Musical Theatre

Tuesday 12th February Personally, I needed to improve my stamina due to the fact that I am always out of breath whenever we start the choreography. I improved my stamina by going to the gym a lot more and running. This helps me control my breathing whilst doing the choreography. Another reason why I also need to improve my stamina is that I need to get the words out clearly without losing all of my breath by doing the choreography. I will do this by doing specific stamina building warm ups before each performance in order to not lose my breath as easy as I did. I need to act a lot more childlike as well because I am playing a child in our performance. In this lesson, our group worked on mainly breath control. This is because we felt like in certain parts of the song we couldn't bring up the right note because we didn't have enough oxygen in our lungs to do so. I struggled with breath control and holding in more oxygen due to my Asthma and me smoking, however, I still tried...

Tuesday 5th February I did some late night work in terms of finding out the best exercises for breath control, this is because my group were struggling to find out when to breath in the parts of the song which requires a lot of breath to accomplish. We were all struggling to find the timing because of the vast speed and length of the paragraph. In the end I was able to find out a exercise that we were able to try out. The exercise consisted of just breathing in for 5 seconds and breathing out for 5 seconds, which we then raised up to 10 seconds in and 10 seconds out. I struggled with being able to say the words because I am always out of breath. However, I managed to control my breath and I was able to find out when I am meant to breath. Having control of your breath can be a good asset because you are able to know when to breath in to produce the right notes. Due to the change of my character, I do not have to learn any dialogue so I spend my time researching about the 'Big ...

Monday 21st January  On the 21st of January we worked on 'School Song'. We worked on the choreography of the dance. We made some changes for the people that are portraying the 'Big Kids'. This is because we thought that there wasn't the intimidation that is needed to frighten the 'Little Kids'. We added more movements that can indicate the gap of power between the 'Little Kids' and the 'Big Kids', movements such as stomping my foot louder. This creates intimidation due to the fact that by stomping at a louder volume this will surprise the 'Little kids' because the first step to intimidate someone is to be loud. Due to my absences, my character had to be changed. This is because my original character has the most amount of dialogue within the 'Big Kids'. With the sudden change, I had to quickly learn all of  the dialogue because I had to show my peers our piece. Fortunately, I did not need to learn many lines due to the fac...

Friday 11th January In my first lesson working on 'School Song' from Matilda, I learnt some background information on Matilda due to the task that we had to research about Matilda. My peers shared their research about what they found, so I added in more extra information to my research to which I did not have. I was not feeling well so I was not present in the class. However, I asked my classmates about the information that they found on 'Matilda The Musical' so I added in new information. I researched further about the authors, composers and the background of Matilda. The musical, Matilda, is based upon the 1988 children's novel by Roald Dahl. It was given a stage adaptation by Dennis Kelly, the composer being Tim Minchin and the choreographer being Peter Darling, the first ever performance was on 9th December 2010. It premiered at the Royal Shakespeare's Company's The Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in November 2010, however, opened on the West ...

In the beginning, it was quite difficult for me to grasp the choreography. It was quite difficult due to my lack of knowledge of 'West Side Story'. With that being said I didn't think much of the choreography in my initial thoughts due to the fact that I thought I would be able to grasp the choreography quite easily. However, this was not the case. I researched and watched 'West Side Story' to get context and to educate myself. I started getting the hang out of it by the 3rd lesson. This is because I practised in my own time and to see where I went wrong on some of the parts.  As I kept on researching about the musical, I got a better understanding on the impact of dance in musicals. A well put together choreography can tell a story and I understood that. So I tried making the dance tell a story due to the fact that West Side Story is mostly on the Physicals. I got the hang of the dance because of practising in my spare time.  I really enjoyed the choreograph...

Research for the Choreographer of 'West Side Story' The Choreographer of the Musical 'West Side Story' was called Jerome Robbins. Jerome Robbins was an American choreographer, director, dancer, and theatre producer who worked in classical ballet, on Broadway, and in films and television. He was born in 11th October 1918 in Manhattan. Sadly, he passed away at the age of 79 due to a Stroke.  Among his numerous stage productions he worked on were On the Town, Peter Pan, High Button Shoes, The King and I, The Pajama Game, Bells are ringing, West Side Story, Bells are ringing, Gypsy and Fiddler on the roof. Robbins was a five time Tony Award winner and recipient of the Kennedy Centre Honours. He received two Academy Awards, including the 1961 Academy awards for best director with Robert Wise for West Side Story. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Rabinowitz studied chemistry for one year at New York University  before embarking on a career as a dancer in 1936. He st...