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Our very first music rehearsal with Adam, we didn't sing anything from 9 to 5 but instead split into our vocal sections  (mine is soprano and it gave me the opportunity to learn from some of the very talented second years as a vocal group) and learnt a familiar song (from now on- the greatest showman) in harmony to get used to Adam's way of working and how we sound as an ensemble. We learnt how important it is for us all to blend as a group and how we match each others energy and bring each other up in rehearsal, if we didn't have this opportunity to get to know each other as a vocal group before going into proper rehearsals I think we wouldn't have blended as a group so well, it also made sure in our first rehearsals we could focus more on characterisation and acting through all our material instead of trying to get used to our voices together.  Adam ran us through his three techniques of rehearsal process: preparation, presence and performance to ensure we got the most out of our experience doing the musical and that the rehearsal process ran smoothly. If we didn't have these techniques to focus on, the process would have been a lot more difficult as we wouldn't be competent or confident enough to bring life to our characters which would've made acting truthfully a lot harder and the show wouldn't have run as smoothly.

Then we had our first dance rehearsal with Chloe where we learnt more of the choreography for 'Around Here', we were also reminded of the importance of dressing properly for dance and being prepared, linking to what Adam had told us earlier in the day. We learnt that we had to implement skills and techniques learnt in previous dance classes to make the choreography clean and strong, also being hydrated and keeping up stamina were important as we were having to dance, sing and act at the same time. It was our first time taking set rep and putting our characters into it so it was a new experience for everyone but we managed to learn the majority of the dance in that session.

Friday 23/09/22

Our first read through as a cast, we were just getting to know our characters and our cast. This rehearsal was where I got to know Beth more as my double cast and we could talk and reflect on Doralee's character together. Jon decided to cut out the three fantasy songs from the show (Dance of Death, Cowgirls Revenge and Potion Notion) due to the technicality of them, I think if he didn't make that decision early on it would've out a lot more stress onto the cast and crew and as getting those numbers to a place were they would be technically good would have taken a long time which would cut down on our time to make our characters shine through in the songs and also we would have less time to focus on the rest of the show. This was where we got a glimpse of what our musical would actually be like. Prior to the readthrough I had practiced Doralee's accent but this rehearsal was when I actually had to put it in to practice and I found the words or phrases that would be harder for me to say and made note of them to practice on my own and I did some accent training at home, if I didn't use my own time to improve this personal issue as an actor I would've used up other peoples rehearsal time focusing on it and also it would mean my cast would have found it harder to act along side me as my portrayal of Doralee wouldn't have been as authentic, making it harder for them to characterise. It was also an opportunity for Beth and I to help each other with the accent and with the songs which was very helpful as the challenge of being Doralee was overwhelming at times- especially as a first year. This readthrough made me realise the main things I needed to work on and gave me material to go home and practice myself so I could be more competent in the rehearsal room and have freedom to characterise without worrying as much about the material.

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As both my year group and the second years were partaking in the 60 million postcards takeover over the weekend, 9 to 5 rehearsals were on hold for these two days. We did however have the opportunity to get to know the second years even better, this definitely improved our dynamic as a cast and we got to perform in front of one another for the 6o million open mics. Although we didn't do anything specifically for 9 to 5, we bonded much more as the two year groups and made our rehearsal process going forward more enjoyable and easy. If we didn't do this I think we would be less comfortable acting and singing in front of each other, it was a good chance for us to make sure that once we were in the rehearsal room we could act comfortably with one another and make choices without feeling embarrassed.

Friday 30/09/22

We had our first blocking rehearsal in St Andrews, we blocked the opening number 9 to 5 and got to know the type of set we would have for the show. Although we did not have any choreography yet for the opening number, we roughly blocked where we would stand for each section and places we needed dance for Chloe to fill. My double cast wasn't in that day so I got the chance to really see what it was be like playing Doralee and got to know my cast a lot better as we could actually be Violet, Doralee and Judy together, if we didn't get this chance so early on I think it would've taken longer for us to connect as a trio and developing our characters relationships in a truthful, comfortable way would have been harder for us. It also showed us what set would need moving and when so we could decide that early on in the process so it didn't throw us later on. The opening number is also shows a taste of Doralee's aspirations and her relationship with her husband Dwayne, therefore it gave me material to go home and research about; Researching and analysing about Doralee, for example her dream to become a country western singer and what that would have been like for a working woman in the 70s in LA, helped me to realise her objectives for certain scenes in the text and therefore I could play her more truthfully- especially in the scene where she finds out Mr Hart has been saying she is sleeping with him, I think as she puts up with so much because she needs the job but she's never really wanted it so its this bigger outburst of frustration when she shouts at him as she can't believe she has to deal with all of this for a job she doesn't even really want to be doing, if I hadn't had to opportunity to explore this subtext for Doralee I wouldn't have been able to understand that this is her breaking point of the scene and the audience wouldn't realise how frustrated she is with Hart and everyone in the office.

