Monday 5th November 2018

On Tuesday we began with the same rehearsal as last week including the physical and vocal warm up. To my surprise I was able to get in more air and project my singing a bit more than last week. Already I can see a difference in my vocal ability and that’s just from one exercise! The rest of the group were working on “Cell Block Tango” which I’m not in. Therefore me and Alex decided tht we would try and work on a scene together.

We decided to work on the scene right before Roxie and Billy go into the courtroom. In this particular scene there’s a lot of tension between them two. We first thought it would be helpful to actually listen to the accent that they use in the versions in order to help us pick up the accents ourselves
Considering that we’re both not so confident with the accents. In many versions that I’ve watched Roxie is portrayed in a variety of different ways, in the film version she’s quite uptight and snaps at anything Billy says, however in the Broadway versions on YouTube she’s made out to be quite scared and snaps at Billy only at the very end which helps to build the tension in the scene. We began by watching the previous versions of this scene so that we could gather the ideas for staging and costumes etc. We discovered that there was a lot of changes in the staging in the sense of the shifting of power, Roxie would often move downstage or upstage to parallel Billy, and they’d often end up facing one another at the peak of the argument.

We really liked tthe idea in the shifting of staging so we started of with Roxie upstage and she’s complaining about the dress, as in essence she’s the protagonist. Then we had her move downstage when Billy begins to shout about telling her what to do, she remains downstage until she starts complaining again about her not getting enough “showtime” this is when they become parallel with one another. We felt like this is a poignant point to show the audience that this whole thing is a show by adding in some over dramatic shouting and excess drama such as Billy almost grabbing hold of Roxie’s neck.

I thought that in order to portray my character successfully I should aim to include a range of emotions in this scene to not only develop my character but to portray to the audience the “show-like” nature of this production. I decided to begin with my character just being meant as she’s just in disgust about the dress, I feel like by doing this it shall help to begin the scene as quite calm and then allow it to escalate as it develops. When we decided to add in Billy grabbing my neck it was quite a heated moment so I felt like I should tone down my aggressive nature when this occurs so that it comes as more of a shock to the audience, I decided that this should cause my character to act a bit shocked in order to fuel her aggressiveness when they begin to swear at one another.

We briefly discussed the use of our costumes. Alex felt that due to the formal nature of the event to come we should dress accordingly including my horrible lace dress. By having the horrible lace around my neck it’s a clear contrast to what I would usually wear which shows that Billy is controlling her. Usually Roxie would be dressed in quite sultry black tight clothing so by wearing a loose incredibly horrid dress it allows the audience distinguish Billy controlling nature. When running through the scene we found that at the start the scene was a bit empty, Billy was just waiting for me to enter, so Alex decidedly that he would bring a briefcase and a load of papers aligned on a table and when he starts talking about who says what he would then rifle through those papers. This helps to add to the “show-like” nature of the performance, where the papers could be inferred as scripts.

Thursday’s began with us warming up with similar warm ups to last week, apart from instead of the counting we did a different exercise. The group would walk around the space and partner up and then we would label ourselves one or two. One’s would then act out their morning routine and two’s would have to copy. It’s not particularly musically important but in terms of a drama perspective it allowed us to get into the mind of our characters and their traits and the way they may act. It was then suggested to us that our character may sing in a different was to what we do as an individual. For example the use of an accent and how that may differ our singing voices.

Next we were told about the importance of sol-far. This is basically the idea that you can look at a score of music and sight-sing the notes in that score, basically knowing how it sounds like before you sing it. Unique syllables are linked to each note of the musical scale, for example, do,re,mi,fa,sol,la,ti etc. Sam added a hand gesture to represent every syllable for every note. It helps to provide and visual back up for identifying intervals (which are intervals between notes). The use of sol-far can help you figure out harmonies as well, by matching the end note of which you want to harmonise and then using do, re, mi, find the third note up from the end note! I never understood how to figure out a harmony and I think by being shown this I’ll be able to figure out my own harmonies when singing things like a duet.

