Rehearsals for the Barbican Compilite Performance

On the 2nd of June me and some of our class came in to rehearse for the Barbican perfromance and we had come up with the start of the perfromance by doing a marching dance and using our props also to a Micheal Jackson song called They Dont Care About Us. 

And this is the video of what we did in the rehearsal so far. 

The Barbican Perfromance performed at Leyton

On Thursday the 21st of May we had performed our Barbican Compilicte in front of an audience. The perfromance was not so good as we had a few mistakes hapen during the performance for example I forgot my lines in the womens timeline and I put everyone of by sending of a bad vibe when I messed up. what I have to do to improve my perfromance is to remeber my lines and if I forget just move straight to the next line without showing and letting people that I messed up.  

The Theatre Trip to The Musical Wicked

On Wednesday the 20th of May me and my class went to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria.

The Songs in Our Showcase

In the show case we chose songs of our choice for the whole class to be involved in for example we chose a songs from the Musical Fame called Bring on Tomorrow.

We also chose a song from The Musical Sister Act called Raise Your Voice which we sang with the second year musical theatre also.

We also had solos that invovled the class for example a song from The Musical Wicked called Dancing Through Life.

And anouther solo that invovled the class was a song from The Musical Bugsy Malone called So You Wanna Be a Boxer. 

When performing those songs I felt the Fame song, Bring on Tomorrow was good but I felt it could of better near to the ending as we were getting to the claps during the song we should of been more smiling and more happy and interacting with others more also I thought we should of also had more facial as our face were just straight and looked like we didn't enjoy what we doing. In the Sister Act song, Raise Your Voice I felt it went good apart from when some of our costume kept on falling off but I tried to stay in character while trying to put it back on. In the solo song Dancing Through Life in Wicked I felt I was in character through out the performance and in the solo song So You Wanna Be a Boxer in Bugsy Malone I felt I was in Character at all times even when I had my little fight and had stumble of as I had my solo next so I thought I performed to the best of my ability. 

The Chicago Melody in Our Showcase

In the showcase we did a Chicago melody with 4 songs from Chicago the Musical the song we started with was All That Jazz.

The next song was a solo called When Your Good to Mama.

The next song was Cell Block Tango.

The last song was a duet and it was called  Honey Hot Rag.

In this melody I was invovled in All That Jazz, The solo When Your Good to Mama and Cell Block Tango. In All That Jazz I felt it went well in perfromance and singing, what I could of done better was keeping in time with others and projecting my voice as was not wearing a mic and making sure im in time with others in volcules. But apart from that I felt it was a good performance overall. In the solo When Your Good to Mama went well as a performance as I was play a women in prison I felt i could do more by moving more and not staying in one place but apart from that I felt that I did well. In Cell Block Tango I was playing one of the Six Merry Murderes and I was playing the sixth and her victum was Lipchitz, I felt I was playing the character quite good but I could done more by being more angry during the performance and having more agression in my movements but apart from that I felt I did what could to my best ability if only I had pushed myself more in the performance.

My group Song in the Show Case

In the show case on the 14th of May I done a trio song called Omi God in the musical called Legally Blonde along with Ruth and Cagla.

The trio song went good in the showcase, but I felt it could of gone better as the song was a really hard song for us to sing but the performance itself but I felt I could of done better when performing by being more redicoulous and also making sure I was not facing my back to the audience at times and projecting my voice more. What I could of done better was I should of been more goofy and over the top with my character and when singing the song I should sound like im saying it and come in ontime with the backing track but apart from that I felt the performance was done to the best of our ability as it was a hard song to do. And also the staging was good as we staged it and chorographed it ourselves.

My Solo in the Show Case

In the showcase that happened on the 14th of may I had a solo and I sang hopelessly devoted to you which is in the musical Grease and sang by Olivia Newton-John.

