Voice Portfolio: summary post

Over the past term we have been focusing on different aspects of the voice, including how to keep our voices healthy, assessments of our personal voices, learning about the biological pathways of breath and the vocal organs that help us to produce sound.

Our first voice lesson consisted of exploring our own voices. I identified that I have good articulation and pronunciation of words. I also identified that my weakness spots of my voice is breath control, because I know I almost forget to breathe when I am nerves, specifically on stage. Another weakness, one I was already aware of, is voice projection. This has been something I have been working on improving for a while and I feel I am improving, but I do know because I have a soft, quiet voice I am regularly misheard on stage. This lesson proved as a good starter lesson because it highlighted to all of us our weaknesses which meant that we can immediately begin to focus on for our play, '13'.

For the following lesson we focused on respiration and getting to know our voices. From previous lessons at school, I had learnt bits about Respiration however they were never aimed for voice and voice production. So when we were taught about it here, I learnt a lot more than before. We were taught the respiratory system and all bodily parts that involved in this process such as the sinuses, larynx, trachea and bronchial tubes; all things I've never heard about before. This subject really interested me because, one I had not covered any of this before and it was focussed on voice which is something that I am interested in, being an actor etc. And secondly because it briefly covers the heart condition that I have; being a mild Pulmonary Stenosis. This is the thinning of a heart valve which means that my heart has to pump harder to get the blood through the valve.
I imagine it like a pea stuck in a straw; you have to blow harder to remove the pea, although in my case, there isn't something stuck. The conclusion that led me to this was being taught about Pulmonary ventilation. Pulmonary ventilation is the rate in which air is pumped in and out of the heart, my pulmonary ventilation is higher than most others. So, this lesson intrigued me into going on to research about my condition as it's never occurred to me that I didn't know much about it before now.

We then went on to talk about posture. As my mum is a trained yoga teacher, I was brought up doing yoga and yoga classes so I know about good postures etc. But again this teaching was focussed on how a good posture allows the actor to project their voice and speak clearly. The spine is connected to almost everything in our bodies so slouching is something actors don't want to be doing on stage as this can affect your voice and even your stage presence. A good posture on stage automatically makes you look more confident and you will appear to have a much bigger stage presence and will attract the audiences attention quicker. We were taught the Alexander Technique which is something completely new to me, and the after effects of it that the tension in my shoulders had disappeared and my headache also. I found this technique really worked on me, but I would prefer doing this at home where I know I can fully relax. After trying this at home, again I felt that it really worked and I know this is something I will keep up.

The vocal chords and organs, again, was a really interesting topic to cover. I knew a few brief points about the voice box but nothing more. What really interested me is the vocal chords as they are two bands of muscle that vibrate when we speak, inhale and exhale; allowing us to create different sounds with our voices. And that we also have fake vocal chords which don't have any contribution towards creating sounds but they do help the process of swallowing. The vocal folds are similar, but almost like a door in your throat. They open when breathing in and out to allow the air to enter or escape. Males and females have different sized vocal folds due to the natural pitch of their voices. Men's are usually thicker, due to a deeper sounding voice. A females, thinner with a higher pitched voice.

My favourite subject that was covered in voice has to be Articulation. This was my favourite because it interests me how other people pronounce words. This sounds strange but because I know I have good articulation skills, I can identify those who perhaps are not as strong at it. I tend to notice this in small school plays for example and it is often hard to understand. So being able to identify those who don't articulate properly stand out to me, and from experience as an audience member, you tend to switch off when you've given up trying hard to understand them which leads to not enjoying the play. I discovered that the skill of good articulation is a good skill to have as an actor,I discovered it  especially in '13' because Karen was often correcting some people on pronunciation and articulation of words. And in contrast I didn't enjoy the resonators as much because we didn't cover them in too much depth. But I did learn what each one was: the chest, head and nasal voices are all resonators each allowing you to access different notes and pitches in our voices. We did a small exercise focussing on this and helping us to access each resonator ('why fly so high?')

For our final session of voice this term, we discussed ways to keep our voices healthy. After discussing this our task was to go away and create a poster for actors, telling them about ways to keep their voice healthy and ways that are damaging their voice: Shouting, drugs, alcohol, dairy products, smoking, sugar can all seriously damage your voice, especially being an actor; being in a profession which we use our voices a lot.
Things to improve your voice: Honey and lemon, steam, hot salt water, vocal warm-ups, drinking lots of water, a good diet and the most effective is rest. I enjoyed making this poster because it sort of summarised everything that we've done in voice into one small poster explaining to actors the things you should and shouldn't do to keep your voice healthy.

To conclude Voice has been a really interesting lesson for me this term because it fitted in really well with what we were doing with '13'. Due to this, we had the opportunities to include work from voice into rehearsals of '13' and vice versa. This became really handy for me because I was able to go home and focus on things we learnt in voice such as exercises to warm up our voices, and transfer this onto my line learning at home. I tried out the moving of the larynx at home as well as the Alexander technique as this also relaxes your voice as well as your body. This entire technique of learning lines really helped me and I will definitely use this strategy again. I have learnt so much about my voice and my body and also everything that helps me breathe and speak that I know now how important it is that I look after it all, especially being an actor.

Evaluation of Performance

Evaluation of performance:

Basics

I had learnt all of my lines but on the day of the final performance I feel as though I could have learnt them off by heart which would mean that I would have felt 100percent confident on them. I delivered my lines correctly and only muddled up one of my scenes but as a collective, we rescued it and the audience were none the wiser. My weakness was that I wasn’t feeling fully confident with my lines but if I was, the muddle up of lines wouldn’t have occurred. I only came across one issue with entrances when I had to take a table off stage; which I hadn’t planned to do. But the issue was solved, and the scene continued to flow as normal. The weakness in this was that as a cast, we needed to have a full run of the show to ensure small issues like this were solved in advance and not on the night.

