William Shakespeare
Facts about William Shakespeare.
Biography Online. (2019). Facts about William Shakespeare |. [online] Available at: https://www.biographyonline.net/poets/facts-shakespeare.html [Accessed 02 Jun. 2019].
His greatest plays include Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.
Fact 11
He wrote 38 plays and 154 sonnets.
Fact 3
— Performance Below —
Hamlet
Hamlet Practical & Context
I started off with doing Hamlet as we was discussing and breaking down the characters and for how the theme would take place as we’ve watched a couple of different versions on how people have played it when then we’ve decided for the theme to base it around the modern generation of society such as clothing.
It was slightly confusing to grasp how I could apply the modern generation onto the play such as deciding what kind of issues was implied through out the performance or how I could come across showing them.
In the next following day we’ve discussed more about the casting for which we was all given our roles which I was taken up King Claudius, so I wasn’t so sure how I should play him at all; as we proceeded with discussing about the theme again as well what kind of costumes that we would use for our characters and so I decided to go with something closely resembled to a suit for a business male as King Claudius would be rather well suited in the modern days.
I would like to hopefully get something quite similar to above for my character.
after last session we began to officially start setting our scenes such as actions as well lines; yet I kept struggling with certain lines as I wasn’t sure with what I was saying when it came down to my parts that needed setting such as the first scene, so after the feedback I decided to underline it and break down what was the motive behind me saying this, I would like to also improve on being able to individually understand the script by breaking down the contextual side of the lines to find out what they mean; I’m going to do this by going through my scripted parts by underlining and translating bits by bit as well by watching different versions and how they express the lines through movement.
“He’s explained that his sister is now the queen as they’ve married”
In the next session we continue with rehearsing by continuing the setting of the performance for which I decided to go over my next paragraph when I was at home after receiving feedback; I changed the motion by crossing out the wrong action down below.
I was struggling to work out what to do for actions when reacting or even interacting with the other characters on stage as I was finding it slightly hard to work out the way of coordinating my words into actions without understanding the whole script throughout and that I found it difficult to keep up with certain words as I would still stumble on them; I’m planning to improve on this by dedicating several hours a day practicing my lines and by breaking down the paragraphs, I’m hoping to achieve this by next week.
The next following week, I began preparing my clothes as I was heading out in town for several ties as well fresh white long sleeve tops to fit my character King Claudius.
We then began the next week performing the next week, however I found this to be more interesting as we aimed towards developing the character through the style as I noticed how certain people would walk around the streets with heads quite high and that they tend to overlook everyone else with heights and how they’re far above everyone else, I received feedback on how my character is represented vocally as well physically throughout some of the rehearsals for which it wasn’t anywhere near what was being said on the script; so I would like to aim to developing my character’s expressions as well bodily actions. I’m going to improve on this by rehearsing at home with the technique of imaging them from Michael Chekhov
For the final week before the performance date we ended up doing a full run through of both performances which then we started to do a full blocking of what was left as I wanted to improve on how my character stood, walked and acted throughout the play towards the other characters; so I decided to do some research into possible ways of walking, standing and sitting down to help me represent the character more clearly.
Hamlet Evaluation & Reflection
It came to our first day of performing Hamlet as I ended up freezing on stage because I allowed myself to wake up on stage which then I consistently kept procrastinating on my lines overthinking as If I forgot them which in the end I recovered by prompting my next part jumping over the paragraph; so I allowed myself to get caught off guard.
I wasn’t so clear on my projection as well diction throughout the performance in front of the audience as I ended up dropping lines half way constantly which then caused me to drop in motivation and enthusiasm when rehearsing; I’d like to improve on this by rehearsing over my lines whilst at home and during the final day of performing Hamlet.
I went over my lines constantly last night as well during the spare time we was given in the morning which helped to focus on what I should be saying as I prepared where my props we’re already placed and for which I used the starting interval to relax and prepare my mind; as I was able to execute my line delivery this time without issues.
I feel like that my second day of the performance was more successful due to being able to proceed with delivering my lines with a consistent ongoing level of projection as well enthusiasm with my lines other then my first day for which I ended up pausing and forgetting what I was going to say because I kept overthinking what was said or done.
I found the stage setting to be rather helpful as it easily flowed from what sides I was entering with as I would always follow up or have Queen Gertrude on the same side and that I was able to be freely creative with my character and how he should act since day one as in the beginning I had no acknowledgement or idea of how I wanted to play him or was gonna relate him to the other characters.
