Panto Rehearsals

Earlier in the week we had to perform Act 1 of our pantomime to the 2nd years. At first I was quite nervous considering we had only recently just blocked it. But then I thought bring it on! After the prologue us villagers went straight into the opening song: Live While We're Young by One Direction. I thought it went ok but I did forget some of the choreography, and after the song when we are in the market and are interacting with Aladdin for a bit, I made the foolish mistake of going off stage and into the wings when we wasn't suppose to. I did this because as I was absent on the first day of blocking some of the opening scenes from Act 1, I thought that is when us villagers had to exit the stage. I immediately regretted that decision as it threw the actor playing Aladdin as well as the other villagers.  I obviously knew straight away that if I am absent on a day of college, I need to make up for it and ask someone what I missed so they could go through it with me so I don't make errors like that again.


Later on in the performance us villagers had to go on and sing the Oompa Loompa song but we ended up missing the cue to go on. This also happened a second time when we forgot to come on to Jessie J's Do It Like a Dude.


In the end we all got feedback and it was said that it wasn't a very good performance but we was all fully aware of that anyway. I for one did feel that I let the group down a little as I forgot the choreography to the opening song and did mess up a few times later on. The whole performance in front of an audience giving us feedback did shake me up a little because it meant we all as a company had a lot of work to do.


Later in the week we started to practise singing a long to Boogie Wonderland by Earth, Wind and Fire in our weekly singing lessons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=god7hAPv8f0 It is quite a good song as it is both funky and catchy. As we started singing a long to it I kept coming in at the wrong time to 'you dance and shake the hurt'. This is because there is a long pause between 'you dance' and 'shake the hurt'. We also sang all of the other songs that we will be doing. I know most of the songs apart from Happy by Pharrell Williams, the Oompa Loompa song and Don't Stop Me Now by Queen. During half term I will need to learn all of them as well as knowing all the cues for which I need to come in to, the stage directions and try to be more familiar with the choreography.


As a villager I am finding it extremely hard to know what exactly to do on stage. For example when Bamboo and Typhoo call in witnesses in Act 2, a few villagers run on and stand behind them. But then I'm not too sure what I need to do next. Despite us all creating a character profile which is meant to help us develop our characters a bit further which I did find particularly useful at first, I then find it difficult to put what I wrote in writing on to the stage to help me create my character. Over the course of the half term I need to seriously think about where I am going with this character and I need to come back stronger and more mentally and physically engaged with this project.

Exploring Character in Panto

Earlier in the week we got given the task of creating a story profile for our characters for panto. That way we could develop our characters a bit further and can become more familiar with them and know how to play them. So I did feel that this homework task would be both interesting and challenging. I thought it would be challenging as I am only a villager and don't even have a name in our panto, unlike all of the main characters in the show so I would have to create a whole new character for myself to portray. We did get a guideline sheet to help us start it off. I first started asking myself 'who am I?' and I did find this rather fun as I had to create a whole background story about my character and I was allowed to interpret it my own way. I did play around with it quite a bit.

Character Profile Story:

Right then where to start? Well I've got to start somewhere. I might as well start with my name. I'm Charlie Kingsmill and I'm a villager. I own my own bread stall. I sell white bread and brown bread. I prefer white bread. I'm 23 years old and my life hasn't exactly planned out the way I wanted it to be. Ever since I was a boy I've always wanted to work for the Emperor of China. Such a dream job that would of been. But no. Here I am on my lunch break at 2 in the afternoon in my living room in my rented apartment, drowning my sorrows watching The Jeremy Kyle Show. I rarely get any customers and when I do, they just look but not buy any of my home-made bread. I need the money. I mean who doesn't need the money here in Old Peking. If I don't make enough the grand vizier will take away my market stall. Then there's that bread roll seller opposite my stall in the market. He sells white rolls and brown rolls. He makes a fortune! One of these days I'm going to have to ask to join up our stalls with that guy. It's survival of the fittest or in this case it's the survival of who makes the most money! No one seems to care about bread these days. It's all about bread rolls! I live on my own. It's not too bad but I would love to settle down and meet a girl. I'll tell you who I would love to meet: Princess Jasmine. I heard she's beautiful. Although I haven't seen her face.

