Rent (Friday 25th September) speed runs and Staging

IIn this lesson we all thought that it would really benefit our understanding of the play if we did a speed run of the show, this it where you perform every scene but you only mention key lines of the scene or facts that change the cause of events. We were split off into two groups and the group that I was in was given act two, I was really pleased with this act as it was the one that I was the most unsure about at this point.


Within my group I played the part of Mark as he is my character and also appearing in most scenes throughout the second act. The key parts of the act that I suggested we focused on was the breaking back into the flat, the fight between Maureen and Joanne, we also included Angels death, the fight between everyone and then when everyone helps Mimi out of a bad place.


When it came to the run I think I paid more attention to my characters journey through the play, and how he was effected by things that were going on. I think that my character gets caught up in everything to much and people always drag him into everything when it isn't always his fault. My characters journey through the play is always very sudden, as he seems to go from on thing to another, whether it's splitting from is partner at the start then to his friends dying. And I think that doing the speed run makes it clear how one thing leads to another

We then spoke about the theatrical conventions of the play. This is the rules that you make up for your own play, these can include staging and things that you do on stage, and things that characters can do. For our play we mainly looked at the staging and the different areas of our set, things like you can't come out of the flat area without going up the stairs and going round. Things like this makes the play seem more planned out and life like for the audience and can also help to create a world of the play for us actors. Our staging is called 'Imersive' theatre, this is a mixture of traverse and in the round, as we have our audience all around us but then inbetween the audience sections we have staging, where we can put scenes or songs, this makes the audience feel more involved and part of the scene. This style of theatre explores breaking the fourth wall between the actors and the audience. This works well with my character in particular I think, as my character has some narration and some of his songs help to keep the the story rolling.

This photo is in credit of Emily D'Agostino

My own target for the next lesson is to familiarise myself more with the songs 'will i' and 'life support'. As this is what we will be working on soon. 

15th January - Full Run of the show

This was the first time that we ran the show as a whole and this is the time that i first saw the show come together and got to exprience my characters journey through the play, going from scene to scene.  The main highlights that stood out for me were the opening and have the interation with the audience during my opening monologue and the opening tune up songs. I felt that this worked really well as a settled, calm start then kicking into the big up tempo song that is 'Rent'. 

The next part that stood out for me was Youll See Boys. This songs worked really well and i felt that the character relationships really bloomed in this song during this song. I started to realise the hatrid that my character would be feeling towards Benny and as the scene went on i could start to get a hatrid and could feel myself getting wound up by the actor playing him, i think these feelings that we all had for each other and with the blocking this scene really came alive for me during this run.

In this run i was also really happy with how well the song La Vi Boheme went, i think that now that we were in the space the movement that we had created during this song really worked. I wasnt sure if what we had blocked for it in the studio would be to crowded in the theatre with the set, but i think it being crowded worked well to make the scene seem heptic. The only note that i had after this song was that i think the cast needs to be fully frozen when we pan over to Roger and Mimi on the scaffolding. As i think there needs to be a lul in the action during their song before it all explodes again in La Vi Boheme B. 

During the second act we only got up to the song 'Seasons of Love B' so i didnt have to many songs to do in this run for the second act. But two songs that stood out for me were Happy New Year and Happy New Year B as i think this was a really strong song for the characters relationships to bloom and come alive. I felt a strong connection with the Mimi's in Happy New Year, as we got to do some improvisation together as we dont get many scenes together and the other relationships i found grew was me and Roger in Happy New Year B as i found my self being caring for Roger, as he got angry with Benny/Betty i was always there to console him and calm him down. 

Production Roles

My first production role is costume, i was given the task to sort out my own costume and the character of Angels. I tought that this character would be fun to plan the costume for as it would have lots of bright colours and patterns. 

The first costume the Angel wearing in the show is the classic Mrs Christmas Costume, we had brought some zebra tights which it says about in the characters profile, with the combination  the red dress and the other patterns that she would be wearing it would gie the classic drag queen look where there is a lot going on in the look. 

For the other costumes we kept the theme of bright and patterns and putting things together that dont work together. I think that all of Angels costume in the show looked really good and worked really well in contrast to the story line that she tells throughout the show, as she tells a serious story about people living with AID's and HIV but then in contrast she wears a happy, playful costume.

