Evaluation

Unit 12 Evaluation Essay

Context

The performance concept was cabaret themed. The reason why we had chosen this theme was to try a different way of interacting with the audience and finding a new way to merge different style and pieces and adjusting them in order for them to fit the style of the cabaret theme. The theme also allowed the audience to have a different view on each performances as it allowed us to break the fourth wall. In order to finalise our decision of having the style of the cabaret, I had to research what cabaret was and the time period and how different people had interpreted the style; we also had to consider whether cabaret would fit the context of the performances. For example, we decided that we would have a built stage at the back of the normal stage with a Microphone and stand in the centre of the stage so that we would use it as a part of our set. We also brought tables and chairs to have that enclosed feeling between the performers and the audience. We had to also consider the spacing, for example, where we decided to put the stage and how forward it would be, as it was important for the dancers to decide how big the stage should be and the amount of space that they wanted. In regards to the theme affecting our pieces, we adapted the setting of particular pieces to fit in whilst making sure the context of our pieces were still being portrayed.

The pieces that we chose as a group were All That Jazz, you can’t stop the Beat and Hard to say Goodbye. The reason for us choosing All that Jazz is because we thought that it would fit in with the theme as they are very similar, for example in Chicago, for their performances they would be set out in a Cabaret style bar, so this fitted in well with the theme. As for You Can’t Stop the Beat, we thought that this number would bring life to the show and get everyone moving as well as us, it allowed us to interact with the audience and showcased our skills vocally and physically. For Hard to say Goodbye, we figured this would be a lovely song to deliver the message of it being our final performance and last time we would all be together as we would all be going to different universities, and as for the song, the message was very similar. The duets that Dylan and I had chosen were; Take me or Leave me from Rent and Anything you can do from Annie Get your Gun. The reason why we decided to choose Take me or Leave me, was because it allowed both of us to come out of our comfort zone and play characters that we may have not played before and challenged us vocally. We also felt that this particular piece would allow us to interact with the audience and have many ways in which we could interpret the piece. For Anything you can do, we thought this piece would add more of a comedic aspect and challenge our characters more as the song was more acting based. For my solos I decided to focus on two songs that would show off my vocal range and also challenge the character side of things. My first solo was, Fly Fly Away from Catch me if you can The Musical and my second solo was Look what happened to Mabel from Mack and Mabel, The Musical. The reason I chose my first solo was because I felt as if I would be able to connect and play the character well, as well as liking the song and felt as if the song delivered a heart-warming message. For Look what happened to Mabel, I loved the story and felt that Mabel character would help me develop my skill of characterisation as she had many characteristics. The song had portrayed a story of her life in which I wanted to learn more about through researching and exploring the character herself.

In regard to Initial pieces, we had originally decided that we wanted to devise a group piece called “Backstage” where it included all four of us a different character, telling a story on how it is being a performing arts student and the struggles they go through in order to achieve their goal and get where they want to be in their career. During this piece, the dancer would have their solos throughout as would Dylan and I as mainly the singers. We all had our different scenes which would link together to create the piece as a whole. The unfortunate reason why we discontinued with this idea was because we felt as if it didn’t have a clear message and that it was rather basic. It wouldn’t have allowed us to showcase our skills, gain or develop them as well as we had wanted to. The pieces that we finally chose were appropriate as we wanted to choose pieces that fitted our goals and what we wanted to achieve as dancer and Musical Theatre students. For example, all the group pieces had a balance of singing and dance and made sure the dancers had enough to work on as well as the singers within the individual pieces. Regarding the pieces linking to the Cabaret Idea, there was few pieces we had to change, in relation to the set out and staging to allow it to fit into the style of the Cabaret.

With the nature of the performance being decided, we had to adapt many things which included staging, spacing and lighting in order for our pieces to develop the piece overall. For example, Fly Fly Away, Brenda is crying at her window in her house, at her and her fiancé’s engagement party as he has left her and is on the run, this is when she sings the song. This being the case, in order for it to fit the Cabaret theme I had decided to sing the song on the main stage sitting on a chair, singing into a hand held microphone, singing out to the audience. The reason for this was because I wanted the audience to focus more on me as the character and also felt if I had done it how it was set originally it would pull away from the theme and not allow me to break the fourth wall. Another example is All that Jazz, we adapted to the theme of the cabaret by allowing the dancers to have the role of the waiters at the beginning to then join us as we continued with the piece. This fitted in well with the theme as well as the first number because it gave a bigger introduction to the piece and gave everyone a character to portray. We had to consider, which pieces will be using mics and pieces where we would use the hand held mics. The research that we did to help support these choices were for example for You can’t stop the Beat, in regards to figuring out lighting and staging, we had a look at different versions of the number to help influence our choices.

