Improvisation!! Kids!

The other lesson we got given a task to just make up a scene about 7 year olds doing something to do with the nativity. Our group decided to do auditions everyone auditioned for narrator besides Ollie M who auditioned for camel. The aim for this exercise was for us to widen our knowledge on how kids should act as we are going to be acting as kids for our first show!

Refugee piece update!

The last few lessons we've decided to make a few alterations. First one was to make Olive K , Lewis and I a clown trio this way I still have a character and people wont expect me to be the trafking leader. We made a comedy dance were we basically hit each other, we have also done a small interactive performance with the child solders( Rib and Lorna)!

The others have changed the: Child solider scene, Charlie's monologue, and the final scene. I was writing the script for Child solider and Charlie's monologue!

Our piece is finally mending together and it'll be a interesting performance!

Revolution Arts - Lorna Clark: Story Telling & Script Writing

Revolution Arts - Lorna Clark: Story Telling & Script Writing: 23/09/15 This lesson we had to get in pairs and write a script; this script could either be of a story we already knew or one we could make ...

Revolution Arts - Lorna Clark: Brechtian Devised Piece - Refugees (4)

Revolution Arts - Lorna Clark: Brechtian Devised Piece - Refugees (4): In this lesson, we ran everything we already had. We then added Robert into our existing scenes properly; this meant that we had to alter ea...

Flint Street Nativty Play: First rehersal!

Today we've been given our characters and the scripts for the play! I'm the Innkeeper this character is basically the school bully, in the show he forces people to do stuff which they don't want to do! My character also have a crush on Jenny Benet( AKA Mary) to show his love he does peculiar actions or say weird stuff which just creep out Mary! In the show he is twins with Shepard -Katya is playing as her- that means I need to research on young sibling relationships! In the show their are stage directions pointing out that I am the bully e.g.( Tense music) The Innkeeper's dad is also the mayor so this will be big transition between acts.

Research for Double

Victims stories

Mauri was only 16 years old when she was prostituted on the streets of Honolulu, Hawaii. For her, there was no escape; her pimp threatened to kill her family if she did not go out on the street night after night to make him money. If Mauri tried to use some of the money to buy food, she was severely beaten. Mauri finally escaped when she was picked up by law enforcement. She is now in a rehabilitation program and has reunited with her parents, but her road to recovery has been long and difficult. She suffers from terrible flashbacks and severe depression, and has even attempted suicide. Mauri says she was lucky to get out alive: “The longer you stay the less hope you have.”
Source:http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2013/210546.htm

Tola was seven years old when she was lured away from her parents by a couple who owned the field her family worked. While enslaved, she was forced to take care of cats and dogs for the couple’s pet grooming shop. For five years, Tola’s parents hoped to see her again, never knowing how she disappeared or where she might be. They never imagined that Tola was close, enduring torture and abuse. If Tola did not do her job properly, she was kicked, slapped, and beaten with a broom. Sometimes the couple locked her in a cage and poured boiling hot water over her. On one occasion, the traffickers cut off her ear lobe with a pair of scissors. One day, she climbed a concrete fence of the house while chasing a cat and realized she was free. A neighbor called the police and she was taken to a nearby shelter where her mother identified her. The couple was arrested and charged with various charges, including torture, detaining a person against their will, enslavement, and kidnapping. The couple posted bail and escaped. As for Tola, injuries on her arms affected her muscles; she can no longer move her left arm. For now, she is safe with her family and is beginning her mental, emotional, and physical journey to recovery.
Sourcehttp://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2013/210546.htm

