First & Second Run: 25/05/11

These two runs went well but things did go wrong so has made me more nervous for the actual show. In this first run I forgot my glasses in one of the scenes and wore them in the next, I need to remember to put them on as this is really important - continuity. Overall I think the second run was much better than the first as we got some notes after we did the first run so this allowed us to improve and have a better performance the second time round. I am trying my hardest to play my teen girl to the full and trying to make my facial expressions really strong and believable. During the first run I played the teen girl like how I have been playing it up until this point but in the second run I performed so much better, I felt bubbly, girlie and confident. After Elle watched these runs she said she wants me to push my geeky character even more, to go so much further with it. I found this hard because I have not been working on being a geek throughout these whole rehearsals but just up until yesterday Elle has asked me to be play the part of the geek in the teen group. I need to work on this more and perform to my best ability as a geek in tomorrows show. There was times when people didn't make it in time for scenes because of changing from the scene before, so this is something we are worried about but if this happens on the show we will just have to work with it and style it out.

Notes for improvement:

Telephone hour:

• Keep eyes up and be frozen in a picture smiling whilst others are performing.
• Arms are out of time at the end, so this needs to be worked on and the timing needs to be set in stone.

Elle said for us to run down the stairs at the beginning of the show screaming, instead of being stood on the stage already. She said this will bring the audience in and make them feel like they are part of the crowd too. Dionne said for us to talk in the blackouts so that its not like we are waiting to start, as soon as we come on in blackouts be in character already. I need to push my character even more and in the dance numbers, to show that were not just dancers that we are our characters dancing. I need to wear the glasses and exaggerate my part as the geek. All the songs need to be more punchy and have clear diction, the chorus parts need to be louder. 

Dress run: 24/05/11

Notes:
This dress run went well, I felt like I was more the part when I had my hair done and full costume. Glasses were added to my costume today as Elle felt that I could play the part of a Geek and that I need to show that I am the geek throughout the show.

Telephone hour -

• Make sure arms are nice and curved on the swing.

New York scene -

• Bring the excitement up like we did the first time we got the signs.
• Turn our bodies to the audience more, they are turned in too much.

Ohio scene -

• Make sure we have signs as we forgot them on this run.

TV show scene -

• Coming on to the scene, we had great energy.

One last kiss -

• When we are crossing over, on the first step the arms need to come out.
• We need to sing up as Dionne could not hear us.

Put on a happy face -

• work on the dance duo that me and will do, it looks like we are stumbling on the moves.

A lot of living to do -

• Our heads are going different ways when dancing behind Jason and Olivia, so we need to work on which way we are starting first.

Ice house scene -

• I need to put my arms around Jason when saying "Loop the Loop".

Tech Rehearsal: 23/05/11 & 24/05/11

Doing the technical rehearsal was a really long process, we just had to work together and try our best to focus. Whilst doing the tech run, we worked out that in 'How lovely to be a woman' we couldn't do the set choreography of spinning the bed around with Olivia on it. Due to rehearsing without the set, when it came to doing it with the set up it was impossible. So this needed to be re-choreographed to us standing round the bed and us girls doing some turns, everything else in this tech ran well. We lost focus towards of the end of the rehearsal though and we was sent home early.

Notes for improvement:

We need to wait for the lights to black out before any movement.

Telephone hour -

• Need to make the moves more precise and strong
• Diction needs to be better
• Need to work on the ending, when watching it back I realised that the moves were out of time, the swings, the clicks.

How lovely to be a woman -

• I need to project more, use my diaphragm so that I can sing the last couple of lines without being out of breath.
• At the end spin instead of trying to make the step ball changes as I do not make it in time.

Put on a happy face -

• Be more grumpy like a kid.
• Work on the dance between myself and Will so that it is smoother. 

Honestly Sincere:

• When watching this back the two lines looked odd, we need to re-choreograph the beginning of this song.
• The swing of the arms works out better to be 8 swings up and 8 swings round and then just run over to Jason.

