Thursday 18th December Homework

Today we continued to work on the play tale, by tale. 

It is important that over the break you LEARN ALL OF YOUR LINES. Even those that we haven't blocked yet. The show is very detailed in moving the stools and lighting, by learning your lines you will make the rehearsal process much easier. 

For each tale, even though you are working as an ensemble you have a character within it. 

1. Go through your script tale by tale and work out the character that you are. Write about each character briefly. 

For example in TALE 3 - are you all witnesses to what Jack does? 

In Tale 4 - are you all the same character? The young person who notices the old lady and helps her? 

2. Next, write out some of your lines from each tale and next to the line write your OBJECTIVE for saying the line. Think about why are you saying the line and this will help you with finding how you might say this.

3. Please go through your script and check you have all of your BLOCKING written down. You should have where you move to, who you stand/sit next to, when you light with a phone...etc.

Thursday 11th December

Ensemble

The theatre ensemble in our piece is crucial to the success of the final performance. 

Write your own definition of what ensemble means in theatre.

What has to happen in the rehearsal room to develop a successful ensemble?

Write about your favourite ensemble moment so far. Write at least 4 sentences to explain why. 

Pictures of an ensemble in Julius Caesar.

Today we focused on creating Tale 3 and the start of Tale 4.
Write at least 4 sentences to answer each question:

TALE 3

• How have we decided to stage Tale 3? 
• What characters do you play in this tale? 
• What is the atmosphere of Tale 3? How is this different to what we have created for Tale 1 & 2?

TALE 4

• How have we decided to stage Tale 4? 
• What characters do you play in this tale? 

Further questions...

• What acting skills have you continued to develop over the past few weeks? Is there anything new you have discovered about your own skills?
• Return to all of the sections of the text we have staged so far. Select a line from each that sums up that tale.

As well as keeping your blog up to date you need to:

LEARN ALL LINES that have already been given to you.

On Monday you will be given an edited script, you need to read this ready for the rehearsal on Thursday. I would like to finish blocking Tale 4 and 5. We will then run from the start. We then have 4 weeks after the Christmas break to complete the piece and polish it. 

Thursday 4th December

Well done on such a fantastic lesson, it was so lovely to see you all and be back in the room making theatre! 

Please reflect on the following things for this week's lesson:

Rehearing:

Here is the basic configuration of our performance space. It is called THRUST staging. 

• Give an advantage of using this stage space.
• Give a disadvantage of using this stage space. 

Question:

As an actor what are the challenges you think you will have personally being directed in this space? 

Below is a plan of a stage. It tells you what we call each area of the stage. Familiarise yourself with this as you will be asked by your director to enter from stage left or right, move up or down stage. This is vocabulary that you should be able to use as an actor. 

How have we staged the prologue? Why have we made this choices? What is the effect that is created? 

Answer for the tale you are in. Girls - Tale 1, Boys - Tale 2

What is your role in the tale?

How has it been staged?

Why have these choices been made?

What are the strengths of this piece so far?

What developments need to happen throughout the rehearsal period? 

LINE LEARNING

You all need to learn lines that have been allocated to you so far for the next lesson. 

PLANNING 

Have a read through Tale 3, 4 and 5 again.

We will be working on these next week. 

REMINDER OF HOW YOU ARE BEING MARKED 

Unit 15:Performing Scripted Plays

Grading Criteria

DEVELOPING IN REHEARSAL  

P1 Explore, develop and shape a role using practical activities and research findings

M1 Explore, develop and shape a role using practical activities and research findings in relation to the demands of the text

D1 Explore, develop and shape a role using practical activities and research findings effectively, fully appreciating the demands of the text.

REHEARSAL 

P2 Demonstrate personal and technical skills in rehearsal making a positive contribution to the process

M2 Demonstrate personal and technical skills in rehearsal, consistently making a positive contribution and constructive contribution to the process.

D2 Demonstrate personal and technical skills in rehearsal with consistently positive and constructive contributions, engagement, commitment, input and self- reflection.

PERFORMANCE 

P3 Perform a role demonstrating competent use of relevant performance skills to communicate intentions to the audience

M3 Perform a role demonstrating competent use of relevant performance skills confidently and consistently, clearly communicating intentions to the audience

D3 Perform a role with competent, sustained and effective demonstration of relevant performance skills, accurately communicating intentions to the audience with confidence and control.