For my own costume i kept it very simular to the original cast cotume. This was a knitted jumper which i thought about changing through out the show and then a blue and white striped scalf. This i think defines the character of mark and is a part of the show that people would recognise. I dont wear glasses myslef but i found it important for my character too, i saw this as an element of himself that made him stand out from everyone else as nobody else in the show does. 

My second production role was to make Marks film that is shown throughout the show. I dont have many skills in media and editing so i did it alongside someone else in the cast. I took a big lead on how i wanted it to look, i felt that i should be heavily focused on the homeless, so we set up some homeless scenes using the cast and others. This I think created very powerful shots as we panned across the homeless people and saw them all sat outside. The other focus that i thought would have worked well is the characters relationships with each other. We did a lot of shots of people together laughing and having a nice time, but i also found it powerful to not have my character in the film at all as it highlighted the fact of my characters lonleyness and him keeping himself to himself.

11th December - Act 2 Sing through

We had a shorted rehearsal on this day so we spent the time focusing on the songs in the second act and things that we would have to have some more focus on.

Out of act two the songs that i felt the most worried about were:

What You Own...this song is a big number in the second act as it is the only up tempo song that happens about angel passes away. This is a big energy change in the act as it a big contrast to everything else in the scene. I was feeling confident with the technicalitys of the song and now knew how to sing it and was feeling confident with my notes. The only thing that i wanted to spend more time on was the feeling of the song, and how i would aim the song and who i would deliver it to. The blocking shows that i aim the first half of the song to the audience and then in the later parts roger comes back and we sing to each other and then we sing at each other. I think this song would come to life once  we put it into the space a see how it look when working with the set. 

As we are getting closer to the show i am feeling more confident with the songs that i have got and i am starting to see a flow with the songs that i have and now i want to look into my character journe through out the songs, rather then seeing them as seperate songs.

10th December - Mark and Rogers Flat Development

In this rehearsal we looked into all o the songs and scenes that were set inside the flat. We wrote them all down on the board and went through what each scene entailed and how we felt that the blocking was working in the scene. We then split the scenes up and were all given a couple to focus on. I was given the songs 'Youll See Boys' and Today for You'. 

Both of the scenes that i got had the same problem with their blocking i feel. I felt that they were all to busy and there were to many people in the scenes to handle and it drew away from the conversation and what was going on. In some of our drama rehearsal technique lesson we looked a game where there is a rule where at all times someone has to be seated, someone lying down and someone standing up. I thought that we could adapt this game into the scene, that when we saw at least one character move around the stage, or change postions, everyone else in the scene would have to re-position themselves. 

Once we put this into practice it worked really well for the song 'Youll see Boys' as there is five people in the scene it always felt clustered and crowded. But by adding in this rule it gave the song a flow and from this we could then add in some more character relationships and i could now feel some room to explore the hatrid towards Benny/Betty. This rule didnt work as well for the song 'Today 4 You' as this song is mainly all about Angel and is her/his big entrace song. I suggested that we still kept this three positioning rule concept but adapted it futher to angel being the central revolve of the scene and us three other characters would keep moving around her to make her seem like the Sun compared to us.

From everyone elses feedback about the flat scenes i learnt that my character spends a lot of time in this setting, particularly in the first act. I want to think more about my surroundings and objects in the flat. We sat down with our director and everyone that is often in the flat and we went through some things that gave the flat purpose. By setting the world of the play it gave me somethings to base each scene off and gave me some movement plans and i could start to plan some pathways within the songs. We have now put a couch at the other end of the flat and some tables and objects to give the space purpose and worth.

High School Workshops

Durrington High School - Workshop

Durrington high school is one of the local high school in our college area. We took a selection of the songs from rent down to their school to advitice the show and do a workshop activity with them.

Out of the songs we performed here the song i felt that i found went best was 'Santa Fe'. The actor playing Collins in this song did forget some of the lyrics but as a performance i feel that it went well in terms of the chreography. I had spent a lot of time on my movements and coming up with gestures that i could do during the song. I felt that I always stayed in my character and didnt have any tim where i was just sitting there. I explored the different ways of filming the train and the passangers. I also did some mimed movements, i feel that this helped fill the scene and make everything come to life. I did things like read a newspaper and talk to others on the train.

