Year 1 Half term 5 - Week 5

15/05/23 - Scenes 7- 12.

We started the day of with an active warm up. We did some running, side steps, lunges, sit ups and star jumps.

After this we started were we left off. We started on scene 7. I'm not in scene 7 so while this was being done I went through scene 8 and 9 ready for when I would be needed. 

When I was needed we went through scene 8 which is where Jo refuses to take Amy to the theatre with Laurie and her. This is a really important scene because it shows how little sets off Amy into a tantrum which makes her burn Jos story. To do this scene I had everyone helping me to get the facial expressions right which really helped me because I needed to look angry but also mischievous to show that Amy was coming up with a plan to get Jo back so I was very grateful for the feedback I was getting because I know it made the scene look better. 

And now for my favourite part of todays lesson, scene 9. This is because scene 9 is when Jo finds out Amy has burnt her book and they fight. I enjoyed this because we got to learn something new, which was stage combat, it was only a small scene that we needed it for but it was really cool to get to incorporate it into the scene. For this scene Jo pulls Amy's hair so Millie T and I went off and tried it out, we figured out that for it to look realistic Millie would grab a little bit of my hair and I would then hold onto her hands so it didn't look rushed. 

After we showed Kelly our creation and got the thumbs up we went onto scene 11 and 12, scene 11 is the one where they get a letter saying their father is injured so all the girls help Marmee pack so she can go see him, for this scene we all just needed to look miserable really because you would be if you've just got news that your father is injured and now your mother is also leaving to see him. It would be scary and sad so I used that to help me in this scene. Before Marmee leaves Jo comes back and gives her £25, everyone would be very shocked on how she got it until she reveals that she has cut all her hair off to help Marmee out. I think for this scene Amy is secretly happy because she thinks that to be beautiful you need long hair.

Once we had blocked this scene and went through it a couple times, we read through scene 12 as its pretty long and just wanted to get an idea of it first. Then we decided we would split it into sections to learn. We did the first half of scene 12 which is the scene where Beth gets ill. Amy is very selfish in this scene as she is sent off to aunt march's so she doesn't get ill and says "I would rather get scarlet fever and die then go to Aunt March's". This is probably the most insensitive thing she says throughout the whole play. Although Amy is a kid and probably doesn't realise what she's saying is bad I will still perform that line and her others in a more spoilt manner to show she only really cares about herself because she's just learnt her sister is very ill.

Today I learnt how to do some simple stage combat and that it's okay if you need help to get a scene right because everyone is there to support you on your performance.

16/05/23 - Finishing scene 12, going through the entire first half independently

Today it was mine and Alayah's turn to do a warm up so we started off with doing the Alphabet game, this is where one of us will shout out a letter and you need to get into the shape of a thing or person beginning with that letter. However if you are the same as someone else you are out, the aim of the game is to think of the most unique thing. For example, if I shouted 'A' and 2 people got into the shape of an apple they would be out. 

Then we did Modern day fairy tales. This is a group task so we asked everyone to get into groups of 4,5 or 6. and then we gave them a fairy tale to modernise and the others would have to guess it. For example 'Cinderella' could be changed to her losing a phone instead of a glass slipper and then everyone else would watch their scene and see if they know the fairy tale. 

After this we finished the second half of scene 12. I wasn't needed at first so I went off separately and had someone read in for me so I could go through all of my lines up to scene 12. I managed to remember nearly all of my lines and only needed slight prompts so I was very happy with that. 

Once I had done that I was needed for the end of scene 12 when Beth is told she is okay and Amy comes back from Aunt March's and tells everyone she wrote a will. This was quite funny to me because Amy wrote a will in case she got sick even though she knew she was safe. I think she did this though because she genuinely was worried about Beth and thought if that was her what would she do so i think it is almost Amy's way of coping. I liked todays lesson because I learnt what it would be like to teach and even better WE'RE HALF WAY THERE!! This is really exciting because at first I was worried we wouldn't have enough time to prepare for this show but we start Act 2 tomorrow and I know we are going to pull this off.

17/05/23 - Act 2 

Today we started off the lesson with a boxing warm up, we learnt how they stand, punch and block. Once we had learnt that we got into little groups and played a couple mini warm ups like one word story, this is where you say a word and the next person in the circle carries on the story. For example if I say "I" the next person could say "went" and it would carry on until a story is created.

For rehearsals today we had people away filming for the police so we mainly started on set design as we didn't have enough people to do a full scene, however because of this I learnt lines separately and filled in where I could so I was still learning my lines even if it wasn't with my cast. 

18/05/23 - getting through the play. reading in, learning lines.

Today we officially started on Act 2! 

For this lesson we went off into our groups and started to learn Act 2, there was no big rehearsal today as some people were still away filming so we rehearsed what we could with who we had.