The Meek shall inherit

Today we worked on the number "meek shall inherit" which is the whole of scene 2 and when Seymour is offered multiple contracts with companies for Audrey II so has to decide if he should keep killing for fame or stop which mentioned giving up everything. 

For the number we have the urchins, Seymour and Bernstein on stage right as Bernstein sings to him about being in a TV program. When the chorus starts with "they say the meek shall inherit" we have all moved into a lines of 3 centre stage we then do a finger bounce followed by pretending to open a book on the second line "you know the book doesn't lie". On the next line we move towards Seymour (stage left) and in groups we raise our arms on either "demand" or "supply. We then wiggle our finger at Seymour and then push our head in on the line "you're a meek little guy". On the last part we move away back to what we were doing before, Bernstein then freezes as the urchins push Seymour towards the next agent Mrs. Luce who is played by a boy and very flamboyant, she works for life magazine and tries to get Seymour to have pictures for a article. We then repeat the chorus with only difference being that we move right in steady of left when heading towards Seymour. Mrs Luce then freezes as skip snip enters, another agent who wants Seymour on lecturing tours. After he has sung Seymour steps forward as everyone freezes and he sings. All the agents unfreeze after Seymour finishes his solo during a slower version of the chorus and we all moved into a triangle shape for a slow step and click until the last part which is "you know the Meeks are gonna get what's coming to 'em"  three times in which we all point in one of 3 directions given to us on each one of the lines until the end of the song.

Dentist

Today we started working on "Dentist" which is Orin's introduction song to show which starts with him singing and all of us as tired out homeless people start clapping to the beat and slowly wondering off while looking very un-interested in what is happening. We off stage for a couple of beats then run on being scared and circling Toby who is sat on the dentist chair. We then start walk around him and when reaching our starting point we sway side to side, holding our faces of terror. We then do 4 poses of fear and then run around into a new position. In our new position Dan S (Orin) holds the word "I'm" as we all lean backwards going further and further back until Dan S continues to sing at which point we start a step click into the centre with our terrified faces. We then turn to the back and every 2 beats one of us turns around to reveal a bad teeth poster, after the last one has revealed a poster we hold a toothbrush up in the air then sway side to side like a lighter. E then Pont into the middle at Toby moving closer into him as we sing "ahhhh" and after Dan S say "now spit" we all pull our heads away and then pretend to spit on Toby.

This is a link to video of the number from our Little shop production called Dentist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxCBxMALGuw

Staging Act 2 and “Don’t feed the plants

Today we had 2 objectives for the lesson like last week, the first objective was to stage all the scenes in Act 2 and the second objective is to set the finale which is “Don’t feed the plant”:

We started Act 2 scene 1 which is back at Mushnik’s flower shop as we see its now full of customers and business, we see Mushnik frantically sorting delivery jobs, Audrey working the till, Ronette advertising Audrey II and Seymour finishing deals with customers as they leave. We are all in groups for this scene between being customers, tourist taking pictures with Audrey II, Wino’s coming into the shop and some of us helping Mushnik with deliveries until Seymour has closed up the shop to help Audrey with the phones as “Call back in the morning” starts. We skipped to the end of this song as we hadn’t set this number yet so continued with Act 2 scene 1. The scene continues with a heart to heart between Audrey and Seymour about Orin’s disappearance which leads into “Suddenly Seymour” which was skipped as we haven’t set that yet. The song ends with the Seymour and Audrey kissing as Mushnik walks in and starts raising his voice at them as Seymour try to settle him down. Mushnik convinces Audrey to leave so he can talk to Seymour for little while in which we find out Mushnik is suspicious of Seymour and believes he has something to do with Orin’s disappearance which starts the song “Suppertime” which at the end of the song Mushnik dies. Scene 2 starts with the beat of “The meek shall inherit” as the urchins try to get Seymour to stay close so that some agents can talk to him which then starts the song “The meek shall inherit”. Scene 3 then starts with the plant shouting at Seymour to feed him but Seymour wont, Audrey then walks in and talks to Seymour, she says that she would have loved him even if he didn’t have the plant so Seymour decides he will get rid of the plant. Audrey leaves and the plant tries to get food again but realising that Audrey is still outside so the plant convinces Seymour to leave at which point Audrey re-enters. The song “Sominex/Suppertime” plays as the plant starts to talk to Audrey and convinces her to come close to it as the plant tries to eat her, Seymour then runs in to save her but Audrey is dying but is able to say goodbye before she convinces Seymour to feed her to the plant while she starts to sing “Somewhere that’s green”. Seymour is depressed in the next part of scene as a business man tries to convince him to give him clippings of Audrey II so they can make more, the man leaves and Seymour tries to kill the plant by jumping inside to cut it open but is killed himself and the business man coming in to take clipping of Audrey II which starts the finale “Don’t feed the plant”.

