Thoroughly Modern Millie: Week 5

On Sunday, Sara, Mr. Meiklejohn and I have finally figured how to arrange the rostrums.



Here's a more simpler diagram:



When figuring this out, we needed to bear in mind some concepts:
1 - The audience's perspectives
2 - The area for the main section of the stage (there's going to be dancing so the actors need enough space for that).
3 - The area for the actors to move around on the elevated stage
4 - Area for backstage (The actors will have to be able to enter and exit freely and move around backstage swiftly).

Also, Mr. Meiklejohn had assigned me some musical numbers for me to block the movement for it. This coming Sunday, we will be working on Not for the Life of Me, Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life, They don't knowand What do I need with love?.
I have been listening to the music (from the cd sent by MTI) and trying to visualise how it could look onstage. This can be quite challenging as I do not know the full capacity of the actor. Since this is also a musical, I also have to know their voices as well. Sometimes there has to be some alterations due to the actor's voice. This will then affect the acting/movement for the scene.
This proves that the idea and visualisation is not enough and the director really needs to see it actually happen on stage. If it does not work, then an alternative has to be found.

To prepare and get some ideas, I've looked at some youtube videos and how the other schools/universities has approached this play. Here are two videos that I liked, especially the interpretation.

Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life:


The director had gone after a humorous effect here. When I first read/listened to the song, I felt that it was more of a romantic feeling to it.

What do I need with Love?


The contrast between the start of the song and the rest of the song is very clear in this interpretation.
Our stage has different levels so I could use that to my advantage and play with it (to compensate for not having the bars. Also, our stage has more of a connection with the audience. This helps a great deal since this song is Jimmy talking to the audience.




Soon, we will have to:
-start making the props we have to make
-start and finish collecting props
-Take out the flats and see what we can do with them

2009 Drama Festival

There has been a change since last year's drama festival; this year, no school takes anything with them. Everyone gathers, there are a few speeches and a quick warm up. After that, everyone just goes to their assigned workshop group. With our groups, we had to have a play ready to perform by 3:00.
I was in Kimberly Tierny's group. We started with some physical and vocal exercises just to quickly warm up. Then we jumped into brainstorming about the theme "dirt." We decided to work a bit on "dirt cheap" and do some improvisation exercises. Firstly, we went around (all at the same time) talking with other people, talking about anything they were wearing. This exercise was to help us think about anything and quickly, thus creating a story or a fact.
Then, with this idea, we did another improvisation exercise, where there were two people, one the model and the other the presenter. Basically, the presenter chooses what to model and says anything that comes to mind, even if it is bizarre. The model then has to listen and react to what the presenter says. If, for example, the presenter talks about the jacket, then a more exaggerated movement, showing the jacket, should be done.

From there, we moved into a discussion on a plot line for our play. We decided to go with dirt, as in earth. We then came to create a plot where two farmers are opposing each other and fighting for the cow. One farmer is rich and the other poor.
Once we had a basic outline of the plot, we then developed other character by just jumping right into improvisation. Once we had a few minutes of improv, Kimberly stopped us and asked each one of us what character we were, what our relationship was with the other characters and what the character wanted.
Although she did not mention it, I recognised this Stanislavski method. By having us answer in first person, it helped us develop more the character and thus become the character.

We then decided to devise another piece so that we have two to choose from. We used the method that David Ball presented, "But do it backwards." We started with the theme "dirty politics" or something along those lines. Then we started with the last scene, with a murder. Then we went "back in time" and saw the upcoming of the murder.
However, we made the plot too complicated. So complicated that even we, the actors, did not really understand it. So we decided to stay with the devised piece about the farm.

After lunch, we concentrated on refining the piece. We had difficulties in putting it together because the audience was in a round (all around the actors), we had to stage our play so that it was seen by everyone, and not neglecting half of our audience.
Some techniques we used to overcome this were speaking while facing outwards as if we were facing each other, created a scene where actors face many different directions and led the audience with words. To introduce our play, we each introduced ourselves with an introduction in 3rd person. For example, instead of me saying, "I am a 10 year old child, crying her eyes out," I said "The 10 year old child was crying her eyes out." Some how it gives more of a connection between the character and actor. If I had said it in first person, it would have a slight Brechtian element to it since it has a connotation of me saying "I am playing a role of a 1o year old child."

Overall, I found that this, out of all the drama festivals I have attended (3 years), was the best workshop day I have been to. We not only learnt techniques, theories and warm-ups (though Kimberly did not state it) we also got to know the other members from our group. Last year, I did attend and my workshop leader took us through improvisations however he split us into groups and we basically did only improvisations. Kimberly had taught us how to approach a theme (to devise a piece) with different methods, and how to develop our character etc.
Even though I had already learnt the theories of Stanislavski and David Ball, it was interesting to see their theories in practice.