If we were to have done more work on our workshop performances i would have liked to spend more time on our transitions and how we linked each of the songs to others. i would have either done it smoothly and promptley, which would have given it a professional touch. The other opotion that i think would have worked would have been to do it in a stylised way, either to a piece of music or to a beat that would have fit the next song. 

For the work shop we did a chair duet excerise, this linked to the song 'Santa Fe' which we performed. This also gave the students a chance to get up on their feet. I was with a pair of boys and we looked at different ways of manipulating each other and how we could control each others movements. They worked really well with each other and also responded well to any of the feedback i gave them.

Worthing High School - Workshop

We did our second workshop performance as worthing high school which is my old school and is quite close to the college its self. We did the same selection of songs that we did at the last one. I felt that this workshop went much better with the timing of the songs and the whole flow of the piece, but we had quite a few people missing in this performance as they were doing another show. This then meant for one of the songs 'Will I' i had to do my part on my own, which i would normally do with two ther boys, i had to then start off the solo part on my own and then this meant that i had to pay extra attention on my projection and making the words clear as i had to sing over the top of the other groups. This then went on to be the one of the best songs in the performance as the feekback that we got was on how effective it was and how the audience could really feel the emotion of it. 

I thought that the tranisions all worked a bit better in this workshop, this may have been because we were more familuar with the order of the songs and the way it all flowed with each other. We did the same exercise with these students as we did before, this was as effective as it was before and we all worked really well with each other. What i enjoyed the most from doing these is listening to what the audience thought of the show and what they understood about the story lines. I spoke to some studnets about my character and how they saw him compared to others. They all had the general idea that my character was quite and kept himself to himself.

Lesson 9 (Chair duets for Santa Fe) Thursday 8th October

In this lesson we began to do work on the song 'Santa Fe' in the original script and play it is set on the subway in new york. we wanted to keep this in our version of the show, for this scene we we still setting it on the subway but we were going to show the through Frantic Assemblys technique of Chair Duets, i felt confident witht eh style of performing and physical theatre movement. So i naturally took a lead on organising this scene and how each duet would link into each other. 

We started by going off into our pairs and making up 4 counts of 3 to put into our duets, i found this easy to come up with and me and my partner ended up finishing the duet quickly so we brought in a third person to our movement sequence. his gave us more oppotunitys to add in some more dynamic movements into our piece. We looked into using the chairs more and explored swapping areas and levels with each other. 

When we brought the duets together and placed them all in the space we put them in a traverse style, straight down the centre of the performance space. I suggested to put it on an angle going from one corner to the other. This then gave each audience group a different view. section A would get a view straight down the centre of the isle and the other two sections would be able to see through the pairs. 

once we had brought these duets together and put it to the song of 'Santa Fe', we looked at places within the song that we thought this non-naturalistic style of movement would work best. I suggested that it would work n the more more choral sections of the song, as the pace and tempo are picked up and then this was the section when everything came to life. For the rest of the ong when the character of Collins is singing the rest of us would be doing pedestrian movements to give it the illution of the train. I focused mainly on filming for my character and documenting what was going on. This worked well. i played around with levels in this song, and going around to everyone involved. What i found interesting about this was the different characters reactions  me filming them and how i would treat it. I felt more natural doing it to the characters that i was close with, like Roger, Collins and Angel. However everyone else on the scene wouldnt be as willing to be filmed and i would have to go around it in a calmer way. I did this by first making eye contact with them, in a wa y of getting permission from them, then being a bit slower while filming, to not be to intense.

I felt that this rehearsal of blocking and choregraphing this song went really well for me and i felt that this was one of the most productve lessons that i have had so far. I feel that i gave plenty of advice to the cast and suggested ways on how we could set things and try out new ways of doing it. To take this scene and song further i will look into more pedestrain movements to fill out time when me character is not doing anything else in the scene. 

Rent Evaluation

I was over all really pleased with my performance and participaton in Rent. I feel that i showed good understanding of my character. Including his relationships to other characters in the world of the play, is life during the play and what was going on around the play. I think that it was clear to the audience that i had spent time thinking of my character and how i wanted each scene and song to come across.