We started to stage the finale of the show which is “Don’t feed the plants” which starts with Ronette singing and the whole cast slowly wondering on stage to their positions carrying a small Audrey II, we all then start to sing the 3^rd verse starting with the line “Thus the plants worked their terrible will”. We then start the bows starting with the verse as half the chorus goes to bow and then the second half of the chorus bow on the line “Proceeded to grow” and then the urchins bow on “Essentially to”. We continue to sing until we sing “And Des Moines” in which we point to the right in fear and then to the left on the line “And Peoria”. We then look up in fear on the line “And New York” then do a cheesy jump on the line “And this Theatre”. We then stand and sing until Mushnik’s, Seymour’s, Orin’s and Audrey’s solo lines in which they each do their bows. On the line “Look out” we do a sweep across stage acting like we’re looking around and then pointing to the sky, then on the second “Look out” we sweep to the back as Audrey II/Dan M take bow before we stand and sing the last verse of the song.


This is a link to the video of "Don't Feed the Plants" from our production of Little shop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5rPPPrITjs

Staging Act 1 and "Closed for renovation"

Today we had 2 main objectives in our lesson for little shop:

1. Set and run all scenes in act 1

2. Set "closed for renovation

1: we ran all the numbers and scenes we set which was scenes 1 as well as musical numbers we've staged which were "little shop of horror", "skid row" and "Da doo". After we had successfully run and then perfected each of these songs and the first scene, we moved on and stage scene 2-4. We had also decided that for the show none of us would leave he stage except for costumes change, so we are all sat along the front of stage as our characters from skid row and we watched each scene as the show goes on. Scene 2 starts with Seymour and an interview on stage left and the urchins, Mushnik, Dom, Toby and me gathered around a radio centre stage as we listen to Seymour's interview. "Ya never know" is the song that starts during this scene but we skipped it today as we haven't set it yet. Midway Through the song there is dialogue as Seymour comes up to us and asks how he did with the interview and Mushnik says he wants a photo with everyone. All of us on stage crowd around Seymour for a photo then run back to whee we were. The song finishes as Audrey walks on to talk with the urchins about where she was, they tell Audrey to leave her boyfriend for someone better as Seymour walks on to work on plants as we then hear Audrey say she doesn't deserve Seymour leading into "somewhere that's green" ending scene 2.

Scene 3 starts with "closed for renovation" which we are staging later today. We then work on the scene out in the street when the urchins meet Orin and try to get him to leave Audrey when "dentist" starts but we skipped it as we haven't set it yet. The next part of scene 3 is when Seymour and Orin meet and then Orin taking Audrey out. This leads into the songs "Mushnik and son" and "git it". Finally this leads to scene 4 which when Seymour goes to the dentist to kill Orin, everyone is sat across the front of the stage in a waiting room while centre stage we can see Seymour and Orin interact in the scene lead ing into "now (it's just the gas)" which we haven't staged yet but is also the end of act 1.

2: We started "closed for renovation" which for the first 2 verses only has Mushnik working at his desk with Seymour and Audrey cleaning. For the last verse of the song 7 of us from each side of the stage walk on looking all confused and estranged as we clean the shop but getting more wacky in the way we clean as the song nears the end like we start to clean each other and characters on stage as during the last part of the song we get kicked off and stubble away.