Stylistically

The style of the piece was contemporary and I know that I achieved a naturalistic performance from a few comments I received previous to the final performances; I ‘act very believable’. This is a great acting skill to have but it highlights that I have a weakness spot for becoming a ‘larger-than-life’ character; so this is something that I will need to focus on and try to include in the next few college performances. “Get rid of your Issie-isms” was a comment Karen made to me after the performance because I had included a lot of myself into the character of Rachel. In general, I portrayed Rachel as a very naturalistic character from her clothes to her movements, and I was unaware of making her into a very naturalistic character which proves to me that beyond this is out of my comfort zone; and being naturalistic is my safety net. Physically Rachel was very naturalistic, as I based her around normal, day-to-day people with poses such as crossed arms and hands in pocket, and even the tapping of the foot. And again, in ensemble pieces I illustrated Rachel just as someone most people have come across in their lives.  Now that the ‘curtains have been opened’ I can see how naturalistic she is, I feel frustrated because I could've made her a very weird and abstract character to mix up the play from all the other natural characters. From this I can identify that my weakness is to come out of myself and try new things with characters. To be brave and willing to fail at ideas, only to ladder them up.

Actors skill

My character, Rachel is a loud, fiery independent woman who doesn’t like to be told what to do and she always believes that she can make a difference in the world, alone. My personality is almost the opposite of this which meant that this character was a challenge for me. The characteristics of Rachel were to be loud, bold and confident. I based Rachel on Stacey out of EastEnders specifically for Act 1 Scene 8. This is a scene which Rachel is heightened with anger and hatred and is screaming down the phone to the Police station on the other end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtCo6c_O5Lk This is a video of Stacey shouting and getting angry; although we are not aware of the context in which she gets angry I could still use the level of her voice and also the harshness of each word she pronounces for Rachel. I didn’t change my voice to fit the part of Rachel, which looking back on the character in general would’ve made her much more different from the other characters, which is exactly what I wanted to do with Rachel.

Another characteristic of Rachel is her walk. I made her walk with long strides of my legs to show that she is always trying to get somewhere important and no one will get in her way.

Ensemble

I think it’s fantastic that our entire class has got to know each other so quickly and we are so friendly to everyone! The teamwork throughout the play was exceptional; in the scene I skipped the lines the other actors saved it and continued from where I had left it.

The focus of every single actor was brilliant. As protestors (Brandon, myself, Nyakeh, Jake, Donna, Milo and Soph) we had a few scenes in which we had to sit on stage. And by peripheral vision I could see that each actor was sat how their characters would sit, doing subtle things that their character would do. Such as Milo slowly smoking a cigarette and Soph & Nyakeh star gazing and pointing at the ceiling. This focus meant the audience could continue watching what was happening center stage, and not be too distracted by us. The focus back stage was also very good; no one felt the need to speak to each other as we were all focussing on the performance and scenes that were still to come.

To conclude I felt that all three of our final performances were extremely successful, and best of all I was really proud of myself for the general performance of Rachel. My sister whom came and watched the performance said

"I really enjoyed watching the performance as it was all very visually interesting with the layout and staging. I found the ending scene very moving with the speech from the war general and the Big Ben chimes. I thought that Rachel (Issie) was a very individual, head-strong character that really helped the play to be more verbally dynamic. Her characterisation of Rachel really enabled her to play around and be free with the character to make her more unique.”

And to finish, I would like to say a massive well done to all the cast and thank you to Karen who directed us and supported us all through our first show together. 

Character Profile

Character Profile:

My character is Rachel. She was born 21^st March 1986, and is aged 25. My basic acknowledgements of Rachel are that: she is confident, loud, fiery and not afraid to be individual. She protests for what she believes in which at the time, of the play, are student fees. She is very quick with words and extremely feisty. In this, I will cover most aspects of her character, using information from the book ‘13’ and some of my own research and ideas about her.

 Her star sign is Aries. From http://www.whats-your-sign.com/zodiac-signs-and-meanings.html website, I discovered that Aries are;

“Aries people are creative, adaptive, and insightful. They can also be strong-willed and spontaneous (sometimes to a fault). Aries people can be driven and are very ambitious often making them over-achievers in anything they set their mind to tackle. Aries are fire signs, and so too is their personality. They may be quick to anger, but don't take it personally, it's just their fiery, passionate personalities showing through. Aries can be impatient, but are usually devoted friends, lovers and family members - they are loyal to then end and will fight for their causes.”

Rachel fits into this category perfectly! She is extremely strong willed when it comes to fighting for what she believes in, such as protesting for student fees to support Amir (her boyfriend). We discover that she is a strong-willed protesters in Act 1 Scene 3, in which she comes on stage first, leading the pack of protesters along the stage.  
She is very spontaneous in what she says and often doesn't think before she speaks; which can get her into trouble but normally she manages to escape the trouble. We see this in Act 1 Scene 10, as she starts a rant about where John has been, “where did you go? Why did you leave us?” In which he responds “it’s good to see you too” In this scene Rachel has almost drowned in her own thoughts and anger that she forgets to ask him how he is or even to show any sign of relief to see him after two years.

She is completely driven to what she believes in and she WILL get there no matter what stops her. Her anger is often shining through in the play which again gets her in trouble but this is just a way for her to express her emotions whether it be happy, sad etc. it almost always comes out in anger. This is presented to us in Act 1 Scene 8 as her first reaction to seeing John is to slap him and let all her anger out. Her personality is fiery, passionate and she uses this to help her get what she is fighting for; such as when she demands to find out where Amir is on the phone to the Police station.

