Community Notice Board - Week Three

Week Three - Week Four 2008

Week Three: Movement and Improvisation

(New faces such as Jason and Carmen, and Matt, Karen, Kim and Michelle)

One of my favoured approaches to journal writing is the consistent reflection of my personal progress, with that of the unit objectives. As these are the aims of the unit, focusing on them will allow you to achieve great academic and personal growth. As these objectives are how you are to be assessed, ask yourself questions. How will I achieve these objectives? Why are they important? And at the end of your process you can reflect back on your success of achieving these goals...

	To develop (as applicable) production process skills
	To develop (as applicable) performance skills
	To develop an understanding of collaborative/ensemble work in the theatre
	To develop a critical awareness of the tenets of T.I.E (Theatre in Education)
	To develop an awareness of the demands of a professional theatre company for efficiency, responsibility and commitment in theatre practice.

Andrew Kocsis

(Students work with old Children's Theatre Scripts)

(Creating new interpretations...

(...of previous unit productions)

tommorrow we are painting a couple of large boards for the back drop at 10 am in the nexus
theatre if anyone is interested in coming down who wasnt at the charcoaling last week. meet
out the front of the theatre (its next to kim beasly lect hall)

unfortunately i wont be there so if someone could take down the names of the volunteers for
me that would be a huge help.

cheers and see u all in class on wed!

Brad Minchin

(Lindsay charcoaling the last of the backdrop)

Week Four

(Another movement workshop, this time focusing on Commedia dell'arte)

hey again peoples
just sending on a message from tim today, Next wed we have a production meeting at 8:30 for people who are/want to be involved in that side of things. This includes anyone who thinks they may like to partake in the production side as well as act, as most of us are going to have to take on more than one role to make it work. We only had about 6 people there today, so we are going to need a lot more in the coming weeks if everything is going to run smoothly. So with that said, if you see yourself in any other role, please make an effort to come down early.

also anyone who can help paint wednesday arvo after class or thursday morning next week please come down/up/sideways to nexus and lend a hand.

Brad Minchin

(Jason (Wade) preparing for an improvisation)

Just wanted to keep you up to date with what happened on Wednesday. The lecture and the workshop went very well, everyone seemed to take on board everything that was said about Commedia and were willing to try putting it into practise in the workshop. Some really great stuff came out of the improvisations. Darren went through the brief that morning and we broke into four groups. Each group picked up on an element of the brief that appealed to them. They had ten minutes to devise an improvisation, which had to contain a beginning, a middle and an end. I've attached a very brief description off what they came up with, some of it was really quite clever.

Melissa Merchant

(Movement and rehearsals focused on Commedia dell'arte most of the day)

The following entry is Melissa's director notes detailing the week's improvisations created in the workshop...

First Scene

	Revelation of Carna
	The Mermaid is almost completely a manatee, lying on the ground.
	The evil goblin character is siphoning the ‘wonder’ from her.
	Two fairies enter and try to stop her with a spell they found while researching

“Secrets of the past

Make the magic last

Restore our powers

So we can dance with flowers”

	Goblin “Oh no, your iambic pentameter is so bad!”
	The spell is misdirected and instead of restoring the Mermaids powers, it reveals to the cleaning lady that she is actually Carna. Together the fairies and the newly restored Carna chant the spell and save the day.

Second Scene

	Bad guy plotting
	All clowns (goblins).
	The Goblin leader is waiting in the Haunted House. The four “minions” (who take umbridge at the term) arrive in a mini. They range from evil to not evil at all, just a little child like.
	Their leader has called the “inaugural first annual” meeting of the clowns to try and come up with a plan to make children like clowns again, instead of all the magical stuff like Unicorns.
	They decide to steal the magic for themselves.
	The youngest clown asks why they can’t just juggle better. Then suggests “juggling kittens”.

Third Scene

	Good Guys realising what’s wrong
	Unicorn, Ringmaster (an Il Capitanoesque character), Madame Sosostris and a Fairy.
	The Unicorn is upset because he has lost his horn, is turning brown and now neighs.
	They decide to go and see Madame S.
	The Fairy has an idea and rushes off.
	Madame S is concerned about the Unicorn “you’re not the wonderful creature you used to be.” (another great line “crystal balls don’t grow on trees you know!”)
	The Fairy re-enters and her movement has dramatically changed, her flutter has been stolen by the clowns and she now stomps and jumps.

Fourth Scene

	Good guys start discovering something is wrong.
	Backstage we have Madame Sosostris, the Ringleader, two Fairies and a Lion.\
	Madame S sees something and warns them all not to go on with the show.
	They do anyway and things start to go wrong.
	The Fairies start falling over.
	The Lion, who is meant to be fierce, yawns and curls up on the ground asleep.
	Madame S loses her ability to see the future, but fakes it (much in the way Michelle did during the first week’s scenarios).
	The tent starts to collapse and the Ringleader runs, abandoning everyone inside.

Melissa Merchant

(Kristina and Ellie in preparation for an improvisation)

View other Notice Board entries... 2006 Children's Theatre Notice Board

...or... 2005 Children's Theatre Notice Board

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Contact Andrew @ thechaseison@optusnet.com.au

This page last updated: 17th March 2008