The importance of warming up for Shakespeareian work

Today we did a warm up in lesson before we got to work on our scripts. It is very important to warm up for Shakespeare as you need to be relaxed before going into any type of rehearsal, you wouldn't start singing before warming up so why no warm up for acting.

getting yourself physically ready for acing is very important as it prevents injury and allows you to do more physical things in rehearsal, allowing you to explore more concepts for your piece. Heres an example of a drama warm up:

A Theatre Warm-up

Stretch – Your right arm up, up; your left arm up, up. Repeat.
Your right arm to the side; your left arm to the side. Repeat

Roll – Your head to the front, right, back, left. Repeat.
Your shoulders to the front, up, back, down. Repeat

Bend from your waist forward, to the right, back, left. Repeat

Step forward with your right foot (leaving your left foot in place). Stretch. Switch, step forward with your left foot (leaving your right foot in place). Stretch

Shake out your hands, your head and shoulders, your legs
and feet. Shake out your whole body.

Stand quietly with your arms at your sides.

Breathe in to the count of 1,2,3,4 Breathe out to the count of 1,2,3,4 Repeat.

Tongue and lip warm-upsSay very fast 

1. ta, ta, ta, ta
   da, da, da, da
   bah, bah, bah, bah
   ma, ma, ma, ma,

2. Tongue twisters
   Have your teacher or another student read the line first, then as a class repeat it. Be very certain you are really moving your tongue and your lips! You will be practicing good diction.
   • Babbling Baby Bobby
   • Ki-ki, the cuckoo, cuts capers
   • Don didn’t do the difficult dangerous deeds
   • Few folks find the fine flavor
   • Jim, Jill, Jane and Johnny jammed jollily
   • Little Lillian lets lazy lizards lie along the lily pads
   • Nine nice nieces never noticed nine nice nieces noticing nine nice nieces
   • Popular people, people popular places
   • Suzy Sampson is surrounded by her sousaphone
   • Sheila shall surely show her shining seashore shells
   • Little Teddy Tucker toots his tooter toute suite
   • Thick thistles throbbed in Thelma Thimble’s thumb

If the next step is to start your rehearsal, it is a good idea to close your eyes and “see” who you are – as the character. Where are you? What did you just do? What are you going to do?

Now you should be ready to really concentrate on your character and the rehearsal. It is also important to warm-up for a performance

http://artswork.asu.edu/students/lessons/drama_theatre/theatre_book/acting_warmups.php

This is a good warm up as it works of the body, the voice and the breathing which is so important when performing Shakespeare, as you need to be able to take in large quantities of air to project long phrases of text in one breath. The tong twisters and ta da's are very good for Shakespeare as you need good diction and ability to say complicated phrases quickly when saying your lines to an audience, this makes sure they understand what you are saying and can hear it clearly.

13th of October rehearsal

During today's rehearsal we got a lot done to be honest, I did I film run though without my scrip, there were a few stutters and lingering moments for lines but I didn't use a script to prompt me, this is a massive improvement from last week’s rehearsal as I was very sketchy on my words and I was picking my script up every two seconds to prompt me. Dan on the other hand needs a little longer and is yet to learn him lines for this extract so we spent about 15 minutes going through Dan’s lines so he could familiarize himself with it more, this resulted in a smoother rehearsal therefore we were able to get the scene fully blocked. The blocking isn't quite up to standard yet but this will come in time with more recurs all, but we now have basic blocking which can be worked around to start showing a relationship between the characters. This week me and Dan started to look at our characters relationship and started testing out ideas on how we can get a romantic theme across through physical actions, we came up with ideas such as only touching hands right at the end of the extract and making this the only physical connection in the piece as it is a pivotal moment where the two characters decide to join their lives through marriage. I think this will have a good impact on the audience as it will be built through the piece to finally the two characters touching and giving the audience a sense of completion that it finally happened. I have learnt a lot about my character this week, for example I found that Miranda would find much more of a thrill from touching Ferdinand than a modern teen would today as she hasn't grown up around men and would have this romantic connection with her farther so it is something new that is not only exciting for her but also scary resulting I her having a small break down in hour scene calling herself "unworthy."

