I was very nervous, I was scared that I would start coughing badly on stage, or feel like I need to be sick while I was on stage, so I was worrying myself a lot. I had a lot of reassurance and had medication to take throughout the day.
As always we did a vocal warm up, by simple stretches and tongue twisters such as 'unique New York, New York Unique' , and 'Red lorry, Yellow lorry'. We also did small rhymes such as Ba Ba Black Sheep, and Jack and Jill and 1,121.
We had a small audience on our first show but we did not let that stop us, I was so incredibly nervous when I first walked on stage but I kept going! On our first show we had pictures taken of us during the performance.
Seeing the pictures was so great as we got too see our reactions and what it looks like on stage, helping to show us our spacial awareness and how we move on stage and react.
There were certain scenes I was afraid to do as it was the real performance such as my cave scene as I had struggled with that scene so much, I was really nervous to do it but I gave it my all and I really think I pulled it off!
Seeing this picture really helped me boost myself as I saw what I actually looked like during the cave scene as I haven't before.
The next day for our matinee we had 'Challney Girls School' this performance was a massive challenge for me as the audience was very big which I didn't have a problem with, but they was very loud, which was very helpful with the reactions but was also a big shock for me and the rest of the cast, I always find I struggle performing to children especially. And that evening was the night we had 'Barbara Windsor' (Peggy Mitchell) come too see our show, this was our best show so far as we got a standing ovation and had such a good audience. This was also the night when all my family and friends came, and was also the show when I felt the most sick. Before the show I was actually sick, this immediately worried me and made me think I would not pull off this performance, I did the absolute best I could, I was really chuffed until during a scene I started coughing on stage and could not stop, I started panicking but I had to continue and had to handle this in a professional manner. After the scene I had to run off and be sick, I got really sad and doubted myself as there was still scenes left, but I knew the show had to carry on so I continued the show as I knew I had too, I had so much support which made me buzz even more to make that show finish and do myself proud. We got a standing ovation that night and got such a good audience reaction which really buzzed us all and made us even more proud of ourselves!
The more and more times we performed the shows, the better it got! I had more confidence and had more of an idea of when the audience would react and felt more relaxed in certain scenes such as the cave scene, and the song 'Happy', which was really good for me.
On Thursday was our last show day. We had Da Vinci see our matinee, which was also the show that got filmed...I had never been filmed whilst performing before so this was also a new experience, The Da Vinci audience gave good reactions and was very loud but sometimes I think we got shocked by the amount of people there was and the amount of reactions we got. Then after that it was time for our very last show, I really did not want this show to end but all shows must come to an end, I still felt sick but I knew I was capable to carry on. I must say EVERYBODY gave so much effort and I am so proud to work with the cast I had, my director, the production team, and the stage crew. I had so much fun on the last show and was really sad when it ended but this last show went so well as so much effort was put in, the audience was incredible, we had so many reactions and such good audience participation and made everyone push themselves. I felt so good doing the last show, I reminded myself how far I had come and how much I have learnt, through all them tough rehearsals to performing all six shows and being so proud of myself in the end. I had really hoped I wasn't poorly for the shows as I felt I could have pulled them off so much better, but everyone was so supportive and I felt I had done a good performance.
Overall I do think I still struggled in the scenes with the princess, I found it hard to over exaggerate my excitement to see her or to not come across so serious and naturalistic in the love scenes. I do feel I got better the more and more I did them but I still felt like I could have done better.
But I do feel that my relationship with Abanazar (Saskia) was really strong and good throughout the show, I also felt my relationship with the Dame (Jovan) was really good and strong too as I felt that our scenes got better and we all worked well.
Overall if we was to put this into a professional situation, we would need so much more rehearsal time, read throughs and especially focusing on certain scenes that need a lot of work. This would help everyone being confident with everything that they are doing and help me and other people with there lines, and make people aware that they are adlibbing and make scenes one hundred times stronger. Throughout the show the main weaknesses were some events of adlibbing and articulation. I noticed that sometimes we let the audience affect our performances, at least I did and this is because when you have different audiences, you may feel they are really good and supportive towards the show or you have audiences that can be the complete opposite which can sometimes throw actors/actresses. Sometimes volume was a struggle throughout the rehearsal process but I do believe it became stronger the more and more we performed the pantomime. Obviously we did have strengths as well, which was the energy that everybody had, as we made every show exciting besides the fact of being tired. We had loads of motivation in every performance and rehearsal, and everyone was always willing to do better and improve their characters constantly after being given feedback. We really let all our efforts shine through in the performances and put all our hard work on stage. The volume off everyone improved so much when performing, especially with projection. In rehearsals we had this constant problem with nobody going to stage right, and that improved when we performed the shows as well. We never had a problem with missing props. And the show really came together considering we had doubts for a long time.
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