Vocal Exercises

Vocal exercises are important to the art of drama due to how much you use your voice. To make sure you use your voice without damaging the vocal cords (as this can have irreparable damage) there are several ways to stop yourself from damaging said cords.

1. To begin with, you need to have the ability to control your breathing as this is an important ability to help in your projection. Firstly, you must breath in and have your stomach extend and put out as this pushes the diaphragm down and when you breath out this will push the diaphragm up and allow more air to be used, providing projection and articulation.

2. Next, you must focus on how to articulate yourself. To begin with, you must start with pronouncing vowels. Say “oo”,”oh”,”ore.” This will help with all of your vowel pronunciation and assist in articulation. By doing this, you are also warming up your vocal cords for you to be able to do other exercises with ease. Alongside this, you will have the ability to make your lines clearer and closer to your vocal range to be able to hit different pitches which can be used to express emotion and character motivation. this is also used to make you open your mouth further with working the jaw you can make loud and more precise vocal sounds 

3. In this step you are going to be working on consonants the letters c,c,c then g,g,g this needs to come form your throat or to be more exact your larynx you need to repeat this process multiple times while changing the pitch in each different letter which will allow you to have the ability to voice those letters after this move on to the next letters in which a l,n now an important note is that you must say these phonetically and to make sure that you spread the letter and not stutter them as this is referred to as glotta’s. Now try the letters d,t and make sure to use your tongue. Finally say the letters m,p,b,(ah)

4. Now for the 4th step you need to find some poems and just recite them to increase your articulation and projection while speaking the truth in your words.

Medea

Medea is a play written in 431 by a famous playwright named Euripides during what was referred to as the common era this was not the text we used. We are looking at an adaption by Franca Rame which is a as a one woman show which we are interpreting and use as a group and dividing lines up as we go along. As we are looking at this we all performance as different characters which shoes our range of skill as we must change how we talk and appear in our body language this is a challenging part of the script as we must work completely in sync to achieve an ensembled piece of theatre. In the practice we split of in to two groups and tackled different parts of the play. The first group looked at the first paragraph which was performed in an abstract manner with characters freezing and coming alive at different points as this developed it became an artistic piece with movements becoming bigger and bigger. Along with ending in a very finite ending as all actor were repeating the phrase “stop her being so stupid” then one character says ‘stop’ overall to put a finally end to the performance. The second group looked at the second paragraph and decided to go for a realistic take on the paragraph. This was done in a ensemble manner as well. With this they grouped together as group of friends worrying about Medea in this they allowed themselves to be showed as a caring group with the same emotions while keeping their individual characters. Through this they we able to show an extra dimension to the script by having multiple people convey there individual emotions.

Research

Theater takes place all the time wherever one is; an art simply facilitates persuading one this is the case.

John Cage

Theater by definition is a place in which a play is performed. If you trace the word back to its Greek origin it literally translates to ‘the seeing place’ this can be anywhere and refers to performance or body of literature and other documents that support it. Closet drama isn’t written to be performed but is still theater. In a broad sense, theater is a very abstract term as it can refer to a lot of avenues but a common definition is that the theater requires one actor and one audience member. But what happens if there are no audience members there? Does this mean it is no longer theatre?

The Greek people were the first recorded people in history to use theatre as a form of entertainment some plays still exist today and are performed around the world such as ‘Medea Oedipus Rex’ by Sophocles. This certain play is under the genre of tragedy. Other plays that fall under this genre include ‘Antigone’ by Sophocles who also wrote ‘Electra’ which again falls under tragedy. Another genre that Greeks were famous for was the comedies having such plays like ‘The Clouds’, ‘The Birds’, and ‘The Frog’ which were all written by Aristophanes. The final genre that the greeks loved were satyur play, which always involved a half goat half man and were sometimes thrown in with comedies but with a lot more of a fantasy theme which often closely related to Dionysus the Greek God of Wine.

Basic Dramatic Principles

September 10th

Skills

Confidence- is having the ability to stand in front of a crowd and not be afraid, not freeze, and to act natural and stay in character. Drama requires you to have confidence due to the fact that at times you must make yourself look like a fool, if you are unable to do this, you would not succeed in the industry. I would argue that confidence is one of the most important skills that an actor must require.

Awareness - is having the ability to know where another actor is on the stage. In simple terms: to be able to walk down the street and know there is a bike behind you, therefore, you must move to the side to avoid the bike, This is key in theatre to know when another actor has moved, stumbled, improvised or fallen. Along with these, having a outward perception and awareness to the world can give you ideas to plays and can help you develop characters due to the fact that you can pull real life representations to use for your character.

Imagination- is the ability to see a man running and picture a werewolf chasing behind him and the ability to take the world for what it is and change it to create pieces of drama that drive the audience to see beyond reality. This is a vital skill due to the fact that if you are unable to see beyond the boundaries of everyday life, then you are unable to create something that is unique and that can spark a light in someone’s mind.

Collaboration - using other actors, directors, and writers to mix multiple minds into one to create higher quality pieces of art. This is imperative in drama due to the simple phrase ‘two minds are better than one’.

Discipline - is an indispensable skill. It means that you are able to stop yourself from doing something that might be negative towards yourself and instead focusing that energy on something positive and useful. This is an unquestionable skill in drama due to the long hours, intense work ethic, competitive industry, and volume of work that is required by each actor.

Listening - is a principle skill in drama due to the pure and simple fact that is you do not listen to a director you will be: fired; or unable to complete and do your job. If this is undeveloped, you will be unable to physically be an actor due to the fact that you will have no understanding of what is required of you.

Open mindedness- is useful because it means you are able to follow instructions well but still have your own spin on it. It also means that you are able to work with several different people and still be a good actor which is important because if you have a willingness to other people's ideas you are more likely to be hired and, therefore, have a job.

Voice- is a paramount skill as if somebody is unable to hear you or understand you, then you have failed your job as an actor. This is key because having projection and articulation are some of the foundational building blocks into basic and advanced acting.

Enjoyment- is a major skill. If you cannot enjoy what you are putting your life, heart and soul into, then you should not be an actor. Seeing an actor truly enjoy what they are doing is a truly beautiful sight to behold.

Fears

Fear is incredibly underrated but useful skill in life. Without fear there is no courage. Without courage you have no bravery. Without bravery, you will be unable to achieve what you dream of.

Shyness- Being shy can be very negative on stage because it can affect your voice, confidence, and ability to perform the character correctly. In some cases, a character may have the characteristics of being shy yet this does not mean that you yourself must be shy, you simply must portray these characteristics correctly.

Getting wrong- The fear of rejection or doing something incorrectly is a strong fear amongst all actors but if you don’t try, you will never know. Failure is also a very large amount of getting it wrong due to the fact that failure is one of the worst things that an actor can have happen to them.

Rules

Accept whatever is thrown at you and accept people for who they are.

Don’t block ideas.
Work with them.
However, if this doesn’t work after attempting, let it go and explain why it doesn’t work in order to progress.

Don't shut ideas down.
Always take everyone’s opinion into account no matter who they are.
Look at it from their perspective.

Watch everything as everything is drama.