Evaluation

From the moment that we all found out we were doing All That Jazz, we were ecstatic. I was because I really liked both the musical and the film adaptation. Preparations began the week following our Christmas break up. Of course we had to audition for the parts we wanted and do we had to prepare a monologue that would fit our desired character and two contrasting songs. I aspired to be Roxie and so I thought I'd use the Roxie monologue for my audition piece. She does this monologue just after news breaks out about her and before her song, she speaks of her new found fame and what else could happen as a result. The song I chose was again one that the character of Roxie sings that follows right after the monologue and I can hear the bells from Hairspray. All that was left to do was learn each of these pieces, work on my characterisation so that I could do well in the audition. I was very happy with my audition as I feel that I had a lot of confidence compared to previous auditions, felt much more prepared and felt that I had good characterisation.

After a nervous weeks wait, we found out who got which character, I was so happy to find out that my hard work had paid off and I'd been given Roxie. I was also pleased to hear that who would play my rival in the musical was Decoda. Now that I knew who I was I then had to further explore my character and develop on what I had already done in order to progress and be stronger. I done this by looking at different ways in which different people had played Roxie, their body language, use of voice (tone and volume).

The process was quite slow at first and their were moments when things didn't always go well, we began to wonder if we'd be able to pull it off, if we'd even do the show. However we all managed to pull together as a company and rise to any challenges. The way in which we were all able to set aside any differences or conflict and help each other as well as ourselves was phenominal it really showed the strength as a team. Everything pulled together at the last minute and although it's probably not the best way and we probably should have started sooner it all worked out in the end. I would take pictures and record videos of the rehearsal process and looking back at them, I can see just how much we've improved with or characterisation, voice and body language.

Once we began to work in the theatre, see the stage and get our costumes, work with the lighting and the sound, everything came to light and it began to feel like a real show and all of us could now see that it was going to work, I think this gave us all an extra push and helped us to perform even better. Rehearsals got better and more work was done.

It's highly unfortunate that after all the hard work I had put in I wasn't able to actually do the performance, I was really beginning to believe myself to be my character as I got to into it but I'm so proud of the girls for continuing and being able to pull of a great performance despite myself not being there. They really put aside their differences and worked exceptionally well to pull off last minute changes. I'm proud of Decoda for being able to sing My Own Best Friend without me as we leaned on each other to sing that song so for her to do it without me was really good. Jamilla done well for being able to learn the lines so quickly but overall all the girls were amazing and together with the costumes, lighting, staging, and music it made a really good show. Both the scenes and the songs went well, some songs could have possibly been louder and the dialogue could have been slightly slower which is something that had always been a slight issue but still managed to work.

Overall the set and the lighting together looked amazing I really loved the jail lighting as it gave a real feel that you were in a cell. The costumes were quite simple and yet effective because the whole cast wore the same thing for the dance numbers it presented a sense of unity and it looked great in the light. All the elements like the staging in the round, the lights, the costumes, it really brought across the whole look of Chicago. If the opportunity arose to be able to do it again then we'd just need to work on the spacing of the chairs, and the speed of the dialogue alone with the volume of the songs.