Our Sunday rehearsal at Elissa’s house this week was definitely needed. It was a great way for us to realise what was working and what wasn’t. With the new arrival of a stagecraft elements of fragmentary costume the working out of effectively transforming into new characters with them were one of our main concerns. We discovered that it was proving quite difficult to change in and out of our white shirts efficiently with scene changes.

We also had the advantage of Elissa’s sister Deanna (past drama student and currently studying drama teaching at university) to watch our ensemble and give us some advice of what was really successful in our ensemble and what could be fixed up more in order for the audience to understand.  We realised in our scene 5, that our organisational speeches were going for a long time. We again had another cut down to make them short, sweet and to the point.

After Sunday, we realised how much more work still need to be done in making our performance flow and remain tight.

- vesna

3 more sleeps and it’s over…yay!
First of all thanks to liss for the loan of her house on Sunday, it was a much needed rehearsal and i feel as if we got alot done, and we were especially hands on with the introduction of the fragmentry costume. Dee watched an entire run through and i really feel as if her feedback was a real positive plus her pointas here and there managed to boost certain aspects of certain scenes. Such as suggestions for scene 5; i.e- how to make the meeting more obvious and interesting. Dee was under the opinion that the people who were standing in the scene were security guards. So a quick change to our repeated stylised movements and it seemed much clearer.

Today’s rehearsal during class was alright and we managed to rehearse up to scene 5. My main concern at the moment is that our pace is quite slow, and unfortunately i’m not sure if we can master an appropriate tempo and pace before thurs. My only suggestion is alot of private rehearsal with oneself, so when we do rehearse it is productive and everyone is clear on what they are doing.
The stop start rehearsal mode that we are currently in is annoying but i am sure after much repitition we can master the placing of placards and fragmentry costume.

Cashy’s idea about the piece of paper for each handful member was actually really helpful, and now we all have a complete record of what we need to concentrate on during the performance.
Just a few examples of what i need to work on, projection during the “hello my name is dvorak” scene, the new timing of the line in the firemen scene about them dying, say lines directly to audience even though talking to elissa beside me before news reporter, and general notes about putting on and taking off fragmentry costume during the course of our work of art:).

Tomorrow hopefully will be really smooth, with all lines learnt etc.
Looking forward to it.
Off to belly dancing now and as lucia said we all should be in bed at 9.30, so i will be doing so and i will take my scripts to bed with me, and hopefully wake up with them well learnt!

Jessica Rae…xXx lol

hello all

Got a few things id like to address in this blog.. first of all:

WE FINISHED!!

we have a fair bit of polishing, refining and editing to do but we finished scripting the entire thing!!  all scenes done! it was SO EXCITING to finally write that last word down on the page!  We all know that we still have a lot of work on the ensemble to go and with only a few days until show-time but it is all coming along very well now

 EDITING:

Over the last couple of rehearsals we have begun editing our ensemble. We have taken out unnecessary sections of scenes that are irrelevant and don’t address the prescribed structure such as Scene 3B where the Russian authorities defend why it took so long to evacuate the people. We edited this scene by taking out irrelevant references to the Russians’ (Jess) conscience of good and evil.  More editing must be done to further reduce lines in scene 5 because it goes for too long as-well

 SUNDAY

 Today we had a Sunday rehearsal :)   It was very exciting and very successful as we were able to have a run-through with the fragmentary costumes.  It was quite difficult in the beginning to incorporate the fragmentary costumes effectively and took much organisation to work out where we were going to place the costumes and how we were going to use them to depict different characters and character transitions.

Everyone needs more work on learning and memorising lines. Especially me.. i admit that :D         And thank you Elissa for giving up your house to 5 crazy, loud and CRAZY girls .. i say that as a complement by that way :)  love you xo

POLISH

uuuuum .. polishing is going well but more needs to be done to improve the pace of the drama.  Still got to polish the use of the placards and fragmentary costume and props ect.. but as we have more run-throughs this will become much more easy.   I believe the more we run though the ensemble the easier it will get.   Got to keep focused on the job at hand and we will get there!

 LOVIN’ IT!

Im really really enjoying working on the ensemble with the girls, we’ve created a really nice friendship between us through this ensemble and i cant wait to perform it. I have faith in each and every one of the girls that we will put on a good show because they are so dedicated to this ensemble

I think this is the longest blog i have ever written but there was a lot to be said

stefania xoxo

Today we had a fabulous rehearsal at mine for a couple of hours.  It was really needed as we had to practice with our shirts and fragmentary costumes (which scenes we needed them, where we were going to put them when we didn’t need them, different ways to wear them etc)  Rehearsing in such a small space proved a little difficult today however, I’m sure tomorrow once we’re back in Bunjil we can spread out again and use the larger space we have more effectively.  We keep aiming to make our transitions smoother and keep them swift and efficient- I think the more run throughs we do the more we will improve with our transitions of scenes no doubt!

My sister Dee was nice enough to watch a run through of our performance.. She gave us a few tips and pointers and told us which parts she understood and which parts were a bit confusing from an audience members perspective.  She gave us some helpful advice for our scene 5.  We all had most of our lines learnt for our organisations and Governments but actually acting them was really challenging and saying whole slabs of information became tedious.  Dee suggested that we cut a lot of those lines as she was even getting bored by the time the second person spoke! So we’ll definitely be chopping and editing those lines asap.