Blocking Aladdin!

We have now started blocking the first act of Aladdin. Due to the clash we had with doing Jack and the Beanstalk, a lot of things had to change such as some of the songs. The songs we will now be singing are:

• Live While We're Young-One Direction.
• Happy-Pharrell Williams.
• Do It Like a Dude-Jessie J (Our own version).
• The Oompa Loompa Song-Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Our own version).
• A Whole New World-Aladdin film.
• Don't Stop Me Now-Queen.
• Boogie Wonderland-Earth, Wind and Fire.

During the blocking of Aladdin I have been given the role of one of the guards of the Emperor's. I was very pleased that I got chosen to be one of the guards as I thought it would be a fun role to do. So far as a guard I need to ensure that I act as 'hard' and tough as possible, considering I am the other half of muscle for the Emperor.

I do feel that I am responding to direction well at times. However at the same time I do feel that I don't apply some of the direction given to me which I should be doing. I am finding it hard understanding some of the stage directions in the script as I feel some of it isn't very clear. For example in one particular scene the stage direction reads 'Everybody bustles on taking their places'. I got confused what that actually meant and whether that does actually include villagers which role I am in.


Whilst studying pantomimes as a whole I have learnt that the tradition of 'it's behind you' dates back hundreds of years and is linked to the warning of ghosts appearing. I have also learnt that in pantomimes the fairy character always enters from the right (stage right) and the villain; in this pantomime Abanazar would enter from the left. This comes from earlier theatre and religious plays where Heaven was always portrayed on the right whilst Hell was always portrayed on the left. As well as all this I have also learnt that the last lines said in the finale are traditionally rhyming couplets, but should never be spoken in rehearsal times but only uttered for the first time on the opening night. This also applies for the walk-down. I have found studying pantomimes very interesting as I never knew more than that 'pantomimes are for children' which isn't entirely true. In fact there are more to pantomimes than meets the eye.


We also went through the choreography to Don't Stop Me Now by Queen https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OPx-nUqLMtc. I did find the choreography quite difficult at first especially the 'spin' for the first part. When I kept doing it I felt that it looked really untidy and neat as our choreographer did it. Whilst going through the movement for the song I did feel that I passed a target that I set myself personally the other week. The target I set myself last week was to ensure that the next time we did any choreography to something, I would make sure that I asked the choreographer if I needed any help with any particular movement which I did do this time. But I do need to keep on doing this if I don't understand something, whether that's a piece of choreography or something else.

My target for next week is...

• To make sure that I look happy whilst on stage and to ensure I have a smile on my face. I do find it quite hard to smile on stage as well as seeming happy whilst concentrating on whether or not I am doing the right movement.

Changing Pantomime...

Due to a clash we had to change our pantomime to Aladdin which I was more than happy about as I have always been a lover of the story of Aladdin at an early age. We then got the script to our new pantomime and we had a read-through. In this script of Aladdin there were some more characters to be cast which meant those who didn't get a main part from when we did Jack and the Beanstalk was given a second chance to audition for one of these new characters. These new characters included: the vizier who is like the right-hand man to the Emperor of China, Bamboo and Typhoo who are a comedy double act and So-Shy who is the Princess's handmaiden and the Genie of the lamp. I read in for the part of the grand vizier which I did enjoy.


After the read-through we had to choose who we wanted to audition for, for later in the day. I was temped to audition for either Bamboo or Typhoo as they are a comedy double act but I came to the decision of auditioning for the grand vizier. Although we had limited time until the auditions I quickly studied the part of the script that I would be auditioning with and I picked a partner to audition alongside with. I was then ready for my audition.


I did feel that my audition went ok but as I couldn't manage to learn my lines for it, I had a script in my hand which meant it was quite difficult to act. I also felt that I needed to be more stern and authoritative in my role as the vizier is a very straight-talking down to business kind of character. Eventually we found out who got what part again for our pantomime and I got the role of a villager.

