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.

Double - Goldilocks part 4

One way we made this appealing to the audiene is by changing the narrator half way through and turned it into  game show styled scene in which the audiene have to guess what size the bed is, wheater it is too high, too low or just right. To make it appealing to the audience I would put on an a cheesey american accent and try to be as over the top as possible. I would also ask members of the audience what bed they think is behind the sheet which would keep them engaged with the piece. The purpsose of having this small scene inbetween is because it's different to what we have done in our other two stories and it could make the audience feel as if they are apart of the story meaning that we are breaking the fourthwall.

Double - Goldilocks part 3

So far I think that as a team we have worked very well together and we have remained focused throughout the whole task. It has been challenging as it is very difficult to plan out silhouettes and we may not have remained fully focused but we all have always paid attention to what we are doing and we have always discussed and shared our ideas together.

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.

Double - Goldilocks part 2

As a group we decided that Freya should be the narrator as it means that the children will then get some sort of guidance throughout the story telling and understand what's coming on. We have also changed where we are going to perform this piece. Originally we were going to perform in three different primary schools, however it then meant that it would be a challenge for us to move the sheet around so we have decided that we will perform it at our secondary school and will invite two of the nearest primary schools to see it.

Double - Goldilocks Part 1

In last weeks lesson we finally finished the rehearsals of Goldilocks and three bears. We done this by using silhouette which would be engaging for audience as they are very young and it is a different technique of storytelling.by using silhouette which would be engaging for audience as they are very young and it is a different technique of storytelling. I am doing the silhouette of the first mother bear  in which Carl stands behind me and then I clench my fist and put them up at the side of my head so it looks like it is thr Bears ears.  And then I form a bed in which I tuck up into a small ball and I am placed near the sheet as it then looks like I am a really low down mattress.

Double - Little Red Riding Hood part 4

After the scene in which we meet the wolf we then the audience see me as the old granny in bed in her cottage. To play this character I slightly squinted my eyes so it was harder to see and also walked a lot slower to show that my character is rather vulnerable to what happens later on in the scene. I thought that I should also act a bit clumsy in this scene as it means that the audience can call out to my character to not open the door or to not talk to the wolf.

Double - Research into Silhouette for Goldilocks

This is some research i have done into silhouette dances.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1rx0eN29gs

Double - Little Red Riding Hood part 3

After the introduction we then run into groups and make ourselves some trees, we do this by balancing someone on our backs and also by wearing a black sack wih paintings of leaves on them. Then "Mr Wolf" is introduced by him sneaking behind the trees, giving that aerie kind of look to him. An instrumental version of "Mr Grinch" is used and we have adapted some lyrics to the song. We decided to use this song to sing for the wolf as it is a child friendly song and it can be sang in a slapstick and/or melodramatic way, therefore making the audience engaged even more, keeping their excitement as full as possible. After the song ends we get back into a tree like pose and Red then interacts with the audience, she asks them what way to go and in the background we can see Mr Wolf lurking about, looking up to no good. As red asks what way to go and starts walking off one way, the wolf out paces her in the background and then by pointing in the opposite direction, this will cause our audience to shout out what way she should go, this is also another way to keep the audience engaged and a way to have their full attention. Shortly after she meets Mr wolf (he is planning to eat her but he misses as she crouches down to pick up some flowers) and we see that he is mean and sends Red on a long route to her grannies house. Shortly after the Narrator gets the audience to “boo” at the wolf so that it is a clear way to show that the wolf is the bad character in the story for anyone that didn’t quite realise it.

Double - Little Red Riding Hood part 2

The narrator tells the audience where she is aiming to go (her grandma’s house) and we then interact with the audience when she asks people where her basket (we all point at the basket that the narrator is holding). Shortly after we adapted and re wrote lyrics to the main theme song from "The Wizard of OZ". This will create an energetic mood for the children as the more mellow dramatic you tend to be, the more engaged they will be, so by doing this in a very over the top way it would mean that we get the best audience response. The purpose of doing this song/version of the wizard of oz is so that the audience feel that "Little Red" is portrayed as the good and innocent character through the story.

Double - Little Red Riding Hood part 1

In our Story telling, we are telling the tales of Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the three bears and Jack and the Beanstalk. We have now finished now the story of Little Red Riding Hood which was challenging however I believe that we have managed to pull it off. The story starts off with a narrator telling the audience about Little Red Riding Hood, as he describes her, she acts out the action that he says e.g. "She was friends with the animals, they would say hello", and then someone would be an animal of their choice (one that's found in a forest) and then whoever is closest to her, they would say "Hello" to her. I feel that by doing an exercise of just doing what we think a certain object would do helped as it then meant we didn’t really mind crawling on the floor looking a bit weird.

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.