One last kiss:

• Need to polish my arms, are they bent or are they straight?.

A lot of living:

• The swaying needs to be worked on.
• Make sure the 'picture' is a clump, at the moment we are too far apart.
• Have a reaction from Conrad and Kim walking off together, wait for a moment and the run after them.

A Hymn for a Sunday evening:

• We need to make a clump not a line.

Rehearsals: 18/05/11 & 19/05/11

Notes for improvement after running Act One and Run of Show:

• Make sure that when singing its definite.
• Telephone hour: Energy was great and I really put effort into my character.
• How lovely to be a woman: Good work, remember to breath correctly so that I can sing because there is so much movement.
• Need to find a coat for New York scene.
• Face has got to have more emotion, needs to come alive when I see Conrad Birdie.

Rehearsals: 18/05/11

Dancing/Singing:

How lovely to be a woman:
We finished off the dance and worked on how we could travel from the bed to the other side of the stage, we did a couple of step ball changes and then a spin.

Honestly Sincere:
We worked on this dance, cleaned up some moves. Jamie pointed out that we need to have pointed toes and when we have our hands positioned either side of us they need to be sharp and strong. We also worked on the pace of the shimmy move and worked out the timing and figured it was in time when Jason sang a certain part in the song.

Telephone hour:
We went through telephone hour and polished the moves at the end and tried to see which way in swinging our arms would look best. We figured that the people standing on the chairs, we would swing our arms opposite to each other because this looked more clean and more effective. I struggled with my voice today and couldn't reach the notes that I needed too, I think this is because my voice is strained from previous rehearsals and not screaming correctly. I worked on my positions again at the beginning of the dance as they wasn't sharp enough, I worked more on my facial expressions and hand gestures to make the movements more girlie.

Rehearsals: 17/05/11

Singing: Notes for improvement

• Telephone hour: Need to be more bitchy when singing, make it more gossipy. 
• Put on a happy face: Need to look happy when singing this song.
• Honestly Sincere: Need to work on the screams, Sapphira said to scream from using your diaphragm like you would singing a note. 
• Hymn on a Sunday evening: We worked on the girls harmony because we kept falling into the boys part. So I need to remember the girls harmony.
• One last kiss: We worked on the harmony at the end, as Sapphira put me in to sing with the boys I used to struggle and fall into the girls part, but after todays rehearsal I now sing it correctly. 

Singing rehearsal went really well today as we all know the cues really well, were loud and sharp. I need to control my breathing and take in enough breath for the ending of the song so that I have enough power behind the note. 

Dancing/Singing:

We did a run through of all the group songs and they are looking good - I feel I am doing well as a teen girl in the group numbers and showing that excitement through my body and face. In this rehearsal 'How lovely to be a woman' was choreographed by Jamie and Jodie.

Acting:
We ran the whole of act two and we got some feedback. Dionne asked us to bring a skirt for next rehearsal so that we can get used to moving around in skirts. A lot of the scenes and dances need polishing up. A line was added for me to say "actually its an old barn" so that it makes more sense to the audience and gives more to my character that I know everything. Dionne also gave me feedback that when saying the history of the town I need to be geeky and proud about what I am telling Conrad. 

Rehearsals: 16/05/11

To start of todays rehearsals Dionne had us to an exercise. We had to pretend we was at a Conrad Birdie concert. Jason was stood on the stage and the rest of the class were crowded at the bottom of the stage watching him perform a song from the musical. Whilst doing this exercise I imagined I was at a Chris Brown concert and how I would react, this really helped me imagine. Dionne turned off the lights and Jason was spotlighted and this made it seem even more real, we really got into it - chanting Conrad's name, swaying our arms from side to side, singing his lyrics, jumping up and down, screaming when he came close to us, fainting. All these things that I was now doing, the energy that I used in this exercise; I needed to bring to the scenes and to my character. This exercise really helped me engage with my character and really pushed myself in being that number one fan.

