Today
I was recording the health and safety announcement ready for the performance on
Thursday.
I
sat down with Cara this morning and wrote a script of what I needed to say in
the recording. Here is a copy of the script which I used during the recording:
Good afternoon girls,
boys and teachers.
Welcome to the Chapel
Arts Centre.
We’re not expecting a
fire drill but if the alarm sounds, please leave the performance studio through
the door you came in by. You will then be guided to the fire evacuation point.
Out of courtesy to the
performers, will you please turn off mobile phones and any other talking
devices. Thank you.
Now, you can sit back,
relax and enjoy the Terrific Tale of Fiona the Fruit Fairy and Friends.
When
I was recording this health and safety announcement, I needed to make sure that
I didn’t sound breathy and to make sure that the sound was coming from my
diaphragm. I also had to make sure that my diction was very clear and that I
maintained my projection even though I was in front of a microphone.
I
got to practice this through a couple of times with Cara so that she could make
sure that it sounded alright and then I went into the recording studio to
record it for the final time. The recording will now be edited and will be
ready to be played at the dress/tech rehearsal on Wednesday.
Today
I was working on my songs ready for the singing performance.
To
start the session, I carried out a full vocal warmup which included warming up
all the muscles in the body with some stretches and shakes, the intercostal
diaphragmatic breathing exercise, abdominal press, long note on ‘ha’, scales,
harmonic minors and arpeggios. When carrying out the abdominal press exercise,
my lecturer commented on how well I am carrying out this exercise and how much
I have improved since I have learnt the exercise. I used to really struggle with
this exercise but the more I have practiced it, the better I have become at it.
For
the main part of the lesson I was practicing through both of my solo pieces. I
am now pretty secure with the lyrics for ‘Mr Blue Sky’ so we were just working
on adding a small bit into the song which we had forgotten about. Also, at the
end of the song there is a high choral piece which I am trying out. After
trying it out a few times, I came to the conclusion that I was unable to hit
the highest note. Therefore, I am just staying silent on this part and then
joining in with the next stage of this piece of music. When we tried this all
the way through, it sounded good and worked really well so we decided to keep
it in. We then moved on to ‘In The Summertime’. I am still in the process of
learning the lyrics for this song because I have written my own. I will
continue to work on these lyrics especially in the verses later on in the song
because there are some verses with some tricky lines.
For
the last part of the lesson we had a quick look at ‘The Sweet Escape’ which
will be the group song. We haven’t really practiced this yet so we just had a
quick look at the words today. My homework is to listen to this song and start
to learn the lyrics so that we can start to work on it sometime soon.
Yesterday
I sat with my performing arts teacher, Cara and we wrote an email to the
teacher at Lord Scudamore (the primary school which we will be performing to
next week). In the email we asked if the children had made their shakers, where
to come to find the performance studio where the show was going to be taking
place and some information about photography and videoing during and after the
performance. We then received an email back this morning. In the email we were
given the news that the children had not made their shakers and would not be
able to make them in time for the show next week. At first, I was really
shocked and upset to hear this news. However, I then began to think about how
we could adapt and change the performance now that the children would not have
their shakers. This problem occurred due to the old teacher at Lord Scudamore
who I met with and agreed to put on this event, recently left and although the
new teacher was informed about this event, she was not told that the children
had to all make a shaker each. I had some time to think about what we could do
to adapt the performance before the rehearsal this afternoon. After some
thinking, I released that this problem was only going to affect my dialogue. This
meant that I didn’t have to worry about any other members of the cast learning
new lines in time for next week.
When
all of the cast arrived at the rehearsal this afternoon, Cara broke the news to
everyone and then there was some discussion over what the alternative were for
the sections at which I mentioned the Fruit Shaped Shakers. Luckily, I also
realised that I only mentioned the shakers in scenes 1 and 2 so these were the
only scenes which I needed to work on and re-script.
As
we only had Lorren for the first hour of the rehearsal today, we ran through
the scenes which she is in so that she could practice her lines, entrances and
exits. Lorren has been able to learn her lines very quickly and took on the
role of Tanzie really well even though she has only had the script since before
Christmas. We also added in some last minute song ideas from the feedback which
we were given from Sophie (director of Pentabus Theatre Company). These were to
sing the last verse of the ‘Healthy Eating song’ altogether. Instead of singing
the last verse as a full cast we decided to repeat the first verse at the end
of the song and sing that as a full cast. We then also added in a line after
the final song which invites the audience to clap along with us whilst we sing
the last song.
Once
Lorren had left, we made a start on re-wording the pieces of script which were
affected by the shakers. The first paragraph that I had to change was:
“Fiona:
Hello boys and girls! I’m Fiona the Fruit Fairy and I’m super fruity! Now, have
you all brought your fruit shaped shakers? Let me see them. Ooh, aren’t they
lovely. I can see a pineapple, I can see a pear and an orange. Now, I think
it’s time we set some rules on these fruit shaped shakers. So, when I hold my
hand high, you shake your shakers as loud as you can but when I hold my hand
low, you shake your shakers as quietly as you can. Let’s try that, shall we? (practices the volumes with the children and
their shakers)
Now,
let’s practice a rhythm with these fruit shaped shakers shall we? Repeat after
me (plays easy rhythm which is then
accompanied by Cara on the piano). Well done everybody! Now we’re going to try
something a little bit harder (plays
harder rhythm which is then accompanied by Cara on the piano). Give
yourselves a round of applause!
