Beginning of Movement Unit

Seeing as we have finished the Shakespeare Fandango Puppet Performances, we are now beginning the Movement Unit. These past few days in Drama, we are being introduced to things such as pantomime, silent scenes, and much more. Some activities we have done in the past few days are...

- Movement Telephone: This was soo much fun :) I hope we do it again!
- Silent Scenes: Alice and mine's was quite... interesting. A crying child and an annoyed mother...
- Walking Activites: This was harder for me. It was hard to channel a character through a walk.
- Notes: It was cool to watch Mrs. Weil communicate so much without speaking.


I think I have the potential to learn a lot about how to act and how the human race communicates within this unit! :)

Shakespeare Fandango Puppet Project: Final Performance

I believe our final performance for the Shakespeare Fandango Puppet Project was pretty good.
As with any performance, we did have some glitches. Our character voices were not very strong. Out of all of them, Jason's Bianca voice was the best. I could start a line with a strong British accent, but as I progressed the accent would slowly fade, and I would just be speaking with my normal voice. British accents are very hard to do!

However, Mrs. Weil said our energy was great as well as our puppet control. I had a feeling that my character voice was not going to be as strong as I would've wanted it to be, so I did plan ahead to try to put more emotion and energy into my puppet voice. And I also practiced puppet-positioning in conversations to make them similar to those of a humans. I guess it all payed off in the end.

Like any performance, there are improvements, but I think that I am satisfied with my work on the Shakespeare Fandango Puppet Project!

Puppets Performing :)

Shakespeare Fandango Puppet Project: Final Rehearsal Day

Today... er... yesterday... was the final rehearsal day for the Shakespeare Fandango Puppet Project. I think that we have used the time to the best of our abilities and created a performance that will hopefully be enjoyed by all.

In the end it was decided that I would play Petruchio, Alice would play Hortensio and Katherina, and Jason would play Baptista, Lucentio, and Bianca. Though we each play a different number of characters, we end up with the same amount of lines.

We first began by running through lines and working on our character voices. I decided that I would try to develop a form of a British accent because it has that sense of sophistication about it. Alice would develop a deeper voice for Katherina and a Valley-girl accent for Hortensio. Jason would try to develop a higher voice for Baptista, an Asian-accent for Bianca, and an unbelievably deep voice for Lucentio.

After that, we began blocking out our movements on the blocks and working on movement and puppet-control. This part was easy enough because we only have three people.

After continuous rehearsals, I have learned my lines sufficiently and I think we are ready to put on a pretty good performance!

Shakespeare Fandango Puppet Project: Progress Report

Our rough draft of the script has been completed, however, I did not write any of the final script. I did write a part and send it to my group, but they decided to re-write it. I do like the final script, I think it is very entertaining and has the potential to be a hit with the class.

However, I did work on puppets. My Scrooge McDuck looks very realistic and I think it fits the character of Petruchio very well. Jasmine looks all right, not my best work, but I do like her hair. Also, Genie looks very well-made, complete with red belt and little hair, and goatee! :) I was also able to stick to my goal of keeping my puppets simple. They are made of nothing but paper bags, paper, and markers.

Bianca... Jasmine from Aladdin

Hortensio... Genie from Aladdin

Petruchio... Scrooge McDuck from A Christmas Carol

Shakespeare Fandango Puppet Project: Puppet Making Day #2

In the end, Alice, Jason, and I decided to modernize the Taming of the Shrew, by William Shakespeare, because it has an easy to follow plot story and it has limited character roles. With a group of merely three people, I hope that will help.

We decided that we would base all of our puppets off Disney characters. Alice continued work on her Cinderella-Katherina puppet, as I continued work on my Scrooge-Petruchio puppet. Jason had already finished his Mickey-Baptista puppet, so he worked on the script.

It has been decided that Jason will finish off the script as Alice and I finish the puppets.