So far:
Year 11 Showcase (Ensemble and solo) on Monday DONE
SAC on Analysis of Solo and Ensemble on Tuesday DONE
Drama Exam on Thursday SOON

Our showcase was a fantastic night except for the stress and the nerves before our solos. I was so nervous but as soon as I got up and onto that stage I was absolutely fine. I thought the worst part would be waiting for Cashy’s little spiel before our solo but I was pumped and ready to go! Solo went okay I guess, except I wrecked my second line and that nearly screwed up my focus but I just took a breath and kept going.

Ensemble I wasn’t nervous about at all. Odd considering this was the task that we would be marked on, on that night. I think it went well and we only had a few minor glitches (Jess saying tattoo, me nearly forgetting to move the boom box out of the way) but no major stuff ups. My voice was screwed at the end of the night because even before solos it had been playing up but I managed to push through.

It was really good that we had our SAC today, straight after completing our ensembles and solos. The showcase refreshed our memories (in the case of our solos) and was perfect timing for our ensembles. Not sure how I went, my hand was dead afterwards.

Drama Unit 2. I cannot wait!!!! Unit 1 was great and I was definetly pushed outside my comfort zone as the unit focused on comic acting but it was definetly necessary as now I know exactly what my strengths and weaknesses are for Year 12. Hopefully there will be a dramatic solo as an option for next semester Unit 2?

I’ve changed my solo a bit - I’ve cut the scene where I receive a phone call of Albert getting the scholarship and instead I am going to begin with my receiving the scholarship after I’ve won the maths competitions. This is because I never liked the telephone scene because it was too messy . I’ve also added a scene where Albert’s dad is sick in hospital with cancer and how that spurs him on to find cure. I did this so the audience realise that it is actually Albert’s dad who has influenced his research. It’s much shorter, it’ll probably go for around 6-6:30.

It’s going to be a drama week next week - showcase on Monday, SAC on tuesday and exam on thursday. Pretty full on! Oh and boxy is coming over Sunday to paint placards

Next time I write showcase will be done!

We need to check Bunjil tomorrow afternoon and see how the lights switch off. Our scene ends with the lights off so we have to see if they flicker, take a couple of seconds to realise they have to shut down etc. It will be really helpful having that extra practice for our ensemble tomorrow afternoon because our group still needs to feel confident in creating believable characters, remembering lines and knowing what scene follows the next!

Solowise - Last weekend I tried to remember most of my solo and I did that fairly easily. I actually altered the beginning of the performance slightly but I don’t want to change the solo too much because of the limited amount of time and practice time in the drama rooms. I am still not happy with how my solo finishes and I want it to finish on a bang but instead it finishes awkwardly. Hopefully on Friday rehersals I can alter/change some of these things.

TOP ACTS - Was amazing. I can’t believe that it is over already! A group of us caught the train into the city straight after school with only a few dramas (i.e Michelle and Frances leaving their tickets in the car and me, stupidly, bringing a creative arts ticket). We then had dinner and met up with the group in the Arts Centre. I luckily managed to get away with the Creative Arts ticket by just walking through with the Avila crowd The Gossip was amusing but considering I had seen him at Top Class and I knew his jokes he was not as funny. Although it was hilarious when he began his solo in the audience asking for people’s jackets etc. I still believe that Genelle’s solo was more witty and better portrayed. I got the sense from his solo that he actually improvised a lot of his movements and words but it was still hilarious. Mary Mallon I think had something wrong with her voice or her throat because her diction was not as good as it was in Top Class. Without this change in voice, her character lost a bit of the tension that was created when she was escaping from the officials. Dr Jekl and Mr Hyde, again, was an excellent performance and I loved the use of symbol by divinding the two sides of the mirror: animal and man. I was talking to some of the music girls and they were very confused by this performance, obviously considering they had not researched the character. Maybe he could have shown better the character transitions between Dr Jekl and Mr Hyde because even though I had seen the performance before and understood what would happen, it was still confusing to see the contrast of characters. It should be more obvious. Finally, the pirate. I loved this portrayl and he had a clever and witty script that was both humorous and completely in character. Especially when he linked ‘pirated movies’ at the end and claimed ‘parler’. Fantastic!

It was really good to listen to the top music, dance and theatre studies performances. Hallelujah was amazing (but I think it’s the song). One of the theatre studies girls performed a monologue from Oscar Wilde’s ‘Importance of being Earnest’. Jess P and I did the exact same monologue as her last year! It was good to see.

 One week to go till showcase….

 So we have come up in a matter of a week, a 1900 scene, 1920 scene, 1930 scene, 1940 scene, adjusted 1960 scene. All we need now are our 1950 and 70 scene plus alterations to our other scenes.

I am going to go scriptwrite a few scenes. Top Acts tomorrow night! Very excited. Looking forward to 18th June (our showcase) but it’s going to be a tight time scale considering we still need to practice our solos and finish our ensemble. Hopefully we can finish our entire ensemble by tomorrow’s lesson. Possible? Not sure! Then we can have the remaining lessons to alter/cut/add/fix/smooth out certain scenes.

 Our ensemble. Well apparently we have been labelled ‘the group of procrastination’. Not exactly the label I would have wished for but hopefully we can learn from our mistakes and pick up the pace of our progress. We are slowly getting there. Cashy recently allowed us to focus on a more ‘dramatic’ response to the technological revolution topic which for us, was a relief as our group are not the most comically able. I’ll explain…Some of us can do comedy but only when someone else comes up with the plot We are a thinking group…an over thinking group who unfortunately likes everything to be perfect. Being the perfectionists that we all are.