My solo in the showcase went well although I was out breath in the start of the song as my solo was after the boxer song which I took part in. I felt my solo had gone better in dress and techniqual rehearsals but apart from that I felt I could of done better and to that was to be able to know how to use a microphone as when I was belting out the chorus of the song I felt it came out a bit full on for the audience and I could also improve my performance by putting more emotion into the song as I was struggling with my volcules and I was struggling with my throat because sometimes the chorus part would come from the throat and not head voice. But apart from that I felt proud of myself coming out and performing the song best to my ability. 

  

Historical Context Presentation

In Sean's lessons we had to do historical context about a musical and I chose Chicago the musical. I had to come up with a presentation and a scrap book and I presented my presentation on either the 24th of Feb or the 4th of March.

Chicago The Musical 

Context:

Page 1: Chicago The Musical
Page 2 : The Original Broadway Production
Page 3: The History of Chicago The Musical
Page 4: The Plot
Page 5: The Main Characters
Page 6: The Characters
Page 7: The Real Murders Behind “Chicago” –         The Musical
Page 8: The Music
Page 9: Songs in Chicago The Musical
Page 10: Behind Jazz Music
Page 11:  Director
Page 12: Costumes in Chicago The Musical
Page 13: Why I chose Chicago The Musical

THE END!

Chicago The Musical:

Chicago is a musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. Set in Prohibition-era Chicago, the musical is based on a 1926 play of the same name by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins about actual criminals and crimes she reported on. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal."

The original Broadway production opened in 1975 at the 46th Street Theatre and ran for 936 performances until 1977. Bob Fosse choreographed the original production, and his style is strongly identified with the show. Following a West End debut in 1979 which ran for 600 performances, Chicago was revived on Broadway in 1996, and a year later in the West End.

The Broadway revival holds the record as the longest-running musical revival and the longest-running American musical in Broadway history, and is the second longest-running show in Broadway history, behind only The Phantom of the Opera, having played its 7,486th performance on November 23, 2014, surpassing Cats. The West End revival ran for nearly 15 years, becoming the longest-running American musical in West End history, and it has enjoyed several tours and international productions

The Original Broadway:

Chicago: A Musical Vaudeville opened on June 3, 1975 at the 46th Street Theatre, and ran for a total of 936 performances, closing on August 27, 1977. The opening night cast starred Chita Rivera as Velma Kelly, Gwen Verdon as Roxie Hart, Jerry Orbach as Billy Flynn and Barney Martin as Amos Hart. Velma Kelly had been a comparatively minor character in all versions of Chicago prior to the musical rendering. The role was fleshed out to balance Chita Rivera's role opposite Gwen Verdon's Roxie Hart.

The musical received mixed reviews. The Brechtian style of the show, which frequently dropped the fourth wall, made audiences uncomfortable. According to James Leve, "'Chicago' is cynical and subversive, exploiting American cultural mythologies in order to attack American celebrity culture."

The show opened the same year as Michael Bennett's highly successful A Chorus Line, which beat out Chicago in both ticket sales and at the Tony Awards. The show was on the verge of closing, when it ran into another setback: Gwen Verdon had to have surgery on nodes in her throat after inhaling a feather during the show's finale. The producers contemplated closing the show, but Liza Minnelli stepped in and offered to play the role of Roxie Hart in place of Verdon. Her run lasted a month, boosting the show's popularity, and Gwen Verdon recuperated and returned to the show. Later during the run, Ann Reinking, who would go on to star in the highly successful 1996 revival and choreograph that production in the style of Bob Fosse, was also a cast replacement for Roxie Hart during the show's original run.

