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The character I auditioned for was Regina George in Mean Girls.

Everyone who was auditioning for one of the Plastics had to get up and sing a section of Meet the Plastics - the Plastic you were auditioning for decided which section you would sing. I got up and sang Regina's part of the song and was then asked to do it again but be "meaner" which I did and I think that it went really well.

I then sang a section of World Burn which is Regina's big song and after The Director Nat got me to do a belting exercise to see if I could belt the high note which I could.

Overall, I think my audition went really well.

17/04 - The Cast List came out today and I got Regina which I'm very excited about and I can't wait to start rehearsals.

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Today, westared to practise some of the songs and harmonies for Mean Girls because we didn't have the second years and we didn't want to start anything big without them.

We did the harmonies for the section of Revenge Party that we're doing in the show and we got everyone involved in the big harmony at the end of Meet the Plastics.

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Meeting Tim/Sweeney first rehearsal 22/04

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Meeting Tim/Sweeney first rehearsal 22/04

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Today we met Tim who is going to be our Director for Sweeney Todd. We started the day by getting to know Tim and his expectations for us. We played a couple of acting games before getting into rehearsing properly.

We started workshopping The Ballad of Sweeney Todd but only got about a minute in. We then started working on A Cautionary Tale which is the opening number in Mean Girls and I learnt the Regina blocking while Liv did our ensemble blocking but I made sure I watched what she was doing so that I can replicate it when she's playing Regina.

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Today, we sang through everything that we've done so far and we showed Nat what we worked on with Tim. We then worked on Big Time which is one of the biggest numbers in Mack and Mabel and we blocked it up to the point where we stop singing.

We then worked on blocking and choreography for Time Warp (Rocky Horror) which the group has been working on for a few weeks. I haven't been in the number yet because I had a sprained ankle last term and couldn't dance; but I slotted myself in and it worked out pretty well.

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Movies Were Movies and Finishing Time Warp 26/04

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Movies Were Movies and Finishing Time Warp 26/04

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Today we worked on Movies were Movies which is another one of the big numbers in Mack and Mabel and it consisted mostly of background acting which was fine. My character in Mack and Mabel is a makeup artist so I got to have fun with discovering more about her and what she's like.

We then spent the afternoon finishing Timewarp and we worked on the scene before as well as the song afterwards which is Sweet Transvestite and that was also just a lot of background acting.

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Mack & Mabel depicts the days of the silent film era "when movies were movies". Based on the real life story of the director, Mack Sennett, and his star and lover, Mabel Normand. Narrated in flashback by Mack himself, he begins the show a broken man. His beloved silent two-reel comedies are no longer hit with the audiences in the late 1930s. The silent film industry has been made obsolete by talkies and Mack is forced to sell his Hollywood studio. Alone on the stage, he reminisces about the past, recalling his early days in New York, his rising success in Hollywood, and his turbulent love affair with Mabel. Mack discovered Mabel when she was just a sandwich delivery girl and made her a star. Although he loves her deeply, he cannot bring himself to fully commit to her. Frustrated and humiliated, Mabel is driven into the arms of William Desmond Taylor, an unsympathetic director who leads her into a life of drugs and partying.

Taken from Stage Agent website

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One of the darkest musicals ever written, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is the unsettling tale of a Victorian-era barber who returns home to London after fifteen years of exile to take revenge on the corrupt judge who ruined his life. When revenge eludes him, Sweeney swears vengeance on the entire human race, murdering as many people as he can, while his business associate Mrs. Lovett bakes the bodies into meat pies and sells them to the unsuspecting public. Perhaps composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim’s most perfect score, Sweeney Todd is lush, operatic, and full of soaring beauty, pitch-black comedy and stunning terror. It’s one of the signal achievements of the American musical theater of the last 50 years, and it’s the high-water mark of Sondheim’s six remarkable collaborations with director Harold Prince.

