New songs

In lessons we used different techniques in order to warm up our voices before rehearsing our solo's 


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When I was rehearsing somewhere over the rainbow I didn't feel 100% confident with my song choice even though i knew the song well. I decided that somewhere over the rainbow as i mentioned before was massively overdone and in places the song was a bit too high which was where i was beginning to struggle a bit. so I decided to begin looking for another song.

rehearsal process - continued

As the show approached all the cast were feeling a bit apprehensive about the forthcoming performance. we had only received the second act quite late on and were struggling to remember all the musical numbers and stage directions as a whole. However as it got closer to the performance everybody seemed to group together and really progress with the whole play.

as soon as we had had our hair and make up done and had tried on our costumes everyone seemed to be a lot more positive and confident about the piece which allowed us to get more done and become more focused as a group.

I personally found it really daunting to get up in front of my peers and act my character to my full potential as it's a little out of my comfort zone and something I'm not used to doing at all. This is where my partner really helped me to come out off my shell. she was fairly experienced with acting and so were  most of the other cast members so they egged us on and made a lot of us hit our potential by being supportive.

although I managed to get into character more I was still concious of wht others thought so I held back slightly as time went on however this slowly dissapeared. 

evaluation

Overall I felt the musical was a great success however I don't think I'd like to go through all the preparation again as it was far too much work. 

I think initially we all had doubts about the differences between the two groups of dancers and actors .It was a little bit awkward at first but as time went on we all got along and are still all close now even after the event. I was also worried about learning lines and performing to an audience, although we still have to perform in dance you can cover up any bits you mess up or in extremities run off stage if something drastic happens. But with acting you have to know your lines inside out as if you forget yours it could affect someone Else's performance and you have to be on-stage for the whole of the set scene especially if you have a speaking part. This is something i felt I dealt with fairly well even though on the day I was filed with nerves.

I really enjoyed working with the actors as I felt they seemed to bring out the best in all of us and made us really get into character which is something i really struggled with throughout the whole process. 

I think I managed to learn my lines fairly well - even though there weren't that many I still seemed to really struggle learning the song words too. throughout the rehearsals and the performance there is one line I can never get right in the first scene and no matter how many times i read over the script and tried to learn that one line I still couldn't get it right. However I managed to learn the majority of my lines before the performance so I was pleased with my self.

If I were to do the whole process again I would like to have been more into my character from an early stage. When watching it back I think I managed to get in to character well however in early rehearsals I was quite reluctant to perform at all due to nerves I think in front of my peers. I think like I said if we were to re do the whole process again I would of liked to work harder on my characterisation from an early stage.

All in all I thought the performance went really well and we worked well as a company to pull off a really great show, even after all the doubts we had.although the process was long and tiring for all involved I would definately love to do it again as I think it was a fantastic experience and something i will never forget.

Make up and costume

The week before the performance we had to try on our costumes and also test out our make up which was nerve racking but also exciting. each main character was assigned make up artists who had spent weeks researching and designing our make-up. They had spent time creating mood boards to decide on which colours to use based on a small amount of information on what the director wanted.

My make up was made up of a fairly yellow base layer, dark eyes and cheeks to make us look drained. we also had round red cheeks to match the tweedle's in wonderland so you could see a similarity between our characters. Our costumes were fairly basic as we were reality characters stuck in a mental hospital. we wore hospital gowns with black leggings or shorts and hats attached to Alice bands with question marks painted on the front. 

all in all I thought all of the characters make up looked fantastic ! it really brought it all together especially after the weeks of rehearsing. I also think the costumes worked well as they helped to set the scene.

what is alice in wonderland

Alice in wonderland is a classic story many of us will remember from our childhood. the original story was written by Lewis carol - originally titled Alice's adventures in wonderland and published in 1865. The story is about a young girl Alice Kingsley who visits a magical land - wonderland via falling down a rabbit hole. In wonderland Alice meets many mystical characters from the mad hatter, Tweedledee and dumb, the Cheshire cat and the evil red queen. Alice then awakens returning back to reality on the river bank with her sister. 

Since Lewis carols book there have been a number of versions of Alice in wonder land  including 22 adaptations for film and television including the Disney classic cartoon and the more recent Tim Burton version in 2010. 

In our version of the classic I was cast as Dumelda twee a reality version of Tweedledum the twins.in film versions i have seen the twins are always together and talking in riddles throughout. nowadays these names Tweedledee and Tweedledum have become almost a nickname for people that look and act alike. they also have a poem which they recite in Lewis carols book :

"Tweedledum and Tweedledee

    Agreed to have a battle;

For Tweedledum said Tweedledee

    Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,

    As black as a tar-barrel;

Which frightened both the heroes so,

    They quite forgot their quarrel"

  

in both the book and later adaptations thee twins have primarily been male however in our version both sets of twins are female , However i feel this will be a modern twist on the classic and as long as we both talk in sync and act alike on stage we will hopefully be able to pull of the role .