Monday 26th November 2018

On Tuesday the rest of the group began with working on “Razzle Dazzle”. I am in this scene, but I’m just sort of sitting around watching this all unfold. So, I decided it would be more beneficial for me and Zoe to go off and work on our piece to ensure that we were 100% confident with the song. So, we ran over the piece as a whole and identified that the cane piece still wasn’t as strong as we’d like it. It was much better after the breaking down and working on our faces that we did the other week, so we decided to try it again but this time work together to identify where we went wrong and that we were both in time together. Sam mentioned to us at the end of last week that we really need to use diction in order to get our volume up on the song as it’s quite low, so both Zoe and I went through the script and identified the parts where we felt that the volume dropped and we ran over this and tried to use Sam’s idea about diction in order to get the volume up.

I decided it would be a good idea for me to familiarise myself with the Razzle Dazzle choreography so that I would know how to react and what to react to. So, I spent the last 10 minutes of the lesson watching their choreography. Nadine told us that on Thursday we would be having a mock exam. This shocked us all because everyone felt that the show was nowhere near ready. For me this acted almost as a warning light as I knew that I wasn’t comfortable with any of my scenes in terms of my lines.

So, Thursday came around and I’d been working tirelessly to attempt to learn my lines and I felt fairly comfortable with most of the scenes apart from mine and Rachels scene. This was manly because it hadn’t really been pieced together much like everything else had. Rachel wasn’t here on Thursday as she had an audition for university and I was well aware that the real date for the exam was getting closer and we still hadn’t pieced it together yet, so it was worrying me, but this meant that I still had time to familiarise myself with the lines.

So, the mock I felt didn’t go half as bad as what I was expecting. It wasn’t perfect, in fact it was far from it, but I was relatively happy. We did have to skip over I can’t do it alone as Rachel wasn’t her but the work Zoe and I had put into Nowadays and Hot Honey Rag really did pay off and we both couldn’t stop smiling throughout because everything was going right. Nadine then gave us some feedback:

1.       She said that the singing and choreography for all that jazz needed a bit of clarification, she said that the beginning was strong, but it was when we got to the call and response bit was when it kind of fell apart and became messy. A lot of us knew that it’d fallen apart when we were doing it as we were all looking at one another in desperation praying that one of us was confident with what we were doing.

2.       Roxie boys it was clear that we weren’t confident with the dance and it really showed in our faces and that we should be more confident with the dance.

3.       In mine and Alex’s first scene together, it was mentioned that Alex kept facing his back to the audience and that he needed to make sure that he was facing the front, this was partially my fault because I keep turning away from him in an attempt to almost conceal myself away from him and he often would try and get me to look at him.

4.       During Razzle Dazzle it was mentioned that I look a bit out of place, and I completely agreed, I really felt like I didn’t know how to react to what was going on, I didn’t know whether to be shocked because he’d stolen the limelight or angry about it. I figured this would be something that I needed to talk to Richard about.

5.       Another thing that was said was that during Razzle Dazzle when Alex run up the stairs was that he needs to be careful on the rostra staging because if he’s wearing socks he could easily slip over and really hurt himself, I need to think about this as well because I don’t own any jazz shoes and had just planned on wearing black socks, so I need to be careful if I do get up on the rostra.

6.       Nadine said that Nowadays was okay, but we need to interact with one another more when we are singing. I think because both of us aren’t confident singers we’re focusing a lot when we’re singing to make sure it sounds alright and we often forget about our faces. So, I think this is something that we need to work on during our spare time rather than wasting lesson time on it.

7.       After Zoe and I had finished our dance no one really knew what was going on afterwards so, Nadine mentioned that this was something that we needed to clarify nearer the show.

