Production roles

For my production role I was given the task of props and costume. To fit our theme of ravers and the DJ set up, I looked into bright colours and bold prints for our costumes. Like the pictures above. These I think would work really well for our basic clobbers outfits, which everyone would be wearing during the chorus numbers. I think that these costumes could also be used for most of the characters within the play, and just can be adapted with small items to define character. 

As I am playing Dr Faustus in the second half of the show, I thought about the costume that he may where. As it is later on in Faustus' life he would have more success. I thought of ways to show this to an audience, and the most successful that I came up with was to make a "Dr F" brand, with the logo. I made some shirts with the logo on them to show his wealth in the play, this matched with some basic clothes made it look quite expensive and also made it stand out from the other characters.

My second production role that I took on was the set and props during the play. I began by thinking how we can make a set, that still fits with the style of the theatre and goes of the tradition of minimalism in Elizabethan theatre. The theatre space that we are performing at has three skenes at the back of the stage, which we could hang some backdrops off them, I then went on to design the drops, it was mainly made up of the "DrF" logo with colourful splatters over it to fit in with the colour schemes that we are going off of.

Classical Theatre plays storylines.

Antigone

The story of this play is all about Power and rulership, before the story begins two brother have been fighting for the throne but they both die in the battle. This then makes Creon the new ruler, he then states that one of the brothers (Polyneices) shall be left unburied in the battle fields, and fed to the birds.

Their two sisters remain, (Antigone and Ismene). Antigone highly believes that Polyneices should have a burial, but Ismene does not agree in crossing the king Creon as those who disobey are sentenced to death.

Antigone then goes behind the Kings back and to sprinkle ritual dust over Polyneices body to allow his soul into the afterlife. The king soon finds out that someone has gone behind his back, and he sentences the 'Culprit' top death. Antigone shows pride in what she has done, and doesn't deny what she has done, even if the her sister tells her to deny her actions. she is then left in a cave to slowly die.

The blind prophet appears and warns Creon the Polyneices must be given a true burial and then he must release Antigone. Creon realises that he has done wrong after his only son disowns him. He goes to realise her but finds Antigone and his son dead in the cave, after they have killed themselves to be together. After all that Creon has caused he wishes death upon himself.

Dr Faustus

Dr Faustus is not happy with his studies in medicine, law and theology. He dicides to turn to the dark arts, and study necromancy and magic.

His servant then summons the great magicians (Valdes and Cornelious) they are the best magician and they are there to help him in his practice. Faustus is then in confusion about what to do and is visited by a good and bad angels who battle out for him to come to a conclusion.

After beginning the magic he conjured up the devils assistant (Mephistopheles), whom he makes a deal with him to sell his soul for 24 years of a free life, where he is able to do what he wants. He then signs over his soul to Lucifer by signing his blood on the deed.

Faustus begins to bargain with the devil, which brings back the angels to help him along, the then  leads to Lucifer coming and bring all of the Seven Deadly Sins before him. to make him realise all about life.

At this point Faustus becomes very wild in his life, and him and Mephistopheles go to Rome to play some tricks, while he is there becomes invisible and scares the pope and his friars. He then travels to Germany to visit the emperor who is impressed with his skills and asks him to prove his power to him, by summoning up Alexander and his paramour before him. The emperor is impressed with his skills and offers Faustus money in reward.

Next Faustus is visited by the Duke and Duchess of Vanhoult. Who he also shows off his magic too. He then fears that his life is catching himself up and he worries that his life has come to nothing. After playing all of these tricks he spends some time in his study where he is visited by an old man, who represents Faustus in a later life, who warns Faustus of all his mistakes, this brings fear on Faustus, who then conjures up Helen of Troy who he falls in love with.

After his night of passion with Helen, the clock begins to strike and he only has one bare hour left to live, he then repents to god to forgive him of his mistakes. After realising all that he has done wrong, everything catches up with him and he is dragged to hell by the devils.

Our Dr Faustus Concept

For out performance of Dr Faustus we are changing up the over all concept of the show, but with keeping the original text. Our follows Faustus as he thrives for more within the music industry. He is a DJ who wants to get fame from his art. In this he sells his soul to the devil, who is shaped as a 'hot young groupie' and he then gets 24 years to enjoy his life and have fun.


