Murder, Greed, Corruption, Exploitation, Adultery and Treachery. The roaring 1920s/1930's was a time of glitz, glamour, and all that Jazz. An era in which many famous musicals such as Chicago, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, or Bugsy Malone were set. The 1920s/30s was a time of flappers, crime, illegal smuggling of drugs, the birth of the silver screen, flagpole sitting, the Great Depression, gangsters, the Charleston, and again, most importantly, all that jazz.
The musical that we are doing for Passion Projects this year is Bugsy Malone. Bugsy Malone is a 1976 musical gangster film, written and directed by Alan Parker. This movie musical tells the story of Bugsy Malone, and the battle of power between rival gang leaders, Fam Sam Stacetto and Dandy Dan. Set in the late 1920s/early1930s, this movie stars an all children cast, including actors such as Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, John Cassisi and Martin Lev. The glamorous cast include, our main character Bugsy Malone, the hero of the story, Blousey Brown, a force to be reckoned with, Fat Sam Stacetto, worst of the bad guys, Tallulah, the classic showgirl/gangsters moll, Dandy Dan, the rival gang leader and businessman, and a whole lot of others. Instead of real guns being used in the film, there are splurge guns that shoot our whipped cream and creampies instead of bullets as well! I really enjoyed watching the film and stage production of Bugsy Malone, it really does show that being a gangster is a childish act and that you can end up with cream on your face!
This week, the musical theatre crew for this year have started working on this year's production. The teachers that are working with us this year are Mrs Beer, Miss Richardson (Mrs Handley), Mrs Clark, Mr Taylor, and finally Miss Jordan. All of these teachers have had numerous years of experience and we have so much to learn from each and every one of them. I am familiar with all of the teachers except Miss Jordan who is our great lighting/stage technician but soon enough I will be familiar with her too!
Monday the 12th of November 2018
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| Here is me as Scar last year |
Our first musical theatre session! Every Monday, we have three periods of classes dedicated to our passion projects. Since some people weren't very familiar with the musical Bugsy Malone, the teachers decided to show us the stage production. Since our show is going to be more like the stage production, we weren't shown the movie. While watching the stage production, we were encouraged to take some notes of characters we wanted to play in the show etc. Being quite familiar with the musical, I knew exactly who I wanted to play... FAT SAM STACETTO. If you checked out my blog posts from last year, you will know that I played Scar last year in our production in the Lion King. The characters that I like to play are the evil characters or the "villains". There is something so amazing about playing evil characters that I can't describe! I love being intimidating.
After watching the stage production, Miss Richardson (or Mrs Handley) took us outside to teach us a warm-up routine that we would be doing every session. The warm-up is to the song
"Covergirl" by my favourite drag star RuPaul. Being in Miss Richardson's music class came in handy that session because we already learned it during some of the lessons we had! That dance routine requires sass and multitasking. Here is a short video of our crew doing it. By doing this routine at the start of our sessions, we are warmed up to do any further dancing throughout the sessions.
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| Heres our gorgeous crew! |
Shorty after dancing, we had a read through of the script. While doing the read through, I was reading the role of Bronx Charlie, one of Dandy Dans gang members. While doing this, Mrs Beer and Miss Richardson were holding singing auditions for singing characters. Although I didn't sign up for a singing character, Mrs Beer and Miss Richardson wanted me to audition anyway so that I might have the chance to have a singing part if I got a named character. The song that I sang was
"Roxie" from another musical set in the 1920's called Chicago. Soon it was the end of the day. When I got home, I immediately started to watch the movie so I could further my understanding of the plot and characters.
Thursday the 15th November 2018
Our second session of Musical Theatre was jam-packed! On Thursdays, we have the whole day to work on our passion projects. The start of our lesson was extremely fun! When we arrived in the whare, our new station for the day, we saw Miss Richardson, working hard already, dancing her heart out. Meagan, Molly and I started to join in. Covergirl is a very iconic song in our friend group, so we were all singing our lungs out! After we danced to Covergirl, we started to dance to our newly learned dance to "
Five More Hours" by Chris Brown. What an energetic dance with even more energetic dance moves! Soon after we were all warmed up. Mrs Beer was announcing all of the cast members roles. I was so excited to learn who my role was. Soon enough, I was told that my role was FAT SAM STACETTO! I was so happy, I got the character that I wanted. I was so excited to learn that most of my friends got the roles that they wanted as well!
Soon after we were told our roles, we had a full readthrough as our characters. I read all my lines the best that I could. There was one line that I particularly love, it is
"(Shouting) THEN STAND AGAINST THE WALL, PORRIDGE BRAIN. RITZY, HAND ME A PIE". The reason I love this line is that I get to yell at whoever is Louis. In this particular scene, Fat Sam is starting to get angry at his gang because they keep on getting outsmarted by Dandy Dan's gang. During this readthrough, everyone became more comfortable with their roles.
