Video of my groups rehearsal of both scenes

1st Scene
2nd Scene

Rehearsals

3 days before the performance...
Today was the first rehearsal since our half term break and I feel everyone was not as focused as we have been in previous rehearsals, but as we got into it as a group we became more in tune with each other.
We made some blocking changes to our scenes and the choreography has improved vastly and I am very happy with it.
The blocking changes we have made were;

• In our first scene with Unis as Otway, we have changed the staging and made it a lot more spacious and it does not look as crowded as it looked before, this was something that was noticed during rehearsals by our tutor and we all noticed it as well, so this scene is much more sharp and presentable.
• In the second scene, when my character Mrs Marshall gets muck from the road thrown in her hair by two men, we as a group and our tutor have decided that it looks much more effective if I come in and almost collapse on the floor, and the other women surrounding me. This looks a lot neater, as before when I was standing I did not really know what to do and began paddling on stage for no reason, and this is not something I usually do, but I did not really know how to stand, so sitting on the floor on my knees helps me to focus more on what I am saying and not where I am standing. This scene looks a lot more effective and realistic now, as I am able to concentrate on how Mrs Marshall is feeling after having disgusting things thrown in her own hair! And we have worked on the reaction from the other females in this scene to what has happened to Mrs Marshall and it is looking much more naturalistic in the sense that these women look genuinely disgusted and shocked at what has happened before, whereas before I feel my group did not really know how to react to it.
• Overall, we have sharpened up lines, and cues for individuals who were not as fluent with their lines as others, no one is using scripts or prompts anymore which is great as now everyone in our group are able to really feel and believe what they are saying, as opposed to reading from the script. I feel the general atmosphere between us all as actors in the scenes has improved so much, and I feel to an audience it does look natural and it is believable that our characters are busy and determined women working in a theater, I feel the vibe of the busy theater life is definitely present now that we have all became much more confident with our scenes and acting abilities with our individual characters

The main things my group and I need to work is just to clean up little bits of blocking on the whole just to get it more structured and neater, and just for individuals in our group to become more sharp with cues for lines and creating stronger relationships between the women. 

Development 11.2.14

Running through the show and watching the other groups scenes and developments.... 

What are the groups doing well that we can use? 

All the groups had a great energy about their performance and scenes, some more than others but I definitely felt the emotions and passions all the actors had for their characters. I feel very in touch with Mrs Marshall and I understand her as a character and an individual, but the main notes I was given today about my acting was to use restoration acting more and use more gestures when my character is performing a monologue on stage from a restoration play. I have been observing Greta and Heta and they both use Restoration acting to extremes, but these are good extremes as Restoration period acting was very over the top and so un-naturalistic! I feel I will use them as role models in terms for my Restoration acting and will make much more grand gestures and let my body be more free when acting out the monologue. 
I feel watching Sav perform as Nell I have noticed that she has so much energy and really dives into her character and I can see the connection she has with her character, as Nell is very outgoing, energetic and almost ditsy, it is really entertaining and endearing to watch and Sav definitely plays Nell Gwynn very well and I want to portray this same energy in my character like she does, although Mrs Marshall is not as energetic and certainly not ditsy, I feel I portray energy when playing Mrs Marshall in different ways, for example, I feel I portray her as very sarcastic and confident, and she is also rather rude at times but very professional and grounded, but after watching Sav in particular, I will definitely always put all my energy and ability into portraying Mrs Marshall as accurately as I can, as it is much more enjoyable to watch someone playing a character with spirit and commitment.
What do they need to improve on? What does my group have to improve on?
I feel on the whole my whole acting class have put together a very good, strong show with some really interesting characters and great objectives. I definitely see who are the stronger characters and who needs to understand and research their character a little bit more.
Improvements for the group as a whole would be to work more as a team and make sure character relationships are present and to portray the women as united! Even though there is some healthy competition within the theater and definite "cliques", the women need to be shown as united together as they are all there for the same reason, career wise and they should be shown as a unit, and not just individual people.
Another improvement is that everybody needs to learn their lines! People should really know their lines by now, but it is understandable that some people have more lines to learn than others, but you cannot act to your full ability until you have learned your lines, as they need to be in your mind and you need to understand what you are saying, and reading from a script is only just the beginning, and we only have a couple of weeks until the show! Little improvements I noticed need to be made today by the class as a WHOLE are some people need to be projecting more and need to have more of a stage presence, as these women are very strong and confident, and this needs to be shown by EVERY female character. I also notice that the MALE characters need to be stronger and much more energetic and confident, as there are only 4 males in this play, so the male actors need to really stand out and almost compete with the female actresses, as they could be out shone and not fully appreciated! As the male characters are very interesting as well, and I feel after watching it, I saw that the females were definitely stronger than the males, which should not be the case, the female CHARACTERS could be seen as stronger in this play as it is written by a feminist, but the male ACTORS need to be putting as much energy and understanding into their characters, and not feel that their characters aren't as important as the females are.

