Journal entry: 12

                 I have been working on my director’s notebook and World theatre presentation lately. I am enjoying working on it. In my directors notebook I have finished researching on its relevant context and have researched on the ideas presented by the playwright. I had a hard time finding much information as I acknowledged that most websites had the same information but by doing the research I got a better understanding of the play. In one of our director’s notebook assignments we had to create a list of all live theatre performances we have seen. As I had studied in a Christian school, we had a lot of theatre performances. I had watched all of them yet while trying to do this assignment I couldn’t remember the names of the plays. I could only recall few I imagine those were the ones I enjoyed watching the most. Trying to recall the plays names made me miss my previous school a great deal. After joining ullens too we have seen about 6 plays. One, which was the 24hr play done by our seniors and my favorite, which was led by my theater teacher and the acting was done by my friends which was Check please. As I kept doing my directors notebook we had to choose two specific moments of atmosphere, emotion or tension that communicate meaning. The first moment I chose was the first moment when Ivan and Natalya were quarreling over a property. I felt choosing this moment would be nice as I find that this part is the most important section of the play and that it shows us what the play is actually about. I felt choosing this moment would be nice as I find that this part is the most important section of the play and that it shows us what the play is actually about. The second moment I chose was when Natalya was screaming at Ivan while he felt unwell and then passed out. I have been attempting to put a lot of effort on my directors notebook as I had not done is very well the first time we did it. I have noted the mistakes I made in my first directors notebook, but will attempt to do a lot better this time. I am certainly more experienced now.  I just completed one of the Directors notebook assignments, which was brainstorming the intentions and impacts of my director’s notebook.  By doing this assignment I got an overview of what I have done till today for my directors notebook.  I had a fun doing it as I did it in an F4 size paper and applied different colors to brainstorm my ideas.

Journal entry: 11

Director’s notebook

      A lot of things have occurred over the past months. The earthquake, which hit my country on April 25TH at 11:56 changed a lot of things. Its has been more two months yet aftershocks are continuing but now people have now started living their normal lives. Due to the earthquake our school was shut for April 27 and will be opening on 3^rd of August. Being an IB student does not mean I was free for such a long time. I had so many assignments to complete and this kept me very busy. For theatre I have been working on my directors notebook and the world theatre presentation. For my directors notebook I chose the play name “The proposal” by Anton Chekhov.  Searching for the right play was an extremely difficult task as there are so many plays. I went through a lot of plays but dint find the perfect one for such a long time. When I saw “The proposal” in a website where there were around 100 of play lists. The title of the play  “The proposal” it self attracted me. Thinking that it was an adorable romantic play I started to read it but it turned out totally different. At first I felt that play seemed quite meaningless and silly. I got quite irritated as I expected an adorable love story but when I thought about it later it seemed so hilarious. It was totally different form most of the plays I have read or seen so I decided that I would chose this play for my directors notebook.

Here just a brief summary of the play:

            Ivan and Stephan are neighbors. One day when Ivan goes to Stephan’s house very well dressed Stephan assumes that the young man has come to borrow money but when Ivan tells him that he has come to propose to his daughter. He is over joyed and goes to call his daughter Natalya. As Ivan first talk about the weather then tries to bring up the subject of marriage. He first starts talking about his family and then mentions that his family owns the Oxen meadows. Natalya stops him and mention that the oxen meadows belong to her family. They start to quarrel and start yelling at each other. When Natalya’s father hears them fighting he comes out.  Natalya and her father insult Ivan so Ivan leaves the house. When Natalya learns that Ivan had actually come here to propose she sends her father to bring him back. When Ivan returns back he just start to talk again but now about their dogs. They again land up quarreling about whose dog is the better.  Finally Ivan’s heart cannot take it anymore and he blacks out. After a while he comes back to his senses as he hears Stephan saying – Hurry up and get married she is willing. Then Natalya too says yes I am willing to but they again start discussing about whose dog is better.  