Rachel’s star sign animal is a Ram. A ram is a male sheep, and is typically known for being protective of its family. A ram is the only sheep to have horns which can be used as a defence. They are known to be aggressive and fierce, similar to Rachel. In a real sense, Rachel uses her horns to get what she’s set out to get. She is protective of Amir and even goes out of her way to save him from being arrested in Act 1 Scene 5. 

If you look at the Aries image, on the right, I can see half a heart that hasn't quite looped around to complete it. This shows me that Rachel does have a soft side, but it will only show itself over time, the time it takes for the heart to complete itself. 

Personality
I have portrayed Rachel as an impatient person. I discovered this, mainly, in Act 1 Scene 10. In this particular scene Rachel is explaining to John about her new job:
I sit on the phone all day and ask people for money."
This tells me that she would much rather get out and actually make a difference instead of asking other people to donate money which may or may not make any difference to the circumstance. I wanted Rachel to come across impatient so when we were set the activity of trying three poses that would be used at times in which our characters were stood, observing the scene; I began with my first pose of her arms crossed along her chest, which immediately people know this is 'closed' body language, as though Rachel is not willing to interact with others at the time. Along with the crossed arms, I tap my foot to show her being hugely impatient and bored; as though she is just waiting for something exciting, and to do with politics will happen. 
The other two poses were similar: One being her hands in her pockets and looking down; as a child would do - perhaps looking for something more exciting on the floor. And thirdly her sat on the floor, legs spread out in a 'relaxed, homely-feel' position. Each of these poses represent Rachel to be impatient and easily bored if it isn't something that fully captures her attention as would the subject of politics, or Ruth or war. 

Rachel’s interests are to be someone different/ unique. She doesn't like following the crowd and likes to stand out. She doesn'tcare, at all, what people think of her just as long as she’s happy and so is Amir (this was the basis of my costume choice for Rachel, read below.) She works hard to fight for what she believes in, mainly fighting through 'non-violent protests'. Her main interest is politics, she devotes her life around this subject, and this is the main cause of her protesting. 

Rachel is a nature-loving, hippy-like person and I imagine her to always doing little things to help the environment. Controversially Rachel is in 'knee-deep' with technology and social media. Although he doesn't strike me as a women who is interested in recent technology and on all the social media sites, she only uses it for constant updates of news and essentially politics. The reason for this is that she has the personality of someone whom always wants and needs to know what's happening around the world whether or not appeals to her; making her a very curious person. 
She does drive, however she prefers to walk, cycle and use public transport; again looking after the environment.

Childhood/ Background
She is the youngest of her siblings, and having three older brothers has made her fight for what she wants, hence the loud voice and demanding attitude. Her mother loved her, however she never showed it and her father was never around to help her mother and then eventually left her and her family for another women. 

Her mother worked in an office, filing letters and answering phone calls just to get money for her family. I don’t think she ever enjoyed her job which is what pushed Rachel to work for what she wants in life, which Rachel displays in protesting and her PhD. Her father worked as a car mechanic before he left her family, and she can only assume he continued this career. 
Rachel hasn’t made the effort to stay in contact with any of her brothers which gives me the impression that she wasn’t fond of them. No contact was or has been made between father and daughter  but I feel after the play ends, Amir persuades her to get in contact with her dad because Amir only wants the best for her and perhaps she will finally learn why he left because there is always another side to the story. Irregular contact is made between Rachel and her mother, who found another man and is re-married. 

Rachel is all up for strong women, comparable to her mother who raised four children alone, the mentally strong shines through her relationship with Amir, as she does not like to be told what to do by a man. 
I felt it necessary to show this because I can only assume this would be the main cause for her loudness and making sure she gets what she wants. I used this by making sure I raised my voice throughout the entire show, I wanted the audience to look up each time I came on and spoke because through research Rachel wouldn’t want anyone to miss what she has to say.

She was educated and her family weren’t rich, but she had the things that she needed and used them til they were completely worn out. So even now, she treats the things she has as a gift and uses them until they can’t be used. 
This is why she has the same outfit on throughout our play, it’s not that she can’t afford loads of new outfits; she doesn’t see the point in hundreds of different clothes when she still has a decent outfit still in one piece.

This is why she doesn't care how she looks whether or not she’s in public or not. She has her own independent style and she does not follow the fashion trends. Or any other kind of trends for that matter.

Relationship

Her boyfriend, Amir, is 24. He comes from an Indian background. We (myself and Brandon, who played Amir) made sure that Rachel was older than him so she can feel more in charge of the relationship. He fights for what he believes in too, also through protesting. But I think that he only does it because Rachel does, or perhaps she introduced him to it which is why he does it now? Rachel protests with him about student fees, which technically should mean more to Amir than it does Rachel as he was a lecturer but, relating it back to the Aries image: Rachel does have a heart and she does care about those whom she loves; which is why she helps him protest.

I get the impression that Amir and Rachel have been together for a long time. I get this impression because nearing the end of the play (Act Five) Amir and Rachel begin to discuss having a child. So,they have been together for 5 years, and they met at University. In Act 1 Scene 10, John questions Rachel; “You and Amir still together?” The use of ‘still’ implies that its been a long relationship. In our play Frank (who played John) uses emphasis on ‘still’ to tell our audience that it’s been a long time.

    They are a strong couple who want to make their relationship work, which is the reason why its lasted and will after the end of the play as they plan to have a child.

