Week Five

Monday 12th October
In today's double lesson we pushed on and developed the first flashback. Before doing this we sat down and worked out the motives of each character as to why they would want to kill Alice

Elizabeth (Queen of Hearts): Mad at how she has treated Charlie and wants revenge for her.
Charlie (Cheshire Cat): Mad at how she has been treated by Alice and sees red and accidentally kills her.
Jason (Mad Hatter): Fed up of Alice constantly following him around and he kills her to prevent her from doing this any longer
Michael (White Rabbit): Doesn't want to be Alice's babysitter any longer and when she makes him leave he accidentally kills her.

The most obvious in my eyes are Elizabeth and Charlie, one who hates Alice and one that is the wronged best friend. If I were the audience then I would feel that these two are the most obvious and it would surprise me if it were the other two as I felt like this I talked to my peers and they agreed with me. After talking about this a bit longer, we came up with the idea that Alice had killed herself accidentally, perhaps she had been running away from the party, hit her head and fell and died. This was based upon An Inspector Calls, where no one directly kills the deceased but they play a part in the events leading up to her death. We liked this idea as it wasn't obvious and it would surprise the audience when they watched it. We also thought that Michael would have a crush on Alice which is why he wants to be near her.

We then went on to work on the first flashback. What we came up with was that Alice arrived at the party with Michael, much to her annoyance, and quickly left him. She then begrudgingly goes over to talk to Charlie. During their conversation, Alice makes a sly remark about Charlie's dress, which she fails to see. She then has to go to Michael during this time Elizabeth and Charlie fight. Alice then goes over to flirt with Jason, who she fancies but their conversation is disrupted by Charlie who learns Alice dislikes her. The two argue and before Charlie leaves she says 'I wonder why Michael even likes you.'

Today's lesson was really productive as we managed to get a lot done.

Wednesday 14th October
In our single lesson today, we briefly had a run through of what we had so far. We then went onto perform the whole thing we had got so far to an audience. This went really well as they mostly understood what was going on, which was really pleasing. They gave us feedback and told us what they enjoyed. Rosie told me I had to loosen up and not look so nervous when I am getting picked up, which is something I knew I needed to work on. We also considered changing Charlie's character inspiration to doormouse because the Cheshire Cat does not reflect the character as we think the character of Charlie should be shy and timid the opposite of Alice.The feedback was really positive and gave us a lot to improve and consider when we next rehearse.

Alice trying to fight off a pack of cards

Week Four

Monday 5th October
We only had one rehearsal this week, which limited what we were actually able to do. Firstly now we had more space we went through the opening scene which resents Alice falling down the Rabbit Hole. This was the first time we had done it with music with Jack and it went really well. As Jack is the same height as me, Katie and Morgan it made the lift easier as he was able to support my waist while Katie and Morgan had my arms, we also slotted Jack into other parts of the opening sequence and made it better. We then worked on the scene where the four suspects are being integrated, as a script had been produced since our last rehearsal. It worked really well and we developed the characters and learnt more about how they felt about Alice. Having a script made it easier for us and Jake as he could start planning the lighting to go along with what the character says or does.

Alice and the Queen of Hearts from the Disney cartoon adaptation

Week Three

Monday 28th September
In our double lesson today, firstly we did some exercises to warm up. Then we continued working on the opening scene to our play. We continued with what we had done before which involved Alice being pulled all over the place to symbolise her falling down the rabbit hole. Then we tried it with me being picked up by Emily and Morgan and carried forward. We tried different ways of me being picked up and saw what was best. Due to the height difference, we thought it would be best if Katie replaced Emily in picking me up and Emily or Jack supported my back. I was scared at first because I was quite far off the ground but as we practised I learnt to become more tense which made it easier and safer to be picked up. After we had finished the opening scene, we all wrote about our characters so it would become easier to play them. After we had done all this, we used the technique 'hot eating' to tell the others about the characters.

What we learnt:

• The Queen of Hearts hated Alice because she had stole her best friend (Cheshire Cat) from her.
• Alice thought the Mad Hatter was her best friend but in actual fact he doesn't view her as that.
• All the characters are between the ages of 16-18
• Alice doesn't really like the Cheshire Cat as she finds her clingy.

Wednesday 30th September
In today's lesson, we briefly showed Jack the opening scene and then moved on to the next scene where they are being interrogated after Alice has disappeared. As Jack wasn't here on Monday, we learnt more about the White Rabbit. He was sent to the party to guard Alice and is a close family friend. The questions mainly involved asking them 'Who they were? What they did last night? and How they knew Alice?' We voice recorded ourselves saying this so Emily can write it up as a script. This was as far as we got and in our next lesson we plan to further develop this and begin to work on the first flashback at the party.

At the Mad Hatter's tea party from the adaptation staring Johnny Deep