Panto Show 1

This morning was my first show in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Everything ran pretty smoothly and I found working in the costumes fairly easy after I found a way of tightening them so the heads didn't fall off. The only hiccup was with a stage hand just before the finale when hpthey wouldn't let us on stage.

Ruby Rehearsal 9

In Ruby this week we attempted a full run through of both acts to make sure everyone was confident in what they were doing before the shows next week. We started on Act 2 and ran that before we ran scene 4 from Act 1 and the harmonies that go in it. Just before we left we ran through the flash mob section s that we coul all go away and learn it for next week.

Panto Rehearsal 5

Again we arrived in the venue for 2 so we could start a dress run, again with the red team. The blue team did a lot of sitting around making notes as things in our dwarf scenes were changed because it was the first time that we were able to see the size of the costumes.

Panto Rehearsal 4

We arrived at 2 to start a tech run through of the show with the red team who would be performing on the Saturday. We started on the opening and worked slowly through the show, re blocking scenes as we went to suit the size of the William Aston hall.

Panto Rehearsal 3

Today we tried on our costumes so we could get a feel for the size of them and check if they needed mending or adjusting. Then we added the second half of our big scene and ran it from the top twice.

4-12-12

After rehearsals finished at 6 I wet straight to Bitesize to  join in with drama and casting. In drama we did improvisation and played games, like Hello my name is Joe etc. And in casting we tried out method acting. I had to find a way to tell my partner who was being a young child that their grandpa had passed away in hospital. After a couple of attempts to get into the right frame of mind to actually tak eit seriously I think that we did a fairly good job!

Panto Rehearsal 2

Tuesday was the second panto rehearsal. We went over the Dance and scenes that we did on Sunday and then did the first half of our biggest scene. I used our spare time to take down some notes in my note book just in case anyone forgot anything.

Panto Rehearsal 1

Sunday was the first Panto rehearsal. We found out which dwarves we would be playing (I'm Dosey) and we learnt our dance and two of the shorter dwarf scenes. We had to bear in mind with the dance that we would be wearing big costumes so we had to adapt our movements to allow for the fact we wouldnt have ideal clothes to move freely in.

27-11-12

The Bitesize Christmas Concert!
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The first thing we did was the One Night Only dance. We all thought it went very, especially after we had to re-choreograph the middle section after Meg was rushed to A&E.
The drama Mummers play also went very well, with some excellent improvisation from most people when lines were forgotten.
The Matilda routine was probably the best thing of the evening because everyone knew what they were doing and didnt make half as many mistakes :)

20-11-12

This was the last week of practising before the Christmas concert in Bitesize. We ran the dance and recorded it if we needed to so we could learn it at home as well. In drama we ran the Mummers play from the top with sound and music and full blocking. We spent half of casting working on our Matilda routine and the other half working on our new monologues in partners. My partner told me that I really need to slow down so I have taken that on board too :)

Ruby Rehearsal 7

Moved onto Act 2! HOORAY! This week we looked over the whole of Act 2 with Martyn and the recording and even added some choreography to a couple of the scenes! We had lots to do this we and got it all done! Well done everyone! We ran over all the singing roughly (without Sam to drill the harmonies into us!) So that in the next rehearsal we could perfect everything ready for the shows in just a few weeks!

Extra Ruby Rehearsal

Yesterday we had to go to Bitesize where we met up with Mr. Swain (From Ruby)  For an hours rehearsal so we didnt have to miss school on Wednesday to go to Leeds for another rehearsal. We ran through the scenes 4, 5, and 6 to re-choreograph them so that they worked in the theatre's new set up. Thank You very much Mr. Swain for coming all the way from Leeds!

The Ruby Poster

My Dragon for Drama

Ruby Rehearsal 6

Today we were told that rather than having the audience sitting at the front of the performance area we would instead perform with the audience around us ( so the theatre was In the round).
So we went through the scenes we had already done, up to scene 5, to block them again to suit the new set up.