Acts

Equality Act 2010. The Equality Act was issued in 2010, the year in which Mike Bartlett would’ve began drafting ideas for the show. The play was then published in 2011. Part of the law regulations under the Equality Act are: 

"The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in 

wider society."

 https://www.gov.uk/equality-act-2010-guidance

The discrimination definitions are gender, disability, race, religion and sexuality. Bartlett got the idea that Rachel is so passionate about women’s rights and protesting for what she believes in from the newly issued law, Equality Act that was released in 2010. It was a selection of laws put together to make it easier to understand to easier to follow.  A lot of what happens in the play relates to real life happenings in the years 2010 to 2011.

Rachel and I
Rachel is a loud and feisty character and she couldn't be much more different to my personality. Rachel is a character nothing like ones I've played before but I really wanted to challenge myself and really extend my acting skills and really see what I can do.

In this image, you can see Rachel (with Amir, her boyfriend). She is wearing a ordinary dress with a pattern on it. However, this is not how I wanted Rachel to dress in our performance. I had imagined her to be wearing a more hippie-like outfit. For example, skinny jeans with boots. A baggy top with a long cardigan (thin material and perhaps a camouflaged look) Plenty of necklaces, bracelets and anklets, maybe even a bandanna. 
The look I am trying to get is like in the second image, the girl third from the left.

 We were asked to bring in our costumes: I brought some big boots, flowery baggy trousers, a long vest top, baggy knitted cardigan and a hair band- darker and clashy with the pattern on the trousers. Necklaces and bracelets galore and a long shoulder bag with a scarf attached to it. I felt the part of Rachel and immediately knew that this was her, and how I wanted to portray her. I needed to have my hair scraped back, the bandanna will be worn again like the brown haired girl in the image below. 

I want to experiment with this style of clothing because Rachel strikes me as a hippy, whom likes to be out of trend/fashion and who likes to be individual with both her clothing and her opinions. I know from other costumes in the show, that I've researched, that Rachel will be very differently dressed from the other characters which is exactly her personality. I want her to stand out. I imagine her to always have her bag on her as well, as though she's ready for anything; her being so quick to react to anything and everything.

Vocally
I haven’t changed my voice dramatically to fit with the character Rachel. I used my normal voice including whatever accent I hold i.e Portsmouth and used that. But the main change in my voice was the harsher tone, which is commonly used by people who are angry. Rachel has been written as a character who swears a lot; so each swear word I say I try not to add unrealistic emphasis on it because I want her to be like any normal person and use swearing as a back up for their emotions. I think if I was to emphasise or shout each swear word I say then it would sound too rehearsed and unnaturalistic in a way that could easily annoy the audience.

I have gone on to research the 12 Disciples because recently, in class, ‘13’ was linked to Jesus’s 12 disciples Jude, being one of the 12 that I researched: Jude and Rachel are quite similar, in some ways. I know that Jude is a male and Rachel a female but they have very similar dreams in life. Jude is described as "intense and violent" with the "dream of World Power" I know from research and playing Rachel that she doesn't dream of world power, but she does action towards what she believes is right such as not paying student fees and "women's rights in developing countries" (Act 1 Scene 10) Jude sounds like someone whom if he 'dreams' about world power, there is only one way of trying to achieve this dream and that's by taking action. Which is exactly what Rachel does for what she wants and believes in; through the means of protesting and making herself heard. 
Through researching on: http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/questions/who-were-twelve-disciples. Jude and others of the 12 was part of the inner circle which meant he had "special privileges." Rachel is part of the 12 who has the dreams. Bartlett has linked the 12 disciples and the 12 in his play. The 12 disciples are all closely linked with Jesus, and the 12 in '13' are all linked with John by having dreams which he appeared in. Going back to the class discussion of the 12 disciples matching the 12 from the play, I noted down the idea that John could be Jesus because so many people look up to him, and believe in everything and anything he says. Linking this to the play, in Act 2 Scene 11; 
Shannon: "I've quit my job"
Stephen: " You've quit your job?"
...
Stephen: "How do you do it John?... She quit her job, the way things are at the moment, who does that?" Shannon quit her job, via what John had previously said: "but through believing the impossible you might just make it happen." Shannon is now unemployed even though times are hard, as Stephen mentions, John had fully convinced her that she can do what she believes. People do look up to John, and they trust in what he has to say. 

Objectives and Obstacles during the play

Rachel’s first scene, Act 1 Scene 8, is the scene in which the audience get a real taste of what sort of character she is. This is the first scene that the audience see John also. Rachel’s temperament really shines through;

As John enters, and calls her name she knows the voice but the confusion of knowing that this voice is of someone who is supposedly dead. Hearing this would shock anyone so I tried to slow down all my movements to show this. I pulled in my eyebrows to create a confused frown, and a slight bite of the lip almost like to stop her from speaking. I turned my head around to face him and walked with long strides of my legs. Her confusion and shock quickly turns to pure hatred towards John, the man who left them all with nothing but the assumption that he was dead. This anger then results in a hug which is given with force but shows she is pleased to see him. This links to the mention of Rachel showing the majority of her emotions through anger.
 My objectives in this part of the scene are to show the audience and John her emotions because I get the impression that she doesn't particularly like expressing her emotions verbally. Her obstacle is John, who once again throws her life off the rails, just like he did once before, when he left. The practical outcomes of these emotions are the slow motion effect of Rachel’s thoughts rushing through her head. When John says "Rachel?" Rachel is facing in the opposite direction, a diagonal to the audience.. I drop my arms and sweep my hair as though to show that she is calming down. I raise my head and slowly sweep around 90degrees to face John, at the same time as delivering the short and snappy lines. As I reach John and say my final line I slap him hard and aggressively. "We thought you were dead?" is delivered stuttered and with pauses, I finish this scene with a tad over-enthusiastic, tight hug fully taking John in I close my eyes to show the relief to have him back after the years he'd disappeared. 