Homework Thursday 27th November

Please make sure your blogs are up to date. 

Below are the tasks set in this week's lesson. Please answer the questions, ensuring that you use THEATRE VOCABULARY.

TASK 1 – MONOLOGUES

You were asked to think about your favourite character that you've worked on so far.

You we asked to write a monologue for that character that stays with the same style of the play. 

Either take a photo of your monologue and upload it, or type your monologue onto your blog.

You then worked in pairs to stage the pieces. 

Q- What choices did you make when staging your monologue? Think about how you used your voice and physicality. 

Q -How did the monologue task help you to understand the play further?

You performed and watched your peer's work.

Q- What monologue performed by a peer worked well and why? What had they written about?

Q - Who performed their monologue successfully and why? 

TASK 2 - East End research devising task

Using the articles given to you about the East End, you created another East End Tale in a small group. This was how the writer created EET originally.

You were given one of these articles:

http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/crimecourt/bethnal_green_teen_jailed_for_attempted_murder_1_3848926

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/the-moment-gang-shoots-volley-of-fireworks-at-a-passing-police-car-in-east-london-9850706.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/fancy-cockroaches-with-your-curry-bugs-found-scuttling-along-floor-of-indian-takeaway-9763423.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/thousands-of-fish-found-mysteriously-floating-dead-in-east-london-park-lake-9751637.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/police-appeal-after-black-man-racially-assaulted-in-childrens-playground-9727163.html

Q - What choices did you make with your group to make one of these articles into an East End Tale? Why? 

Q - How did you make the new tale you created like the tales in the play?

Q - Which character did you play and how?

Q - Which theatre skills did you use to perform the tale? 

You need to complete another DEVELOPING assessment sheet for the lesson:

(You were given these in the lesson, either upload the handwritten sheet, or complete on here)

Things to start collecting for the show...

I am going to start a list on this post of things we will need for the performance. Things will be added from week to week  - keep checking!

It will not be massively prop heavy, however their are a few key items I would like you to start gathering ready for rehearsals. 


Things to find:

• A torch (everyone will need one)
• An umbrella (everyone will need one)

Developing movement for characters

I have found these videos on the National Theatre channel on youtube. There are lots of excellent short films from warm-ups, to directing. 

Here is a link to the page:

National Theatre Videos

Here are some interesting videos on creating characters. Watch these and make some notes. How might the information in these films be useful when rehearsing and creating a role?

Physical Theatre

The final piece will rely on physical theatre and the work of a tight ensemble to tell the story of 'East End Tales'.

Here are some clips and information on Physical Theatre. You should do some of your own research too.

Frantic Assembly are a UK based physical theatre company:

'The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time' uses physical theatre throughout and relies on the work of the ensemble to tell the story. Here are some clips for you to watch. 

Ensemble theatre

Homework Thursday 20th November

You need to write about the lesson this week, reflecting on the exercises you have done and explain how you have developed your understanding of the play, characters and themes. 

You were given the marking criteria for DEVELOPING for this project. You need to complete the sheet, you would have started this in the lesson – the sheet must be uploaded to your blog.

Task 2 (45/60 mins)

Mr Worden set you homework last week:

Bring to class next week  ideas, character research and drawings of the characters you are exploring. 

This should have been put onto your blog last week.

This week you then:

In groups you shared your homework. What had other people in your group done?

You then created a response to the tale you were working on and including the research you had completed for your homework.

You were asked to continue to be guided by the style of the play – it should feel physical – you couldn't use any props/chairs etc.

• What did you develop and create? How?
• How did your homework help you develop the tale practically?
• Explain what you did as your character. Why did you make these choices? (Think about character- voice/physicality.)

Task 3

In new groups of 5/6 you re-read Tale 6. You had to underline all the people mentioned e.g brother, landlord, mother…

• What did you underline in the text? - take photos, or write the list. 

Individually you decided on a character they you had underlined to create a role – on – the – wall for. You were given the sheet for this in the lesson. Upload this on the blog. 

You wrote:

INTERIOR: Things the character thinks and feels.

EXTERIOR: Things that people say about them, what they look like.

As some of these characters only exist in a mention by another person you had lots of creative freedom to develop the roles.

Using the roles you had developed you created some scenes that show how these characters exist outside the play. 