Taken from Stage Agent website

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One fateful night, Brad Majors and his fiancée, Janet Weiss — a wholesome, well-behaved, utterly normal young couple in love — innocently set out to visit an old professor. Unfortunately for them, this night out is destined to be one they will never forget. A thunderstorm and a flat-tire force them to seek help at the castle of Dr. Frank ’N’ Furter, an alien, transvestite scientist with a manic genius and insatiable libido. Brad, Janet, and Frank’ N’ Furter’s cohorts are swept up into the scientist’s latest experiment. The night’s misadventures will cause Brad and Janet to question everything they’ve known about themselves, each other, love, and lust. A loving homage to the classic B sci-fi film and horror genres with an irresistible rock’n’roll score, The Rocky Horror Show is a hilarious, wild ride that no audience will soon forget.

Taken from Stage Agent wesite

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How fetch! After years in the making, Mean Girls: The Musical hits the stage with the favorite characters from the movie, powerful music, and timely pop culture and news references. Janis Sarkisian and Damian Hubbard welcome the audience to their “Cautionary Tale”: Cady Heron is the new girl at North Shore High School in Chicago, desperate to fit in and find friends. Janis and Damian befriend the new girl, and when The Plastics set their sights on Cady, Janis convinces naive Cady to be their “friend” in order to bring down Queen Bee Regina George’s reign. Along the way, Cady loses herself, her friends, and her crush, all for the chance to be popular and loved. When dethroned Regina gets revenge by releasing the Burn Book, Cady is brought down and must mend her broken relationships with Janis, Aaron, and even Regina. With dynamic songs for young performers, Mean Girls is an anthem to friendship, loyalty, girl power, and being true to yourself.

Taken from Stage Agent website

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A Cautionary Tale

It Roars

Where Do You Belong

Meet The Plastics

Revenge Party

Word Burn

Rather Be Me

I See Stars

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For my Ensemble costume, I chose to wear something that I would wear on a day to day basis because Mean Girls is set in the modern day, the jeans are stretchy which make them easy to dance in and the jumper is quite loose so I also have a wide range of movement in that.

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My dress for the Prom scene needed to work for both of my characters so I chose a relatively simple black sparkley dress with one sleeve. This dress is very stretchy which made it a lot easier to get on over my microphone and I had people helping me to get my dress on and my joggers off.

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For Regina George, I knew my costume needed to incorporate pink as its the colour mostly associated with the plastics as a group so I went with a pink skirt that I would be able to get off quickly for my quick change into the "sweatpants" which were just a pair of plain pink joggers. I also chose to wear a plain white fitted T-shirt because it would be versatile and work with both of my bottoms. I also had a pink shortsleeve cardigan top on over my white top to make the whole outfit less boring.

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I was Double Cast in Mean Girls to play Regina alongside Liv who is on the HNC course. Being double cast with someone so much older and more experienced was definitely scary to begin with because that sets an expectation that I have to live up to.

With Liv being as talented and experienced as she is, being cast in the same role as her made me feel so proud of myself and how far I've come this year because it really proved to me that my teachers believe in me and my talent especially because Regina George is a very challenging character to play and her main song World Burn is easily one of the hardest Musical Theatre songs that's well known let alone that I've ever tried to sing.

Liv has has some personal issues over the last few months which has made rehearsals for Mean Girls rather difficult as I've had to learn two tracks simaultaneously and then help to teach both tracks to Liv when she is in College but its helped me learn how to balance learning multiple roles which could help if I ever got a job as a swing or understudy in the industry and it gave me more opportunities to practise the lead track when it was a Saturday night cast rehearsal and she wasn't in.

Overall, I think being double cast has been a very positive experience because it has given me a lot of confifence in my own abilities because its helped me see that everyone around me believes in me to pull it off ad its helped me learn how to juggle my roles and responsibilities as well as helping me learn how to balance and split my time between my two tracks.

