The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe is now going very well and has to be completed quickly after the summer holidays as there is less than one term before the performance. I am doing my bit and more, and it is time for you to put in loads of practice or else we will not have a performance. Whirlwind Theatre has a reputation of very high standards and no compromise. I can not stress enough the importance of learning lines, songs and stage fighting moves and coming ‘off book’ over the holidays.
I have given you tips to help with learning, for example, repeating the lines over and over whilst doing a repetitive movement i.e. Juggling, running up and down. Jumping, tidying up or rearranging books. This way of learning was encouraged by a very famous voice coach called Cicely Berry (Cicely Berry 1991 ‘Voice and the actor’ lst Collier Books. ISBN 0-02-041555-9 1,) who trained actors at The RSC in the Mid. to late C20th. We lived by her teaching and the above mentioned book when I was at drama school.
Acting is not about intellectual learning as we do at school, college or university and is more like being a visual artist engaged in painting than an academic exercise. We move on a natural impulse finding the physical reaction to words spoken and things happening around us. We have to engage our physical and muscle memory coupled with imagination and observation, then step into someone else’s shoes and take on their reactions to situations around them.
If you sit in your room trying to cram lines into you head, all that will happen when you try to move on stage, is blankness and an ‘um - ‘I knew them in my room’ response. Yes read the script through several times and imagine and picture your character, moves and entrances and their scenes, then work out why they say each sentence. Remember a full stop is a thought change and clauses (the bits between commas) are add-ons to thoughts. Move during the full stops and don’t forget to breath. We all breath and move when thinking but we don’t realise we doing this. Have a go at finding how your character breaths in the scene – we all breath differently and at different rates at different times (make your characters breath). Also look at what is a forward response coming closer to some one ‘i.e. –‘That interesting!’, or a backward response i.e. ‘That’s Horrid!’.
I think I have given you enough instructions to get on with for now with overwhelming you with techniques.
I will be bring the model box that is now finished with me on Saturday and also the masks that I have started. Please make sure I have all your measurements for costumes before the end of term
One exciting bit of news is that a Whirlwind member of the children company, who has been in many of our summer productions, including ‘Brilliant the Dinosaur’, has just landed a lead role in a CBBC programme in the autumn. We give her all our best for this big step.
I will be writing up about the fight workshop shortly…..
Myette.
