9th week 20th - 23rd November

20th November (Monday)

We repeat our performance twice for Rob and Sharon, both were longer than 30minutes. We were told to keep everything fast for examples, during our scene to scene exits and entrances, Rob asked us not to stay for too long in the backstage waiting for character from previous scene to exit first, it's better to enter the stage while the last character done with his lines. Then we could fit our performance within 30 minutes, audience get to see everything faster too without waiting for characters to come on stage. 

21st November (Tuesday)

(check performance blog)

23rd November (Wednesday)

We've been working on the Papa Tango script work. Learning how to write a complete script by adding all the details like, characters, conflicts, relationships, scenes and more. It was really fun doing this because I could put all the weird ideas together and create a story then a script by myself. 

Performance day !!! ROMEO AND JULIET

21st November (Tuesday) 

ROMEO AND JULIET IN SHAW THEATRE

8.45 in the morning, we were asked to gather at the foyer of Shaw Theatre to get ready for a technical rehearsal. Performers from another school will do their technical rehearse first while we will be in the dressing room and get dressed. After they've done with that, they will be doing the full rehearsal with dress and we will watch.

Then will be our turn to do the technical rehearse, we ran through this very quickly by reading the last of our lines in each scene so that the technical person will know when to blackout and light up. After that we ran through a dress rehearsal and the students from another school watch us.

After the preparation in Shaw Theatre, we went back to college and Sharon was going to talk to us of things that we need to change during performance and telling some people about their mistakes. 

What we need to be considered during performance?...

• Speak out to the audience, as the audience area was really big. We shouldn't be thinking of ourselves at the theatre in college as we need to project our voice much more bigger than usual in order to let the audience at the back hear us. 
• This was what I did during the dress rehearsal, when i was leaving the stage after my scene, i immediately lost my character and have forgotten that i was still on stage. Sharon used this as an example for other member that we should still be in character until we walk in to the curtain beside the stage. The way we leave the stage needs to be fully in character. 
• Always know when you're next. During the dress rehearsal, some of us were not ready to get on stage so has been wasted some time of the play. We should not go to other places or talking with others while the performance are still going on. Even though we are in the back of stage, we still need to be concentrate on what's happening in front.
• As we only got 30mins of performing time for this two hours long play, we need to do everything quick. Not saying our lines quick but we need to use the time wisely, when it's our character's turn to be on stage we need to quickly move on, and not waiting for the previous character to reach backstage first, we doesn't want any pauses in between scene changing for too long. 

After 20mins of talking, we were dismissed from college and need to be back at Shaw Theatre by 6pm to warm up and get ready before the audiences come.

At 6pm evening, all four schools gathered on stage to start with warm ups. We did some stretches and voice projection exercises. We were told that our school will be performing last, we get to watch the first two schools perform in the audience seat, and when the audience are getting some break after two performances we will then move to the dressing room and wait for our turn to perform. 

First performance will be 'Macbeth'. All feedback are given by myself on what i really think about them. 

Feedback for "Macbeth" play:

• Lady Macbeth spoke her lines in a very clear voice and all words can be heard by everyone, we were watching their play siting at the end of the audience seat and still be able to hear her. 
• The changes between scene to scene were really nice. There was one when they were doing something in a soft background music then when a hot music came off, they started running in a circle with very fast speed. They caught audience's full attention by this. 
• I love their fighting scene too, they were doing it with slow motion, this will able the audience to see through all details and movements they put in this scene. And they used the level really well, as some of them were lying down on the floor struggling and some were kicking or punching with higher body level. 

Second performance will be 'The Tempest'. 

Feedback for "The Tempest" play: 

• They do not have any exit or entrance part as all cast members were sitting on stage showing their backs to audience in a semi circle, only characters that need to speak stand up and turn around then act their scene. 
• This is a long play, but when the students were acting this out, they were able to fit all important scenes in the play with only 30mins and didn't miss out anything. 

Third one will be 'A Mid Summer Night's Dream'.

Feedback for "A Mid Summer Night's Dream" play:

• Their background music were on before they getting up on stage, and so it brings up audience's mood and they started to come into scene group by group. Their steps and actions were all so energetic. 
• Some of them forgot their lines a little but they covered it up fast, they knew how to add some facial expression when the pausing is too long while waiting for on actor to speak.
• There was one character that impressed me, she was 'Helena' in the play. I like all her facial expressions and actions as she was really into her character. I have not watched this play before and i think when i see her acting i can tell what the character Helena is like in the play. 
• They did not waste any of the cast member in this play, for the forest scene, there were trees all around casting by few members. I love how they use this as an idea for getting more people on stage.

After three schools done with their play, it's our turn to be on stage. We were all quite nervous while standing at the back waiting to be on stage, I think Jaychelle must be the most nervous one as she needs to stand in the middle of the stage before everything began. 

What Went Well during the performance?...(feedback from others and myself)

• We used up the space on stage as Sharon and Rob always mention that to us, all play will look better if actors/actresses have their own equal space between each other, not only for the audience to see all of us, also it would be easy for us to do any movements on stage and not hitting other character. 
• Everyone of us projected our voice beautifully, audience in their seats were able to hear us clearly. 
• We avoided our 'KISS OR KILL' position, we took what we learned from the workshop in to our performance.
• For characters that have long monologue, they spoke their lines out to the audience by looking at the highest space so that all audience can see them. 
• We did not show our back to the audience, when we did it accidentally, we will slowly turn ourselves around without letting the audience notice.  

