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.