Weren’t
they good Nancy?”
Which
I then changed to:
“Fiona:
Hello boys and girls! I’m Fiona the Fruit Fairy and I’m super fruity! Now,
before we meet the rest of my fruity friends, I thought we could have a bit of
fun with some rhythms. The first rhythm I’d like you to clap with me is
‘Raspberry, strawberry’.
Repeat
after me (plays easy rhythm which is then
accompanied by Cara on the piano). Fruitastic! Now we’re going to try
something a little bit harder, repeat after me ‘Apricot and mango’ (plays harder rhythm which is then
accompanied by Cara on the piano). Give yourselves a big round of applause!
Weren’t
they good Nancy?”
It
took us a while to figure out what I was going to say because although we knew
what direction we wanted to go with it, we weren’t quite sure how to word it.
As you can see from the text, we changed the rhythm part so that the children
are now clapping along instead of shaking their shakers. In a way, I think that
this is better than having the shakers because it means that I will probably
have more control over the children when taking them through these rhythms.
The
next part of the script that we had to change was in scene 2 when talking about
the Sweetie Monster. The original script is as follows:
“Fiona:
Oh no, not the Sweetie Monster again. Don’t worry about him boys and girls, I
send him away on a daily basis. He likes to think he’s a big meanie but inside
he’s as soft as a marshmallow.
Do
you know what I do? If I see him, I shake my shaker really loudly and that
scares him away. So, if you see the sweetie monster, grab your shaker and shake
it as loudly as you can.”
“Fiona:
Do you see children? All you need to do is shake your shakers and the sweetie
monster becomes the scaredy monster! Anyway Sweetie Monster, come on out. We promise
we won’t shake our shakers, will we children? Now, what are you doing here in
my fruity kingdom? Surely you don’t like it here?”
And
I changed these to:
“Fiona:
Oh no, not that Sweetie Monster again. Don’t worry about him boys and girls, I
send him away on a daily basis. He likes to think he’s a big meanie but inside
he’s as soft as a marshmallow.
Do
you know what I do? If I see him, I grab my fruity shaker and shake it really
loudly and that scares him away. But what I’d like you to do is THIS,
SSSSSSSSSSS (raises arms up and does
spidery hands)
NOW!
If I hold my hand up high, you can hiss as loudly as you can. But, if I hold my
hand low, you need to hiss as quietly as you can. Shall we practice that girls
and boys? Ready? (goes through the
dynamics a couple of times) Brilliant! Oh, and boys and girls, if you see
the Sweetie Monster and I’m not here….Nancy’s in charge.”
“Fiona:
Do you see children? All you need to do is hiss loudly and the Sweetie Monster
becomes the Scaredy Monster! Anyway Sweetie Monster, come on out. We promise we
won’t hiss at you, will we children? Now, what are you doing here in my fruity
kingdom? Surely you don’t like it here?”
We
worked throughout the lesson to change the script and then we videoed what we
had come up with. Here are the videos are me practicing through what we had
worked on and also receiving feedback from my teacher Cara:
Once
we had finished re-wording the parts of the script which were affected by the
shakers, we worked on some characterisation of Annie Apple and the Sweetie
Monster in scene 6. This is because at the moment Kellyann is very inhibited during
this scene. The reaction when Annie Apple nearly gets run over by the Sweetie
Monster needs to be a lot bigger than it currently is. At the moment there isn’t
much tension and dynamic to the scene. Therefore, we worked on this in the
session. Cara was able to give Kellyann some examples of what she could do when
she was about to get run over. I was also able to give feedback and suggestions
because I’m not in this scene. Something else that we worked on in this scene
was the timings of the car noises for Rob when he comes on and drives around
the stage in his car. Mark, who is one of the media students here at college,
has put together some car sound noises for when Robert is driving around the
stage. There are 2 different tracks – the first one being shorter than the
second one. When we tried these tracks in the scene, Robert wasn’t making it to
the places where he needed to be on time and therefore it took us a while to
get the timings right. However, after some work, we finally got the timings
right and the scene worked really well when Annie Apple nearly gets ran over.
We have asked Paul and Mark if it is possible for us to get a longer car noise
for when the Sweetie Monster drives around the stage and exits at the end of
scene 6.
After
the rehearsal, I worked with Cara to script these paragraphs so that I could
start learning the new lines over the weekend and into next week. My homework
task was to look through the script and check that everything was now ready and
that this script is the final copy.
Although
I have found today really stressful and tiring, I think that we have worked
really well to make these last minute amendments to the script. I didn’t think
that it would be possible to do these changes at the last minute, but I have
proved myself wrong. I now need to focus on learning my new lines in time for
the dress/tech rehearsal next week on Wednesday and the final performance on
Thursday.
