Without You

Today we ran through Santa Fe which we had created last lesson before we moved on to have a look at the next number "without you" and for this number we wanted to try to show the story of all the couples in this number, so we split into groups and were given a section of the song to create a routine too while Mimi sings. We decided my character would not be in this number as Mark has no developing love story in the show so I help Freya create the movement for Maureen and Joanne.

"The stars gleam
The poets dream
The eagles fly

Without you

The earth turns
The sun burns
But I die 

without you"

Freya and I were given this section from the song to come with movement that Joanne and Maureen can do in the background of the number. During the first four lines Maureen and Joanne walk to each other at the back of the stage from opposite sides, they then use there back facing hands to grab the others before Maureen twirls into Joanne were they embrace each other for a moment before Joanne lets go to try and leave.

During the second four lines Maureen turns Joanne back to face her before running her hand up to Joanne's face the both going into each other before they both step away to go. they both then freeze until the end where they turns to face Angel as he dies.

in the verse after this Carl and Dom set up a hospital bed which Collins walks Angel while he slowly dies. Tom and Meg created a movement style dance which is happening at the front of the stage during Angels death.

Santa Fe

Today we wanted to try and get a start on several different numbers in today's lesson. We set our welds the target of look at at these numbers from the show in these groups:
I'll cover you= Toby and Dan M
Voicemail 2= Meg and Dan S
One song glory= Tom
Christmas bells= me, Carl and Dom

Our objective of running our rehearsal like this was too see if we could start several number in a rehearsal and then have us finish them ourselves outside of lessons, so with each number our goal wasn't to finish them today but to have at least several ideas on what we wanted to happen with them. Everyone went off to do their independent worker on the songs while Me, Carl and Dom talked about ideas for Christmas bells. This version of Christmas bells start after the end of the song "rent" and used everyone except Mark, Roger and Angle. So looking at where everyone ended in Rent we looked at what we could do with the member we had who were spaced out the stage and audience. We decided to try having the people on stage cross in front of the table while singing so that Mark and Roger wouldn't be seen, during this Bennie and Collins come from the audience to join in and make a line with everyone at the front of the stage while singing before walking off.
After working independently for a while we came together to work on the number Santa Fe.
We all decided that Meg should choreograph us a part of this dance that starts from the second "Let's open up a restaurant". For our dance we're in 2 groups of 3, Meg, Dom, Carl on stage right and me, Tom, Dan S on stage left. Meg's side starts the dance first. They walk on with a 2 step turn step then on the next line of the song we walk on doing the same as them. We then walk around the room to our new position for the dance that we wanted to try and make flow with the movement.
We start but side stepping right and reach our arms round in a circle then move them in a figure of eight while we push our left leg out and back in. We then do a step change into and spin over our right shoulder while travelling to the left. We then turn back the way we just came doing a gallop spin which goes into gentle walking upstage right while sweeping our feet round.We then sweep our right foot all the way round before goin to walk into a semi circle to end the movement side of this number.

You'll see

Continuing from last lesson where we set our selves targets for next lesson we started to look at "You'll see" which me, Carl and Tom looked at for this lesson. This number continues after "Today 4 you" so in the background of this number we have Collins and Angel listening in on Roger, Mark and Bennie's talk. Carl playing Bennie enters through the audience at which point I say my line about his character to the audience as he comes up onto the stage. The number was simple to stage as it was mostly a conversation between the three of them. We reached the part of the song where Bennie leave which is where we had decided to cut the rest of the song as the second half isn't needed for the progression of the story so we have removed this from our version of Rent.
After this we ran through "Goodbye love" into "what you own" so we could recap what we had done in the past lessons so we can move on to work on more numbers in Act II next lesson.

Run act 2

Today we decided to run every thing we have done in Act II so by the end of the lesson we can have a list to look at that shows us what numbers we still have left to do. So we started with "Seasons of love" then reached "Happy New year B" which not everyone knew but that was fine as we had only just recently looked at this number so we continued through skipping "take me or leave me" as we hadn't set this number yet in to "seasons of Love B" which we sang through as we weren't sure how to set this number yet. Which then lead into "Without you" which we ran through without no problem vocally or physically. We moved past "I'll cover you reprise" as we hadn't set this number yet which ment we straight into "Goodbye love" through to "What you own" both numbers ran well with no problems arising. We then moved past "Finale A" as we hadn't set that yet to go into "Your eyes" and then "Finale B". Miss had told us for next lesson she will have the backing tracks for every number next lesson so we can practice with them.