There are several strengths and weakness of the choices that we made individually and as a group. For example, I thought that the Cabaret theme worked really well and the staging was set accurately for both us and the audience. I believe that we all had an input on deciding the different pieces and spent a long time changing and developing the pieces to reach the standards of the brief but also on what we wanted to achieve individually and as a group. For example, for the group pieces, we had changed the choreography a number of times for All that Jazz as we felt our first one wasn’t challenging Bob Fosse and showing the technical side of things. We often found out that initially we hadn’t done enough research beforehand and often found ourselves researching in between rehearsals to help us develop the pieces. If I was so complete a similar project I would do more research beforehand and use more than one piece from the Musicals instead of one, for example, do a scene from Take me or Leave me or another dance from You can’t stop the beat to help link the pieces more.

Research

I had to research all of the pieces in depth in order to have a better understanding of the Musicals in which the pieces were from. For research I would research contextual background, time period, writers, musicians, story line and anything relevant information that would help me develop and explore the pieces. To decide what I needed to look at I focused on the pieces itself and researched my character and focused on what was happening in that particular piece and how the rest of the Musical had an impact on the character. The sources I used were a number of websites e.g. stage agent and a number of films and books to help me develop my character and research the pieces.

The way I used the research at each stage to help develop, create, adapt and improve the pieces was by using the research to help me make decisions and give me a base in which I would have to then go an adapt the piece based on the knowledge I have of the Musical. For example, for Hard to say Goodbye, we needed to watch a number of videos of “The Supreme “performing and used their movements to help us choreograph our dance for the piece which we later hanged to just standing on the stage and singing out to the audience. Another example is for my solo for Fly Fly Away, where I researched how Adele and Shirley would be performing with just singing on a stage with a microphone and how they would make their performances powerful enough without doing much movement, this helped me with my solo because it helped me tell a story with limited movement and using only gestures. As a part of research we would also watched videos from sweet charity and Bobs Fosse’s work to help influence the choreography of All that Jazz. We also had to research the time period and context of our pieces to help us set on stage. For example, for Take me or Leave me, the stage and film versions both have a different setting and with looking at them both we decided that we would use the idea of having the table and set it in a house environment rather than a dinner party alone.

The website stage agent helped me a lot with context, character and synopsis as the website gave me a better understanding of the Musicals and broke down the information so it was easier to source information from. In regard to research that may have not been useful, I would say everything I researched were pretty much relevant to helping me develop the pieces although along the process some video that I had watch didn’t really give me much influence which meant I had to go and source information another cite. For example, for Hairspray, researching the time period gave me an understanding and somewhat helped with character development however I didn’t feel like for this particular piece much research for the time period was needed as we were focused on the dance aspect as well as the singing. Although the research helped with deciding which costumes to wear and how to light the piece.

As for my approach across and in regards to research and the strengths and weakness, I feel as if I have done a good amount of research for each piece and enough to help me develop them, however I would of like to do more research on the group pieces on how we could have made them bigger and more meaningful, as for Hairspray if we were particular characters I may have been able to feel more a connection between the piece and the character. For research and the approach to my solo, look what Happened to Mabel and research for Duet Anything you can do, I feel as if I could have done more practical research for my characters and focused on them individually. What I’ve learnt about the importance of research is that it is really beneficial and a huge part of creating and developing a project. I’ve also learnt that without researching you can tend to get stuck and without enough information, often find yourself stuck and undecided. This will have an effect on my process in the future because I feel as if knowing how to research correctly and what to research it can be a huge advantage, it will help me gain more knowledge about what I am doing and give me a better understanding.