After we’d been told about sol-far singing we then applied it to our harmonies in “All That Jazz”. After last week I really struggled to find the lower note and I think this was because it wasn’t the tune and that’s what I’m used to singing so I decided to go into the sopranos. Even though I’m not naturally a soprano I felt like this was easier for me to sing. The way sol-far was applied was that because the tune is higher we used do,re,mi downwards to find the third. In my opinion I felt more confident singing the higher and felt tht I could sing louder than what I was in the lower group because I felt more confident.

The group then began singing over “Cell Block Tango”. I’m not in this number so Alex and I went into another space and went over our scene together. We felt relatively happy with our staging ideas so far, so we did several run throughs but without our scripts this time. I think over the course in musical theatre I’ve got a lot better at learning my lines and realising the importance of having to know the lines because I know how much it can hinder rehearsals and your character development. 

On Friday the group went over “Cell Block Tango” both singing and dancing, so me and Alex were left to our own devices again. We were very confident with our scene and decided we would work on our songs together. Alex did his solo first and I noticed that he was often looking down and not giving it as much personality as he would if he was acting. I gave him this point as feedback and then acknowledged that I need to do this myself, as it enables me to develop my character and make it believable to the audience. My song is “Nowadays” which is a duet with Zoe but she was doing “Cell Block Tango” so I decided it would be a good idea to familiarise myself with the lyrics so when it came to going through the song with Ralph I would be prepared. I also figured that by watching the previous versions on YouTube I could gather a few ideas about props and staging etc so that me and Zoe could have a discussion later on about these elements.

At the end of the lesson Nadine called us in to show her what me and Alex had me working on with our scene.  After we’d performed she mentioned that the tension in this scene is supposed to rise and fall, but in our scene the tension remains quite high as we just end up shouting towards one another a lot. After thinking about the performance I felt like we could change the volume of our voices at various parts in order to deplete the tension and then allow it to rise again.

Monday 29th October 2018

I wasn’t in the lesson on Tuesday because I was ill, so I decided to research my character so that when I came back into lesson I would have a developed understanding of my character, which would benefit my later rehearsals. When looking at my character I discovered that she begins as a “floozy” she seems a bit dim-witted but is desperate for fame, so desperate that she’ll do anything to get it, like sleep with someone. As an audience you’re made to believe that she’s just and innocent, fame driven girl, but then as the plot develops we find out that she’s so fame driven that she’d even kill for her desires. We find out about her devoted husband Amos and how she really doesn’t care about him, but he would do anything for Roxie, even cover for her when she murdered Fred. This wickedness is another part of her character. There’s several layers to this character which I believe is going to be hard for me to portray, it’s going to be a challenge but I’m willing to put the work in order to portray this as successfully as I can.

Chicago was inspired by the real-life 1924 murder trials of Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner, Annan was the basis for Roxie Hart. While living in Kentucky, Annan married her first husband, Perry Stephens. They were divorced, and Beulah then met car mechanic Albert "Al" Annan. They went to Chicago together, where they were married on March 29, 1920. There, Albert found work as a mechanic at a garage and Beulah eventually became a bookkeeper at Tennant's Model Laundry. At the laundry she met Harry Kalstedt and began an affair. On April 3, 1924, in the married couple's bedroom, Annan shot Kalstedt in the back. According to her initial story, they had been drinking wine Kalstedt had brought over, and got into an argument. There was a gun on the bed and both reached for it, but Beulah got it first and shot Kalstedt while he was putting on his coat and hat. Originally when I was looking over the lines I was worried about having to do a Chicago accent but now from looking at the background of the character I should really focus on a Kentucky accent, due to her originating from there. Accents are definitely not my strong point, however if I want to make my character believable I need to add the accent.