Character development

Today hasn't been very productive as no one from my groups have been in, this means I was unable to practice or block any scenes. I spent my day looking at my lines and looking at my characters for both The Tempest and Twelfth Night. My first interpretation of Miranda is that he is a very young woman who has been raised under male influence as shown through the lines "no woman's face remember" and "nor have I seen more that I may call men than you" this shows that she isn't used to female energy and I think this means she would have a boisterous aspect to her character and she wouldn't be very feminine unlike how the films and other plays portray her. I'm not saying she would sit with her legs open, fart and burp like a man, because her farther knows the conventions of women and would tell her what not to do as she grew into a woman. Also as Prospero was a duke before he was cast out he would be well held physically and would install a higher class way of being into his daughter Miranda. We are setting this extract in a 70's setting but I don't think that this will affect my character much as we have decided not to do an accent and the setting is still on a desolate island. But the costume will be different as she will be wearing vintage style clothes to fit the time period. This differed from the way Miranda would be traditionally dressed as she would be played by a man and would be wearing Shakespearean clothing which fits the character. The reason we have changed the time period is to give the play a different edge to the conventional way that it's usually done and to modernise it. I know it's not set in our modern day but due to movies and theatre today different eras have been normalised and recognised by a modern audience.  In Shakespearean times there was no creative and freedom of imagination when performing one of Shakespeare's plays as it was staging convention to perform it as it is written but now we can do what we want with it as long as we don't change the dialogue it's self. This gives us the freedom to change costume, voice and women playing women unlike in the past where this was just never done. Secondly when looking at my character Maria I tried to find a contrast between her and Miranda as I wanted to play something completely different. At first sight they seems very similar to me but after reading the play I saw the character in a completely different light as I discovered the comical and cynical side to my character. These aspects to Maria aren't really shown in my extract as it quite short but you do see her relationship with the clown and how she has a comical side. My character is one of the slaves under lady Olivia's rule and I interpreted her as quite a swath character who kisses up to her mistress whilst at the same time integrating herself into the naughtiness of the other characters around her. Due to us setting this play in a school setting my character fits perfectly into the swatty stereotype of modern day schools. As the clown enters what we have set as the classroom you start to see Maria loosen up and banter with Feste, this allows me as an actor to move physically from class swat who's up tight into a normal school girl being entertained by her class mates foolery back into a know it all trying to rationalise his jokes with her knowledge. When we first performed this for our teacher he noted that my character was not quite right yet as I hadn't picked up on all of Festes jokes and reacted to them so I sat and looked through the script picking out the "gags" and now I an a physical stimulus to the audience that something funny is happening even if they don't understand the joke it's self. All of the characters are archetypes of the modern school scene for example we have the class clown the school swat and the righteous teacher. These archetypes are very important in modernising our extract as it makes it more relevant with the school setting and it helps them make personal connections and interpretations of the characters due to past experiences in their lives.

Tempest Rehearsal 6th October

During today's rehearsals of The Tempest we put up the set the way that it will be for the show. This allowed me and Dan to work with it and set out our scene. We decided on a simple walking pattern for the scene utilizing the set and integrating levels into it. At the moment our scene is very staged and static as we having looked at integrating small nuances and body position into it yet but this will come when we get off scrip and beckon more comfortable with what are characters would be doing. During the rehearsal my character started to develop as i discovered that Miranda would be young, youthful and childlike as she wouldn't be exposed to a more mature world in her life. Ferdinand would be older than Miranda and would have lots of life experience so Dan has decided to play him in a more composed manner to Miranda who has teenage like mood swings when things start to get serious in the scene with a proposal of marriage. Due to our scene being centered around a flirty fight over a pile of wood,we have decided that this will be a back and too motif throughout our extract, as me and Dan are going to take the wood from each others grasps to highlight a conflict.

Production meeting 2

This was a short production meeting where we set yourself goal to look at over the following week, for example to learn our lines, find music for the piece if needed, bring in props and to create a advertising poster for the event. Amy and Daniel took the responsibility to the poster, and the only props we need for our piece is a pile of wood which is easily obtainable. When it comes to line learning i am still a little sketchy but i know the basic bones of my script, this will take time to cement but its easily done, where as Dan is struggling with The Tempest script but is confident with the Twelfth Night script, we have decided to go thorough the Tempest extract a lot so Dan can get his lines down quickly.