Notes Of Improvement - April 1st 2015

These were the notes I made personally after the run through we had on the 1st of April. Everything here are things that I noted that could be improved to help better the performance overall. With these changes made I feel that a higher standard of performance can be made, and therefore a successful production will be shown.


01/04/2015


I WAS BORN THIS MORNING - OPENING
Keep character throughout
Keep to the beats
More energy needed
Clean up the ending
The nanananananaa bit in the middle-do desk movement again!
Connor turn off the same way as everyone else on his side


DODGEBALL


ALBUQUERQUE ANYWAY
Steve and Liam keep the kiddie version active and youthful


GOOD FOR YOU
Me and Steve need to pull the balloon closer each time someone is killed.


HONEY
google break up lines for dialogue before the song

Order Of Songs

1) I Was Born This Morning
(everyone)
2) Dodge Ball
(Danny)
3) Albuquerque Anyway
(Liam, Steve, Danny, Harry)
4) Good For You
(Amanda)
5) Mamma, Cut Me Deeper!
(Amanda)
6) Nerd Love
(Harry)
7) The War Song
(Ali)
8) Asleep On My Arm
(Harry)
9) Honey
(Steve)
10) Helen
(Liam)
11) The Bar Song
(everyone)
12) I Was Born This Morning (Reprise)
(everyone)

Props

A list of props I require for every song. This is a personal list and does not apply to every other member of the cast.

I Was Born This Morning
- baseball
- 2 screwed up pieces of paper
- pen and paper on every desk for use whilst 'idle'

Dodge Ball
- dodgeballs x3

Albuquerque Anyway
- nothing required

Good For You
- nothing required

Mamma Cut Me Deeper!
- library book

Nerd Love
- nothing required

The War Song
- Nirvana sign/t shirt
- card with the word 'when' written on it
- small american flag
- phone for the 'selfie' and facebook update
- clipboard for Ali's character to sign up to the army

Asleep On My Arm- toy dog

Honey- nothing required
Helen
- mop/broom

The Bar Song- baseball bat
- beer can/glass

I Was Born This Morning (Reprise)- table and chair
- baseball

Character Profile

Ryan

Name means: The name Ryan is an American baby name. In America the meaning of the name Ryan is ‘Little King’. In Irish, the meaning of the name ‘Ryan’ is ‘Kingly’.
Nicknames: Jock, ‘Nova as in Casanova’ (American Pie reference, the basis of my characterisation is from Oz in that film)
Kind of being: sport-heavy character, the stereotypical ‘jock’ character
Age: high school age, graduation level
Overall Appearance: sporty, letterman jacket, cotton trackies
How does he feel about his appearance: self-confident, happy with his build (his gains)
Handicaps: none whatsoever (slight dimness)
Scars or other notable physical traits: scar on forehead from sporting injury
Best subjects in school: gym, woodwork, music (in secret)
Worst subjects in school: mathematics, English literature
Parents: married for 10 years
Siblings: Little brother
Pets: German Shepherd of 7 years
Memories about childhood: Catching the ball with Dad, being batsman of the year when I was 13
Describe his room: Fairly messy, full of posters of sporting idols, shelves full of trophies, a signed baseball framed on the wall
Best Friend: Joe
Other Friends:  Acquaintance with Billy, sometimes get on with Zac
Enemies? Why: Levi, he writes things about others in lessons and is generally pretty weird
Way of Speaking: quite self-confident, but a laid back persona

Asleep On My Arm

Wednesday 28th January

This is the song that I had the lead on, and had a variety of ideas for choreography and staging. Firstly I thought that everyone could be sitting in the same position as me, with a girl on my arm sitting on a chair. They would proceed to act out the lyrics that I sang. After finalizing on this idea, we decided that I would remain in the chair the entire time, and everyone else would do movements to exaggerate the lyrics, to make sure the piece was exciting and invigorating.

This was the first part of the song that we choreographed. This is towards the end of the song, and therefore the movement needs to be bigger than before, as the song crescendos into the final moments.

Here is the final version of 'Asleep on my Arm' from Wednesday's lesson. We kept the movement subtle to contrast other songs such as 'Helen' and 'I Was Born This Morning', but managed to keep the piece exciting, as I merely sit there and make slight movements to go with the lyrics. The other performers keep the song interesting with their actions behind me, which is what I wanted originally.

Tuesday 24th February
I have drafted an idea of the scene that will take place before the song itself. I feel that the scene should have the same layout as the song that follows it, with the cast on seats around the back, and the 2 chairs at the front that represent the 'bed' to have myself and Amanda on. The scene so far is with just myself and Amanda lit up, and progressively the characters in the background are lit up to quote something as if they are my mind speaking out about the scene. For example, as Amanda 'get's comfortable' and hugs on to my arm, an actor in the background would say a relating line, be it a nervous squirm or worried outburst that represents my thoughts. My facial expressions will be representative of that line, and once all actors in the background have been lit up, the song begins. This scene indicates to the audience who the actors in the background are, as previously we discussed how for each song it is difficult to show when we are our designated characters and when we are different ones or neutral cast members. In this scene and song, the cast should be neutral, apart from myself and Amanda, allowing a development in characterisation for myself, as it is my focus song, and for Amanda, so that she can use this narrative in her own focus song perhaps.

Exploring different ways in which this song could be used to create a performance

If money was not a limitation of the production, I looked into different ways we could create a performance from the song ‘Asleep on My Arm’(AOMA) form Joe Iconis’ album ‘Things to Ruin’. My initial thoughts are that we can make the entire album site-specific, in that we could perform the production in a school, with the current piece that we are going through the workshop process for being based in a school setting.   However I wanted to explore other avenues of performance, and what I could do with the source material being one song from the production and not the entire production itself.

