Double (Joe)- Roxane idea (28th)

I thought we could do the song Roxane from Moulin Rouge to convey the rape scene. I thought that if we start with me saying the spoken part at the start of the song and Meg and Mickey can start the dance but when I say passion Dan walks past and Meg looks at him so Mickey can get suspicious and their dance gets more forceful. Then when the song starts "Roxane" both pairs Mickey + Meg and Dan + Freya start  to dance. we could then split the song, so have Freya sing "His lips upon your lips ... It's more than I can stand" and Dan can go over to Meg and they start dancing but with Dan forcing it on her. Dan could sing "Why does my heart cry? Feelings I can't fight" then Freya would sing again "You're free to leave me, but just don't decieve me" and then they both sing "And please believe me when I say I love you" 

In the song there is a Spanish part of:

"Yo que te quiero tanto, qué voy a hacer 

Me dejaste, me dejaste
En un tango
El alma se me fue
Se me fue el corazon
Ya no tengo ganas de vivir
Porque no te puedo convencer
Que no te vendas Roxane"

Which google translate says it means: 

"I, who love you so, what am I to do

You left me, you left me 

In a tango 

The soul I was 

I left the heart 

I have no desire to live 

Because I can not convince you 

You do not sell Roxane"

I thought we could have Mickey say that bit, but I'm not sure if we should keep it in Spanish or translate it to English. But after that there is the instrumental that we could do a movement piece to show Mickey angry at what Meg/Roxane has done and Freya can be angry at what Dan has done and could hit him.

We could end with a good dance that we can create because I'm not good at that so we can discuss this while rehearsing.

I think this will be a good way to tell the story because it will show the rape section to year sevens without it being too graphic for their age, while it being a big musical piece (the wow factor) and keep them engaged.

Single Drama- Link to act one photos

Act 1 Performance Photos

Single- 17, 18 and 20

This week we rehearsed the entire show to make sure we know what we are doing. I feel that everything went well and the show is looking good.

The way for me to improve is to learn my lines in time for the show, I think that would help.

Single drama - 10th, 11th and 13th

This week we worked on the opening and the London Underground. As a company we ran through the London Underground and decided that it wasn't working so we added music to improve the atmosphere and added more to the sequence. I feel like the opening of it looks great and can really reprosent the way Christopher isn't part everyone else, shown by the way he is walking the other way to everyone else.

To create the opening I thought of showing the unity of society and the way everyone knows what to do and how to fit in but Christopher didn't. I saw on the west end the cast walking in unicent around the stage and Christopher not fitting in, so I wanted to try and encorporate that into the performance. I felt like it worked well and with the rest of the company we were able to develope it into this cool movement piece.

To improve the show I think I need to work on developing my character some more.

Double (Joe)- 14th

We tried to create the prologue of the story, we did this by brainstorming ideas of techniques we could use (i.e. narration, movement/physical theater, song, dramatic scene) I think this was a good way for us to remember techniques we have learnt in the past and have them an one place to refer to in case we get stuck for ideas. The way the story goes is that at a party of the kings, Jason's uncle, Pelias, crashes it, kills Jason's family and claims the throne. However, Jason is smuggled out the back and taken to Cheiron, a centaur, who raises him. So we tried to create a party dance, which didn't work out as we didn't have ideas for movement to show a party. I felt that the party atmosphere we were creating was too modern and we wanted it to be Greek, I also felt that with all the drinking, drugs and passing out we did it wasn't appropriate for our audience of year seven (twelve year old) We finalized a scene in which we have a more traditional Greek party with food, wine, grapes, and women and have simply a narrator explain the story as this gets one of our story telling techniques in our performance and (assuming the narrator is energetic) can be engaging for our audience.

Single Drama- 3rd - 4th

this week we had a run through of act one and two. I felt this really helped me and hopefully others to see where, after the holidays, we are in the creating of this show. and I am pleased to think that we have completely blocked act one and act two is also almost there, I know almost all my lines of act one and learning act two. We also worked on characterization and thought of how our characters will walk on stage, I feel that this helped me better create my character and will include this in the final performance.

This week I looked into how my character will look by finding out what the west end version looked like, their version had a simple blue hoodie and an orange t-shirt with simple trousers. I like the simplicity of the costume because Christopher would think logical and only where the cloths he has to not because they look good. So I think I will keep it simple and where a t-shirt with a hoodie and a tracksuit because they are comfortable and warm, ideal for Christopher.

I think the work we have produced this week is great, I feel like we are progressing the show with each rehearsal and as a company we are working very well together to create this show. However I do feel like after working on how my character should walk, I don't think I successfully applied that to the next rehearsal and I need to start doing that.