Acting:
Today we started a brand new scene ' the ice house ' this scene was simple to do, it just showed Kim and conrad in the old barn and us teen girls interrupting them and being all over Conrad. I had a line where I said "loop the loop" at first I said this in a sweet voice but then Dionne told me that its a sexual reference and needs to be said in a sexual way, so when we next ran it i did it this way and she said it was good. After this we also ran a couple of the group scenes and polished some of the staging.

Singing/Dancing:
We ran these dance numbers today: Honestly sincere, Put on a happy face, A lot of living to do and telephone hour. The rest of the dances seemed good, we just worked on things like putting our faces to the front when singing so that we can be heard, positioning and what arms and legs were being used in certain steps. The dance that needed the most work was 'telephone hour' the ending of this song needed to be polished and we needed to re-choreograph the steps that we had come up with on the chairs as they wasn't the dance moves of the time and more 60s. We finished the ending and came up with the ending position and the dance now looks more tidy.

Run of the show: 12/05/11

We did a run through today and when performing these dance numbers they were so much more improved due to having worked on them with Sapphira, the two song numbers that still wasn't working well on the end notes were: A Hymn on a Sunday evening and One last kiss. The harmonies that were previously set for these songs is disappearing and us girls are falling into the boys harmony on both, so we are going to work on this more in upcoming rehearsals. I just need to remember my character development work and really push my teen character further, I know I can do it.

Rehearsals: 11/05/11

Today we worked on the dance numbers with Gillian and finished choreographing telephone hour. What I needed to work on was finding four positions that I would use whilst being on the phone. I kept forgetting what the positions were and kept changing them every time we ran the song, so us four girls went into the next room and worked on what our positions would be and we also choreographed what we would be doing whilst standing on the chairs whilst the others were coupled on the floor.

these are my  four positions for the telephone hour song.

Singing development: Getting the confidence

When we first started singing lessons I didn't have the confidence in singing on my own, it made me feel vulnerable and well out of my comfort zone. Having the lessons and the two assessments that meant I had to perform in front of the class on my own helped me so much, I had to do it to be able to even sing a solo line on my own. Now in Bye Bye Birdie I feel confident in singing a solo line and do not hesitate to do so. At the beginning I was nervous when we was rehearsing the songs in lesson because when I sang I felt like all eyes were on me but then I thought about it deeply and realised that everyone else must have been nervous too and that were in it together not to put each other down. My problem was that when I was singing I wasn't using my diaphragm and so when I was singing it wasn't as strong as it could be, having the vocal warm ups and breathing exercises helped me with using my diaphragm and being able to reach certain notes and producing a nice sound. Confidence is a big key when it comes to singing, if the confidence isn't there and you don't believe you can do it, you wont go for the big note and you wont sing loud enough. I now have confidence thanks to the singing lessons that we have had and even singing the little parts in bye bye birdie on my own is a big achievement for me. These two video clips show both, not having the confidence and then just going for it and believing in yourself.

Rehearsals: 10/05/11

Today we showed on the group dances to Sapphira as this was the first time that we had her presence whilst doing the dancing and singing together. When we have been rehearsing the group numbers up until this point we all know that we haven't sung to the best of our ability, I know this is because we have been focusing on the dance steps more than the singing and this has weakened the vocals. During singing rehearsals when we are not dancing the singing is really good, so today we just needed to combine the two and get that extra push from Sapphira to not forget about the vocals when dancing. After showing all the dances to Sapphira the singing has improved as she pointed out the parts that sounded weak, I personally feel that for me I need to work on my breathing technique so that when I am dancing, I can sing the notes in key and without straining my voice. This also comes down to using my diaphragm and taking the right breaths in songs so that I have enough breath to carry out a note. When inhaling the diaphragm contracts as it fills up with air, If I don't breath correctly I wont be using my diaphragm and the sound that is produced would not be at its best and I would be straining my voice.