Over the years he go a bit wild and plays some tricks on lords, royalty and citizens. When the 24 years are up he then gets his life taken away and is dragged to hell. Although over the whole play we follow the original narrative, we have changed some of the character to fit our concept. 

Where Dr Faustus is a well known play, and has a very well known storyline, it is very open to changes and updating with the content that is in it. One of the main thing that we have changed is the overall concept which is about the music industry and the character of Dr Faustus being a world renouned DJ. This I think works as a concept, as it brings it bang up to date with an contempuary audeince. Giving them something to link to, and bring into their own lives.

Within our concept we have also changed some smaller details in the show, so being different characters, one that was a major change was the popes character, who we changed into a music producer figure, who follows simular attributes of Simon Cowell. This was a drastic change from the original performance, which not only linked and carryed through our themes yet added something esle to a scene that we could play off of.

Another scene that was changed would be the seven deadly sins scene, where words were changed in the script to add another element to our concept. For example during the Gluttony speech words were changed to popular fast food chains, this added some comedic elements to this character.

However I think the most significant change that was given to our concept was the use of recorded music, from sound effects to music tracks. Our production of Dr Faustus was highly reliant on the use of music, and we used it in almost every scene and scene transition. Some songs would help with the narrative and others are their to give. A break from the dialogue. I would label our use of music as our biggest adaption as it is far from anything that could have been done in the original performance, and that why I think It's important to do so as now in theatre we have the ability to use lots of different mediums to create a good production, rather than just our body's and vocals.

Rent Audition Preperation.

For our first practical assessment of my second year, we had to audition for our show. The show that I was doing was 'Rent' by Jonathon Larson. The guidelines for our audition were to prepare two songs that we are going to perform. We had to do one song from Rent and another from the other classes show West Side Show.




The songs that I choose to do were: One Song Glory from Rent and Something' Coming from West Side Story. The first song that I began to prepare was 'One Song Glory'.  I choose this song as I felt that it really fit my range and ability's as a singer. I also felt that it was a really bold and dramatic song that showed lots of sides to the character, as I wanted to showcase my skills in lots of different sides, as there were multiple characters that I was interested in playing in the show.


About a week before the audition I had booked some time with out musical director, to just go over my songs, the two songs that I have been preparing is Something's coming from west side story and One song Glory from Rent. During my session with the musical director it became clear that my stronger song was the west side story song as I had spent some time looking over the character behind the song, as well as how to perform the songs to the best way that would suit my voice. The main feedback that I got from this session was to look into the character during the rent songs.


The next time that I spent on my audition was really based on the Rent songs more than the others. The character of the song was Roger, who has had a hard life when it comes to drugs and abuse. This song is all about him achieving something before he dies of AID's. I explored different parts of the songs that would best suit each verse, for example sections could be more intense than others, and others could be more a lower tone. After exploring the different tones of the songs, I felt that my whole over all performance felt stronger.


When working on my songs one of my main hurdles was the timing and pace with the west side story song. and through this felt it necessary to work on my breathing and with this did a technique that would give me certain points in the song that I should be breathing at, to give me points to breathe to help break up the songs.

Rent Audition

I feel very positive over all with my audition, and feel that I responded well to the feedback and the questions asked during the audition. I first went in to the audition and sang my prepared rent song 'One song Glory'. I felt that this went well as I thought about what I had done before the audition when preparing for my audition. I was given advise to think more about the start note and then it set me off for the next song. I also thought a lot about the character of the story and really sold it out to the audition-er. I felt that this bring more to the song and brought it to life. I then went on to sing a bit of my west side story to show my softer side and what I could do in my slightly higher range. We then began our interview bit and i was asked some questions about what characters I liked in the play? I said that i was interested in the part of Mark, he was character I thought best suited me and my style, but i also saw a challenge in the character with his views and what he went through and why he loves to film. I was then asked to sing any of the mark songs that i knew from the show, so i sang 'What You Own' as i thought that i could show the style that i would like to give to the character.

