'A Christmas Carol' Blocking and Singing

It is very important that I volunteer to do improvisation tasks and at least answered 1 question in lessons as it will build my confidence and understanding of acting in the real world. Therefore I am setting myself a personal goal, to volunteer/ answer a question at least once tomorrow and Thursday.

Firstly we began blocking 'A Christmas Carol', so I now know where I need to be in order to deliver my first line. Blocking is a theatre term used to erfer to the exact  movement and positioning of the actors in a play. I have to deliver my line sitting in the stalls with the audience for dramatic effect. I said the line in the exact same way I had rehearsed it.

Afterwards we were set various improvisation tasks which included levels (using height on stage, for an interesting effect) and movement. I would have been ideal to volunteer for this, but had no ideas of what to add to the scenes. I need to draw from my past experiences, characters and other performances and bring these ideas to the stage.

When I did take part in the improvisation task, I found that my characters' movement was limited and I approached the situation quite timidly. In addition, when I had to change my character, I used the same tone of voice (the sound made by vibratng muscular bands in the larynx and any sound considered with reference to its quality, pitch, strength and/ ore source) and so the character was practically the same as the first. By the time I reached my last character, I ran out of ideas. In the future, it might help to think of ideas previous to improvising.

Lastly, we had singing lessons. We started by doing vocal warm ups and then we were introduced to the song 'Shadowland'. Luckily, I know this song, but the alto harmonies are different so I must work on these. I was better able to sing in this lessson than in the previous singing lesson. However, I sung much too low and I need to improve on controlling my voice, which is a lot to do with singing from the diaphragm.

This diagram illustrates the stage directions, used by the director, to tell the actors where to go.

 

Here is a diagram, that shows the placement of the diaphragm in the body. It is a dome shaped muscular partition that separates the abdominal and thoracic cavities in humans. At college, I learnt that it is, better to sing from your diaphragm to establish a better sense of control with the voice. It is also useful in acting, as if you speak from the diaphragm, you have a deeper, richer tone and you are able to project your voice better. Also, during breathing exercises, we learnt that, for a better breath capacity, you should breathe from the stomach and your diaphragm should expand when breathing in.