Planning and Production

Planning and production had a big part to play in developing our project. The strategies that we had used to do this were creating number of rehearsal time tables, distributing additional roles, set aims and targets for each session and planning our own individual time tables for spare time or home practice, independent research and development time. We also discussed the projects and shared rehearsal video through apps such as What’s App and Snap chat where we had our own group chat. We also had weekly meetings with the production team and weekly reviews with Shelley every Friday. All these strategies were incredibly useful as they helped us organise and keep track of things that we were doing every rehearsal leading up to the final performance. Having the timetable helped us as we were able to follow to an extent a routine to ensure we could cover what we needed to cover. In order to achieve our final production, we had to make sure that particular things were available and easy to access. For example, the dance studios, we had to make sure that they were available and in good condition to use the space and use the space wisely given our scheduled timetable. Music systems, we made sure that we took it in turns when working on duets and solos that we spent an equal amount of time individually using the speaker. Phone messaging was useful as if a member of the company was late or unable to attended we could communicate with each other to let everyone know so that we could carry on with rehearsing. Blogs were a good way to keep a record of our process as we developed every week.

By continuously evaluating our process and setting aims and targets, it allowed us to keep track of what went well and what may need improvement, also receiving feedback from teachers and one another helped during weekly reviews and rehearsal sessions because it allowed us to then use that feedback and work on way of applying it to our work. Personally I feel like the daily logs and videos allowed us at the end of each to reflect and look back at what we have done so far and especially having the videos allows you to watch yourself individually and set your own targets for future rehearsal as well as setting targets for the pieces overall. Having the milestone assessment was really useful as beforehand it gave us a deadline in which had to make sure we had worked on everything we needed to in time for the assessment. The feedback given was helpful and it gave us enough time to go back and change and adapt certain parts of the project. I also liked how the rest of the company were able to give feedback throughout as some things that other might not notice or any ideas they may have other may not and it makes you think about more things you can do to make your piece and the group pieces better. We had allocated each other different roles to help us throughout the process, as for dance director we had Faith, production and lighting director we had myself, costume and make up and vocal director we had Dylan and for physical director and warm up we had Marshall. Given our roles we made sure that we used everyone skills to help us develop. For example, as Faith being the choreographer, she had a huge impact on the dance routine and chorographical aspect of it all and would tend to be the one alongside Shelley giving us technical feedback. For production meetings and ideas, I was in charge of writing down everyone’s ideas and emailing production students with any enquires we had as a group or if anyone needed any backing tracks sorted.

The strengths for the production process were we were able to keep daily logs and share video from each rehearsal and discuss things that we may need to work on in the next session. One weakness is that we didn’t always stick to the scheduled timetable as some things may have needed more time and we would run over or we would simply change to work on other things. Although we were still working on things, I feel if we had just stuck to our schedule as we had planned, every piece would have got the same amount of time and attention. At the beginning we didn’t focus as much on the group pieces because the dancer had wanted to focus more on their duets leaving Dylan and I to focus on either solos or our duets. As for logs and evaluation I tried my best to record after every lesson what we did so when I got home I could write it up fully whilst attaching the video. Some days not everyone was in so that made working ton duets and group pieces harder although instead of delaying and procrastinating we decided that if someone wasn’t in or they were late, that we would carry on as normal and with the help of the video that we would have recorded and help from the dance director, it was their duty to make sure that they had caught up with everyone else in time for the next rehearsal so that we were now free as a group to carry on. What I have learnt through this process is to keep to deadlines and not come off schedule as it can confuse the process and end up not giving everything the attention and time they needed. I have also learnt that it is fine to leave something and go back to it rather than to be stuck and waste a whole session trying to figure it out. What I would do differently is I would prioritise the pieces that will need more attention in an open space and leave the things that may not need as much to do at home and also record that process as well, this allow us to dedicate the time to things that need to be done in an open space in which may not always be a home.

Technical skills and practical skills

The skills that we needed to get the projected started were a mixture as it depended on the skills that we needed for the different pieces for example the skills for solos and group pieces; as for the Musical Theatre students during their solos , didn’t need physical / technical skills as they were only singing and doing a minimum of gestures and as for the dancers they didn’t need the vocal technical skills as they weren’t singing during their solos , in comparison to the group pieces when everyone was using both to a particular extent and to their strengths. As for the musical theatre students whose strengths were mainly singing and acting based, we had to make sure that we had the basic skills and knowledge or certain techniques when learning certain routines and choreography, such as posture, co-ordination and a few other skills in order to be get through the process smoothly. In regards to my skills and developing them, I chose solos that would showcase my strengths and challenge my skills to help develop more in my subject-specific area. I listened to a number of song in which I would look at and decide whether they did my skills any justice and worked on them and many songs had been more in my comfort zone which I wanted to draw away from that, which lead me to choosing Look What Happened to Mabel and Fly Fly Away. The group pieces included more choreography and movement and as mentioned in my proposal I wanted to become more confident in the dance aspect and area of the project, so when choosing the group pieces, I considered whether the dances would show my development in learning choreography and with co-ordination.