When doing my preparation for my audition that character that I was most interested in playing was Mark. Having known the play prior and understand the characters relationships with each other. I feel that I would use my characterisation skills the best for this character, for example the character of Mark has a tone that is always quite perky and he has a lot of energy within the scenes. I would show this by raising my pitch at the end of each of my sentence, and also I would say every line as if it was a question, to portray a positive attitude.

Out of all of the character in the script I think that mark is different to all of the others as he goes on the biggest journey in my view. At the start of the text Mark doesn't have a lot in life but he still seems to make the most of it, and then as the show goes on he begins to lose a lot in terms of friendships with roger and the passing of angel. He also loses his house in one point of the show. The character of Mark could be compared to modern poverty in England, where families don't have a lot but seem to make the most of what they do have. During the audition I think I showed these emotional state best through my physicality, I kept all of my arms close to my body, to show that my character was scared and timid with what I did. But as the song went on I came more open as a character and made some more gestures. I think this showed my characters change in heart and this could be linked to the rest of the play, that as it comes to the end of the show, he learns to accept what has happened and deals with it.

I tried to show that Mark had been through a lot in my portrayal of the song, I felt that One Song Glory was a good song to pick for this as it has a lot of emotion in the lyrics, about wanting to accomplish on thing in life.

My other song that I was preparing for my audition was a song from West Side Story, this song was 'Something's Coming'. I thought that this was a good song to contrast the other song. This song was very positive and could give me the chance to move around the stage in the song. When singing the song I would reach out infront of myself and have a happy tone to my voice. The character that I was interested in playing was Tony, I thought that this was the best person to explore as I thought I really complimented the character of Mark really well, mainly because they follow

I feel that i could have done better is my response to the questions about the themes and meanings behind the play. I thought that i could have answered the questions with more detail and imaginative answers rather than the basic yet correct answers to do with the play. I felt prepared when going into the audition as i knew a fair bit about the themes and plots and the characters of the play, and when i was asked my thoughts i had some answers prepared. I felt that this audition was a very different style to what i had done before as it was a different style, as it was quite relaxed. But it meant that we could work on my audition and try out different things during it. And i think that this is a good experiences to do different auditions that might come up in the future.

Dr Faustus - Research

Dr Faustus was written by Christopher Marlowe, The original story was based in Germany and was first published in 1604, it was first published 11 years after Marlowe's death and 10 years before the first performance of the show. Dr Faustus was known as the most controversial Elizabethan play ever to be written, and critics were often known to object the nature of the original play.


Marlowe was known as one of the most influential play writes of his time, and was often know to have an impact of Shakespeare's work, who was born the same year as Marlowe. During their time it was often these two battling it out for the best play of the festivals.


in our interpretation we are basing it around current music, setting it around the concept of a clubbing scene. We have mainly shown this through the character of Faustus, being a world renowned DJ, who throughout the show getting better and better at his art, until everything crumbles around him. Other parts have been adapted to this theme, such as a lot of the references to religion in the show. One in particular would be the pope, he is now to be represented by a music producer (a Simon Cowell figure).

Notes on Historical Context - Elizabethan.

http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-theatre.html

The play that were are studying is Dr Faustus by Christopher Marlow. It is one of the original storys of selling your soul to the devil. In our version of the play we are exploring the concept of music and Dj's and how they are effected by the music industry.

The common themes of the play are: Good vs evil, power and corruption, redemption, supernatural, pride and hubris, religion, sun, wisdom and knowledge. The context of Dr faustus was first written and performed in 1592AD. Bear bating was very common in the theatre and the whole event would be filled with lots of things were going on. The theatres were filled with different classes and they would be spread over the whole theatre. With the lower classes there would be a different relationship between the actors and audiences. And audiences would really protest against the actors and throw things at them.

Theatre was seen a as a bit of a drop out and was controversial. Lord chaimbalain was there to censor the show that were ok to be but in the theatres. And Dr faustus only got into the theatres as Itnmade mockery of the Catholics and during Elizabethan era they were not in good terms with Catholics. 

Costumes during the Elizabethan era were very periodic, and would be very traditional. And as times grew and got even more modern the costumes would remain the same. And we're lighting would come into it.