WE WILL ROCK YOU REHEARSALS (GC1, GC2 & GC3)

GC1- I feel that for a musical performance, all three skills are important, the musical, physical and verbal aspects all need high levels of attention and energy upon performance. I feel most confident in my physical and verbal skills in this production, including numbers such as Seven Seas of Rye and One Vision. All three are important in a successful ensemble because it allows for everyones strengths to be shown, but also challenging everyone too. When everyone in a cast is giving full energy and confidence in all three aspects it presents a well rehearsed production, which alongside our creative ideas, makes it appealing for audiences. 

GC2 & GC3- My rehearsal process was quite evenly split between ensemble work, and on character as Brit with Talia playing Meat. This allowed me to evenly learn and rehearse choreography, lines and songs for both. I ensured to work out of lesson/rehearsal so that I could be prepared for rehearsals, specifically with Talia as I had all of my scenes and songs with her. When working as an ensemble, I felt we always worked really well as we often had the whole cast available, and therefore could all contribute ideas and rehearse together. I mainly contributed blocking and dance ideas, as I often find myself having discussions with the director or choreographer about pieces. In terms of choreography, Talia and I worked privately on Radio GaGa, creating the movement for the song, to teach to the ensemble. This teaching aspect helped me to remember my work better, and also gave me a leadership role which I am not used to, but it pushed me to develop and work professionally, sometimes on the spot.

I worked heavily on I Want It All, as this song is my opening number as Brit, and is all about what she wants in her life. Talia and I worked with our director and pianist out of rehearsal on this song, as we wanted to add some harmonies and work on timing. I suggested splitting the riffs at the end of the song, making it more even. In terms of rehearsal, we both regularly met up to run lines and songs rigorously to ensure our performance was clean and refined, allowing us to develop movement and have fun with the scenes. It also pulled us together as actors, enhancing the chemistry and believability on stage. Often Talia would lead the singing rehearsals and I would lead the more acting based rehearsals as these are both of our strength, and we worked on blocking/dance together evenly. This was efficient as it used the time wisely.

Another song I worked don was Headlong, including myself, Meat (Talia), Galileo (Megan) and Scaramouche (Amber). This song is quite long, and really needed some choreography. Which, at first, as quite difficult. I came up with a few gestural ideas myself, and developed these with the group when we came together. Using my time like this was really useful as I could take my time and be creative, meaning I could come to rehearsals prepared and able to teach or develop. We found it quite hard to remember lyrics for this song as it is quite repetitive but with slight lyrical changes in each verse/chorus, however this movement helped us a lot to follow the lyrics with specific movements. This song definitely uses our physical verbal and musical skills, in that some characters had minor dialogue in the song, and it showed our characters personality traits clearly. We communicated well through our movements, making gestures towards each other and making eye contact throughout, and when singing, we worked on harmonies and looked heavily into timing in our own time, again creating a disciplined and clean performance.

My line sin this production were quite tricky to learn as they were often simple additions to conversations, or repetitive lines in a scene that have slightly different wording ach time, making it hard to get it perfect. I wrote my lines out and recorded them alone and with Talia, at home and at college. This structured rehearsal time again allowed me to feel progressively confident in rehearsal, and understand my character better.

The main ensemble scene I was involved in was at The Heartbreak Hotel. In this I played Meat and an off cast Bohemian. When being Britt I found it was really useful and encouraging when the cast reacted and interacted well with myself and others on stage. This made me feel more immersed as an actor and added to the level of energy on stage. When offcast I made sure to react loud and clear, with some gestures, as I was able to follow the scene with ease because of my previous knowledge of it. These actions and reactions used our communication skills well, making eye contact with each other and improvising personal movements to enhance the rough and fun feel to the Bohemians as a group.