Context
Our idea was to present a cabaret themed night where we could all perform different acts. We decided to do this because we thought it would give us an opportunity to break the 4th wall and be more intimate with the audience by using them in the show. We also chose to do this because it was a chance for the four of us to show all of our different talents and still make it feel like a full show. For the show to work in the cabaret style we had to do some research on how a cabaret night works. Beforehand I had been to a lot of different cabaret themed musical theatre nights so I thought it was good to use the information for our ideas. I originally thought of setting the stage out with having loads of round tables scattered around where the audience will sit and then some of them on the stage a bit, with a huge built stage and red curtains with smoke all around the room. My initial idea was to make it look like a 1920s underground club. In deciding our performance pieces we had to research performances that had an intimate feeling to them, so that we could connect to the audience, but our choices needed to would keep and audience excited. We also wanted to have a variety of of group, duets and solos pieces across dance, singing and musical theatre.
The role I chose was acting and vocal warm up leader/coach. I chose this because I have experience having researched this for unit 11, because we all are singing in most of pieces we needed to do local warm ups. The pieces that I decided to do as solos were ‘And I Am Telling You’ from the musical Dreamgirls, and ‘Mr Cellophane’ from Chicago I chose these because I think they would suit the theme of cabaret because they are both intimate songs we then decided as a group to do All That Jazz (Chicago), You Can’t Stop The Beat (Hairspray) and Hard To Say Goodbye (Dreamgirls). We decided these songs because we thought they worked well with the pieces because they are songs people like, we had some other ideas for songs but they did not work originally I was going to do a duet with someone to the song ‘Sing’ from a Chorus Line we did not do it because the person I was doing it was did not feel confident singing it at the speed it was and he couldn't say the words properly. We also nearly did a duet called ‘What About Love’ but we couldn’t find a backing track for it.
Because we chose the theme of a cabaret we needed to change the way we ran the show because we needed to take into account the vibe of the whole night. For example, me and Savannah were going to act like statues in the beginning of All That Jazz but then we thought it would be good if the audience could see us getting ready and interacting. I know this because when I go to cabaret themed nights you can see the people getting ready to sing so I thought it would be a good idea to add that in. We also had to change the way we sang songs e.g.; with Take Me Or Leave me we had to sing to each other but also sing to the audience because of the more intimate setting we broke the 4th wall.
I think that the idea of the cabaret style worked because we all stayed in the theme and we all in some sort of way involved the audience. I liked the fact we were all able to show our individual talents in this show and I liked the fact we could use the audience and be venerable. One thing we had problems with in the beginning is that we had all of theses pieces but none of them linked and they were all taken out of context. We were able to overcome this by taking turns introducing pieces which is also another stylistic trait they use in a cabaret.
Research
During the process I researched the different pieces that we were doing and then trying to use them to help my characters using the plot line, time period and the emotions. I used YouTube videos and different scripts and websites to help me with this. I used YouTube because I think it helps to have a visual aid and to look at all the different versions people have done of the different songs. An example of this is I used many different videos to help me with my character in And I Am Telling You because I needed help with my character and I needed help trying to find my own version of the song and looking through other performance. At the beginning the research really helped because it gives a sense of direction like when I was looking at Mr Cellophane I looked at the original script and then I saw how the character felt with all of the stuff going on around him and I tried to put it into my performance. I then read a piece that an original performer wrote about playing Amos and he was saying that he found it hard to play such a complex role because he has to many emotions and I linked to this because I also found it hard to play this character.
The research source that I relied on the most was videos because I felt like they helped me see how people acted with these characters and how I could try and make them my own and then take it further by looking into the whole story and then also using that to make a character the has a bit of me in it but still the original character. There was some research that wasn’t useful such as, when I looked at Take Me Or Leave Me there were many different versions that were taken out of context and changed the lyrics so it did not work with what we were trying to achieve. Another thing I researched that I didn’t end up using was we were meant to do a couple of pieces that we didn’t end up doing for example Sing from A Chorus Line so I looked into the musical but then we didn’t end up doing the song. My approach with researching was up and down at the beginning I should have started by going through all of the pieces so I had a little context of what they were about but some of them I didn’t look into for a while so my character only came into effect after a while.