Happy New year

Today we continued to look at the start of Act II. We had already done "Seasons of Love" in lessons before so we skipped past that to look at "Happy New Year A" which we had decided to cut from our version of Rent as well as cutting Mark's mum in "voice mail 3" and the first little part of "Happy New year B". So after "Seasons of love" it goes into Alexi Darlings voice mail which is done Dom and then starts "Happy New year B" which skips the little bit to go straight in with "5 4 3... Open". The rest of "Happy New year B" we kept the same and was simple to set as it was mostly dialogue. The difficulty with this number was as group we struggled with the timing of our lines for track so we had gone over this number several times in the lesson so we could practice our timings. After practicing this number a few times we started to go over "Seasons of love" into "Voice mail 3" into "Happy New year B". We practiced over  these three songs a few times as well as our transitions between the songs.

Run Act 1

Today we decided to run through all of the songs we had stage and few we hadn't in act 1 as it had been a while since we done anything from Act 1 for the past few lessons. We started through "Tune up 1" - "Rent", then we quickly set "Tune up 3" as its half a page of dialogue between Mark and Roger before Mark leaves to find Collins. We then continue through to "one song glory" and then "light my candle" which we hadn't fully staged yet, so we let Tom and Meg work through the number to create the piece so they can improve it in another rehearsal. We continued to work through the show and reach "You'll see" which is another number we haven't set probably yet, me and Carl have listen to this number before but hadn't set it before. We then continued through Act I to the song "We're okay" which we still need to create so we pushed forward and reached "La Vie Boheme" which we got to the end. Continuing from this number we still need to set "I should tell you" but have  also decided to cut"La Vie Boheme B" from our creation of Rent. So we only have "light my candle", "you'll see", "we're okay" and I should tell you" left to set in Act I.

Your eyes and Finale B

Today we had a quick look at "your eyes" and then staged our "finale B". We quickly went through "your eyes" as its only Roger singing, we quickly ran through it so we all would know where we would be for "finale B". During the first half of the song Roger moves to cuddle Mimi on the table while the rest of us surrounds them singing and when the boys and girls split into their two songs we are joined on stage by everyone even Angel as its the finale. At the end of the song we all huddle together and make like a photo finish of the whole group for the end. We spent most of this lesson going through the vocals and harmonies for boys and girls in this finale before we ran through "your eyes" and "finale B". During "your eyes" all our characters present are backed off around the edges of the stage so the audiences focus is on Roger singing to Mimi. We ran through both the numbers with no problem and have now stage the end of our performance workshop of Rent.

What you own

This lesson before we started anything we said that our next number we are going to stage is "What you own" which follows "Goodbye love" so we wanted to sort out what happens in this number so that we can run through "Goodbye love" and go straight into "What you own". We split our cast in half as we wanted to add more vocals into this number so while I as Mark sings the first chorus, Dan M, Lorna, Freya and Carl will join in with me when I reach "and when you're living in". They are space our around me as this song we have set up to be like a dream for Mark and Roger as this song shows them wanting to fix their lifes. In the secong chorus Meg, Toby, Dan S and Dom join in singing with me and Tom on the same line as my group did with the first chorus before on the ending chorus "Dying in America" which we have everyone singing in with. We set out the piece with our stage plan in mind of having our extension of the stage with Lower still decking. So during the first half of the song we have Mark in the apartment standing in front of his table, Angel, Bennie, Maureen and Joanne are spread out across the stage to help showcase the dream effect were trying to show. The same sort of idea is done with Roger but on the lower stage with Mimi, Collins, Paul and the Drug dealer. The song is more about the vocals then the action so we just have us stand and sing with Roger and Mark occasionally moving around. Me and Tom, as we both play Roger and Mark, have spent our time going the harmonies of the song.

