22.05.2015

We also tried out the seating arrangements for the audience, as we are including VIP seating 

which will be on the floor, we are going to try have 4-6 VIP tables, which can seat up to 5 people

In today's lesson at Pelham we ran through the show from the opening scene until scene 7. I have wanted to do a run through for a couple of weeks now and I feel it is important to keep having runs every week now as it will help us to improve the transitions and the scenes rather than doing each scene separately.

The main points of the show which need improving we learned from this run through is that our transitions need working on and that our scenes need to be much more sharp and up beat. We received feedback at the end of our run through and the main points we need to improve on are: 

• Transitions need to be quicker and sharper
• All the acting needs to be bigger and more "epic"
• Characterisation needs to go even further(gests of characters)
• We all need to be more confident with the epic style acting, and act out to the audience and try not to look at each other when performing, we need to peform to the audience at all times, even if we are having a conversation in character)

I think the feedback we received was really accurate and helpful, and I agreed with the feedback. I feel everyone character's are really coming along, and we all have individual gests for our characters, but we all just need to play around with these gests more, and portray them to the audience. We all need to get into the habit of ALWAYS using gest,we each 3 different gests, which we can alternate between in scenes, I feel even if our characters are not speaking or being active on the stage, we can still use our gests, just because it is not in the stage directions does not mean we cannot do it, I think it will  look so much stronger if the characters who are not speaking or moving, still perform their gests to the audience, this way the audience will recognise that this is a very stylised performance right from the start.

The main concern for me are the transitions. I did push for a run through a couple weeks back but it did not happen, and this is why I really wanted to start doing a run through as soon as possible, as this is the time where we can see exactly how the scenes flow, and begin to devise the transitions. I feel getting into all of the scenes was quite slow, and at times I did not even know which scene was next, because we had never spoken about any transitions, so it was a bit messy. But I am glad we did this run through, and although I am not going to be in lesson next Friday, due to a training week in Yorkshire I have to attend in order to continue into my plans to move to South Africa for the Summer, I really hope we do another run through, and when I get back the transitions will be smoother and more sharp. And I will definitely be asking my classmates for updates on the performance whilst I am away.

In today's rehearsal we also started to discuss the theme of our play, which is 1930's Speakeasy. And I volunteered to research into Speakeasy's, and what they looked like, what the themes were, get an idea of the feeling of being inside and what actually went on behind the closed doors of Speakeasy's.

From research I found out that Speakeasy's, where also called "Blind tiger" or "Blind Pig" where an underground ILLEGAL establishment which sound alcohol and cigarettes during the Prohibition era. The prohibtion in the U.S.A began in the 1920's and ended in 1933. After 1933, Speakeasy's quickly vanished and did not really exist anymore, and nowadays, Speakeasy's are a term for a retro style bar or club, as Speakeasy themes are so popular and sort after.

Lower class establishments were named "blind pig or blind tigers" and sold cheaper alcoholic beverages, and were not as nicely decorated inside. Speakeasy's where generally for middle/upper class and would offer more up market alcohol, popular jazz groups, better furnishings and better food. Most Speakeasy's would use an animal as an attraction, and would charge customers to see the animal perform. 

When Speakeasy's first came into the U.S.A, they would offer little or no entertainment and simply a few bottles of raw alcohol, normally gin or whiskey, and would attract a few people at a time. But as they became more popular, they developed massively and speakeasy's became much more glamorous and exciting. 

Themes of Speakeasy's where very glamorous after they became more popular, and it was usually very dimly lit, with candles and different coloured lampshades for decoration. It was quite basic, but looked glamorous and vibrant. Men and women would dress up for Speakeasy's and it even created its own fashion style, women would wear sparkly beaded dresses, with sheer material and would wear a lot of jewellery and hair pieces, and the men would wear black and white suits with bowler hats and braces. 

We came up with ideas in today's lesson about having black or red table cloths to cover the tables we will use for the VIP areas, and to have empty alcohol bottles on the tables with a flower inside, to create the vintage look. And we could have coloured curtains draped over the walls, and it would be nice to have candles just for decoration, as we cannot light them due to health and safety. I think we need different materials to hang around the hall and old style lampshades we can find online or in town, and it will look really nice, as the speakeasy style is quite simple, it just needs to have a lot of character and decoration. The 1930's style Lampshades were very detailed and had fringed tassles and beads, we could probably find lampshades like this in vintage shops in town or in a few of the second hand shops in the laines near thePelham campus. I will share my research with the group and see what they think about the themes and ideas. I think the colours should be golds, pinks(like the lampshade below) blacks, reds and possibly yellows.