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[howiponder]

‘Evaluation’

Week no. 11 - 25.11.19 - 28.11.19

Looking back at the project, now that it has come to an end, I can say that this project exceeded my expectations, and I think that this is the most accomplished I have felt with any performance that I have been involved with so far at college; this is due to the combined quality of the work produced overall, satisfaction with my own contributions, and for the energy backstage and within the group. For the first time I felt truly supported by my team, and I think that the feeling was mutual throughout the team.

This is especially true to my acting pieces. For my monologue, I continuously reported in my weekly blogs the struggle to find consistency in the quality and emotional integrity. I managed to finally crack the code before the final performance, and find the factors needed. My scene with Lachlan exceeded my expectations, putting to bed my earlier thoughts of doubt. I feel that we managed to build the projection and I was proud of how well I held my accent throughout, whilst projecting (I am aware that projection is a weakness of mine, and I am even worse whilst utilising a foreign accent). The props aided the performance well, and the final push onto the bed (which was only able to be rehearsed on the day), was executed perfectly. 

For my song, I do feel that vocally I didn't do as well as I'd hoped, with a various number of contributing factors which lead to it being so, along with the fact I am simply am not at the point in my journey for being able to efficiently prepare myself or deliver with consistency. 

However, I think that my most significant accomplishment during this project was getting to the point in my journey with singing that I could perform a solo song to an audience. For me, it's been a long journey and I feel that I've come far in this respect, even though I may developmentally be much further behind in singing than in acting. Even a year ago, I wouldn't have thought that I'd have been able to build the confidence needed to perform a solo song and fully commit to it (even if I was flopping hard on the quality of my vocals). I feel that I am growing this skill healthily, and the biggest block in my way has always been confidence. For the first time, I was able to sing and be present and in character, and stay in character.

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‘Approach’

Week no. 10 - 18.11.19-21.11.19

Now that the showcases are almost upon me, I've gathered a much more nuanced understanding of my process and the what approaches resonate for me in each piece. For my monologue I've reduced my rehearsal to just speed runs to ensure security in my lines, since I've rehearsed it thoroughly enough to allow for rest time. I've also realised that I should limit my preparation and just head straight into it, since the journey that Rachel is on herself is raw and sudden. To contrast, for my scene with Lachlan I need more prep, especially vocally since I'm utilising a non-native accent. Since this is a duologue, rehearsal time will still consist of complete runs, since there's always chemistry to improve as well as security in lines and blocking.

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‘Consistency’

Week no. 9 - 13.11.19

With this Wednesday's focus being peer assessment, I found that I got a lot of insightful feedback on my pieces, so that I now have a better gauge of the development of my pieces. For my monologue, I think that I have over-rehearsed this piece and am now finding that I have desensitised myself to the emotion and am struggling to find consistency in that aspect. What I have gathered is that I need to actually spend less time on it, and let it rest so that I can return to it afresh.

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‘Insecure’

Week no. 8 - 4.11.19-7.11.19

This week consisted of a semi-run of each show (the British Showcase and the international Showcase). I've now started to gather a more rounded view of the structure that the showcase will take; more specifically for where the timings and gaps between performances will allow for prep time. For my duologue with Lachlan, I definitely feel that this is the furthest behind in its development out of all the pieces. Our run of this piece enlightened me to the lack of understanding of our character intentions, the insufficient amount of rehearsal time, and the overall insecurity of it. I need to dedicate more rehearsal time to this piece in particular, and sort out the intentions and flow of the piece with Lachlan.

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‘Focus’

Week no. 7 - 28.10.19

We spent the morning workshop mode with Adam. What struck me in this session was how when we focus in a single aspect of our performance (such as our voice) we lose focus on the other aspects. This really helped me to realise that I need to have a lot of my performance engraved in my muscle memory so that I'm not trying to keep a focus on every aspect of it, because that's not possible, and an attempt at doing so will only let down the quality and consistency of my performance as a whole.