In technical classes for mainly singing, I worked on vocal range breathing and phrasing with Charlie in order to make sure I sung my chosen songs to the best of my ability. With the solos, when we working on them with Charlie he often said that I need to work on projection, even though I would be using a microphone he said to get the best sound I would still need to project. For You can’t stop the Beat, we all as group found it hard to sing and dance at the same time as we haven’t been trained particularly in that area it was harder to do. So we worked with Charlie first singing through without dancing then adding the dancing. The skills that I have improved on were singing and dancing at the same time as before I found it hard to know which aspect to focus on more but I realised that once I knew the routine I could focus less on the dance aspect of thing and not be worried about messing up the routine. I’ve also grown in confidence in the performance side of things in comparison to last year where I was always more nervous and they may have been due to the fact I was less confident with pieces overall. However, this unit I felt more confident with every piece and when it came to the performance I was looking forward to the show even though I was terribly unwell, and that caused a few nerves but overall I was more confident in performance. I have also improved on learning choreography as I intended to, in comparison to last year when I didn’t really know how to grasp it as well, and I have learnt through unit 12 to ask for help however many times I need and through that I have used feedback and correction from both my peers and teacher to improve myself in that area and have also tended to take more attention to detail with the help of Faith correcting me when something need correction. For example, with All that Jazz, with the accuracy in my movement and relationship with the audience.

I could have worked harder on character development as along the process it took me a while to find myself within the character. I also would wanted make the dances longer, especially All that Jazz as the song was rather short and. I also would have wanted to work more on my technical skills for example, breathe control because at some points during my solo Look what happened to Mabel, I felt as if I could have done with more support at some parts. For future I want to continue developing my skills and work on voice and making it stronger. I also want to continue to work on my technical skills in dance as I feel like I can push myself to do better in which I can when focused can do so.

Presentation

As for the performances and the order of the show we decided to make the decision based on how long the pieces were, how long you might need for costume change, how many people where in the piece and how long the show was altogether. For MD presentation we all had written contextual information in which whoever introduces the different pieces, would read out to give the audience and idea of what was to come. As we know a cabaret show has someone introducing the pieces but as we didn’t have an extra person to do that, we decided to take it upon ourselves and introduce each other, which meant every time we introduced each other we would be introducing as our characters and not ourselves. We had to think about costume changes because we needed to make sure that our speeches were long enough to ensure that the next person had time to change. To make sure that the next person was changed in time, we made it priority to make sure that our costumes and make up were in order so that when we needed to change we didn’t have difficulties in doing so. Also having an interval helped us recover and re- organise ourselves for the second half of the show. In order to meet the convention of a cabaret we used staging and microphones, the use of the fake hand held mikes in my solo and the last piece, we set out the audience with there being tables and chairs with candles and flowers on each one. For food and drinks, we had popcorn and “Mock tails”. To emphasis the theme of cabaret we also worked and performed in and around the audience at some points which meant that we broke the fourth wall at times by addressing the audience and moving from the stage to centre stage.

In regard to making decisions on lighting for my personal pieces I decided to keep the lighting simple as it would help the audience focus on mainly the performance aspect of it. For example, for Fly Fly Away, I had asked one of the production student to keep the spotlight on me and towards the end make the spotlight smaller and for Look What Happened to Mabel to begin with a spotlight then turn the side lights on as the song progressed. As for the group pieces we decided to have more light for example; All that Jazz, was dimly lit with dark red and purple lighting. For You can’t the beat, we asked the production to add more colour as this number was more lively and upbeat. For hard to say goodbye, we kept the side lights on had a purple light towards the end. We needed to prioritise where we placed certain props such as the table in Take me or Leave me, so that it was position forward enough for the audience to see from all angles. We also to make sure that the time between each pieces weren’t long and that they were fluid.

