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This is some research on how my character would act

Uta Hagen’s Nine Questions

1.

Who am I?

Who is your character? Identify all the details: name/age, physical

traits, relatives, education, personal opinions, likes, dislikes,

hobbies, fears, ethics, and beliefs.

2.

What time is it?

The year, the season, the day, the minute. What is the significance

of time?

3.

Where am I?

Identify the country, the city/town, the neighborhood, the building,

the room, the specific area of the room.

4.

What surrounds me?

What is happening in the environment around you? Weather,

landscape, people, animate/inanimate objects.

5.

What are the given circumstances?

Identify events in the past, present, future. What has happened,

what is happening, what is going to happen?

6.

What are my relationships?

This is more than your relationship to other people. Think about

your relationship to objects, characters, and events.

7.

What do I want?

What do you want immediately? What does the character want

overall?

8.

What is in my way?

What are the obstacles to getting what you want?

9.

What do I do to get what I want?

What actions do you take (both physically and verbally)? What

tactics?

Questions

Details

Answers

Who am I ?

Who is your

character?

Identify all the

details including:

•

●

name/

age

•

●

physical traits

•

●

relatives,

enemies

•

●

education

•

●

personal

opinions

•

●

likes/

dislikes

•

●

hobbies

•

●

fears

•

●

ethics

•

●

beliefs

Thomas Clayton is 16 years

old, he has slick back hair and

chews on a tooth pick he

believes that this is what the

Cool gangsters do, his father

Thomas Clayton senior was the

king of the tigers supposedly,

his enemies are anyone who is

on the other side of the bridge,

he strongly believes in

loyalty.he went to primary

school and is clever but he

didn’t go on to do any more

education and went out to learn

a trade he left home at 15 after

getting a letter from his dad

telling him about who he was,

he wants to be like his dad.he

left his family didn’t want to

have to rely on someone else,

he wants respect and

admiration from his peers, he

knows and is aware of the law

but he doesn’t really care about

it and will break the rules if he

has to, he likes to drink it allows

him to get away from his pain in

life he also likes dancing, he

knows that if you are mobile

you have an advantage  in a

fight, he dislikes people that are

not loyal and don’t know the

value of belonging to

something bigger than himself

he likes to play with his knife

and knows how to do tricks

with them, he is scared of being

alone and being a nobody, he is

a rule breaker but no for the

sake of it he will only break

rules that he disagrees with, he

believes that loyalty is the most

important value in someone

What time is

it?

●

Year

●

Season

●

Day

●

Minute

What is the

significance of

time?

Its 1882 its winter but in

ancoats the summer are just as

cold as winters the winters are

hard and only the real hard

people go out in the winter

Thomas acts di

ff

erent at night

Where am I?

•

●

Country

•

●

City/town

•

●

Neighborhood

•

●

Building

•

●

Room

•

●

Area of

room

Thomas is in Manchester in

England, in ancoats,he lives on

bengal street but has no where

to stay and so he sleeps on the

streets he sleeps in the

doorway of the bakery when

he’s not shewed o

ff

by the

baker, he sleeps in the corner

of the doorway its falling apart

but its warm,

What

surrounds

me?

What is happening

in the environment

around you?

•

●

weather

•

●

landscape

•

●

people

•

●

animate/

inanimate

objects

Currently its snowing around

Thomas he puts there is a

Christmas market, many people

surrounding him he does up his

coat and puts his flat cap hat

on over his short hair, the snow

is hardy visible the black smoke

is covering the upper layer of

snow, the peoples

conversations around him are

inaudible but he doest see any

one who he would have a

problem with, his gloves are

hardly doing much to fight the

bitter cold

What are the

given

circumstance

s?

Events in the past,

present, and future.

What has

happened, what is

happening, what is

going to happen?

He has left home and is going it

alone he is trying to find some

people who can look after him

and back him if he has to fight,

little does he know that he is

about to in some capacity join

the bengal street tigers

What are my

relationships

?

●

Objects

●

Characters

●

Events

One of his prised possessions

are his dads knife and hat

which here left with him in the

letter that encouraged him to

leave home he would die for

these positions, he idolises

Sean and jimmy as well as

respecting tharessa and

appreciates that she treats him

badly just to test his limits

Nine Questions Reflection

Reflect on using these nine questions as part of your

character development.

