Rebeca Class Notes

Monday 10th September 2018
Theatre For Children - Introduction

- Develop skills specifically to entertain children.
- To help a child inspire the first interest in drama.

Aims For The Unit:
- To know how to research, select and refine suitable material for children's theatre.
- To be able to devise and shape material for children's theatre.
- To be able to perform children's theatre.

What Is Theatre For Children?
Theatre for children 12years of age and younger. A performance done by professional actors for children.

Children as an audience:
- They enjoy being active participants.
- They are very excitable.
- They are willing to get involved.
- They are very direct and will let you know if they are bored.
- They respond well to audience participation.
- Different audiences = different requirements.

Common characteristics: 
- They respond eagerly to justice.
- They like being frightened with limits.
- They are logical.
- They are unpredictable.
- Noisy.
- They respond to action.
- Do not like being patronized.
- Do not like "lovey dovey" stuff.
- Love animals and toys.
- Love stories.

Potential groups:
- Play groups.
- Nursery groups.
- Primary schools.
- Youth clubs.
- SEN groups.
- Summer schools.
- Parents and kids.

Purposes:
- To entertain.
- To inform.
- To educate.

Type of material:
- Age groups.
- Timescale.
- Venue.
- Needs of an audience.
- Classics, myths, legends, fiction, non-fiction, the adaption of books, history, and fables.

Inspiration:
- Puppets
- Exaggeration
- Softly spoken
- Expressional
- Big colorful props
- Music
- Must have a message
- Dance
- Humor
- Popular songs
- Popular references

Thursday 12th September
Unit 19 - Principles of acting

Learning outcomes -
- To understand how to interpret and realize text.
- To be able to use acting and rehearsal techniques to develop a performance.
- To be able to perform as an actor

Monday 17th September 2018
Voice - developing voice for the actor

Speech Production Process 

4 processes - 
- Respiration
- Phonation 
- Resonance
- Articulation 

The sound of your voice tells listeners about your personality, emotions, and confidence. Your voice divulges a great deal about your educational background, social status, health, and mental alertness. 

Respiration: 
- provides the energy for sound.
- breathing is an aerodynamic process. 
- a difference in air pressure is created between the thoracic cavity and the atmospheric pressure outside the body. 
- there are two phases of breathing inhalation and exhilaration.

Breathing for speech vs breathing for life: 
-breathing for speech uses the same muscles but is controlled me. 
- breathing for life, inhalation, and exhalation phases are the same.

Phonation: 
- the rapid opening and closing of the vocal folds. 
- the vocal folds lie horizontally to the larynx.
- they attach anteriorly to the thyroid cartilage and posteriorly to the arytenoid cartilages; they are free in the middle.
- the opening in the middle of the vocal cords is the GLOTTIS.

3 major aspects of voice influence by vocal fold movements:
- Pitch = how high or low the voice sounds. It is determined by the speed of vibration of the folds. The higher the pitch the faster the vibration. 
- Loudness = intensity of the sound.
- Quality = the sound quality of your voice. 

Resonance: 
- The characteristic quality of the voice. 
- The pharynx is the primary resonator. 

Articulation: 
- It serves to produce the different configuration which makes up the different speech sounds. 

Dynamics of speech production: 
- speech is a dynamic rather than a static phenomenon. 
- the articulators are in a state of constant movement during speech. 

Other factors; 
- body posture
- relaxation of muscles 
- larynx 

Monday 24th September 2018

The Respiratory System:
The windpipe is made up of a series of cartilaginous rings resembling a vacuum hose. The wind pipe subdivides into two bronchi one for each lung. The bronchi then further divide into numerous bronchioles, through which oxygen is passed to the lungs. The lungs are spongy membranous tissue. They are not muscles. Inhalation occurs when the diaphragm contracts and flattens, pulling the lungs downwards so that air rushes into the vacuum. 

Bones and Muscles of Respiration:
The ribs are connected by the intercoursal muscle. The external intercoursal muscle cover the outside of the ribcage and the internal covers the inside of the rib cage. They aid in expansion of the ribs during inhalation and help expel the air by pulling the ribs together. 

Lyarnx: 
It is located at the point where the respiratory and digestive tracts separate. Internally its walls are modified to make vocal chords. It lies in the mid line of your neck and is partially covered by the thyroid.

Pharnxy:
It is behind the throat and the nasal cavity. It is above the esophagus and the larynx or the tubes going down to the stomach and lungs. It is the main resonator for the voice. 

Speech Organs:
They produce the sounds of language. Organs used for speech are the lips, teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate, velum (soft palate), uvula, glottis and various parts of the tongue. They can be split into two types passive articulators and active articulators.

Vocal exercises:
Breathing: 
Stand with your feet flat on the floor and keep your shoulders back and relaxed. Imagine a string coming out of the top of your head that keeps you standing straight and tall.
Place your hands on your stomach. Practice taking a breath from your diaphragm. Imagine your lungs and diaphragm filling up with air like a balloon. Feel your stomach expand and contract as you inhale and exhale. Make sure not to hunch up your shoulders around your ears or gasp. Keep your inhale controlled!
Breathe in for a count of four, and then exhale though your teeth with a “ssssss” sound for a count of four. When you come to four, stop the exhale crisply. You’ll probably have lots of air left, but the exercise is going to become more challenging!
Breathe in for a count of four, and repeat the exhale for a count of eight. Repeat the exercise exhaling for longer counts (ten, twelve, fourteen). The more you practice this exercise, the longer you will be able to hold the sound. 
Articulation: 