Since her parents passed away, Ogochukwu had been struggling to care for her younger brothers. An acquaintance offered to take her abroad and find her a job. Ogochukwu was ecstatic; she accepted his offer, believing that she would now be able to help her family in Nigeria. Before setting off to Europe, she was taken to a juju priest to seal the deal with local magic. During the ceremony, she vowed she would obey her boss in Europe and pay back her travel expenses. The “spell” called for death if she failed to fulfill her oath. It was not too long before she realized that something was wrong, she had joined about 30 other women in an open-back truck headed toward the Sahara Desert. They finally reached their destination and were met by a “madam” in France who told her she owed travel expenses for her passage to Europe and would be forced to pay it back by selling her body. She worked the streets as many as 20 hours a day and was forced to pay for her own food and clothes as well as for rent. Despite the juju oath, she was encouraged by a man she befriended to go to the police. Once at the police station, she explained her situation. Her traffickers were arrested but so was she, for being in France illegally. Before her deportation, workers at the detention center gave her money out of good will for her safe return to Nigeria. She is now building her life again and says,“I am very much stronger than juju.”
Source: http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2013/210546.htm

Vinson Alexander


Vinson Alexander is accused of enslaving a young woman and forcing her to work as a stripper in Southeast Michigan since December 2012.  Alexander's accomplice, Taryn Johnson, allegedly recruited the 18 year-old victim, luring her with promises of a good salary.  Alexander allegedly collected all her earnings, and used threats and violence to control the victim when she resisted.  On February 21, 2013, it is alleged Alexander violently assaulted the victim, resulting in serious injury.
Sourece:www.michigan.gov/ag/0,4534,7-164-46849-295723--,00.html

Jack and Gill

Today's task was to make a script for a story and to perform it next lesson. I got paired up with Lorna so we thought we would stick with a story we know: Jack and Gill but instead of having the normal perspective we had from the view of the bucket in the rhyme. The scene is set in a room where the bucket is going to speak to the Councillor about his story.

Flint street nativity update

Miss Decided to experiment more on casting, so I played as Star, this character is very geeky and nerdy as his uncle works for NASA, he also seems to brag a lot about how his uncle works for NASA. I think this character is always playing with spaceships so I interpreted in the scene.
I also played as Herold who is obsessed with question of sport but is easily distracted it by it. He would be speaking but then just change and ask random questions about sport, I found this character very challenging as I couldn't figure out what type of character he is.
I also tried out as Shepard who is a very curious character who keeps asking question all of the time, I found him fun to play as. In the middle of the lesson miss made us play children games to make us feel more like children.
At the end we have been told to research on how kids behave she said to do this buy watching the film nativity.

Update for Circus refugee piece

For the last few lessons we have concentrated on Frantic assembly again. So we decided to include some of his stuff in our devised piece. We started it off by adding in Rhiannons story where she falls in love with a man and at the end he sells her to a trafficking master. I was the man who sold her! The way we did this was by Rhinnanon telling the audience about her story and then going into movement. To symbolise a busy train scene we did something similar to the chair lesson but instead we are standing after this we did three moves which resembled us waiting for a train they were bend, look, look at watch, then get on the train this led Rhiannon to meet me and we do a bit of physical theatre to show each others love.

After the bit of physical theatre I backed of from Rhiannon and I was leading a group of gangsters which eventually led her to Charlie the traffking master. Thats all we have done!

The Flint street nativity

Today for single we got told that we are performing a show called " The Flint street Nativity" This play is about a class of 7 to 8 year old producing a the Nativity a couple of weeks before they perform to their parents. Then the second act is based on the adults watching their children perform the nativity. This is suppose to be a comedy which means we have to take the roles of being kids seriously instead of overacting, this will consist of a lot of research.

We got given the first scene of play which is an introduction of all the kids.I played a Wise Frankincense who had a lisp this was quite  a humourers character to play as the script writer gave the character lots of s' which he cant pronounce, onto of that Shepard asks him if their is something wrong with him.

I would like to try some other characters out before Miss casts so I can see which character is challenging for me.

Circus Refugees!

Task-

Our task was to create a devised piece as a whole group inspired by Brecht's style of Drama. Miss gave us 2 picture of refugees fleeing there country: one was in World War 2 when children got exported to the country to safeguard from the bombers, and the other one was more present as there was a picture of Refuges on a boat trying to escape Seria as its to dangerous to stay in their country.