Before we sung anything on Thursday we worked on warming up our voices, I never really understood the use of warming up the body along with the voice because I didn’t think it was really relevant. However Sam told us that the body and the voice work alongside one another. This idea is that if your body is tense you’ll be unable to breathe correctly thus straining your voice.  You don’t want to put a strain on your vocal chords because you failed to loosen up the muscles. The first part of the warm up began with us walking around and finding a random partner and then alternatively counting from 1 to 5 and then swapping over the numbers we counted. This began to warm up our voices gently but it helped to wake up our brains and engage us into what we were about to do. I found that this really made me focus on what I was being asked to do and I felt that it mentally prepared me for the lesson and engaged my brain. Afterwards we starts with humming some scales, starting with a hum is a gentle push into the warm up as we don’t want to go straight into singing as it could still strain our voices. The idea of going up and down the scales is to ensure that every part of our voice is warm this is both the chest voice and the head voice. I never even knew that there were two different kinds; I just thought that there was low and high. However I’ve discovered that I’m definitely more confident with using my chest voice, I feel like I’m able to project my voice much better than when I’m using my head voice. I often struggle with the transition from chest voice to head voice, which I think is something I need to work on. However my song “Nowadays” remains in chest voice, so although this isn’t important for this particular part I feel like it shall benefit my strength in singing if I can do this.

We then moved onto singing up and down the scale but with different sounds, for example the sound “Za” comes from the front of your mouth, however the sound “Na” comes from the throat, so this exercise helps to warm up the muscles in our mouths as well as our voices. Once we’d finished warming up we were told to get into 4 groups depending on whether you were a soprano, alto, tenor or base, I had absolutely no idea what he was going on about. When he explained to me that a soprano was a high singer and a base was a low singer I could gage where I thought I was, so originally I placed myself in the alto group. “All that jazz” was the song we were working on, and there’s one harmony in the piece that the company sing, when the harmony was divided and I heard the alto bit I heard that bit was quite low, which was definitely using our chest voices. Even though I’m comfortable with my chest voice I really struggled to find the note to start the harmony, as naturally I just wanted to sing the tune. However I stuck to it and attempted to find it along with the other members of my group.

During the drama lesson we began by doing a physical warm up as Nadine was coming in to finish the choreography for “All that Jazz” as they didn’t get it finished on Tuesday. The warm up began with the usual stretching and working through the feet in order to prevent muscle strain, but towards the end of the warm up we were told that we were going to multitask and warm up our bodies and our voices at the same time. This consisted of small jumps on the spot whilst singing the 1,12,1 song, which also involves going up the scale. This was incredibly difficult. You couldn’t quite get enough air in to breathe and sing at the same time, it definitely worked on improving our intercostal muscles to intake more air at a time. Then they ran through the choreography, being a dancer I am able to pick things up fairly quickly, so I just watched for the first run through, then Nadine went over the very end bit so I decided it would be beneficial for me to join in and get into a space where I believed I would fit in so that I would only need to focus on the first bit. After this was done they went from the beginning again, so I watched the beginning and joined in with the final bit. Then more choreography was added onto the end so I learnt this as well. Then we went from the beginning again and this time I joined in. I feel like this whole process strengthened my ability to pick up choreography quickly, considering that I took it into my own hands and figured out a way to learn the choreography that would be beneficial and efficient for me and the rest of the class, because it would’ve been pointless to make the teacher go over what they’d done, it would just hinder the rehearsal process.

The targets I’m going to set myself for this unit are:

1.       To try and develop and extend my knowledge in and around singing.

2.       To really think in depth about my characterisation and think outside the box a little bit.

I’ve decided to set myself these targets in order to help me develop my knowledge in the world of musical theatre, specifically singing as I know it’s a weakness of mine. The reason I decided to set myself a target of thinking in depth about my characterisation is because, I feel like I often forget about this key part and I don’t develop my character until the last few rehearsals and this isn’t good enough.