Rehearsal diary Volume 1

So this is the part where Adam and I write out rehearsal diary. This part, the first part, was written by Adam. Excuse the length or the briefness because we were preparing for the finals. The next part which is on top... is written by me. : )) 

Rehearsal Diary : Volume 1

  This journal entry is for the two-part saga of our final exams; one part with Mohammad, and another without him. This journal will cover from the day we did our scene readings until the day we decided to change our script, and ultimately, had to drop Mohammad.

  Scene reading.

  When we first started reading the ’30 10-minute’ plays we read every part of the ‘plays for two guys and one girl.’ It didn’t grasp us enough though; a lot of the scripts were unevenly distributed in terms of lines. But it didn’t stop us from picking two scenes that suited us the best. We scanned through the book in search of a perfect play, one that is astoundingly crafted and written. We ultimately chose “Lynette has a beautiful skin”, and “Hard-boiled. It then came down to be “Hard-boiled”, a story about three lawyers, who are friends, where one of them, the female, got the job as a Junior associate Lawyer, and the other two did not.

  We were happy enough to get the script, even though it wasn’t our first choice. After that, we went back and try to remember our lines before building up a character.

Looking each other in the eye exercise

   We were given less attention during this day, since we were the last to do this exercise. This exercise gave us a relationship with each other, and how we could relate to one another without acting. We just read from the script, while looking at each other.

Rehearsals, rehearsals and beyond!

   After that exercise we met up a lot. Our main focus now was establishing our characters in the play. In the meantime we rehearsed the play. We started to do a bit of actions and we slowly started to build up characters. Leanne gave Mohammad and me a lot in terms of our back story. She is good at that. So, we met up and rehearsed. Normally we would rehearse in the evening, around 4.30, because that’s when we were mostly free.

   On the Monday before the dress rehearsal and initial grades of the play, Mohammad did not show up. That meant that Rey could not work with us and that meant me and Leanne getting kicked out of the class. But we were tolerating. At least we got to queue other group’s line.  Adam had warned Mohammad earlier that if he doesn’t show up to class, he would have gotten kicked out of our group.

   When it came to the day of our initial grades, we had a lower C. Of course, we were disappointed, but we needed to move on and work harder. After that we tried to come every day for rehearsals, mostly on Monday and Wednesday, from 12.30 to 4 and Tuesday and Thursday from 4.30 to 6. We tried to help each other with our characters, our tone of voice and how we should move in the space. We should have been sharper with words, and try to play with sarcasm and trying to hurt each other in the script.

   The next Monday and that week before the final play was a drama filled week in our group. Mohammad showed up late again on that Monday, and cost us the time to work with Mr. Rey. In the end, we didn’t work with the scene, and that left Leanne and I very disappointed with Mohammad. We decided to let him go of the group.

Mohammad

  We try to keep him as subtle as possible in this journal, to not ruin his reputation. Mohammad was a nice, calm guy. But he was hard to work with since he did not come for the classes, where we needed him most. He does come for rehearsals, we respected that, but he couldn’t bring the character to life for us to work with him. We were also quite guilty of not trying to push him hard, because we were busy trying to dive in our own characters. Even then, Leanne and Adam’s characters were a bit shaky. But again, we tried to work with him, and we thought that working with Mr. Rey would have given us a bigger boost in our character and our play. But it was a week before the finals, and we haven’t been directed, and with Mohammad decided to be absent when we needed him most, we had to let him go.

  A continuation of the journal would be in volume to, where Adam and Leanne would change the script, with one week to spare, and our journey to make it work.