Improvements for myself and my group would be to work on the staging more, as at this point I feel we have all established an understanding for our characters and portray massive amounts of character and we all pretty much know all our lines. But at times the staging can be a little bit messy so I definitely want to work on this more than the characterization as we are all at that point where we know our characters and are thinking like them 100 percent. 
Personally I need to improve on my Restoration gestures, which I mentioned at the beginning, and that is the main improvement I need to make, as I am portraying Mrs Marshalls objectives and personality very well I feel, but need to work on my physical movement more. It is just little things my group and I need to improve on, and with a couple more rehearsals, I feel we will have a very rounded strong piece ready for our performance night!

Rehearsals 10.02.14

Today my group and I rehearsed our two scenes in our lesson time and in extra rehearsals from 3pm-5pm. 

I feel today our group have made great progress and introduced new ideas and have sharpened up our blocking and choreography. We were given directors notes after rehearsals and our feedback was very good and positive! I feel very happy with both my scenes and feel that everyone in my group has put in a lot of effort with their characters and the scenes. 

One comment I received about my character is finding how she would stand, as I was standing more like myself rather than mrs Marshall, I have now found a way she would stand and I really feel I am my character when acting now, she is a very grounded and strong woman and the way she stands portrays her strength much more clearly now I have found mrs Marshall's stance and physicality. 

Our feedback today was just to tidy up a few little bits of blocking that need work, but on the whole our scenes are looking really good and strong, I feel we are portraying every characters ojbectives and certainly the super objective of all the characters. I feel our performance is very strong in the sense that all the characters have relationships with each other, not that all these relationships are as clear as others but I feel the audience can sense the emotion these women are feeling and how united they are when they come together. 

CHARACTERISATION: Run through of the play

Today in class, the whole group ran through Playhouse Creatures with the scenes in order. It is the first time all of us have seen each others scenes properly, so it was a very interesting lesson. We performed to our tutor, who gave us directors note at the end of our performance.
Our main focus is on our characterization and how well we portray our characters. 
The questions we were asked today about our characters in our individual scenes are;