Which is the most important question? I think the most

important question was the first question (who am i) this is

because asking who the character is very important so I

can play the character better if I know exactly what I have

to portray

Which question was the easiest to answer? The easiest

question to answer was the what do you want question I

think its really obvious what my character wants to

archive in the script

What do I

want?

What do you want

immediately?

What does the

character want

overall?

Right now my character wants

respect and admiration from

the people overall he wants to

be in charge of the bengal

street tigers

What’s in my

way?

What are the

obstacles to getting

what you want?

The obstacles that are stopping

him Is that people think he’s a

wimp and don’t think he can be

a tiger

What do I do

to get what I

want?

What actions do

you take?

●

physically

●

verbally

Thomas flicks his hair a lot as

well as chewing all the time, he

chews on gum or a pick stick or

a match, he speaks with a

cockney accent, when he gets

what he wants he’s going to

show it o

ff

to everyone that

doubted him.

Which was the hardest? I think the hardest one was the

who am I one

Why? I believe this because it had to be the most detailed

and really needed to give me a good indication as to who

Thomas really is

How can answering these questions impact your acting?

This way I know what motivates Tommy he know who he

is, he knows how he fits into all this, he knows that he’s

going to get what he wants its just getting there he’s got

something to prove to everyone, I can visualise this as

Thomas and use it to motivate the characte

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When we first where given the script we had to audition for the parts that we wanted I picked an monologue about an Irish gangster talking to a guy that he’s about to torture
For this I added an Irish accent personally I think it went well but I wasn’t really specific about the part I wanted I just wanted a challenge

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what did we do? in this first rehearsal we did a table read  of act one of the play and finished reading act 2 a few days later.

How did we develop the piece and your character? in this rehearsal I thought a bit about who Thomas is, if he is who he says he is and if he really is a psychopath or not, the peice was developed as we all got to see the type of character each member of the company was playing

what went well? the chemistry that different people had with each other was really apparent, and most of the casting to me just clicked it was a somewhat productive read through in terms of getting the character solidified in my mind

what was challenging? I think as a group we all have a challenge keeping  quiet

how could we improve? I think we could definatly improve the rehearsal by staying focused on the production as we will get more work done and do a better quality of work

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what did we do? at the start of the rehearsal we read through all of the scenes that we could read through as there most of the characters  where  there then after that we did some blocking of the the fist act where we found out the logistics of most of the scene.

How did we develop the piece and your character?the piece was developed because we started to get the first part of the play on its feet and working out with our company how we think the scene should work. my character was developed as i realized how isolated from everyone else my character was and what the other characters think of Thomas which informed how he acts back to them

what went well? i think as a group we did well to block as many scenes that we did and as many that we could with the people that we had, the cast also began fitting more into their characters and getting used to how they would act as that character

what was challenging?the biggest challenge was actually starting to block the scenes at the start, some of the cast found it hard to focus at the start of the lesson  which meant that the start of the lesson was wasted we could finished all of act one if we started earlier

how could we improve? we could improve by starting the sooner if we do this then we will be able to get more done and polish it down the road

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what did we do? in this rehearsal we blocked act 1 scene 4 ,whilst we did this we tried to think about how the audience would be sitting and adjust how we play the character as such, after this the actors from my company and I where sent off to block the rest of the scene in another room while Kelly was working with gabe and dwarne, during this time we ran lines trying out accents as well as continuing to block the scene

How did we develop the piece and your character? in this case we worked alot  on the peace and staged it as well as trying to work so as many people as possible could see us, I developed my character as it dawned on me how badly the character is being treated by the gang and as a result how much he wants to be a part of the gang as he continues to hang out with them despite how he is treated

what was challenging?I feel like the biggest challenge during the rehearsal was staying on task when we went out of the room, I feel like when we where rehearsing out of the main theatre the work we where doing was not as good and not as focused as we are in the theatre and as a result we didn't get the amount and quality of work that we should be getting

how could we improve? in order to improve for next time we need to as a class work better when we are out of the theatre this is so that the piece as a whole is polished when it comes time to perform it.