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Name: Regina George

Age: 17

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Straight

Style of Speaking: Powerful, not loud but heard over the top of everything else. Strong and not particularly fast or slow.

Accent: General American

Social class: Upper-Middle class

Nationality: American

Language: English

Race: White

Appearance: Gorgeous, prettiest girl at school, always put together

Working conditions: Student, respected even by teachers and treated very well.

Family: Upper-Middle cass, working dad and stay at home mum, only child

Likes/Dislikes: Likes power, money, new clothes/makeup, looking good Dislikes anyone who tries to take over her place in the social hierarchy/anyone who crosses her

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Movies Were Movies

Look What Happened To Mabel

Big Time

I Won't Send Roses

Time Heals Everything

Tap Your Troubles Away

I Promise You A Happy Ending

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My costume for Mack and Mabel is a knee length Pinstripe dress. I think this really fits the post WW1 era. It is quite difficult to move in due to how tight it is but don’t have to dance much in Mack and Mabel so it still works.

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Name: Margaret

Age: 25

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Straight

Style of Speaking: Clear and concise, to the point, strong, sometimes rushed due to the fast paced nature of the industry

Accent: General American

Social class: Working class

Nationality: American

Language: English

Volume: Not quiet but also not loud, wants to just do her job and please Mr Sennet

Race: White

Appearance: Black, tight, pinstripe dress, put together and professional

Working conditions: Good working conditions in the studio

Family: Working class, Military husband, no children yet

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With Mack and Mabel being a lesser known musical, it was difficult to begin with to understand what it was that I needed to do because I had no idea what the show was about and I had no context for any of the big group numbers.

After doing some research and settling into the choreography, I quickly grasped what my character was and how I needed to be reacting and I think that my acting in Mack and Mabel was stronger than some of the other sections of the show.

It felt quite easy and natural to do in contrast with Rocky Horror and Sweeney Todd which both felt a bit odd to perform at times because its a lot more naturalistic than those two.

I think that compared to the start of rehearsals, my performance in Mack and Mabel has strengthened quite a lot and I'm pleased with how far I've come.

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The Ballad of Sweeney Todd

The Worst Pies In London

My Friends

Pirelli's Miracle Elixir

The Contest

A Little Priest

Epiphany

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My Costume for Sweeney Todd was a green skirt and white blouse with a black knitted shawl to match the 1800s era.

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Name: Beth

Age: 20

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Straight

Style of Speaking: Slow and calm

Accent: English

Social class: Lower class

Nationality: English

Language: English

Vocal quality: Clear and Concise, slightly nasally

Volume: Not quiet but also not loud, wants to just blend in.

Race: White

Appearance: Put together but obviously not upper class

Working conditions: Works in the fields because women aren't allowed proper jobs

Family: Husband and two children, likes to go shopping with her sisters

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As I've never seen Sweeney Todd before, when we first began I had no idea what any of the songs were about, who any of the characters were or what my job was as a member of the ensemble.

I soon figured out more and more about the show from my castmates and my independent research and I think that assisted a lot with my characterisation and acting throughout the group numbers. Tim was also a lot of help because instead of just telling us what to do, he lets us try different things and then tells us if they did or didn't work and why which allows for us to reflect and work as a team to make sure that our erformamces are cohesive.

Sweeney turned out to be one of my favourite sections to perform and The ballad was easily my favourite ensemble number overall because I felt really comfortable with it and it felt as though we were performing together as one ensemble rather than loads of individual smaller people and I think that showed in our performance on the night.

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Science Fiction

Dammit Janet

Time Warp

Sweet Transvestite

I Can Make You A Man

Touch-A Touch-A Touch Me

I'm Going Home

Superheroes

Time Warp Reprise

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My Costume for Rocky Horror is black booty shorts, a red corset top and an oversized white shirt. I wasn’t originally going to wear the shirt but I felt like i needed more coverage so I added it to make me more comfortable.