History:

The musical Chicago is based on a play of the same name by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, who was assigned to cover the 1924 trials of accused murderers Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner for the Chicago Tribune. In the early 1920s, Chicago's press and public became riveted by the subject of homicides committed by women. Several high-profile cases arose, which generally involved women killing their lovers or husbands. These cases were tried against a backdrop of changing views of women in the Jazz age, and a long string of acquittals by Cook County juries of women murderesses (jurors at the time were all men, and convicted murderers generally faced death by hanging). A lore arose that, in Chicago, feminine or attractive women could not be convicted. The Chicago Tribune generally took a pro-prosecution "hang-them-high" stance, while still presenting the details of these women's lives. Its rivals at the Hearst papers were more pro-defendant, and employed what were derisively called "sob-sisters" – women reporters who focused on the plight, attractiveness, redemption, or grace of the women defendants. Regardless of stance, the press covered several of these women as celebrities.

Annan, the model for the character of Roxie Hart, was 23 when she was accused of the April 3, 1924,murder of Harry Kalstedt. The Tribune reported that Annan played the foxtrot record "Hula Lou" over and over for two hours before calling her husband to say she killed a man who "tried to make love to her". She was found not guilty on May 25, 1924. Velma Kelly is based on Gaertner, who was a cabaret singer, and society divorcée. The body of Walter Law was discovered slumped over the steering wheel of Gaertner's abandoned car on March 12, 1924. Two police officers testified that they had seen a woman getting into the car and shortly thereafter heard gunshots. A bottle of gin and an automatic pistol were found on the floor of the car. Gaertner was acquitted on June 6, 1924. Lawyers William Scott Stewart and W. W. O'Brien were models for a composite character in Chicago, "Billy Flynn."

Watkins' sensational columns documenting these trials proved so popular that she decided to write a play based on them. The show received both popular and critical acclaim and even made it to Broadway in 1926, running for 172 performances. Cecil B. DeMille produced a silent film version, Chicago (1927), starring former Mack Sennett bathing beauty Phyllis Haver as Roxie Hart. It was later remade as Roxie Hart (1942) starring Ginger Rogers; but, in this version, Roxie was accused of murder without having really committed it.

The Plot:

Act 1 

In the mid 1920s in Chicago, Illinois, Velma Kelly is a vaudevillian who murdered both her husband and her sister when she found them in bed together. She welcomes the audience to tonight's show ("All That Jazz"). Meanwhile, we hear of chorus girl Roxie Hart's murder of her lover, nightclub regular Fred Casely.

Act 2 

Velma again welcomes the audience with the line "Hello, Suckers," another reference to Texas Guinan, who commonly greeted her patrons with the same phrase. She informs the audience of Roxie's continual run of luck ("I Know a Girl") despite Roxie's obvious falsehoods ("Me and My Baby"). A little shy on the arithmetic, Amos proudly claims paternity, and still nobody notices him ("Mr. Cellophane"). Velma tries to show Billy all the tricks she's got planned for her trial ("When Velma Takes The Stand"). With her ego growing, Roxie has a heated argument with Billy, and fires him. She is brought back down to earth when she learns that a fellow inmate has been executed.

The Main Characters:

Velma Kelly: is one of the main characters in the successful Broadway musical Chicago. The Velma Kelly in Chicago: The Movie is a nightclub singer/vaudevillian who was accused of murder of her husband and sister. She is sent to the Cook County Jail where she hires the best soliciting lawyer, Billy Flynn. Singing and dancing, and telling her side of the story, Kelly goes through her time at jail being the star until Roxie Hart comes into the picture.

Roxanne "Roxie" Hart: is a young, sweet, sexy 20-something woman who dreams of being a famous jazz-singer. Although married to vulnerable Amos Hart, she has an affair with Fred Casely with the intention of being famous. When she eventually finds out that he can't make that happen, she kills him in anger. Arrested and desperate, the jail bait does whatever she can to achieve fame. 

The Characters:

Billy Flynn: a much sought-after lawyer who successfully manipulates the media in order to free his clients.

Matron Mama Morton: the jail matron who has set up a give-and take system with the murderesses. 

Amos hart: Roxie’s husband who willingly takes the blame for killing Fred Casely until he finds out that she was having an affair with him.