The readthrough continued to period 2. Straight after Interval, we started to work on our blogging. The teachers then showed some examples of good blogging, and one of my previous posts from last year was on there. Shortly after that, we were shown our blogging tasks that we had to do. Then the musical theatre gang was soon split up into groups so we were able to do different workshops. Most of the named characters went to an accent workshop with Mr Taylor, a self-taught vocalist. Since our Musical is set in New York, it would make sense for most of the characters to have a New York accent. We began the workshop with slowly learning about how the New Yorkans drop their R's and have a very distinct accent. Soon as we started to grow a little more confident in our new accents we had a short readthrough so everyone had the chance to practice our accents. Soon after that, we tried to have conversations in our accents. It was really strange, but we managed to develop them to somewhat sound like a person from New York.
After lunch, it was time to work on the first big ensemble number; Fat Sams Grand Slam! This song is about Fat Sams place; the liveliest joint in town! We spent the last period of the day working on learning the lyrics (not that I needed to) and keeping in tune. We didn't do too bad for a group of people that are just getting to know the song and the lyrics!
My Character Profile!
Full name: Sam Stacetto
Age: He is a tween in the movie, but in our production, I think he will be a little older than that. Age range around 20-22
Most Common Emotion: Fat Sams most common emotion is anger. But with the group of people that are in his gang, can you blame him?
Physical Characteristics: The Fat Sam that I am going to portray has quite an intimidating gait. When he walks, everyone is silent. His gait is slow, allowing everyone to absorb his essence. While talking to someone, he makes numerous hand gestures and points his fingers at anyone to make sure that they are listening. Fat Sam stands tall and has a booming voice that everyone listens to.
Fears: As seen as quite obvious in the film, Fat Sam fears that Dandy Dan will take everything he has.
Early life: Sam was brought up as one of the down and outs, he spent most of his young life alone. Born in the Bronx, Fat Sam never knew his parents, hence is tough exterior, but he truly has a heart and feelings. The leader of his gang, Fat Sam built himself from nothing.
Important relationships within the cast: One of Sams important relationships is with Tallulah, his girlfriend if you will. During the musical, Fat Sams shows a relationship with Bugsy Malone. Bugsy ends up working for Fat Sam during the show and their friendship grows stronger as the musical goes on.
An inspiration for the character: Miranda Priestly from the Devil Wears Prada could be seen as an inspiration for my take on Fat Sam. She is a force to be reckoned with and can be very intimidating. That is kind of what I am going for with my fat Sam Character. Another person that could inspire my Fat Sam character is the notorious Crime Boss Al Capone. The only reason I say that is because he kind of looks like what I would imagine Fat Sam to look like!
Bimbo: Macho man.
The buildings of the 1920s were quite dull, to say the least. But they have quite a resemblance to modern time apartments in cities like New York. Skyscrapers and tall buildings were also quite common.
The 1920s were an iconic time for fashion and makeup. As I mentioned in my other musical theatre post, flappers were an icon at that time. What are flappers you ask, flappers were the generation of women who wore short skirts, had bobs for their hairstyle, listened to Jazz, and were very rebellious. Flappers were a staple at the time. Men wore what we consider "formal" clothes most of the time. Suits and ties were very common. Neutral colours were worn by both men and women, most women wore very bright colours than dull, men often wore these dark or neutral colours. Makeup in the 1920s was heavily inspired by the makeup worn in the 1910s. Lipsticks, eyeshadows, and mascara were the most common. The faces of women in the 1920s were desired to look artificial. The eyes most commonly wore dark eyeshadows especially common in flappers. Eyebrows were mostly plucked really thin, giving a doll-like appearance. It was a popular trend of the 1920s to have lips that appeared small, women would use a lip liner to draw lips inside of their lip line and drawn to fit the cupids bow shape. Mascara was especially popular in the 20s because who can resist making their lashes appear longer and fuller, this was common in the blond woman due to their lashes being lighter than people with a darker hair shade. Rounded faces were desired, so women used rouge in circular motions to gain this shape. Nails were also manicured.
Jazz was a massive part of the 1920s, the radio became the first mass broadcasting system. But the 1920s was a monumental moment in time for the silver screen. The silver screen was born at this time, with the first release of films with sound.
Murder, Greed, Corruption, Exploitation, Adultery and Treachery. The roaring 1920s/1930's was a time of glitz, glamour, and all that Jazz. An era in which many famous musicals such as Chicago, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, or Bugsy Malone were set. The 1920s/30s was a time of flappers, crime, illegal smuggling of drugs, the birth of the silver screen, flagpole sitting, the Great Depression, gangsters, the Charleston, and again, most importantly, all that jazz.