Hamlet Research
The quote below relates highly towards King Claudius as well the performance as he’s corrupted by the wealth as well greed and that in today’s society we have the same thing within our industries.
Taming of the Shrew
Taming Of The Shrew Context & Practical
We started off with discussing about Taming Of The Shrew and how we would possibly theme it for which then we watched some small clips based on the summary of the performance; as we then discussed about the theme as well created a group scroll on stage which we could individually fill in adding our own concepts or possible ideas.
We then discussed the theme which would be classed on #MeToo as this has a strong resemblance till today’s society such as Sexual Harassment and females standing up for what they consider to be wrong therefore fighting for the wrong against women.
It was alright to understand the concept of #MeToo when it was mentioned as I didn’t find it as difficult, however I would like to do further research into it to have a more stronger understanding of what it’s completely about and why it’s been started; I’m going to improve on this by looking it more through possible books or network.
We began setting Taming Of The Shrew after we sat down, where everyone was given the casting roles as I casted as Lucentio for which he’s a strongly positive person as I’ve decided to theme him around the clothing style of some who just finally arrived and made it into the dreamworld as If he was ready for Holly wood for example below;
I would like to be able to identify the script easily which will allow me to apply my character rather early before the deadline, therefore allowing me to contribute more time towards my script as well character development, by organizing and scheduling times and day’s towards each of my assignments throughout the week allowing me to equally split my time between rehearsal periods.
I’ve found Taming Of The Shrew to be slightly more easier than Hamlet since most of the sentences flowed into one another and that it wasn’t as difficultly worded compared to Hamlet; as I also Tranio being a companion/servant instead of a normal servant as if there was some kind of friendship bond, I found this to be more easier due to us being able to feed off one another for motivation and enthusiasm when it came to interacting with one another.
I would like to improve on involving more interaction with Tranio by extending my bodily engagement with him such as pats or moments of where I’m excited such as when I’m entering Padua for the first time; I’m hoping to develop some kind of improvised interactions in the next couple of rehearsal sessions.
The next following session I was able to successfully learn my lines over the time period at home whilst rehearsing with my peers during college; as I then had James for which then we discussed about the themes after rehearsing which I got feedback on being required to play the character more cooler as well with a lot more energy.
I’m hoping to improve on my levels of enthusiasm as well on how I deliver my lines, so I can deliver them with a lot more energy instead of just saying it as I would like to give off some kind of signal that my character: (Lucentio) has been waiting for this moment for a long time and that he’s come a long way from the air port to then be overwhelmed by everything going on around him and Tranio.
I’d like to accomplish this through practicing on transferring my energy of when I’m excited into the lines when interacting with Tranio, as this allows me to encourage him to come over from the side, therefore pushing a better reaction from the both of our conversation.
Taming Of The Shrew Evaluation and Reflection
When it came down to our first performing day on Wednesday 19th, we did a consistent ongoing tech rehearsal to work out the starting queues as well special effects and sounds; as I found my first day to be rather well when it came down to executing an ongoing performance for Taming of the shrew, however I ended up receiving feedback regarding my diction, projection and energy levels where I kept allowing myself to drop the energy throughout my scripts.
So I would like to enhance my motivation for keeping my lines well projected as well with more determination involved instead of letting certain parts go quite or even lose color therefore making it quite difficult for the audience to understand or that it heavily impacts the scene’s intentions; I am hoping to work on doing a couple of warm ups before tomorrow’s performance by doing b,d,g and p,t,k as well Ma, Na, La, Tha, Va, Za.
These warm ups will help me prepare myself more clearly before the performance as I would like to keep an ongoing levels of energy throughout the performance.
For my final day of performing Taming Of the Shrew on Thursday, I was able to easily prepare for which I already placed my clothing change down in order and rearranged it so I was already dressed for the marriage scene due to entering late yesterday; as this helps me to easily keep up with the scene transitioning.
I’ve also started off with doing some vocal warm ups in the backstage to prepare myself ready this time as I also went around ensuring that all my props and costumes we’re correctly set on the right and left side of the stage to polish the transitioning between my scenes.
As I found today to run more smoothly without any issues therefore me being able to easily deliver on a strong level of projection and diction; however I was able to retrieved feedback from a tutor allowing me to identify that my use of vowels as well letters needs more improvement as sometimes letters would be lost within the words.
I would like to improve on this by consistently doing my vocal and rp vowel sheets over the monthly break therefore allowing me to spend some of my break time towards my next progression.
