Final Major Projects

Once we had been given out characters we had a lot of script work lessons   Learning about horizon words from Jess who is the teacher assistants working with us throughout this project. She told us about this technique which she learned while studying at uclan. This technique of finding horizon words has massively helped me when experimenting with how I want to perform a piece. Another script technique I used was writing verbs to describe how I feel or what I’m doing a technique I learned at the royal exchange this was how I handed in my emotions and felt more connected to the what my character was saying. What I found hard during this process was how I did not necessarily have “character” in the cast as 1, in a few monologues that are all connected but I have no name or background or clear story. This left me with a lot of freedom to create my own character and experiment with who I wanted to be. After reading through the monologue and discussing who she might be I came ...

  On 23rd April 2019 the company had the privilege to take our version of Chaos to be performed at the home in Manchester arts center hosting multiple creative spaces. Rehearsal before the performance 17 th April 9am-1pm After the production at the grange where Shane Dempsey a national connections director came to watch the Friday night performance, he sent us a copy of the note and review of the show.  “You have made a beautiful, bold and emotionally engaging production of Chaos. The choice to keep all the actors in the space was truly engaging and I loved how they made contact with the audience, sometimes coming and sitting beside us and directly sharing their text with us. Your brave and ambitious directorial choices make this a thrilling and charged performance. The production feels like a lucid and sometimes disturbing dream. The integration of the ensemble with the named characters was an effective and exciting directorial choice. You have fully embraced th...

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 w...

Unit 12/13 Project Proposal Candidate Name Ruth Jones Candidate Number Pathway Project Title Chaos Section 1: Review (Approx. 150 words) During my three years at Oldham college I have studied and range of practitioners mainly focusing on Stanislavski and Brecht, but also exploring Lee Strasburg and Meyerhold. I started my first year being involved with multiple projects like the Christmas show, a tour for theatre in education and had the opportunity to perform in the professional show at Oldham Coliseum “meat pie, sausage roll” finishing the year being in the ensemble of Cabaret. Going into my second year I started by focusing on my applications for drama school but was unfortunately unsuccessful. Even though I was disappointed I knew that it was the right thing that needed to happen for me not just as a performer but as a person. Our first project of the year was a tutor lead ensemble-based devise...

We wanted to avoid the big panto and a literal interpretation of the characters, like the lion being an actual lion and the tin man with face pain dressed as an actual man made of tin. We wanted to use the history of the book and the truth behind the story. This leads us to the idea of art deco and representing the people of the time if the book. For me, this was a lot more interesting to be a part of and to at in rather than a literal interpretation. The Scarecrow became a homeless man, the tin man in a striped suit and the lion as an American mobster and the witches flapper girls. This made our charters more real and as actors, we could relate to them a lot more, especially with myself I find panto and acting for children very difficult so I’m very happy I had a lot of freedom to experiment with my character. Personally, myself and Jade shore who played the wicked witch discussed how we would have our costumes with the suggestion of flapper girls we both wore flapper dresses hers ...

Over 5 days we had 10 shows and over 1000 school children watching our performances. As we got into the routine of show week everything seems to calm there were no more serious argument or disagreements and we made plans with each other between shows with is going out for dinner or ordering food into the theatre. The first few shows were very tiring being in the theatre at 8:30 in the morning and only having a short break between shows. This was the most difficult because we wanted each show to be performed at its best regardless of how tired we were all feeling. Regardless of how tired we all were the first 4 shows on Tuesday the 4th and Wednesday the 5the went really well and ran smoothly, despite all our worries the children loved the show. As the week progressed and we became more and more comfortable within the run of the show we as a cast started to improvise more and interact with the audience in unsorted ways. There were parts particularly when both Dorothy’s asked the aud...

During these next few posts, I'll be discussing the process of creating the show the Wizard of OZ performed from the 4th to the 8th of December. cast photo