The pictures gave us the idea of illegal Trafficking, so we decided that we all have been Trafficked in each different way, for example my name was Jessica and I was a transsexual prostitute. Lewis and Oliver Kelly were slaves Lorna was a child solider and Charlie was the pimp, so he was trying to sell all of us. Most of Brecht pieces would be funny and then he would confront the audience and make them feel bad as they have been laughing at a serious matter, we decided to do the exact same thing so we had to make the devised piece a comedy. The way we did this was that Charlie was a Circus presenter and he was presenting us in a "Circus" style performance, so instead of us all being sad we had be happy and excited to make the audience thinks its a good thing.

Charlie had an opening line for every "performer" mine was "Is it a man? Is it a Women" It can be whatever you want it to be!" and then I would walk on very lady like and flirt with the other people on the stage. After the intro we made a soundscape explaining to the audience of what our real names are and our age and our birth place, mine was "Jessica 16, England" everyone would overlap each other to give it a dramatic effect. Until Charlie had enough and ordered us to shut up!

We also created the ending scene which is actually what happened during the intro scene so instead of it being a circus its just a dark room and Charlie abuses us.

I cant wait to improve this devised piece and see what we can do to make the audience to fell bad!

Monologue workshop

Today we did a workshop style lesson where we performed our monologues and then improved them by taking critiqued and tips. My monologue was from "The Girl with the Dragon tattoo". I performed the monologue sarcastically but very intimidating. Miss enjoyed this but insisted that I did the monologue more serious and to make the audience feel more intimidated.

I'm going to memorize the monologue and try to improve my monologue for our next Monologue lesson!




Here is the monologue I performed:
MARTIN VANGER: "So, what do you want to know? You're a journalist, ask me questions. What do I do with the girls? That's a good question. Well, before, I do what we're doing: Sit down, relax, have a drink. I like that part a lot. Having a chat when both of you know that one of you is going to die. And afterwards, I just get rid of them, far out at sea. Unlike my father, who left them scattered all over the place, like trophies. That's not very smart, if you ask me. Well, he was a loud and garish man. Frankly, he got what he deserved. You can't be a sloppy technician like that. You can't drink to excess like he did. This takes discipline. It's a science of a thousand details. The planning, the execution. It's the cleanup. I guess I don't have to tell you, but you're going to create quite a mess here. (Mikael coughs). Shh-shh-shh. Shh. Let me ask you something. Why don't people trust their instincts? They sense something is wrong, someone is walking too close behind them. You knew something was wrong. But you came back into the house. Did I force you? Did I drag you in? No. All I had to do was offer you a drink. It's hard to believe that the fear of offending can be stronger than the fear of pain, but you know what? It is. And they always come willingly. And then they sit there. They know it's all over just like you do. But somehow, they still think they have a chance. "Maybe if I say the right thing. Maybe if I'm polite. If I cry, if I beg". And when I see the hope draining from their face, like it is from yours right now, I can feel myself...getting hard. But, you know, we're not that different, you and I. We both have urges. Satisfying mine requires more towels."

I hate it when my brother Charlie has to go away!

Campfire story

Todays lesson we concentrated on story telling. To do this we decided to tell each other campfire stories, after we told our story, miss and our fellow students criticized what we did to make the story telling better. After this we departed into groups, I joined up with Ollie Kelly and we both suggested things which we can do to make it better. I suggested to him to concentrate more on his breathing and to look at the audience to engage or make them fell uncomfortable as his story was very creepy. The advice I got was to keep eye contact with the audience and to do a position which engaged the audience.

The second time I told the story there was a good improvement I will keep this in mind for our story telling unit as it'll help me tell a story.

Brecht workshop! The three Little Pigs!

Who is he?