              Another scene of Rachel’s is Act Two Scene Eight. In this scene, Rachel comes home from work and Amir is sat watching a video. Her objectives in this scene is to relax from a long day at work. Her obstacle for this is because Amir hasn’t done anything around the house such as “call about the washing machine? Or picked up the shopping?” Which means Rachel will have to do these things.

The practical outcome of this scene is all done with a slight sense of knowing each other well enough to tease one another. Rachel lists the jobs that she knows Amir hasn't done, Bartlett has written this in because it fully represents most couples. The women asking the man to do jobs that we all know he hasn't bothered to do. I deliver these lines by drawing out the syllables and each word as though Rachel is processing the answer before she even asks the question. 

Before the play
Rachel was doing her PhD in Politics. She was and still is dating Amir who was working as a “lecturer, but the department shut down” which then in play she says that she had to quit the PhD and get a job. The three, John Rachel and Amir, had a very close friendship before John went off and left them, before the play. In Act 1 Scene 10 where Rachel and John properly get the chance to catch up. In this scene I notice some past tension between the two characters. John clearly knows Rachel well enough to joke with her; “it’s good to see you too”, because any other character, excluding Amir, wouldn’t get away with joking or teasing towards Rachel because of her natural, fiery personality wouldn’t allow them. She had a good childhood and her family had money for education, food and small leisure’s. She always wanted to be a politician, and I feel she would’ve been a very good one, but she’s now settled for studying it and protesting on behalf of those who perhaps don’t get noticed in the midst of elections such as day-to-day people who also have opinions of their own.
Rachel was originally studying her PhD (which we are told in Act 1 Scene 10) in Politics. But, when Amir lost his job being a lecturer, she quit her PhD to earn money. She works for a charity which funds for women’s rights in developing countries. 

During the play

There are a few hints towards the relationship breaking up, in Act 3 Scene 8 Amir asks “when you say end it, you mean…?” And Rachel replies saying “I don’t know, it’s just nothing works anymore, does it?” Before this scene, they have an argument about politics and whether or not the country should go to war. This is rather ironic because they argue about this but really do ordinary day-to-day people ever get a say in what the government decide? This just proves to us that they are both very passionate and stubborn with what they believe. “Nothing works” implies that everything to do with their relationship has fallen to pieces over time and that now Rachel has realised this, she knows there is nothing keeping them together anymore. Also during the play they mention having a child but the only thing stopping them is the worry that he or she will have the same horrible nightmares… This is mentioned in Act 5 Scene 1 with Amir saying “what if the child will have the same dreams?” This shows the audience that they both care so much about the babies future that they wouldn’t dream of
As quoted from the script, John says how the charity work that Rachel is now doing, “sounds like your sort of thing” I agree with John, because this could be an occupation that helps Rachel make a difference. Instead of her attempting change alone because she is so strong willed I imagine Rachel fighting til’ the end for a chance for equal rights and women being equal to men in all aspects. But, her response to this is how she “sits on the phone all day and asks people for money” which suggests that she would much rather be out making a difference or physically supporting women’s equal rights than sat watching the change that never happens.

After the play Rachel and Amir will find a way to stay together and recreate the relationship they once had. During this there will be breakups and makeups but I think eventually they will get married, but I feel that it won’t last forever. The thought of staying or being stuck with one man will annoy and even scare Rachel. A divorce is insight. Which is a shame because they both love each other but pinning Rachel down to one thing isn’t her personality at all, she wants to be free as she has all her life and now is the time in which she can do this. They will stay friends and act as nothing happened, and even return to being a couple; which is much simpler for them both. I believe that they will have a child during this marriage and even after the divorce they will stay mum and dad, living together, working for the baby and loving each other; just the same as a marriage but this way the rules aren’t written down on paper as such.

In conclusion, I have discovered that Rachel is an extremely feisty women who clearly doesn’t believe in inequality in any way. She will always protests for what she believes to be right and she will try every possible way to ensure this gets heard by the government. She feels so strongly about politics because she was originally studying it for a PhD. She had a good childhood but the fact that her dad left her mother to bring up four children meant that Rachel has not a lot of support for men and she certainly does not let Amir boss her around.

Rachel, so far, has been such a great character to play because she is one I’ve never had the opportunity to play before now. I know that I need to continue challenging myself after ‘13’ for characters whom are out of my comfort zone; because this is the only way I learn to be much louder and more confident on stage. 

Voice health poster

This is mine and Frankie's vocal health poster. This is made especially for actors to warn them about things that can seriously affect your voice.

We also listed things that can help improve your voice such as drinking water.

The things that affect your voice is Smoking, Diary products, alcohol, sugar, shouting, drugs and coughs: Smoking can affect your vocal chords. Smoking can affect your vocal chords as well as your general health. Diary products clog up your throat and make you sound more like you have a cold. An exercise to clear this is:

Place both thumbs on either side of your nostrils, on your sinuses (the delicate part of your nostrils.) Places both index fingers on your temples. Breath out for 10 seconds, once this is down, bring your thumbs to your temples (running it along your cheeks) whilst breathing IN through your nostrils, then swallow.  Alcohol and sugar also seriously affect your voice, especially as an actor as we use our voices a lot.

We have listed ways to improve  your vocal health such as hot water with lemon and honey, rest and plenty of water. 

These are all great ways for us actors to help keep our vocal health good and healthy for shows and performances. Having good vocal health helps us to project our voices and feel more confident on stage when delivering lines. 

