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Bob Fosse.

In contrast to Ballet our next assessment will be a jazz performance to ‘All That Jazz’ inspired by Bob Fosse who choreographed ‘Chicago’. A visionary, intense and self driven, his dances were very sexual and physically demanding even to the most trained dancers. ’’ His trademark choreographic style: sexually suggestive forward hip-thrusts; the vaudeville humor of hunched shoulders and turned-in feet; the amazing, mime-like articulation of hands. He often dressed his dancers in black and put them in white gloves and derbies.’’ (  Excerpted from ST. JAMES ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE. 5 VOLS., St. James Press, 2000). 

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References

Dramaclasses.biz (ND), Stanislaki's system.  http://www.dramaclasses.biz/the-stanislavski-system - Accessed (30th November 2017).

Bradford, W. (2017), Stanislavski's acting methods. https://www.thoughtco.com/stanislavsky-system-acting-method-2712987. Accessed (30th November 2017).

(ND), Epic theatre and Brecht, BBC Bitesize.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zwmvd2p/revision. Accessed (30th November 2017).

IMDB (ND), Dreamgirls synopsis, . http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0443489/plotsummary. Accessed (30th November 2017).

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Acting for Musical Theatre.

Brecht wanted the audience to remember the acting is fake, breaking the fourth wall with the audience. This helped me in 9-5 as the story is dramatic and sort of unrealistic so the audience will remember that it is just a story and won't form a connection allowing me to get into a character who is dramatic and over the top so by the time show comes every character will have a cheesy out look on the show.

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Acting for Musical Theatre.

At the end of the acting module I feel like as a actor I have grew, Stanislavskis methods helped me on my journey, in Wizard of Oz and Dreamgirls I used

Who am I?

Where am I?

When is it?

What is it?

Them 4 being objectives in a scene and how I should look at it.

Why, how and what are the obstacles in a scene. Stanislavski had a certain outlook on acting and when researching his ways and beliefs I feel like this has helped me change my out look on acting.

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Acting for Musical Theatre.

The Wizard of Oz is a classic production set in the 1930′s, black and white, farmers land, old contraptions and next to no technology used. Comparing this to 9-5, a contemporary piece which is based in a office surrounded by technology, the mannerisms of the characters in both shows are completely different as Wizard of Oz are a lot more reserved and speak much fairer than in 9-5 which uses modern language, swear words and carries more attitude than anyone in the 1930′s would’ve had. The music in Wizard of Oz is the complete opposite to the music in 9-5, for example ‘ Somewhere over the rainbow’ carries a different sound over all, instruments  included and vocal styles used compared to ‘ 9-5 ‘. 

‘Somewhere over the rainbow’ talks about how life would be easier over the rainbow, beyond the moon where Dorothy can’t get into any trouble, in a peaceful place with her dog Toto, a complete make believe fairy tale song.  ‘9-5′ is a realistic song with more of a beat to it, singing about getting up for work every day doing a 9-5 shift at a job she hates, which is a song people would feel they could relate more to.

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Acting for Musical Theatre.

I have been put into the BA Y3 class production of 9-5, this is a contemporary show based around the 1980 film and features music and lyrics by Dolly Parton. It centers on the downtrodden working lives of three women, Violet, Judy, and Doralee. They all work at Consolidated Industries, which is presided over by the sexist, lecherous, and pompous, Franklin Hart. Violet has worked at Consolidated for many years, but has never been given the chance to rise above senior supervisor status, although she is capable of much more. Judy is newly separated and joins the company having never worked before. Doralee is a sexy, happily married country girl, but she is ostracized from the other female workers. After Judy has an awful first day, Hart passes Violet over for another promotion, and Doralee finds out that Hart has been telling everyone they are having an affair, the three women unite in their hatred of Hart. Over a joint, they fantasize about how they would kill him. When Violet almost unwittingly poisons Hart the next day, he blackmails the three women, threatening them with the police. Doralee ties Hart up with the phone wires and, feeling empowered, they decide to imprison him in his own house while his wife is away. In Hart’s absence, Violet, Judy, and Doralee run the office to great effect. They introduce childcare, hour-long lunch breaks, rehab programs, and much more to benefit the staff at Consolidated. While Hart is tied up, the women also use the time to gather evidence that Hart has been embezzling from the company, but Hart breaks free and surprises the women at the office. However, his attempts to reveal the truth about his kidnapping are foiled when the Chairman of the Board arrives to praise the company’s increased productivity. The Chairman sends Hart to head up the Bolivia office and promotes Violet to the first female CEO. With Hart gone, the company reprise 9 to 5, in the happy knowledge that times have changed for the better. http://stageagent.com/shows/musical/6113/9-to-5#ixzz4zrf5C1I0

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Dreamgirls.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwji4vC28OTXAhUnLcAKHTWLDKIQjB0IBg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dreamgirlswestend.com%2F&psig=AOvVaw1au5j66NbXx9BLMtuuAtvZ&ust=1512082488169301

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Acting for Musical Theatre.

