UNIT 6 SHAKESPEARE

SHAKESPEARE INITIAL

RESPONSES                          

My initial response is, when ever I think "Shakespeare" I always think about all the plays he's ever written, Shakespeare was one of the greatest and maybe the greatest and best play wright in the world, he's a famous historical figure that people nowadays still praise, his plays were phenomenal, they contained everything from romance to DEATH!

Another thing that comes to mind is Old English and the medieval era. Language was a very important part of Shakespeare's work it is different compared to how people talk now, although it's still English it was different instead of you they would say "thy" or "tho" so it's like a whole new way of speaking for some people and that creates a whole lot of challenges towards actors but to me I find it fun learning a new language but old English isn't a new language it's just a different way of speaking English which is nice, I love learning and through that I can always develop my skills again and again. I have had a few challenges with Shakespeare as he also invented words which were known as informal language which now we call slang however it wasn't slang like now it was just words that were used to curse somebody, another thing that Shakespeare did was put sexual innuendos in his play this was to get people more into his plays however in the modern world people have to identify and analysis the what each phrase is to uncover it's secret meaning examples of this are found in a lot of his plays including his famous play Romeo & Juliet. I really enjoy reading Shakespeare's plays as he uses some many techniques that we use today one of my favourites is symbolic language, this makes the play have subtext and hidden meanings throughout which as an actor it's good to discover them as it could help you when your not sure what to feel or what expressions to do when being a certain character with certain lines.

The play that we are going to be working on is Macbeth by William Shakespeare, It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. It's about a brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death.

THE THREE SISTERS

Tuesday 30th October: We started this term by going over the work of Stanislavski and his theory called the system, we got given a worksheet where we had to match the meaning of each part of the system. We then continued the day with Sharon we were told to separate ourselves into the groups that we were going to work with based on what we did and that's when we found out who was going to be in which group based on who was doing which script. The different script were the seagull, the cherry orchard and the three sisters all different from each other had different genres such as one was a comedy drama and etc, although they were different in style they were written and directed by the same person Anton Chekhov. My group consisted of Katie, Maya, Ben, Mya, Madalina, Favour, Roman, Tristan, Kadie, Jean Paul and Me. We were all doing The Three Sisters however we didn't know who was doing which part so we just chose to read the lines of any character so that we all understood the story even though we were given the script to read over the half term which I did, we only got to the beginning and that was ok because it just gave us the appropriate information needed to know about every character. The challenges in this were of course some people knew more than others and at the same time we researched the play but we managed to get through it well.

Wednesday 31st October: We began by separating into our groups straight away we all had different times to come in and work with Sharon as it was a better environment to work in and everyone that was in the room had the same mindset and knew what each person was talking about. We all sat in a circle and talked about the Russian play the three sisters and what we liked and didn't like about and how excited we were to do this play some of us were honest and said that it was a boring play and there's not that much things interesting about it and some 'who didn't read the script' just said they were very excited and confident on doing the play however, when we all talked about the different characters and the events we found out that they were interesting and we just had to look at facts and interpret them in. When we were talking about which character we found the most intriguing and which character we prefer on doing, my answer was that Andrei Provorov ( the brother of the three sisters) I said that he would be a character that I would find interesting to act as and making that character come alive this was because of what happens to him. He is a very quiet character and does nothing, he's married a woman named Natasha and she's very annoying and bossy so it would be a challenge for me to act as someone who is obedient and loyal through everything that she says and who "praises" her every word (well that's how I saw him)
After talking we got into pairs and brainstormed/"brain dumped" our ideas and what we knew about the play already so everyone was 'on the same page' as everyone else in the group.

Thursday 1st November: We started with a range of activities and exercises to warm us up and get us ready for challenges, this was because we were given the task of one person being a shop keeper/ employee and the other person a customer who had the objective of getting their money back, I was partnered up with Ben and from experience I thought it was a really hard task because no matter what I said, Ben would block my idea and change it, this was challenging as I tried so many techniques starting with being a polite customer which then had to resort to being angry and impatient due to not accomplishing my objective of getting a refund. 