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what did we do?
at the start of the rehearsal we showed Kelly the movement work we did with Jane in which we completed some machine based movements to get across the more industrial side of the piece however everyone believed that the industrial movements took away from the seriousness of the peace and we spent the rest of the rehearsal creating a opening piece that sets the scene for the rest of the play but also foreshadows the conclusion of the show
How did we develop the piece and your character? we created an opening that gives the audience an insight into gang culture and what life was like in the 18 hundreds in manchester as well as create more tension for the end of the play as the end is foreshadowed

what was challenging?
the challenge was finding out what works and what doesn't we as a group tried the movement part however it didn't work so we had to come up with a better way to open the show that would do everything we wanted a movement piece to do and more

how could we improve?
next time we should keep up the same energy that we had all the way through

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what did we do? in this reharsal we worked on act 1 scene 6 the scene where Sean finds out about Thomas and Theresa dancing and the old man gets scared off

How did we develop the piece and your character? when we worked on this scene my character was developed as I thought a lot about him being smug about being more calm about what Sean was over reacting about, this part of the character was never shown before and added depth to the character

what was challenging?
I think the hardest part was the physicality, this scene needed a lot of continuous touching that would when done over and over again would become very repetitive and boring meaning some of the cast got distracted
however we

how could we improve? next time to improve we need to not be too bothered that we have to keep doing things over and over this is because in performing arts in general you will be expected to work on something no matter what it is until its perfect

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What did we do ? We did a warm up (enagisrer) by playing volley ball, then we set up the transverse audience and did a full run through going from act 1 scene one to act 1 scene 7.

How did we devolved the piece and character? The piece was developed by trying to block the scenes with a transverse audience, my character was developed as I fight back against being robbed as well as working on selling the kick to the rib that I get from jimmy as I am deciding to hold onto my ribs during my scene after I get the kick

What went well

I feel like my accent has improved that is one thing that I think that went well although I fell like its more brunmy or Liverpool like, another thing that I fell went well is that everyone was motivated to do work I’m not sure why but everyone was ready to work and get the scenes done

What was challenging

I fell like the biggest challenge of the rehearsal and the production in general is the traverse audience this is because it’s soo unique to the play

How could we improve

To improve we could try and get the first scene done as they are a big set peace of the whole of the play, another thing we could improve is by doing the accent that is needed though the whole of the lesson to ensure that the accent feels natural when we have to perform

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what did we do? in this session we did a stage fighting workshop with 2 stuntmen who came in to help with our physical parts of the play

how did we develop the piece and your character? I didn't develop my character during this time however we developed the piece as our production was going to have A lot of violence was important for us to portray this in a realistic way however at the same Time be safe and insure we didn't injure each other

what went well? I think as a class we all applied ourselves well, everyone gave 100 percent and committed to what they where doing and tried and It showed by the end as the people who came in where impressed with our enthusiasm

what was challenging?
the biggest challenge during this session was keeping loose and keeping composure so you don't hurt someone here I had to make sure I  was both loose and keeping composure

how could we improve ?
we can now improve by adding this into our production using the skills

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what did we do?in this session we created the fight scene using the skills that we learned in the session earlier In the week to create the fight scene that would be both the emotional and physical high point of the play.

how did we develop the piece and your character?the piece was developed as we as a group made a scene that would be a boiling point for both gangs and get across the fact that they really do hate each other, my character was also developed as I thought more about why my character would want to stab 2 people at the very end of the scene so I thought more about how he would feel about what he did which is what I added later on in the next scene where my character reacts to his actions and takes credit

what went well? I think as a group when we all put our minds to something especially when its something physical we do well with it, we stayed on task thought the session and helped each other to get each bit of the fight scene as well as listening to everyones ideas and putting them into our work

what was challenging? the biggest challenge during this session was the fact that we had to do a a lot of physical activity this wasn't extremely difficult for me because I am very active however it was a challenge to keep doing it until we got it right

how could we improve? next time we need to improve on putting the same amount of effort into the speaking parts of the play as well as the fight scenes to make them equally as good