Taming Of The Shrew Research
“Madness”
I’ve applied this to my aspect of the performance for the fact that King Claudius isn’t sanely capable of being mixed in with his Human morals therefore leading him to only think about himself as well his riches and money.
Hamlet and Taming of the Shrew’s Project Proposal Form
Monologue
Today I started off with selecting Spur of the moment as my monologue because it felt like there was some kind of connection through the way I felt when I was performing it on copy in front of my peers, as I found the wording to be rather difficult because of different feelings and emotions that would flow through the words when speaking it; so I wasn’t able to decide on how I wanted to express and who I was talking to when I was performing my monologue.
I would like to improve on having a better understanding of when to change emotion and reflect upon my words for what I’m saying and who I am currently targeting; I am gonna do this through doing research into the summary of the monologue and how old my character is as well what kind of life style could they be living.
The following day after my performance I ended up checking over and breaking down the summary where I found out that my character who is a Twenty One Year Old Lodger which is talking to himself about how he feels about everything that’s gone on; as this gives me a negative emotion for how I should do my speech, so I decided to perform it quickly on purpose to give a consistent tension feeling for how my character feels throughout the monologue.
I ended up finding it slightly challenging to remember my script for the way it changes in emotion as I was hoping to do the actions and script at the same time; I would like to advance on this by performing it in front of one my peers and then asking for feedback or to find another method of remembering my monologue with my actions.
On Monday I discussed my monologue with my tutor who then recommended that I get off copy before the following week to perform it without the script so I would be able to isolate my time on rehearsing the reason behind my speech.
I tried rehearsing my monologue at home with pre planned actions and movements with my lines as this didn’t help me out at all but make it more difficult to remember my lines when I came in today for rehearsing the top half of my monologue.
I’m hoping to improve on finding an effective method or technique to enhance my capabilities of remembering the lines by next week, I’m going to do this through practising a method that I learned in class with Emma which was to find a space on the wall and image my character or who I’m speaking to which then I can deliver my lines.
On Tuesday we began to do several possible methods to help with identifying our character and what kind of motivation was behind the way the lines we’re delivering, such as where they just came from and who they’re speaking to; I didn’t find these to be very helpful as It only made it somewhat more complicated as I ended up questioning whether it had some sort of effect or was making a difference.
It came down to placing markers on the script for when every time we came up to a change of mood or emotion during the monologue which is then we’d note down an apostrophe or mark; as then when we came up to semi colons or even a full stop, we would then take a moment to stop and change direction with the amount of change in character.
I found this more helpful than the other methods since it helped me to easily identify and note down when my character could have a change in mood or to acknowledge other bits that I didn’t notice before; however for next lesson, I would like to learn the rest of my monologue to officially perform without any kind of trouble as I am going to do this through dedicated several hours at home whilst cutting it down into units to learn.
after rehearsing my monologue consistently yesterday, I performed it successfully in front of my tutor when it was requested to see what kind of progression we made with it, however I found out that I was targeting the wrong person as I assumed I was talking to my girl friend; however she wasn’t with my at the time but Deililah was which was a 12 year old who was about to turn 13.
I found out that Delilah has affection for the 21 year old lodger which ended up developing into something more bigger yet he tries to push her away with being upset and negative about everything that he’s done as If he’s trying to make it sound bad on purpose; as this helped me to easily work out that I should be playing it with a more vile type of style to push her away on purpose instead of remain sad all the time.
I would like to enhance on being able to perform my monologue with a more change between sad emotion as well anger throughout; I’m gonna do this through practising at home or to another family member.
It was a couple of days before the performance day so we setup a audience for which in the end I performed it one final time in front of my class; so I ended up getting feedback that I don’t really put any other meaning or emotion with it but keeping it the same throughout as something could be felt in the beginning till the end and that I don’t allow anything to come through as If I’m holding it back, so I would like to improve on this by listening back to my recording over the day once I got home which then I can redo it but with a different approach.
I’m hoping to achieve this before next week.
It came to day of Headgate theatre for which I’d rehearse it several times after doing tech rehearsals throughout the day which I found it to be quite bothering as I wasn’t sure whether I was gonna mess up or not; so once I found out where I was standing I ended up performing it in front of the audience.
I found that overall I have been able to change it up from last feedback with various of changes in tone and tempo plus emotion when It came down to certain parts, where I’d use moments to procrastinate certain lines to give it the feel as If I found it very difficult to come out with it; however I felt some kind of connection with the monologue when performing it the final time but not as much and I would like to improve on my diction, clarity as well projection in future as I thought that I could’ve been more clearer on my choice of words.
