Review of Progress

Thursday 22nd October
In todays lesson I found the task easy to accomplish due to ananylsing the different musicals in the 70's and 80's. I choose a specific type of theatre genre which was Rock and Roll. I choose two productions, one being The Rocky Horror Show and Grease. The two which I analiysed have similarities but at the same time diffrences. I've used research through google images and youtube. I also used youtube to post videos for examples of theatre and film.

This is a slide I took from my group presentation which I evaluated the use of costume and make up used to represent these characters as in a gothic/horror element. This work was produced for a presentation that will review the years of theatre process and the use of the theatre created through film also.

Greek Theatres

The Originality of musical theatres begun before BC. I have carried out some research and anaylisis about how they begun to perform many years ago, this is my evidence to show how I anaylsed and understood how the musical theatre original begun and how they have changed through many centuries.

Greek Thetares where established before BC, the years the theatre were famous which where between 550 and 220 BC and where in the Athens. It was indeed popular and became a part of a festival which was named after a greek god called Dionysia. There were also genres to include in the theatre, mostly the genres were Tragedy, Comedy and Tragicomedy , Tragicomedy was mainly to do with Greek Methology. The theatres were called ampitheatre.

The theatre was very large due to the amount of people coming to atttend the perfomance. There was at estimate around 14,000 people in the theatre and was designed to be very large to accomodate on stage and the audience. This building was built to acoustics (how we hear sound) so the perfomers voices could be heared.

The Greeks started to use technology to suit the theatre perfomance , using drop backgrounds to provide actors with costume designs, props and special effects used. Antoher effect is trap doors used to lift the character on stage and wagons to dead characters in the view of the audience. The characters where mainly male and had an avergae of rarely 3 characters. The mostly performed seven roles and masks were mainly large and colourful. The actors wore padded clothes and shoes to make them appear bigger to the audience.

The theatre contuined through the years and has successfully manage to change through out the years.

Musical Time Line Through out the Years & Collage

This collage was based on different Musicals throughout the years and how they have changed by targeting audiences through the use of musical posters.

TO VIEW THIS COLLAGE FULL SCREEN CLICK ON THE PICTURE

Musicals Throughout the Years

For this musical timeline it clearly states diffrent musicals, years, producers and how they begun.

TO VIEW THE TIMELINE FULL SCREEN CLICK ON THE PICUTRE

Review of Dancing in the Streets

On Thursday 24th of September we watched a West End performance Dancing in the Streets as part as our course. The performance was at Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham and it ran for approximately 2 hours. In those two hours we discovered the 60’s soul music and choreography. I will identify costume, sound/music, technology used and special effects.

Dancing in the Streets was set in the city of Detroit USA within that people discovered the era of Soul Music and took us back to the days of the 1960’s. In the set design you discovered to already be a set band of musicians and instruments. There were also pin ups of young black women and men form the 60’s who were looked to be inspired by the music in that time. There was a wide stage also used to dancing and singing, with the use of spotlights targeted on the characters who took the spotlight. The stage was set to look like a professional set. There were microphones and

speakers.

The performers used a simple but amazing choreography which match the use of music they sung. The performers were also mainly young men and women who had different roles. Singing a variety of music from the past the characters were formed from and originally was The Four Tops, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, The Miracles, Diana Ross, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Lionel Richie. All these famous original singers were reformed by the west end theatre actors and actresses.

The costumes were mainly stereotyped as a higher class with the genre of vintage. The women wore dresses which were bedded in jewels and diamond necklaces. The men however wore suits which had a specific colour and pattern. The women were stereotyped to be young and beautiful just like the real singers back in the 1960’s. Dress code was mainly for men, waistcoats and bow ties with or without a top hat.

Motowns greatest hits, they used electric guitars, guitars, drums, trumpets, black soul music and famous and original songs. The music was loud and bold. The technology used was loud speakers and microphones. The lighting was bright and always matched they type of music being played. It was full of joyful celebrations and was original and free living and fun. Smoke filled the stage as the singers revealed themselves, the moment of the performers and the streaming lights matched the motion of the voices.

Dancing in the street had omissions and lack of the development of some greatest personalities in the history of contemporary music, but give a great landscape of what's happening in last 40 years in past since.