Goodbye love

Continuing on from last lesson we we ran through "without you" and polished the number before we started the next number which was "Goodbye love".
We had decided to cut "Halloween" from our performance as it was just Mark and served no relevance to the plot of our show but we took the first couple of lines to use as Mark's narration leading into "Goodbye love". So before "Goodbye love" start Mark says:
"Hi. It's Mark Cohen. Is Alexi there? Uh, No need to bother her. Just let her know that I'm running late for my appointment... Yes, i'll still be there... Yes, I signed the contract... Thanks. How Did We Get Here? How The Hell...
Pan Left - Close On The Steeple Of The
Church"

"Pan left" is the que for everyone to start exiting the chapel for the start of the song. Mark is down stage right, Collins is down stage left with everyone else spread out between. During the song we see each of the characters start to fight until Collins tells everyone off for fighting at the funeral. Everyone leaves except Mark and Roger who both make their way centre stage for their confrontation between each other where we have made Mark appear as really nice person trying to help a friend while Roger is portray as a horrible friend to Mark, trying to make Mark feel as if he is the one who that has failed everyone. After this Mark goes back upstage while Mimi walks in for her goodbye to Roger before Bennie walks in and Mimi leaves. We then move on to the next scene where Dan S who is playing the priest throws Collins out, we quickly worked through this scene before we ended the rehearsal. Next lesson we decided to look at "what you own" as the number follows straight on from "Goodbye love".

Rent production meeting

Today we sat down as a group and had a meeting about our production of Rent to decided what we needed to disscuss about our whole story. In our meeting we were ask to work in pairs and talk about what we wanted our production to reprsent. I was paired with Meg to start writing what we wanted from the show, we came up with these ideas:
Dark and gritty
Dirty (Setting)
Conection with characters
Small cast (Personal)
Colourful cloths and characters

I didn't agree with all of what me and Meg came up with as I want our show to be centre around the issues in the show, not the characters themselfs. I wanted our show to focus on this to link back to Jonathan Larson original creation of Rent which was to create awareness of Aids but with our production I wanted to create awareness of more issues within Rent like poverity, drug abuse and reaching for your dreams. I would like this to be what our production of Rent was about as it would diversities us from other productions but everyone else wanted the show to be about the emotional invovelment of characters.
We started to talk about our roles in the production other then our characters and what we can do to help our improve our show. We talked about what roles we can be in our production:
Costume designer: Freya
Set crew: Tom and Dan S
Lighting: Dan M
Front of house: Dom
Fundraising: Me, Meg, Carl and Toby
We then had a quick talk about where we wanted to perform and what equipment we wanted for the show. We all agreed we wanted to perform our production in our school hall as our stage in the hall is black and dirty so it would help set our production in the realism we want for the show. We also talked about staging and said we wanted to have an extention of the stage but on a lower platfrom so we can get some levels in our performance. Finally we decided to have our audience set up in cabaret as we belived it would set a better atmoshpere for them instead of conventional sitting.

Seasons of Love

Today we started to look at the start of Act 2, Seasons of love but we were sadly absent 2 members of our production today. We sat down around a piano as we wanted to mainly focus on the vocal side of the number as it is a very powerfully vocal number number. The 2 main harmony groups were Meg, Lorna and Tom in the high group and the rest of us in the lower group.We sung through the number after we each learnt our harmony until we reached "Measured in love" which me and Dom split off from the lower group to pick a new slightly higher harmony compared to the lower group. When we reache "Seasons of love" we split into boys and girls to sing.
Girls: "Seasons of love"
Boys: "Seasons of... love"
This is repeat each time we sing seasons of love. We then started to decide who we wanted as our soloists, we decided to give the first solo to Carl and split the second solo with Freya singing the the whole solo but having Dan S join in on the line "In bridges". We sung through the rest of the number and removed the soloist that sings behind our vocals as none of us felt that we had the vocal range to reach and match the notes they sing so we removed the soloist. We sung through the whole number and after Carl asked if he could sing his solo as a duet with someone as he was strugling to stay with the tune, so I volentered to sing with him so it's now a duet with betwen me and Carl. We sung throught the number and then stood up in a line to perform the number again.