Tongue Twisters- 

IN TOOTING TWO TUTORS ASTUTE
TRIED TO TUTE A DUKE ON A FLUTE
BUT DUETS SO GRUELLING
END ONLY IN DUELLING
WHEN TUTORS ASTUTE TOOT THE FLUTE

Projection: 

Take a breath and say the vowel sound ah as follows 

1.    ah……    (soft → loud)

Start softly and then gradually, and as smoothly as possible, increase your loudness. Remember, you are not trying to shout or scream but to create a contrast between a soft conversational voice and a louder conversational voice (e.g. talking to someone about three meters away). If it helps, imagine that there is a wire extending from your mouth that is tied to some object in a room about three meters away. As you increase your loudness, imagine that you are sending the sound along the wire to meet the object. This may help to create a mental image of projecting the voice across a short distance.

2.    ah……    (loud → soft)

This is the reverse of Exercise 1. As you are staring loudly this time, be careful that you do not use a hard attack when initiating the vocalization. Remember to use easy onset at all times. If you do find that you are hitting the vowel too harshly, simply put a short /h/ sound (as in the word house) before the vowel. This should help to bring the vocal folds together gently before they start to vibrate.

3.    ah……    (soft → loud → soft)

Doing this exercise gently and smoothly almost sounds a little like a car approaching you and then passing by and away – the engine is quiet to begin with, it gets louder as it approaches and then quiet again as it moves off into the distance.

4.    ah……    (soft → loud → soft → loud → soft ……)

This exercise sounds a little like an ambulance siren – alternating between soft and loud, soft and loud.

Repeat with different vowel sounds

Intonation: 
Sliding scale:
Start on a low note and slide your voice up the musical scale as far as it will go. Then try it the other way round. Practicing this technique regularly will help extend your voice at either end.

Thursday 10th January 2019

Principles of acting Unit 19
Acting is a mixture of techniques and art. Actors need to connect mastery of technique with an imaginative and creative approach to their work.

Learning Outcomes:

1. To understand how to interoperate and realize text.
2. Be able to use acting and rehearsal technique to develop performance.
3. To be able to perform as an actor. 

Styles we explore:

• Naturalism and realism.
• Expressionism
• Epic
• Greek choral ensemble
• Melodrama
• Grotesque
• Farce
• Theatre of cruelty and theatre of the absurd.
• Physical theatre

Influencers and key practitioners. 

• Stanislavski
• Brecht
• Berkoff
• Artaud
• Brook
• Fo
• Grotowski
• Craig
• Meyerhold

A brief history of theatre:

Greek and roman - 600/800 BCE

• The 1st play was Thespis in Greece. 
• Outside theatres and festivals.
• Roman theatre did not use chorus as much as the Greeks.

Medieval - 500/1300 BCE

• Mostly religious

Renaissance - 1300 -1700 CE

• SHAKESPEARE
• Neoclassic started in the Renaissance, it flourished in France. 
• 1700's theatre was banned until King Charles returned from France. 

Melodrama - 1800's

• Good conquers evil. 

Realism - 1800-1900

• Realism bought about naturalism.
• Real stories and settings.
• Stanislavski

Postmodernism 1900's and forward

• Causes one to ask more questions.
• Does not need a linear structure. 

Introduction to Greek theatre:

• Comedy and tragedy. 
• Festival of Dionysus.
• Greece loved competition.
• 3 tragic play writes would compete against one another every year.
• If they won their name would be engraved into the stone theatre. 

Friday 11th January 2019 
Stanislavski

• Developed realism and naturalism.
• Born in Russia.
• Theatre practitioner 
• Actor.
• Director.
• Most well known for his system. 

The system:

• Acting method
• A set of rules and exercises created a foundation for acting.
• The objection is to make the character beloved as a real person.
• He taught that the actor must be prepared for a role in great detail.
• Internal and external techniques to gain a full analysis of the character. 
• Knowing the physiology of a character and how they should be portrayed. As well as there thoughts and desires and what motivates them.
• Preparation is split into :
• Textual analysis 
• Establishing life (internal)
• Transferring to physical (external)

Wednesday 30th January

Berlot Brecht - 

• German poet, play write and director.
• Very popular in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
• Marxist.
• Highly political.
• He wanted his audience to ask questions.

Style - 

• Actors should demonstrate then become the role.
• You must see the actors as a storyteller.
• Epic theatre is a type of political theatre that addresses contemporary issues. 

Verfremdungseffekt -

• To make the familiar strange.
• To "estrange" the audience.
• Forces to question social reality. 

Techniques -

• Breaking the 4th wall.
• Montage.
• Use song, music, and dance.
• Narration. 
• Minimal set, costume, props, and lighting. 
• Coming out of character. 
• Use of placards.
• Freeze frames/ tableaux
• Gestus

Gestus -

• Guestus is a combination of body language, gesture, and facial expression.

Wednesday 6th February 2019

Steven Berkoff

• London 1937
• Actor, Playwright, and director.
• 1970 - the end of censorship.
• Get away from naturalism.
• Physical theatre. 

Total theatre - 

• Use of imagination. 
• Actors express the genius of the body.
• No set and minimal costume. 
• Tells a story in a poetic heightened way. 
• Kabuki theatre "Mei" (big grotesque poses) 

Key features -

• Mime. 
• Stylised movements. 
• Exaggerated vocal work.
• Direct address/ aside.
• Improvisation with an ensemble.