Lauren-Jodie Wilson

CoLab Reflection:

The CoLab piece I took part in was called ‘Truth of a Leading Lady’, a twenty-minute musical based on
the recent #metoo movement. Its aim was to take well-known family musical numbers such as ‘One’
from ‘A Chorus Line’ and ‘I can’t say no’ from Oklahoma and showing the true explicit content of
their words by performing them in a very literal sense – what the lyrics are saying. This piece
incorporated all three disciplines of musical theatre with a number of solo and ensemble pieces,
movement pieces and a couple of acting pieces which allowed us to really explore such an important
issue. There were 21 students in this project, 20 Musical theatre students across the Foundation, first
and second year, as well as one Classical Singer. This allowed me to really learn more about my fellow
students in other year groups and gave me the opportunity to learn from others I wouldn’t usually
have class with. The leader of this project was Ahmet Ahmet, but was directed and choreographed
by two second year Musical Theatre students – Sarah Dare and Evan Blanque. This was a special
opportunity to really bring to life two other students’ visions and work closely with new people.

On the very first session, we sat in a circle and all shared our knowledge about the #metoo
movement and why it was started. This also allowed us to open up and share stories about our
sexual harassment stories which was quite moving, but really set the mood for the type of project we
were doing. I found this quite moving, how each person in the room has experienced something, but
it also brought together a real feel of unity – that none of us are alone. We all sat in a circle and had
to think of a Hollywood actress, or West End/Broadway performer that we connect with that could
have or has experienced sexual harassment. We also brainstormed a number of Musical numbers
that are well-known but sexualise women/men in the lyrics. This really opened up my eyes to the
amount of sexualisation of women in the industry in shows such as; Oklahoma, 9 to 5, and Chess.

After we had established a running order, we started working on the casting of the solos and pieces.
It was quite a challenge to put myself forward for a singing solo as my confidence is not high,
however I decided to challenge myself and put myself forward for a solo singing part in the song
‘Someone Else’s Story’. This is the song that I put forward in the brainstorming process, which made
me feel as though I played a strong part in helping put this performance together. This allowed me to
contribute my singing and performing skills to the piece, as well as improving my confidence with
performing and challenge myself by singing songs out of my usual comfort zone. This has allowed me
to progress further in my training and taught me that its ok to challenge myself even when I don’t
feel comfortable. It also permitted me to feel a lot more confident with dance and movement as we
all were able to input our own ideas and movements which was wonderful to be a part of and
encouraged me to put myself in all of the dance numbers – which I’d usually shy away from.

Across the following days we were choreographing both positive and negative movements to
speeches by Emma Thompson and Emma Watson. It became very evident that our choreographer
was struggling with ideas and needed our input. This allowed a number of individuals of the group to
help create a really strong movement piece and encouraged us to really work well as a group.
However, there were some very strong personalities and it did create a bit of a hostile environment
when one particular member decided to try and take control of the piece and became rather
insulting. This, however, was very good practice for the industry as not everyone you end up working
with is the nicest, and you have to be able to find a way to work with them. This was a particular
struggle for me, as I do not thrive in negative environments. However, I pushed through and we
really came together as a group and both the Director and Choreographer both ended up taking back
control of their project.

The final production was an interesting experience. It was very clear that our project was rehearsed
and laid out in a ‘stage show’ format, where Blackheath Halls Great Hall was set up in a ‘Showcase’
format. There wasn’t very clear communication from the tech team to us, so we felt very rushed in
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our tech and didn’t get to sound check any of our songs through the mics as we spend most of the
time re-staging. I feel in order to be more efficient, we should have ran the songs during the tech slot
and figured out the staging in the rehearsal space afterwards. The actual performance went well on
our part, with a few technical hitches. Personally, I felt my performance was one of the best I’ve
done. It was clear to me that the training I have received in the previous month has already set me
up to be a competent performer and made me excited for the years to come. I sang a song that was
well out of my comfort zone well and I felt very proud of myself and everyone else around me. I felt
as though our piece was well thought-out and hard hitting with the time limit we were given.

If I was going to so this project again, I would ensure to have a strong plan or ‘storyline’ of what I
wanted in the show. Although, I don’t think that I would do much else different it was a strong piece
and allowed different people from different backgrounds to come together to create a hard-hitting
piece. The feedback we received on our project was so uplifting, and it also allowed us all to go
through a personal discovery together and open our eyes to the industry around us. I learnt to
become more forthcoming with both my ideas and talents, to open up more and to listen to others
without a fear of things going wrong. I am very excited to participate in CoLab next year, and to keep
all I’ve learnt in mind when choosing my next project.

CoLab Working Journal

Day 1:
Lauren-Jodie Wilson

On the first day of our project, we were introduced to the project leader – Ahmet Ahmet
who explained what our CoLab project was going to be about. We sat in a circle and
discussed the #MeToo movement which was started last year after Harvey Weinstein was
publicly accused of sexual abuse of ladies of his films. We sat down in a circle and discussed
which stories we knew and understood the stories of and had to think of a leading lady
ourselves that we would want to portray. This could be both in TV and Stage. We were then
introduced to our CoLabs choreographer – Sarah Dare who is a second year MT student and
told about our Director – Evan Blanque who was also a second year MT student. We
brainstormed some song suggestions which had a very obvious sexual theme towards
women or about women sticking up for themselves. For example; get out and stay out from
9 to 5, One from A Chorus Line, Someone Else’s Story from Chess and I can’t say no from
Oklahoma. Elsa, a participant on our colab who was a 2nd year MT, suggested we used the
Emma Thompson Harvey Weinstein Speech over music with ‘negative movement’ and then
using the Emma Watson ‘If not me, when?’ speech over music with ‘positive movement’. We
then workshopped and figured out some movements for the positive and negative as well as
came up with a running order of songs for the show. I was pretty happy as my suggestion of
“Someone Else’s Story’ from Chess made the cut!

Day 2:
On the second day we came in and started the day with a full warm up and work out to bring
us all together. We then went straight into doing the positive and negative movement, so we
didn’t forget it! We then began staging the first number – ‘One’ from A Chorus line. We all
had to think about a actors’ headshot we wanted to use for it, someone re related to or
looked up to that could have experienced sexual harassment at one point in their career. I
chose Emilia Clarke – and actress I look up to for both her views and how she has dealt with
poor health the past few years. We also choreographed ‘I can’t say no’ – another dance
number featuring a few girls who were chosen to dance. I was happy that I was chosen for
this as dance isn’t my strong point, but I wanted to challenge myself. After lunch, we learnt
and ran through the harmonies of You will Be Found and Someone Else’s Story which
included the full company.

Day 3:
This day we did the first full run of the show. We established a running order and discussed
that we were all to wear dark colours and something that isn’t too revealing as that would
completely change the message we are trying to portray. We started the day with a full
warm up and cardio workout and then ran the show 3 times. We then fine-tuned all the
dance and movement numbers and went over the harmonies for the final song – ‘You Will
Be Found’ which was very emotional! WE also managed to block and run the acting scenes
we incorporated into the show. One of them being from Legally Blonde the Musical where
Elle’s boss hits on her.

Day 4:
This was our final day of CoLab as this was our performance day at Blackheath Halls in their
Great Hall. We had a 15 minute slot for tech which wasn’t utilised properly, Sarah was so
focused on staging that we didn’t get to rehearse any singing into the mics so the sound
wasn’t mixed and picked up properly during the performance. Our set also didn’t fit with the
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staging so we had to change it last minute which made it very stressful. Apart from the
sound issues, the show was fun to take part in and we had good audience reactions to our
message.