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| What did we do? In this session we worked on the scene after the fight scene where the characters of George and joe say goodbye to Susan we did the scene over and over so that everyone had a chance to get the scene right as it would be the last thing an audience would see

How did we develop the character and the piece ? During this session we developed the final scene of the whole performance this was developed by adding smaller human details to make the scene resonate with the audience,my character got developed as I thought about how I Would react to the fact that I had killed 2 people, would I show some remorse for that the character did or would it be the case that he would be happy with what he did
What went well?in this scene I think what went well was how invested everyone was in their characters, everyone was thinking about how each of us could give the character that we where playing an good send off as we wouldn’t be revisiting them so we wanted to give more to the audience in this scene as it signified an end to all of the characters

What was a challenge? During this rehearsal we struggled to stay on task, this was the biggest challenge as because our lines where not learned yet so there where times when the magic of the scene would get broken because of the fact that we had scripts in our hands as well as this during the rehearsal we would sometimes get distracted by talking during the rehearsal
How could this be improved: for the next rehearsal the thing that we need to improve is getting into the habit of being quite when we are not on stage, otherwise if the audience can hear us then it will take them out of the show, this is unprofessional as it wouldn’t be acceptable in the actual world of performing arts

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What did we do? During this session  we worked on act 2 scene 3 this is the scene where the character of polly gets kidnapped and taken off stage by the stage by jimmy and and un named tiger comrade, we worked on this scene for most of the session as we wanted it to look good as it had a lot of physicality in it

How did we develop the character and the  piece: we developed the character Of polly as we needed her to have a fiery attitude as when she’s getting kidnapped she’s losing the power and the aura that she’s has since the start of the play polly acts tough this is the scene where the act falls apart we wanted to show this . The piece was devolved as this gave the character of polly some development as throughout she doesn’t get much development at the start of the play so we developed the character, we also developed the piece as this scene Is very important to the end of the play when the tensions between Sean and jimmy blow over we did this by making it clean and snappy in the parts it needed to be and then making it messy when it came to the physical ff in reality more physical things like fights are very messy we wanted to show this

What went well? During this rehearsal the class had a good energy we knew that we were going to work on this scene we came in ,did our warm up and was ready, Evan though not everyone was involved in the scene we where doing and  a lot of people where standing around doing nothing, they made notes on the people on stage and gave those on stage their full attention  in order to make notes on them, what also went well was when we where doing the other scene that follows up after this scene everything clicked and it just worked well

What was a challenge? I think the biggest challenge was the fact we still had scripts in our hands ,we made a creative decision to cut some scenes out of the production due to the fact we had a lot of other work to do, because of this no one knew our lines so we had scripts during our rehearsals which made character development way harder

How could this be improved: what I think could be improved is getting rid of scripts in order to really work on our characters we need to forget about the script so we can do more things with body language as well so an improvement would be getting rid of scripts

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What did we do?during this rehearsal we worked on the scene where polly gets kidnapped to the end of the production with help from our teacher, we did a warm up then started with the scene we worked on the last 2 scenes after this to try and get the end of the production smooth as possible having someone watching us and helping us improve was helpful.

How did we develop the character and the piece: during this rehearsal we worked on development of the character as well as the piece my character was developed as I incorporated some of the method acting to try and become more of my character I looked at the character sheet that I did when we first got the scrip for scuttlers I used those in this rehearsal to further my character by thinking about who my character was, we developed the piece by working more on the end 3 scenes to make that the best thing that the audience see to send them home happy

What went well: during this rehearsal what went well was the fact that the physical parts that we worked on such as the fight scene worked in the theatre the same way that it did in the ekt this was helpful because this is where we where meant to be performing it we adapted this scene to a different space that we created it and practiced it in

What was a challenge? :during this session the biggest challenge was keeping practicing the last few scenes because we where practicing a few scenes  instead of 1 it can get very repetitive this is a big challenge as we aren’t really used doing it all at once

How could this be improved: next time this can be improved by keeping working the same way through out as the rehearsal went on the performances of the cast got more and more fatigued and tired next time we need to keep working Evan if it gets hard