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Name: Velvet

Age: 19

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Unlabelled

Style of Speaking: Fast and squeaky especially around Frank

Accent: General American

Language: English

Vocal quality: Nasal quality, higher pitched than my regular voice.

Volume: Loud and seeking attention

Race: White

Appearance: Out there and unique

Working conditions: Unemployed, stays in the lab with Frank

Family: Frank and the other groupies

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I think that to begin with, I was very uncomfortable doing Rocky Horror because it requires you to do everything that modern teenagers don't want to do. You have to stand out and be big and bold but all I really wanted to do was blend in and hide because Rocky isn't very up my street.

Over time, I got better at embracing it but I don't think that I fully went for it until Tech week because there's something about being on stage with the lights, costume and set that allows me to feel so much more comfortable and confident in my self and my performance skills.

It definitely wasn't easy to do but I think that the performance ended up looking incredible and I'm happy with my actions and characterisations.

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Today, we finished The Ballad of Sweeney Todd which is the opening number of Sweeney Todd. The lead characters then worked on the scenes after The Ballad while the rest of us went into a seperate room to run Where Do You Belong which is one of the numbers in Mean Girls.

We finished off with Tim by working on Pirelli’s magical elixir scene.

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We spent this morning working on Mack and Mabel, specifically Look What Happened to Mabel going into Big Time. We also worked on the opening scene which most of us aren’t involved in.

We then spent the afternoon finishing Big Time before moving on to Where Do You Belong from Mean Girls but we didn’t have everyone there today so it was hard to place everyone in the number.

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Harmonies, Dance Recap and Rocky Horror 03/05

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Harmonies, Dance Recap and Rocky Horror 03/05

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This morning, we worked on the harmonies for Where Do You Belong because we haven’t looked at them before and then we worked on the dance again but we again had a lot of people missing.

We also worked on Sweet Transvestite and where we need to move to at different points in the song as it’s less of a dance number than Time Warp and we just stand or sit and watch.

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Mack and Mabel Blocking and Script edits 07/05

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Mack and Mabel Blocking and Script edits 07/05

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Today, we finished blocking the scenes in Mack and Mabel which meant that those of us in the ensemble were sat taking notes a lot of the time.

They then decided to focus on the tap number for Mack and Mabel so those of us not in that went up to the library to edit the scripts for all of the different shows that we're doing to make sure that they're 100% ready for the sound and lighting crew at The Cripps.

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Rocky Horror Blocking and Sweet Transvestite 10/05

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Rocky Horror Blocking and Sweet Transvestite 10/05

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Today, we did the blocking for the scenes in Rocky Horror as well as finishing the dance for Sweet Transvestite.

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Sweeney recap and Mean Girls numbers 13/05

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Sweeney recap and Mean Girls numbers 13/05

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This morning, we recapped everything we've worked on in Sweeney Todd so far and we cleaned the first two routines; The Ballad of Sweeney Todd and The Contest.

We then spent the afternoon working on the Mean Girls routines and cleaned them. We also did the dance breaks in I See Stars right at the end of the section so that we could block and finish setting it tomorrow.

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Today we broke down all of the scenes in Mean Girls and blocked them so that we had a full section from start to finish because up until now, we've only had routines and songs and no scenes in between.

We worked on the end of I See Stars and finished blocking the number so that everything in the Mean girls section was 100% blocked.

We then did a run through of the whole section to time it and see how it flows and I think it went pretty well but I need to focus on learning my lines so that I can work on my characterisation in my lead role.

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Today, we worked on finialising the scene blocking in Mack and Mabel so that it was at a place where we could run it all the way through.

They then needed to work on finishing the tap number which I'm not apart of so I sat and worked on running lines for Mean Girls instead and I watched videos of our other routines to make sure I wasn't forgetting any of them.

We then spent some time working on our acting for Rocky Horror to make sure we were being weird and fully embracing the characters.