During the first show i feel that rushed my opening monolgue. as the first thing that the audience hear in the play, i felt that it need to be a big impact and be right in their face. In reflection after my first performance i think that i rushed it and just blurted it out, and this may have come across to the audience in a blurr and not given them time to take in the most important bits that may take part in the story. Inbetween the tw shows I spent some time thinking about the main focuses of the speech, i put extra empasis on these words to highlight them to the audeince. the main part that i wanted to get across to them was the darker side to the characters lives, and how much they would have to struggle. i did this by making it seem that everything was worse than it was. I think that this was a big improvment to the show as it ended up forshadowing to the audience how the musical would entail, that not everything is bright and happy but there is always around everything.

Another highlight to what i found went well in the shwos were the songs Tango Maureen. I think hat this song came to life in the show and really benifited the extra push that it got during the performance. This song always worked well with the comical timing, and the relationship between Mark and Joanne really worked well, and showed the audience the awkward tension between an Ex and the current partner. In the first show i think that it worked really well was therelationship between me and the girl playing Joanne as we bounced off of each other and made each others lines glow further. Whereas in the second show i think that the song as a whole worked better, as we kept up the same relationship connection in the song but as a performance it worked well. the dance sequence in this song went really well and I felt confident as I performed my sections in the song.

In the opening song 'Rent' i feel that this could have been really striking to the audienc with a little extra push, i was happy with the shape and feel from this song from quite early on in the show. but i think that during the show with an extra little push it could have really poped to the audience. within the song on the show i was happy with my tone in the song. I highlighted the grungy side to the life of the characters, i showed this by harshening my toneing of my words and cutting off sounds quicker than i would have before. 

Where i felt that I worked the best as a group in both shows would have been the song "Will I' i felt that as a cast we united within this song, the timing worked well in this song, and the emotion really came across as we stood together and listened to everyone singing there verses in order, before singing it in the round. In comparision to this feeling of working together really well, i think that the song 'Chrsitmas Bells' could have been a stood out more in the show, but i think that the energy in this song was lower compared to the rest of the show. If we were to do this song again and take it further i would look inott he staging of it and work on giving it a big entrance, and start the song with higher energy for it carry though with.

My main strength in act one over the both shows, was the song 'La Vi Boheme'. This sis the last song in the act and i really pushed this song to give the ending a big hit and give the audience a big song to remember  between the acts. In the second show I had a technical problem with this song, witht he tables, my character of Mark spends a lot of time dancing on the tables during this song, but during the set change over to this scene the tables were not level in this scene so when i go up on the tables i felt a bit resticted in my movement, just incase i fell. However in both performances of this song i gave full energy to push the ending of the act.

In the second act a section that i was really happy with was my realtionship with Sophie in the second show, she played the part of Maureen and i really played up the anoyying, picking side to makr towards her. This really came to life for me within the show. As it played to the fact that my character could see Maureen getting more and more aggitated as I wound her up and Joanne wouldnt speak to her.

As the second act of rent is in the style of Precis Theatre, this is where a large amount of time, in this case a year in the second act. And then precis is where you condence in down into a shorter time and only focus on the key features. To make this work my character worked as a narrator to the audience, i think that this worked better in the second act, as i felt a stronger connection to the audeince and i found it easier to get the tone across as the audience, i think this is because the second act had a better flow and made more sense as a whole in comparison to the first act. 

My highlight in the second act was the song What You Own' this song for me was a late bloomer and didnt fully come together until the week before the show really. I orginally had some difficultys with the timing of the song. but once this was sorted, the connections came to life, the main connection was between my haracter and the audience, as i played the majority of the song out to the audeince, in an intense way. This was a stong song and was a big change to the other songs before it as they were all quite negitive and sad, then this song came in a was a big soul lifter and postive way to end the act. 

The only part that i would have like to take futher and work on to progress was the song 'Halloween' this is my solo song in the second act, and i felt confident with ocals and the way that i was singing it, where as i wasnt confident with the feel of it. I think that this is because it was straight after a big powerful song and the stage was still filled with the funeral goers. I think that this song would ahve been a lot more powerful , in a spotlight, with an empty stage. This would have highlighted y characters lonleyness and his isolation.

Over all i was really happy with my perfomrance in this show and was proud of every song and scene that i was part of in the show. The way that me and the cast takled the fun songs, such as La Vi Boheme and Today for you etc was really striking and powerful, but on the other hand we were really strong with the seroius song and we protrayed them with wit and mindfulness.  This was shown by the audiences feedback which was thriving.