Alfie's Musical Theatre Blog

  This is my contextual analysis for Hamilton, and the piece we are performing named 'Non-Stop'.

  This is my Second write up of the Hamilton Rehearsal with the director. It details my use of characterisation, vocals and movement.

  Before the rehearsal, we warmed up vocally as a group. This was important to make sure that we don't damage our vocals. We went through a non strenuous run through of the lyrics so that it gave our voice a chance to loosen up before an hour of rehearsal. In this rehearsal we focused on the movement of the piece. I tried to articulate and project while moving around to practise doing this in the final showcase. Following my Peer Observation on the 19th of April, I was sure to ask questions to the director and my peers about what I could do to improve my overall performance. The general feedback was to place emphasis on my mannerisms in order to improve my characterisation. Therefore, at (0:23 - 0:26) I mixed characterisation into my movement as I held my hands behind my back as I moved towards upstage left. This is important because it shows the audience the sort of character I'm playing, a charming and ambitious character in the 19th century. My characterisation is further em...

  In our second workshop with our Musical Director, we focused on our stamina and projection. To do this, we walked around whilst singing, which helps to strengthen our vocal muscles and helps manage the airstream through the vocal folds without any added tension. It helps build stamina because moving around physically and working our vocals can wear us out, so building up this stamina by walking around will help. It can also help our balance and co-ordination because walking around while focusing on singing helps us to not bump into each other. Here, I walk around trying to keep my head up so that I can project properly (0:45-0:50), in order to blend both the stamina of walking around and the vocal skill of projection to practice for an audience. Moving around is also important to this piece because it means we are not reliant on our peers for our own harmonies, and allows us to keep our memory of what our harmonies should sound like, and when they come in (1:04-1:15) (1:18-1:31)....

  This is an observation from a peer of mine for our rehearsals of Non-Stop

  This is my write up for the rehearsal of Dear Evan Hansen.

In this Dear Evan Hansen workshop we aimed to improve our movement and mix it with the vocals. Firstly we warmed up our vocals by humming and stretching our jaws to make sure that we wouldn't damage our voices or muscles in them. In the rehearsal we focused on the movement Evan and Connor make; they have to be in sync with each other at certain times, like at (1:16 - 1:20) in the first video, we swivel our knees side by side at the same time. Characterisation wise, this is to show how Connor is being contorted by Evan's emails. I think our timing was okay, but we need to polish it to make it better. I think I should also add a bit more energy to it. At (0:38 - 0:52) in the second video, it shows us doing a choreographed dance with each other. I think I need to improve on some of the timings here, as well as the pace and energy of it as well. Another timing issue was at (1:43 - 1:46) where we didn't drop at the same time. This needs to be improved through practising and impr...