This week it is all go as we are counting down the days until we perform our first show of We Will Rock You.
Me and Luke spent some time together in the theatre with Elizabeth, singing Who wants to live forever. This is a song which Luke and I had been having some issues with, relating to timing, intonation and pitching. The piano score that Elizabeth will be reading when playing for the shows is slightly different to the backing track that Luke and I have been learning it from. Having some time aside to rehearse with the piano has been really beneficial for us both today as we have been able to smooth over some errors. For example Luke has been struggling to pitch a few of his notes in this song and even when he sung with the piano today towards the beginning of our rehearsal, he was still filming this difficult. However I could hear where he needed to pitch the notes, as one of my strong points is knowing how to fit vocal notes to musical accompaniment. I would sing him the note, he would copy me and we carried this on until he was eventually was able to sing the note she was struggling with, without me vocally assisting him.
Luke and I were finding the timing in the middle of this song tricky as the song naturally transitions from a slow pace, to a more upbeat and vocally challenging part. Elizabeth broke the timing down, demonstrating vocally and on piano to us the precious timing of the notes and how to control them. This really helped me understand as when I hear someone else getting it right, I am able to pick it up fairly quickly.
Me and Luke decided to work out some of the blocking in the stage space in the theatre. We ran through all of our scenes that we perform together in the second half of the show. We decided that between us, we felt mutually confident on the first half of the musical therefore decided it would be best to focus on the second act for our benefit.
The second act scenes which Luke and I (Galileo and Scaramouche) perform in together, are quite intimate and personal al towards each character, which naturally leaded to Luke and I facing one another in the centre for a lot of our stage time. After running through these scenes and discovering this, we also came to acknowledge that this was restricted the audiences’ view at times because the audience are going to be sat in a traverse seating plan. We therefore had to rethink where we would be placing ourselves on stage, avoiding blocking audience view however keeping the intimacy and tension between the characters.
We firstly tried out the idea that Luke and I would direct more of our lines out to the audience and with this, turning our bodies to face them, rather than being faced towards each other for the majority of the time. This allowed for the audiences to see our facial expressions and body language in character; the audience were no longer restricted by our positioning. However when we tried this out a couple of times with different scenes, we decided that facing our characters away from each other really took away from the idea that they were in that specific moment together and sharing their feelings and emotions. Instead, we decided to add more movement to the scenes, keeping the intencity between the characters, facing each other. The movement, e.g. Changing positioning on stage regularly, added atmosphere to the piece by giving the audience more to look at. The movement also allowed for the positioning of the characters to changed up regularly, ensuring all of the audience are able to see different angles of Luke and I, not just a couple of angles which would have really restricted the view of the audience members.
Following developing the blocking of the scenes in the second act, Luke and I went on to develop working the emotion we add to our characters, including aggression towards each other and passion. Galileo and Scaramouche spend a large majority of the second act at each other’s throat. Scaramouche feels as though Galileo has got what he wanted and is now treated her in a bad way and sees her to be vulnerable due to her gender. Galileo is getting tired of Scaramouche making acquisitions towards him about taking her for granted and using her, therefore ones get verbally aggressive towards her. Kim, our director gave us both a note that we need to be more aggressive and passionate towards each other in character, just letting go and really focusing on channeling intensity towards each other. We did this by ensuring the eye contact between Scaramouche and Galileo was held for a long time and fixated with strength. Long spearing eye contact is a universal theme; everyone knows this is due to an intense atmosphere, therefore the audience will be able to instantly pick up on the fact that there is tension between the pair.
Something that we found developed nicely over the period of this rehearsal was a natural increase in volume to our voices when arguing in a couple of the scenes. This was almost like a ‘crescendo’ of our vocals however it was in spoken word rather than singing lyrics. This really helped build an atmosphere in the room, reinforcing the idea to the audiences that they were in a heated discussion. I feel as though this also really encouraged the idea that the end of the show ‘climax section’ was around the corner and this I feel will help audiences to follow and stay with the story line.
Amber and I spent some time together in the dance studio, singing through our songs and helping each other to hit the vocal notes that we were both struggling with. We firstly sung Somebody to love. We found the one of the last notes most difficult to nail. We are planning to spend some time with Kim later on in the hope that she will help us in finding a way to hit the note. Amber and I have been really honest with each other through out this whole process. This has allowed us to really make the most of each other's help, ensuring that we both give our very best performances when we perform next week. For example today, Amber advised me to not riff on a couple of the notes in Hammer to Fall as she felt it took away from the raw emotion behind the song. I would not have noticed this on my own as I really enjoyed singing the riffs therefore I had forgotten about characterisation here. I told Amber that she needed to slightly bring down the volume of one of her notes in Who wats to live forever, as it sounded more meaningful to the meaning behind the piece, sung softly as it was a gentle subject, ( loving each other through the impossible.) I feel as though we have worked together well as a team, positively contributing to one another's development, vocally.
Following this, we requested that we spent some time with Kim in the theatre, practising the high note at the end of Somebody to love. This was the one note that we had both been unable to achieve to a high quality when we focused on perfecting notes earlier in the dance studio. We tried out a variety of different techniques that Kim suggested to us including using our head voice and softening the note, using mixed voice, singing the note with an airy chest voice and using our chest voice fully however remember to take a long, deep breathe from the diaphragm.
Amber and I used team working skills to help each other find our preferred way of singing the note ‘too’. We used a trail and error method; we would take it in turns to sing the note each of three ways that Kim had previously suggested to us. We then gave feedback to one another straight after, giving our opinion as to whether or not it sounded strong enough to be used. Considering this and what felt comfortable for us singing it, we came to a mutual decision as to which technique we would use to sing the note. I decide to sing the not in a mixed voice, as the head voice alone sounded really good however did not have enough volume for a stage musical. Amber decided to sign the note in a supported chest voice as the mixed and head voice sounded too airy for her.
Today we did rehearsals for the movement that goes with the song, Headlong. Jaydee and Olivia struggled with the timing for the dance so Luke and I stepped in, to helped them smooth over their uncertainties. We went over the same movements a number of times until they both got the timing and understood how the movement fitted to the music. It was best for Luke and I to help the girls with their timing issues as opposed to anyone else whole knows it e.g. Another member of the other cast or our dance teacher, Kat because all four of us will be performing the dance together on stage therefore we needed to get used to everyone's way of moving and ensure all the movements were performed correctly and that the timing flowed with this idea.
Next week is show week! I am really looking forward to performing as both Scaramouche and in the chorus for my off cast role.
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