My Costume

I love the dress I get to wear for the opening and closing numbers. I thought I would have to be a soldier the whole play, and that was ok but I really wanted to be a girl for a second at least and I do!!!! Getting a costume makes everything feel that much more real and that much more serious. It really sinks in that we have an audience pretty soon and that things need to be perfected soon. My soldier costume compared to my character collage fits and at the same time does not. So far we only have the pants, so we don't look very tough like I thought my character would want to be. We do look more unified and team like though.

theatrical makeup

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/9560/patterns.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xChjhXii8k&feature=related
The first link is to a website where a woman explains how she does makeup for the play CATS, the second one is a video of a girl doing her makeup to be one of the cats. The video is super sickgodly, this girl is amazing! it made me think of mulan with the white base that looks like chinese makeup. i was very impressed with the amount of effort the makeup must have taken and it really transformed the character.

Our Show

We haven't seen all of the tech in our show, like the pyrotechnics or all of the lighting, but so far everything I've seen was pretty cool. The backdrop with the flowers helps set the scenes at Mulan's house. In STOMP!, lighting played a large part in the show although I did not think to note it at the time. The show would single in on one person and would create larger circles of light when there were more people. It hel[p set a tone to match with the music.

Peter Pan

I was kind of shocked by the play, it followed the book very well, but it did not really follow the Disney movie. There was a lot of technology used in this play, most obviously the flying system used for Peter, Wendy, John, and Micheal. I was disappointed that that the flying was only side to side, I thought it would be different. The lighting in Peter Pan was crucial for many reasons. The character Tinkerbell was entirely represented by light.

Lighting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_lighting
To me, lighting is the most important technical facet of a production. Without it, we would be singing and acting in the dark. Lighting does a lot to contribute to a play, but I never knew that it could actually impact the audiences perception of what was going on. Say there was a scene that involved a fight; if its in soft lighting, it may seem out of place or weird. If there is a red light or a bit harsher lighting, the scene will appear more cohesive.

Tech Day

I loved set construction today. I tried to lift heavy stuff, but I'm not very strong so Andrew helped me a lot, thank you! It was really neat to see how the ropes work because I never really understood what was going on up there.... I always feared something falling on my head. I think the set will add another dimension to Mulan. Without a set, the play wouldn't be a play so much as just us on a stage acting, dancing, and singing. With the set we have a purpose and more obvious ideas.

STOMP!

I really enjoyed STOMP, it was awesome. I thought it was very interesting to see how they took common household objects, make noise with them, and turn that noise into music. Meeting the cast afterward was a good opportunity to learn how about improvisation, no show is ever the exact same because characters are always a little different. I think that some aspects could relate to Mulan, like always stay in character and don't be afraid to go outside of your comfort zone. The cast also discussed auditions, which we had mentioned as an area of interest.