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Me and my friends/classmates picking out suitable costumes for the characters.

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Target for this week:
My target for this week is to be productive during every class meaning being on time, line learning, completing every task the teacher gives me and being in every lesson to catch up in everything needed to learn.

During the 2nd week I feel like I achieved some of my targets and the one I know I achieved is being productive during class.
whilst rehearsals for the first part of our play 'guys and dolls' we was doing the opening scene which didn't require my actual character but more like an extra which was an illegal merchandiser on the streets selling his watches.
For this specific role I already knew what type of characteristics they had but the only thing I had to perfect was my posture and how they would've acted whilst walking around the street trying to sell his items without getting caught by the cop.
My teacher Sarah explained that the characters movements were more stiff and awareful when moving around.

coming to the 3rd/this week; I was tasked with picking out and organising costumes and props by my teacher.
the photo I uploaded is the photo that was taken when I was backstage in the costume closet with my teammates trying to pick out costumes and asking each other wether the clothes would suit the characters we were trying to find it for.
I found it quite entertaining to pick out the costumes because it got me to think about the characters personality and what would suit them and their characteristics.
Which talking about their character I also thought about how their personality can be put into an outfit.
For example, Sarah who is the main character in the play has a very sophisticated yet innocent energy to her so what me and my group did was pick out clothes in certain colours that represent her personality.
such as a red cloak for innocence and class.
A yellow dress for positivity and youth.
Etc..

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Listen whilst others are speaking and stay quiet at the side whilst others are performing/rehearsing:

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Listen whilst others are speaking and stay quiet at the side whilst others are performing/rehearsing:

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One of the most important lessons I had to learn whilst being a student in performing arts was to always respect others when they were performing/rehearsing and in general.

Having respect towards your other classmates whilst they are in the middle of rehearsals is also a reflection to how they will treat you whilst you’re rehearsing.

In addition to having respect for each other, I believe keeping a understanding and respectful work environment between each other makes it less tense when working with one another because of the amount of respect we all have for each other.

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Leave personal drama outside of the rehearsal space:

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Leave personal drama outside of the rehearsal space:

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As drama students we all have times where we all have something wrong with each other, not all the time but sometimes.

The way I see this problem is either the disagreements between one another causes a backlash of hatred to the point where working with each other or even close to one another makes it cause tension not to only them but also their surroundings.

Keeping all sorts of drama outside of the rehearsal space makes rehearsing that much easier for others who are not involved in the drama, hence because having drama between two people can cause drowsiness and distraction to all the actors and actresses whilst rehearsing but will also teach the two pupils that in the real professional world of acting there is no place for having drama at work.

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During Project 2 which was the Art project performance, I remember having many problems of my own regarding how I didn’t learn my lines in time for the final performance.

Here’s why I believe investing time into learning lines is just as important as any other rule.

Learning lines is all about memory and if you are a person who struggles with memorising things easily then you have to start early into memorising your lines because sometimes improvising doesn’t look good.

If there’s ever a time where the person you are in a group with is not in when rehearsing, then that’s also something you can reflect and work on.

What I believe worked best with me is to record myself on my phone in my spare time and basically saying the lines of the other person then listening to it back over and over again whilst also rehearsing my lines, this technique helped me a lot with memorising my lines but also practicing getting into character.

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As a class we are all born with British accents because that’s what we grew up around.

However, when a situation comes up like this where we need to scrap our usual accents and do something totally different.

What I found quite helpful was how as a class we all started working on accents as soon as the teacher explains the play and where the play is set should.

The early start to working on accents made It so much easier for us to get used to it and keep using the accent during rehearsals.

When at home I found it convenient to watch a lot of videos where people with the specific accent would talk and explain how some words are pronounced.

Such as coffee in a new York accent is pronounced ‘cawfe’ which makes a huge difference when talking in the usual American accent.

As it’s been told since day one of the semester: prepare for whatever the role needs so you won’t look silly in between all the other actors using American accent versus you.

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During rehearsals when we are practicing a performance that includes being practical and moving around a lot, it is necessary to wear all black clothes that stretch.

This makes it easier for us to move around and not have wardrobe manufactures whilst rehearsing.

On top of that, black stretchy clothes are mostly used during performances anyway so in a way it prepares us to completely wear all black till the final performance is to date.

Overly open clothing such as mini crop tops or skirts is clothing that isn’t appropriate when rehearsing or even performing hence because it’s a risky type of clothing that can open up or reveal parts of the body that shouldn’t be seen.