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We had another MD session with Adam where we sung through 'Shine like the Sun' and began to work on our harmonies, as I am a soprano I had some quite high harmonies especially in that song so I had to utilise skills I had learnt in singing classes with my teacher and with Stef to make sure I was using my mix voice and not straining or singing unsustainably on those higher notes, if I hadn't been looking after my vocal health and stamina in these early rehearsals I might've not been able to sing properly in the shows or would have been too focused on how I sounded which would have impeded my ability to act freely in the moment once we did the shows.

Friday 7/10/22

This day we had another blocking rehearsal with Jon and ran through more of the first act up to 'I just might', previously in acting class we had being studying different theatre practitioners so I focused on taking principles from them and weaving them into my portrayal of Doralee. For example, Stanislavski spoke about naturalism and how an actors wisdom comes from realising their lack of it, so I took that on board and started to break down the script, especially the scene leading into Doralee singing in 'I just might' and answered the 5 questions that naturalism starts with (what, when, why, where, how) to figure out why Doralee is upset and is needing Dwayne's reassurance and validation as she is feeling self conscious and lonely. Without the use of Stanislavski's methods of subtext and character analysis I would not have been able to justify why she sings 'I just might'. In this session I also took the time whilst Beth was playing Doralee to watch her and listen to how she reacts to Dwayne and the scene, I think it was essential during the rehearsal process to learn a lot from my double cast as she had already studied acting and naturalism in more detail than I had and even though our portrayals of Doralee were different I could learn from hers to make my characterisation more well rounded and truthful.

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Chloe was off for a few weeks during this part of our rehearsal process which made it more important that I worked on my dancing and ensemble character by myself so that when she came back it wasn't necessarily her responsibility to do it all for us. Stanislavski said there are no small parts, only small actors, therefore I tried to create a character out of my ensemble track with 1 line. I thought through dance skills I had learnt in my classes with Chloe such as strength and exaggeration of movement to really make my dancing have power and energy, I also talked to other people in the cast and we went through choreography together making sure it was clean and everyone knew it, this meant that when Chloe came back she could focus on teaching us instead of cleaning up pre set material so we didn't waste time. Due to this it meant I could characterise more in the dances to really show who I was as an office worker in the ensemble and characterising as I didn't need to focus on remembering the steps.

Friday 14/10/22

We had more blocking rehearsals this day and were incorporating more set and movement into our blocking. It was very important for me to stay constantly switched on in rehearsals and keep up concentration as we had talked about previously in acting classes with Jon, especially with my ensemble track I had responsibility of moving some of the set, if I didn't stay aware of where we were then the rehearsals may have not run smoothly and disrupted set changes would have impeded the actors in the scenes focus and it could have made it harder for all of us to stay in the story and keep truth in our scenes.

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Chloe was back in this day so we focused a lot on choreography especially for the opening number and just perfecting it. As I had to remember my track for both Doralee and ensemble I found it useful to write down my choreography and blocking in different coloured pens for the opening scene to make sure I differentiated them in my head and go home and practice it multiple times as the two different characters, this worked for me because I mainly learn things by just doing them repeatedly. If I hadn't made sure I was confident on my spacing and movement for the different tracks then I could have thrown other people off  by being in the wrong place for example, and it would have made the dances look messy. The dance contained canon moments and I was supposed to move on different counts for each character so I made notes of that and looked over all this on my journeys to and from college and at home so I didn't end up getting confused in the rehearsal room, it also meant that in rehearsals I could bring character into my dance instead of worrying about counts and timing.