Blog post 6

After a relaxing week off, learning lines and rehearsing; we jumped straight into some character work to refresh our memories. We began by doing idiosyncrasies. These consist of three half frozen positions that are characters always use throughout the play. Rachel is always ready and comes across impatient with people because she just wants to go out and do something and make a difference. Her first pose is crossed arms along her chest, her leg out stretched outwards and a slight tap of her foot to show her being impatient and someone whom doesn't like waiting.
   The second pose is both of her hands in her pockets, this allows her to look casual and more relaxed in the scenes which she's at home etc. The cardigan in which as the pockets is very long and reaches past my hips, this means when she stretches out her arms this makes her look tall and really relaxed because her body language is open.
    The final pose is the weight of my body laying on one leg, one arm resting on my hip bones out in the shape of a triangle, the other hand up near her face as she looks at her hands and nails. This is a common pose of being bored and impatient and many audience members will be able to pick up on this because so many people do it.
We were then asked to walk like our characters at the same pace as they would. Rachel, to me, would walk with a quick pace with long strides of the legs because she's always on the move and out to do something important. She walks with a pull from her stomach, so her head is held high and her body is pushed forward when walking. This makes her look much more important and with the head held high, it makes her look taller and confident.
We then had to experiment how the character would sit. I perched near the edge of the chair so I can get up quickly if need be. Her legs are open at a slight triangle shape, because she isn't ridiculously girly and neither does she care what she looks like nor what people think of her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7GQyrwFmR8 This is a YouTube link giving information about body language: the crossing of the arms. This is immediately described by Craig Beck as defensive as you close of your chest and heart; which is the most open part of your body. The cross of the arms represents a barrier between the two people talking, blocking themselves from everyone else.

We then went on to do a fun activity called 1 minute scene. My group were given Act Two. I took charge as some others in my group weren't getting stuck in, as such. I suggested all making an alarm clock sound then going straight into the "thirteen steps" with someone else passing over a mimed cup of coffee. These ideas were brushed off which is a shame because it resulted in our group being the only group with nothing to perform after me trying hard to give them ideas. I suggested some other ideas to briefly summarise the act, and Milo suggested for the ending, that we crowd around me (being the only girl) and 'kill' me as Ruby.
   When we got to perform ours I did our first scene and it all fell to pieces. I really struggled with this task because I knew that I had to take charge in order to actually have something to perform. This was also a good experience for all of us because we all needed to contribute because the outcome is that one person attempts to get the entire group going but the idea of a team didn't work today. We watched the other groups pieces and they were quick, funny and they didn't necessarily stick to the full play layout which made it more comical. From this, I can only say that we've all learnt the lesson that if we have ideas then we all, as a group, need to layer up on these to create the final idea. We were then put together as a class and worked on act two together; this worked much better. It was disappointing for me because I have done a larger version of this at my drama group outside of college, and we don't rehearse we just jump on the stage when we enter say some lines or "he loves me" then jump back off again. This is at a much quicker pace and more comedic because the summaries of the scenes become jumbled up.

We got shown the final poster design today. The poster, to me is very intriguing as it tells no story. Meaning that you cant easily identify what the play is about; so hopefully the audience will be enticed to come and see what the play is all about. The explosion and Big Ben silhouetted suggests that Big Ben is exploded...



The rehearsals of '13' began again, starting with Rob's speech which was originally in Act Five which has now been cut to Act Four. This scene is now performed with Rob walking around each character, frozen in poses that show there characters. For example me and Amir are stood together, holding hands. Zia and Shannon are star-gazing and Edith is jogging on the spot. This is another scene which has all of the actors on stage and it gives the audience lots to look at and pay attention too. We continued Act Four until the end of the lesson. This time, we got the opportunity to observe each scene, which was nice because we havnt seen any of Act Four yet. This scene, being the final scene, needs to be just as good as the others acts, and it lived up to expectations.
 There is one extremely long scene with Ruth, John and Stephen which if not acted well, will be very boring. This scene surprised me because I felt really intrigued to find out what happens next and they all acted it so well I was even understanding the subject discussed (politics/war etc) Luke who plays Stephen does so well, because his personality is nothing like his character. He is really easy to watch when he acts and he portrays the elderly side of Stephen perfectly and not stereotyped or over done. Ruth, played by Sophie, who today was the first time I've seen act, was brilliant. Again, I can imagine that Ruth is hard for her to act because they have such different personalities.
             

  I think one main thing about observing my friends on stage is that I can take notes from how they act and use them to help improve my acting.
    In a way, I am a visual learner because I can watch the other scenes during '13' and pick out bits which strike me as great acting even down to the smallest of movements or facial expressions. Such as Luke walking slightly heavy footed as though his body has become to heavy for the rest of his body to carry. This small act creates the perfect walk for someone who has problems walking as would an elderly person would. Matt, playing John, walks with a 'skip in his step' literally. He almost has a slight bounce each time his foot hits the ground. This is spot on for John because he is a character, above all and he knows that he is above the rest of us. The bounce represents how pleased he is with himself, also representing a slight big head/cocky side of him?


In the first image is Sophie, Matt and Luke playing Ruth, Stephen and John. This is one of the scenes I got the opportunity to watch and because my role on stage for this scene is to give up trying to protest and sit and look around then go into pray position later on. Watching this scene many times since we started the play, I have really seen it improve. As it is such a long scene they have to keep the pace going so overlap of lines were extremely effective and also added to the emotion of the characters, whether it be that they are angry or disappointed. Each line that they all delivered came across with so much meaning and even hints of true belief for what they were saying instead of just speaking their lines without any thought behind it. This makes the scene automatically more interesting for the audience because it allows them to forget that we are all young, teenage college students instead we come across as our older, more adult characters. This was portrayed mainly through the two Prime ministers, both Johns and Stephen who were casted as the older ones in the play. 
      The second image is of Luke playing Stephen. This is my favourite scene of his because he has nailed the lecturer-type presence about him. In this rehearsal he got down from the block and slowly walked around the circle, changing the distance he was from each student as though to gage their attention. Eye-balling each student he knew had all their attention on him. He had perfected the lecturer/teacher and in each one of his performances of this scene I found myself finding new meanings of the things that he says which only means that he managed to keep me generally interested because of the way he delivered the speech. 
 