On the Friday everyone was mainly working on what they felt needed the most work. We began by clarifying the harmony in All that Jazz, we decided that it would be better for more people to do the higher harmony and for Rachel to do the lower harmony as she’s comfortable with it and she has quite a naturally loud voice. We then ran over Roxie for all of the boys in the scene and really worked on knowing the choreography and ensuring our faces didn’t look like we didn’t know what we were doing. And then I spent a lot of the lesson just writing down my lines and reading them over and over again as I feel like this is the most beneficial way for me to get to know my lines. Rachel wasn’t here again so if she was, we would’ve gone over our scene together, but I figured I would learn the lines so that when she was in, we could instantly get to rehearsing without scripts which would benefit our characterisation and rehearsal process.  I did mention briefly to Richard about how I should react in Razzle Dazzle and he said that he would opt for the angrier kind of reaction just because the whole show is about Roxie gaining the limelight and then all of a sudden he has it. He said that we would work on it during the tech runs when we would have some time to work with props and lighting as well. 

Monday 19th November 2018

Tuesday began with Zoe and I doing the choreography for our number “Nowadays/ Hot Honey Rag”. When I did the audition, I did mention to Nadine that I would preferably like to do this number as it’s my favourite. I like this number because you have the calming nature of the song which then compares to the jazzy upbeat nature of the dance break. However, I’ve only ever watched the film version of Chicago I’d never actually seen the production onstage, so when Nadine mentioned that we were taking the choreography right from the stage I was a bit worried that I wasn’t going to enjoy it as much.  But I was completely wrong, it was very different to the film version, it was a traditional Fosse style, which is out of my comfort zone. But I still really liked it. I felt that once I was comfortable with the choreography I could really add in my fun-loving, a little mischievous, character.

As I’ve mentioned several times, I’m not a comfortable singer. Although I feel like I’ve come a long way in this unit with developing my understanding of sol-far singing and how your body and breathing techniques assist your voice, I definitely have a long way to go. With the song “Nowadays” you use a chest voice, which is great because that’s my comfort zone, however, the song does remain pretty low which makes it harder for me to project my voice. Alongside this I had other things to worry about such as staying in tune, ensuring that my characterisation was perfect and then also worrying about the movement.  As a dancer this came as a challenge to me because I’m used to just worrying about the movements and my facial expressions, this is a whole new ball park. Considering that I’m not 100% confident in one of the areas in which I need to focus on I feel like the dancing and characterisation may suffer a little bit for it.

We completed “Nowadays” which was mainly singing which enabled me to concentrate on my singing especially in the first verse/chorus and we just stand, but with this needs to be some good characterisation in order to keep the audience interested because if not I’m just going to be stood there singing and it’s going to be fairly boring for them. Where the dance element really starts is when we complete a cane sequence. By adding the use of the cane to the performance makes it more challenging for us as performers but enables us to show off to the audience a little bit. Initially I struggled with the cane sequence, but I didn’t want to give up because I felt that it would look really effective if me and Zoe could get it perfectly synchronised. After we’d had a few attempts at this we began to understand the timing of each part of the sequence, however we decided that it would be more beneficial to carry on and learn the rest of the choreography rather than worry about making everything perfect as this could be done at another time.

We then proceeded to learn the choreography for the dance to “Hot Honey Rag”. I was particularly excited for this part as this was the whole reason, I auditioned to be Roxie in the first place. As this is the showstopping piece both Zoe and I knew that it had to be spectacular, therefore both of us were very willing to work hard on this piece to ensure that it was perfect. As we were both strong dancers, we were able to pick up the choreography fairly easily, so we learnt it quite fast. This allowed us some time at the end to polish a few things. Since we’d learnt this so efficiently it meant that we would later have time to focus on the signing and characterisation of the piece, Nadine also left about 16 counts at the end of the piece for our own choreography. Zoe and I briefly spoke about what we could put here, and we both decided that we need to play to our strengths here and incorporate our flexibility into it somehow in order to wow the audience.

On Thursday we began with our regular warm up and then we found out that we were going to be working on our song today (Nowadays). We felt that it would be beneficial if we consolidated what we learnt on Monday so that we were confident with that first and then we could incorporate the singing as we went. First of all, Zoe and I sat down and had a conversation about parts that we were unsure of within the piece and then we talked about the ending. We’d already established that we needed to put something at the end that was particularly impressive, therefore I said that my strengths included leaping and turning, and Zoe’s strengths happened to be the same. Therefore, we decided that we had a base idea for the ending. So, we began with our weaknesses in the choreography and we went over those first, this included the cane sequence, and then we began to construct the ending.

