My group has really decided to knuckle down and focus even more to get this done because we all want a grade and we all want to perform and that will only happen if we move forwards.
On Monday we decided to write up all the scenes we was doing to help us stage it quicker. We kept the idea of horrible histories and keeping based on Tudors but we wanted to do 'a day in the life of a Tudor' instead so that it wasn't just based on Henry the 8th. A different group split due to reasons, so now Jovan is part of our group and Molly is going to help with tech and props for when she is able to come in. We decided to take the whole idea of being at school out and just base the first scene in a library with KJ as the librarian and me as the nerdy kid and Eden as the girl who does not care about the Tudors at all (which means she will go on the journey).
We performed this later on and Ella mentioned naming the rat 'Boris' that my character is close with and taking out that specific transition music as it was too modern. so we decided to use day dream sound effect.
On Tuesday we decide we needed to get a lot of work done as we needed to show Ella framework of our piece on he Wednesday, so we started blocking more of our scenes and make props. KJ made the boxes for our market scene.
Thursday we stayed late and worked on the hospital scene as we needed to show the whole thing by Friday.
On Friday we only managed to show Ella up until the market scene so we didn't get to show the whole thing as there was other things that needed to be done so it did not enable her to see the whole of everybody's pieces and we got feedback from Ella.
- I'm going too, yes just a minute - hanging on to putting the phone down
- Glasses good Corrina
- Siri needs to be sorted / Pre record maybe
- 2 bars / come on (why are you standing on a chair?)
- Books needs to hit Eden / get books with titles on if necessary
- Boris??
- Quicker on Corrina + Jovan
- Jump Corrina (behind Jovan)
- Make toothbrush
- Did they have hospitals?
We immediately needed to work on the Siri situation as during this performance it didn't work which was quite awkward so we decide to pre record it like Ella mentioned to avoid this happening again.
On Monday we had to show the whole piece to Ella by three pm. All three groups had to show it. So we rehearsed up until three and timed it for it to only come up to roughly twelve minutes and the piece is meant to be twenty minutes. When we showed it to her we also showed it in front of the second years and the other two groups, we got laughs which was a relief. In our feedback Ella mentioned:
- it's very patchy/static at the moment (it does not run smoothly)
- sometimes the storyline/plot is missing
- Siri needs to be used more / possibly in hospital scene with Jov and Corrina
- Make it longer
these notes were expected from our group to be honest but we are working on them.
Tuesday, Ella was not in from twelve and said she was roughly going to be back by half five. This meant it was more of a self rehearsal day. We as a group tried working on including siri more in the hospital scene and we felt this was over egging it in a way? We tried a few options on it but none of them seemed to work without making it seem long or making it drag on and have loads of air. We then tried to think of what could happen to Eden in case the book does not hit her because for the past few runs it has not hit her and then it has been very awkward for her to fall asleep without being hit, we struggled because Ella mentioned us not having a board to hide behind and be a bit different so this made it really hard to stage the way we was going to hit Eden with the book, we all put in ways to do it but still have not managed to pick one to do as we do not know which one will work best. We need to change mine and Kj's characters names as Ella did not like 'TU' and 'DOR' so I searched up some Tudor girl names and a long list came up and we still have not chosen two names that we want to stick with yet.
Also on Tuesday, we went into the costume and prop cupboard to claim the costumes and props we wanted to use in our piece. We picked various costumes and props such as baskets, logs, candle holders, trays, and we found two rats (there is a rat included in our piece), and many other things we can use. We decided that throughout the whole performance we would wear all blacks and throw pieces of costume on when needed and have the all blacks on underneath.
On Wednesday 11th March, it was a really tough day for our group. We did not get loads done on the Tuesday and we really needed to nail down and get stuck in with the work. We came in at 9 and blogged and then at 10 we had a session with Olga. In this session, Olga got us in our children's theatre group and had us perform it in a different way, for example; Georgia's group played the piece in 'kung fu' / 'karate' style, my group was musical and Daisy's group was 'drop it like it's hot' (rapping almost like).
We didn't get the chance to add more to our piece or rehearse our piece in Olga's session but it enabled us to get some energy and try something different in our piece and it was a really fun session. Me and KJ also named our characters, my characters name is Olive, and KJ's is Agnes...these will be our character names when we first appear as Tudors.
We had to show Ella our pieces later that day and we got in as much rehearsal time as possible. We had cut the banquet scene as we wasn't sure how we would do it. And we was dodgy on the 'Tudor me out/dating scene' as it just seemed like it wasn't working. Ella mentioned using fake heads for the two wives who got beheaded which we now do. We showed the whole piece without the banquet scene and the end scene because we was still unsure what to do with them. After all that she told us we need to work on that, accents and costumes and props which we already had but we didn't use the costumes and props as they was in costume cupboard.
Also on Wednesday we needed to change our backdrop set as Ella mentioned our group not having a board like the other groups. We had loads of cardboard boxes and decided to make a set from that:
We used it the next time we showed Ella and she said she liked the idea of the set and possibly make all our props out of cardboard. We super glued the boxes together, in pairs and threes to make it easier to take apart and move it.
Behind the set all the props and costumes are placed in certain parts of the boxes so that we have them stored neatly and everything is there.
We are using a song in our piece now but the version we used has a high pitched voice which Ella said was not clear so we are cutting the backing track into the way we need it and learning the words to the song.
Whilst we was trying to get the backing track cut to how we wanted it, we was not used to the counts or how it went so we decided to take a paragraph each and sing it acapella for the mean time until it was cut to how we needed it. So we performed our piece and did not get to show all of it as Ella stopped it, it really didn't go as well as we wanted it too.