Even Better If we could....

• We could make more props ourselves, like the actors in Macbeth, they made themselves tree branches as weapon to fight. Instead of fighting with an invisible weapon on hand, if there's something we could really hold on, I think it will be more realistic for the audience to watch. 
• We could have planned more on our costumes, for example, same colour theme on each side (Montagues or Capulets). So audience get to know who we are without any confusion. 

Overall: I think we did really really great as everyone else was giving us positive feedbacks, this performance really helped with my confidence. I'm looking forward for more performances in the future. And I enjoyed planning everything together in a group, it was fun having your own team together doing something productive. 

8th week 13th - 16th November (full rehearsal week before performance day)

14th November (Tuesday)

We ran through the whole performance once in the theatre to record how much time we used. And did some improvements in each scene. Some characters already put their costumes on, the rehearsal became more lively with costumes. 

15th November (Wednesday)

We worked on the scene where Tybalt and Mercutio died, and added 'That's my son!' to Lady Montague shouting at the Prince showing how much she doesn't want Romeo to be sentenced to death, even though she knows that he did something really wrong.

16th November (Thursday)

We did twice full run rehearsal with Rob, he wanted us to make it clear with our entrances and exits from scene to scene. 

Term 1 unit 3 HEALTH & SAFETY

For us actors and actresses, we stay on stage often or in backstage with full of heavy props. As that, we should be clear with our health and safety during rehearsals or performances.

What should we be aware of while we're at the theatre?...

• Make sure we keep all our belongings in the dressing room and not on stage. For examples, shoes, costumes, bags, etc. Stage floor should be kept dry and cleared with slippery materials.
• Backstage stairs should be maintained in good condition. 
• Make our entrances and exits clear so that we wont bump into each other while performing.
• All alleyways should be clear of litter and obstacles. 
• Make sure there're unblocked ways for audience, actors and crew members to exit. 
• Young actors/actresses should only use props or equipments that is age appropriate and skill level appropriate, for example, we shouldn't be using real knife or anything harmful as a prop during performance. 

What can we do in order to protect our voice and body during performance?...


Body
Warm ups before performance or rehearsals for an actor is very important, it helps to flexibilize our body and we will be able to do some big movements if it's require in the performance. Here's an example of an exercise we could do before starting anything.

1. Stand with your feet a shoulder width apart.
2. Stretch up with your left arm on to your toes as if reaching to find a key on a high shelf.
3. After 10seconds, lower your heels to the floor but keep your hand searching for the key.
4. Another 10seconds, drop your arm and follow it down to the floor with your upper body hanging from your hips.
5. Rest for a moment then reach up with your right arm repeat. 
6. Drop again and hang there. Your knees should be slightly bent and pointing in the same direction as your toes.
7. Sway slightly keeping your spine and head free. 
8. On an in-breath, slowly build up through the spine, vertebra by vertebra, until your head comes to rest floating on the top.
9. Your eyes should be open and engaged with what's in front of you.
10. You should have the feeling of being centred and released. 

This is the link for this exercise: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/may/09/exercise-class-performance-actor

Voice

• Use good posture and breathe properly when speaking, we could get rid of voice cramp due to sudden breaking in. Limbering up the voice with some vocal exercises before going on stage also helps prevent vocal strain.
• Avoid overused our voice before performance, especially for teen actors like us. We often scream too much and it's possible to get a pitifully cracked and raspy voice. When this happen, we should sit quietly at the side and drink more water. As an actor/actress, we must learn to not scream and shout too much while attending events otherwise will strain our vocal chords especially when we have rehearsals or performance the next day. 
• Eat plenty of whole grains, fruits or vegetables that contain vitamin A, E and C to help keep the throat's mucus membranes healthy. Avoid spicy foods, it can create havoc on the voice. 

7th week 6th - 9th November

7th November (Tuesday) A DAY TO SHAW THEATRE

A standard proscenium stage.
https://theatredesigner.wordpress.com/theatre-design-101/stage-types-proscenium-arch/

We went to the Shaw Theatre!!

Everyone was so excited to see the place where they are going to perform at. When we got there, everyone started to go on stage and explore about the stage and backstage and also imagine if there're audience siting in front of all the seats. 

Rob asked us to use our time wisely because we couldn't stay for longer in there. So we quickly went in to character and started a full rehearsal. We changed some bits in the play as we're now on the actual stage, the space are gonna be a little bit different from where we usually rehearse in college.

I think we did better on the stage in Shaw Theatre, we can feel the atmosphere there and we did the rehearsal just like if we're on the actual day. We could see the last row in the audience seats were really far so when we speak, we always project our voice loud in order to get the voices there.

During our usual rehearsals, most of us exit our scene randomly, but on the actual stage, the exits and entrances will be at the side (wings), so we will need to work on how are we going to exit and enter each scene to make it look clearer for the audience.

A visit before performance day helps us a lot like...

• Blocking
• Exits and entrances
• How loud do we need to project our voice
• Where do we need to look while performing

8th November (Wednesday)

12 more days to our performance day in Shaw Theatre!!

Sharon wanted us to make ourselves a timeline of what are we going to work on for the rest of the time before performance in the Shaw Theatre. 

A rough planning timeline suggested by everyone.