 Heaps of rehearsing planned for this week, I cannot believe we’re performing on Thursday- it’s crazy how quickly this time has gone by!!  So now we just have to make sure we do all the right things like getting early nights and eating well (we’re good at that already though!) and yeh, just practice practice practice!!
Great work loverssss!

 -Elissa.

Firstly I just think all of us girls deserve a MASSIVE pat on the back. We’ve done so well - we jumped over that hurdle of Scene 5 and 6 being too difficult and we’ve turned it into something so entertaining and really enjoyable to perform.

 Ok so this week is going to be full on… but it is going to be soo worth it. To begin with, we really need to organise this fragmentary costume stuff, it’s vital! It’s an extremely important aspect of non-naturalism and will enhance our performance immensely (it’ll help us all with our realisation of our characters too). 

Polishing and tightening will need to be our main aim from Sunday-Thursday.  I think Sunday we should also try and work on our pace at the beginning of the ensemble, it drags and feels slow, and we don’t want to have people daydreaming during our opening scenes!! Energy this week during rehearsals is going to have to be full on! We’ve been sooo incredibly tired this past week that there has been a severe lack in energy (I know for me I haven’t put in enough liveliness this past week just because I’ve felt like I could fall asleep right then and there!), but no doubt we’ll be getting so excited about performing that we won’t be able to contain our high amounts of energy!! haha.

Ooo and I cannot explain how much I think the use of the piano has enhanced our performance.  It’s created so much mood and atmosphere it’s just awesome. It sounds so effective in the ’silent-film’ scene and the funeral scene. Mood is one of the dramatic elements on the prescribed structure and I think with the incorporation of piano we’ve well and truly successfully addressed that section! Thanks heaps Jess and Stef for being so talented

 Make sure all lines are learnt for Sunday girlies so we can just go in and do straight run throughs! I’m sooo excited now and seriously cannot wait for Thursday.  Take care of yourselves handful, and yeh…WOOHOO!

 -Elissa

Handful,

THANK THE LORD WE HAVE FINISHED BUT!!!!!!!!!!! We have more to complete than we think!! Polishing, editing, cutting and tightening but we can do this let’s keep chugging along!!!!!  Fragmentary costumes is a must we have to discuss!!! We must decide on where and when we want them and decide on what is best for those chracters and enough to express the characteristics of the character!!!

Lucia xoxoxo

p.s. Can’t wait to see how it all pans out with polishing!!!

First of all quite angry! The school had the gates locked at 5.40 so i had to walk the whole way around the school…grrrr!

Anyways we have finished our ensemble!!When i say finished we still have to polish the whole thing but we have scripted and blocked everything! Yay! I’m so excited now, and i think it has given us all a boost and we know we can all do it and get everything done within the time frame. Mind you it is in a week and about 1hr, but we can do it!

I told you guys this before but i have decided to change the boring meeting character i have, into something a bit different and outside what i am used to! It’s fairly comical as you have seen, but at the same time i am speaking fairly monotone, which in turn bores the pants of the audience (you guys) and sets off the yawning and snoring etc. Hopefully i can pull it off huh!

Our scene six! I love the idea, lots of freezed movements between ves and i, and the fact that we are inside the two scenes at the same time, i think is quite spectacular. e.g-boxing ring, yet promoting election campaign. It is all pretty funny and our idea of portraying different aspects of the australian culture and their individual view on nuclear power and alternative fuels for the future is a really fun way to portray a scene which upon reading, we were quite concerned about.

Wont rant about my accent anymore, {:( } but i think practising my lines in isolation will hopefully help. I might ask lucia (the master) for a bit of a tutorial and hopefully i can somehow improve. Still listening to the c.d but…

The swot discussion with Cashy was really beneficial i think. Now we actually have on paper a copy of what we really need to work on, and also equally as important our strengths!

Tomorrow can’t remember the aim, but hopefully we can get a run through as well as concentrating on scene six. Vesna has got an awesome idea for the vignettes so hopefully we can get those done by Sunday!

Fragmentry costume is a must so hopefully we can work out our significant scenes that could do with bits and pieces here and there.

See you guys tomorrow!
Jess

ok…Well I am freaking out regardless what Mr.Cash or anyone says lol. I felt really helpless that we couldn’t get any ideas or anything together for scene six. I suppose individual scripting will work out fine though. I am researching at the moment…but would much rather be in bed…so exhausted from everything! Anyway; note to self- do not use drama blog as counselling service!lol…

The run through i felt quite dissapointed in myself…i know i was tired but it still really hit me and worried me about what the real thing will be like next week, and how much individual work i have to do on characterisation, accents, facial expressions, movement, gesture, the list goes on!

I keep making mental lists in my head about what we need to do… fireman scene, vignettes (i think go with ves’ idea about the couple in the park and people in the lake and a wedding and whiz bang we have three short montages!), cut down scene five speeches, and obviously scene six…

Short blog, but i am really tired so off to bed!
jess

Okay handful, today’s rehearsal really scared me not only with our time but lines, memory, syncronisation and readiness. I know we were all really really really SLEEPY! but this still needs alot of work we need to finish scene 6 tomorrow so we can focus all our attention on polishing!

But the good news is that we have covered all criteria, prescribed structure and  necessities so no need to freak about that!!!

But we really need to work hard ladies get out of this SLEEPY stage so we can ROCK this ENSEMBLE so much that we become FAMOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xoxoxo Lucia xoxoxo

That was just Lucia soz