 

Mary sunshine: a kind-hearted columnist who falls for Billy’s story about Roxie’s innocence. 

Fred Casely: a nightclub regular who gets shot by his lover, Roxie. 

Merry Murderesses: the group of women who are all in jail for murder. 

The Real Murders Behind “Chicago” – The Musical :

The first murder involved the woman who would become the inspiration for Velma Kelly’s character, Belva Gaertner. Belva was a cabaret singer who allegedly murdered the man she was having an affair with after a night of drinking at the local jazz holes. The man, Walter Law, was found in the front seat of Belva’s car next to a gun and a bottle of gin, and Belva herself was found in her apartment near some blood-stained clothes. However Gaertner was acquitted a few months later on the grounds that Law could have killed himself. But before the dust could settle surrounding Gaertner’s case, another murder would capture the attention of Chicago’s jazz scene.

Beulah Sheriff-Annan, who would be fictionalized as Roxie Hart, was working at a laundry when she met the man that would become her victim. During what appeared to be an illicit meeting between her and co-worker Harry Kalstedt, she shot him and then sat listening to a record and drinking cocktails while he expired. Although her specific story changed over the course of the trial, it was clear that Beulah was the killer. Thanks to the funding and support of her inexplicably faithful husband, Albert Annan, Beulah was acquitted in short order. Yet in a move to rival the coldest femme fatale, Beulah publicly left her husband the day the trial ended.

The Music:

For example the song "All That Jazz" is a song from the 1975 musical Chicago. It has music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, and is the opening song of the musical. The title of the 1979 film, starring Roy Scheider as a character strongly resembling choreographer/stage and film director Bob Fosse, is derived from the song.

Robert Louis "Bob" Fosse (June 23, 1927 – September 23, 1987) was an American dancer, musical theatre choreographer, director, screenwriter, film director and actor.

Songs in Chicago The Musical:

Act 1

All That Jazz" – Velma Kelly and Company

"Funny Honey" – Roxie

"Cell Block Tango" – Velma and the Girls

"When You're Good to Mama" – Matron "Mama" Morton

"No" – Roxie and Boys

"All I Care About" – Billy Flynn and the Girls

"A Little Bit of Good" – Mary Sunshine

"We Both Reached for the Gun" – Billy, Roxie, Mary Sunshine

"Roxie" – Roxie and Boys

"I Can't Do It Alone" – Velma

""My Own Best Friend" – Roxie and Velma

Act 2

"I Know a Girl" – Velma

"Me and My Baby" – Roxie and Company

"Mr. Cellophane" – Amos

"When Velma Takes the Stand" – Velma and Boys

"Razzle Dazzle" – Billy and Company

"Class" – Velma and Morton

"Nowadays" – Roxie

"Finale: Nowadays/Keep It Hot" – Roxie and Velma

Behind Jazz Music:

Jazz is a genre of music that originated in Africa American communities during the late 19th and early 20th century. It emerged in many parts of the United States of independent popular musical styles; linked by the common bonds of African American and European American musical parentage with a performance orientation. Jazz spans a range of music from ragtime to the present day a period of over 100 years and has proved to be very difficult to define. Jazz makes heavy use of improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, and the swung note, as well as aspects of European harmony, American popular music, the brass band tradition, and African musical elements such as blue notes and ragtime. A musical group that plays jazz is called a jazz band. The birth of Jazz in the multicultural society of America has lead intellectuals from around the world to hail Jazz as "one of America's original art forms.

Director:

Robert Louis "Bob" Fosse (June 23, 1927 – September 23, 1987) was an American dancer, musical theatre choreographer, director, screenwriter, film director and actor.

Fosse was born in Chicago, Illinois on June 23, 1927, to a Norwegian American father, Cyril K. Fosse, and Irish-born mother, Sara Alice Fosse, the second youngest of six. He teamed up with Charles Grass, another young dancer, and began a collaboration under the name The Riff Brothers. They toured theatres throughout the Chicago area. After being recruited, Fosse was placed in the variety show Tough Situation, which toured military and naval bases in the Pacific. Fosse moved to New York with the ambition of being the new Fred Astaire.