We have been given a new script to learn, Dream girls, a contemporary piece  Deena,Effie and Lorrell form a music trio called the Dreamettes. When ambitious manager Curtis Taylor Jr spots the act at a talent show, he offers the chance of a lifetime, to be backup singers for a national star. Taylor takes creative control of the group and eventually pushes the singers into the spotlight. However, one becomes the star, forcing another out, which teaches them about the high cost of fame - a synopsis according to IMDB. After doing more research on the characters and the background behind the story I found that the character i’m playing; Lorrell is the baby of the group, she can also defend herself quickly but is also naive, she is caught in Jimmy's spell and the pair end up falling in love however it turns sour when she sees Jimmy spiraling out of control. I feel like Lorrell is an interesting character for me to play as its a character that I would say is out of my comfort zone as Lorrell can come off as a reserved character at times and I would say playing a reserved character is something I’d need to practice on. Using everything I have learnt over the weeks of preparing for the Wizard of Oz, using Stanislavskis methods and even Brecht.  

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Acting for Musical Theatre.

Our final assessment for Wizard of Oz has been completed after weeks of rehearsals and I felt like as a group we pulled together really well, for myself I felt like every thing that I had to work on such as accents and taking stage directions I handled them well and professionally. Using Stanislavskis methods of who, what, where, why, really helped me express my character Aunt Em in the scene as it allowed me to get into full characterization. 

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Acting for Musical Theatre.

This week we were given the task to go off in our groups and firstly discuss the blocking and then begin to set the scenes once we felt comfortable. In my group we read through the scripts and then looked at the stage directions given, this helped us with the blocking as each character could begin to get an understanding of what is actually going on in the scene behind all of the conversations. During our blocking discussion we took into consideration the background activity as each scene is happening allowing us to achieve our scenes comfortably. There was a slight issue faced with blocking other characters when in the scene, this is something I felt I personally struggled with as I focused to much on the movement of the character to not realise where I was stood, therefor blocking another person. However after the issue was raised we rehearsed the scene through and through and I began to feel more comfortable in the scene and was aware of all my surroundings.

We then had to perform our scenes infront of the class which made me nervous but after watching other groups doing it I became less nervous. Watching other groups helped as it gave us a chance to see what each person had interpreted the characters like and how they had set their scenes, personally giving me some inspiration on how to portray my character " auntie Em".

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Acting for Musical Theatre.

In this weeks session we focused on the wizard of oz script and the emotions the characters would be feeling in that particular moment. This led us on to the next task which was to pick a scene and 1 emotion but to explore and express it at 3 different levels e.g. Happy, excited, elated. The transition in these emotions can be used simply by dynamics or body language; learning Stanislavskis methods helped me understand this clearer as each time I switched emotion I could feel it as a character almost as if I was in that situation. Through using the methods it helped me develop more of an understanding for the scene and the realistic emotion that the character would've felt. This particularly helped me as I feel in future I can glide into the transitions of emotions without thinking to hard about it and I'll feel confident when portraying this scene again next time.

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Acting for Musical Theatre.

In our first week of acting sessions we covered classic and contemporary musicals. We had to go away and research what a classic musical was which through research I found was musicals before 1959, Carousel, West Side Story and the Sound of Music are some of the few musicals from the ‘Golden Age’. Through researching classic Musical Theatre we were able to focus on Stanislavski and how his methods influenced shows. Stanislavski believed in who,where,when,what(objective),why,how,what(obstacle) and the magic ‘if’. This helped actors find a way to understand the needs, desire and motivation of a character. These elements used by Stanislavski were discussed in class and it helped me understand how to engage myself more as a character when performing a scene, asking the questions that he believed in will lead me to focus on the act, the story behind the character and how to fit myself into the scene. A prime example is when we were given the Wizard of Oz scripts and told to learn a scene in a group using Stanislavski's methods. I played the character 'auntie Em' and in the scene I had to portray a character who was down and out about the world, a tired typical farmers wife who resented Dorothy slightly for her youth. The given circumstances are that Em is in the 1930's living on farm land struggling to get by daily, she is stressed and her objective is to have a successful farm business and bring in the money as times were tough. The obstacle is that the Great Depression is in place so what her farm has to offer is not in high demand so she and Henry are making little profit. So giving all these elements that I know about they've taught me to act in a way that auntie Em would.