For example, as stated previously, we could set the songs in the actual setting that they are in for our production, so ‘I Was Born This Morning’ would actually be set in a form room. Therefore AOMA could be set literally in a bed, with the supplementing characters in side rooms with beds occupying each room. It sounds like it would therefore be based in a corridor in a hotel, with each door being open for the audience to observe from the confines of the corridor. The audience would traverse down the hallway, looking at each room whilst each performer shows their input to the performance. Similar to our actual performance, Amanda and I would be in one of the rooms, with each of the other cast members in the other rooms, doing similar movements to what we do in our current production.

Amanda had the idea of a doll house being built on stage, a giant doll house with each room belonging to a specific performer with their chosen song. For example, AOMA will be set in one of the bedrooms of the ‘house’.  When it came to that narrative of AOMA, following the chronological structure of our current production, the bedroom would light up, and it would be a similar performance to how our piece does at the moment, with Amanda stuck to my elbow as I explain to the audience my predicament. With the doll house, whilst I would be performing, with my room lit up, the others would be frozen like dolls in a child’s doll house. The idea sprung from a show from the National Theatre, as well as an advertisement on television, but I feel that it would be a highly successful performance overall, with an abstract but engaging idea of revising the current state of the production.

Another way of constructing a performance around AOMA would be devising an entire one act play around the character and the narrative of the song. It would be called ‘Asleep on My Arm’ with the turning point of the narrative being based on the song and the lyrics from ‘Things to Ruin’. The narrative of the song allows for a lot of expansion, such as the whole ‘working for her father’ narrative, which could be expanded to fill some time as an actual play. This play could then be set wherever the director would like to, be it the stage or somewhere else. The play would be shorter due to the limitations of the source material only being one song. With a few of the other songs, perhaps an entire two-act production could be created. The play wouldn’t be a musical, as I would like to see a clear difference from our current musical production and the devised play itself.

A physical theatre piece could also be created around the song. The song could be played through some speakers, and a movement piece could be devised from it, again based on the narrative of the lyrics and the rhythm of the song. The music flows quite well, with a repetitive piano charming the vocals, and therefore a physical movement piece could adapt the song to be a more visual piece to one we already have. The narrative allows for a story to be told, which lends itself well to physical theatre, as it can be abstract but still tell that narrative.

Another abstract idea would have been to set the song in a giant bed, similar to the props in the film ‘James and the Giant Peach’, and the cast would have control of the duvet, with my character and Amanda on my elbow like the original narrative. It would be a movement piece, with Amanda and I not really moving too much, with the focus on the bed and its movement. It would be an interesting dance-based piece, following the duvet and its narrative depiction of the song.

Helen

Tuesday 27th January

We began work on the comedic song, Helen, to which Liam is taking the lead in. We sat and listened to the song, and discussed our ideas. After this, Liam informed us of what he wanted each of us to do in terms of characters and actions in the song. Danny and I play his best mates, who subsequently are his backing dancers and the cause for the progression of the movement into a more dance-orientated piece. The other cast members each play what seems to represent a version of Helen, in the background, whilst Liam acts out and sings the song. Amanda plays his mother, who features at the beginning, questioning who the girl was that she was thinking of.  As we worked through the song, we choreographed certain extracts of the piece, to divide the performance up between movement and acting, to keep the piece comedic and interesting.

Tuesday 24th February
During a run through of all songs and scenes devised so far, we began choreographing moves for the end of the song as a cast. Liam will be stood on a higher level, and the rest of the cast in a line with a gap for Liam along the stage. We made some simple, repetitive moves to make the piece more engaging and exciting, and not just have the performers standing still and singing the end of the song.

Dodgeball

Friday 23rd January
Today we began working on Danny's number, 'Dodgeball'. It transitions from 'I Was Born This Morning' straight into the next song. In the previous number, we have set up what looks like a substitute's bench, where all but myself are sat, awaiting the team captain (who we believe is 'Ryan' in the song, which is my character) to pick them for the team. We decided that throughout the song, at the right moment in the lyrics, I will point at the other characters on the bench, apart from Danny's character 'Billy', who doesn't get chosen. We are using our imagination slightly, as everyone ends up on my team, as we do not have an ensemble cast large enough to form both teams, we are pretending that they are being chosen as well, which allows us to use everyone's character, established in the opening number, on the same team. We spoke through and marked through the song under Danny's instructions, as he has the lead for this number. He stated that at the end, alongside the lyrics, he would like three dodgeballs thrown at him, to which he dodges two, and catches the third, illustrating that his character is good at dodgeball, but isn't picked for another reason. We will need to finalize on this reason next lesson, as well as choreograph the song properly, improving on the plotting that we did today.

Tuesday 24th February
When running through each song, we decided that the rest of the cast required some movement to make the piece less static. As I am the sporty character, and am the first to be standing away from the 'sub's bench' for the dodgeball game, I decided that I could run a warm up session as characters joined me on my team, leaving Danny to wsing about how he isn't getting picked for the squad. As the song progresses further, we then get into a group huddle, like many stereotypical American teams in films, and do a team cheer. This allows us to then move on to the final movements decided by Danny, where three of us grab dodgeballs and throw them at Danny at designated lines at the end of the song. On the last throw, completed by myself and Danny, he catches the ball, and throws it back to us in anger.