His appearance with his first wife and dance partner Mary Ann Niles (1923–1987) in Call Me Mister brought him to the attention of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Fosse and Niles were regular performers on Your Hit Parade during its 1950-51 season, and during this season Martin and Lewis caught their act in New York's Pierre Hotel and scheduled them to appear on the Colgate Comedy Hour. Fosse was signed to a MGM contract in 1953. His early screen appearances included Give A Girl A Break, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis and Kiss Me Kate, all released in 1953. A short sequence that he choreographed in the latter (and danced with Carol Haney) brought him to the attention of Broadway producers.

Costumes in Chicago The Musical:

The costumes in Chicago the musical were quit smart and sexual revealing clothing in the 1970s for example the men would wear a simple black suit with a white shirt, tie and a fedora hat and the women's in simple dresses and vintage sequin vamp dresses in sexual clothing wear for instance in some of the songs for example cell block tango the girls are dressed in see-through clothing showing underwear with stockings or fish tights with a long black and white striped jacket. The main colours of the costumes were mostly black.

Why I chose Chicago The Musical:

I chose Chicago The Musical because I found  it quit interesting how they based on a true story with the two murders with Belva Gaertner and Beulah Sheriff-Annan, I have learned so much about this musical how it all started who directed it I've also learned that it was based on true story's which I never knew at first.

THE END !!!

Physical Theatre Performed at the Barbican

Reflection of the box

The first session of physical theatre was that we had a box sent to us full of objects and in that box there were a

• Hat
• Umbrella
• Masks
• Newspapers
• Camera
• Banners
• A ball
• A case
• And a bag of paper money

and I had to expect that my have to work with these objects with are physical theatre performance. with these objects we had to lay them out in the 9 squares and discuss what they were for and when can we use them. Then we had to get into a circle and practice throwing the object round because we are doing this somewhere in our performance.


Reflection about the reading material and choosing Emmmeline Pankhurst.


In the second session we had been given a booklet with case studies in it about women's right and we had to talk about it and show some images our selves of how it would look like if we were to do it. for example women being forced fed, women not being able to vote, women being moved or treated disrespectfully because of her colour or she's female.


We finally had to choose a case study and we all came to choosing Emmmeline Pankhurst.


Ensemble work


In session 3 we played the nine square grid and that's a game were nine people are in nine squares and the person in the middle has the ball and to start it is the person in the middle bonces the ball in her or his square first then bounces it to another square and the aim of the game is to get to the person in the middle out so you end up in the middle. We had also played another nine square game were people  were in lines on each side of the square and we had to move as a pack but in numbers so one side 4 people move at the same time then 3 people go from the other side then 2 people go from another side then 1 person and then it starts all over again.


Complicite workshop with Joyce


In the fourth session a women who had been in the Complicite named Joyce had come in to do a work shop with us at the start of the work shop she had played some games to get to know are names then we ended up playing a game were we were put into threes and we had a ball and one of us was a happy person and wants everyone to play with them, there was a person were she be selfish and not let one of the people not play and the last person was happy band wanted to join in but kept on getting rejected. We also played a game were in a group of four but a object which was are fifth person and we had to make images with women's rights by using the object that was in our group.


Freeze frames images with props


In the fifth session we did freeze frames images with props and we had to use the props as a person as well and we had to use theses props while doing images of women's rights and we had to prepare it and then perform it in front of the class and get feed back. The feedback I got back was that we had to make sure it fitted well and just develop it more.


Research into case studies


In the sixth session we had to research about the case studies that's were in our booklet and the one we had chosen for are physical theatre complicite.
We researched about women's rights, and we saw a video of the frantic assembly the chair duet and we got to do a bit of chorography with that and get feedback as well.


