Our days began with hair and makeup. The makeup needed for Panto is quite specific, rosy red cheeks and red lips are compulsory. In all pantomimes the majority of characters are cheerful and jolly and so the bright pink cheeks emphasise the mood of the people in “Pantoland”, in our case it was the happy people of Merrivale. For any show make up is generally “over-the-top” to ensure that the cast do not look pale and washed-out on stage.
Facial expressions are a huge element in pantomimes and so it is important that our faces are clearly on display. This meant all hair was tied back and fringes were brushed off faces to allow the audience to see our cheesy grins and huge facial expressions.
After we were made up we would get changed into costumes. I would use this time to lay out my fairy costume and double check that all my props were set in their correct places. It was drilled into us during rehearsals to reset all props after each run, but I made a habit of checking my props once I was ready to ensure that nothing had been moved by accident.
Once everyone had been blushered and the Dames had their heels on we would all meet on stage to go through a warm up prior to getting into our positions for when the doors opened. A pre-show warm up is crucial to ensuring that we could go on stage each performance and give a high-energy performance.
The warm up would start with exercises that warm up our facial muscles. The chewing exercise gets us to stretch and scrunch up our faces and is helpful in practising on opening our mouths wider when singing. We also do tongue muscles, by stretching it out to the sides and up and down and this is also to help when we are speaking and singing. This helps us to speak with clear diction so no words get lost.
We then move onto vocal exercises to warm up our vocal muscles. One I used just before going on stage is humming a note and then opening the mouth and singing a note. This exercise warms up the larynx and works on projection. This exercise helps to use the diaphragm to create noise rather than putting stress on the vocal chords. The idea is to create a louder noise by pushing out the stomach and opening the mouth, rather than going up in pitch as a way to create volume. This exercise helped me get more use out of my diaphragm as in previous practise I found myself putting stress on my larynx.
Other exercises we did were tongue twisters such as “Unique New York”and “Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry”, and singing songs: “Swing Low” and “Row row row your boat”. By doing these exercises it helped us warm up our voices before going on stage and singing. We would sing the songs softly to protect our voices but would engage our diaphragms to practise our projection.
Once we were fully warmed up we would be sprayed with glitter and do last minute prop and costume checks before taking our places for when the doors opened.
Just before going on stage I would do humming exercises to help release any tension from throat that I hadn't released during our group warm up. I found that doing sirens were particularly useful as I found it was most effective in releasing tension.http://www.howcast.com/videos/510045-How-to-Release-Tension-from-Your-Throat-Singing-Lessons
Ruth and I made up and dressed, ready for our final show.
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