Rehearsals/ Casting for Romeo and Juliet

When the casting was done, unfortunately since i had enrolled onto the college late i wasn't giving the luxury of auditioning for my preferred role. I was given the role of the apothecary. So I did made do with the best that i could. And did a lot of outside research about what an apothecary actually was, the role it was classed in society and they were treated in society.


We worked on staging certain scenes and blocking entrances and exits etc. Towards the second half of the play is when we have to particularly focus on the staging. As of recent we worked on the scenes from the start to the party scene, we later performed this in front of other performing arts students and worked on it in a workshop at the Conway Hall.

Workshop with Shakespeare school festival at Conway hall

To start the day, we had a physical and vocal warm up to prep ourselves for performing, much like we do in class with our teachers. This helps with our speech articulation and it also helps with our energy levels so our body is still not tired. After that we particularly focused on the beginning of the play, all the way up onto the party scene. We performed this first section of the play to the other school who, like us, will also be performing a Shakespeare piece at the Shaw Theatre also. After we finished performing the other school was asked to give us feedback on our performances; we received mostly positive feedback from the other school stating that we had overall good characterization, clear delivery of lines and also that we have a good awareness of the stage around us and we used it spectacularly.

After that, we spent some time going over our opening scene and made a few changes as we went along. Originally, everyone's starting position was upstage and then walked down towards towards the left or right, considering if you were part of the Capulet's or the Montague's. After that, the line 'two households'' was the cue to form a combative pose at our opposing team (Capulet's or Montague's). Since i was only the apothecary, i originally wasn't in this scene, however for the sake of the performance and my productivity on stage i thought it would be useful to come on as one the Montague's making an aggressive face towards the Capulet's, which overall makes the production look better when everyone apart the play is making themselves productive at all costs.

The changes made as a group were to change the way we entered into our positions as the Capulet's or Montague's. We thought it could look more effective entering from a different standpoint. So we first tried with Montague's on the stage left and the Capulet's on the stage right charging towards each other as if a war was about to start. However, that didn't feel quite right so we tried another technique of entering from opposite sides and crossing paths with the opposing side and then getting into position. This was much more effective as when we crossed paths we exchanged evil glares and purposely bumping into each other creating powerful atmosphere of tension. Therefore we used this in our final piece.

After that we had a look at the other school performance of Macbeth who would perform in the Shakespeare School Festival. Our feedback to them was that we noticed how effective their use of physical theatre was, especially with the witches- they had a creative technique of starting near with the death of Lady Macbeth and then after going through the major events of the play.

At the workshop they taught us 5 helpful guidelines that will help us, not just with our upcoming performance but any future performances that we do. 
The first guideline was to stay in character at all times as soon as we enter the stage and as all the way to when we exit. This helps makes with bringing to character to life and believing in your role.
Another one was the 'Kiss or kill' position, meaning to only stand extremely close to unless you are going to kiss or kill them. Other than that, it is important to spread out and use the stage effectively with projection of your voice.
We also learnt to cheat with your feet meaning to adjust your feet to face the audience and also your positioning so that you are always seen.
We learnt 'land our lines' meaning to project your voice to the best of your ability so everyone in the theatre can hear you clearly.
The last one is to embrace the audience magnet, meaning to use the front and centre of the stage effectively, not so far upstage- ultimately so the audience can see and hear everything in the performance. 

Following the rehearsals 

After the workshop, we started the rest of our work on Romeo and Juliet. We went from the part scene at the Capulet's until the end. The first run through seemed to go a bit shaky as everyone had not rehearsed in a while and were not sure of their lines and their positions on stage. I was completely sure of my line/lines without a script the only thing i was unsure of was my cue to come on, so i spent some time rehearsing with Romeo when the perfect time for me to come on. 

I only had one line in the play so i was fining it difficult in how to make my role still effective in the play and the best way to embody my character. So i did some research on the apothecary and learned that the apothecary was a very poor man in society, meaning he had very little worth so he ultimately had nothing to lose. The apothecary would do anything for money no matter how morally and ethically wrong the request was. Which is why he gave Romeo the drugs to end his life. In rehearsal i tried to embody this as good as i possibly could and my teacher also advised me to come on to the stage very quickly and keenly to show how easily convinced he is when someone of power has called him to sell them goods. My teacher also advised me of when giving the drugs to Romeo I should hand it to hi,m in a cunning and sly way to represent how dangerous what i am doing is and the impact it will have on the end of the play. 

We also looked all the different fights/conflicts in the play such as; the conflict with Romeo to himself about deciding whether or not he should pursue Juliet knowing all odds are against him. Another conflict is the conflict Juliet with herself deciding on whether she will marry Romeo or Paris. Also the fight with Juliet battling her family on her choices of not wanting to marry Paris. Then the two physical fights between Tybalt and Mercutio and Romeo and mercutio.

This rehearsal throughout the term taught me how to work with others in an effective manner, learning how to modernize the play and how research on your character pushes you to embody the role.

Skills audit

When i first started the course, the following skills i possessed were; confidence when on stage, the ability to learn lines in a short amount of time, the skill of working independently, good stage screen and vocal presence and creative insight. After the term of the course a few more skills i have gained are having the confidence, energy and dedication to perform, good understanding of drama techniques and being able to collaborate and work in a team effectively.