Brecht is a famous practicner which helped create "Epic" theatre. Epic is short for Episodic, this is a type of theatre were lots of small scenes are linked together. Brecht tend to use. Brecht idea of theatre was to not get emotionally attached to the characters he did this by  muddling up the beginning middle and ending. Every show directed by Brecht had a message to people instated. Brecht commonly used narration so the audience can understand what is happening. He also used  3rd person Narration which would remind the audience this is a theatre show. He  encouraged to directly address the audience which would help Brecht send his message across. Brecht introduced Placards which would remind the audience what's happening but it wouldn't reveal anything about the character.

Three little pigs!

We got put into groups: Charlie, me, Ashley and Dan (Ashley and Dan are from year 13!) and the other group: Rhiannon, Lewis, Lorna and both Ollie's. Our task was to do a short fairy-tale story we chose three little pigs. Whilst we was making our scene Miss was adding on what we had to put in it:

Narration, 3rd person Narration, Movement bit, Placards, Music and to muddle up the whole order of the scenes. This became a really funny bit of theatre as every time the house got blown down we had to do an over exaggerated movement piece. We also had placards for every time the house got blown down. Ashley's was "Oh My god!" Mine was "nooooooooo" and Charlie's was "Anti-Climax much?" as the wolf couldn't blow down his brick house.

I found this really fun and informative, I will defiantly use Brecht style thatre for one of my Devised pieces!

Scripted Work

Blood Brothers

Today we did our first bit of scripted scenes I got put into a group with Charlie Sanderson and Cel Miss Cordell gave us  2 scenes from the play Blood Brothers. The first scene I did was with Charlie, this is when I (Eddie) has came back from university and I'm basically a party animal, whilst Charlie(Mickey) has had the three worst months of his life. The second scene was when Cel ( Linda)who  sees Eddie for the first time since  Edie came back from university. Eddie Loves Linda and tells her asks her to marry him but it turns out she is married to Mickey and they are due a baby! Mickey didn't tell Eddie as he knows that Eddie loves Linda still.

The lesson after we decided to retry try scenes in a workshop style! I found it too difficult to play as Eddie so Charlie and I swapped characters. Mickey is very grumpy in this scene as he has lost his job and basically everything has gone bad for him. I found Mickey character very interesting as he is a very depressed character.

I don't like Mondays!

This was our first min-Devised performance we did in Single! Miss Cordell split us up into 2 groups, Group1: Me, Lewis Fisher, Lorna Clark, Katya Solley and Oliver Kelly. Group2: Oliver Marshall, Cel, Charlie Sanderson and Rhiannon David. To star us off we got given 4 Stimuli: A quote "Although no one can go back and make abroad new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending", 2 pictures one of a funreal type of thing were there was toys in which obiously menat kids, and a picture of murder scene in a highschool, and a song called I dont like Monday by Boom town Rats, this song is about a mascar which happend in a Primary school in America. The task was to create a short devised piece which had 3 techniques and a projection or music.

Our Idea

Our group though of a more tradgic story which ended in death, we got this idea from the lyrics of the song "I dont like Mondays"we decided to craete a starnge piece of drama which was a little bit disturbing. We started  by makeing the opening scene, this was based on by the feeling and emotions the Murderer had to go through, we decided Kat would be the best psyco so everyone played as her emotions, I was innocence, the only thing which stops Kat from vreaking out and Killing everyone, Lewis played as Anger, the emotion which stired up Kats crasiness, Lorna played as Fear one of the negative emotions which every would go through if they killed someone, and Oliver played as Depression which encouraged all of the negative emotions from being Bullied. we also walked the way the emotion would if they were alive. After this scene Lorna created a priveate soundscape of her bullying Kat until she broke and turned Psyco. After this we did a bit of movement were Kat killed everybody. We also add a song called Piano sanata no.11.

Revolution Arts 2017: Frantic Assembly (classwork videos)

Revolution Arts 2017: Frantic Assembly (classwork videos): Frantic Assembly - Workshop videos 07/09/15 Group devising using movement and  around, by, through. Follow the link below for pair wor...



Here is my videos for frantic assembly!

