20/11/23 - 23/11/23

 Week 42 of Milly's acting journey

On Monday, we were in the theatre, and we cracked straight on with Peter Pan scenes. During this session, I was able to watch a lot of the other casts perform which allowed me to see how Wendy acted, or a Brave Girl acted as that's who I'll play in the ensemble. Me and Charlie when we were both available went over lines, as we had both learnt our first scene over the weekend fully, and it was a great chance to test our knowledge and go over lines to make them stick in our heads. The most important scene we did today was the scene where Peter Pan pretends to be Hook, which leads to a fight between them, and Peter being injured. During this, Wendy gets captured by Starky and Smee, and once they have scarped, me and Peter have a scene. We went over the scene multiple times, and I knew the first little part before Hook enters in, so that was good to test my knowledge, and throughout it the whole scene, I have to look scared so I'm constantly changing my facial expressions and with Charlie and George, they have a full stage combat scene where they are moving at specific times, so a lot of time was spent with Tom, ensuring that there part was perfect so no-one is confused or worse, gets injured. I spent a good amount of time on brave girls too, and as a group we changed how we originally performed it, to make it seem less awkward and more natural. Instead of our chanting and walking around in a circle, we have chosen to scramble to collect our weapons, listen for Tigerlily and Bravest girl to say the chant line, and we all repeat it once before running off stage. I felt today was productive and a great continuation to our Peter Pan rehearsals. We also got a sneak peek of the paper boat that art and design have been making for us, and we were all so impressed by the finished product.

On Tuesday, we spent a lot of time on ensemble work. I was really glad to do that, as I feel I know how I'll present being Wendy, but I don't feel my character choices for my brave girl is as solidified as I would like it to be. We began with Tom, who showed us the Brave Girl's chant idea he had, and it was very inspired from P!nk's song 'So What' which I loved. There are a few lines that we as a group have been instructed to changed, like 'We wear our dungarees', and since we don't wear dungarees, it doesn't match to the song. With Tom as well, we went over songs like 'Believe in fairies' which we hadn't done at all before. Tuesdays tend to be our sessions with Tom as well, and this was an important session as it was our actual monologue in front of a camera session, which will be the one that Tom uses when marking for our pass or fail. Since last week, I spent every day just saying it before bed, so it was always in my head. My biggest mistake last week when doing it, was that I knew it all so confidently, except for one line, and because this line was at the beginning, it rattled all my memory for the rest. I was really proud of the one I performed to Tom as I felt confident and I knew that one line really well, so it allowed me to perform it all to my bestest. After Tom's session, everyone continued on with ensemble work, and we worked a lot on our entrances into scenes. I worked with Emily Howard, and we came up with an idea where I piggyback her and she's doing my hair which keeps it up with the girly theme. The entrance walk we did was for a scene involving Wendy, so I was able to watch that sat at the front one the ensemble work was finished. I was also able to sing 'Why?' with Laura and all the Peter's so that we could do it together, which I was very grateful to do.

On Wednesday, we came in early to do a warm-up with dance captains Gracie and Delroy. It was very energetic and definitely got me warmed up. It was back to ensemble work with Brave Girls, and we showed Abi the chant that Tom showed us the day previous, and she was able to compile some choreography together to match it. I was able to watch how cast 1 Brave Girls did the dance first allowing me to pick it up and it not be totally new to me. I found it quite simple as it's a lot like the dance I would do in my old theatre group. I really enjoyed learning it and doing it multiple times over so that it would really stick, and my favourite part was making the small 16 second fight scenes up at the end to fill the time. I was with Keira, and we came up with brilliant ideas, where we begin by slow-mo fighting and end up clapping our hands together. It's really fun and easy and it shows a lot about our characters. Going over the dance took up our whole session which wasn't a bad thing, as it meant everyone knew it really well. I stayed back for a while afterwards to go over a pirate scene where Wendy is involved. I worked with George and Harvey, who both play Hook, and they were both going full out, which allowed me to do so as well, and there was lots of lost boys and pirates involved too, making it even more like a productive rehearsal. It allowed me to learn my few lines too as we went over it multiple lines really trying to get it nailed.

Thursday's session was very productive for me in my role of Wendy as I was able to practice the very first scene with my cast since last doing it with Kelly. I had learnt that entire scene too, so it was a nice chance to test my knowledge. We played the instrumentals tracks in the parts where it was needed, and we sang any songs that were involved in that scene, like my song 'Peter'. I'm feeling more and more confident singing it which is so amazing, and there's only one note that I'm practicing to get right. I had to leave during the end of the scene to do some Brave Girl work, but I was glad that we had gotten quite far and had the chance to go over it in lesson time. During Brave Girl work, we just went over it to make sure we had remembered it all and Gracie felt like it needed to be cleaner, which we were all onboard with. After my Brave Girl scene, I went back into the theatre and whilst Tom was helping doing stage combat with the lost boys and pirates, I was going through the first Wendy and Peter scene with my fellow Wendy Erin. We really helped each other out and read out the Peter lines if we were speaking the Wendy lines. It was really helpful and I'm glad we were able to do that whilst we had some free time.