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Guys and Dolls; Final Performance Evaluation

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Guys and Dolls; Final Performance Evaluation

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Guys and dolls written by Damon Runyon is one of the most popular short stories that he has written that has progressed into a musical theatre piece in the early 50's.
The story was actually written in the 1940's but became super popular during the 1950's where it first went on to being a popular musical theatre piece.
Guys and dolls is all about gangsters, gamblers and other characters all in the set of the underworld in New York.
Damon Runyon was mostly not only known for his famous musical theatre piece but also how he mixed formal language with New York slang together to create a unique dialect.
The whole guys and dolls play is a whirlwind of all sorts of New York accents, such as the Brooklyn accent, Manhattan accent to the bronx accent. All of these features in each of the characters make up the story for each character in its own form.
What is really interesting is that the play 'guys and dolls' isn't actually the original name, Damon Runyon's original piece is called 'The idyll of miss Sarah brown'. The musical theatre piece guys and dolls is a similar story to Runyon's 'the idyll of miss Sarah brown' story however, the play guys and dolls has much more added twists to it.

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Final guys and dolls performance video; 24/05/23

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Final guys and dolls performance video; 24/05/23

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https://youtu.be/u9xu_-FjhzU

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During this week my main target was to make sure I’m in, in all my lessons and also have my characters posture.
The reason I chose this as a target is because I felt like I was slacking off a bit when it came to even having the energy to come into lessons.
But this week I found the motivation to come into all my classes and not miss a day of rehearsals because I know that in some of the scenes that we do I’m a extra/subject in it.

This week on the video I put up we was doing a rehearsal of the scene where Nathan is making a bet however it turns into a twist where Adelaide comes into the scene and the bet turns into a marriage announcement.
In this scene I’m the character who hyped up the marriage announcement to everyone.

Although I had small motivation to even act I still tried to act hyper and energetic to fulfill my characters ‘charecter’.
What my tutor explained that I should reflect on was how my characters posture would be during this scene which was wary yet energetic at some point.
Which In this specific scene that’s exactly what I tried to achieve.
Sometimes the posture of my character was hard to keep doing because I had to keep slouching which hurt my back but I had to think about how it would be in the future if I want to continue to act which would be full dedication, but also I had think about how it would look to the audience which I know would make it look like I was putting more character and dedication.

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During our final week before we broke up into easter break, we came to the part where we rehearsed one of the big musical dances in the whole play 'luck be a lady'.

Even though it was tiring to learn all the movements in the dance and also to get the rhythm of the dance to sync with the singing, we finally as a group got the handle of it after a few tries.
In the video above it is shown that we are learning a new choreography for the musical.

what I had a hard time doing during this time of rehearsing the musical, is not being able to get the beat of the song and the dance moves to sync together.
however after days of continuous trying and learning I finally got it together and looking back at some of the videos I or my friends took, I realised what I was doing wrong and what needed improvement in my movements.
Even as a group when we was trying to do the dance, there was a particular skill we had to conquer, which was singing and dancing at the same time. This skill was hard to learn even as a group because sometimes we would forget to sing as we were dancing because our whole focus was on the dance and to not mess it up that singing was forgotten.
Even at times we would remember to sing last minute and sing in the middle of the dance which made the whole performance look and sound weird.

My whole aim for this week was to participate with full ambition and character and to even try and learn some dance moves at home along with singing whilst dancing.
This made it easier for me when I went back to rehearsals at some days because I knew what I had to do.

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This week, it was our first week back since the easter holiday and since its a new term its also a time to do a new musical dance.
In the video I linked above, it is the group all rehearsing for the musical performance 'sit down you're rocking the boat'

When rehearsing this musical dance I found it much more easier to learn and perform than 'luck be a lady' and im not sure if its because we're all mostly sitting down or because the movements were much easier but either way it worked well with me.
At first it was hard to get used to the singing and moving around, it was similar to when I was rehearsing 'luck be a lady' but then I got the handle of it and when I started to practice the cue's I would be the one starting off with the simple singing such as the "Ooooo" when it came to nicely nicely singing; 'I sailed away on that little boat to heaven'
I feel like I gave everyone the cue to the singing and moving during that part.

The one part I really struggled when performing 'sit down your rocking the boat' was the part in the video I linked above. During that time we had to poke our heads in and out to the way we rehearsed it, and everyone rehearsed it differently that's why everyones head is poking in and out in different times.
when trying to learn the time that came to when I had to poke my head out, I would use my friend who was infront of me as a cue because she was doing it at the same time as me, this made it much easier for me to learn and not mess it up. (p.s I can gladly say im grateful for being at the back row for that specific part)

My target for this week was to learn lines at home because I haven't really had the time to quite take some time to rehearse and learn my lines, this was trouble for me because my teacher Sarah explained we had to be off script by the time easter holidays was over, and quite frankly I was still on script when on stage, it doesn't look good to be on script when on stage and I realise now that I need to be more serious with learning my lines at home and coming in with my lines all learnt.