Little shop of Horrors

Today we started to stage the opening of the show which is the song “Little shop of Horrors” that starts with a powerful voice narrating, which is done by Toby for our show. After the voice is done speaking, the songs beat starts and the urchins move down the centre of the audience, clicking in time with the beat. After the first couple of beats, more members of our chorus come up, following behind them, clicking with the beat. They all run on stage as the rest of us come out on stage and join in with the clicking as we all move into positions on stage to start the dance.

Dance part 1: we start with 2 steps together, jumps towards the right and 2 to the left followed by a mimic of a swimming motion with our arms then drop straight to the floor. We move straight back up and step diagonally towards the right extending and distending our arms twice and then again to the left. We then do a reach from right to left towards the centre followed by 3 head rocks. We all then do a step over hip slap twice towards the right of the stage ending with us holding our arm out in a style of a stop gesture. We then do to step clicks followed by a box step slide and start walking towards centre stage wriggling our finger then swap fingers after 8 beats. We all then run back to our starting positions and make an over the top scared face as we then run in 2 circles, one on each side of the stage, then back to start positions.

Dance Break: The dance break starts with a right over left step then turn back on myself to a full spin in which I lift my right leg up and both my arms then slap my hands on my thighs as I take 2 steps to the right with a shoulder roll then repeat these steps but in the opposite direction. After these steps we do 2 step backwards with a thigh slap into a box step and a jumping pattern going forward, backwards, right, left then running on the spot.

Dance part 2: we all start a step click up stage right, when we reach the top stage right we do a hand circle twice on both sides on our waist then do a full rotation and run back to our stating spots following with 3 steps forward leading with the left as our arms flap. The next step is a clap above our heads on the right and then 2 on the left followed by an arm spin as we jump down the up into a body ripple forward. We then do 2 slides to the back right of the stage and then 2 jump and shimmy’s around back to the front as we run back to positions. When we arrive back we do 4 poses each time the urchins say “look out” followed by us bringing our arms down in front like were driving a car and then flick our left wrist 3 times. We then wiggle our fingers while walking towards the centre then disburse into our positions to run in circles again. We end by a step click to off stage in time with the beat.

Da Doo

Today we started to work on the 3^rd number in the show called “Da Doo” which is Seymour telling the story of how he found Audrey two. The song says he went to a market place where a Chinese man is selling plants but doesn’t have anything, so Seymour goes to leave but there is a total eclipse of the sun in which a new flower appears in the shop that Seymour buys. The class split into groups to create the market place. Tom, Freya and Ellie went off with Dan M to practise the dance the girls do in this number. Kyle, Meg, Harry and Harry went over the scene which happens just before the song while the rest of us created the market place. In my group for the market place we split into 3 different pieces, Liam and Toby created a street performance for stage left and Theo was running a shop that’s gets stolen from by Kia, Ali and  Dan S. Finally me, Danny and Dom created the Chinese mans shop which had Danny as the Chinese man and Dom as his worker who was sweeping, I was a customer who bought a flower from them. During the song we interact with each other in over the top reactions until the “Total Eclipse of the sun”, on sun we looked up to the right then on the ding in the music we changed to the left realising that the eclipse is the other side and freeze until the music starts again. We then act animated when we unfreeze and everything we do is over the top, until Kyle sings “for a dollar nighty five” in which we all crowd around him in a cheese position.

