Character Back Story

Ursula Scottnitski was born on the 12 December 1904. She was born and raised as a Jew in Lanckorona, Poland (Near Krakow). At the age of 4, her parents (Thaddius and Juliett) gave her violin lessons, however after finishing school she chose to follow a different path. In 1914 she was called to the front line to aid injured soldiers, it was there that she met her husband Joszef. In 1915 they were married and had their first child Anka. Unfortunately at the age of 27 and 3 Joszef and Anka died of spanish influenza in 1918. After this tragedy, she left her nursing career, and threw herself back into her music, the only way she knew how to express herself, and became a highly regarded violin teacher in the community of Lanckorona. After the loss of her child, she relied mainly on her neighbour Hero and over the years became great friends with her family. They were both sent to Auschwitz to work in its Sub-camp, Canada in 1940.

todays lesson

In today's lesson, we blocked our final scene (other than monologues). This was the scene where Joanna threatens Margaret and Ursula into tricking Benedick and Beatrice into falling for each other. Mandi directed the scene exactly how she envisioned it, as she wrote the script. She wanted the scene to climax just before Benedick, Hero and Beatrice exit the scene so that when Joanna points the gun at Ursula and Margaret, there is true reasoning and emotion behind her actions. The scene moves from Joanna making her feelings known to Officer Benedick about his behavior in the camp, to Joanna threatening Ursula and Margaret into doing her dirty work on pain of death. We then went to the costume cupboard to find 1930's costumes for the opening scene. For me, this was really helpful as it made me realise that my character had a life before Auschwitz.

Walk through notes

Striking opening- sets tone well

Need a sparkle between james and elsa- first time theyve met.

Singing-haunting but lovely

Wooden coat hangers needed-make coat characters 3D.

Violin entry needs more defiance.

Tricking scene think about dynamics and the reasoning behind us doing it and the consequences if we dont.

Shoe sorting-already sorting shoes and then audience walk in?

Daisy needs to be more present and observe/see more

James needs to be more truthful when ursula dies because of the loss of music-more humanity needs tl be seen through james and his love of music.

At end-facts needed.

Gassing audience come earlier?

Work on intent and merging shakespeare into our plotline

Emotion recall

We started by getting everyone to lie on the floor imagining being on a beach in the heat of the sun whilst fighting the need to get up to go home. We used this feeling to replicate and understand the feeling of inmates at auschwitz on a daily basis of having to work but fighting their need for rest.

We then moved onto focusing on emotions. Mandi and i asked the group to think of the happiest moment and the senses and feelings associates with it. We then asked them to take this memory and the people in it and imagine them lost. This was to give them an idea of how inmates felt when they were in a foreign environment after losing everything.
The group focused well and allowed themselves to go to another place with their emotions.

Liberation-mandi

Group of people in canada at gate waiting to leave. Franz hands helena a note of his mums address for her to stay at as she has nowhere else to go. But she refused as her dad always said to her that 'i am a jew and i have to remain a jew' Franz then gave all canada workers wooly boots to keep warm to replace their clogs.

James' idea

Liberation to gass chamber to courtroom scene.
Gass chamber-split audience and move to scene dock with smoke machine (gas). Then take a fresh view to the courtroom scene with a spotlight with a noose hanging from the grid into courtroom scene.

Much Ado Plot Synopsis

Leonato, a kindly, respectable nobleman, lives in the idyllic Italian town of Messina. Leonato shares his house with his lovely young daughter, Hero, his playful, clever niece, Beatrice, and his elderly brother, Antonio (who is Beatrice's father). As the play begins, Leonato prepares to welcome some friends home from a war. The friends include Don Pedro, a prince who is a close friend of Leonato, and two fellow soldiers: Claudio, a well-respected young nobleman, and Benedick, a clever man who constantly makes witty jokes, often at the expense of his friends. Don John, Don Pedro’s illegitimate brother, is part of the crowd as well. Don John is sullen and bitter, and makes trouble for the others. When the soldiers arrive at Leonato’s home, Claudio quickly falls in love with Hero. Meanwhile, Benedick and Beatrice resume the war of witty insults that they have carried on with each other in the past. Claudio and Hero pledge their love to one another and decide to be married. To pass the time in the week before the wedding, the lovers and their friends decide to play a game. They want to get Beatrice and Benedick, who are clearly meant for each other, to stop arguing and fall in love. Their tricks prove successful, and Beatrice and Benedick soon fall secretly in love with each other.
But Don John has decided to disrupt everyone’s happiness. He has his companion Borachio make love to Margaret, Hero’s serving woman, at Hero’s window in the darkness of the night, and he brings Don Pedro and Claudio to watch. Believing that he has seen Hero being unfaithful to him, the enraged Claudio humiliates Hero by suddenly accusing her of lechery on the day of their wedding and abandoning her at the altar. Hero’s stricken family members decide to pretend that she died suddenly of shock and grief and to hide her away while they wait for the truth about her innocence to come to light. In the aftermath of the rejection, Benedick and Beatrice finally confess their love to one another. Fortunately, the night watchmen overhear Borachio bragging about his crime. Dogberry and Verges, the heads of the local police, ultimately arrest both Borachio and Conrad, another of Don John’s followers. Everyone learns that Hero is really innocent, and Claudio, who believes she is dead, grieves for her.
Leonato tells Claudio that, as punishment, he wants Claudio to tell everybody in the city how innocent Hero was. He also wants Claudio to marry Leonato’s “niece”—a girl who, he says, looks much like the dead Hero. Claudio goes to church with the others, preparing to marry the mysterious, masked woman he thinks is Hero’s cousin. When Hero reveals herself as the masked woman, Claudio is overwhelmed with joy. Benedick then asks Beatrice if she will marry him, and after some arguing they agree. The joyful lovers all have a merry dance before they celebrate their double wedding.

ALL INFORMATION FROM http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/muchado/summary.html