On Wednesday we focussed mainly on finishing rehearsals for Act Four. In the long scene with Ruth, Stephen and John two small groups of ensemble actors are stood either side of the stage. We are the protesters; so assumingly me and Amir are at the front. Our job is to be peering up as though we are looking up in the window of the Prime Ministers meeting room. This is again integrating the use of Greek Theatre and the well-known Chorus. The chorus are those who tell the story to the audience; in our case we move and react to the story that is told to us and the audience via the characters acting on stage.

        In the image is one group of protesters who look into the other side of the offices. Ipads, cameras and phones are used in this scene because Social Media is big in '13' as it is in this century. When reaching the end of Act Four, just before Rob's speech, twelve Big Ben dongs are heard. On each dong a phone light will appear shining on each of the twelve. This is really effective, as the blackout takes a while for your eyes to adjust but as soon as the lights start appearing they will only shine on one characters face. I love this idea, as it incorporates the strong theme of social media and the use of mobiles etc. A spotlight could be used, but the creation of our own means of lighting makes the scene feel more tense with emotion as we create the atmosphere.
       
     My longest scene is in Act Three which we covered today. We had already blocked this scene, and we made it look very mirrored for the audience. For example, Amir would move as Ruth does, its a very symetrical scene. This scene is basically a long lasting argument between Rachel and Amir, and a heated discussion between Ruth and Dennis. After going over and rehearsing this scene repeatedly; when it came to performing it as part of the run through, it was very quick paced and it was almost like watching the tennis for the audience. The attention on the different characters is quickly delivered. Credit to Barteltt for this by writing the lines to overlap but still make good sense for the audience. This is my favourite scene of mine because it really reveals Rachel's personality; of being quick with words and extremely fiery!

Blog post 7

Show week!
       This week will be a test to show how we all work together. We have done lots of different teamwork exercises but as this is our first show as a group; it will be great for us all to come together, help one another and enjoy the experience of performing with a completely new cast for us all. All actors come across different types of other actors: those who can randomly pull off a brilliant show without much effort in rehearsals, those who learn their lines in the space of one evening (usually the night before the show), some who don't give it all on 'the night', nerves over-power some or the opposite, nerves make some over confident.  All of this is yet for us to discover as we get to know each other through performances over these next two years. Once getting onto this course; the main thing that excited me was meeting new people that I knew I would become friends with due to the simple fact that we all enjoy acting; and I know from my stressful weekend due to other issues, that these people our my closest friends and I cant wait to see them all act under the pressure of a performance to an audience!

Three extremely successful shows are complete...

Blog post 5

This week started off with a full day rehearsal of '13'. We did a few warm ups and breathing exercises and then we jumped straight into the end of Act 1, the London clubbing scene.

Dancing like Rachel
Firstly, we all huddled together and listened to the music that will be played. We were then asked to start to feel the music and dance as your character would. Unfortunately for me, Rachel is so free and doesn't care about anything or anyone in the sense that she doesn't care what she looks like or what people think of her, which leads me onto the fact that her dancing will be huge and mad. The sense of freedom in her dancing really needs to come across because stereotypically people match hippies with weird and wonderful dancing; featuring movements of the hands and Indian-like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VibqEWACdRo
This video is a dance that I relate Rachel's dancing towards. The dancers in this video fully let themselves go and let their bodies meet the music. The movements are all slowly performed and with meaning. Even though the song that we play for this scene is upbeat at times; Rachel would still dancing as though she's listening to her own music, in her own little world.
       
We were then put into small groups, me with Sophie, Soph and Kennedy as the girls group of clubbers. We had to create a small dance sequence of 16 beats to match the music. I came up with the idea of clinking our glasses, perhaps a little too aggressively to be sober.  Kennedy came up with the idea that we were all at the bar, in a line, and in a canon effect, fall onto one another spilling our drinks. Smashing the glass on the floor to the right, synchronised,and brushing the drinks off ourselves we spin out of our line. Soph and Kennedy towards the front, myself and Sophie to the back. The two at the front stumble and overact a high-five. Myself and Sophie stumble and do an over exaggerated punch towards one another ear, then leaning into each others shoulders; only to dance to the beginning line and repeat the sequence.
   At the start of the dancing, I found it hard to let myself go and just try and get the sequence right, but by the end I became more confident with what I was doing. I'm pleased with this because I'm not a confident dancer and always prefer dancing to a dance that I've practised and practised instead of doing freestyle.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmin5WkOuPw This is another YouTube link directing you to the Firestarter Prodigy , which is the song that was played for the club scene. The song is perfect for a club as it allows you to really rock out as it has a punk rock feel to it. This song also has a modern feel to it; which links to '13' perfectly.