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Class trip to watch guys and dolls at Bridge Theatre.

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During this week we had the amazing opportunity to go to a trip to Bridge Theatre to watch guys and dolls live performance.
What really interested me was that the whole experience  was to be watching the performance whilst walking around scene to scene and standing up the whole time.
I've never went to a promenade show before so this was all new to me, and at first ill admit that it sounded so tiring and something I didn't think I could stand, but then when you arrive to the theatre and see all the set ups of the guys and dolls scenery settings it really wows you.
The neon colours and bright atmosphere really did change my perspective and i quickly thought that maybe it wasn't too bad to be walking around and seeing all the different scene changes happening.

During the show what I found fun was to guess all the characters and who they were playing as; because I play harry the horse in guys and dolls I would try to find which one of the actors is playing as harry and pin point all his movements, acting skills, emotions, to see what I could learn from the way he was acting and add it into my character as harry the horse.
I found it quite interesting how the actor who played harry the horse had a totally different way of portraying harry in the play than me.
With the way I act as harry is more joyous and bubbly yet weary. However, the harry who played in the live performance was way more sophisticated, straight up and evil looking.
A lot of the things I took from watching harry the horse play in the show was to act however suited you the most, I knew that if I played harry the horse the way the actor in bridge theatre did, it wouldn't seem unique and more like taking someones portrayal of the certain character and making it original, I knew that I had to make my portrayal of harry the horse different from anyone else's and more like mine.

My favourite part of the whole show was the part where the actress Adelaide put on this wonderful, eye-catching show that really wowed me to my core.
The way she shined from the mirrored pieces she had on her outfit making her stand out through the whole theatre really made it worth the leg ache I had from standing all day.
I wouldn't lie if I said my mouth was wide open during the whole performance.

Overall, I thought the leg ache, walking around, back aches were sooo worth it because the whole show really blew my mind out of expectation.
I got so many techniques that I watched from the actors that I intend to add to my acting and most of them techniques is being out there and making it an enormous ball of energy.

This weeks aim: Add more energy and exaggeration to my character.

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My costume for the opening scene for guys and dolls

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During week 6; we finalised all of our costumes that we will wear for our final performance.
I had two outfits that I was assigned to wear which is a leather jacket, trousers and a white shirt for the opening scene, when I play as the illegal watch seller.
For outfit two; I was put together a blazer, trouser and white shirt with a black hat (which is the main prop in the whole play).
I found it exciting to see all the outfits and props that was put all together for my character harry the horse, it made me look at my character in a different eye, because the way a character is dressed also tells the people viewing the show what type of person the character is portrayed as.

Coming to rehearsals during this week, we had the opportunity to go over the whole play from top to bottom.
This allowed our teacher Sarah to see the rights and wrongs of each scene and what is needed or missing for each character.
The feedback I got from my teacher was that I had to learn my lines because I've been lacking from memorising a lot of lines and at some times I would even use my script during rehearsals which is not acceptable at all considering how the final performance is right around the corner.
Another feedback that I got was to be way more energetic and big with my role because the whole play is considered a huge ball of energy that is shown from the way each one of the characters act in the play.

I took time off from this week to go over my script and improve my acting so that I could get better with my role day by day.

stage anxiety started to get to me as I got the fright that I won't be able to memorise my lines in time and that I would be a laughing stock in the middle of the stage (and not in a good way at all).

Aim for this week; Memorise lines and improve acting to be extravagant.

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Started painting the scene change boards (sewer)

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As it is coming to the final weeks of our final performance, as a class we were told that we will start with painting the scene change boards from this week till the performance week.
I didn't really like the idea at how the painting was left last minute because I knew it would take some time to do all of it, especially because theres five boards to sketch and paint on.
I decided to volunteer to be one of the painters that paint the boards and come in during our free time on Thursdays and Fridays.

During (Thursday) the first day of the board painting it was all getting sketched up and I didn't have much to do since Im not known to be a pro sketcher however I still decided to involve myself and help out.
I decided to try do the Havana scene sketch which was only the palm tree, and even though I thought it looked horrible, it still marked the area on where its supposed to be painted at.
On the second day (Friday), we started to paint some of the finished boards which was only about two of them but one side each, it wasn't much to do but I still felt helpful because I could always stay to paint instead of doing nothing at all.

