Little Shop of Horrors - Improvents for future rehearsals

In our previous lesson we spent half of the lesson doing doing vocal practice and then we ran through the songs in a chronological order. When doing this we sung along with the cast version and then we sang as a company to the instrumental tracks which we found were a lot more fast and upbeat so it meant that we had to speed up the dialogue that was included in the songs. Then we ran through Act 2 in which we came across songs and dances that we have recently been rehearsing which meant that we are maintaining the dance moves and not forgetting them.

One thing that I want to work more on is dances that we haven't done in a while as I want to try and keep them as fresh in my mind as possible because when we last ran through skid row some people had forgotten some of the moves which meant we had to just had to do a walk through if the dance and then we ran through it as if we were going to perform it and I think that it has helped quite a lot. So one thing I want to do in a future rehearsal is to just through all the dances we have done.

Little shop of horrors - Finale (Don't Feed the Plants!)

revolutionarts2016: Finale (Don't Feed the Plants!) rehearsal



 Here is the video for the song 'don't feed the plants' which is the finale song to the production. This is one of my favourite songs to sing/perform to as it has a lot of cheesiness in it which I find really funny and amusing. I've found that learning the lines for this song has been a lot easier than the others as I think that this song has a catchier tone to it so therefore I remember more of it

Little shop of horror - Vocals

In our last lesson, as a class we ran through a few of the songs and dances that we have covered ('Da Doo' and 'You never know') we worked on our vocals by going through the songs with the cast version and then afterwards we would sing them without the cast. This helps us as we can then allow ourselves to hear how well we are singing along to the song, how we need to improves our voices (weather we need to project it or change harmony etc).

Little Shop of Horrors - You never know

revolutionarts2016: 'Ya Never Know' Choreography


Don't it go to show you never know

For last weeks lesson we worked on finalising the dance 'you never know', for the process of learning this I thought it was very difficult as it has a lot of foot work and I find it a bit tricky as I'm not used to dancing in this face paced style, however I feel that it is a rather jolly song and I feel that once I get into the hang of it the moves then I'll feel more confident with the moves.

Little Shop of Horrors - Character Idea

In our last lesson we worked on developing our character as there were too many people thinking of similar characters, so I decided that I would be a school child that is doing homework/work in an alley way and is friends with a homeless man called Sunny, which makes him look intimidating however he's actually quite caring and gentle. He also goes skateboarding as a hobbie and he tends to just sit on his board and work. He doesn't like to go home as his  parents abuse him and he oftend spends nights in the alley way with Sunny.

Little shop of Horror - Finale

For the staging of the finale I think is actually and quite cheesy but I believe that is what the audience would want to see after seeing this kind of production. The bits I like in this is when we have to say 'this theatre' and we all jump up in the air to really show off the cheesynes of the show. I also like the movements that we do, such as whenever we say the name of a location like Peoria or New York ,we point in one direction and from the audience point of view it would look quite funny just to see if one kind of point and then like a freeze-frame.  Personally I actually quite enjoy singing this song because of the amount of cheesiness they can go into it, but also the vocals aren't actually that difficult for me.

Little Shop of Horrors - Closed for Renovation / Dentist

For the song 'closed for renovation', the purpose of the chorus people coming on is to show the transformation of the shop and show the success that they are having due to the plant. When we come on (chorus), my side of the stage have gone for a really slapstick way as Liam carries Ali at one point and then goes around pretending to be watching people and telling them what to do. When we all come off Liam tends to forget about me as I'm at the front on stage left. This adds a slight slapstick entrance as I tend to leap up and chase after everyone as they leave the stage.

For the Dentists song, I am playing a character who is getting his teeth sorted by the dentist. For when the audience first see me as this character I try and act different to the one that I maintain (school child), this is to show the audience that I am playing a different character and therefore my movement and facial expressions are different. When I sit on the chair, I sit up straight with my hands on my lap, twitching a little in the legs, I look around the space in a more interesting way as my eyes are more open and I feel more like someone who hasn't been there before (which is what I'm aiming for). 

Little Shop of Horrors - Da Doo

For this song 'Da Doo' we were put into groups and separated into different rooms to see what we were able to come up with when listening to the song. We had watch the film version to see what kind of things we should be looking out for and to also see if it would give us any fresh ideas on what we could include in our group piece. Myself and Liam were put into a group of two and we found it rather difficult to come up with something as there is usually more than just two people that are included in that scene.   So we paired up with another group and we then decided that we would do this Russian style dance to the song however we would make it quite slapstick and melodramatic and it works well as we keep it in time with the beat and the rhythm.

Little Shop of Horrors - Little Shop of Horrors

 At the beginning of the song this is where my dialogue begins. I am doing the voice of god and for this voice I tend to lower my vocals so it sounds like I have athority. One thing I have learnt from the rehearsal process for this song is that I need to project louder so the audience can hear my voice.

A challenge that arose in this rehearsal process is the dancing for the song as the choreographer was using terms that I had never heard or used before (boxstep etc). As I am someone who does not tend to do anything dance related I was put quite out of my comfort zone so I found it more of a struggle than others, however I have managed to put in all my effort and I put in 100% into what was being taught to us and when looking back over at the video of how it looks, you can see how enthusiastic the dance is.

Over the course of the two weeks that we had been learning this dance I would end up using my free periods to try and learn the dance off by heart and that has paid off as I am able to do the routine very casually instead of having to pause and look around and see what other people are doing.

Little shop of horrors - Skidrow (Downtown)

For the introduction of SkidRow we all remain in a FreezeFrame of the character that we have made up in our head. My character is a young boy who is homeless as he sings the words 'when your folks are broke', meaning that there is no one to give him money and therefore he has a poor standard of living. For my costume of this character I think I will have ripped shorts and possibly some ruined trainers as it kind of shows the audience as to how long he's been homeless and possibly why he is homeless.

For the dancer for Skid Row I was a bit confused at first as I'm not particularly good at dancing and I don't do any type of dancing outside of school but I put a lot of effort into learning the dance and now that I know what I'm doing, I feel a lot more confident in the dance and how we progressed as a theatre company. One thing I find challenging is that I find it hard to stay in character some times as I get to into the dance and don't really think like how my character would.

Stage Design - Part 1

This is a diagram of the stage. In the diagram of Mushnik's shop, I have drawn out a rough estimate of the stage using paint and I have added the colours that is seen in the stimuli below however I have made it more interesting as I have flipped the paint over on each walls. The measurements in this diagram are the exact same as the actual stage (the side panels and back wall). For the actual performance I might have to make a smaller version of the back wall and attach the two small walls to it as I want the back wall to have paintings of different buildings to show it's in a city. 

This is the stage design that was used for a “Little Shop of Horrors” in the American Community Theatre, Hong Kong in 2007. I'm using this real imagine as a stimulus in order to help me achieve the right set. The colours of the shop is very bright and looks rather flouriest like.