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.

Thoroughly Modern Millie: Week 4

This past week, we have started to collect props and fabric. Mei had contacted the "Yokohama Theatre Group" asking whether we could see if there were any props in their prop-shed we could use. We went on Sunday and although we could not find suitcases or the candlestick phone we were trying to find, we did find four items that could be used as either set decoration or props (mainly personal props).




We also made modifications in the set design:




* Drawn by Sara Suzuki

The only thing we have to figure out now is the balcony where act 1 scene 11 and act 2 scene 2 takes place.

Thoroughly Modern Millie: Week 3

Rehearsals have been going smoothly (although it could have been better, it was a good start) and so far, I've attended rehearsals, took notes and made the register, gathered personnel to help with the jobs done behind the scenes.

Our class has decided on the portfolio heads:
Andrea - Assistant Director
Mei - Lighting and Sounds Head
Maria- Make-up Head
Sofia - Costumes Head
Sara - Props and Set Head

Portfolio head just means that if there is something wrong, we go to the responsible.
For example, today, Sofia came to us to say that we did not design costumes for the minor roles and so she assigned some character to each person again.

Here are the characters in which I drew the costumes for:

-Rodney
-Kenneth
-Daphne
-Dexter



-Ms. Flannery
-The Pearl Lady




By the end of this week, we had to also calculate the Budget Projection.
For this, we have to put into consideration the costumes, make-up, set construction, props and also how many audiences will come. This is to see how much we will profit from it and how much we will lose.

Thoroughly Modern Millie: Week 2

Already into week 2, we have discussed about costumes, props etc. For costumes, we designed the costumes for the main roles and the minor roles as well. However before this, we did some research on 1920's fashion. I found a good site that shows the types of outfits they wore in each year.
http://www.fashion-era.com/C20th_costume_history/1922_silhouettes_1.htm

Using this as a base, we discussed and exchanged ideas, and then assigned each person (who is doing costuming) a character or two. I was in charge of designing Millie's costume and Mrs Meers' costume.

Millie:

Millie has a total of 5 outfits.
- beginning where she is not a modern yet (1.1)
- Beginning where she turns into a modern (1.1)
- Muzzy's party (1.9)
- Scene where she tries to seduce her boss (2.1)
- When she goes on her date with Jimmy (2.4)




Mrs. Meers:

Although Mrs. Meers is the antagonist, we decided to have her wear only one outfit since she does not come out that much.
However there is one scene where she comes out in the middle of the night to attend to Muzzy. I thought that a night gown on top of her dress would do.




This week, we also decided on our portfolio. I am going to do Assistant Directing as my major and Costuming as my Minor.

As an assistant director, I have to:
- Attend rehearsals.
- Take note of blocking, staging, problems etc.
- organise paper work (such as registers, lists etc)
- Take actors through rehearsals when the Director is not there.
- Assist the director in any way.

This is kind of similar to Robin Hood, however in that play, I was more of an assistant stage manager.

Thoroughly Modern Millie: Week 1

Although being the first whole week since school started, we already had work to do. Before rehearsals start we discussed about the set. We decided to have the musical as a vaudeville or a cabaret style, which is a production with a restaurant set-up, where food and drinks are served.
There were various ideas such as dividing the stage into areas, having the audience at a diagonal, raising the stage a bit etc. My ideas was to have the audience in the middle and the stage around the audience.



However, after looking at various set ideas, we combined the parts that work and came up with this:



We eventually ended up with this (with Mr. Meiklejohn's modifications):



I'm very pleased with this stage layout because it breaks out of what the stage originally is (with the audience sitting on the bleachers and the actors performing in front of them). However, the only issue we have is the amount of space. For big musical numbers, we must keep that in mind, especially when the audience is going to sit at tables.

We also discussed that since we are going to make this production like a vaudeville set-up, we thought we might get the ushers to dress up as the maids and butlers from that time. So when the audience walk into the auditorium, it is no longer 2009 and no longer Japan. It will be a hotel in the states in 1922.
For this, I also researched slang for the ushers to use, and I found a site where it has a long list of slang:
http://local.aaca.org/bntc/slang/slang.htm

Costuming Workshop

During my summer in Brazil, I took the opportunity to take part in some workshops. There was one that I got interested in.
"Figurino para Cinema, Teatro e Tv" was the name of the course. In English it would be "Costumes for Cinema, Theatre and Tv."
The teacher who taught this workshop was Fausto Viana. He studied not only in Brazil but also in Harvard, Yale and NYU. He also studied to get his Masters and Doctors degree in Theatre.