Continuing to improve '13'
After the dancing scene was blocked and practised with disco lights, focussing on the centre of the stage, the music fades and the 12 lay down in the circle matching the beginning of the play. We then started a full lighting run of Act 1. The run was very successful and it felt really good to be working under the lights and the scenes that I was in were looking just as good, but I felt they all need to be rehearsed more to ensure we all know what we are doing.
When we got to Act 1 Scene 15, I was slightly disappointed because this was the scene that we blocked almost entirely alone and then when scene which I came up with the idea of the balancing the plate exercise. However when we ran this scene, it fell to pieces and resulted in some characters stood in odd places on the stage delivering their lines, instead of doing the blocked movements such as walking to the middle of the circle when confronting or quickly stepping out when Shannon enters.
The solution for this is purely to rehearse and rehearse, so we all know when and where to move to make the scene look neat.
I also felt that the protesting scene wasn't as good as the first time round because we were missing a lot of extras whom just came on stage to bulk out the crowd, the key to this scene working was to use a big cast which we lacked today.

Our task today was to block the big finale scene, Act Five, the end of the play. This scene includes, Rachel, Amir, Shannon, Zia, Mark, Holly, Stephen, Ruth, Edith, Rob, Martin and Sarah. I began the discussing process by pointing out that we all have our eyes closed at the start and then when the music stops we all open them, I came up with the idea that we are all sat in the 'sleeping circle' but sat instead of laying. We are all in frozen positions of what our characters would be doing, day-to-day. For example, Rachel and Amir stood together holding hands, with one hand on my stomach as earlier on they begin to discuss having a child; this shows the audience that they are still debating on the subject. Nikey then said that Shannon and Zia can be laying on the floor star-gazing. This idea was moved on, as Hannah suggested the 'Home/4corners' exercise. So in our characters we walked around the stage with other characters that they are mostly linked with. I suggested the keypad activity to start the scene but this wasn't tried out. Nikey then said we should all crowd around the block which has a strike of importancy, as its used throughout the entire play. Then as we speak we stand on the block; the circle around the block represents infinity and how John linked them all together and now they are close, and always together. we tried this but myself and others felt this was to predictable for the audience and also that some characters had short, snappy lines which would be too short to stand on the block say and then immediately step down.
           In the end, we hadn't come up with a clear idea. I think the main struggle was that because its such a long act, with no scene changes that we had the difficulty of blocking something that fitted the entire act. My personal task is to think over some ideas alone, and bring them to the others later on this week as we will be covering this scene again.

On Wednesday of this week, we carried on blocking various scenes from '13'. Our main focus was the last scene, Act Three Scene Eight. This scene slowly trickles in all the 12 as it starts unravelling all the problems that they each individual are suffering from. Karen mainly blocked this scene. In conclusion, the scene is similar to a domino effect. As one character moves or speaks, the other characters then go on to move/speak and so on. For example, Stephen collapses which is a signal for Sarah to begin praying, at this point Edith has to pick up the childs hand which then provokes us all to bow our heads and pray until a blackout.
 When doing this scene, the atmosphere was really tense due to the issues all the characters express to the audience or other characters. Most issues are left unanswered to keep the audience intrigued. During the scene, there is lots of small movements or reactions that will constantly be diverting the audiences attention to different characters around the stage.
             From experience of seeing various shows; I know that I prefer shows/performances that have lots going on on stage because I like to look at how, no matter how small the role is, they react to everything and how each movement is precisely planned. Which leads me on to say how much I love this scene because I know as an audience memeber I would fall in love with how each character comes on stage and moves (such as Rachel and Amir begin talking, looking away from one another then finish staring.) I feel this is now one of the strongest ensemble scenes in the play, but we will need to keep rehearsing it to ensure we all do our movements or entrances with precision in order to make it aesthetically pleasing.

We then had a Winchester Uni lecturer come in and speak to us about the courses on offer at the University relating specifically to drama/acting. John, the lecture mentioned a few drama groups, mainly based in London, who focus on Street art performances; these are the next step up from buskers. He mentioned a drama group called Punch Drunk. Punch Drunk was created in the year 2000 by Felix Barrett. They focus in the "immersive theatre" which allows the audience to choose what they watch and where to go. Audience members can follow actors around the 'stage' area. By 'stage' I am referring to one of their previous performances which was set in a large industrial factory; and the audience had free roam of the factory alongside the actors and other audience members.

     Another drama group, I didn't catch the name, that was mentioned to us was a group which performed Hamlet on a bouncy castle. The original Shakespeare play is set in a castle; and this drama group changed this completely and performed on a bouncy castle (image below) I think this idea is excellent! It shows  imagination and thought and makes the play different and interesting for the audience. 

I felt that the lecture was really useful and interesting; it helped me think about all the available oppertunities for drama at university or drama school. 

The following day we furthered our blocking process for '13'. I mainly focused on the split scene.

This scene is Rachel and Amir on the left side of the stage & Dennis and Ruth on the right; an insight into the fact that they are higher up and always right in their decisions etc. The set consists of just one simple block in the middle of both of the scenes. Both scenes begin with Ruth and Amir back-to-back on the block, both facing into their own side of the stage. Rachel and Dennis, mirroring each other, stand over- me over Amir and Dennis over Ruth. The scene ends with Rachel sat in the same position as Amir and Ruth just as she was at the beginning. 

     I had an image set in my mind of how the scene would be set out; but now that we've used the one simple block, I feel that this makes the scene more intense and allows the audience to purely focus on the actors and the split of each scene as it jumps back and forth. I felt that this scene was very successful and it just focuses all the attention to the fact that the scenes jump to one another constantly. We use large gestures, voices and movements to revert the audiences attention back to mine and Amir's scene, as do Ruth and Dennis for the same reason. This scene, for me, is good fun to perform because it feels like a game of tug of war; as each pair of actors tries to pull the audience away from the one scene and bring it onto the other. 

Progress:

I feel as though the rehearsal process of '13' is going extremely successfully. I feel like each scene is improving as the play goes on. 

The key to keeping up the progress is to now rehearse lines and scenes over the half term to ensure that we keep them slick and remeber each movement.