Run Through Numbers

Today we decided to look back over everything we had done in the past as we though that we had tage a large amount of the musical numbers. We looked over the number we had staged which are:
Tune up 1
Voicemail 1
Tune up 2
Rent
Tango Maureen
Life support
Another day
Will I?
La Vie Boheme

We also decdied to run through all our numbers in the order of our show so that it almost feels like a full show run through. So we started with Tune up 1- Rent without stopping as each number went in to each other without a break. We sung through Tune up1- Tune up 2 without any problem until we reach Rent, it became clear that not everyone in the number knew the words to the song so the ending of the number fell a bit flat. We kept moving though and set the target to learn the words for when we next run that number. We ran through Tango Maureen with no problem as it was the most recent number wehad stage so we quiclky moved on to Life support which went really well as we went through the number very quick until we reached Another day. Another day was fine other than not everyone was still confident on the words or tune yet, we decided to try this number a second time as we had already went over this number recently  so we wanted to get it done and not spend any more time on this number in future lessons. We ran through Will I? with no problem so we quickly moved onto La Vie Boheme with we went through with no problem until we reach Collins "In honor" which we hadn't stage yet so as we had a bit of spare time at the end of the lesson so we tried to improvise the last part of the number till we would reach the next I should tell you which we hadn't set yet.

Tango Maureen Part 2

Today we split off again to work on our indvidual numbers as we had done the lesson before. So me, Dan M and Freya contiued to work on Tango Maureen and sorting out our opening to the number. We kept the start of the number number simple in just having us stand and sing to each other until we reach the first "Tango Maureen" which is sung by me. I then wanted to start dancing like abit of an idot becaues ithough that Mark is that type of character who would just make a fool of himself. So when I start to sing, i swing my right arm above my head roll my waist and jump closer to Freya, I then do a quick step and turn on "merry-go-round" adn pretend to be on strings when  dsing "dangling". I follow this with a knee slide towards Freya and twist my body side to side. Then get up and move away for my next line where I act as a voice of torment wondering around her putting doubts about Maureen in her mind. After this we reach where we started choreagrphing last lesson so we decided to keep going forward and polishing the steps. We then wanted to change the ending movement where we all circle aroung the stage, we wanted to move me and Freya into the centre and had us moving around the oposite direction to everyone else so we can signal me and Freya out as we're the only people who are actually there. We then went over Another day with Meg and Tom new movement within the number while the rest of us went over the words with ur harmony lines in the background in the number.

Tango Maureen Part 1

Today we split off into groups to work on seperate numbers so that we can cover a large range of the show.
Toby, Carl, Dom and Dan S went off to create the staging for all three verions of "Christmas bells". Meg and Tom went off to work on "Another day" becaues they wanted to change soem of their movement in the number. Me, Freya and Dan M created "Tango Maureen" in this lesson, Dan create a Tango stylied dance for me and Freya to perform to "Tango Maureen". We started the song half way hrought going from "Where'd you learn to tango", where me and freya meet in the middel and she leads me back and we do a 180 step turn so then leads me the other way back to the centre. On the line "you should try it in heels", Freya lifts her leg and wraps it round me. Then me and frey waltz gown stage, spin then pull back into each other again. We then spilt off till "When your dacing" which is where me and freya hold hands doing an extended leg walk. I then try to turn her freya to which she then turns me, we though this would be humours to our audienece while fitting our characters personaility. After freya turns me we join again stepping foward followed by a rise hip twist. We then split off, moving to the centre of the stage until "I'll have tangoed at all", there is then a loud beat in the music following this in which i stamp my foot throwing my right hand out to pull Freya in. We were then inspired by the movies veion of the dance to Tango Maureen and decided we would copy some of the moves from their dance as well as having others join Me and Freya while dancing.

The groups we dancing are:
Me and Freya
Toby and Dan M
Tom and Meg
Carl and Lorna
Dan S and Dom
The groups were decided bassed aroung realtionships in the show as well as who was comfortable dancing the women steps in the number. The steps for the male side of dance break are two hop steps then step legs apart. Then we turn her out while letting go but then grab her to pull her back in with another turn. Those were the steps that we liked and wanted to borrow from the film but after those steps we are back with our partner in a circle shap around the stage in which we start to travel around the stage using the step left, right, up, up with our legs. Everyone else then leave while me an Freya split off to other sides of the stage to finish singng the song which is the end of our song.
Our target for the next lesson is to polish what we have stage as well as come up with a start to the number for me and Freya.