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What did we do? During this rehearsal we did a full run of the production with an audience of the a level students we did this then they gave feedback to us

How did we develop the character and the piece: my character didn’t revive much development because I was focused more  on working on the the piece as this was when all of our rehearsals came together as this was one of the first time where we put together all the scenes that we worked on since we got the script for this, so we developed the piece by getting used to performing it with the lights and with having all the scenes working together

What went well:I feel like during the full run that we did what we did well in general as a group was keeping the scene transitions quick and snappy Evan though it was one of the first times we did a full run of the production without doing it scene by scene and stopping in-between  the feedback that we got from the a level students who where studying how to analyse productions  was useful this is another thing that went well

What was a challenge? :personally I think the biggest challenge again was going without scripts most of us still are not fully confident on our lines so glancing looks are needed at scripts to get the gyst of the lines which made performing harder, another challenge was the feedback wouldn’t be specific enough for example the would give some good feedback but no one would know who they are talking about so it’s would be hard to improve

How could this be improved:next time to improve we need to learn lines in order to have more fun with the characters and work on more characterisation and accents

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What did we do?During this rehearsal a stage combat specialist came in to help us add some more hight impact moments to the fight scene and make it more exciting

How did we develop the character and the piece: this scene was less about character development and more about the development of the piece as my character to me was already fleshed out and I knew who my character was. We developed the scene by working on all of the physical moments in the production. Staring with jimmys assault on Thomas, the fight scene between jimmy and Shaun, the end scene, we showed the stage combat man all that we already worked on and then he showed us what we could add to make these moments more impactful for our audience

What went well: I think during this rehearsal one of the biggest things I think that went well was how the stage combat man was thinking about the scenes how we where he would give us feedback on what we already did and then showed us what we could do better we used both of these to help us with all of the physical scenes in the play

What was a challenge? :I think the challenge during this was slowing things down especially when doing this physical work injuries can happen easily and I feel like we would have benefited from  slowing down a bit

How could This be improved: this can be improved by taking out time more with things in general, i think that when it comes to combat it’s better to take the time to show the audience what’s happening slowly

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What did we do?during this session we did the dress rehearsal the day before our final show we did a warm up then ran it as many times as we could to try and get the lighting and sound ques to work

How did we develop the character and the piece: during this dress rehearsal I wanted how my character acted at the start of the production during the movement pice to be more important which before I didn’t think about this was meant to be some foreshadowing so I needed for me to play more of an evil person at the start, the piece got developed during this rehearsal as it was the first time that we would perform it with sound and lighting this being added to the production improved upon it a lot as performing with lights and sound makes it better as you really feel the spotlight and it encourages you to do well

What went well: personally I think that this dress rehearsal could have gone a lot better I thank there where not many positives for me I think there was great accent work and characterisation but I know we could have done better

What was a challenge? : I think the biggest challenge was lines, again most of the cast me included still where not confident on liens to the point where there was scenes where it was just awkward silences we didn’t want this for our dual play as well as this another challenge, another challenge for me was the fact that we kept doing it it was getting very boring to all of the cast but we just had to keep on going to finish it

How could this be improved:  this can be improved by prioritising line learning because otherwise sound and lighting cues get missed out

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How did the rehearsal process go in general? I feel like for how big the whole piece was we did a good job with the time we had, I definitely missed some sessions which didn’t really help me or the cast,but I think that I slipped well into the character ,I also think that as a class how hard we worked on this and how important it was to us changed as it went on, when we first go the script I feel like people didn’t really see it as important  as at the time our main aim was to get the panto work done however when this was out the way people where more focused on the script, we also had a good range of rehearsal types, we had close single rehearsals where we would work on one scene then we would do the same with the class taking notes then as it went on we had people coming in to help us put together the fight scenes then we had big runs of it so it was a good mixture

What worked well during the final performance: during the first final performance we had everyone had good energy this was also the case during our second performance this was because it was the last performance and we knew this was going to be one of the last times that we got to perform until we where going to say bye to the characters another thing I think went well was the fact that no one was noticeably messing up on their lines which before was one of the biggest problems that we had during the rehearsal period, another thing that went well was the fact that all the transitions where smooth and quick