Planning and production
When we started we had a timetable to follow but then we didn’t end up following it because we ended up doing different pieces and then plans just fell through. Every Monday we did have production meetings and we spoke to the production students about the different lighting and sounds we wanted for out show and the different pieces we had this was good because then the other students got an idea of all the different things that we wanted. We also spoke regularly on group chat and social medias and spoke about the different things we wanted to have in our pieces and we also spoke about how we wanted to set it out. We set out own deadlines for completing the group pieces and we did not always meet them because we weren’t focusing a lot on the group pieces but on our solos and duets. to achieve this we needed to try and use the studio as much as we could but it wasn’t always free and then we also had lessons on top of that so it was hard to just use the studio for free time to run everything, we also needed the sound system and that didn't always work because we all needed it at the same time and because we no longer used the timetable we used to have to share the music when we all needed it at the same time.
I used self-evaluation to make sure I was making some progression doing daily blogs helps you see how far you have come as you get to look back at how it looks from when you started to now and you can also see how much characteristics you have added. We also did mini assessments every Friday where we watched all of the different pieces and wrote down any feedback we had for one and other, this was a good way to help one and other because you might not be able to see something that someone else can doing this defiantly helped me because with Take Me Or Leave me we started by just walking around and singing the song to each other and that wasn’t enough we needed to add more and make it more believable and that was one of the notes we got.
When it came to planning and production there were a lot of strengths and weaknesses. Some of the strengths were that we had all the lighting we needed and we all were able to use mics which is something we haven't done before, another thing is that all of our visions of what we wanted the lighting to look like came to life. However, I felt like we did not stick to personal deadlines and we did not stick to the timetable that we made so it was hard to manage what we needed to do a lot of us were just doing the same thing every day and only sticking to certain things so by the end we had to fix everything else in no time, I was doing this again I would have made sure that we all stuck to a schedule and that we all knew what we were doing when we came in and to not change anything.
Technical/practical skills
To get our project up and running we needed to make sure we knew how to run a cabaret night and we also needed different skills depending on what pieces we were doing for group pieces we needed skills such as stamina singing and dance. We chose pieces that were pushing us to the limit for example my solo songs are big power anthems and they are songs that I usually would not sing because they are such big songs so I felt that choosing them was a challenge that I took.
For all of the pieces that I was in they all involved singing dancing and some sort of movement/choreography so it helped me also gain skills e.g. You Cant Stop The Beat is all three we had to sing act and dance and then also have the stamina and the breathing down. In out dance/singing classes we worked on different skills to help us. For example, with singing class we went through all of our solos and duets so that we could get a feel for how it would be none stop singing because that’s what we were going to be doing, our teacher stopped us and corrected things such as our speed, how we are using our breath, holding notes and more this helped because we needed to know if and when our voices weren't working with the songs. We also used dance classes to help our ballet teacher helped us get more into the style of Fosse in one of her classes and she said things like we need more sharp movements and we need to extend. I feel like I have gained the skill of being able to dance and sing at the same time like in you cant stop the beat I was still able to project and dance at the same time which is something I'm not used to. I think my vocals have also improved a lot in And I am telling you I was able to do a vocal growl which I don’t usually do and I think my voice has gotten better.
I feel like I can still work harder on my dance skills and my singing and acting but I think mainly my stamina is something that I really need to focus hard on. In All That Jazz I ran out of breath quickly because the song was low and also quite fast so I couldn’t keep up if I had worked harder on it, it would have sounded a lot better then it did. I think in the rehearsal process we all could have tried to make a clear chart of what we were going to do and when we were going to do it by just instead of coming in and do what we feel like. I think if we had picked a time table and some deadlines and stuck to them then the show might have been better. However I think a strength is that we were always able to learn what we needed to fast and then try and improve it even more. In this experience I have learned that i need to trust my voice and my acting to take me to where I need to be once I have picked the characteristics but there is still much room for improvement.