I am going to do this through consistently repeating the b,d,g and p,t,k vocal warm ups as well my vowel rp sheets.
Monologue Research
I found out a small brief of information regarding what’s going on with the characters such as relationships and links between each person to help me develop how the character actually feels regarding the performance.
Monologue Evaluation & Reflection
I found that the performance day for my monologue was rather successful due to the matter of being able to remain confident, however receiving the feedback that I wasn’t allowing my monologue to develop during the tech rehearsal, I found out that my commitment was quite applicable as it’s helped me to remain on top of my monologue; as my projection was well used throughout the monologue, however I reckon that one of my weak points that require developed would be my diction due to moments where I’d allow my words to stumble and mess up.
I’m hoping to achieve this by consistently using the vocal training methods that we’ve been given such as b,d,g and p,t,k; I would like to also be able to take my character research and development as I found that it wasn’t very powerful since I’d still get confused on how I should’ve played Daniel more clearly, such as my interpretation of his story and where he came from as I feel like I could’ve done more research into his background and how that developed who he is now.
Duologue
Duologue Practical & Context
We started on identifying what duo logues we wanted to perform which then Leah looked into several and one of them being Much ado about nothing which we selected “My Dear Lady Distain”, “The Party Scene” as these we’re quite difficult to understand such as the use of wording; so we then went into the small room to do several practice line rehearsals with one another without anything or actions whilst blocking the text.
I found the party scene to be quite difficult since it requires consistent movement and changes whilst inputting script development, I would like to be able to locate and work on duo logue by the next lesson so that I’m able to engage with learning something for the showcase; I’m going to do this by checking inside the library as well over the internet for any possible duo logues that could be performed.
In the next following week, I began working on more vocal rehearsals with my peer on giving some kind of element towards what was being said before we even got it up on it’s feet; so we decided to sit down and do a rebounding line rehearsal whilst I attempted to learn the lines whilst doing so which slowed down the process; as I would like to be able to utilize me skill for learning lines more effectively by practicing different methods over the weekend.
I’m hoping to do this within two weeks times by doing an ongoing consistent repeat of it.
In our next day we began looking into potential methods to locate what the duo logue or monologue was about such as where did the character from, who are they and why are they saying what it is being said; so my peer and me sat down discussing about our duo logue as we found out that it was far too short to be performed in the show case so we had check into several duo logue books to find possible materials that could be performed.
It seemed that we wasn’t finding anything that was possibly connectable or that gives the feeling to work on it ongoing throughout the unit so we went away to the library for which Leah looked over several duo logues leading us to discuss about them until we decided to do the The Last Witch, so we did a couple of lines from it to see whether it gave anything.
I found this duo logue to be more enjoyable for the purpose of how my characteristic range as well vocal range is suitable for Davy Ross who is an Officer that’s trying to get her to confess to everything that she’s done.
In the next session we can rehearsing The Last Witch for where I was experimenting with possible tones or approaches with when I’m speaking to her as I was coming off more friendly in the beginning than intimidating; I found this slightly difficult since I wasn’t getting any connection with the lines at the time due to being on copy for the script so I continued doing the lines whilst we blocked the script with actions to create some kind of motivation.
This helped me to develop a connection with the character and how I was saying my lines since there would be certain parts for which I would grab her hair and pull her violently towards me whilst asking a question, I found out in the beginning that I pulled it far too gentle as it was suggested that I do it slightly more firmly allowing her to move with it at the same time to give it the motion; so I would like to improve on my physical side of acting by watching possible clips or getting guidance on how to perform it safely without causing any kind of harm towards my partner.
I’d like to improve this over several weeks times.
In today’s lesson we went over our script with finishing the blocking, so we then decided to proceed with more rehearsing as well slow motion practice when it comes down to the action of me interacting with my peer through careful and planned pulling and pushing actions. I would like to be able to portrait an aggressive character through physical interaction more clearly, as I would like to achieve this by doing research into way’s of doing it safely.
During today’s lesson we began cutting down the duo logue as well crossed off certain parts that didn’t make sense for which I did this to help me take more easier notice of how much I needed to learn left before the deadline; I found it the final rehearsal day that my due logue notes was out of date with my peer so that we haven’t been communicating as clearly therefore this was causing possible dangers for the actions and preparations that we have put into place to avoid them, so we’ve been given feedback to change it to using proximity as the advantage of dealing with the scene.