I was still struggling with the cane sequence. Personally, I think because I’m not used to dancing with a prop it became difficult for me to incorporate this in the piece. However, I had a good idea that may help out the both of us. I suggested that if we both performed the sequence to one another and then the other one could point out where it was going wrong and where it could possible be improved. I went first, and Zoe mentioned that I knew exactly what I was doing but she could tell that I was worried about dropping the cane because she could see it in my face. This definitely needed to be sorted out because it’s great if I know what I’m doing, and it goes well but if I drop my characterisation then the audience are going to lose interest. I then watched Zoe and noticed the same thing, so we decided that it would be beneficial to us to break it down section by section and then work on our characterisation alongside it. That was we would not only begin to feel comfortable with knowing what we were doing we could then remember to include our facial expressions alongside it.

For the ending we included a sequence of leaps and turns and decided to end it with the splits, thus making it a grand finale for the audience. We felt that this would be a good use of levels within the performance as a lot of the performance had been completed pretty upright, in the traditional Fosse angular style.

Then Ralph came in and we began to go through the song. The first starting point was that Ralph pointed out to us that we’d been singing the first two nowadays wrong. The first nowadays was lower than we thought and the second one was higher than we thought. He pointed out that if we looked at his score you could see the difference between the two notes. We weren’t given scores, so we didn’t know this, but this helped me out in understanding why a score was so important. I’d heard several members of the group question why they didn’t have a score, but I was confused as to why they were worried because they had the lyrics, but now I understand. Because if you look at the score, the way you’re supposed to sing the song matches the way that ralph plays, which would’ve helped us in understanding how high/low we would’ve needed to sing the nowadays. We then sang through the rest of the song and Ralph was happy with the way it sounded, but he did mention that we need to be louder, which I knew would be a problem for me anyway, he suggested that we stand tall and think about the sound coming from the front of our mouths and ensure that we use diction.

Sam began the lesson by talking to us about the importance of diction. He said that using diction is like using a microphone. If you place your hand in front of that microphone and sing you won’t be heard but if you remove that hand, then you shall be heard. By using diction, it assists with your projection. Therefore, I feel like I need to consider this when singing “Nowadays” to help me project more.

After this we ten attempted to sing, dance and act the whole thing together. Honestly, I thought it was going to be a car crash, but it wasn’t. the singing we focused on in the beginning I thought a lot about the use of diction. The cane sequence went particularly well even though I could see my face dropping at several points when catching myself in the mirror. The ending we added was a little messy and needed fixing, but Ralph and Sam said that for a first time run through it was particularly successful, but they both mentioned that characterisation was key. So, I think the next step forward would be to ensure that our characterisation remains constant.

Friday Nadine came in and took Rachel off to do “I can’t do it alone”. I knew that I’m sat there during her performance, but she suggested that she should learn it and get more comfortable with it first before I come in which I felt was a valid point on her behalf. So, I went off with everyone else to go over the Roxie/ reporter scene and dance with Richard.  First, we performed the scene and the dance in its entirety so that Richard could gather and idea of what we’d got so far. I think it’s safe to say the dance fell apart a little. Nobody thought to video the dance when we did it, so we all forgot what was happening and that was Richard’s first comment, that the dance needed working on. His second comment was discussing how we were going to make an obvious transition from the reporters to Roxie’s boys. He suggested the potential use of a prop or additional piece of costume that would distinguish us from the characters. I began to think outside the box a little bit and instead of having a costume or prop I decided that I would use my characterisation instead of obviously changing/ getting rid of a prop. I felt that this would enable me to show off my dramatic skills. So, for the reporters I’m very much like a show off, wanting my headline to be the most heard and the most startling, and then for my boy I’ve constantly got a performance face, quite sultry but I don’t try to steal Roxie’s limelight, I’m quite neutral and quiet.