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‘Wrong and Strong’

Week no. 6 - 14.10.19 - 17.10.19

I have had a growing sense of anxiety towards the inevitability of having to perform my monologue to the class, which has only grown as the weeks have passed without me doing so. But this week, the time finally arrived. The monologue that I am working on is from Jack Thorne's When You Cure Me. It takes place in the first scene of Act 2 and is a vital moment in the play where we learn the reason for protagonist Rachel's paralysis and trauma. It's a monologue where Rachel tells her boyfriend the awful details of her rape. When I chose this monologue, I knew that it would be a hard one, and would be very emotionally taxing. But I decided to challenge myself. I've had my eyes on this monologue since I read the play earlier this year, I knew it would be a great one for becoming comfortable with vulnerability in front of an audience. 

My new favourite motto is 'wrong and strong', something I picked up whilst working with Zest Theatre over the previous two weeks. With this phrase in mind, I picked my nerves off the floor and gave my best. I'm pleased with the outcome, and now that I have performed this to Adam and my class and received feedback, I know what I need to work on in order to improve it.

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‘>Atelophobia’

Week no. 5 - 07.10.19

Atelophobia noun.  /əˌtɛləˈfəʊbɪə/ The fear of imperfection or not being good enough.

This week we had our Monday session with Adam covered by Howell and we were joined by the Level 4 students. I found this workshop to be one of the most insightful this year when it comes to aiding our development in the showcase. We mainly worked on improvisation and status, but what I took that helped me the most in my process is the tools to help fight the fear of not being perfect. Throughout we were encouraged to be daring and in the moment. This really woke me up to the fact that, especially at this point in the process, I should feel comfortable to make mistakes and just go for it.

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‘Conflict’

Week no. 4 - 30.09.19

On this week's edition of Monday Morning Workshop with Adam we worked a little on conflict and comedy. I'm really enjoying these Monday sessions, and having the separation between them and the Wednesday acting sessions. It's a nice start to the week, to help us get our minds back into the flow of things, and also to learn some practical skills that we can apply to our own showcase pieces. This session aided me in the way of learning how to build conflict effectively and what things to think about to change the energy and drive of the conflict. This will help me a lot with the duologue that I am working on.

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It’s that time of year again.. 🍎

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‘Around-By-Through’

Week no. 3 - 23.09.19

To kick off the workshops for this year, Adam acquainted us with a movement technique popularised by Frantic Assembly. Movement workshops are my favourite kind, I learn so much about the negotiation of partnership from them, as well a better understanding of my own limits and body awareness. The main principle we worked with is 'Around-By-Through', developing the sequence of improvised movements by first decreasing the air involved (reducing space), shifting weight, and then developing levels. I love tasks like these, that challenge my comfort with intimacy and trust. We also explored how slight changes in energies and accents in the movements can change the audience's perception of the narrative.

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‘In The Deep’

Week no. 2.1 - 16.09.19-19.09.19 

This week the dreaded solo performances started. Last week we were informed that we were truly being thrown into the deep end; every week a name would be randomly selected (literally - our names were being pulled out of a hat) and that person would have to perform a solo. Overall, we would be expected to do a solo roughly every other week, with four songs in total. I don't consider myself a singer, and I'm not confident in this area. I voraciously rehearsed, with the fear and awareness that my name could be picked out. And alas, my name was the first to be picked. I'm proud of myself for just doing the solo; two years ago I wouldn't have had the confidence to do it at all. I went easy on myself, and just focused on trying to not flop entirely. Next time, I'll put a little more thought into my overall performance, since I've now passed the biggest hurdle. This has also gotten me thinking about whether I'd like to challenge myself by contributing a song to the showcase in November.  