Timeline :

9th November (Thursday)

11am to 1pm - full rehearse 

3pm to 3.30pm - talk about costumes

3.30pm to 4.30pm - full rehearse 

13th November (Monday)

11am to 1pm - talk about props

2pm to 3.30pm - full rehearse 

no scripts allowed

14th November (Tuesday)

12.30pm to 1.30pm - work on our blog as usual

2pm to 3.30pm - full rehearse

15th November (Wednesday)

10am to 11.30am - full rehearse

11.30am to 12pm - talk about costumes

16th November (Thursday)

9.30am to 10.30am - independant work

11am to 1pm - full rehearse

3pm to 4.30pm - full rehearsal with costumes

20th November (Monday)

11am to 1pm - full rehearsal with costumes

2pm to 3.30pm - full rehearsal with costumes 

21st November (Tuesday)

(to be confirmed)

before 6pm - gather at the Shaw Theatre


What will go well after planning ourselves a timetable?...

• Our time for rehearsals will be really organise, because we know exactly what are we going to do on that day in each lesson, so when we go to college we will follow our timetable. It can reduce any extra time for us figuring out what are we going to do or waiting for people to arrive, we will start rehearsal and when someone arrive late to the class/theatre, they will then join in with group. 
• We gave ourselves some time to talk about costumes and props, so that during the real performance we won't bring props or wear costumes that doesn't even fit with the performance. 
• Besides from all full rehearsals through out the week, we also gave ourselves time to update with our blog work during both tutorial and context period, so that we won't miss so much to update after performance. 

6th week 31st October - 2nd November

31st October (Tuesday)

Three weeks till our performance day in Shaw Theatre!!

We did warm ups as usual, Sharon asked us to think of ourselves three actions or something that we will do in normal day as the character in R&J. Each of us took our little space in room and start doing things by ourselves. My three movements...

1. Cleaning the house.
2. Getting coffee ready for guests. 
3. Tidying bookshelves. 

My explanation to Sharon was, I enjoyed doing my job and i spend most of my time cleaning the house. I don't really have a thing that i love doing while I'm free, because houseworks are the only things I'm interested in. 

After that, we began to work on details for the party scene as that is the scene where all cast members will be on stage. Sharon wanted to make sure that we're going smoothly in the scene. Also, Sharon has worked on other scenes too, and few have improved by adding more details. 

5th Week 9th - 12th October

9th October (Monday)

We started our class doing tongue twisters like She stood on the balcony, inimitably mimicking him hiccuping, and amicably welcoming him in and Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie. 

We focused on the beginning scene up to the party scene that we're going to perform on Wednesday to the rest of Performing Arts students. For the very beginning, me, Nikaya, Shamsul and Eleanor will go first. Rob directed us from the top including, how am i going to realize the Montagues and when to start my line so that everything in between will look connected. Nikaya then decided to tie her shoelace before i notice the montague walking pass, so i will need to call her up and look what i see, after that she will continue with her line.

Then, we moved to the scene where Tybalt and Benvolio fight. Rob added some interesting fighting movements for them and asked them to try it in slow motion first, then fast in order to get familiar with those movements and work them well.

In the afternoon, we repeated the details we did with Rob for few times, then Sharon brought us to the theatre. We acted our five beginning scenes out together with the lighting and background music. Our performance became easier than before as we now know our queues on what to do next. Lighting makes our play more catchy and interesting, because audience gets to see the bright part and they will know where to focus more, which is important. For the party scene, we got ourselves a nice background music, our dance movements were more natural as we get to dance to the music and follow it with the same pace. Not like before, most of us were moving our bodies with different speed as everyone was having a different pace of music in their head.

10th & 11th October (Tuesday & Wednesday)

(check evaluation blog)

12th October (Thursday) A DAY IN CONWAY HALL

In the morning, we followed Rob and Sharon to the Conway Hall as we were going to have a workshop there with students from another school. We started our warm up by walking around the hall and the instructor will tell us when to stop, go, clap or jump. After a few rounds of playing, the instructor then jumbled up all the meaning of that four actions. For examples, STOP = GO, GO = STOP, JUMP = CLAP, and CLAP = JUMP. This gave us a total challenge as we are getting use to the original meaning. At first, some of us still get confused but slowly the group were getting more smoothly.

What I learned from it?...
While things lead to learning, concentrating and focusing always come first to everyone's mind. In order to succeed in something, we need to put 100% of focus and understanding on it so we can ensure that less thing will go wrong if we always keep our attention on it. 

Then, students from both school were asked to mix together in four, so there will be two students from our school and two from theirs. We then need to share what we were working on to them by telling them our play, characters, important events, where the play take part.

I get to know they were working on Macbeth play, I'm actually quite familiar with the story for this play as i did this in year 8. Everything crossed through my mind to remind me of little bits in the play. I was curious on how will they perform it after they said the title of their play.

After all the talking, we were asked to start our performance first. We will be performing from the beginning up to the Prince come out to stop everyone. After performing, we need to give each other feedback on how they've worked with their play. Both schools got many positive feedbacks.


Feedback we got from them after showing our part...

• We worked really well as a group, not only showing the connection of all of us off stage, also when we're acting. The conflicts between Montagues and Capulets are rich, and we took it well. 
• The projection of our voice were loud enough, and all of them can hear it clearly.
• The freezing part at the beginning scene were really nice, they can see who's from Montague and who's from Capulet. We froze ourselves in a reversed V shape, so that audience could see us clearly at the back. 
• All of us were full with tension. 

Feedback we gave them after they performed with their part...

Students from another school performing their beginning scene. 