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We spent the morning with Tim working on our group numbers in Sweeney Todd and making final decisions on movement.

This afternoon, the Sweeney leads stayed with Tim while the rest of us split off to work on Mean Girs blocking again and make sure that all of it was 100% clear for everyone.

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Mack and Mabel, Mean Girls and Rocky Horror 21/05

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Mack and Mabel, Mean Girls and Rocky Horror 21/05

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Today we brought in all of our costumes that we've sourced so far to show the teachers so that they had time to tell us what is and isn't appropriate and we have time to find anything we don't yet have or that didn't work.

We then spent time working on different numbers from different sections of the show. We polished I see Stars from Mean Girls and checked over those harmonies; we alo looked at Science Fiction which opens Rocky Horror and checked on Look What Happened to Mabel from Mack and Mabel and the leads added in a small dance break section.

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When I first auditioed for Regina in Mean Girls, I was asked to perform twice and give the teachers more because my character was there but quite small. Since then, I feel as though I've come so far in my comfortability in the role as well as my performance. I'm so proud not only of how everything turned out on the night but of the work I put in to get myself to that point.

Regina had always been a dream role and to be given the chance to play her knowing that I had the full support of the entire company and my teachers made everything te times easier because everyone around me believed in me and if I ever had doubts, there was always someone to turn to who had my back 100%.

Having the HNC's and Second Years around to ask advice from was endlessly helpful as well. I was struggling with what to do in the Revenge Party scene but Max helped me get more comfortable with it and we brainstormed ideas together. I also worked quite closely with Melodie who was playing Janice on the other team so discover more about the bond and growth between our two characters and she showed me constantly that she had full faith in me that I could pull it off.

Regina was a character that I knew I could pull of but I don't think I ever imagined just how much I could progress with her in such a short space of time and I truly don't think any of it would've been possible without such a supportive group of people around me.

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Today was our last day of college before half term and the aim was to do a full run of our entire show however after the first act, the teachers were disappointed so we instead spent the day working on the Mea Girls numbers and harmonies.

Our main focus was Where Do You Belong as the harmonies had completely disappeared and the spacing was comletely wrong for most of the number. We made it look ad sound decent again but were told to make sure we practise a lot over half term to ensure that we don't forget everything again.

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Our singing teacher Nat came into college over half term to do one on one sessions with the soloists of the show so that we could work on anything we were struggling with.

I went in for an hour to work on World Burn because I was having trouble with the belting sections of the song.

Nat helped me a lot with character and technique even though my voice was struggling quite a bit and I'm feeling a lot more confident with the sing now.

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I think the show went really well. My characterisation really shone through and I think that I sang World Burn better than ever before mostly because of adrenaline.

I think that my ensemble acting was on point and I didn't forget any of my words or entrances. I did fprget one o fthe scenes in Mean Girls which obviously isn't ideal but the story still made sense and then Nat chose to get rid of it for the Saturday night show too.

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I think tonights show went just as well as yesterdays if not better. I was even more comfortable in Sweeney, Mack and Mabel and Rocky because I've already performed them once and my Mean Girls ensemble went really well too.

Overall, I'm really happy with how this show run went.

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There was a maths exam at college this morning so we could only ome in for the afternoon but we spent the whole afternoon breaking down and completely cleaning the two biggest numbers in Sweeney Todd: The Ballad of Sweeney Todd and The Contest.

We worked on both the movement and the acting and we made a lot of progress with how clean those numbers are and how effective they look overall.

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Today we managed to do a full run through of the entire show. Liv wasn't in so I was playing Regina and I think that my performance was okay but I definitlely could've done better, I think my nerves because of it being the first proper run through affected me quite a lot.

We spent the rest of the day perfecting harmonies and spacing for different numbers because Nat wasn't happy with a lot of it.

