This week, we continued to refine our scenes, focusing on framing and using the camera in different ways…plus some great games like always!
Rehearsals this semester feel packed! We fit a lot of activity into 90 minutes, but have it down to a tight routine now. Everyone signs in to review the schedule and our ensemble pact. We shake off the day with a dance party, and then get our bodies and voices warm with a warm up. We’ve been ending warm up with an ASL review. This is getting more and more familiar, and, in the Tuesday ensemble, several actors have been volunteering to lead different sections.
In this worksheet from our Romeo & Juliet Story Kit we use different colors and patterns to draw different types of potions. What potion would you like to make?
Then it’s time for a check in. Check in is a moment for us to think critically about the story we’re telling, but also to get to know more about each other. This week, our check in question was:
In the story Juliet takes a sleeping potion and Romeo takes a deadly potion. If you could visit the Apothecary and ask them to make you a potion that would do anything you wanted, what kind of potion would you want?
We had lots of different suggestions. We wished for potions that could do your homework for you, let you speak different languages, run really fast, talk to animals, give you super strength, and cure illnesses. What kind of potion would you want.
From there we headed into our coaching groups. In week 5, we worked on the given circumstances of our scene, and in week 6 we connected words to movement and action. Now that we are more familiar with what’s happening, we focused this week on blocking the scene and how we want it to look on camera. This includes entrances and exits, but also when we’re close to the camera or far away, and when we look to the camera or look elsewhere. On Monday, Ryan and Natalia are working on passing objects from one person to the other. The Nurse takes her coat off and hands it off camera, and Juliet must take it and hang it up in her screen. These types of moves take practice, coordination, and consistency, but we still have some time left to get them perfect! On Friday, Marissa and Sandia are working on a movement piece based on when the lovers say goodbye to each other. They have chosen lines from Shakespeare’s scene but added their own movement and gesture. They incorporated a lot of pushing and pulling movements and need to coordinate which directions to go towards. Things are coming together as you can see from this clip:
Every scene in Romeo & Juliet Remix will be a little bit different, reflecting the personalities and styles of the actors in them. Some actors have opted for traditional Elizabethan costumes, some are more modern. Some are performing Shakespearean text, and some have written scenes and speeches in their own words. We’re truly making the scenes our own. Justice even redesigned her room to serve as Juliet’s bedroom - complete with a framed photo of Leonardo DiCaprio as her Romeo!
