So I loved theatre for a few years now, and I'm rather fond of singing. About five months ago I was introduced to a new program being formed in Wichita Falls called Opera Breve. A program founded by Broadway actors, producers and musicians that were either from Wichita Falls or have a wonderful fondness for teaching budding singers and actors to become stars.
I immediately sent in audition material, and was accepted =D So a week ago it started, and I've been working non stop at rehearsals for this show. In all honesty, these people have helped me grow as an actor exponentially over the past 9 days.
The most interesting thing that I've learned is my singng and character type. According to the Broadway folk, I am a "juvenile". That's actually a lot better than it sounds. It basically means that I could play "Rolf" from Sound Of Music or "Aladdin" from Aladdin or any number of young youthful characters.
The rest of my fellow participants have been learning the same general things, and it's more fascinating every day!
They chose 4 songs to go along with my voice and character type, and here they are:
1. "In Whatever Time We Have" - Children Of Eden, as "Japheth". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyMjstbkDto
2. "Close To Home" - Children Of Eden, as "Abel". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGRkFjiDksc
3. "Follow Your Heart" - Urinetown (yes, that's what it's called =P), as "Bobby Strong". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyWCRoHPdzw
4. "This Plum Is Too Ripe" - The Fantasticks", as "Matt" (First male singer). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkuT4tiMlXg
I've been so blessed to have this oppurtunity, and to work with such great actors and singers, and I mean my fellow particpants just as much as I mean the teachers and tutors. We perform this Thursday,Saturday and Sunday =) Now, back to studying my music. Later interwebs!
Monday, August 1, 2011
Beowulf Part 2 "Blocking, Stage Fighting & Really Pointy Death Weapons"
I've been really busy with a recent project so I've haven't had a lot of time to play with this. sorry!
Hey again! quick re-cap of part one: I wanted to put on a dark production, something sinister. I wanted to do Macbeth, but no one else wanted to, so I got Beowulf instead, which has great potential to be cool and dangerous. I didn't get any of the actors I wanted, but I did get actors, so I could actually put the show together, it would just take a lot more effort. There we go, re-cap done.
The first thing I had to teach my new actors was called blocking. Blocking is basically where you are supposed to stand on the stage. that wasn't too dificult, but it took some memorizing, after all, Beowulf is a very long production.
Okay so now that everyone was in place, it was time to make eeveryone aware of something important - fight scenes. this show was full of them, everybody fought, and fought and fought. If we were going to make this show worth watching, I had to aquire some real swords, and a good choreographer. Well, I got one of those two things. Fortunately, most of the people in the show were just as crazy as I am, so they just happened to have arsenals of pointy objects perfect for stabbing and the like.
But I ended up choreographing all the sword fights, and let me tell you, it's not my strong point. here's a video of one of the shorter fight scenes, which I was actually pretty proud of. This fight is between Beowulf (the Hero) and Unferth (the Jerk). The point was to stress how bad a swordsman that Unferth truly was.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV4ejVfGi5I
This show had a lot of stuff like this. there were gymnastic fight scenes, hand to hand fight scenes, and even a scene where I used customized wolverine like swords, but thats for another time.
(Beowulf defeating Unferth)
This show needed a lot of weapons, and we couldn't necesarily find all of the specific weapons, so I built them. The coolest of which are these: Thor's hammer and Loki's dragon claws. Thor's hammer was made out of cardboard and a lot of hot glue.
(Thor's hammer before it was painted and decorated)
It may look puny right, but that thing is as solid as a rock, and twice and dangerous. Loki's dragon claws are even cooler though. they were made of six machetes combined into two very sweet swords.
I don't have a picture, not at least of them individually, but I'll show a picture of them with teh rest of the cool costume in a while.
Other than that, we had two carve two practice knives, buy several real swords (mildly dulled down), staffs and the such like.
My fellow lead Beowulf and I nearly died on multiple occasions due to unecassarily dangerous (but really cool looking) fight choregraphy.
Okay, part 2 is done! Next part will be all about costuming, and thats about it! thanks, until then, later interwebs!
Hey again! quick re-cap of part one: I wanted to put on a dark production, something sinister. I wanted to do Macbeth, but no one else wanted to, so I got Beowulf instead, which has great potential to be cool and dangerous. I didn't get any of the actors I wanted, but I did get actors, so I could actually put the show together, it would just take a lot more effort. There we go, re-cap done.
The first thing I had to teach my new actors was called blocking. Blocking is basically where you are supposed to stand on the stage. that wasn't too dificult, but it took some memorizing, after all, Beowulf is a very long production.
Okay so now that everyone was in place, it was time to make eeveryone aware of something important - fight scenes. this show was full of them, everybody fought, and fought and fought. If we were going to make this show worth watching, I had to aquire some real swords, and a good choreographer. Well, I got one of those two things. Fortunately, most of the people in the show were just as crazy as I am, so they just happened to have arsenals of pointy objects perfect for stabbing and the like.
But I ended up choreographing all the sword fights, and let me tell you, it's not my strong point. here's a video of one of the shorter fight scenes, which I was actually pretty proud of. This fight is between Beowulf (the Hero) and Unferth (the Jerk). The point was to stress how bad a swordsman that Unferth truly was.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV4ejVfGi5I
This show had a lot of stuff like this. there were gymnastic fight scenes, hand to hand fight scenes, and even a scene where I used customized wolverine like swords, but thats for another time.
This show needed a lot of weapons, and we couldn't necesarily find all of the specific weapons, so I built them. The coolest of which are these: Thor's hammer and Loki's dragon claws. Thor's hammer was made out of cardboard and a lot of hot glue.
It may look puny right, but that thing is as solid as a rock, and twice and dangerous. Loki's dragon claws are even cooler though. they were made of six machetes combined into two very sweet swords.
I don't have a picture, not at least of them individually, but I'll show a picture of them with teh rest of the cool costume in a while.
Other than that, we had two carve two practice knives, buy several real swords (mildly dulled down), staffs and the such like.
My fellow lead Beowulf and I nearly died on multiple occasions due to unecassarily dangerous (but really cool looking) fight choregraphy.
Okay, part 2 is done! Next part will be all about costuming, and thats about it! thanks, until then, later interwebs!
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