• Their background music was good. 
• The dance movements they added to their play was really smooth to watch. 
• Their fight scene was in slow motion, we get to see details when they were fighting.

After, we were working with William, the person who's leading all of us. Both school will be staying at a different space and work on their play to make it better. 

What have we changed for the beginning scene?...

• The freeze frame at the beginning, most of us were posing without full energy. William asked us to talk about our character, my character will be an orphan and the Capulets let me be in their house to work with them, and they treated me well with good food, I will give up my life to protect my Lord and the family if someone else are planning to hurt them. As the same, Capulet and Lady Capulet hated the Montagues, I'm not very sure that what's the reason making them to hate each other, but i will always stand by the Capulets side. William wanted me to remember that while I'm freezing and exaggerate it with a bigger and more intensity pose. 
• Instead of walking in from the backstage and stand in our own place, William wanted us to get ready opposite and walk to another end where we used to be, while walking, we could add some conflicts like staring at the person walking towards your direction. 
• For the scene where Nikaya and I will provoke the Montagues first. Before, Nikaya will shout "Oi" while walking towards them. But this time, William said it's better to go after shouting, the scene will be much more nicer to watch. 
• When the Prince come out and starts to speak her lines, instead of standing right looking at her, William asked us to give responses to her, like 'No!' 'No way!' so it wont be only her speaking a long monologue. 

When we repeat the whole beginning scene again after changing some details, I can feel that it's more an opening scene now. The audience get to know our character more before the play when we walk across the stage in character before getting in to our freeze frames. It looks like we're just people living in Verona walking around the street, and the staring between both groups of people just like people who support the Montagues and Capulet.

Here's a picture of what we want our audience,
Rosie to feel when we're performing.

5 Top Tips we got from the workshop about what an actor/actress need to be ensured while performing...

1.  Land the lines - Voice projection is very important for a stage performer, if there's no microphone for us. We need to make sure our voice can be heard from the last row of audience. 
2. Stay in character - As an actor/actress, staying in character is very important. Audience doesn't want to pay and see a bunch of people walking in and out the stage reading their lines. The moment we entered to the stage, we need to stay in our character, even though there's no any line to say. We need to give responses to other characters while they're speaking, so that audience get to know the relationship between us. 
3. Embrace the audience magnet - Also means the interactive between us and audience. It's important to have at least once of this moment in a play, to make the audience feel involved, and not getting bored of only watching us perform for hours.  
4. Avoid the kiss or kill position - In a theatre with big stage, it's odd to see two person standing too close to each other while performing as there will be more extra spaces around. To catch the audience's eyeballs, we need to use as much space as we can, only if we're trying to kill or kiss the person opposite us.
5. Cheat with your feet - During performance, we can't resist there might be some moment that we need to face the audience with our back.But with this tip, we could slowly move our body to a position where the audience could see us with our feet.

Evaluation for 10th & 11th October

10th October (Tuesday) Review for Music Level 2&3's performance

We are going to watch the performance from Music level 2&3 students!!

Although i was not in college that time, I get to watch some little bits of the performance  through short videos taken by friend (not sure if it's alright to take video of the performance). There's a guy singing Billy Jeans by Michael Jackson, I think I'm in love with that just like everyone else on that day. I believe that not only the song that's taking our attention, but also his nimble movements on stage. He was so confident to show what he had been working on, as an audience, I can feel the joy he brought to everyone of us. 

What did I learned from above?... 

As an actor, sometimes we don't know how will we look like for an audience. This performance had made it clear for me, i think one of the most important point will be our confidence. Why? It's the same for a musician or an actor. We perform on stage, and show our story. Audience wouldn't want to pay and watch for you standing at the back of the stage speaking your line or singing with a voice that only you can hear it. 

For musicians, they need their voice, and also their skills on playing instruments. But for us actors, we need not only our voices, the movements and expressions will be as important as our voice. How do we perform them well all together? Confidence. 

A part from that, I think their band did a great job too, as a team. Teamwork has been a very basic knowledge for an actor, we are a group not alone. Everyone is going to have their own lines, own objectives and own characteristics on stage, but not on their own. For example, even as Montagues and Capulets, everyone knows that this two groups are enemies. So for us, we need to show much more conflict in between, in order to let the audience know we hate each other on stage but also working really well together with our eye contact to each other, interactive movements, and the pace we speak. All of it were the main common things that every performers should know, but showing them in different way.  

11th October (Wednesday)

It was our turn to perform what we learned and what we did during the induction period together with Musical Theatre students and Dance students. In the morning, all of us gathered ourselves in the dance studio. Sharon did some warm ups with us such as, tongue twisters, reflection exercise, and some voice projection exercise.

We rehearsed two rounds before we need to go to the theatre, i can see that everyone of us had fully into our own character with all the blocking, the lines and movements. We get a little nervous while watching other students performing their piece but still giving most of our attention to those performers while they were performing, and give them our biggest applause.

When it's our turn to be on stage, all of us started to be very serious and remember the little details Rob and Sharon told us like what to do and what not to do on stage. To be honest, i think we did better in the performance than in rehearsals.

What we did better during the performance?...

• we did not face our back to the audience and has used the space well, so that the audience can see every cast members on stage. 
• our tension during performance were much more stronger, we put 100% of focus in to our character. 

What we could improve for our next performance?...
During the party scene, most of us stayed at the back with our group, and left with a big space in front. We should move more to upstage so that audience will get to see us clearly. And we wont feel wasted for our party character as we did so much on our detail for the party as guests. 