Here are some of my notes I took during the workshop

Day 1:
- 3 biggest categories of costumes: social clothing, military clothing and religious clothing. All these categories have symbolic/meaningful colours and may symbolise rank.
- Colour is important.
- Greek theatre, for example, used colours to show what type of characters there were: Yellow meant prostitute, Red meant Romantic hero, Black meant a fighter etc.
- Antonin Artaud also used a colour code: Yellow meant that the character will suffer a violent death, Red meant that the character will suffer a great loss of blood etc.
- Costumes may change. For example, in the movie Hairspray, the costumes of the blacks change from when they were rejected to when they were accepted.
- Background information is important when creating costumes. E.g. In Elizabethan times, the poor people wore clothes that didn't work for the wealthy. In other words, the clothes that failed to dye properly were sold at a cheaper price and therefore the poor people wore that.

Day 2:
-Eiko is a costume designer who makes costumes that work with light, since costumes always interact with light.
-Appia, a Swiss dramatist, created costumes that allowed physical freedom.
-Craig, an English theatre practitioner, decided to revolutionise theatre so that every concept in theatre are connected. I.e. Costumes that interacts with lights, that interacts with music, that interacts with .....etc

Day 3:
Unfortunately I missed this day because of various reasons

Day 4:
-In a musical, within the first 7 minutes, something must happen. To finish Act 1, there should be a good number. At the start of Act 2, there should be a shorter number. (This ensures that the audience will stay to watch.)
-When there is a number with many actors, to make them seem the same height, have their skirts the same height.
- With Choreographing, there should be a rehearsal skirt, so that the actors can get used to it (e.g. Moulin Rouge).

Day 5
- 3 ways to make costumes:
- Base it on the text
- Base it through the indirect characterisation
- Create it for the beauty of the production (photographic realism > to recreate the moment)
-Artaud once had an actress wear a dress in which it had a triangle on the front. The actress would hold the cloth and throw it so that it seemed like blood was spilling. (This was to foreshadow her death/suffering)
- Bertholt Brecht had Mother Courage wear a spoon on her shirt. It did not mean that she was gluttonous, but was worried with survival, i.e. ate what she can to survive. Also, to age this costume, Brecht scraped it on steel, put it in chlorine and then made the actress wear it so that oil would fall on it, dirt will get on it etc.
- One production by "Teatro de Vertigem" had fallen angels. These fallen angels wore nothing but a loin cloth, but they had their bodies covered with a mixture of toilet paper, water and corn flour. During the play, they would sweat and eventually the mixture would crack and fall apart. It was as if the angels were being humanised.
- There are 6 important aspects when making costumes:
- colour
- form (the shape)
- texture (important because it interacts with light)
- volume
- movement (What's the effect you're after?)
- origin (Where does the style come from? What was its original purpose?)

Day 6:
-Talked a bit about Theatre du Soleil. It was the actors who created their own costumes.

Some tips I've gathered:
-Details make the costumes (they're important!!)
- Motifs of the era also is important
-For a dancing number, fringes enhances the movement of the dancer.
- Don't get deceived by cliche/ideal ideas and images. They're often wrong.
- If a body part has a certain movement, the costume has to be compatible with that.
-When do you know you're in the light? Light reflects under your eyes. Although you can't see anyone, they can see you.
- The costume is meant to help the actor, and not just make them look "pretty."
- Contrast is important even if the costume is simple.
- When making swords, a good technique to customise one is to buy a fake sword (a toy) and reform it with a mixture of glue and corn flour.
- Make sure the "ages" match. If the top part is old and the bottom part is new, then the two facts are contradictory.


Many of the things Viana talked about, I was able to follow because we had studied it before; theatre practitioners like Brecht, Artaud etc. However it went a bit more in depth with costuming. During the workshop I've learnt a great deal of tips and concepts with costuming, and for a theatre practitioner, it would be tips on theatre, because costumes interact with the whole theatre, and is not a category by itself (like how Craig thought).