Children's Theatre.

In the first rehearsal we decided the best thing to do was to just get up and try and make something. We all decided that we needed to incorporate dream catchers and have a main person who will be going on the journey. As this person needed to be quite light in order to lift then etc we decided to make the main character a girl as it would enable us to do more physical theatre with her.

We split into two groups, the first group were practicing different style lifts to explore her being in a dream. The other group (my group) we're looking at different movements to represent the things within the dream. We tried out being different animals and trying to put some basic movements together to a beat of a drum. By doing this it gave us the idea of creating an eagle out of everyone and having the girl in the dream on top of the eagle as if she was flying.

We then spent the next couple of rehearsals trying to make this the beginning of our piece. Using different body movements and levels to make it look as if the eagle is flying.

After doing this we created a story board with the definite stories we are going to use in our piece.

Childrens Theatre.

In the first few lessons we started to discuss what we thought a should be in a piece of Children's Theatre. We came up with many ideas including, Bright and Colourful, Active, Interesting, Audience Participation, Story like, Morals, Educational, Music and Song and a lot more. We started by brain storming all our ideas in small groups before coming together as one group and deciding on these:

After deciding on this the next task was to do some research into Native Americans. This involved us reading all the stories about them, listening to music, watching dances and reading poems. The stories i read we're all quite similar. A lot of them are written about creation and boys journeys into man hood. This is something everyone else found out too. So from doing this research it gave us the idea about making our story about a journey of some sort. However we still needed to agree on what stories we were going to use within the piece. To help us decide we came up with three lists. Yes, No and Maybe.

From making these lists got us thinking more about what we wanted to put across to the audience. However we discovered we didn't have enough to create a long enough piece. So this was something we had to look for in the half term.

Star Chamber.

Script.

During the rehearsal process i used my script to write notes about my character, the blocking, how lines should be delivered and of course to learn my lines.

This is my first section of my script. As you can see a couple of lines were cut. This was due to the change in some of the characters and the way other people said lines they didn't seem to fit in. It was easier to cut them completely than to try and fit them around the other characters as they weren't too important.

The second page of my script had my main chunk of text on. A lot of the notes around the edge were blocking and reactions to other characters.

I found it important to mark on the script when other peoples lines were cut too. This was because when it came to learning my lines i knew other peoples ques and it was a lot easier.

Also marking on the script where my character changed.

Star Chamber.

Fourth Rehearsal.

Due to illness this was my final rehearsal i did before the dress rehearsal. We ran the whole show again but stopped quite a lot to take notes about improving out characterisation. I felt by this point i had learnt my lines well enough but my character still wasn't as developed as i had hoped. Some of the lines i was unsure of how Xenia would be saying them and the relationship between her and some of the other characters.

After this run through i was told a few things to improve my performance. The first was right at the start when Sophie and I were saying the line "It's the sweetest house I've ever seen you know, i went there last year". It needed to be said much louder than the rest of the people talking so the audience could hear it clearly and understand that the change of character was happening.

Another weak point that i think a lot of us struggled with was reacting to other peoples lines. As a lot of the speech was said over the top of one another it was difficult to hear the things we needed to react too. And even when people had lines by themselves people still weren't reacting. The two main points where when Mrs Farmer was reading the letter we all needed to be doing something. This may be listening to her and reacting by using facial expressions or completely ignoring her. But either way we needed to be doing something here. Another point was when Hester says the line "I think we ought to hear everything, don't you?", this was a vital part we needed to react too. No body wanted to hear all the details so we need to look as if this is true. For example pull a face, look away from Mrs Farmer or speak to somebody else as if your not listening.

The final point i got given during this rehearsal was that my first few lines needed to be said quite quietly because this gives people a reason to ignore me. When i finally say "order order, we ought to get on with the meeting" i need to stand up and make a big deal of it trying to get peoples attention and getting slightly annoyed that people aren't listening.

Star Chamber.

Costume.

The costume for each character had to be very believable and within the time period the play was set in. As everyone in the meeting were actors and actresses there attire would be quite posh looking and eccentric, as they are all wanting to be the centre of attention at all times.

My character is very well dressed according to the script. I feel she would be wearing some sort of dress and small heel as this is something a lot of the women wore in 1920's. Some examples of the type of clothing they wore are:

This image shows a very well off woman from the time period. Her clothing and make up is very theatrical in its own sense being very bold and standing out.

This photo i think is very similar to the style of the characters in Star Chamber, due to the fact it is set in the winter with references to the weather being bad. This would mean the characters wear big hats, coats and fur.

Pictured below are the costumes we decided on. As my character was being played by three different actresses we had to try our best to make our costumes look as similar as possible because there wasn't three dresses the same available.

Star Chamber.

Third Rehearsal.

This rehearsal was the first time we ran the whole show with all the characters and the change overs. All in all i think it ran quite well as a show. But it was clear that people still were unsure of there characters and there lines. Me being one of these.

I found after this rehearsal that i knew a lot of my lines when going through them in my head, however when it actually came to acting them out a lot of them slipped. I think this is because i hadn't been practicing with lots of people speaking over them, like they do in the play. I had just learnt my ques and was running them like that. This is something i needed to work on for the next rehearsal.

During this rehearsal we still stopped to change any blocking that needed doing. A lot of points that were made about Xenia was that she needed to look more in charge of the meeting and make sure she looks like she is trying to speak at all times when others are speaking. The line "It's very gratifying isn't it? I ran the roundabouts last year and i swear I've never enjoyed anything so much in my life." Needed to be said to EVERYONE rather than to the people next to me. I found by changing the tone of my voice seemed to make this work better.

When everyone speaks over the top of each other i need to make sure i look as if I'm trying to talk but keep getting interrupted. This results in me finally saying my line "Order, Order..." This way it makes the line more believable and i am able to deliver it with more conviction.

Star Chamber.

Second Rehearsal.

As we didn't get onto blocking my section in the first rehearsal this is the place we started today. As i wasn't really sure of my character and my lines at this point i was sort of just running through the lines and writing on my script where i needed to stand/sit.

My first few lines are trying to get the rest of the groups attention and trying to start the meeting which means the lines are said over the top of other peoples. When we first ran this part it didn't seem to work because people were finishing there lines before someone else started. This resulted in my saying my lines on my own and them not really making any sense. This is something we made a note on and decided to work on in the next rehearsal.

When i said the line about Atherton smelling bad i needed to do this very dramatically and over the top. This is something my character would do quite a lot as she is very theatrical in her everyday life. I felt as if i needed to go up to the dog to make this believable, also when asking someone to take the dog out i felt as if i needed to use the front of the stage to really deliver this line.

I don't really think this rehearsal went well because i wasn't really sure of any of my lines so i didn't feel in character very much. I think for the next rehearsal i needed to be more sure of these to start character development.

Notes after first rehearsal.

After the first rehearsal the group were told that next rehearsal the girls needed to have some sort of character shoe to help get used to walking in heels. Also each character needs to think of something they could be doing during Mrs Farmers long speeches, for example Xenia could be doing her make up or filing her nails.

On a more specific note i was told i needed to make more of the smell of the dog. It needs to be even more dramatic than what i was doing and make it quite comical.