So, therefore, with our new approach to the ensemble we have decided to intertwine an actual plot into our ‘decade’ theme. We should have done this from the beginning as we now realise that tension cannot possibly be incorporated into 20 second - 30 second mini skits. We also realised that we really should have start from the beginning of the 20th century. The 1900s. We started from the end which is pretty silly considering we did not even know how we could start our ensemble. Basically, for the beginning, Heather acts as the narrator and Leah, Jess and I are sitting on chairs watching television. While we are frozen, Heather begins to explain our simple example of how the television has revolutionised the way the world spins. Leah, a child, Jess, an Aussie and I, a proper ‘french lady’ all different people but united by the revolutionising technology. Heather then intervenes and directs, ‘Now we will venture into the 20th century and discover how technology has revolutionised our world.’ She holds up 1900s placard. Meanwhile, Jess, Leah and I resemble a factory conveyer belt and begin to operate in sequence of putting a car together. Heather leaves her narrator role and takes on the supervisor claiming we will not have food on the table if we don’t do this right. The cars we are making are for the extremely wealthy (contrast) we switch to a scene where Heather and I are driving in all our prestige in the car, ignoring the beggars on the street (Jess and Leah).

Somehow we need to connect with our earlier scene. At least we have a beginning now

Oh yeah! Drama! Congratulations to Nadia, Jess P, Jacqui, Flick and Laura!! Yay they will be performing at Creative Arts!! Can’t wait to see it!

We need about three more scenes in our ensemble plus HEAPS of touching ups and improving script lines making transitions smooth, making sure people know when to hold the sign up!! We had an embarrassing pause when we were showing Cashy and we were all looking at each other saying with our eyes, ‘Who the hell is holding up the sign?’. But that’s what practice is for. We also need to make it funnier! Our group is struggling with the comic aspect. Research, information, dates, characters we can do but we just need that comic timing.

So glad I’m not performing my solo this Thursday…being sick and all. Knowing me it will take ages for me to better. Whenever something is going around I always get it! Although I haven’t been sick at all this year touch wood. Also my dad will be overseas so he wouldn’t have seen my solo! Hmm maybe that would have been a good thing…anyway… good luck to the girls performing on Thursday you will do great!!

 BRING ON BUNJIL!

 Things haven’t been at their greatest this week. We have not had one whole rehersal this week within our group because of illness of some of our members.

So it’s looking extremely unlikely that our group will be chosen for creative arts simply because we haven’t had the rehersal time (i.e our first practice of the week will be performing for Mr Cash). Very unfortunate because our group would have loved to have performed but we still get Bunjil!

Back to our ensemble. We have our 60’s scene…barely. But I cannot be a man! It is very odd…I cannot seem to get in character as a blokey bloke. And I think Jess is finding it hard with her character in the skit. Heather and I were thinking at lunch today that maybe we could swap Jess and Heather around. Jess has been in 5/5 scenes so far so if she is in 4 instead then she can be apart of the earlier scenes. Otherwise it would be very uneven.

One thing that I have been happy about the progress of this week is our 80’s scene! Leah and I have added extra dialogue and facial expressions and hopefully we can portray the contrasting types of music in the form of a boom box and an ipod.

For our 50’s scene we are going to be portraying television (Australian context). Heather and I were trying to come up with the perfect scene but it just wasn’t coming. I think Heather was feeling very sick…she looked very tired! After this I’m going to go google 50’s and see what I can come up with.

I’m stressing…we still have tightened change overs, made it slick, make sure timing is right and scenes don’t drag on. This week has been hell! We should have had an afternoon rehersal but Friday has come too fast…

 AND I AM DOING DRAMA UNIT 2!!! I’m so happy. The lines changed so instead of dropping Geography I can drop English (I’m doing lit as well so that’s okay).

Cashy came round and watched some of the parts that we have come up with so far. It definetly wasn’t our greatest performance haha but I’m glad he saw us now so he could give us lots of advice before it’s too late to change the plot. Basically, Leah and I can extend our scene, Heather has to cut her little rant down and we don’t have to read each placard. It will be much better once we have real placards and it will make much more sense.

I’m pretty sure we have four more scenes to come up with! Should be interesting next lesson!

 For those who do not know, for our ensemble on ‘technological revolution’ we are taking the 20th century (as it was the most technologically revolutionalised era) and starting with 1920 are satirising (is that a word) each decade and what technology revolutionised it. Brief overview without giving too much away: 2000’s, of course, video games. 1990s- MSN (close to many people’s hearts), 1980s - Good ol’ Olivia and 1970s…uh what the hell happened in the 1970s? (inside joke guys). OH and we have the start and the finish of the ensemble!! It’s good Our aim is to be able to relate with the audience. Because most of the audience in Bunjil will be school kids and mums and/or dads.

In today’s lesson Leah and I started organising the numerous placards that we will need. It’s part of our ‘non-naturalistic’ approach. We are also following Epic Theatre through use of talking directly to the audience by breaking character. Should be interesting and mix it up a bit.

I really cannot wait to perform it! I love ensembles!!! newayz mumz yellin 2 get off da comp. (um inside joke again)