Revolution Arts 2017: Frantic Assembly - Intro and warm ups

Revolution Arts 2017: Frantic Assembly - Intro and warm ups:   Frantic Assembly Who are Frantic? "Frantic Assembly creates  thrilling, energetic  and unforgettable theatre. The compa...

Lessons based on Frantic Assembly

The last few lessons we have been concentrating on the theater company: Frantic Assembly, this group concentrates on physical theater and movement. This group has made past productions like: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. This group has been known to make incredible productions by just using simple bits of movement.

Warm-Ups

At the start of our first lesson  miss decided to make some sort of Frantic Assembly "Workshop" we did this by doing the warm ups they would do before every Rehearsal. The first activity was really simple: there were three chairs in a simple position (one at the front two at the back) what we had to do is walk to the chairs with two other people at the same time and then sit on the chairs at the same time and then move to the next chair, then the last person would walk down the middle back to the queue; at first this was very challenging as we couldn't confer to each other. After we got the hang of this exercise Miss gave us a scenario- your in the London underground and you need to get on a train as fast as possible to get to a meeting- but when we sat on a chair we needed  to do three simple movements at the same time, in a sense it was easy as we have been given a scenario but doing the three movements and trying to get to the other chair at the same time proved to be very challenging! The point of this exercise was stage presence; you should always have a meaning to do something when you act, (even walking as if your angry and you just stroll to your partner its going to seem like you're not angry any more)!

Our second exercise consist of a partner I picked Lewis Fisher, the point of this exercise is to just focus into our partners eyes and pretend that our eyes were "webbed" together therefore if I moved backwards Lewis would have to move forwards and vice versa. When everybody got the hang of this exercise three year thirteen's had to try to disrupt our focus by popping their head in-between us and if they make us loose our focus our eyes are now "webbed" there's and vice versa. My focus with Lewis was almost perfect until Toby took my attention so I had to follow him. The point of this exercise was to maintain a focus with our partner as if you were in a show and you lost your focus you might lose your character.

Around-By-Through (Across)

Theses are 4 simple movements which Frantic Assembly tend to use to create a bit of movement. With our partners we got told to do a sequence of 8 using Around-By-Through(you can see what this is in the Frantic Assembly Master Class video). After Lewis created our sequence Miss told us to focus on each other, make the sequence speedier and then she put up-beat music on. Instead of our simple sequence just looking normal , it transformed into a fight! I found this really interesting as changing the sped and focus can make a new story! Then miss told us to slow it down and for me to focus on someone else whilst Lewis focused on me then miss put on a slow song, this made it look like Lewis loved me but I was in love with someone else. After this we had to make our sequences "heavy" this gave our a sequence a new layer where we can tell a more detailed and structured sequence. Miss also told us to get as close as we can as it make a more dramatic effect.

Hymn Hands

Hymn hands is just basically putting your hands on your partner at varied speeds, your partner can move your hand and put it somewhere else. The only rule is that you need to keep contact with your partner. Hymn hand can be used to show affection or maybe even healing wounds.Focus is really important with this as it can show your emotions.

Othello scene

We re-created a scene form Frantic Assembly Othello, the scene we re created was where everyone was trying to the guard "Lewis" drunk. we sat on chairs horizontal to each other this was pose number 1 then we had to come out with 7 other random poses around the room after we got the hang of this we didn't stop for each pose so it was more fluent then we interacted with people near by using around-By-Through(Across),and then we had to focus on Lewis and give him funny looks. The end result was really good. And  post it in the my next post.

Duo scenes 

After we learnt some of Frantic Assembly's techniques, we decided to make a small piece.I got paired with Lorna and I we came up with a story were Lorna loves me but I'm cheating on her. The end result was very effective and dramatic.Ill post the video.

I've enjoyed studying Frantic assembly and I've learnt a lot about using Focus to create a story. And also just using simple movements then to layer the movements to tell a story.

I found our lesson on Frantic assembly very interesting as it has varied my knowledge of movement.