what we think people thought of him, saw him as and what he showed on the outside and felt on the inside. Our group filled the whole sheet in words that we thought suited Phil. We had words like leader, lonely, heartless, fast, the man with the plan ect.
Q6- Did you find out anything new about the character your group worked on?
We found out a lot of things about Phil although they may not have all be completely true, they were more about what we believed to be Phil's emotions.
Find a piece of music on youtube that you think sums up your character. Put this on your blog.
I thought that this is a good song for Phil because he is all relaxed and doesn't talk in the beginning of the play although nearer the end he starts talking and getting into the action and coming up with plans.
Q1 - Why did you do this?
I believe that we done this in order to gather a better understanding of the whole play, and gather the key information of the play, and perhaps find out a little bit about the characters that we could may have a chance of playing
Q2- How did it help you?
It gave me a thorough understanding of the characters and the play
Q3- What did you notice about all of the pieces that were created? Were their moments that were the same?
I noticed that many moments between the groups were all quite similar, they all had roughly the same point, we all had an idea of what we thought were to be the key points in the play. We discussed the role of the postman - a character that is never seen and doesn't speak.
Q4- What is the importance of this character in the play?
He was very important because the children blamed a fictional character for Adam's death, they made up someone that they believed to be fake, nothing but someone they created, an imaginary character. Also it is quite interesting how they make someone who doesn't have a speaking role, or is never scene such an important part of the play. You created 4 huge ROLE-ON-THE-WALLS for the characters: Phil, Leah, Brian and Adam. Answer these questions:
Q5- Why did we create these?
We done this to get a better understanding of the certain characters that we were working on. In my group we were looking at the character Phil on the posters we wrote what we think people thought of him, saw him as and what he showed on the outside and felt on the inside. Our group filled the whole sheet in words that we thought suited Phil. We had words like leader, lonely, heartless, fast, the man with the plan ect.
Q6- Did you find out anything new about the character your group worked on?
We found out a lot of things about Phil although they may not have all be completely true, they were more about what we believed to be Phil's emotions.
Find a piece of music on youtube that you think sums up your character. Put this on your blog.
I thought that this is a good song for Phil because he is all relaxed and doesn't talk in the beginning of the play although nearer the end he starts talking and getting into the action and coming up with plans.
You created a scene to show the back story of the character you worked on.
Answer these questions:
Q7- What is a back story?
A back story is a character’s history, it’s the life of the character that before the start of the story.
Q8- Why is it important for actors to understand their character’s back story?
So that when the actors are playing as the character they have an understanding of how the character actually feels inside, and why they're character is the way they are, therefore giving the actor a sort of head-start, if you will, when acting and makes the character seem more realistic.
Q9 -What did you create as a snapshot of your character’s world? Describe what you did and link you choices to the play.
In our's we done a snapshot of Phil's life, we showed what we believed his life is like at home, due to the way he acts outside. We showed his whole family running around him, whilst he sat in the center of everything. Everyone ignored him, and acted as if he didn't exist, the only time he was acknowledged was when he was being shouted or moaned at. When Phil is sitting down his family tell him to move, and when he gets up to walk off he falls over because someone tied his shoe laces, as a joke, everyone can see his upset but just carry on with what they're doing. I think this could link to the reason why he is so quiet and eats a lot. Perhaps he eats a lot because he has a problem, he eats to try and forget about his life, because that's what most people do during depression they eat, also the way he ignores people could be a sort of way to take his anger from his family out on Leah, the way he was ignored, perhaps he believes loved ones or ones who love him should also be ignored.
Q10- What did another group create? Was it effective, why?
I liked Romy's group who done Leah's back story, I thought it was quite clever how they showed that she was even ignored at home that could be the reason why she feels so strongly about being ignored and threatens to kill herself when she is. That could be the reason why she talks so much, in hope that she might be heard, and is often cut off during sentences, so that could be the reason why she hardly ever finishes a sentence in fear that she will be unsuccessful in completing it. The part that I found effective was the fact that unlike most groups they actually included the other characters in the play as well
We discussed the ideas of Nature V Nurture. Are we a product of our environment? Yes or No? Justify your thoughts.
We discussed the ideas of Nature V Nurture. Are we a product of our environment? Yes or No? Justify your thoughts.
I believe that we are mainly a product of our environment, whether it be inside or outside of home. I believe that children are much more influenced inside of home at a younger age, for example the way they talk, the things they do, the things they say, children often imitate their parents. Although as children get older and get more freedom they are more influenced by the environment outside of home, like they start using slang, and the way they talk and the new activities they try out with their friends. However, the way we act isn't always due to our environment it could also just be the case that they have mental health issues from birth, which is not the parents fault, they could have the nicest parents but still have issues. But generally we are a product of our environment, so if I had to say either yes or no I would say yes, we are a product of our environment.
JJ Steadford
Wednesday, 14 November 2012
What I think of the 'DNA' script
We read a script in class called 'DNA' with our theater and physical theater teachers and also in front of WILL BAYLEY !!!!!! Personally I thought it was quite a good script, like the way they show all of the characters as a teenager would in there situation, for example they would stutter when they talk or get really frustrated, as they showed in the script, I thought that this was really good. Although as much as the script is good and well written I also found it slightly confusing at times. Also its only got 9 characters so it might be slightly confusing for the audience when we switch roles, but I think that miss Goodall will come up with something. The character John jumped out at me, not only because we have the same name but because he seems quite mellow and laid back (sort of like me.........at times). Overall it is a pretty good script and I am looking forward to performing in the play.
Friday, 9 November 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)