1. Are the characters clear? In my two scenes I am in, I feel I portray MRS MARSHALL very clearly, and you can tell I am playing the same character throughout, as some of my class mates are playing more than one character in the play. I feel my characters personality is very clear, I portay her as a very grounded and strong women, a tiny bit more mature than the other girls, but still quite young as she has an element of youthful attitude, and can be quite boisterous and fiery at times, particularly towards men! I feel she does not really care what anyone thinks of her, and she does things purely for her own advantage. Having said that, I feel she does try to help the characters, particularly MRS FARLEY, but essentially, everything she does has a purpose and I feel she believes in herself and is a very driven and ultimately clever woman. I feel I have portrayed this well in todays performance, and listened to the notes I was given previously, about adding some friction into my first scene with myself and Lucy( MRS FARLEY) when we are discussing what we did the night before. I feel after adding friction, my character developed a lot more in this first scene and the audience can immediately identify that she is a smart and strong woman. 
2. Are Objectives clear? I feel MRS MARSHALLS main objective in this play is to increase her acting ability and to be noticed by higher class people. I feel she is definitely a clever woman and knows that sleeping with people to get to the top is not always the best way. Although, she does have an affair with the Earl of Oxford and asks him to marry her if he wishes to sleep with her, which is quite a silly thing to do as it has put her in a vulnerable position and her attitude towards him ultimately leads to the ending scene, in which the audience will see MRS MARSHALL entering the stage, disgusted and outraged, as two men have thrown human shit from the road side into her hair to teach her " manners" as she has been clearly quite rude and obnoxious to the Earl, and the Earl is obviously a horrible man! Her objectives in the first scene with herself and MRS FARLEY are very clear, as she starts to talk about visiting salons and socialising with intelligentsia, which were back in those days, middle to upper class people with a good social network, who challenged God and started to introduce science and scientific beliefs. This clearly shows that MRS MARSHALLS objective is to become more educated about life and discoveries, and wants to learn about people and wants to teach these people about herself, as she states " they ask me things about me and my life here on stage" so these people are actually interested in her as a person and her lifestyle! Which is pretty incredible, considering how women had such a low status back in the 16th century. I feel I have portrayed her objectives clearly in our performance today, and she certainly has different objectives than all the other women in the scenes. I feel I portrayed her objectives better in the first scene than in the second scene, as MRS MARSHALL's character is much more strong and open in the 2nd than in the 1st. In the first scene I feel her objective is to protect the theater, and to "help" MRS FARLEY with her pregnancy, when I say help, I mean help the theatres reputation, help her career as an actress and to help MRS FARLEY as she knows very well that she will be doing it alone if she does decide to keep the baby and the only way she will be able to provide for her baby is to become a prostitute. MRS MARSHALL is quite hard skinned, but underneath I believe she has a warm heart, she does not wear it on her sleeve, like some of the other girls, particularly NELL AND MRS FARLEY. 
3. Is the story within the scene clear? I feel the story in our first scene when Nell Gwynn first comes on the scene as an actress at the theater, is clear at times and then sometimes it can be a little unclear. Like for example, today we recieved directors notes and it was unclear what was going on and what the relevance was with the scene with Greta and Chloe( DOLL AND MRS BETTERTON) I agree as I do not really understand this scene, and what connection it has to the rest of the play. So as a group we need to discuss this part and think of ways we can improve it and make it more clear for the audience, just because the majority of my group and myself are not in this scene, that does not mean that we have nothing to do with it, as it is in our part of the play and we are all working together so we need to have a group discussion about that particular part in the scene. I feel the story with Nell is very clear, just needs to be a little bit more sharper, our characters all need to portray just how we feel about Nell, coming into our theater without having an interview from the boss! And MRS MARSHALL AND MRS FARLEY's love hate relationship is very clear I feel, as in ways you can tell they have known each other for years and have become very used to one another, and my character laughs warily at a few of her jokes she makes about Nell, but at the same time the audience can sense that MRS MARSHALL feels somewhat disapointed in her stupidity and shallowness towards other people, for example in our first opening scene together, my character is expressing how she loves going to the salons as she meets different interesting people who are well educated and want to actually TALK and FIND OUT THINGS about Mrs Marshall, and don't just want to have sex with her and use her as a bit of "arm candy" which contrasts heavily with Mrs Farley as all she wants to do is sleep with the king and develop a name for herself, she expresses immaturity as she finds it "funny" that Mrs Marshall wants to get to know different people and to educate these people about her life as an actress. In our second scene I feel the story is very clear, the main storyline is that MRS FARLEY is pregnant with the Kings child and the other women are mortified and shocked about this, and MRS FARLEY clearly does not want to loose her career as an actress, but at the same time she does not seem to want to get rid of the baby as much as she would love to and this is portrayed very well. This scene also features a male character! Who is played by Unis. Otway is a struggling playwright who thinks he is amazing at what he does, and is so over the top about everything he says and is very pretentious throughout. I feel myself and the other actresses in this scene portray just how united they were together as a team, in this scene all the females gang up on Otway and complete dismiss his play, and MRS FARLEY even falls asleep when he is reciting his play! The only female who is slightly polite to him is MRS BETTERTON, as she is the boss and is the most mature out of the actresses. We all portray this part of the story really well and I really enjoy this scene as the females are all working together and having banter with each other, poking fun at Otway, who appears to be very nervous and wary throughout this scene! I feel on the whole, our portrayal of the main story line in both scenes as a group are strong and clear.  

