Watford Palace Theatre

Watford Palace Theatre work experience

I have chosen to take on the role of being an actor because I enjoy doing this and I would like to have a career in being an actor as it is my passion. At Watford Palace Theatre we did many different workshops and we had a choice in what job role we would like to take on for our end performance. These were things such as, lighting, sound, and costume, set design, acting, directing, and stage management.  We had about 1-2 hours for each workshop and did this through-out the whole week on our work experience. This gave us an idea on what to do for a role for us individually focus on.

There were two groups within the group of 11 of us. There were 5 actors’ altogether, 3 in one scene and 2 in the other. I chose to play Alice from Alice in Wonderland for a scene with Chloe who played the white rabbit. This was great to work on because instead of me and Chloe deciding how to perform it and how to set the scene. We got advice and were directed by the other students from the group which I was not used to and it was different and made me realise that in a career of being an actor, this would be normal.

Thursday morning was the first workshop for the actors. As the other days had been workshops for stage management and lighting ect. I was looking forward to this the most because I enjoy acting the most. We did warm ups and were explained why we need to warm up in certain ways. I found that these were good tips as an individual because if I perform in a show later on in life then I know I can do these before the show by myself or share the tips with the other actors. If I get in to teaching then I can also use these warm up techniques in classes.

We played interaction games so that we became familiar with our surroundings and the people and props that were by us. We did things like memory games and awareness games and we joined in games that were played for us to be able to use all our senses.

After we completed the warm ups and interactive games we started to look at the scripts and get to know it a bit better by reading through and understanding the aim for the characters and where the scene is. This included thinking about how the characters are reacting with each other and their surroundings. Chloe and I discussed about the reaction our characters should have with each other and how the scene should go whether it be a calm or relaxing atmosphere. We were directed by one of the other student’s from our group and from there we improvised to see what we could work on to make the scene better or more convincing to the audience.

On Friday morning I went through my scene with Chloe and we went over our scene many times so that we could not get it wrong. At the end of the day the staff from Watford Palace Theatre came to watch our performance and so did a few parents of the students. I think that every student successfully took on the role that they decided to do and it made both scenes successful and entertaining. If I could do it again I would switch scenes as I would like to get to play a different character and act completely opposite to what I played on Friday.

I have chosen to focus on being the wardrobe supervisor for the show that the students of our work experience class are doing. The performance is based on two scenes from Alice in Wonderland. I contributed towards picking out costumes for the characters to wear for their scenes. The reason why I chose this role to take on from the performing arts industry is because I am a media student at school and I understand that representation is important for a character because then it is easier for the audience to understand more about what the character is like by the clothes that they are wearing. For example, for tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, we wanted them to be like young rebels from London that are identical twins therefore we made sure that we picked out costumes that were the same and used a shirt and tie to help the stereotypical view of young teenage boys at school come across to the audience.

At work experience we did a workshop on costume design and I drew tweedle-dum and what my ideas of what a stereotypical teenage gangster would wear in London. As tweedle-dum is a trouble maker I drew on baseball hat, a puffer jacket and some dog tags to show a bit of ‘bling’. I thought that the character should also be wearing grey tracksuit bottoms and a pair of blue pastry’s to match his blue jacket.

Obviously we had no budget to buy any costumes from the shops to get the clothes that are similar to what I drew, however we did chose some clothes that would represent the characters personalities.

For the white rabbit character, we chose a waistcoat for Chloe to wear because in the film the rabbit is wearing a waistcoat, therefore it would be easier for the audience to figure out that Chloe is the white rabbit in the scene.

For Alice we picked out a jacket for the character to wear. As Kelly and I played Alice in the two scenes we shared the jacket to show that we were both Alice. The jacket was girly and simple to show that Alice is girly and innocent and when the scene changed I gave Kelly the jacket to show the switch between scenes.

Film premier

There are three groups in an academy and also there are the Poppets which is for children aged 3-5. Each group/class created their own performance to be filmed and then the poppets would have an advert filmed between each clip as they were too young to manage a bigger project like the rest of the academy.

As I work in the morning but do not assist the teacher of 'Film & TV' I had no idea what the other students from other classes were doing therefore it was a surprise when I watched the preview before the cinema screening. As I am a student in the afternoon academy I got to take part in the film project. My group's idea was that we would take little parts from romantic/comedy movies such as '500 days of summer', '10 things I hate about you', 'Juno' and we also did two music videos. There was the music video for the boys and they did 'every little thing' and made it really funny! The other music video was then choreographed by me and Lisa, I was the lead role in the video and it was to 'Dancing on my own' by Robyn and it took all afternoon to film both videos which was really cool to do voice overs and see the high tech equipment.