Richard then spent some time working with Roxie and going over her monologue, whilst this was happening, I decided to grab hold of my script and clarify what parts of Roxie I was actually singing as I still wasn’t quite sure. I felt that this would be a more useful display of my time rather than just sitting there. After this was finished, we then collectively went over the dance and song. Richard mentioned that we all looked unsure and that we should break it down and go over everything and then slowly piece it back together, much like me and Zoe did. I find this type of practice useful because it helps me to remember the choreography and then add in the other elements (singing and dancing) into the mix, with maximum efficiency and minimal confusion.

During this Rachel had started on her choreography for “I can’t do it alone” with Nadine. So after we'd finished going over Roxie, I took this opportunity to ensure that I was running over my lines as I have quite a chunky paragraph after she finishes her performance. I’m never very good with remembering lines and I feel like this is a definite weakness of mine and something that throughout these processes I have gotten better at. I also began to think about my potential responses to her actions and some of the things she says, I thought about how I would sit at that table almost angling myself away from her to really show my dislike towards her. Rachel has a few little jokes that are imbedded into the song and I thought that when she says those lines, I would acknowledge how stupid those jokes were and accent them with an eye roll or a really sarcastic laugh just to reiterate to the audience my pure dislike for Velma.

 After I finish the Roxie dance, I have to rush of quickly and get changed into my Roxie costume in that time I realised I only have one very short scene to do this, which I think is going to be a bit of a problem for me. So, we began working on the scene before mine and Zoe's dance and found out that this scene relied on timing the action with the lines. For example, Lex says will the defendant please rise, and at that point I have to rise onto the staging that I’m stood in front of, Keira bursts in and says her lines and cuts someone off and that then result in everyone rushing out. So as a group we need to make sure that everyone knows their cues and that the scene flows rather than keep starting and stopping. The song before this is “Razzle Dazzle” and everyone who is in the judge scene is in “Razzle Dazzle” including me, so we decided that we needed to consult Richard on how one scene would flow into the other next lesson as we'd run out of time.

Monday 12th November 2018

We began with the same warm up in dance as per usual, but I’ve often been doing the warm up in socks and today when we were moving around I kept finding that I was sliding around a lot. So I thought it would be a good idea to remove them in case I fell whilst dancing. We did the warm up with the star-jumps and the counting again, and once again I was able to project more and I found that I wasn’t so out of breath afterwards. Today I would be dancing as we were doing the choreography to “Roxie” in which I’m a part of the company. However before the dance occurs there is a group of reporters that all say a headline of a different news paper. As we read our these lines I discovered that I was using the same voice that I used for when I’m being Roxie, now considering that someone else is playing her at the moment I figured that it would be best if I changed my pitch/ tone of my voice so that it’s different.

We continued on to the dance which is mainly all about Roxie, therefore I decided that my character should be quite subdued and not too elaborate as the focus really needs to be on her at the time. A lot of our movements are the same as hers but not quite as big, by filling down our movements it makes her stand out more and us seem like the back ups like we are. The company have to sing in this song as well which I’d completely forgotten about because I was so focused on the dancing. When Nadine played the backing track we all haven’t it our best shot but none of us really knew what we were singing so we decided as a group that this needed to be worked on with Ralph, so for the duration of the dance we mainly sang. Although we need to concentrate on both elements (dancing and singing) it allowed us to get the motor programme of the dance in our heads and that way we would be able to focus on the singing as we’d be confident with the dance.

We then did a run through of “All That Jazz”. Personally I feel that I coped very well considering I learnt the dance in one lesson and very quickly. I remembered the base choreography however because we’ve lost someone from the class it really confused me as to where I need to be in the spacing for certain parts and everyone got a bit muddled. So for most of the run through I stayed at the back of the space to ensure that I could still go over the main choreography and not get in anyone’s way doing it. After the dance was over everyone agreed that there were certain bits that we needed to go over, so we refined these and then did a run through again. We added in the singing as well and I noticed that I was able to reach the note of the harmony and everyone else did as well so it sounded really good!

