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.

Devised dance 11th march

In today's lesson I focuses on the storyline of my dance and what emotions I wanted to focus on. I am now doing a solo dance to the song 'Gravity' by Sara Bareilles, I think that this song is really fitting to the song that I wanted to do. I am looking into the themes of relationships and abuse and it follows the story of a woman leaving a man

PAB Critita 3 video

This is a link to my criteria 3 presentation - Video

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.