Drama Presentation Task one One of the first things we

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Drama Presentation Task one One of the first things we did was homework on the seven deadly sins. We did this to find out what they were, as many of us didn't really know much about this subject this homework helped introduce us to this topic.

Once we had gathered the information of the names of the seven deadly sins we had a class discussion about what they were and what they meant i.e. gluttony meant to be greedy but for food not money or clothes.

After we had established what the seven deadly sins were we the proceeded to do a buzz chat/ spider diagram. We were grouped and each sat down by a sheet of a3 sugar paper and a pen. We were then given a sin and we had to then write down what we associated with that sin i.e. for pride: self centred spoilt and so on.

Once we had inputted as much as we could we then moved clockwise in our groups to another bit of sugar paper with input already on it. We then added to this existing information as much as we could and moves clockwise again. We did this till we had arrived at our original position. Toward the end of this exercise it became more difficult as most of the words you associated with the sin had already been inputted.

I think the whole class benefited from this exercise as it made us think very hard about many aspects of this subject and helped us expand our views.

The next explorative strategy we use was music matching. In the music matching we had to put all our worries behind us and explore emotions through music. We did this by closing our eyes and thinking about what kind of emotions fit with a piece of music. The teacher played a cassette of different types of music and we had to write down what we though of when we heard it. Once we had thought and written what the music described and made us think of. We then had to think of what kind of aspects mad the music feel happy, sad or even scared i.e. Loud drums played slowly building up gives a sensation of suspense. I think the class benefited from this activity because when you start composing a play you never really think about what kind of music to go with it carefully. Silence is also taken for granted in a scripted play, as silence can also cause suspense. This helped to expand our knowledge on music and helped our final play a lot as we were expected to have music in the back ground of the performance to make it as professional as possible.

After we had explored Music we then went on to explore shape. We did and exercise called partner moulding. In this exercise we had to mould our partners bode and face shape into a shape representing a sin i.e. for anger you may have the person clench their fists and frown and maybe look quite tense. We then had to swap and be moulded ourselves. This was quite a fun and uplifting exercise but also helped us to not just think about text a dialog in a play but also the body shape of the person acting it out. Another Exercise we did to help us get the body shape of the sins rite was doing a tableau of the sins. We got into groups and we then had to each be a sin and make a freeze fame of it. This was a particularly interesting exercise, as we had to hold the shape of a sin with others. It is quite easy to act out a shape on your own when you think that no one is watching you but when you are in a group of people it becomes more difficult and intimidating.

We then went on to learn about stage shapes. We were taught as a class not as individual groups. Some of the stage shapes we had already known but the shape only not the name or purpose for it. After we had disused and memorised the stage shapes we then went on to perform a play. This play had to have a sin in it and we had to consider the stage shapes of the play. This would include rostra and where the audience would be sitting. After learning about the stage shapes we then went on to learn about lighting rostra and cloth. This was an extremely helpful exercise, as when I would perform a play I wouldn't have thought about whether or not the tables were obstructing the audience's view of the actors and actresses on the stage. When we were learning about lighting we found out about gels and how they are used to change the colour of the light. We discovered that when coloured light is used in a production it gives more of an effect so when finalising our play we used a lot of coloured light. The time when we used the most light was in a parts/disco scene. We use two different coloured lights one blue one red and alternated them to give and effect of flashing lights. This was one of our longest scenes so we had to make it look as good as possible. I found this exercise helpful as we had a lot off props in our play and a very complicated lay out.

Mask work was the next thing we learned. This was quite hard as when you have a mask on you can't really talk under it and facial expression is also very hard. As no one can see your face you have to rely very much on your body form and what kind of message it puts across. This helped us emphasise on the fact that not all the acting is based on facial expressions. We used the mask in the play to signify that the main character Brian was dreaming so he woke up he would take off the mask. Under the mask Vicky could not talk so we had narrators behind a see through like screen that was white that we could shine light through and see the silhouettes of the narrators. This looked quite effective and gave our play an original setting. The mask work was quite hard, as you still wanted to do facial expressions even though no one can see them. The mask gives an emotionless fell that creates a sense of eerie fell to it.

The script was very help full as most of the time other people give you set lines to say. But in a drama group you end up setting your own. The script work helped us to get used to working from set words and helped to improve our own planed out emotions for the character.

I did my monologue on gluttony because it was easy and also interesting to try and think of what people who are gluttonous. This is my monologue: Hmmm what shall I do next…? I know I shall watch some T.V I will get some thing to eat as well as I am up. What shall I have? Well I feel like ice cream but also chocolate and chips and pancakes. Umm I can't decide so I will have all of them all. I want more food why can't the shops deliver food without me having to get up and go to the phone nor have the Internet.

Stupid boyfriend! Why do I need him anyway? When I have my box of chocolates. I will just have one more, it wont hurt any one and plus they are there to be eaten. Why are boxes of chocolates so small they must get bigger ones they go to quickly? I have some pasta in the fridge shall I eat it? Nah I wont I would rather get a pizza then I don't have to have any thing with it. One more I can have just one more, one more I can have one more, one more I can have one more. Why am I so fat? I hate my life! I need some chocolate.

Monologues helped our final play as we had a complicated story line and most of it was based on the main character thoughts. I would have liked to expand this technique as it is interesting and helps you get not only the story line but also extra information on what the person is thinking.

For homework we were asked to find some news paper articles including a sin. This was quite easy as most of the newspapers are all about what people have done wrong. The stories were mostly greed ones about things that had been stolen. This helped us to consider the sins that happen in every day life so we can make our play more realistic.