She stopped us during the song (which was going terrible), she told us that the piece is just not ready and I don't know about the rest of the group but that just made my heart drop. I was really hoping we would have pulled it out the bag but I felt disappointed. We got laughs but it didn't go as smoothly as we wanted it too. The song went wrong as we forgot some of it, Kurt added some lines to the song as he forgot some of them, Jov started the song singing the tune of a different part of the song, I forgot some of the words and it just looked messy. Ella said the song could be really funny and really successful but at the minute it is just not pulling through. I really want my group to pull it out the bag so we have all decided to come in on Monday morning at 7am. Unfortunately, KJ cannot come in till either 8 or 8:30 which is a shame as she is very main in our piece but it cannot be helped. I am really hoping we manage to fix it for Monday so that we can go on tour.
On Monday we got told by Ella that our group is not going on tour and then she called us into her office to speak about the issue our group may be having. She said it would be on the safe side if we did not go on tour on Monday which was obviously horrible to hear when you have worked hard. So we spent the day working backwards, working harder on every scene and changing some things to make it work better like including Kurt's leech idea. Whilst the other two groups went on tour we found out that we would be showing Ella at some point when she got back...also while rehearsing we painted the boxes and made the set better such as in the market scene, Jov is now selling vegetables instead of rat heads so we he bought some vegetables and a loaf of bread. Ella preferred Jov selling the vegetables. I also changed my accent in the market scene to a cockney one as my other one varied with Scottish/Irish and so on.
We had to decide what lesson Eden's character would be learning, varying it from to not rely on technology or her phone as much or to just know more about Tudors. We are putting both these lessons into the piece. We made a new end scene which was Katherine is confused whether the Tudor journey was real or a dream, and we are planning to do a reprise of the song at the end. When we come onto the theatre part with when we first introduced the song, Kurt is just going to be a voice introducing King Henry the 8th. Just before the theatre scene, KJ gives some facts on theatre to Eden such as talking about how the stalls are the worst seats in those days and to cover her head because she would be covered in food and wee. Also in the theatre scene KJ will mention that my character 'Olive' is in the piece so they have a reason to go to the theatre. Aaron played the guitar for the song and we recorded it on Jovan's apple mac. All sing the chorus, and we have a verse each tosing except Eden's character as she does not know much about the wives. Then to introduce the sixth wife which would be Eden's character, she questions the actors at the end about the sixth wife and the actors panic and the song comes back on and we make it look like we are making up the song on the spot and Eden's character is chosen, we still have the bit when Jov's kisses one of the fake heads and we throw it back and forth.
We also made the pile of poo we needed at the beginning for Eden to put her hand into:
Me and Jov put red paint on white tops for the doctor's scene which Ella said looks too modern:
And just before we showed Ella the piece I took a picture of the set:
After showing Ella she said she's debating whether this show would go on tour at all. That made me feel so disheartened which was horrible, we really thought it would go a lot better. She said we may not even need the boxes which was frustrating because we spent a whole day painting them but I guess that sort of thing happens. We have until 11am on Tuesday to show Ella and if it goes well then we will be able to go on tour in the afternoon.
On Tuesday, Ella wanted to see the performance at 11:15 and she would decide whether it went on tour on Tuesday or not. We had to film this performance just in case it didn't go on tour at all, then at least we had some evidence...we had the other two children's theatre groups watch and the second years. We changed the set up a little bit by just having three boxes behind the bench with props inside it so we completely got rid of all the boxes.
This is our performance:
We didn't go on tour that afternoon which was a shame but we had to get on with it and carry on rehearsing to get there so we could go on tour the following day.
Ella gave feedback and said:
- Kurt needs a character
- Need my character 'Olive' to be introduced
- Slicker transitions
- Siri needs to make more sense
- Logically Eden's phone wouldn't work
- Eden needs to be hit with a cabbage not Corrina's hand at the end
- Eden needs to put her hand in something that looks like poo at the beginning
So we decided not to be negative and to get on working with it and keep going...we got some rehearsal time done but not loads as we started to do song practices for the singing show like a self rehearsal.
On Wednesday 18th March, this was our last chance to go on tour and we had to show Ella our piece at 10:30am. Me and two others was in around 9:15/9:30 am and two others were late due to commitments and other issues such as transport. Ella came out and wanted to speak to me and the two other people that were already there and she basically mentioned how she isn't exactly sure what is going on with my group or what the problem is but wished we wouldn't bottle it up and actually speak about it, she mentioned we are extremely loyal to our group which is great but can sometimes be foolish. After the talk we sorted the Siri situation, as she said it didn't make sense in the doctors scene when Siri says 'I have not been invented yet' what has not been invented? So we changed it to 'Siri has not been invented yet'. We also solved the solution of me hitting Eden at the end...instead I would hit her with a leek as we had no cabbage. We melted chocolate and used it as the poo that Eden would put her hand into at the beginning. We showed her the piece and she gave us some feedback and told us we have until 11:45am to show her our improvements and then we may be able to go on tour.
The feedback:
- Jov's humming at the beginning needs to be louder
- slicker transitions
- louder music
- Kurt needs a character
- do not talk about seating in the Tudor theatre times
- Hit her with cabbage not a leek
- Make carrot look gross
- more banter between Jov and Corrina in market scene
- work on ending
- show what lesson Eden is learning
We sorted the issues straight away, and decided to hit Eden with broccoli instead a we had no cabbage and we made the carrot that Eden eats look a lot more grim. We made it clear that the lesson Eden was learning was to not rely on her phone as much. We added banter between me and Jov in the market scene an fixed up the ending and worked on the song. We showed it to Ella and told us that we mainly needed to improve energy and we was allowed to perform to the school that afternoon...it was such a relief that we managed to do it in the end.
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