gos·sip: casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details which are not confirmed as true.

  

Our piece is about 4 women gossiping about their lives and those around them as their husbands are out at war. I really like the piece as I think it adds a comedic side rather than tears and dramatics that you would usually associate with a piece war. To develop the piece and to create it as effective as it could be we really worked on our characteristics, focusing on our vocals and the points we're trying to get across. I really focused on developing the emphasis put on words as I deliver my lines and delivering them as if they are the most scandalous and important thing i'll ever say. We worked on our reactions as a group and how to make them work as one whole reaction rather than a singular reaction each. This is apparent on lines we say all together, this is in order to create enough effect to get the comedy across. Developing the timing of the piece and the pace of the lines deliveries begun a challenge however, we managed to sort it out and I really like the snappiness of the piece - it's almost like each character has something more important to say than the other, they must let it be known. We also developed and improved the physicality of the piece as it is staged at a washing line however, working with shirts and constantly pining them onto the line and off again is distracting from the words being said. So, we worked on using the shirts less and focusing more on letting our characters get lost in the gossip.

In 5/12/13's lesson my group of Sachelle, Kat and Chloe really developed our piece more. We also worked on characterization for our characters developing the idiocies and habits of their personality.
I decided that my character generally looks down upon people and judges them - hence why she has a gossipy side. She's constantly concerned about her appearance as she doesn't want to be judged herself - unable to take what she gives out. However, she is worried about her husband out at war and uses the gossip as an escapism away from that constant worry. On developing her idiocies, I decided to go with: fixing hair and checking nails - as a sign of her vanity and judgment, and the twisting of her ring of her finger - given to her by her husband - as a reminder that he's always there.

21/11/13's lessons involved further development (in my group's case) completely changing our physical theatre piece and scripted washing line piece. I liked the change as it gave us almost a skeleton like guide to complete our devising piece. We were given the stimulus 'gossip' to re-write our scripted piece. I really like this as it gave us a chance to add humour to a pretty morbid period. Using the shirts in our piece worked putting it into context and helped with developing the roles.

However, using the shirts during our Frantic Assembly piece caused us to find some faults in the timing and the movement so we worked with some of the boys to improve it. This was really useful and is it helped me to develop skills needed when taking a piece and improving it to fit the context.

Leanne's singing really helped create the effective atmosphere of women dancing alone after their husbands have left for the war. It works well to connect the love for the mother to the child and the love from the wife to the husband.

In 14/11/13's lesson, I worked with the group to develop a piece based on the washing line devised piece from the week before whilst incorporating elements from the work we did based on Frantic Assembly's work. I really liked doing this as it helped me to develop skills that would enable me to intertwine different elements of performing. We devised a repeating pattern which followed the task given to us the week before. 

The boys developed a piece on their characters in the army, it was a piece created to be performed all in sync. It looked really effective and if they clean up the timing it will be extremely effective. 

We also watched the play 'Advice for The Young at Heart' written by Roy Williams. I really enjoyed this play as I loved the contrast between the two time period, this was really interesting as it portrayed that we all have the same issues, no matter where or when - which is something I would use in my later devising and further develop. 

The performances by the actors were extremely effective and fitting to their character's time period. I admired how the play did not shy away from issues it tackled such as: racism, rape and gang related violence. 

In 7/10/13's we worked on pieces in little groups. I was working with Chloe, Kat and Sashelle and we worked on a piece focusing around a conversation being held by woman about their husbands away in the war. I really liked working on this piece as it gave us some creative freedom within the task. We began improvising then writing it down. It was useful to look at the different and diverse characters you could develop from the small amount stimulus we had been given for the piece - women hanging up their washing discussing about their husbands.

On the 10/10/13's lesson we learnt how to waltz. I was paired with Chloe and we learnt to waltz together. I generally found picking up the steps quite simple and it was a really good activity to get into what they actually did for entertainment during the war.

We developed it into an full scene using the waltz and singing. I really like the use of the old war song 'Pack Up' as it really sets the time period of the piece. This was really interesting and definitely gave me an idea on using music to set the time period or setting of a theatre piece that i will definitely use in the future.

Jacob and I, whom I had been working on a duet piece with previously, began to develop a thirty second duet piece. It was completely physical without mime or words. I personally really liked this activity as it really helps you open up your creative thinking on how you're going to portray a situation without using mime or words. It's a really useful skill that I've begun to develope in the last few theatre lessons and will definitely be using it in the future.

People also gave their presentations on their given subject about WW1. I thought Leanne's group's presentation about communication in the war extremely useful and engaging as they actually involved the audience. Their way of explaining the communication in the war was extremely effective.

In 26/9/13's lesson we continued to work on our pieces inspired by Frantic Assembly except this time we worked with the other group to bring it all together and put in it context. I personally really like the piece and I think that working with the other group really helps us visualise it in context. However to improve I think that I, and the rest of the strand, need to make the movements sharper and bolder to make them fit completely.

In 19/9/13's lesson went through the brief of this term and went through all the things we need to do to gain distinction. This was extremely helpful as it made me understand what we are going to do during this term and will help me perform in the lesson to my highest ability.

We were divided into groups of 3 and worked on adding movement into a piece with Imogene and Chloe. We worked on Frantic Assembly's 'by, through and around'. I really liked this activity as it needed to be creative and gave an example that theatre pieces don't just have to be straight theatre.

Jacob, Elle and I worked on a piece about a father annoucing he has been drafted to the army. I played the mother and Elle was my daughter. It was only a couple of minutes long and silent. I liked this piece as it really helped me access emotions for the piece and it was interesting to see how we can get those emotions and the scene across without using words.