For Take me or Leave we decided to use table, chairs, notepad and pen. The reason why this supported our pieces was because during the song Dylan and I stand on the table and I used pen and notebook as prop to look as if I was doing work as my character is a Lawyer. For Fly Fly Away I used a fake hand held microphone and a high chair this supported my piece as I was settling on the chair whilst using the mic and singing out to the audience and for All that Jazz, I used a lipstick and mirror, this supported my piece because I used it to look as if I was getting ready on stage for the performance. I sourced the table from the art department which the production student kindly brought downstairs, the high chair was found and given to me by Shelley, the notepad, lipstick and mirror were all valuables of mine. As for the fake hand held microphone, Shelley demonstrated and instructed me on how to use both the headset microphone and hand held microphone together.

As for costume, weeks prior we had a trip to the costume cupboard which we then used that time to look for potential costumes but had not found everything which meant we had to order and find clothing outside of college.

Some of the costumes were influenced by the pieces and the time period for example Hairspray, but as for my solo, I decided I didn’t to follow the same style and decided to dress differently. We used the costumes that we had and the make up to reflect the pieces as we wanted to keep a limitation to the amount we had on set.

For some of the pieces we had to work with Grant and Charlie in recording and editing backing tracks, we also had to work with Grant on learning how to use the headset microphone in order not receive any more feedback and to be heard clearly. The overall outcome on communication the environment that we wanted to create was that we were all happy and content with the presentation sides of things. One thing that I think could have been improved is the I felt as if the introduction for All that Jazz didn’t need to be as longs as it was and that we didn’t need to replay it more than once in waiting for the audience to sit down. I also felt as if we should have had more help backstage as sometimes things got hectic for example before the last piece, I have Take me or Leave me and I am unable to change my outfit by myself as I have to straight back on.

Problem solving

The problems that we faced throughout the process were similar throughout as some of them took longer than other to solve. One main problem that we had faced in the beginning was change of project, which meant that when we finally changed the piece we had less time as we would have originally to work on it. This meant that we had to create timetable and schedules which we would work on in order to get everything done in time. Another problem that occurred was that Shelley had suggested that we do another Duet, due to this decision only being made weeks before the show we had to work during the holidays and as much as we could when we came back to ensure the piece was ready for the show. Another problem was my backing track to Look what happened to Mabel, before we had the Milestone Assessment Shelley mentioned how it would be better if the backing was full instrumental, with this being said I had tried to find a backing but was unsuccessful, we then suggested that we could ask Charlie to record a piano backing for me to use instead, I later then on the week of the show went to the recording studio and there, I recorded the backing with Charlie. For You can’t stop the Beat, we as a group were finding hard to sing whilst dancing and came to the conclusion that it may be better if we recorded us singing then use that as a backing track to sing over, therefore we still were singing.

At the beginning when rehearsing the speeches in the theatre we all struggled with what to say but to solve this we decided to write down information about our pieces and give it to the person that was presenting us, so that they had an idea of what to say, which made it easier. We later then typed it up and brought it out every time we were presenting. Another problem Dylan and I came across was during the rehearsal when we had no table, this was hard because majority of the piece was around the table so we had to several weeks without using one. When we finally got the table, at the beginning it felt awkward but as we continued to rehearse we were to adjust to having it. Hard to say Goodbye, was the piece which we had adapted and changed the most alongside All that Jazz, we began with a routine but then decided that I didn’t justify and deliver the message that we wanted, we then questioned whether sitting on stool would be more effective whilst adding little movement in between, however this still wasn’t good enough as we felt as if we should use more of the space. We then came to the conclusion that it would be better to stand on the upper stage and sing to the audience, and move to centre stage as the song progresses. This was more effective as it allowed us mainly just sing out to the audience. One last problem Dylan and I came across was, finding our ground and what different things that we could be doing during Anything you can do, as we were told that we were circling one another to much and that we needed to add gestures and more meaning, with this being said we spent time choreographing movement in which we would do throughout the song.

Conclusion

In conclusion I felt unit 12 has played everyone strengths and the process helped develop things people wanted to develop throughout the unit. I feel as if we used the theme of the cabaret and linked that to our pieces. Although we had a smaller class in comparison to last year, we all took on roles and managed to get through it all.