Following on from the work on the news paper articles we had to do an interview. In this interview we had to include an interviewer the person who had committed the sin and explain why. This was a hard exercise as you couldn't really tell why the person had committed the sin as the news paper article only showed the even and not what the person was thinking at the time. Our group had an article about some one stealing some thing from a shop. We came up with the idea that the person may have been poor and needed steal the stuff because he didn't have enough money to buy them. We then improvised on this idea to leave us with a script.

Task 2 We all started thinking about what we could do for our performance. I think it was jenny that thought I would be nice if each characters personality would be different in each way by every one being a different sin. We all agreed on this idea and then moved on to what else we could do. I suggested that a school day would be a good idea with each of his friends being a sin. We then thought that I would probably be a lot better if we made it surreal as common affairs plays were often done and we wanted ours to be original. We also decided to use masks in our play as they gave an eerie affect to the play and helped top make it more surreal. We decided to have the main character Ryan (Vicky) not have his mask on when he is awake so you could tell when he was dreaming and when he was asleep. We each chose our own sins. Claire was lust, jenny was anger, holy was sloth and I was pride. We had a big variety of sins so it wasn't so boring. The first scene was supposed to be quite scary so we decided to have booming music and each moved in one by one to Vicky making her jump each time we entered. We then all sat round Vicky till every one was on stage. We then all turned to Vicky and slowly made her back of the edge of he bed. At the point she hit the floor we all ran of in opposite directions behind the screens. This made the dream become scarier and also made the audiences pay attention, as we didn't want to give the story line away right at the beginning. We then decided to do the school idea. We had anger as the mum to start off in the play but it changed as it went on. Vicky was woken up by jenny. She was shouting and Vicky who played Ryan. But he kept on falling back asleep. Jenny played this bit well, as she was quite tense when doing it and her tone of voice sounded quite angry.

We then did the school day. We wanted to then have anger as the teachers as teenage view of a teacher always seams quite angry. This worked well. We then had to focus on the other characters so we came to the decision that the next part of the play should be some thing that includes every one but person by person not every one at the same time. Jenny then had the idea of a diary check this way what every one did or did not do would depend on what sin they were and it would make it more clear for the audience. Ryan didn't have his book signed because he woke up late. I had mine signed because I was miss goodie goodie. Holly was sloth so she didn't have hers signed because she couldn't be bothered. By the time we had got to holly every one must have been bored so we decided to liven it up a bit. We did this by letting jenny carry on miming to holly about why she hasn't got her contact book signed. Whilst this was going on Claire got up twisting her hair and looking at Vicky. She walked over to Vicky with a curvy walk and pulled on her shirt. Behind the screens Keryl and Kirsty moved. Claire and Vicky did fake kissing behind that gauze and then moved behind the screen, clothes were then thrown over the screen. This was giving the affect of lust. We then didn't have clue what to do next but we knew we wanted a funny bit, as we didn't have one yet. Holly came up with the idea that he should wake up looking for his pants and the mum should come in and tell him to go back to sleep. As we couldn't really object as it was a good idea and we couldn't think of any thing else, we decided that to do that idea. After this we decided to try and make the sins influence Ryan to do something bad. We decided on the idea that all the sins would try and make Ryan take drugs. Every one though hard about the setting we could use for this part of the play. Everyone agreed on a party. We had lots of props for this part so we spent a lot of time working out where every thing was going to go. By this time we were all running out of time so we didn't really have time to work out the music and when ever one was talking. This was a big down fall in the play, as you couldn't really hear what every one was saying. Ryan was influenced by us to get drunk. After a bit in the party scene once every one had had a drink a suspicious looking character appeared. The person (played by Kirsty) put some thing in Claire's hand. Claire came over to ever one and one by one slipped some thing into our hands. It was a pill.

Ryan was given one and we started to circle around him taunting him and telling him to take the pill. This worked well and added to the surrealism of the play. The ending was that Ryan placed the pill in his mouth but didn't really swallow it. Leaving us with a happily ever after ending that was twisted as every one thought he had taken the pill.

Task 3 I think our group did a good job on the play considering the space of time we had to do it in and the complexes of the play like it had to include setting and music and sins. The first bit went well but you could see toward the end of the play that we were running out of time and that it wasn't as carefully put together as the rest of it. I like the way we used different coloured lights and used spotlights and had black outs etc as I have never used lights before and I was a helpful aspect in our play. I didn't like the stage set out very much I thought it was very boring and we were very bunched up and didn't really use the space. The only bit of the set I liked was at the end when Vicky got pushed out between to screens on a block. I thought this looked quite effective and would like to do it again in other presentations. Jenny did a good job and put a lot of effort into the play. Vicky worked hard and still helped every one stay happy at the same time. Holly was very good with her lines she was never the one forgetting them and was always revising lines when some one go some thing wrong and held us up. Claire was very much in character and liked acting out lust. Kirsty was good at doing all the music and some of the script work. Keryl was really good at doing the voice of Ryan she was always on time, this was hard, as she had to wait for her line and wait till Vicky was ready. Over all our play went quite well. It is the best play I have ever been in at Rosebery and next time hope to get more time so I can improve it. The only thing that went wrong was in the production when Claire had a nosebleed.

I liked Lauren Rose's group, as their story line was the best. It was about the sins coming out a book and then her finding out that it was her at a younger age. This story line grabbed me and the end was so dramatic I felt like I wanted to cry. Each time she got to a new chapter in the book the scene changed I thought this was effective and thrilling. Lauren is also a very good actor and gave the play more feel to it. Their use of lighting was good and the stage was very spread out and there were lots to look at. The music was well thought about and matched the scene to the slightest detail.