I’m planning to improve on this by doing a quick drafted rehearsal for my approach of how I am going to use proximity to interact with my peer on stage, as I would like to do this before Monday’s performance at Headgate Theatre.
I’ve kept an ongoing consistent monitoring of my progression throughout the final unit as for example where in the beginning my time management skills was rather off in the beginning as I would like to improve on this in the future by organizing and keeping track of scheduling between my deadlines; as I would also like to highly enhance my interaction with my peers as I’ve been second guessing myself on an ongoing basis throughout some of my selections where I should be attempting to try it instead.
I am hoping to improve on this in time to come by forwarding my ideas more clearly instead of concealing it or keeping it quiet as it could be applicable towards my contributions.
As I have advanced with most of my commitments as I’ve been going through my final unit such as sensitivity towards my peers such as each others contributions as well my given feedback which is an ongoing consistency and has helped me to acknowledge possible changes and experiments that I could’ve done.
Duologue Evaluation and Reflection
It came down to the performance day for which we did several tech rehearsals before going on stage to perform as I let my second guessing get the better of me by over thinking my lines at the time which led me to standing there during the tech run through; as I allowed it to get the better of me therefore letting myself drop lines.
We then went on stage for our part which I was able to successfully deliver all my lines which then I improvised a part in my paragraph to quickly recover from the line I forgot instead of “You couldn’t charm a skin of milk off of a pan could you?”, “You couldn’t woo a skin of milk off of a pan could you?”; I reckon that one of my strengths for this day was my improvisational skill set to make a quick recovery regarding forgetting my lines and remaining confident for the official performance as I also was capable of keeping committed to push myself into rehearsing more.
I found out that one of my weaknesses could be that I would end up second guessing myself as well that I would over think whilst being on stage and that sometimes I let myself acknowledge that the audience we’re there making it slightly more difficult for myself.
If I was able to redo it, I would commit more time into scheduling my rehearsal periods for then, I would’ve isolated some of my time equally for actioning as well lines.
I’m hoping to improve on reducing the amount of second guessing by experimenting more often in front of my peers as well by learning a new monologue and then setting time schedules for when I’m going to do it which by then I am planning to do a dead lined performance at home or to friends I know.
I was able to improve my quality of creativity when developing a character since the day I did The Crucible; as I wasn’t so confident with my selection as well that I didn’t do a clear analysis or synopsis on top of The Crucible for when I performed it due to leaving my rehearsals rather late, as I was able to keep up with my past goal of improving on my scheduling and techniques for working on expressions, vocal range as well bodily actions and reactions.
Duologe Research
Bibliography
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Do-myessay.com. (2019). “Taming of the Shrew”: Themes, Social Issues and Key Elements. [online] Available at: https://do-myessay.com/taming-of-the-shrew-themes [Accessed 25 Jun. 2019].
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IMDb. (2019). Maleficent (2014) – IMDb. [online] Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1587310/ [Accessed 25 Jun. 2019].
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prezi.com. (2019). Around the Time Hamlet was written…. [online] Available at: https://prezi.com/syxliqcytmlr/around-the-time-hamlet-was-written/ [Accessed 10 Jun. 2019].
Scribd. (2019). Hamlet and the Modern Day Audience | Hamlet. [online] Available at: https://www.scribd.com/doc/95682652/Hamlet-and-the-Modern-Day-Audience [Accessed 25 Jun. 2019].
Shmoop.com. (2019). Hamlet Setting. [online] Available at: https://www.shmoop.com/hamlet/setting.html [Accessed 25 Jun. 2019].
HISTORY. (2019). Renaissance. [online] Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/renaissance/renaissance [Accessed 4 Jun. 2019].
OVERALL RESEARCH SECTION
Hamlet Facts
Petruccio is landed gentry and has thirteen servants, which emphasises both his power and his wealth.
References to wall paintings reflect transformation and sexual violence. Petruccio is landed gentry and has thirteen servants, which emphasises both his power and his wealth.
The action and language contrasts with, and echoes, the Italianate main play.
Hamlet was written during the time of the Renaissance (1500 – 1660) – https://www.history.com/topics/renaissance/renaissance
Ideas about religion and the supernatural, family relationships, remarriage after widowhoot, romantic infatuation, friendship, political amibition and class difference were all popular topics/issues during that time that is explore in Hamlet
https://prezi.com/syxliqcytmlr/around-the-time-hamlet-was-written/
Taming Of The Shrew Facts
#MeToo, the campaign against sexual harassment and abuse that swept through Hollywood
Bradley's Blog 