We were then finally casted as the characters from our plays and were told which scenes we were going to do and how we were going to them, because it was such a big play we had to cut out some bits and characters so that it made sense, in my group we were told to work from Act 1-2 from pages 203-216 and 223-232. The cast was Katie as Olga (act 1), Madalina as Masha(act 1), Mya as Irina(act 1), Jean Paul as Andrei(act 1), Roman as Tuzenbakh(act 1-2), Tristan as Chebutykin(act 1), Ben as Vershinin(act 1-2), Maya as Masha(act 2), Kadie as Irina(act 2), Favour as Natasha(act 2), Me as Andrei(act 2) and Jean Paul as Ferapont(act 2).

WEEK 2: We went over the script and did a run-through the selected scenes and worked as a team, we just read over our lines with a person reading the stage directions to help. We did this so that everyone in the group was aware of what we were doing, whilst doing this we annotated the script to fit our general ideas that we chose, we did this for most of the week but sometimes we thought that we needed to work on our scenes separately which would be more productive towards the group so we split the acts however some cast was needed in both so Me and Favour worked together as we were only cast in Act 2. Me and Favour just did a general run-through our scene which as the beginning of act 2 which involved Andrei and Natasha just having a conversation however it was more Natasha speaking and Andrei listening to her every word. I decided that we would only read through the script however Favour was so eager so we added some actions and started to improvise the scene as we saw fit.

WEEK 3: We began the week by working with Rob and showing him what we had devised so far for the first act as it was the longest one and it was the beginning so we needed to make it good, however as my group was performing the first act, because I wasn't in the first act I became the audience I saw that it lacked life and it was boring which it was however as an actor no matter if the script is boring it's up to the actor with the help of the director to make it interesting and bring it to life. So Rob decided and told us to make it our own so we added things, bits and bobs to not make it boring. We then showed our devising pieces to each other and gave each other feedback from skills that we came up our selves.

WEEK 4: By week 4 we were still working on polishing each act to make it interesting and our own, we decided to separate the group again but this time focused our time more on act 2, me and Favour showed our piece to Rob and he told us to make it interesting again and gave us a few pointers that could help us, this time we managed to finish the beginning scene of act 2 as it involved Jean Paul as Ferapont when we worked with Jean Paul the scene looked better but still needed polishing as some of us didn't know our lines. So because of that Me and Favour helped each other remember our lines but I mostly helped her by making her repeat them again and again so that it would sink in to her head. And by the end we managed to do our scene 5-6 times by heart, off script and it felt amazing to help and work as an ensemble.

WEEK 5: We finished and did the scene again and again off script and it looked "professional" just in time for the day of our performance. On the day of our performance we everyone was nervous and scared of messing it up but we all agreed the show must go on so we helped each other get over the fact that it could go bad or it couldn't if we just had the confidence of standing on the stage and performing and we did. By the end the performance went amazing and me and my group were happy. However there was always room for improvement. To evaluate I thought that everyone did their best and really gave it there all nevertheless there was issues such as members of the group not being able to make it on the day due to issues of their own. I thought that if the whole group was there and present we would have done an amazing job but still we were able to work through those issues and put on a fabulous performance. To evaluate myself I thought that I could have been better I could have been clearer on my tone and projected my words more so that the audience understood me more. I thought that I was still a big nervous however the lighting that was used blinded me from seeing the audience which made it better for me not seeing the audience as it calmed my nerves.

WEEK 6: We were given our feed back on how we did for our performance, we first went to each other and told each other what we thought they did well and what we had improved on, in the end it made me feel so much better about myself and how I am as an actor.

• You are focused 
• You have subtext
• Stage moves improved 
• Good articulation
• Confidence
• Projection
• Very in the moment
• Space awareness
• Voice projection
• Emotions
• Facial expressions
• Good energy 
• Articulation
• The way you get into the character's skin the way you connect with the character
• You were very confident

Then I got my feed back from Rob

• Made it your own 
• Good energy
• Listening was superb
• Good reaction between characters
• Keep eyeline up to show focus (avoid looking at the floor no matter if your looking into "space"

HAMILTON

On Thursday 18th October we got 4 people come in from Hamilton 3 actors and 1 producer {Rachelle Ann Go, Giles Terera and Curtis Angus}. They came to the college so they could do a Q&A, we asked a range of different questions from "how did they make it as an actor" to "how they first found working together". One person in particular that I liked was the actor who played Eliza Hamilton in Hamilton Rachelle Ann Go, she was telling us the story about how she made it as an actor, she said that because she was from the Philippines she didn't have many opportunities until the production of The Little Mermaid came to Philippines for the first time and she absolutely loved it that she told her parents how she wanted to go into theatre instead of doing what she used to do. Rachelle was a singer back in the Philippines she didn't do that much so then she decided to change her profession and go into theatre and because she could already sing she decided to go into musical theatre and it changed her life, Rachelle auditioned for a part in The Little Mermaid and later on when she was about to give up hope she received an email saying how she got the lead part and she was thrilled. She was supported by her parents to go to America and carry on what she was doing and I really liked that because it tells young people and encourages them to never give up hope and achieve what they want in life.

