Evaluation for our end of year show 'Aspirations and Dreams'

To complete our btec gcse we had to organize an end of year show! We chose it to be a variety show because if it was constantly us then we would have no time for costume changes or breathing for that fact and the quality of the performances wouldnt have been as high as we'd of expected of ourselves let alone what others thought. This as a whole was quite different to previous assignments we'd done during our two years of performing arts as we had to organize everything ourselves! This included title, theme, program, tickets, venue, colour scheme, costumes and guest acts because of the 'variety Performance'. We completed this all individually(as a group) without any major guidance from teachers or supervisors. To begin with it took us a while to come up with an overall theme for the show that would flow and easily include all our guest acts. We initially thought of an oscar seremony themed evening but then we realized that we'd constantly have to have someone commentating which would prolongue the evening more which would make our audience restless and bored. Our second idea was to do an interpretation of the musical 'Annie' using the idea of the orphans beingus and then branching off into the orphans dreams and hopes for the future. We thought this was a suitable idea considering it is all of our last year in compulsory education. We finally came up with a name for our show which was 'Aspirations and Dreams'. So that our theme would beclear to our audience we all individually wrote a small bio to go in the program. The colour scheme we came up with was purple and silver as we agreed that this fitted the 'dream' idea and it was also professional and sophisticated. The decorations of the venue followed the colour scheme tightly. The tables were covered in a purple table cloths, purple flowers, purple and silver balloons, silver glitter/confetti and tea lights in jars. We were thoroughly pleased with the way we'd set out the school hall. The seating was not the normal lines of chairs it was tables of 8 as we wanted it to be quite relaxed and different. Much like us some would say!! Making the ticket took a while as we couldn't decide on layout and/or pictures! But eventually we used a picture of two of the performing arts girls at rock challenge as it is a big part in all of our lives and part of the course. The same happened with the program as the picture we wanted to use didnt have one of our girls on so we had to change it, it also was changed and reprinted many times because we couldnt get the layout right. We decided that we would use previous performances that we'd done throughout the two years to show progression from our first show! We chose the performances that we'd performed to audiences before and got a good response! The dance we had in mind was 'All That Jazz' from Cabaret be aide the reaction from the audience was brilliant! We also agreed that this was our best performance! We infused this with numbers from Annie that opened the show and numbers from We Will Rock You so that we could pass a costume construction assignment in which we made costumes suitable for a WWRY production. The songs we chose from Annie were 'maybe' and 'hard knock life' as this showed the innocence of the orphans and reflected the vunerabity of ourselves! The songs we chose from WWRY were 'don't stop me now' which had very energetic dance moves and then 'somebody to love' the solo being sung by Chloe Stockman and the rest of the group being backing singers/dancers. In this number we kept the dancing simple so that the attention was not taken from Chloe's spectacular voice. As it was a variety show we invited many different acts all of which where in school. Some of the students were A level drama students, GCSE music and drama pieces and others were Katie Burrows street dance crew of which she teaches and choreographed herself. We'd heard that some students were extremely talented and can really perform so we asked them if they would like to partcipate, unfortunately we had a couple of no's due to people being unavailable wh ich was very disheartening for us. The show date was ever getting closer and we performed all acts that were in the btec group to each other in class to boost our confidence before the final technical rehearsal on stage. I was most scared about performing my singing duet with Shannon because singing is not the area I am m I am most confident in! However I knew I had to do it to boost my grade in musical theatre to a distinction. We also asked our very talented friend mr Jack Dent if he would play the guitar for us in our last number which we sang. It was Pixie Lotts version of 'Use Somebody'. We organised rehearsals with him to make sure we were all confident and happy. Soon it was the technical rehearsal which I have previously written a blog on, we eventually got into our roles and the rehearsal ran smoothly! Which was the outcome we wanted! For the remainder of our performing arts lessons we repeatedly rehearsed anything that was to do with the show whether it be dances duets solos singing magic tricks or flips! We made sure that everyone was confident and we made sure that we'd done everything on the checklist that I composed for everyone! We eventually decided of costumes to wear for group performances and individual acts sorted their own costumes! Show day It came to Friday the 27th of April and throughout the day we all got progressively more and more nervous! We'd all brought huge bags which had all our costumes and make up in so that we could stay after school to help set up! Once everything presentation wise had been sorted I stuck up the running orders lighting cues curtain cues and timings around dressing rooms and backstage that I had previously printed! Once this was done we re did mic checks for individual pieces do that backstage were also confident. We asked guest acts to arrive at 6:15pm do that we were confident they were here! If acts had been away on the rehearsal date we allowed them 5 minutes to rehearse on stage and then we began to get ready! It was fake tab and eyelashes on tights and leotards and the ready and action!!! We opened the show with maybe which led into hard kick life! These are both very difficult songs to sing so before curtains up we had a group vocal warm up to prevent straining or damage of vocal chords! It would also help with diction! It was a group performance and we all got into our characters of 'orphans' and this was noted by the audience! If I could improve I would have made sure I could get up with ease before the show as I had a slight costume malfunction and wad unable to get it, although slightly panicked I stayed in character! After our two Annie performances the show really got underway! It was George and Gabriel up next who performed a duologue from blood brothers! I'd watched it in rehearsals and was captivated by their performance and was gutted that I didn't see it in the show but the audience loved it and the boys of year 10 even managed to pull off a convincing Liverpudlian accent! Then was Katie's street dance crew who were incredible street dancers of which the audience loved, I know Katie was nervous although she had no need! After this followed a GCSE music student who is part of the Royal College Of Music, Alfie Whitbreaf who performed a saxophone solo after a previous act dropped out last minute! Before we knew it we were back on stage again! WWRY this time! There was a slight glitch at the begining of this ad the music was started before Alice and Katie were on stage and it was too quiet but like professionals we carried on in character! The dance and singing went well and nothing went terribly wrong apart from the curtains not opening to allow us on stage but the show must go on, as they say! Then the interval, a rest you'd think! No, don't be silly we were running around like headless chickens trying to get changed! Next was our favourite performance all that jazz, all was going brilliantly until the music began to jump! But again we carried on and didn't let this bother us! There were a few more solos including a couple of songs from our favourie duet Alfie and Jack! Before I knew it it was time to get up and sing my duet! Because backstage was do frantic I didn't have much time to think about nerves until I got on stage and by then it was too late to turn bsck! However much I don't like singing in front of people I enjoyed singing up on stage as people didn't expect me to do it and I love proving others and myself wrong! Everything went brilliantly and me and Shan got fantastic feedback! No time to reflect though had to get changed for our final song! However I'm majorly gutted I missed Alice and Katie's duet of 'popular' which was by far one of my favourite acts and that was only rehearsal! We waited backstage for the final song and we all loved it very mmuch! However I did get emotional at the end as it was like the end of a relationship with my sisters who have grown to become my favourite people in the world! Also we're loosing our belovid teacher Miss Dolan! Of whom we will miss tremendously! The overall feedback for the show was amazing and I have enjoyed every single second of performing arts and I don't regret taking it one bit! As its been the best time of my life!