Overall performance : Everyone put in their best effort in the play, and it does turned out not bad, audience enjoyed it and i enjoyed it too. For other performers from Dance and Musical Theatre, they did really well too, all of them were so energetic on stage,  their movements were so natural to tell that's been planned.

4th Week 2nd - 5th October

3rd October (Tuesday)

We focused on our character in R&J. Sharon listed down some questions for us to think of our character, for examples:

• Who am I?
• Where do I live?
• What work do I do?
• Friends?
• Family?

I gave myself a summary with these questions. 

My name is Gregory, age around 16-18. I am a servant of the house of Capulet. I live in the same house with Capulets family. My job is to serve the family well in house and in charge with the  houseworks. My friends will be Sampson, the closest person in house, who is also a servant like me. I do not have any family member, but see Capulets as my family. 

We then separated into groups with people in the same status. I was in a group with Nikaya Shamsul, Eleanor, Carla and Jaychelle. We're all servant for Montague or Capulet, except for Carla, she is the nurse to Juliet. We were asked to improvise a story that's related to our character but not in the scene of R&J. 

Six of us went to another room and started to think ourselves a story line. This is what we came up with. And that's what we got

The pregnant nurse(Carla) is actually the real mother of Juliet but she's too poor to take care of the daughter after giving birth. She finds the servants for help and they suggested her to give it to Lady Capulet as she still couldn't get a baby for herself after 5 years of marriage. In this way, Carla can still stay in Capulet house to take care of her daughter as a nurse. While she was discussing with the servants of Capulet about what could she do next, both servants from Montague walked towards them, in order to protect the nurse. The servants went into a fight... 

5th October (Thursday)

During our tutorial class in the morning, Sharon told us that we will be performing in the school theatre on next Wednesday, and we're going to the Conway Hall in Holborn on next Thursday for workshop as well. And we're only going to perform the opening scene from the whole play.

In practical class, Sharon gave each of us a piece of paper with full of questions about our character in R&J. We were asked to think of the answer in a modern way like which part of London will they live and what kind of house, their personality, their outfit and more questions that we couldn't find any answer by only knowing the play. Because this is about building up our character so that when we speak, we will know how to perform it if also knowing the personal story of that character.

This is the picture of the sheet:

• My name is Gregory(male). 
• I live with the Capulet family, no specific places that i wanted to live. 
• I work with the family as a servant, and also Juliet's personal fitness trainer. 
• I do not have any family member. I see the Capulet family as my own. 
• My closest friend will be Sampson, who is also a servant of Capulet.
• I always dress myself in a clean and tidy suit with bow and tie. 
• I have good personality, treat everyone in my best way, but because of my beloved master (Lord Capulet) hate the Montagues deep in heart, so it causes me hating them as well. 
• I've got one quirk which is love to swim in the private swimming pool when Lord Capulet and the family are not around. 

We need to pair up with one person and understand their character. Each of us need to introduce our partner to the class, while he will need to act his character out, we then take turn between two person.

What I learned from above?...
For a successful performance, it is a must for actors to know their character extremely well. As every character is played by other actors in the past, probably got mostly the same characteristics. In order to make the audience be amazed by us, we need to do something different, like think of another story line for this character before the story comes out. So in every line we say and every movements\ we do will have its own meaning behind. The more we understand our character, the more the audience will understand the story too, as we will be acting it out with full of comprehend. 

In the afternoon, We combined our class with Musical Theatre students. We were asked to find a partner with opposite class and tell them a 2 minutes story about how we go to college in the morning while they will do the same to us, our objectives were to distract each other and let them stop and listen to us. My partner was a girl from musical theatre (i forgot her name), both of us talked about our story with incredible endurance, we did not stop to listen or laugh. But we enjoyed it so much as we will be talking louder and louder to cover one another's voice and starting to speak with strength. When Rob asked if anyone get what each other was talking about, only few mates put their hands up.

What i learned from above?...
It's really hard to maintain focus on what i want to say when someone is talking as well, but it gets to train an actor's focus ability. In order to be 100% not getting distracted, i need to think of the story that I'm going to tell in my mind first, and need to be clear of the order of story that I am going to tell someone opposite. And speak out with powerful words and sentences make sure that the emotion for my story is enough then I can put more focus in it. 

After that we were given a five minutes time to work out a short story on how we go to college, it can be one story chosen between two person or a combination story of both. As nothing interesting happen in my story, I suggested to act with her story.

Here's her story

She forgot to take her lunch box in the morning and need to go back and take it after leaving house for 10 minutes, when she arrived at the station, it was so crowded with people that she has to wait for the second train and still need to squeeze in after. She was being squeezed by other passengers on train for 20 minutes. It was raining in the morning before she arrived in the college and she hates that because her shoes will get wet eventually. 

Before showing the story to class, this is what we came out with after 5 minutes of sorting out unwanted parts and added some new parts in the story, 

• We decided to act out a silent play with zero noises, I will be the mother for the beginning making breakfast and preparing lunch for her but she forgot to bring her lunch box out, and I shouted her back(without noise) then she off to college again. 
• As it was raining in the morning, during the walk to station we both took out an invisible umbrella, i will be a passerby on the street that going to the same station with her.
• When the train arrived, we make weird movements and exaggerate it as we squeezing on to the train. We stayed 10-15 seconds for the scene to act out the situation in a crowded train. Our bodies were not standing straight but kinda look crooked like there will be many passengers on train too, we need to look like there's no more space for us to breathe.
• We moved our body right and left repeating as the train was operating to show the real happening and the speed of train. 
• We used some time to squeeze out from the train then took out our umbrella again, what we did this time were not only walking normally to college. We added some dance movements like in situ rotation, or slide from left to right with umbrella in our hand.
• We then walk neutrally to the college.  