[howiponder]

‘A Wee Bit More Than 100 Words’

Week no. 2.1 - 16.09.19

After a week of being back I feel myself starting to settle into this new routine. I am gaining familiarity with the material being explored and the presentation of the material to us. On Monday we were tasked by Adam to pair up, each pair having a director and actor, who would both work together on the director's chosen monologue for the Acting Showcase in November. These partnerships were set by Adam. I was partnered with Charlie P, a coursemate of whom I have limited experience working with. This approach I found to be insightful and freeing; instead of going to our regular collaborators, we were forced to work with different people. Charlie and I were open to trying both roles, so we exchanged monologues to see if either of us had a particular interest in pursuing the other's. Initially, I thought that Charlie would shy away from my choice, since it explores sensitive subject matter and is clearly meant for a female actor (Rachel's monologue, Act II Scene I of When You Cure Me by Jack Thorne). However, Charlie showed complete willingness to give it a shot. I thought that having Rachel’s voice change from female to male would create much more progressive and interesting outlook, opening up a conversation about male rape and sexual assault that is often kept in the dark. Our process in (re)discovering this monologue together was one that I found quite insightful, and opened my eyes to small details in the staging and characterisation that I had not seen before, but that Charlie could pick out with a fresh perspective. Another reason for wanting to change Rachel's sex was due to there being two lines in which she talks about her vagina and knickers, which we thought would potentially confuse the audience if Charlie were to read it verbatim. And so, vagina became penis and knickers were no more. Rachel's boyfriend stayed her boyfriend, however, since I thought that the gender of her partner was irrelevant to the monologue. In the same vein, I decided that changing the sex of the rapist was unnecessary, since rape is a genderless act that any sex is capable of committing. Throughout this session I thoroughly enjoyed working with Charlie, and am glad that Adam initiated our duo, since I wouldn’t have initially gone to work with Charlie (with minimal time working together in the past, I was unsure of what degree of synergy we possessed). My experience of directing him and collaborating with him was great and I would definitely consider working with him again.

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‘One.’

Week no. 1 09.09.19-12.09.19

For the first week back at college, my group has been tasked with finding material for our showcase in late November (monologues, musical theatre songs and smaller group scenes/duologues). This was a great way to jump straight in, giving us an incentive to reconnect to past material and actively discover new material, as well as a way to start to form a working relationship together by sharing material with each other. For me this task was good for pushing me to revisit past material and push me to read and explore more material. I went through plays that I had already read to find scenes that stuck out to me in the past, and actively tried to balance out my selections with more comedic material (especially in song choices).

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Don’t forget that:

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They call it ‘God’. And they raise it above their heads, once alive  now is dead, elevated above their graves, they scream “you’ll save our souls, you said”

And now sleeps the hopeless martyr. Eternal, his blood burns  it curdles, what was once divine; infernal. Ablaze with this haze; An end to a day to end all days.

Ragnarok. The Rapture. The death of life; life of death? Or just a sacred kind of recollection A cyclical kind of rotation Revolution; revelation Once a thought Now is legislation

What was once the end; now rebirth; like a Phoenix rising from the hearth Its ashes, holy to the touch As they dip their fingers in the molten gold, eyes lit with fire, for their souls they sold

To their God. Whom they raise on high. Truly sublime, a lie from another time, a wrinkle in the storm’s eye. A never- ending swirl, it spins; this air, it swims.

(aaaaaaaa hi, I broke the writer’s block streak) (also this is heavily inspired by the TV show Vikings, and about the cyclical nature of things, especially in religion and history in terms of government and who the people choose to be their idols. In the TV show their are similarities drawn up between two pantheons and cultures that seem completely different at first glance, and you get a sense that the origins of their respective faiths may not be so far set apart).

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Little Black Heart | The Early November I’m really gasping, wishing I could turn back and that would fix everything For once…

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oh yh btw I got my results like a month ago and I got an A in english and B in maths, so all that stressing for nothing lmao

I meant to post this like three weeks ago but here ya go:

So exams are going eeeuuugh, but my audition went super well. I got an unconditional offer so that’s great!