Conventions of Musical theatre

 Rock of ages is a 2005 Juke-Box musical that is composed off a range of 80's hair metal, this being the shows selling point. The show itself musically is quite unique due to its Rock style. The musical featured Power Ballads, Every Rose + I wanna know what love is, and songs that challenged the vocalists through vocal harshest like falsetto and head/chest voice. One this that this musical did quite uniquely was the way that both the male and female singers had their songs set in quite a higher vocal range, meaning that casting the roles required the singers to be able to adapt to the vocal qualities of this musical. Along with this, unlike any musical, Rock of Ages is a mainly soloisitic show with little to few harmonies and group songs, which meant that vocally the ensemble did not have as much vocal opportunities during the show unlike other musicals. To fit with the overall style of Rock, This challenged me and others to make sure that we were accommodating vocally for this, this was through projecting our vocals and having more of an aggressive feel to our vocals. However the music itself played by the band was quite contrasting to this as it being a lower tempo featuring loud drums + heavy guitars. 

When it comes to the more physical side of the musical, It was not a heavy dance based show, but more of an acting heavy show. This meant that the little amount of dance/ movement we had in the show acted as a way to make the performance look more visually entertaining. For the dance style used in the show it was Musical theatre dance mixed with a little bit of commercial Jazz. For us as performers this involved us telling the story through out movements during the show to allow us as a chorus to add more visual performance value to the songs and numbers in the show.

When it comes to the acting aspects of Rock of Ages it was a very over the top musical were movements and acting was made bigger than life to add a feel of comedy to the show. The show itself featured a range of stereotypes when it came to the characters. For example this can be seen in the character Sherrie, as she plays the more blonde stereotype for the show, and Dennis plays the stereotypical drunk druggie rock bar owner seen in the 80's. Going back to the acting itself being over the top, there was a lot of times were the show felt non-naturalistic through the way there was often breaks of the 4th wall throughout as character showed their true emotions or intentions to the audience, and through the narrator of the show interacting with not only the audience throughout but also the characters.