Friday 4/11/22

We had more blocking rehearsals today and I was Doralee for all of it, we mainly focused on the middle section of act 1 and just making it clean. We were told to be off book after half term so I had ensured that I learnt all of my lines before these rehearsals, this meant I could follow direction and focus on my characterisation and relationships with the rest of the cast instead of being restricted by a script. In the rehearsal I was doing my scene for 'Backwoods Barbie' and Hart's office where Doralee shouts at him, these were both quite emotionally driven scenes and I was given guidance by Jon to step out of my comfort zone and really feel Doralee's anger and frustration especially in the scene in Hart's office. Although I was trying to focus on characterisation in this scene, I hadn't fully memorised my blocking so I was struggling to give the scene my all, from that I learn that I should always make sure to note down all of my blocking and run it as much as I can so that it isn't something I need to worry about, as this slowed down my characterisation in this rehearsal. Breaking the ceiling of emotions and getting to a higher level of feeling or a breaking point is a target I particularly needed to work on so I read over my notes from acting class about units of objective and started to annotate my script for that scene, putting numbers to show the build up of Doralee's anger, I wanted to keep it still very truthful to the character and the context of the show and her background so it was important that I thought through her emotional journey in this scene, also, to keep my energy for this specific scene up all the time it was necessary to make these notes and judgements so although I could play around with it, I didn't throw any of my cast off as it is a high tension scene. If I hadn't thought through this process myself I think this scene wouldn't have been very truthful and as it is one of her biggest breaking points in the show, it is important that her emotional journey is clear. Also, because in this scene she mentions how she was brought up and her gun  (both reminders of her background and Texan lifestyle) I thought it would be a good idea to do some research into what her upbringing might've been like as a country girl in the 70s to justify why she says these things.

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We had more music rehearsals this day and we were learning harmonies for 'Heart to Hart', this was a different experience than learning harmonies for an ensemble or trio lead song as it is a solo number just with backing voices. For this, I made sure to record my harmonies clearly marked with the bar numbers and go home to practice them, it was particularly important I knew my sections confidently for this song as it would mean I would not get thrown off by Roz's solo line and my timing was correct. It was also very important in this song to work on our blend as an ensemble as we needed to all match each other to support Roz but not overpower her solo, we all practiced the timing with Adam for multiple sections to make sure you couldn't necessarily hear individual people, this made sure it wasn't our characters voices singing but the ensemble as a whole to uplift the song and focus on Roz.

Friday 11/11/22

We had an extra dance rehearsal in the morning to learn the choreography for 'change it', as I was already in all the dancers I wanted to be extra sure that I remembered it all before moving onto the next lesson, so I asked Chloe to film Mica and I doing the choreography and we ran through it several times just make sure it was confidently there before moving on. These extra rehearsals and runs of scenes and dances were becoming common for me whilst on lunch or breaks but it is a method that I found really helped me as I had so much material to learn and really wanted to solidify it before the next rehearsals as we were on a tight schedule and I wouldn't want to use time going over previously taught things. If I hadn't focused on competency in my dances especially, I wouldn't have been able use the last few weeks of rehearsals to polish them and make them bright and stage ready.  We also did some blocking for act 2 this day and I mainly learnt from Jon's notes such as, the start of act 2 when Doralee and Judy are convincing Roz that Hart is still in the office and lying to her, I needed to be more anxious lying to Roz and visibly relieved when we get away with it. At first it was unclear to me that this was the tension in the scene so listening to the directors feedback gave me material to go home and think about, so I broke down the scene and found my character's objectives within that scene, the breaking point, the obstacles and the tactics used to overcome them. then I could understand why Doralee would be feeling nervous in Roz's presence and I was able to show that through my voice and body language, if I hadn't taken this note the scene could've been downplayed a lot and it would have been less truthful to what those characters would be feeling in the moment.

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We did runs of the full show with both casts this day and really focused on getting notes and addressing any issues with our casts. A specific area of my characterisation came up a few times in my notes for act 1, such as bigger on the Doralee sexy walk and more in Hart's fantasy for 'Here for You', I found these may have just been moments of discomfort for me as an actor that I had to break through in order to be truthful to the script and my character. I was looking through my notes on Stanislavski and remembered the need to justify why Doralee talks and moves the way she does in order for it to come naturally to me as it comes naturally for her, this one quote, “All action in the theatre must have an inner justification, be logical, coherent and real.” made me decide to pick apart her character and her choice of self expression and study why she is like that in order for it to be logical that I move the way I do as Doralee. If I hadn't found it important to pick apart this particular aspect of her characterisation I think my movements on stage would have been quite untruthful, and by fully understanding her actions, the wall of embarrassment or fear was overstepped so I was able to take on my director's notes and play Doralee more truthfully.

Friday 18/11/22

This day we were doing more runs of the show but I was mainly focused on practicing and getting help on some of my vocals for Doralee on this day as I had been struggling with it a lot, with the help of Pluto and Beth in a studio I was improving on the belts in 'Change it' and 'I just might' but I was also conscious of straining if I tried too many times. I used breathing techniques I had learnt in singing classes to engage my diaphragm to give me the support I needed to sing the bigger notes and sustain the belt at the end of 'Change it', these exercises and techniques were useful to me as they made sure I was placing all the notes correctly and singing healthily, if I didn't focus on my technique before style I might've strained my voice and damaged it for the show but it is important to me as a singer to build up technique and strength before trying harder styles of singing to look after my voice as it is still developing. The extra rehearsals and practices with people in my cast really helped me as I enjoy learning from my peers, it also means that we can use our own time to fix any personal issues or notes so we don't use up much ensemble rehearsal time with them, which would leave less time for the show to be run and cleaned.