What I learned form above?...
Speaking out loudly and clearly has been a very common technic for an actor, but what if we're going to act out the entire play in silent? I've noticed the challenging part of it and this is what i got as a new acting knowledge. Doing exaggerated movements in a play to show more things other than speaking.  How to show the audience when i'm in panic while she did not get her lunch box. I stamped on the ground hard but lighter the force on my feet when it's touching the ground as i do not want to make any sound in the play. It is just a movement for audience to look at my expression and know how i feel. For another example, when we were squeezing in to the train, we wont show any exciting part in our play if we just walk in and stand there straight. To make our play in better quality, we moved every part of our body just like our bones are falling apart because of the crowded train. It shows our difficulty from getting onto the train. 

I enjoyed a lot with their performances, here are some of the examples of how other groups performed their story, 

• Reflection technic, both doing the same thing opposite each other, I was so amazed by their eyes contact with each other as no one can tell who's leading with the movements. 
• Getting ready with their own after waking up, then ended up meeting each other on the way to college. 
• Use a song to present their story, both wake up and tidying themselves, they started to sing in duet. And wind up with a very nice pose. 
• Some groups they used dance movements to show their emotions in the story, like big jumping movements to show their excitement and i love all the interactive movements between both person. 

Then, we were going to show musical theatre students our progression of R&J from the beginning to the party scene, I think we did a great job every time, as each of us are slowly getting more comfortable with our character, and be able to play it smoothly. Rob wanted everyone of us to remember our lines for these few scenes so that we could move on to work more on our little movements on Monday. 

3rd Week 25th - 28th September

25th September (Monday)

We continued to work with R&J play starting from the party scene. Everyone is going to be on stage during the scene where Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time.We broke into few groups enjoying with our little conversations without making any sounds as we were supposed to be the background for this scene. Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt and Capulet will be speaking with their own lines while we 'the guests' will continue to enjoy our party. We were asked to be quiet when getting our voices louder, because the loud noises in the background will affect the actors from saying their lines in front.

Having both groups of people on stage acting different things is a very good idea as audience gets to see the details we put in the scene. Yet, if both of the groups make noises at the same time, audience wouldn't know where to put their focus on. So, Rob has been so serious when we make too much noise at the back.

What I learned form above?...
It is important to let actors to know we do not only act with a character on stage but we also need to think of how we will look in front of the audience. For example, we all knew that it's going to be a party scene on stage, we enjoyed it, and putting all the big movements and voices in the scene and did not realize that it could be a bad consequent if audience couldn't get what the main characters are doing in front. 

Next we are going to focus on our understanding for the play and our freezing technic. We added three most important scenes in the list and we have to act it out by adding one dialogue for each scene and freeze for few seconds before moving to another scene. 

Here are the three important scenes in R&J showing with pictures...

The very first scene.
Nikaya represents Juliet from Capulet. Jeremy represents Romeo from Montague.
Abe play as Abraham and I'm Sampson. We both show our hate to each other from each family. 

The Party Scene. 
The scene where Romeo and Juliet first meet.
Abe and I represent the guests in background. 

The very last scene. 
The death of Romeo and Juliet.
Abe represents the Capulets and I represent the Montagues.
Showing that the death of the couple had brought how awful upshot to both family.

We presented the three scenes to class, then Sharon asked us to present it again with adding three more important scenes from R&J. Which will be six in total. After a ten minutes of discussion and demonstrating. We came up with the six scenes:

• The fighting scene between Montagues and Capulets
• The party scene where Romeo and Juliet first meet 
• The balcony scene where Romeo confess his love to Juliet
• The marriage between Romeo and Juliet
• The fighting scene that kills Paris and Tybalt
• The final scene where Romeo and Juliet die

Four of us used up most empty spaces in the theatre and the pausing time gap between each scene was just right. Besides, we did great in our levels too, we have half lowered body, laying done on the floor and also standing up straight.

What I learned from above?...

Freeze frames are one of the most important technics for an actor. As the play goes on and on actors change their expression fast from angry to more angry or less angry by any line they speak. But with freeze frame, actors get to show their facial expression in specific timing without any conversation with others and do not need to react from what they say. It is just all about what you see and what you feel about the scene. 

26th September (Tuesday) + 28th September (Thursday)

We finished with the whole play!!

2nd Week 18th - 21st September

18th September (Monday)

It's my first class!!

We played a game, it's for us to remember others' names. The game was to all stand in a circle and one starts first by calling out someone's name and when the person says yes, the first person can move to that person's place, and the second person will have to call out another person's name until they say yes in order to move. We played for few rounds and I finally get to know all of their names.

We started our class with few warm ups, including showing our understanding of each expression and body movements. Then, we move on to voice exercise, which everyone has to think of a line from the play and keep it in mind, we imagined there was a candle in our hand, and whisper or shout our line to the candle. After that, we were called to separate in group A and B, group A will do their performance first while group B will sit at the last row of audience seat watch and give comments. What we're doing was to shout our line three times, to the candle in our hand, to the chair in front of us, and to group Bs who represent audiences. after group A done with their voice projection, group B's turn.

