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.