We Will Rock You (Pre-Show)

PRE-SHOW EVALUATION:

As a year 12, I will be part of the cast for 'We Will Rock You'. Along with the rest of the Year 12s, I will be playing a Gaga Kid, a Yuppie and a Bohemian. The show starts next week and there are several ideas that I have had an input in during the rehearsal process, numerous things I need to improve on, and lots of things I need to get sorted tech-wise.

 The rehearsal process has been very enjoyable and for me, the main thing to focus on was learning the lyrics and choreography to songs. We Will Rock You has been very demanding for me as all the Year 12s have had to learn a lot of songs and choreography. Some Year 12s are in more songs than others but I, personally, have had to learn the lyrics and/or choreography to 'Radio Gaga', 'Killer Queen', 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love', 'Flash', 'Seven Seas Of Rhye', 'Those Were The Days Of Our Lives', 'We Will Rock You' and 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. The main focus for me has been choreography as dance is by far the part of Musical Theatre that I find the trickiest. The Year 13s had choreographed Radio Gaga and taught us the routine- I found this routine very easy to pick up as it's simple and mainly arm/hand based- movement wise.

What I need to do:
 I need to ensure that I am word perfect for the song 'One Vision' as at the moment I'm not. I also need to ensure that I am confident with the choreography as I'm also not. In order to make sure I am confident with the song as a whole, I am going to learn the lyrics at home and keep going through the choreography with other cast members who are confident with it. We also need to sort out choreography/lyrics for Bohemian Rhapsody as no one is 100% on which parts the chorus sing. We Will Rock You also needs to be sorted. I need to keep going over every song that I'm in because, even though i may know the lyrics, it's always best to practice. We have two whole days of rehearsals on monday and tuesday so I'm sure we will accomplish this!

OVERVIEW of Rehearsal Process:  Overall, the rehearsal process for We Will Rock You has been very different to Grease. Grease had just 13/14 cast members whereas We Will Rock You has 30. It means that we had to be a lot more patient during rehearsals- this was emphasised to me by the fact that in Grease I was a principle role and was on stage for most of the show. However, in WWRY I'm a member of the chorus, and although we spend a lot of time on stage, I'm not finding it as demanding (Or stressful!!) as I found Grease; but at the same time, I'm having to learn a lot more choreography then I did in Grease. There are a lot of differences between my time doing Grease and WWRY which I will speak about in my Post-Show Evaluation.

Character Development:
Gaga Kid:
 Gaga Kids are the 'school kids' of Planet Mall. They are all controlled by Killer Queen. They listen to nothing but programmed music, dress the same and act like 'robots' as none of them are individual and they pick on Scaramouche and Gallileo. During dances, it's important that all the Gaga Kids are in time with each other as it makes them seem even more robotic. In the two Gaga Kid songs- Radio Gaga and One Vision, we have used very robotic choreography to emphasise the robotic nature of the Gaga Kids. At this moment in time, we are not sure whether to play the Gaga Kids as overly-happy and 'smiley' or to use robotic facial expressions (as well as robotic movement) and this is something we will decide over the coming few days before the show.

Yuppie:
 Yuppies are the Killer Queen's/Khashoggi's  'assistants'. Costume-wise, we are just going to put black blazers over our Gaga Costume to show that Yuppies are simply grown up Gaga Kids. Yuppies are meant to be slick so Elle has decided to choreograph the song 'Killer Queen' with slick Fosse choreography. During the Yuppie scenes we need to look slick but still maintain the 'robotic' nature that Yuppies share with the Gaga Kids- especially after Killer Queen when we all have to bang our canes on the floor in unison- this is something we need to practice before the show.

Bohemian:
 Bohemians are the 'rebels' of Planet Mall and live in the underground. They have a 'rock n roll' fashion and are named after past rock 'legends'. I'm going to portray my Bohemian character to be very outgoing and I can really emphasise this during Crazy Little Thing during to improvisation part of the song. I'm going to do over the top movements and play 'air guitar' to show that as a Bohemian, I dream of playing guitar and love to have a good time. After the Bohemians are captured and 'brainwashed' by Khashoggi, they're brains become empty and they are zombie-like. I want to show the contrast in Bohemians before and after the capture and to do this I just need to exaggerate the enthusiasm/energy before the capture and the lack of emotion and Zombie-like movement afterwards.