Tuesday 6th November we went to go and watch Hamilton in the Victoria Palace Theatre, furthermore we were also in for a treat as we were also going to have a Q&A with all the cast of Hamilton. As a member of the audience I was blown away by the performance and more over the Hamilton cast even said how we young people were one of the best audience they had cause we were so supportive throughout the whole show. The musical was full of colour and awesome ideas I loved everything about it from the set to the actors them selves they were just full of energy and they gave it there all on that stage. I thought I loved the piece it's self the story line and plot twists. The songs were one of the best part however they sang throughout the whole musical no talking instead they were raping which was something I never saw before. My favourite song was Unsatisfied by Angelica Skylar one of the Skylar sisters, the actor playing her Rachel John had such a powerful voice that it made me cry about 2-3 times. I also really enjoyed burn by Eliza Hamilton which I thought was a powerful piece. However I thought that Unsatisfied was a really good song as the scene that has the song in it was very unique. This was because of how it was set up, it contained the stage spinning anticlockwise to show them going back in time and creating a flash back which I thought was an ingenious idea and it really worked as it made the audience think that they were watching a movie, I was absolutely surprised and studded to see that, and what made it real was how all the ensemble did the scenes before backwards to create that affect I loved it. Another one of my favourite songs was My shot where everyone takes part in it and creates this amazing performance. And finally the beginning was spectacular the song "Alexander Hamilton" is the first thing you see as the audience that grabs your attention and gets you hooked to the Musical, and in the end of the that song you see the whole cast together which shows the love that they have for one and other as an ensemble/team.

In the end of watching that awesome performance we were given a Q&A with the whole cast where some schools from all over the UK asked the cast some questions.

What challenges do you face?

• Company 
• Heath- water

First step in rehearsals, how to build character

• Spotify
• Looking at song how you meet others can you relate to the character
• Don't forget the truth and enjoying each other (we work together to create)

Is there an emotional song to sing?

• Death Song- because it can go too far
• It's Quiet Uptown- because of forgiveness

How do you think a modern Hamilton is?

• Any of us in the crowd stand for what we believe in- Obama- Hamilton influence

Who in the show is most like their character?

• Tarinn Callender- plays Hercules Mulligan

THE THREE SISTERS RESEARCH

The Three Sisters is a Russian play written by Anton Chekhov.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics.

He wrote a lot of plays, 16 in total including The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard, The Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya. He was also wrote books and did more, These four plays present a challenge to the acting ensemble as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a “theatre of mood” and a “submerged life in the text.” Chekhov had at first written stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations which have influenced the evolution of the modern short story. He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them.  Anton Chekhov was the author of hundreds of short stories and several plays and is regarded by many as both the greatest Russian storyteller and the father of modern drama.

The Three Sisters present the lives and aspirations of an aristocratic Russian family as they struggle with the decline of their class and the responsibilities of their inherited estate at the dawn of the twentieth-century. Originally inspired by the Bronte sisters the play concerns the lives of the Prozorov family as they search for meaning in the modern world. First performed in 1901, the three sisters, Olga, Masha, and Irina along with their brother Andrei are living in a small provincial town but long to return to the urban sophistication of Moscow where they grew up. It follows three sisters who are in search for a meaning in their lives despite being stuck in a rural setting. Like 'The Seagull,' this play deals with themes of disappointment and frustration.

The play is consisted of 4 acts however they feature different turns of events throughout each of them and they don't follow the story originally, instead the story jumps time an example is Act 1-2 in Act 1 the play begins by introducing the different characters and gives the audience some points and events that have already happened such as the death of the three sisters' father which help the audience understand the plot. However in transition to act 2 a lot of things have happened as it's set around 1 year after which does confuse the audience quite a bit.