There is a morning academy and an afternoon academy and our films were shown in separate screens at the cinema. We had the cinema to ourselves at 10 in the morning and we were welcomed by a photographer and red carpet which was really cute, fun and exciting. After we watched the film we went into town for lunch at pizza express and then headed back to Bovingdon primary school where we were going for an award ceremony. The night before the cinema screening, me, my mum, and the principle and vice principle set up the hall for the ceremony. We set out a load of decorations from the party shop and placed the fake Oscars on the table. We made this look really nice by turning off the lights and just keeping on the spotlights which was bright enough but looked really classy. We had a number of awards for each group, the main ones being, best actor, best actress, best supporting actor, best supporting actress and as my group did music videos there was an award for best performance in a music video and I won which I was extremely happy about. Everyone clearly thoroughly enjoyed the whole day and it was a really great experience.

This picture shows my award and the paper that was read out to announce the winner of the award.

Platform one

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/video/video.php?v=1964096056539&comments&set=t.563622882&type=1

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/video/video.php?v=1964187818833

Above are two links to the videos of our performances at Watford Palace Theatre.
On 12th June me and 15 other performers went to Watford palace theatre to perform at an event called platform one. This event is for other schools or dance crews/schools and they perform at this event to show off talent and a performance.

This year there were a variety or different acts. There were some really good street dance/break dance routines and there were drama sequences that were mixed with break dance routines which was very entertaining. There was only a few that I didn't enjoy but that was only because the theme was boring and not very entertaining.

Our performance was based on witchcraft but was a cut down version of our rock challenge so we already had the costumes and the feel of what the story that we were performing was about.

Above is a photo of us in the rehearsal room on the day at watford palace theatre.

Rock Challenge

After over 6 months of hard work Kings Langley School have finally finished 2011 Rock challenge with a huge success!

Our theme was based on missing children in the UK and how for every 10 children that go missing, only 1 manages to escape. With a lot of hard work from last year's rock challenge, we have become Premier League for the first time! This meant that we showcased in Stevenage in February instead of competing in it to be able to get into the second round which is in Portsmouth. As we are premier league we had already got to the second round but as a premier team which is what we have always wanted!

Performing in front of everyone and the judges on Saturday 4th June had to be the best part of the day! The atmosphere was incredible and Kings Langley really did put a lot of energy and effort into our performance. The judges seemed very impressed and the audience were amazing! We were very happy that our school team did so well as we came 4th which is amazing considering this was our first year as a premier team!

this is a photo of Fiona, me and Chloe as witches at Portsmouth.

Musical Theatre Challenge!

As we are starting musical theatre in Miss Dolan's class, we have been given details on what we are going to be doing for our showcase on 1st of July.

Me and Alice Norris are doing a song from Chicago called Nowadays. We have already decided what parts of the song we are singing whether it be togther or solo or in harmony. Over half term Alice came to my house after a rock challenge rehearsal at our school. We went through it without the words and used the backing soundtrack, we rhen started to think about adding our characters into it, further on we decided to start to set out what props we will be using and where we will be poisitioned when starting certain parts of the song. We have decided to use two canes/sticks and a chair, hopefully we will sort out our costumes soon. We are both so excited about performing this as we know we can really do something with it to make it look as good as possible for our showcase.

All of the performings arts class have been given specific songs to perform at the showcase and so we have been working on that recently in class. We have also been working on another song as a group which is called All That Jazz from Chicago. This is such a great number to have been working on as it is so fun and enjoyable, it has also made us think more about Fosse movements as the choreography is very Fosse which we all love. We haven't quite finished All That Jazz but we have done quite a bit on it and have worked out who is singing what part of the song and have run through it with the choreography added in too.

I cannot wait til 1st of July, it's going to be so good if we practice and practice. Should be great!

Costume Construction - We Will Rock You

I am constructing a simple bodice that will form part of my costume for ‘We Will Rock You’ production. I’ve already constructed the skirt, the bodice will be constructed to match the skirt. The main material for the construction of this will be denim. I will be adding more detail to the bodice, using a variety of techniques, I will be using a combination of machine and hand sewing to construct this piece.

•To make the bodice, I am going to cut out denim using material scissors and I am going to use a paper template to make this accurate.

• I will then lay the pieces of denim out in the right order and then use pins to pin them together.

•I will tack the denim together so that it creates a guideline for me to follow when I use the sewing machine.

•When I have machine sewed all the pieces of denim together I will be attaching rosettes to the bodice and I will be adding edging to my bodice to give it a more finished look. I will be adding elastic or a zip at the back so that it is wearable and so then it will fit correctly when I wear it for a production.

 

Bhangra!