Pantotime Project Audition Process

Whilst preparing myself for the auditions I spent a lot of time reading through my parts in the script and ensuring that I knew my lines inside and out. For the Fairy character I decided to make a chavvy interpretation of the character as I thought it would come across quite funny and it would be something different. I tried to make it as chavvy as I knew by kissing my teeth on one such occasion, putting on a fairly relaxed voice and walking with a 'swagger.' For Rancid I found it rather difficult on how to portray him as I had many ideas. My first idea was to try and come across as a rather sarcastic but stern character with a deep angry voice. But the idea I went for in the end was to still keep the idea of a sarcastic villain but I tried to combine that to make him more intimidating. I very much enjoyed practising for the role of Rancid as I played around with it in early stages quite a lot. I also did a lot of research into pantomime villains as I watched various different YouTube clips of panto villains in action such as the Baron in Jack and the Beanstalk and Abanazar from Aladdin.   https://www.youtube.com/watchfeature=player_embedded&v=I7KxO8VhxpA

For the auditions for Jack and the Beanstalk I decided to audition for the Fairy and Rancid, the Giant's Henchman. I wanted to audition for those parts as they were something different to what I would usually go for in a show. I wanted to see how I would get on.

So when the day of the auditions came I was very nervous but excited at the same time as this would be my first professional audition for a main part in a show. We also had singing and dancing auditions which I did struggle at quite a bit. I did find it rather hard singing a long to S Club 7's Reach for the Stars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SxSnjL3nZ0&feature=player_embedded
With a small dance routine to go with it I did find immensely hard. With singing I tend to struggle a lot with the actual projection of my voice. But during a weekly singing lesson with my peers, my tutor and singing coach spoke to me about doing breathing exercises which will result in me not getting out of breath whilst singing. I have been practising these at home and at college with peers.


For the acting audition I decided to audition for the Fairy first. I acted out a small scene with a fellow group member who played Rancid. I did feel that my audition went well for the Fairy as I did do everything that I set out to do in the first place. However I did feel that I didn't come across very clear of how I wanted to portray my character. I feel this way because of how I worked the stage. I felt that I didn't really own it as the Fairy. I do now feel that I can now hopefully learn from this and next time if I have to audition for something else, I need to be more imposing in my roles. Even though there wasn't enough time for me to audition for Rancid I will still keep in mind how I wanted to portray this villainous character which will help me in further projects.


The day after the auditions we found out what roles we would be placed in up until December. I got the role of a villager which I was a bit disappointed with as of course I did want a main role, but I am still happy that I've got a part and that I am in the show. As a villager I will need to undergo research into how I want to interpret my character. For help with my research I will watch other pantomime's to see how other villagers act and perform.

Pantomime Project

For this project we are working as a company to put together a pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk that will run from the 16th of December to the 19th of December. It will run for 13 performances. For this project we will be combining singing, acting and dancing to make it a pantomime to remember! So far we have been given the script to Jack and the Beanstalk and we had a whole read-through of it with some of the group reading in as the main characters. The first part I read in for was King Hubert. The reason why I wanted to read in for this particular character was because I wanted to see how I would get on as playing an older character. I did feel that I read in for the character well but by the end of it, I thought that I didn't feel confident enough in that specific role to give it another go later on in the read-through. The other character that I read in for was the part of Dame Trott the larger than life mother of Jack and Tommy and of course the pantomime's dame. As a lover for comedy I have always been interested in the comical roles that a performances gives. I have also always been interested in pantomime dame's like the Ugly Stepsisters from Cinderella, Widow Twankey from Aladdin and even Dame Edna Everage.

After a second and final read-through of the script we came to a decision that auditions for Jack and the Beanstalk would be in 2 weeks time. In a matter of a few weeks I have already learnt so much of the concept of panto; from it really being suited to a adult audience because of some of the adult jokes and innuendos which play a huge part of a pantomime. Children obviously love coming to watch pantomimes as they are always exciting and enjoyable with such characters like Buttons from Cinderella, Wishee Washee from Aladdin and Simon from Jack and the Beanstalk who all act as the children's entertainer, and is the key character who children can relate to in the story.