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Today was our final day at college before we headed to the theatre. We spent a lot of time working on Rocky Horror because it was the weakest section of the show before gathering all of our things and putting them in the theatre ready for transport to the theatre.

We also did a last run through of harmonies before heading home.

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Today, Tim called us in for a last minute rehearsal of Sweeney Todd which we did in full costume. We worked a bit on Little Priest because the blocking wsn't quite clean enough and then Tim went over Rocky Horror with us very briefly before letting us go home to prepare for Tech the next day.

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Today we spent a lot of time doing nothing sat in the dressing room while the Rocky Horror leads did tech for that section and the teachers worked on setting lighting.

We all came onto the stage in the evening to run through a couple of the bigger numbers and we re blocked a few bits on the stage too.

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Today was a lot more active than yesterday. We spent 4 hours teching Mean Girls on the stage and Liv was doing pur Regina track so I was doing the ensemble.

We also worked on Mack and Mabel spacing and tech because Mack and Mabel has a lot more props and set than Mean Girls, Rocky Horror or Sweeney Todd.

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Today we finished Tech for Mack and Mabel as Well as Teching the start of Sweeney Todd but we had to stop that early as we were doing our first dress run in the afternoon which was being photographed.

Liv was playing Regina again so I was focused on my ensemble role for this dress run and I think it went pretty well but it was running very long.

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Today we finished Tech for Sweeney Todd with Tim as well as recording in backing vocals and harmonies for the group numbers in the show to boost our sound and Nat asked me to put a head microphone on which I was ver happy with because it shows that she trusts me and my ability to remember harmonies.

We then did our final dress run before the show tonight and I was playing Regina which stressed me out quite a lot but I think I did quite well.

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Mean Girls was different to the other musicals because it was supposed to be more realistic than the others. Our reactions had to be true to our characters and big because we were on stage but not quite as over dramatised as they had to be for Rocky Horror or Sweeney Todd.

This musical is more pop music based too so the style of dancing/movement was more on the jazzy side compared to the other musicals we did like Mack and Mabel which was 1930s based and therefore vastly different.

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Mack and Mabel being set in the 1930s made it slightly harder to pull of than Mean Girls because with Mean girls being set in the Modern day, we knew how to act because its the same as how we act on a day to day basis.

The biggest challenges for me came from my costume and my posture because I'm used to being more slouched over which women wouldn't have been in that era.

The singing was difficult as well because that era of musical requires a certain vocal quality that doesn't come naturally to me like it does to some of the other girls. The dancing was also quite jazz based but in a different way to Mean girls. Mack and Mabel is supposed to reflect Old Hollywood vibes whereas Mean Girls is modernised and less flashy.

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Sweeney Todd is completely different to the other 3 musicals. While Mean girls and Mack and Mabel have some similarities because they lean more on the naturalistic side, Sweeney Todd is completely melodramatic and almost expressionistic.

In the opening number, we directly address the audience which is something we also do at the start of Mean Girls but in Sweeney it almost feels like we're attacking the audience with our words of warning.

The movement is also dramatised in Sweeney Todd and every head turn and step is perfecty choreographed to be completely in unison as though we're in a trance watching the character Sweeney.

The singing has a lot of different harmonies that create an ominous feeling and the soprano line goes a lot higher than it does in the other musicals making it almost shrill.

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Rocky Horror is a lot more quirky andd out there than any of our other musicals. You can't really make any wrong choices when it comes to Rocky because the whole point of the show is to be completely outrageous.

The singing has to have a nasally almost inhumane quality to resemble the otherworldliness of the show which is unusual for me and definitly not something that I find comes easily to me.

The dancing and movements have to be big and bold and you really have to take the choreography and make it your own which is something that you can't do with the other musicals because you have to be one big cohesive ensemble whereas for Rocky Horror every person in the ensemble has to be completely seperate and individual to make the show work.

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I asked my peers to send me their evaluations of my performance so that I could reflect on what I did and this is what they had to say.