Character Development: My Obsession

When thinking of an artist that I could truly say I would faint for it would be Chris Brown. He is more than a celebrity crush, the sound of his voice makes me get butterflies and when he is singing his love songs they touch me as if he was singing them to me. Like any number one fan, its the little things such as his lisp that make you feel weak. Okay I have a major obsession with 'Christopher Maurice Brown' and some may think this is weird, but I could use this to my advantage and take how I feel towards him into my character 'Nancy' and imagine that 'Conrad Birdie' is Chris brown. Up until this point I have shown some elements of being a fan but not the major parts of being a number one fan, I need to be constantly staring at this wonderful creature and showing extreme obsession in my eyes and face. I listen to Chris Browns music everyday and hearing his voice in the morning truly puts a smile on my face, so this weekend I tried to do something different.. I would listen to a Chris Brown song and then I would listen to a song that Conrad Birdie sings and try to make that same connection, this was hard but I feel this way I could merge Chris Browns voice into the song from 'Bye Bye Birdie'. I need to imagine what I would be like if Chris Brown walked past me and bring this to the scenes where Jason (Conrad) walks past me.

Character Development: Being a fan

When thinking of obsessive girl fans, I think of screaming, crying and girls fainting. Well this is exactly what us teen girls in 'bye bye birdie' need to be like. I have been slowly developing my character, each rehearsal I am connecting with my character more and more. I know I have more to give and so much more I can do with my facial expressions to show my love for 'Conrad Birdie' and this easiest way I can make myself do this is by imagining he is 'Chris Brown' who I am utterly crazy for! We done an exercise with Dionne which helped me so much to just imagine, we had to pretend we was at a 'Conrad Birdie' Concert and Jason had to perform to us, this was so much fun but was great character development for us all as we could really put ourselves in our characters shoes as if we really were them and at that concert. I need to bring the excitement not just into my body, but into my eyes. Believe I am that number one fan!

Rehearsals: 9/05/11

Today we redid 'honestly sincere' we worked on the timing for the dance at the end and the formation. This was quite messy and needed to be re-choreographed in certain places as some moves that had already been chosen did not go well to the music or to what Jason (Conrad) was singing lyrically. The formation for us teen girls at the beginning of the song was also changed to us standing up because it didn't really work out from the scene before where we was standing to then going to sit on the floor for the song, so this was changed and looks much cleaner.

Rehearsals: 5/05/11

Today we had to read the information of what happens in this scene, it was the scene where we are backstage for the show and we are getting ready for the performance. Dionne asked to come up with ideas where we could be keeping ourselves occupied and make it look good but not too big so the attention isn't taken away from Jo and will (Rosie and Albert). In this scene the teen girls came on in a group we came up with the idea to fuss over each other and preparing ourselves for the show, getting scarves and running over the routines. There was various things that girls called be going, sorting out make up and fans arguing over where they are going to be standing when Conrad comes on. As I was absent in a previous lesson I missed when ' One last Kiss' was choreographed so I had to learn the dance steps, this was easy and I picked up on it very quick. I like the dance that was created as it flowed, the steps were easy but slick. We were contemplating on whether to have a swing in the arms and it worked out nicer to have a swing. We also set the scene after 'One last kiss' which ran smoothly and I really tried to engage more with my character by being so obsessed with Conrad.

Rehearsals: 3/05/11

Dancing:

The dance lesson today consisted of Kerry and Jodie teaching us the choreography for ' A lot of living to do '. This went extremely well as they taught us the dance quite quickly and we was able to run over it a lot so we could perfect it. The choreography that they had chosen to do was majority pair work and I think this flowed well and suited the lyrics of the song. Thinking of everyones energy it was right for the energy needed in this dance and I was on task throughout. I think we worked well as a team today and think the work that Kerry and Jodie produced was of great standard. I think all this song needs now is more expressions in the face and It will be pretty much completed. Dionne said that this dance is all about the 'hands' and I took note of this so that when choosing my poses I knew what would work for this piece.

Acting:
The scenes that we ran today were ones that we have already done and we just polished them over, I am slowly developing my character more and more, I just need to work on putting that bubbly young teenager feel to everything that I do as Nancy. I know my Que's and the small lines that I have and feel confident with myself at the moment but would do so much better if I just bring my character up another level. Nancy is one of the teens therefore she is a 'gossip girl' and I need to show this in my body and in my face, being in the Conrad birdie 'fan club' I need to show my obsession and I feel I could show this really well in my body language and my vocals. 

Singing: 3/05/11

In todays lesson I came in the lesson focused and prepared enough to be off book for every song without any doubts. To start of the warm up we did the usual breathing exercises and when doing the scales of: 'Mee, Moo, Lala, Zaa' I felt confident and reached to the top note in the scale. During the breathing exercises I became light headed and Sapphira told me that this was because of the way we was breathing and the amount of oxygen we was taking in to open our lungs. I also found that when I was doing the 'Lala' exercise I kept stumbling and slurring towards the end of each note, this was because I was not opening my mouth wide enough and felt that when Sapphira corrected this it improved but its also because I need to practice the techniques at home.

The song that I am most confident with would have to be the 'telephone hour', I know the complete structure of this song and do not struggle to remember when to harmonize. I know the lyrics extremely well and Sapphira has praised me on this because I have practiced this song and feel this is the strongest song for me so far. I need to work on my character and work on making the lines punchy and more 'bitchy'. At the moment I seem to be just focusing on my vocals and singing the lyrics correctly but I need to make sure I am bringing that character into the singing and expressions in my face.

Other songs that we worked on today were:

• Hymn for a Sunday evening 
• A lot of living to do
• Put on a happy face
• How lovely to be a woman
• Overture

One of the main focuses during todays rehearsals was trying to remember the harmonies that we have worked on previously and making sure songs like ' A lot of living to do' were sharp and perfect timing. Although ' Hymn for a Sunday evening' is an extremely short song for the chorus part it is essential that the timing is good and also tuning is correct because even the slightest tuning problem could make a big difference to this small number and make it sound off key. Sapphira worked on the tuning in this song and I think we all feel confident that this song is working and running smoothly. One of the songs that is also really well known is 'Put on a happy face' the only thing that I need to work on is my expression and to remember to put emotion in to what I am singing as I know the words well I just need to move on and develop this.

I am proud of myself because I am one of few that have learnt their lines extremely well, I know my timing and what I am meant to be singing. In 'How lovely to be a woman' Again I need to work on my character and think of being more 'girly' but I know that I also need to work on using my diaphragm more so in this song because it is such a high key that I forget to take breaths before big notes and I cant hold them as long as I should be able to. In the 'Overture' we didn't really work on this too much but we all already know the words as we have done this numerous times, so I am just going to go over this with the backing track and have it ready to show Sapphira next week.

       'Using my diaphragm when singing will improve the sound quality'