What I learned from above?...

Actors will learn who they wanted to send their voices to when they're speaking, not only to make the audience to hear our lines clearly, also making the actors to speak out with intensity and show much more conflicts about the play within the lines when we have a target space to project our voices to.

We moved on to the party scene in Romeo and Juliet, Rob asked us to give ourselves a name, an occupation, a talent, a hobby and a joke to share with so that everyone has an character now. We met people around the room and talk about ourselves. Then, we started to act out our talent to others by making only one sound.

What I learned from above?...
Actors get to know how a party scene will be, which is about a character talking and enjoying with other characters on stage. In order to let the audience see what we're doing, body action will be the main thing for us, we need to make it clear of what we're doing and knowing how to react with another character opposite or beside us. We get to see all different kind of people getting along and laughing or sharing stories in groups. 

19th September (Tuesday)

We did warm ups included walking with neutral look and reflection. We were asked to walk with three different positions when Sharon shouts different number from 1 to 3. We can't show any characteristic by any movements we're doing.
Number 1, we need to walk with a heavy body.
Number 2, will be more relax compare to the first one.
Number 3, we were asked to walk in a very neutral position and eyes up straight.

After that, we did reflection activity by working with a partner and take turns to do some movements in slow motion and the opposite person will need to follow it.

What i learned from above?...
Actors can easily get into their character after getting use to empty themselves, people will normally put themselves into the character they're casting but not the character itself. Before knowing how to perfectly cast out a character, actors need to know how to empty their own personality first.
Reflection is one of the important skills for an actor, they will be observing on what others are doing on stage and quickly react with it.

We then start with our fight scene, not sure if it will be in Romeo and Juliet. We were asked to find ourselves a partner and take turns to fight in slow motion, the person opposite will react. Each person will have their own three fighting movements. After few minutes of practicing, we need to perform it in front of the class. My partner was Grace, both of us worked really well together and the class enjoyed watching our performance.

After everyone had performed their fighting scene, we were then asked to separate in two lines. Each actor will have their partner opposite, there will be around 2 meters of distance between the two lines, and we need to start our fight with slow motion from the top of the line to the bottom so that audiences in front can see everyone on stage.

What i learned from above?...
Why slow motion? Slow motion has been a very common technic for actors, I enjoyed doing slow motions, it gives time for actors to think of their next movement, and how would they react with anything. Slow movements show details in body gesture and interactive between the actors.

Other than our actions, we were also asked to stay with a face with tension while looking at our partner opposite, the look on each of our face will let the fighting scene more distinctly. 

21st September (Thursday)

We've got our character in Romeo and Juliet!!

Quite sad knowing that I've got only two lines in the whole play and it's only the beginning of scene 1. But there's this quote ran into my head, "there are no small parts, only small actors". I can't even remember whose quote is that, but the meaning of that quote couldn't fade in my brain.

After everyone know what role they got, Rob started to direct us to where we should position ourselves and began with the first scene. Sampson (Nikaya) was absent that day, so Rob took over her place to guide us for the scene.

What I need to put in this scene?... 

• Expression showing how uncomfortable when I see Montagues. 
• The ferocious look when Sampson and I start having some conversations with them. 
• The moment we starting a fight with them. 
• When Benvolio came in to stop the fight and pull them away from us, how we show our look to them. 

Term 1 unit 4 SHAKESPEARE & ROMEO AND JULIET

Shakespeare's Timeline

23rd April 1564
William Shakespeare is born in Stratford-upon-Avon

1569
Shakespeare goes to school. King's New School, an excellent grammer school in Stratford.

26th November 1582

Shakespeare marries Anne Hathwey who is 8 years older than him.

26th May 1583
Shakespeare's first child, Susanna is born 6 months after marriage.

1585
Shakespeare's wife gives birth to twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith.

1590
Shakespeare writes his very first play, Henry The VI, part one. Also around the same time, he leaves Stratford to begin work as a playwright and actor in London.

1592
Shakespeare has become successful enough as a playwright to make his peer jealous. Robert Greene writes a scathing critique of him, calling him a "upstart crow".

April 1593
Shakespeare publishes his first long poem, "Venus and Adonis".

May 1594
Shakespeare publishes "The Rape of Lucrece". He also purchases shares in the Chamberlain's Men in the same year.

11th August 1596
Shakespeare and Anne bury their only son, Hamnet, who dies at the age of 11 of unknown causes.

May 1597
Shakespeare becoming more wealthy thanks to his theater work and shrewed investments. He buys a new place, which is the second-largest house in Stratford.

1598
Francis Meres publishes a glowing review of Shakespeare's work. Shakespeare has become a noted playwright with at least a dozen plays under his belt, including Romeo and Juliet, A Mid-summer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Love Labor's Lost and Titus Andronicus.

1599
The Chamberlain's Men build the Globe, a wooden theater in London. Many of Shakespeare most famous plays are performed for the first time here.

1601
Shakespeare's father dies, and his patron Earl Southampton is sentenced to death for his role in the Essex Rebellion. Shakespeare's father's death motivates him to write Hamlet around this time. His plays over the next few years take a dark, brooding tone.

14th March 1603
Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth I, King James ascends the throne. The Chamberlain's Men change their name to the King's Men.

1608 
The King's Men begin performing at Blackfriars, an indoor theater in London. In contrast to the somber mood of the last seven years.