Case Studies

• Discrimination in the work place
• Domestic violence
• Forced marriage
• FGM

We were put into partners first to research a certain case studies and I got chosen to research about domestic violence and then bring my research for next lesson then. the next lesson I brang my research and we spoke about it then we got put into groups of which case study we wanted to do and I was put into domestic violence and we then had to create what we saw in the video of frantic assembly the chair duet and do something like that but showing domestic violence and in my group there is Sonia, Marta, Daria and Rafa and we created a sequence with this and here is a video of what we have been doing so far

Theatre trips I've been on

I've been to see Frantic Assembly's Othello at the lyric in Hammersmith on the 5th of February.

I've also been to see Liberian Girl at the Jerwood Theatre, Royal Court on the 29th of January.

 

What we've been up to in tutor

We were going over the strengths weaknesses and reflection of the Best of British Musical show case that we had just done on the 27th of January.

Musical theatre research about Complicite

Complicite


The British theatre company Complicite was founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden and Marcello Magni.
The company produced their first work in 1983. Complicite is currently more active as an international touring company than within the UK.
The company is based in London and use extreme movement to represent their work.


b) The Company's inimitable style of visual and devised theatre has an emphasis on strong, corporeal, poetic and surrealist image supporting text.
Their productions often involve dazzling use of technology, such as projection and cameras, as well as lyrical and philosophical contemplation of serious themes.


c) 3 famous production

A Disappearing Number is a 2007 play co-written and devised by the Théâtre de Complicité company and directed and conceived by English playwright Simon McBurney. It was inspired by the collaboration during the 1910s between two of the most remarkable pure mathematicians of the twentieth century, Srinivasa Ramanujan, a poor Brahmin from South India, and the Cambridge University don G.H. Hardy.
It was a co-production between the UK-based theatre company Complicite and Theatre Royal, Plymouth, and Ruhrfestspiele, Wiener Festwochen, and the Holland Festival. A Disappearing Number premiered in Plymouth in March 2007, toured internationally, and played at The Barbican Centre in Autumn 2007 and 2008, and at Lincoln Center in July 2010. It was directed by Simon McBurney with music by Nitin Sawhney. The production is 110 minutes with no intermission.
The piece was co-devised and written by the cast and the company. The cast in order of appearance: Firdous Bamji, Saskia Reeves, David Annen, Paul Bhattacharjee, Shane Shambu, Divya Kasturi and Chetna Pandya.

Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was (and continues to be) classified as comedy, but its mood defies those expectations.^[1] It has generally been called one of Shakespeare's problem plays. Originally published in the First Folio of 1623 (where it was first classified as a comedy), the play's first recorded performance occurred in 1604. The play deals with the issues of justice and mercy ("Mortality and mercy in Vienna" [Act 1, scene i]), and their relationship to virtue and sin: "Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall" (Act II, scene i). Mercy and virtue predominate, since the play does not end tragically.

The Street of Crocodiles (Polish: Sklepy cynamonowe, lit. "Cinnamon Shops") is a 1934 collection of short stories written by Bruno Schulz. First published in Polish, the collection was translated into English by Celina Wieniewska in 1963.

Singing

Today in singing we had learnt new songs for The best of British Musicals.

We sang a song from Me and My Girl the Musical called "Me and My Girl" title song

We sang a song from Oliver the Musical called Consider yourself

Dance

In dance on the 6/1/15 we had learn a new dance from The Catz Musical which will be put in to The best of  British Musicals. I found it easy to learn but the ending of the dance I still struggle with landing.

Here is a video of the dance in the catz musical which is on in the west end.  

Dance class

We have been setting the dance for masquerade that is taking place in The best of British Musicals were we are voguing and also learning how to waltz. On 6/1/15 we put it altogether as a full out dance.

Here is a photo of what we've been up to, this photo contains voguing poses. 

Contemporary photos from the rehearsal