[Act one begins with Olga (the eldest sister) working as a teacher in a school, but at the end of the play she is made headmistress, a promotion in which she had little interest. Masha, the middle sister and the artist of the family (she was trained as a concert pianist), is married to Feodor Ilyich Kulygin, a schoolteacher. At the time of their marriage, Masha, younger than he, was enchanted by what she took to be wisdom, but seven years later, she sees through his pedantry and his clownish attempts to compensate for the emptiness between them. Irina, the youngest sister, is still full of expectation. She speaks of her dream of going to Moscow and meeting her true love. It was in Moscow that the sisters grew up, and they all long to return to the sophistication and happiness of that time. Andrei is the only boy in the family and the sisters idolise him. He is in love with Natalia Ivanovna (Natasha), who is somewhat common in relation to the sisters and suffers under their glance. The play begins on the first anniversary of their father's death, but it is also Irina's name-day, and everyone, including the soldiers (led by the gallant Vershinin) bringing with them a sense of noble idealism, comes together to celebrate it.]

[Act two begins almost a year later with Andrei and Natasha married with their first child (offstage), a baby boy named Bobik. Natasha is having an affair with Protopopov, Andrei's superior, a character who is mentioned but never seen onstage. Masha comes home flushed from a night out, and it is clear that she and her companion, Lieutenant-Colonel Vershinin, are giddy with the secret of their mutual love for one another.]

Andrei character profile: The brother of the three sisters. In Act I, he is a young man on the fast track to being a Professor in Moscow. In Act 2, Andrei still longs for his old days as a bachelor dreaming of life in Moscow, but is now, due to his ill-conceived wedding to Natasha, stuck in a provincial town with a baby and a job as secretary to the County Council.
The play is set in the early 1900s which means that the language used is going to be different to what I'm used to, the style is different.
 As Andrei, I tend to find myself in Russia, in a small town, in the house that me and my 3 sisters inherited from my father who has passed away around 2 years ago (as it's Act 2), I'm always in my room because I try to keep my self busy by reading or playing violin or just simply doing something productive. I do this because I like to distance myself. I want to talk to propel but I'm afraid of what they'll think of me.
I tend to behave in a rather peculiar way, I have to listen to my wife, as it's a new marriage I have to always take in to account what ever she wants, as I'm always following on to her every need.
At this point in the play, I'm trying to read and I'm interrupted by Natasha my wife as she wants something and I have to just listen and agree with what ever she wants me to do for her.

PAPA Tango

On Tuesday 2nd October we had a new project to do with Sharon at first I thought we were going to complete Medea however instead we did a completely different thing. We were told that we were eventually going to work with a company called PAPAtango, this was a company that offered us the chance to create our own 1 act play which was a really thrilling experience and that wasn't just it, to continue our play was going to published and we would have real professional actors come in and perform it to us where we could direct them as well to give us the opportunity to become a director/script writer. In the beginning Sharon told us to get into groups so we separated our selves into groups of 3 or 4, in the end my group was Me, Lucky, Sebastian and Pedro, to continue we then came up with our own company name and we all decided on L.S.P.D which was basically our initials but then we went with it because it standard for London Special Performance Department. After we completed that we had a sheet where we could create our own character so knowing me I wanted to create a character based on a sociopath called Ace who was a 16 yr old boy that had a lot of problems in life and a troubled past however when we told each other the different characters and how it fit into the play my character didn't make a lot of sense so I had to change it, I made a lot of changes to my character again and again. First time I made my character Ace to be the son of Brandon the business (Pedro's character) but when we had the whole general idea that all we wanted was money except for me, I changed my character so much that he was instead an assassin who worked for Brandon and wanted him dead. By the end of the lesson we told each other to come up with scenes for it however none of us could decide so we came up with ideas where our play was going to be set in a dark room and we needed to get money.

Wednesday 3rd October- A woman by the name of Karis Halsall from the PAPAtango company came in and she taught us about writing a script. She said that a script has around 5 scenes Exposition, Build up, Climax, Consequences and finally Resolution, from that we were able to get a better view on what to base each scene upon and how we can infuse our idea into them.

Our final idea altogether was based upon each idea everyone in the group had, this was Lucas gets kidnapped by Brandon who is then taken to a dark room where he meets other clients of Brandon and they need to figure out a way of escaping the room before they all die as Brandon injected them with a serum/poison that kills them within an allotted time. The play involves violence and informal language due to the characters getting angry all the time especially the character I created Ace who is an assassin that has a bit of a temper and has hatred towards everyone.