To develop the show further I would recommend looking over the scene when Christopher meets Judy and Roger in the second half because I feel it is lacking something, we could have everyone sitting with the audience at the moment tap their fingers to try and get the sound of rain to show the storm outside and to stop when we go inside (or we could have a sound effect played of rain) just so we get a better sense of the slight change in setting.

Double (Joe) - The golden Fleece back story

Athamas the Minyan, a founder of Halos in Thessaly but also king of the city of Orchomenus in Boeotia (a region of southeasternGreece), took as his first wife the cloud goddess Nephele. They had two children, the boy Phrixus (whose name means "curly"—as in ram's fleece) and the girl Helle. Later Athamas became enamored of and married Ino, the daughter of Cadmus. When Nephele left in anger, drought came upon the land.

Ino was jealous of her stepchildren and plotted their deaths: in some versions, she persuaded Athamas that sacrificing Phrixus was the only way to end the drought. Nephele, or her spirit, appeared to the children with a winged ram whose fleece was of gold. The ram had been sired by Poseidon in his primitive ram-form upon Theophane, a nymph and the granddaughter of Helios, the sun-god. According to Hyginus, Poseidon carried Theophane to an island where he made her into an ewe, so that he could procreate with her among the flocks. There Theophane's other suitors could not distinguish the ram-god and his consort.

Nepheles' children escaped on the winged ram over the sea, but Helle fell off and drowned in the strait now named after her, the Hellespont. The ram spoke to Phrixus, encouraging him, and took the boy safely to Colchis (modern-day Georgia), on the easternmost shore of the Euxine (Black) Sea.

There Phrixus sacrificed the winged ram to Poseidon, essentially returning him to the god. The ram became the constellation Aries.

Phrixus settled in the house of Aeetes, son of Helios the sun god. He hung the Golden Fleece reserved from the sacrifice of the ram on an oak in a grove sacred to Ares, the god of war and one of the Twelve Olympians. The golden fleece was defended by bulls with hoofs of brass and breath of fire. It was also guarded by a never sleeping dragon with teeth which could become human soldiers when planted in the ground. The dragon was at the foot of the tree on which the fleece was placed.

I feel that is we, as a company get as much understanding of all the characters back stories we get a better understanding of who they are and why they are like that. I felt that if we understand where the fleece came from, we get a better understanding on why Jason goes after it and why people want it and what makes it so special, this way we get a subtext of why the characters are doing what they are doing in the stories.

Double (Joe) - how we decided on a story

We discussed each story and their pros and cons and wrote them down. We then debated which story is the best for us to perform by passing a 'conch' around to give our ideas. I liked using the conch as it gave everyone a chance to share their opinions without people not listening or simply shoot them down but to discuss the problem. We finally had a vote and after all the discussion the majority was for the story of Jason, on the basis that it was long with a lot of characters so we had a lot to work with.

Single - Christopher Costume 2.0

Single - Christopher costume

Single Drama - 21st and 23rd

This week we lost a rehearsal for reasons that are out of our control but as a company we worked on the scene where Christopher is looking for his book around the house. We use a heavy amount of physical theater to create the scene of which Christopher is looking in (e.g. the house, bins and the bed). I feel that as Siobam talks about each place, the use of physical theater really creates the scenes for the audience to see in a literal way. Especially compared to last weeks soundscape of the town, as the setting of the town wasn't specifically talked about in the script, we just knew, as a company, that we were there, so to convey that to the audience a simple soundscape could get that sense better than physical creating the street visually.

This week we ran through the lifts in the London train station scene and after some lifts going not as well, because either I'm not in full focus of the lift or other people were unintentionally being in the way, I have learnt that when preforming lifts it doesn't matter how many time you have done it, things still can go wrong so you can't get cocky and not pay full attention. Also, if you know a lift is being taken place, pay attention to what they are doing and where you are so you don't get in the way and also you might be there to help if things go wrong.

This week we managed to get all the way to page 15 off script and carry on without any major confusion as to whats happening, so as a company we are on the right tracks. We also managed to perform all the lifts in the London train sequence at least once (but we do need to work on timing everything right). My personal performance, I see Christopher as a naive almost innocent character and I feel I play that side of him well but I feel like I need to have another look through my script and tweak at where the strong autism isn't coming through in my performance and consciously change my acting accordingly. For the production, the scene where Judy reads her letter and I'm supposed to build a train track with everyone joining else, I thought we could have the stage covered in paper the entire performance but have them A2/3 size so we can pick up different parts of the "stage"(and draw the dog center stage and have props drawn on rather than physically there, the only physical prop is the book so everything else is paper from the book) and for this train track we simply draw the track straight onto the paper stage. We could incorporate this drawing on the stage idea to other parts of the play, for example when Christopher is trying to calm down he could wright the numbers as he says them or he could start writing the question in his exam (at the end of the play) and start to solve it throughout the play and at the end of the play could lift up each individual piece of paper and explain how he worked it out.