     
                   
                                                             JOURNAL ENTRY: 10

         I literally feel so miserable these days as our workload has increased tremendously. Some time I feel that my assignments are haunting me- IA, EE research question, FOA, Directors notebook. Our theatre classes are quite different now, as we have started working on our play “ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW WHAT I LEARNED FROM BEING A ZOMBIE”. We have finished working on blocking for about 4 scenes.  In preparation for this play we also learnt different tips for actors and also about memorizing lines, which were very help. I have 3 different roles in this play and I must say learning lines for ensemble scene was much difficult than learning my monologue. As in the ensemble scene I have to be very attentive as there will be 18 zombies in the scene. I really enjoy preparing for the play as our whole class is involved and this play will be the first time, which we will be actually performing on the stage. I feel that this is great opportunity for all of us as being theatre students.

            The only assignment we had this week was to read our play parts and find our goals and obstacles which all of us did not really understand so we during class our teacher had explained what we had to actually do and we had to hand our second draft of our goals and obstacles of our character which I haven’t yet because I missed school on Thursday.  Even though my teacher had explained our assignment I guess I was still confused, so as for the instructions I read all my parts couple times and I ended up learning all my lines much better as before I would sometimes for forget certain lines or words.  The main purpose of this assignment is for us to understand our character. Understanding our character really helps us to perform better and also makes us confident while acting in even the if it’s the silliest character.

            Director’s notebook is one of our theatre assessments. This is the second time we will be doing our directors notebook as we had done it in 1^st semester. The director’s notebook allows each one of us to be directors and direct two moments of a published play. The director’s notebook allows us to be very creative and design two moments. I am pretty excited to be director as this time I will surely be more prepared. I am still not sure which play I want to direct yet but I guess I want to do it on Glass menagerie because I am really familiar with the play and also because I really like it.

       
                            JOURNAL ENTRY: 9

        It been already been a week since school started after spring break. I truly enjoyed project week and spring break but now its time get back to work. Anti Realism was the last chapter we had learnt about but we were not really done as we had a quiz on it on Thursday. I did understand anti realism after reading the handouts and after the discussions we had in class. In my opinion anti realism is much more entertaining and appealing than realism for example symbolism plays are filled with images, metaphors, dream sequence, fantasy and there are mainly about themes such as nature, death, fate, idealism and life force. I really like how anti realism uses lights, different sound effects, different prop, stage affects which acts as an attention grabber. The different styles of theatre under anti realism such as theatre of absurd, theatre of alienation, theatre of cruelty were all unique in their own way. The different videos we watched gave us a good understand of the different styles of theatre  Frankly speaking I really found “jet of blood” very creepy and quite terrifying and “Quad” dint make any sense to me but some how I still felt like watching it to know what’s going to happen next but at the end noting so exciting happened. Samuel Beckett’s play an “act without words” a kind play that I had never seen before but it was quite irritating at times and it felt good watching a female protagonist in “mother courage”. 

          We have recently learnt about theatre of the oppressed and I liked the concept how audience would be able to engage in the play. Miss rose gave the example how the actors at a point would just freeze and the audience would go to the stage and organise everything according to them. I was quite amazed hearing this as I never knew this kind of things happened in theatre. I just kept imagining that the actors must be very skilled and prepared, as they don’t know what’s going to happen. Every time I learn about a new theater company. It just makes me quite surprised and amazed thinking about how all the theatre companies are so creative and different form each other yet they all have a similar purpose which is to entertain their audience or to teach the audience a lesson.  My friends and I (theatre students) are also going to participate in theatre festival.  The title of the play is “All I need to know about a zombie” by Jason Pizzarello. Each one in the class has about 3 roles and I guess everybody is quite excited. I am also excited mostly because as a class we hadn’t really done acting on stage and this play included all of us which such a good opportunity to learn new skills. Yes, I am excited but at the same time I am nervous and scared because it’s already been a year since I last acted in a play but I IB has surely made more confident. In preparation of this play we have started doing different exercises. We first started with relaxing the brain and the body where we did different kind of stretching’s to loosen up our body. The trust game was quite scary at first but was fun as soon as we started to trust our group members. My favorite exercises were the Exuberance exercise where we did different movements and we also had to say a word or make sound effect and the last thing we discussed about was discipline. Where we discussed about being a disciplined actor and some of the rules we needed to follow. I really love doing different exercises and playing different kind of games as it helps us to be more open and comfortable among each other.

            I hope noting but the best for our play that is coming up but for it to be the best we all need to work hard and cooperate among each other.