What we could have done as a class: I think one of the biggest things we could have done as a class to improve it would be commitment to the character, I felt like some people sometimes where not really believing what their character was saying or Evan trying to pretend to believe what they where saying, if you don’t make the audience think that you believe what you are saying you have lost them, because I’m general no one wants to listen to someone who it’s obvious doesn’t really care what they are saying, also as a class we really could have been more quiet in the wings as some people would talk during the first performance and the audience would be able to hear those talking in the back over what’s happening on stage, another thing we could have done  as a class would be to be a lot louder, although when we did both final performances the theatre wasn’t full and people where only sitting in the front 2 rows if it was a sell out show and there where people in the back who paid for their ticket then they wouldn’t be able to hear anything

What where the biggest challenges: I believe that the biggest challenge during the final final performance we had to change a lot this was because one of my cast members are hurt his leg during the first performance that we did so we had to cancel that formance and redo it a few days later this was a big challenge as the lines weren’t fresh in our head and a because the character of Jimmy was not no longer able to do physical staff we had to change a lot like for example during his Jimmy and Sean’s  fight scene we had to switch  that up so that he wouldn’t have to fight him and then during the actual final fight scene we are we just did it without him but it was still odd getting rid of the character that we where used to having. However change in the scenes help to me personally because I thought I thought that we would have to make the more tender emotional past the more speaking part is more important for the audience because before we win we were weren’t necessarily relying on the 5C is to provide an impact on the audience but it was quite is quite a big thing that we had so that switching out the biggest fight scene and Mike toning down a little bit meant that I personally was like okay I’m going to make these more he’s more speaking emotional past more resonate more with the audience by just like trying harder to show emotion

How would you do it differently next time next time I will definitely invest more of my time learning my lines this for this would be useful because if I knew my lines then it would be like a lot easier to start showing characterisation in my work next time I will definitely make the case to keep it as a full production because of the fact the proper the original script of Scotland is very interesting the way they play the characters the very unique concept the fact that was based on the London riots which we where around to see,The mix between the old and the contemporary music the old and contemporary some outfits is also unique in the characters and the script was very reminiscent of peaky blinders so I think that next time I’ll deafly make the push to have it as a full production because we only got half an hour to perform and I think we could have definitely done better had we known all lines alarm and shown the director that we were willing to learn our lines for most of the scenes then I feel like they probably would’ve ended up being a full script but I think in general overall we did quite well with what we had next time I deafly say I would like to do the full thing to challenge myself as an actor The mix between the old and the contemporary music the olden contemporary outfits is also unique in the characters and the script was very reminiscent of peaky blinders so I think that next time I deafly make the post to have it as a full production because we only got half an hour to perform and I think we could have definite done better had we known all lines and shown the director that we were willing to learn all lines for most of the scenes and I feel like it probably would have  ended up being a full script but I think in general overall we did quite well with what we had our next time I would  say I would like to do the full thing to challenge myself as an actor.

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What did we do? In this session we worked on the scene after the fight scene where the characters of George and joe say goodbye to Susan we did the scene over and over so that everyone had a chance to get the scene right as it would be the last thing an audience would see

How did we develop the character and the piece ? During this session we developed the final scene of the whole performance this was developed by adding smaller human details to make the scene resonate with the audience,my character got developed as I thought about how I Would react to the fact that I had killed 2 people, would I show some remorse for that the character did or would it be the case that he would be happy with what he did

What went well?in this scene I think what went well was how invested everyone was in their characters, everyone was thinking about how each of us could give the character that we where playing an good send off as we wouldn’t be revisiting them so we wanted to give more to the audience in this scene as it signified an end to all of the characters

What was a challenge? During this rehearsal we struggled to stay on task, this was the biggest challenge as because our lines where not learned yet so there where times when the magic of the scene would get broken because of the fact that we had scripts in our hands as well as this during the rehearsal we would sometimes get distracted by talking during the rehearsal

How could this be improved: for the next rehearsal the thing that we need to improve is getting into the habit of being quite when we are not on stage, otherwise if the audience can hear us then it will take them out of the show, this is unprofessional as it wouldn’t be acceptable in the actual world of performing arts