6-11-12

In dance we ran briefly through the whole routine to give everyone an idea as to what we would be working on in the next 3 weeks leading up to the christmas show. In drama we began to block the Mummers play and got up to the 5th page. We continued to learn the choreography for the Matilda song we are doing in casting as part of the Tuesday and Thursday christmas shows.

Ruby Rehearsal 5

In the 5th rehearsal we attempted a full run through of Act 1. We got up to scene 4 in the 3 hours and polished up the parts in scene 4 we were unsure of.

Ruby Rehearsal 4

On Sunday we were again in Leeds. This week we had a music run through of scenes 2, 3 and 4 to add in the harmonies and polish up the notes. Then we ran through the three scenes and the choreography to make sure that everyone knew what they were doing ready for the next rehearsals run through of the whole of act 1.

23-10-12

Dance
We continued work on our dance from the panto auditions after learning 3 new warm ups and watching a presentation on different styles of dance and the different techniques they use and the stories they tell.

Drama
We worked, in small groups, on our parts of the play before the younger group came in to show us their version of Scrooge, which was also coming along nicely.

Casting
We polished up the routine that we learnt last week and tweaked a few steps so that everyone could be doing the same thing at once, one of the things that we also looked at in dance.

Ruby Rehearsal 3

In Leeds again for the third rehearsal of Ruby and the 13th door. We cast our kid 5 for scene 5 and have already got a whole act! Its not quite perfect yet but after three two hour long rehearsals its not bad going so far!

16-10-12

Bitesize Casting Dance and Drama

Again in dance we worked on the lifts and put in a couple of more difficult lifts because we were coping quite well with the others.
In Drama we cast our Mumma's play for the winter show, I will be playing the dragon.
In casting we worked on our choreography for Naughty from Matilda, also for the winter show.

Ruby Rehearsal 2

On Sunday we were back in Leeds to rehearse again for Ruby. We had to arrive 15 minutes earlier to do a mini audition for Kids1, 2, and 3. Those parts were, in the end, given to boys. After that Sam, the musical director arrived and we sang through scenes 2, 3 and 4 before we choreographed them after a ten minute break with Beth, Donna, and Charlotte. Next week we will have to stay for an extra hour because there is a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in!

St Asaph

On Monday the Thursday musical theatre group went over to the St Asaph cathedral to sing in their celebration service to raise funds for Reactivate, the part of bitesize that allows disabled children and teenagers to experience drama. We sang a song from Godspell, a song from Rent, and a song from Jesus Christ Superstar.

9-10-12

Another Tuesday in Bitesize doing dance drama and casting. We tried some simple lifts in dance class as an opening to the routine we had used to audition for Snow White. Then in drama with Lisa we tried some stage fighting, which we choreographed ourselves! We also found out that the fight didn't have to be all punching and hitting. My partner an I tried a simple yet effective thumb war! Then in casting we did some simple improvisation only allowed to use 10 short sentences. Unfortunately when ordering my fish and chips we ran out of lines before I could pay for them!

1st Ruby Rehearsal 7-10-12

Today we were up nice and early to get to Leeds for the first rehearsal of Ruby and the 13th Door, A new musical by Martyn Swain based on the Grimms fairy story called "Fairy Tell-True" which is about a woodcutter's daughter, Ruby whose family can barely afford to live is taken away to Cloudworld by the good fairy Tell-True. When the kids of Cloudworld misbehave Ruby is left in charge of Cloudworld and its 13 doors, with a warning not to open the 13th door!  And of course she does and lies to the good fairy 3 times so is banished to the forest of thorns. Ruby lives there for many years, struck dumb by the fairy, and learns to sing with the birds. The young emerald Prince discovers Ruby and falls in love with her. The promptly get married and the Prince's love melts the fairy's spell and Ruby can speak again. Ruby and the Prince have a son who is taken away by the good fairy when she comes to Ruby in the night and once again Ruby lies about the door. The ladies in waiting then see Ruby crying at the window with the baby gone. They presume she has thrown the baby out of the window and Ruby has a trial for murder. She is announced guilty and is to be burned at the stake. Just at the moment before she is engulfed by flames she tells the fairy the truth and the kids on Cloudworld make it rain to put out the flames. The moral of the story is "tell the truth and you will be forgiven."