Presentation
To make the show seem more like a cabaret night we decided to introduce each others acts so we all took turns being the MC of the show. I think this brought the whole show together and made it more smooth and run like a piece because all of the act are taken out of context so it wouldn’t make sense on its own. The in-between MCing also gave time for the people backstage to get changed into the next costume they had to wear. It also worked because even when we were being ‘ourselves’ it was still a character so throughout the whole show we were able to be the characters.
The stage design was made to look like a cabaret theme so there was round tables a lifted stage and it all looked very intimate we even had a mini bar where people could get mocktails. I really like the whole setting of the show because the audience was brought forward we were able to have a better connection to them when we started to break the fourth wall. Then when they also used the smoke machine it made the atmosphere even better because it looked like a proper cabaret night them.
For my solos I wanted the lighting to look completely different form the other one. I wanted Mr Cellophane to be dim and not have much going on but then for And I am Telling You was pink and bright and sparkly. To go with the drag queen theme I asked the production students to make the lighting big and pink where as with group pieces like Hard To Say Goodbye we made the lighting plain so that the focus could be on us and our voices more than fancy lights and all of that. With Mr Cellophane I wanted to add the moving spotlight because I feel like it would add that extra bit of comedy. When you think of cabaret nights you tend to think funny and even though my character isn't happy doesn't mean I couldn't try and find ways to make the audience laugh.
In Take Me Or Leave me we used a table and chairs to try and enhance the performance, I think this helped the piece because it gave us an opportunity to use something to use in the space so we weren't just walking around for the whole song. We got the table and chairs from our teacher Shelley who brought it down from where the art students study we hold her that we needed it for our piece and then she went to get it.
A lot of my costume had to come from home because of my weight I was unable to use anything from college however my teachers husband gave me his trousers and white shirt which I needed for anything you can do. My costume for I Am Telling You had to be big and glam and I found this outfit on a drag queen site and instantly fell in love with it so I decided to wear it. All of my costumes were different so it looked like I was different characters each piece because they all dress differently and act differently. To make the set look like an actual club we had to ask the production students to order round tables and look into mics. We also had to do a lot of mic checks to ensure that the mics did work because there was times where there was a lot of feedback.
Problem solving
During/leading up to the time of the show there was a lot of problems that we had to deal with for example we had an idea before this one and it didn’t work so to solve that problem we had changed it to this one. Another problem we faced was the time we wasted on our old idea it cut into a big chunk of our rehearsal time so it was hard to make up for it. Something I found really hard to deal with was trying to find my own way to sing the song and I Am Telling You I found it so hard because all of the versions sound near-enough the same and I had to try and find my own way to sing it. To overcome this what i did was i tried my hardest to make the song my own by recording myself and adding in different styles to the song. This helped me gain skills that i will need for the future for making songs my own.
We also found it hard to find out what to do figure out what we were doing with the last number we changed the way we did it so many times. At first we did it with dancing then we did it just walking around and then we changed it again to sitting on stools and we did not like that so we ended up starting on stage then slowly moving down. Because this song was the last number we wanted it to be special and I think that is why we kept changing the style of dance/the way we perform it because we wanted to make sure it was good enough to close the show. To fix this problem we decided to keep it minimal and go for the atmosphere rather then making it a big song and dance.
Conclusion
To conclude I think the show as a whole turned out very well I am proud of all the hard work we have done and the fact that we did not let the fact that there was only four of us stop us from making a great show. I also think the whole intimate idea of having a cabaret themed night was good because it's not something you see very much, but they are slowly coming back and I think it was very effective as a piece because we were able to interact with the audience and they seemed to really like it.
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