Skid Row

Today in lesson we started working on our first chorus number in “little shop” called “Skid Row”. In this number we are all already set on stage in freeze frame then spring into life each time we sing “Downtown”, were in 3 groups because we sing “Downtown” 3 times. After we have all have unfrozen we walk into a clump in the middle except for Kia and Harry, we walk into the clump while we sing “Down on Skid” twice. In the clump we move towards Kia as he sing and the opposite direction towards Harry as he sings. We then break out of the clump and form a circle around the stage, then raise and lower our arms in contrast to where we are in the circle as we do one full rotation then as 2 groups take four steps over 8 beats to form a hours shoe shape, then in a pair box step around in our pairs. We then split and form 2 lines while Meg steps forward to sing her lines as Audrey. We then sing “Down on skid row in 2 groups 3 times while the 2 lines we made swap around as we sing it again for a seventh time all together while raising our arms. Kyle then runs forward as Seymour to sing his solo while we all freeze until he sings “Sweep that floor kid”, we are in groups in which we jump on each word of the line. We then swap our feet around so that my right shoulder is facing the audience as we lean out then back in. Then we swap our footing so my Left shoulder is facing the audience as we all lean 3 times in time with the beat of the song. We then in our lines walk round into an X shape crossing each other but then lean back and continue to cross up into a group of six at the front of the stage. We all then walk around into a V shape with Kyle and Meg as the point of the V, we then step and click in time while we sing the chorus until the final word in which we sing while raising our right arm and then drop with our head on the final beat.

Cast list

Today we started working on “Little shop of Horrors” as we had received the cast list today for the show.

Cast List:

Seymour= Kyle

Audrey= Meg

Mushnik= Harry

Orin= Dan S

Plant= Dan M

Ron/Ronnette= Tom

Crystal= Ellie

Chiffon= Freya

Voice= Toby

Wino= Danny

Customer= Carl

Interviewer= Kia

Bernstein= Ali

Mrs Luce= Ashley

Snip= Liam

Martin= Theo

Bass= Kia

Guitar= Ali

Drum= Dan S

Greek Chorus= Dom, Toby and Ashley

Plant Operators= Liam, Danny and Theo

Little Shop Audition (Part 3)

Today we had our final audition for “Little shop of Horrors” which we performed 2 scenes as Orin and Mushnik. We split off into pairs again for this audition, I was paired with Carl for the audition with Orin and Mushnik. We performed the 2 scenes twice so that the both of us could have ago as both of the characters. We first performed a scene with Seymour and Orin which was the first meeting of the two characters where Orin tries to convince Seymour to leave Mushnik for Fame and Fortune. I and Carl performed this scene with me as Orin with Carl as Seymour, we ten swapped our parts around and performed this scene a second time. Once again I and Carl worked together on a scene with Mushnik and Seymour where Mushnik is becoming suspicious of Seymour after finding little red spots on the floor. I and Carl performed this scene twice so we could both have a chance to play both parts. After this lesson we learned that the cast list will be done for Monday morning.

Little Shop Auditon (Part 2)

Today we continued the auditions for “Little shop of Horrors”. Today we started with performing our scene we worked on in the previous lesson but with the characters swapped around for the performance. I and Liam performed our scene again but with him as the plant and me as Seymour, same as everyone else who was auditioning. After we had all performed the scene we were given, all the guys who were interested in being the Plant had ago of singing “Feed Me” by our self’s. After performing “Feed Me” every male member of the cast sung the song “Skid Row” but only doing Seymour’s solo. We sang through the song as a group first and then again in pairs, I was paired with Harry for singing through the song together. After the song we performed another scene as Seymour with either Meg, Ellie or Freya playing Audrey, the scene we performed was a talk between the 2 of them after Orin’s disappearance in the show, I performed the scene With Meg for the audition. We have the final part of the audition for Thursday.

Little Shop Audition (Part 1)

Today we started “Little shop of Horrors” in our single drama lessons. We spent today looking at the audition material for Seymour and the Plant. The scene we were given to practice for the audition was the scene where Seymour discovers that the Plant could talk and the plant tries to convince Seymour to feed it more blood as well as meat, we were split into groups of 2 so that we could practice and stylise our performance for the audition. I was pair with Liam for my audition, we were given 30 minutes to practice our pieces, we were going to perform each scene twice so that both of us could have ago at each part. For mine and Liam’s performance we did our first one with me as the Plant and Liam as Seymour. Everyone performed the scene once this lesson as we ran out of time to do the second performance the other way around, so we will be continuing the auditions next lesson.