In rehearsals we sang through scenes 1 and 2 after we were given a full script and timetable of rehearsals. Then after a 10 minute break we learnt the choreography to go with the first sing the Cloudworld kids sing, Welcome to Cloudworld. It was a fun dance with partnerwork and skipping.

Friday's Panto Audition

Last Friday (28-9-12) a group of us from Bitesize went together to Glyndwr to audition for the senior chorus in this years pant, Snow White. When we got there we all went down to the end of the corridor to warm up out of the way of everyone else. When we got back after a thorough warm up we all sat down in a group and got ready to go into the audition. A couple of girls came up to us and started bragging about how good they were and asking us what we did, like dance practice, and told us they danced for 6 hours 6 days a week. They asked us if we were nervous, and of course we all were a bit.

When we got into the audition we were given a number and asked by some volunteers to fill in a form about ourselves. Then we were asked to go onto the stage and space ourselves out to learn a dance.

The dance itself was quite nice but the lady who was teaching it to us went through it very quickly and when she played the music it was very, very fast. Had we gone through it more slowly and in depth then I would have had no problem with it but I struggled slightly. When I wasn't sure what came next I made sure to smile and perform, even if it was wrong. I think this helped me a lot because I was given the part of one of the 7 dwarves!

I am very happy with the result and I can't wait to start rehearsals. I wasn't the only one who got a part because a couple of others got in as dwarves, a few got to be in the junior dancers and four were chosen as the senior chorus!

Bitesize Dance, Drama & Casting 2-10-12

In dance the ones of us who had auditioned for pantomime on Friday told Meg what we found difficult about the dancing we had to do. I found the remembering of the steps after only going through them quickly difficult so Megan said that in class we would work on learning dances more quickly like we would be expected to in an audition. Other people explained what they found difficult like the terms that were used for dance steps were different to what we normally use (for example a grape vine one of the boys said was referred to as a step ball change ball change) So we decided that we would go though  some other dance terms for steps that we might come across in auditions in the future.

After that we were split into groups of three and given 8 bars of 8 to come up with a short dance in our threes. During the time we had Megan would stop us and tell us things we had to include, such as jazz slide and turn finishing in second position, so we had to stop and alter parts of the dance to fit these things in. We all decided to contribute our own bits to the dance by putting in bits of our favourite style, I added a bit of ballet, another person put in some hip-hop, and another put in modern, so that our dance varied in styles and speed. Then we were given a few pieces of music to dance the dance to and when we had to show the rest of the group what we had done Megan put on a different piece of music that we had to dance to so we had to think on the spot an count the beats in our heads so that it worked.

In drama Lisa gave us the script for the christmas play we would be doing, which was called "The Peace Egg" and is an old fashioned Mummers play. A Mummers play is a play that was performed at christmas time by a group of actors who went around peoples houses and performed for them, it was the early version of a pantomime. After we read through the script in parts (with some very dodgy Irish, Scottish, and Welsh accents!) we discussed what sort of music, songs, and effects we could add to our version of the play. We suggested for the fights some dramatic music and to show what a mummers play is about we could have someone pretending to be the person who has opened the door to watch the play performed outside. We thought that because the play is quite long the person at the door could, towards the end, get quite bored and sit down or maybe even shut the door.

In casting we talked more about auditions, the people you might come across there, and what kind of parts we would be put up for. I explained to the group what I thought of the audition and that we didn't actually do any singing or acting, that it was all dance. I also told everyone about the couple of girls that were there that came up to our group and started bragging about how they had been in that pantomime before and they trained for six hours six days a week. None of us liked them because they were overly forward and although they were good at dance they had no facial expression or performance about them like we have been taught at Bitesize. Then Linda asked a few of us to stand up at a time and gave the group the description of the type of person the casting director wanted to to play a particular role. Then as a group we decided who would fit that part best and Linda told us if we were right, she would put that person up for that audition. The group decided that I would be best for a part in a victorian film or play because of my face and hair.