1609
Thomas Thorpe prints a collection of 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets.

1611
Shakespeare leaves London and move back to Stratford, where his wife and married daughters live.


1613
Shakespeare composes his final plays, Henry VIII, Two Nobel Kinsmen, and the Now-Lost Cardenio in  collaboration with John Fletcher.

25th March 1616
Shakespeare calls his lawyer to revise his will.

23rd April 1616
Suffering from an unknown illness, Shakespeare dies in his 52nd Birthday.

25th April 1616
Shakespeare is buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford two days after he's died.

Informations from link below:
https://www.shmoop.com/william-shakespeare/timeline.html

Review on Romeo and Juliet

Review for the link below...

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/may/26/romeo-and-juliet-review-branagh-lily-james-richard-madden-garrick-theatre

After reading through the paragraphs on how Kenneth Branagh's Romeo and Juliet goes, there're things that I wanted to share it out.

• The play was played in a modern world, but with men wearing dark suits, and women with petticoat. It has a fantastical combination with 2016 (when Romeo and Juliet is played) and 1950s. 
• Comparing to the Romeo and Juliet play we know for the past, Branagh has introduced a fascinating style of the play to the audience. Every moment in the play was remake from a very classical and well known sense of style to a stage full of vitality, as every of the character on stage acquits the story of R&J very well.
• For the character Romeo and Juliet, they both annotated the youth spirit and the passion for their love in play. However for us, we are still in our teen age, it will be more realistic for the audiences to enjoy the play as we do not need to hide our maturity on stage.

What can we do to improve our performance for the play after reading the review from the website?...

Excluding the fun part for the audiences to enjoy a modern style of Romeo and Juliet, the parts that we need to work more on will be our slang and costume. Firstly, the slang in Shakespeare's play gives a lot of tension, but what we are going to play is a modern story, and will not be following the slang of Shakespeare, we need to build our tension with our own slang and voice.

Costumes

As playing a classical play with modern style will be reducing the sense of times. In order to not loss the significance in Romeo and Juliet, choosing the right costumes will be as important as understanding the whole play. Different colour theme of costumes between characters lead them to stay in their role immediately, for examples, different colour theme between Montagues and Capulets will give a big contrast on both households. And, costumes between the lords and their servants should be classify with the amount of jewellery they put on themselves, bright and dull colour, the smartness of costume for lord.

 Is Shakespeare still relevant in 2017?...

After doing some research and combine them with my own thoughts, yes, I think Shakespeare is relevant in 2017 for us and even for the future generations. I've got some strong points from few websites to help me prove that.

Lets take Romeo and Juliet as the first example, Shakespeare's work is relatable with modern days. People might say it's been more than 400 years, perspective of his during that time should be irrelevant by this time. Shakespeare's writing has inspired many of today's best modern works. We might change the style of how are we going to perform his play but Shakespeare's original story still will be the base for all. 

We often quoted Shakespeare's line without knowing. To be honest, I learned to say 'To be or not to be' before knowing Shakespeare. Shakespeare's words and phrases has taken the big part in our lives. As a drama student, i would say that he knows how to describe and express his characters' emotions, all of his characters in each play have their very powerful personality. That's also why i said his work is relatable, not only with his play but also his characters' personalities and how they act. From villains, murderers, lovers and dreamers to traitors, servants, witches and magicians, there're full of everything that you can imagine and more.

Informations from links below:
http://sajhs.nebo.edu/news/shakespeare-still-relevant-today
https://news.usc.edu/91717/six-reasons-shakespeare-remains-relevant-400-years-after-his-death/

Cultural significance of Romeo and Juliet

Language that Shakespeare used in Romeo & Juliet

Shakespeare's work is written in Elizabethan English, it's poetic and also with iambic pentameter. What's iambic pentameter? It's an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable and also a form of poetic device which lends rhythm and almost musical quality to the language. He used the style of this to write his plays and especially in his sonnets.

Elizabethan English is considered to be a part of Early Modern English. It was basically a transition from Middle English. Shakespeare wrote during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and was highly influenced both politically and stylistically. This is where the term Elizabethan English stems from.

Words in Elizabethan language
Writers and playwrights invented new words during Elizabethan times. Shakespeare invented the most new words than any other single person while writing his plays, they were approx 2000 new words.

Themes in Romeo & Juliet

Love -  The play focusses on romantic love, especially the intense passion that springs up at first sight between Romeo and Juliet. It has some of the most beautiful, passionate love poetry ever written in English. Maybe Shakespeare does want us to believe in true love. Love in first sight has become believable after since.

Hate -  In Romeo & Juliet, love and hate are just two sides of the same coin. When the hatred between the Montagues and Capulets finally drives the lovers to their tragic deaths, it seems like love might finally triumph over hate. But if they're just two sides of the same coin, how can this kind of passionate love even exist without hate?

Fate -  In Romeo & Juliet fate refers to the description of the lovers as "star-crossed". This phrase seems to hint that the stars have predetermined the lovers' future.

Marriage -  In the world of Romeo and Juliet, marriage of love rather than money or social position, is a radical and dangerous choice, particularly for kids from wealthy and influential families. Romeo and Juliet pay a heavy price for marrying for love, their furtive union propels the lovers towards their tragic deaths.

Informations from links below:
http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-language.htm
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/romeojuliet/themes.html
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/romeo-and-juliet/critical-essays/major-themes