We then stood in a circle and were given a piece of paper each with a random line on it. We then had to walk to a random person in the circle and say the line, to which they improvise an answer or reaction and we improvise another line to finish and then swap. I found this challenging because it meant that we had to think quickly and it helped me to develop my improvisation skills as well as devising.
After the improvisation warm up, we discussed and contributed single words on what we thought makes a good ensemble. For example I felt that understanding is an important aspect of a good ensemble because if the cast understand each other and strengths and weaknesses, then we can help and support each other. Below is a picture of all the words we thought of:
I found it interesting that some words contributed are aspects to the ensembles performance, for example punctuation and diction, which would mean a good ensemble would pronounce the words in songs to make them clear towards the audience, which I think could make a good ensemble in a performance sense, however I feel as though an ensemble should be more about the effort and the focus and team work that goes into both rehearsals, and shows so that we can work together.
After having this discussion we realised as a group that all the words on the board link to team work, and that an ensemble couldn't be classed as 'good' if there wasn't any teamwork. I agree with this because the definition of an ensemble is a group performance or a group song, therefore the word 'group' immediately means having to work and communicate well with each other to make the performance effective.
I think that if I eliminated support, tolerance, and commitment then this would completely change what the ensemble looks like both in rehearsals and in a performance. This is because having no support in a group would mean that no one would want to help one another and this could effect the overall performance because some people might not understand something, or there may be personal problems and issues between different people in the ensemble which could effect the performance. I think that support also links with tolerance, and if people in the ensemble are not being tolerant with each other then this could lead to issues such as negativity which puts a negative effect on the overall group performance. Finally, I think that commitment is a very important aspect to an ensemble because everyone needs to put in the same amount of effort and work hard to make the ensemble sound the best that it can. I feel that if you took commitment out of a ensemble then you would be left with a bad group performance because no one would be trying hard enough or working together, and I think that commitment holds everything together, similar to team work, and team work is the main part of an ensemble as I have previously mentioned.
Overall I found this lesson useful because firstly it allowed me to work on one of my weaknesses which is improvisation, and I feel as though my improv went well because I was able to think of characters and what they were going to say and react to different things happening around them quickly. I do think however that I could improve my improvisation skills by trying to work on more serious characters, for example I feel as though I always steer towards comedy because its a strength of mine, however I think that if I work on improvising around more serious or toned down characters, this can help me improve my acting characterisation in general, because it could widen my knowledge and skills on how to play different characters instead of just comedy.
I also found the discussion about team work useful because our upcoming musical We Will Rock You revolves a lot around ensemble numbers, and there aren't many songs that don't involve ensemble, even if they are just in the background and therefore it has prepared me to work in a large group and use these team work skills to help others and work as a team with them to make an effective and successful performance.
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