On Thursday’s lesson we began with Sam talking to us about the difference between a tone and a semitone. A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone and it is the smallest musical interval. It is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between two adjacent notes in a 12-tone scale. A tone is an interval equalling two semitones. For example, the distance between C and D is a tone, because between C and D there is a distance of two flats (from C to C# and from C# to D). In terms of instruments a classic guitar, electric guitar, bass, ukulele, and many more, each fret corresponds to a semitone. We completed a very similar warm up compared to last week, beginning with our breathing exercises, which meant breathing in for 8 counts and exhaling for 10 counts. Before we started rehearsals for Chicago I was never able to understand or know how to control my breathing and ever since these rehearsals I’ve been able to develop my understanding and control of my breathing, which in turn assists me with my singing.

We then began with singing over “Roxie”, this was particularly beneficial for me because although I know the song, I know it from the perspective of singing it as Roxie, not the company. Once it had been clarified which parts the company sing and what they don’t, I was able to understand how the chorography links with the song. The song almost works as a conversation between Roxie and her “Boys”. For this song I had to also consider my portrayal of the “boy” that I’m playing, simply because I don’t want to be acting feminine because one, I’m not and two, I don’t want to act in the same way that I do when I’m Roxie because I’m not her at this point. After we’d finished doing this the others went over “Cell Block Tango” as they were still unsure of it, so I decided to go into another practice space and try and match up the singing with the choreography so that I was sure of which piece came where.

Singing and dancing at the same time has never been my strong point as I don’t have a naturally strong voice in the first place, so this particular musical is quite challenging. In terms of the choreography it’s not necessarily complex it’s just concentrating on two of the elements at one time can be difficult, and in order to make the performance successful both of these need to be of good quality. If you can sing really well but can’t remember the dance then it’s just going to look atrocious. So I felt like this is a very important thing for me to focus on in order to make my performance successful. Initially I struggled because I couldn’t remember the choreography because I was focusing on ensuring that my singing was in the right pitch etc. so I decided in order to make this practice beneficial I should break it down by verse and chorus and make sure that I was happy with both the singing and the choreography before moving on. I found this to be particularly helpful in assisting me with working on both singing and dancing at the same time.

Then on Friday’s lesson we started off with a gentle run through of “All That Jazz”. We simply marked through the choreography so that we could gently warm up and not sprain any muscles but also to ensure that the spacing and arrangements were correct and so they could be corrected if needed. It also allowed us to keep refreshing our minds with the song and choreography so that we wouldn’t forget about it.

After this we started going through the scene with “Roxie”. We began with the reporter scene before the song ensuring that everyone one understood how the scene would finish and how we would then enter as the boys. We had a brief discussion about showing the difference between us being reporters and then into Roxie’s showcase boys. We decided that as the reporters we should have a prop or some kind of coat that would identify us as reporters and then remove this to then be in all black for the dance. Roxie went over her monologue which allowed us to hear the first part of the song which she sings and performs be herself and then allow us to know our cue when to come in. then we clarified our spacing and formations which then allowed all of us to try the whole scene again. This rehearsal process I find to be very helpful because we as the performers get to hear our cues and understand how the show will work on the night. I don’t find it helpful when we learn the choreography and the song but then don’t know the scene beforehand or afterwards to know what happens before and after the dance, an as to where we enter and exit the stage.

Following this Richard came in to assist me and Alex with our scene that we performed to Nadine last week. We talked together through what we’d already worked on in terms of our placement and our costumes and then we performed our piece to Richard. He then helped us with the corrections that Nadine mentioned last week in terms of building and dropping the tension. He then added a few additional changes. The first one was to do with Alex telling me about what I should wear, he suggested that Alex should get closer to me, so much so that I would need to bend my back in order to get away from him. However the way he should do this, is that it should almost be choreographed so that it reminds the audience that we’re still performing our lives in a show. I really felt that this suggestion would help the audience as well as my performance as when Alex gets closer me it’s almost like he’s telling me that he’s the boss and that I should listen to him, which helps decrease the tension and that point.  The other suggestion that he made was that instead of Billy almost grabbing Roxie’s neck he should actually grab it, this also helped to show Billy’s rage but and then drop the tension for Roxie, and then allow her to explode after this. The final suggestion that was made was about our staging. Originally we had Roxie enter upstage but it was suggested that we move it so that she comes into parallel with Billy as it shows there is equal power at that point and then when Billy moves closer to me the audience can see the movement of the feet.