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Prior to these rehearsals, as a cast we had been in studios or in the theatre practicing specific parts of the show of what we needed to work on. We focused on really showing the relationships and tensions between our characters, especially the three main girls. We thought about the importance of eye contact and body language in showing the characters feelings and we also blocked our scenes (mainly act 2 as it was the one we were least comfortable with) to the point where they flowed easily and we could incorporate more emotion and gesture to them to show our characters even more. Using these performance techniques helped to communicate the characters subtext before the spoke and justify why they speak as we react to one another, instead of just waiting for the next line which can look quite fake. I also had a quick 1-1 with Adam our MD to focus on Backwoods Barbie and really get to the breaking point in that song, I still felt I could do more with it as my solo song so I asked for help from my singing teacher and also listened and sung more country music especially anything Dolly Parton to really get the feel of how Doralee sounds and expresses herself, personally I didn't want to make 'Backwoods Barbie' too big of a song or belt it out but use country techniques such as little riffs and a deliberate flip in my voice to create a country sound, this worked to help encapsulate what I think Doralee would be like and also pushed me into a new area of vocal styles I had never done before which challenged me but also helped my characterisation and belief in the show as it is really the sort of music and style Doralee would sing, helping me remain truthful to her in an emotional scene.

Friday 25/11/22

We did runs of the show this day getting ready to go into tech week next week and we finally had the majority of our props to work with. This became a barrier at first for us as there were more things to think about and at the beginning I found staying truthful and in the moment a lot harder as I was worried about having all my props and using them correctly, but as we got used to them I found it brought up the energy in the cast and we all become even more into our characters and the show. In this rehearsal as well I was focused on implementing circles of attention to a couple of my scenes as I had learnt about it in acting class, for example in 'Backwoods Barbie', the last section is very circle number 1, she is singing to herself reflecting on how she feels whereas for most of the song she is singing to Judy in circle number 2 convincing her to give her a chance. I think this focus on knowing my circles of attention really helped to deliver my lines truthfully in the way she would actually say them as I put myself in her position and if I hadn't focused on this, key moments in Doralee's emotional journey would have been downplayed or skipped over as I wouldn't be able to reflect as my character about why I am feeling the way I am. We also had a session with Doug, another MD, that day and we worked on 'Change it', our harmonies were strong in that number and as we ran it many times with him, it meant we were all confident on it and could really deliver that song as a key moment in the show as the office changes, if we didn't have the opportunity to have a long session of working on it our blend and execution of harmony would not have been as clean therefore we wouldn't have the freedom to act and enjoy that big number as we would've been too focused with remembering notes.

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We started by just translating all our blocking and choreography into the theatre space which required a lot of patience from everybody. There were several things I had to address once we were in the new space in terms of my blocking and character and trying it out all out before we did a proper run of the show was important to not interrupt anyone whilst in character but sorting any personal issues out with myself, my double cast and my director. For example, we now had the set such as the ladder on stage for 'Here for you' so I had to ensure I knew how I was going to be using that set so that when we ran the scene I could be Doralee truthfully as she wouldn't be unsure of how to move around in the space, also as that whole song is Hart's fantasy in a way, it was important for me to be as confident as I could with blocking so that I was the vision of Doralee that he sees, if I hadn't worked this out then it would have mean Jensen wouldn't have been able to play Hart as truthfully as well. We also learnt and blocked the finale fully in the theatre as it needed cleaning up and here was when I could work out how long it would take me to get to the other side of the stage for example, so that Chloe could make sure the spacing for the finale ran smoothly. Doing runs in costume as well brought out more of the characters in everyone I think, and to get me really in the zone to be Doralee I got my friend to talk to me before I went on as if I was my character and I would answer questions as her, I found this really helpful to improve my characterisation on stage and also helped to calm any nerves I would be feeling, if I didn't do these things before going onstage I wouldn't be as into the scenes so it would look less truthful to an audience and also any nerves could have impeded my ability to perform to the level I needed to.

Show week was the most exciting, rewarding experience for me as I got the opportunity to become an amazing character and live her journey. However, if I hadn't applied all the skills and techniques learnt from my classes, cast members, theatre practitioners and teachers then it would have been an untruthful portrayal of Doralee and that could have affected the rest of the cast from performing to their fullest potential so it was important we worked together to find truth in our performance and the end product was a good piece of musical theatre.