3rd February: Rehearsals for both scenes

Rehearsals so far for my two scenes...

SCENE 1

This scene is pretty much completed. We started rehearsing this scene about 3 weeks ago now and we have made very good progress over the time we have spent on this scene, we have still been rehearsing it recently but I am more focused on my second scene now, as I have more lines and much more physical parts as apposed to this 1st scene.

The blocking in this scene is completed and we have used the space very well on the stage. 

This scene shows my character as being the woman all the girls turn to when they need help, although she is not very mature she is one of the oldest, possibly 20 or 21 years of age.

The main points in this scene are my character MRS MARSHALL trying to perform an abortion for MRS FARLEY. This part in the scene is very distressing and we have discussed how we need to portray it in a realistic yet modest way, we do not want the audience to feel uncomfortable during this scene, as it is a sensitive subject, especially for women. So we decided to have MRS FARLEY sitting in a chair with her back to the audience, and MRS MARSHALL kneeling on the floor in between MRS FARLEY'S legs, performing the abortion. In the play it says they use something " long and sharp, a queens broach" so for this scene we need to use a long sharp looking pin, there are quite a few props we need for this scene, a lot more than in my second scene. As a group we put together a list of props we need for this scene..

The props we need for this scene are;

• Pair of gloves
• Long sharp looking pin
• Hand mirrors
• Makeup brushes
• Script for OTWAY
• Petticoat( used from costumes)
• Cloth/teatowel
• Tray with biscuits

I think this scene is very hard hitting and quite brutal at times, I feel it portrays the women to be very strong and dedicated to their passion, acting. And shows just how much they have to do to maintain their positions as actresses and just how hard it is for them. 

SCENE 2

This scene is my favourite out of the two, as I feel my character MRS MARSHALL is portrayed in a better light, and appears to be a much stronger and confident women, than in the 1st scene. 

We have been rehearsing this scene for just over a week now, and have started on our blocking, but just need to sharpen it up in places. We have made good use of the stage, and have set out the tiring room as we all have imagined it to look. We recieved feedback on this scene from our tutors and on the whole it is looking good and we all know our lines pretty well, we just need to clean up the blocking and think more into our characterization, and start to stand and walk like our characters and not just act how they would act. 

I personally feel I am getting more and more into character every time we rehearse this scene as I really like my character and her morals and status. I think in this scene my character does appear to be very hard skinned and tough, I do believe she is a strong, confident and proud women, but part of me feels she is not all that meets the eye, I feel she puts on an act a little bit, she is a sensitive women and wants the love from the Earl of Oxford she knows she deserves, but shes not getting it from him and she experiences a horrendous event, when two men attack her outside the theatre and "rub shit into her hair" as a message from the Earl of Oxford. So she feels very let down and angry that this man has publicly humiliated her in front of the other actresses and maybe even people passing in the street! In this scene I need to portray distress and total disgust, as it is a very disgusting and low thing to do to someone, and I just have to let myself really think that this is real, that there is something disgusting in my hair, as it will appear much more realistic to the audience. It is quite a hard thing to do, but I just need to let my imagination run more wildly! 

I feel my group and I are working very hard in this scene and we are all very dedicated to the roles we are playing, and to each other as fellow actresses.