On the Wednesday 16th November- Karis came in again, however this time she brought in 3 actors that work with PAPA tango, we were told that they were going to perform our pieces for us to see but first we got the chance to direct them like professional directors, we had a lot of fun telling them what to do although there wasn't much to tell them except for staging because they did an excellent job at making our plays come to life. When we saw our final piece being performed it was better than expected and everyone loved it. Finally we were given a book that we created I thought it was an honour working with them to see what we accomplished as a group.

INTRODUCTION TO PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE!

1. The different roles that you would find in the world of performing arts:
Actor
Advertising media buyer
Animator
Arts administrator
Audio-visual technician
Broadcast engineer
Broadcast journalist
Choreographer
Cinema projectionist
Circus performer
Classical musician
Computer games developer
Computer games tester
Costume designer
Dance teacher
Dancer
Director of photography
DJ
Entertainer
Entertainment agent
Fashion model
Lighting technician
Live sound engineer
Make-up artist
Media researcher
Music promotions manager
Music teacher
Music therapist
Photographer
Photographic stylist
Photographic technician
Pop musician
Prop maker
Radio broadcast assistant
Roadie
Screenwriter
Set designer
Singing teacher
Social media manager
Sports commentator
Stage manager
Stagehand
Studio sound engineer
Stunt performer
TV/Film assistant director
TV/Film camera operator
TV/Film director
TV/Film producer
TV/Film production assistant
TV/Film production manager
TV/Film production runner
TV/Film sound technician
TV presenter
Video editor
Wardrobe assistant
Web content manager
Web designer
Web developer
Web editor

2. In order to work as an actor, my chosen career path would be acting, I chose to follow this path as it's something that I'm really passionate about. I've always loved acting ever since I was young, I act everywhere I go because as much as I like being me I enjoy pretending to be other people as it makes me have a better understanding on who they are. The thing that always made me a great actor was the fact that I could connect with the character that I'm playing on a whole other level, I tend to become the characters and develop them to a whole intellectual level.

3. The health and safety aspects involved with the voice of an actor!
When being an actor you must always be careful with your voice like a singer it's one of the most important things an actor needs. Follow these helpful tips.

DO'S:

• Take a bottle of water with you to a rehearsal to lubricate your throat as it might be dry or sore throughout.
• Before any rehearsal do warm up exercises, it's very important to warm up first as you might damage your vocal cords.
• Examples: motorboats, sirens, vowel sounds and constants( helps with diction as well), breath and relax( your body and your jaw) massage your jaw hum, do tongue twisters and etc.
• Sing and/or project at a volume you feel comfortable with.
• Take a moment to relax and not say a word, give your voice a break (take small breaks through each session to just relax your voice)

DON'TS:

• Eat or chew gum when acting or singing as you might choke and harm yourself.
• Push your voice too much, it could damage your vocal cords.
• Ignore any comments if your unable to use your voice, listen and heed those comments.
• Use your voice if you're sick and not feeling well.
• Stress yourself out it could affect your voice and how you use it.

As a singer and an actor I know how important it is to look after your voice, before I never did these untill I felt the pain and almost damaged my vocal cords so remember to always look after your voice it's something you use daily and it's something you need in life.

STANISLAVSKI RESEARCH

Russian practitioner, Konstantin Stanislavski had impeccable ideas. He believed in naturalistic performances that were as realistic as possible, and invented techniques we actors can use today.

Stanislavski was born in 1863 to a life of considerable comfort as a member of one of the most affluent families in Russia, he died in 1938 at the age of 75. His family loved the theatre and he was able to indulge in amateur theatricals as a boy. But when he took a stage name it was to conceal his theatrical work from his family. However, in 1887 he had his father’s approval and eventually became an established figure. He then co-founded the Moscow Arts theatre in 1898 with help from Vladimir Nemirovich Danchenko. He worked in the theatre through the Russian Revolution in 1917

Stanislavski believed that the actors should really inhabit the role that they are playing. So the actor shouldn’t only know what lines he needs to say and the motivation for those lines, but also every detail of that character’s life offstage as well as onstage. In this way we can establish Stanislavski as a director and practitioner whose productions are naturalistic.


Throughout his time, Stanislavski developed created and developed different techniques such as "the system". This was a technique to help actors merely inhabit their roles, this term refers to the methods used by Stanislavski to foster a good performance in his actors. It focuses mainly on helping an actor recall the emotions needed for a role.