The first board that I started to paint was a part of the sewer, and I had to try and find colours that would look more agreeable to what an actual sewer looked like, everyone that was there agreed that a dirty grey would make it look more like a sewer but also if we added darker colours to it such as outlining the sewer pipes with blotches of black to represent grime and dirt.

I started going on with the painting with the advice I got from everyone and sooner or later it started to look more like a sewer. I did get some help from my teammates to make it look more realistic that cartoonish, which led me to make better efforts with the painting.

At the end I did all I could with the time we had in college, the boards were not finished painting, this made me overthink that we will not finish any of the boards by the time it came to our performance but I didn't want to blow any hopes up and thought of ways that I could turn my free time into using it on painting days.

Aim for this week: continue with memorising my lines and use my free to help with the board paintings.

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1950, 1953, 1955 and 2023 Guys and Dolls production posters

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The production of guys and dolls; 1950 - 2023

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The production of guys and dolls; 1950 - 2023

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1950 original broadway production - The musical guys and dolls first premiered on broadway in the 46th street theatre on November 24, 1950. The musical starred Robert Alda as sky Masterson, Sam Levene as Nathan Detroit, Isabel Bigley as Sarah brown and Vivian Blaine as miss Adelaide.
The musical had accomplished 1,200 performances and winning 5 Tony awards in 1951 including the award for best musical.

1953 First ever UK production - The guys and dolls musical went on for the first every production in the UK in 1953.
The production opened at the London coliseum on may 28th of 1953 a few days before Queen elizabeths 1953 Coronation.
The production went on to perform 555 performances including a royal common performance for the queen Elizabeth on November 2, 1953.
The London cast co-starred Vivian Blaine as miss Adelaide, Sam Levene as Nathan Detroit, jerry Wayne as sky Masterson and Lizabeth Webb as Sarah brown.

1955 First ever Las Vegas Broadway Production - All the same casts from the recent years of the performance for guys and dolls all recreated their original broadway performances in a reduced version of the play; when the first production in Las Vegas opened at the royal Nevada on September 7th, 1955. It was also the first time a broadway musical was performed on the Las Vegas strip.

2023 London revival - A new bright immersive production came to the bridge theatre, London from march 3rd 2023 until 24th February 2024.
The cast was announced including; Daniel Mays as Nathan Detroit, Celinde Schoenmaker as Sarah brown, Marisha Wallace as Miss Adelaide and Andrew Richardson as Sky Masterson.

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Guys and dolls actors rehearsal studio; Bridge theatre LDN 2023

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Guys and dolls actors rehearsal studio; Bridge theatre LDN 2023

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After going to a trip with my class to bridge theatre to watch guys and dolls, I saw so many things in the show that was so different to how we did it that I knew I had to search up some videos about the cast of guys and dolls 2023.

When going onto YouTube in hopes to find useful videos about guys and dolls from the actors in bridge theatre I came across with this video.
watching this video I saw a lot of fun and friendship that they put into together as a cast which made their bond perfect, and although me and my classmates have the same energy its nice to see how these actors friendship together creates he perfect bond when they perform. its almost like you can feel their real life friendship on stage too.

I believe that friendship between cast mates is super important in order to create that connection even between the characters when performing on stage because the whole point of performing to and audience is to make the audience feel something when watching the show and what we wanted to intepret as a class together is support and fun in an inside account and a bond/friendship between the characters.

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Guys and Dolls 2023 revival | In rehearsals

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Animated Simpsons version of Guys and dolls, luck be a lady tonight; (1998)

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Animated Simpsons version of Guys and dolls, luck be a lady tonight; (1998)

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On the 10th season - 9th episode of the Simpsons (Mayored to the Mob).
The episode includes the parody version of the guys and dolls musical tune 'luck be a lady' and even at some parts the orginality of the play is kept in tact.
The whole scene is mixed with small parts of Star Wars when the musical is named 'luck be a Jedi tonight'

In this episode mark Hamill plays the role of 'Nathan Detroit'. And in the opening scene the cast in Springfield dinner theatre dances and sings to 'guys and dolls, we are just a bunch of crazy guys and dolls'

The whole interest of using guys and dolls which is a play about a bunch of gamblers for a episode in the Simpsons which also includes bad guys gave the whole show an immense fun.

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With only one week to go till our performance, it started to get more stressful day by day.
One target that I have achieved this week was memorising my lines, with a lot of effort I successfully went on with rehearsals without having my script with me even though at times I would use 'prompt' to remember one line.
Although, the boards for the scene change were still not finished painting, there was a lot of classmates willing to stay behind and help us with it and by the end of Friday we ended up finishing sketching and painting a lot of the boards.