For example, the character in tale 6 speaking is waiting for his brother to finish work. They might explore a scene of the brother at work. You needed to make up what he does etc. You needed to focus on creating roles that are believable and should keep in mind the context of the play, the east-end.

• What scene did you develop?
• What drama skills did you use to do so?
• Explain what you did as your character. Why did you make these choices? (Think about character- voice/physicality.)

You then SHARED the work with the class and reflected.

• What was effective about the characters they had decided to explore? 
• Did the scene help you understand anything new about the play or another character?

Last task:

You should continue to explore the East-End through research. Keep uploading this to your blog too! 

Homework Thursday 13th November

Today you have continued to explore the text.

Here are the exercises you did. For each one you should write what you learnt about the play by doing the task. Don't just describe the exercise. Say why you made the choices you did:

Working on the Prologue.

You created the prologue in pairs by adding in the other character’s lines.

What questions is the taxi driver asking and answering, what lines aren’t in the text?

You needed to think about staging this with imagination (not sat one behind the other, with the driver holding an imaginary steering wheel).

You had time to create, rehearse and then share some/all and discuss.

What did you create and why?

What did another pair do that was effective? 

Hot-seating 

You continued to explore the TAXI DRIVER.

You did a whole class hot-seat.

Why is hot-seating an effective technique to use in a rehearsal? 

What did you learn about the driver?

What questions did you ask? 

Ensemble taxi driving:

Whole group activity to explore being a taxi driver.

You all became taxi drivers and created some improvised movement, thought of some lines that the driver might say. 

Developed moments of ensemble work – could potentially be part of the final piece.

Explain what you did as a taxi driver. Why did you make these choices? (Think about character- voice/physicality.)

What did other people do?

How did you work as an ensemble? 

TALE 8 

In groups you read through TALE 8. 

You needed to underline anything that suggested a location, weather, or atmosphere to them.

Write some examples of what you underlined OR take some photos of your script.

CREATE/REHEARSE

Once you'd done this you went through anything you'd underlined and created a series of sounds and some movement to develop the scene. 

You were asked to focus on creating the atmosphere and think about being the buildings, the weather, and the atmosphere.

You were allowed to use some of the lines from the text – however you might have decided to just use your sounds and movements to tell the tale.

You then SHARED the work with the class and reflected.

•

What was effective about the sounds they had decided to use?

•

What was effective about the movement they had decided to use?

•

How did the work make you feel?

•

What could have been developed further?

•

Are their many similarities in what groups decided to do?

•

Do the sounds and movement have the same impact as just reading out the lines? Is it a better way to help tell this story?

Mr Worden has set you the following for homework:

He put you into groups and has asked you to come to the class next week with ideas, character research and drawings of the characters you are exploring.  THIS SHOULD ALSO BE PUT ON YOUR BLOG.

Where is the EAST END?

What you might think the east-end is...

History of the east-end...

Check out some photos....

http://www.photo-zen.com/london-east-end-01.html

What am I getting marked on?

Assignment brief

Homework Thursday 6th November

Welcome to a new unit and a new term.

We are working on 'East End Tales' by Fin Kennady. 

‘East End Tales is a series of nine stories inspired by photos and new articles from local papers in east London. It was written for the Mulberry School for girls in Tower Hamlets’ Half Moon Young People’s Theatre Scriptworks project. The story was developed by a group of Year 10 Bengali girls throughout weeks. It was created through improvisation and written exercises under supervision of Finn Kennedy. The best work was extended and worked on to get the final piece, which was then written in lyrical style by Kennedy.’

The stories range from short contemplations on the nature of east London, through to longer tales of domestic violence, the drudgery of low-skilled jobs, petty crime and high density living. 

Today we read the text.

Homework:

1. Write a response to the text. 

• What did you think of it and why? 
• What is the play about? 

You were asked to write notes as we went through - type these notes onto your blog.

2. What was your favourite tale? Why?

3. At the start of the session you were asked about what you thought of the East End.

• What did you know at the start of the session? 
• What knowledge did you develop by the end of the session?

4. What did your group do when you were asked to explore one of the tales? 

5. Start a research post on your blog. You will need to keep adding to this research over the term. 

You need to research the East End.

• Find out about the history of the East End.
• Research some events that have happened recently in the East End.
• Research some of the events from the text.

There will be some more points to research next week...