the rehearsal

Rehearsals started as soon as college did with rehearsals taking place

Monday 10:45-5:30

Tuesdays 10:45-5:30

Thursdays 9:00-1:00

At the beginning of the rehearsal process, I gave myself three targets I wanted to achieve throughout the process of creating the show.

1: To take on a leadership role as a third year and experiment with directing a class.

-While being in college I have also been apart of the Royal Exchange young company where o have been learning new techniques and acting styles focusing mainly on ensemble and improv work. I wanted to pass these techniques on to some of the people i know in college. I lead a game in Myzna where you call out what you see with another person. Example “your wearing green” and the opposite person would repeat “i'm wearing green” and the game would continue but you can also call out feeling that you think you see in the other person “you feeling nervous” “i'm feeling nervous” This was a really fun game to play and sometimes we did it in the dressing rooms just for fun. I also took the responsibility of blocking the beginning of the “welcome to oz” and was incharge of the class for an hour or so. This was fun but also difficult I did have help though from Jade SHore another third year who also wants to take more of a leader shot roll.

2: Complete my ucas and prepare for auditions.

-I did succeed on this goal as I had already sent off my ucas off and had already started my audition prep. I spent a lot of time outside of rehearsal with Chris another tutor on the course as well as taking any time during some rehearsal when I wasn't needed to practice my monologues. I'm currently still auditioning and most recently I had an audition at Central school of speech and drama. I think I've balanced rehearsals and my auditions as best I could and I don't think my auditions affected my performance during the show.

3: Write down notes and blocking throughout rehearsals.

-Unfortunately, I didn't achieve this target because the blocking for my character was so simple I didn't need to write it down to remember it. However, I do wish I had written down what we did in each class for my own benefit especially once it came to writing. This is a target I will hope to achieve in my next project. I'll do this by making myself reminders and keeping a pen and paper with me while in the studio.

After the initial audition with the rest of the performing arts department and everyone was put into three separate projects a read through of the script with the whole cast was done. A few people we asked to read different characters to help Miranda the director decided with casting. The part of Dorothy the lead was already decided and Sarah Smith and Ellie Farrow already knew they had the main part. The choice to have a double cast was so that every student had an equal opportunity during the show. Once the cast list was reviled the first class we did was blocking the opening number, we used a lot of classic 1920a dance moves taking inspiration from dances like the Charleston.

Creating the opening dance was a long process this was because of the intake of level 1 and 2s and they found it difficult to keep up with the high pace learning of the class. As a level, 3 third year myself and a few others found this difficult and frustrating as we are very used to a high level of performance like our previous show animal farm.  This was a challenge that we faced throughout the rehearsal and show process. However with help from support teachers and the patients from all of us i think that as a whole we did the best we could with the resources we were given. One of the most difficult parts during the rehearsals was a large disagreement between the majority of the class and one of the level 1 students. This broke out due to smaller arguments and decision over a long period of time. After a class discussion after one particular incident it was decided it was in everyone best interested to remove the student from the show, a decision I personally wholeheartedly agree with, we came to the conclusion that this particular project and the scale of it was too intense for the particular student to handle.

The show was directed periodically from the beginning the end of the show, while the charters needed for each scene were taken to a different studio to block and the rest of the cast was left with another teacher either Jayne or Chelby who directed most of the dances. Chelby is a student teacher who had character workshops with us where we built upon our characters by added imagined facts and our relationships with the other characters. She also blocked the dance for “Welcome to Oz”. Unfortunately, the dance was cut by a fair amount because of the quality and the amount of work needed to get the dane up tp the standard of the rest of the show there wasn’t enough time. I think the this was due to a lot of factors but mainly because people could remember the moves so a lot of the time we could have spent expanding on it was spent recapping. I also think helby might have struggled to control such a large and diverse (in terms of ability) class. The times when the main cast were taken out of theses sessions we were blocking the individual scenes. We were given a out line by the director of what she wanted. We as the actors then took it amongst ourselves to expand and improve of the scenes this meant that a lot the times we would stay behind a few hours after class had finished and work indepently. In this time i personally help Max and Sarah with their solos by giving them warm ups and tips on using a lot of charteristion when they were nervous about singing. I also know that a few people also went over the dances like when sarah helped Elliot learn his dane the “if i only had a brain”. This extra time was crucial to our performances because we are only on 11 hr contact time which is not enough time for the amount of work needed for a show as large as this.

Freeze frames in rehearsals

In the last weeks leading, up to tec the dancers were added into the show after they had finished their dance tour on the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which must have been a huge contrast for them coming into a christmas pantomime style. An issue a few of the first years had was that the “dancers are better than us” but this was there childishness coming out as most of them had just come out of school and weren't use to how the performing arts department is like a family to us and none of us think we're better than each other and how we are all supportive of one another. This relates back to the beginning of the year when a few people thought that the tudors have “favorites” which is 100% not the case. This issue was fixed by the second/third years like myself talking to some of the first years and explaining that it's those of us who work hard and are reliable who earn the main parts of the earn the relationship a lot of us have with our tutors. There a few first years who we have discussed who have a lot of potential and we want to help them and make them feel comfortable around us. This being people like Reece and Callum and we've offered our help not only with college but having people who they and talk to who are just that little bit older and experienced. The dangers being apart of the show was why the show was as good as it was, without them a lot of the parts which were unrehearsed would have looked a bad compared to the rest of the show the dancers were a way of hiding some out mistakes. I'm very grateful to the dancers because this was a volunteer project for them and some of the dancers did choose not to be apart of the show and i understand why. On the last week of the being the studio, we had the other project ‘bedtime stories” watch and give feedback on the show. We started from the beginning and timed the show. We only got the chance to perform the first act which is just over an hour long. Some of the feedback was that there could be more smiling and looking like we're enjoying ourselves and the learning of the songs. The main note that we also got repeatedly from both students and tutors was the learning of lines.

Lines were the biggest issue that we all faced and all styled on, this was also frustrating in the rehearsal room and caused a lot of tension. I definitely struggled with lines but that was due to learning multiple monologues for auditions at the same time as the show. My priority was leaning the monologues a decision I stick by as the script for the show I found very easy to learn. I didn't necessarily take a lot of time in sitting down and learning them properly like I normally would. I learned my line by reading Though before performing them and learning as I block. I spent a lot of time with Jade who played the wicked witch because the bulk of the lines are performed with her. For my character Glinda I chose not to look at the film and use my own inspiration, I didn't want her to be the classic “good witch” but more of a mother figure through Dorothy's story. I took inspiration from Dumbledore in “Harry Potter” particular the first film and the way he speaks and stands. His presence is there even when he doesn't use a lot of words. I also looked at the musical “Wicked” to have a background for Glinda as in the 1939 version i find her almost bland but with the context behind the musical, i felt that i could lay her fully.