During rehearsals, we wore our costumes whilst going every scene to make sure that every character had every piece of clothing perfected to their characteristics.
I was told that I had to cut out cardboard watches and pin them to my leather jacket for the opening scene, therefore my to-do for this week was to get a hold of a cardboard piece and cut it out to make it look like a watch. I first decided to start off with my research on what type of watch designs would be usually worn in the 50s, which is the era the play is set in, then I had to draw the watches on the cardboard, cut it out, and colour it in (lets just say this week went on with a lot of artistic work)

A lot was being done in our group this week, as props were all coming out, such as paper dollars were printed out then handed to the gangsters in the sewer and red carnation scene, we then used the props for those scenes during rehearsals to see how we would handle it whilst on stage.

After Wednesday; I came into college to help out with the board painting, and when I saw the boards I was so surprised at how much work was done, the hot box, mindys, the daily news stand, they were all painted and it looked great!
The only thing that was left for me to do was to go over some of the blank parts of the board which I started off with the tobacco stand. I coloured each cigarette box with different colours such as; red, yellow, black and blue. however, I still kept it simple and dark because i knew that the whole aesthetic of items in the 50s were more simple and vain than colourful and bubbly.

At the end of the week, me and my classmates were able to finish some of the boards but the only thing pretty much left to do is to go over the outline of some of the letters.

Aim for this week: continue to perfect your role as harry the horse and research about my characters personality to put it in my acting.

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Sheldon leonard in the guys and dolls movie as harry the horse; 1955

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Sheldon Leonard as harry the horse; 1955

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Sheldon Leonard as harry the horse; 1955

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When I was researching about my character (harry the horse) the only piece of character research I got from online was about Sheldon Leonard who played as harry the horse in the guys and dolls 1955 movie.

Looking at his pictures I came across with the type of outfits he was wearing during the exact 1950 era.
what came to my attention is, the tie had a specific colour to it, it wasn't boring plain colours instead it was bold and colourful which gave away the characters personality through his costume.

I put my research about him into my own outfit analysis when I Was trying to find the perfect visual costume for myself as my character, harry the horse.

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Official guys and dolls first ever movie trailer; 1955

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Official guys and dolls first ever movie trailer; 1955

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Although I would of loved to use the original theatre performance of guys and dolls (1950) as my research on the characters of the play, I thought it was quite fun getting all the good original acting skills from the original cast from every guys and dolls play since 1950 and interpret it into what I am looking for when it comes to putting certain characteristics into my own character.

Although, my character harry the horse is a small role in the play/movie I took some time to watch the main characters acting in order to find some key skills to put it into my small character as well.
Each character has their own personality in the play however I knew that in order to make a great performance I had to interpret little personality traits from every character as much as I could.
This worked for me well because during rehearsals I added small amounts of big Jules ego and when my other classmates were watching me I had a moment where they would laugh and then tell me how good my acting was and that I was the perfect role for harry the horse.

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Guys and Dolls Official Trailer #1 - Frank Sinatra Movie (1955) HD

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Website I used to find 50s mens fashion styles

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Website I used to find 50s mens fashion styles

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To further my knowledge about mens fashion in the 50s to put into my choices of clothes for my character, I used a website called '1950s mens fashion'.
This website has varieties of all sorts of clothing men in the 50s wore, and the type of clothing information I was looking for is all there.

'Men of the 50’s were accessorized from head to toe. A stylish hat, suit, handkerchief, coordinated tie, socks and wingtip shoes.'
When searching for information about the styles not only did this website give pictures to show all types of styles but it also gave a descriptive information on what the gentleman in the 1950s would wear.
With this research I found it so much easier to put all the clothing I could get that was close to the 50s fashion and make it into something sophisticated just like my character harry the horse.

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1950s Men’s Fashion Style - fashions for men in the 50’s are often thought of in terms of the Fonz and Grease. Well, forget that. These picture are a far more mainstream view of how

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Name: Nukelda Garip
Student ID number: 744110
Campus: Westminister Kingsway college
Course: Performing arts year 1, level 3

I, Nukelda Garip have wrote this blog about my final project (guys and dolls) genuinely from all my own words/research/analysis.
I authenticate this work as being mine.
My final project (unit 8) blog includes;
- 8 Weekly journals
- Research
- Final evaluation
- Proposal
- Contract analysis
- Videos of rehearsals and research purpose Youtube videos
- Links/sites used for personal research
- Bibliography

I understand that anything copied and presented as my own will not be accepted or graded.