Unit 7 - Prepartion for Specialist Study

                                                            Futures
Three sheets of paper were laid out on the floor in the corners of the room, one had University written on it, the other had Drama School and the last one had Other. We were then asked to think about what you plan to do after the course and then sit next to our "plan". I decided to sit next to Drama School as I've always known that I want it to be apart of my journey, however it is difficult deciding or even thinking about what you want to do next because it is easier to live in the moment so even in that moment of simply sitting next to a piece of paper, I found myself hesitating before forcing myself to sit down next to Drama School because in theory, you can always change where you sit because nothing is truly set in life. After everyone had sat down I subconsciously compared, I saw that Drama School and Other were almost equally, whereas only two-three people chose the University path.

We were then asked to write down some advantages and disadvantages of going to Drama School/University/Other.

Drama School
Advantages - Learn more about acting and the industry, have better access to the industry, widen your network and meet other actors.
Disadvantages - Some actors don't make it into drama schools and even if they did they don't make it when they finish. You have to pay for some auditions and still risk rejection, you need enough UCAS points, some actors don't get agencies after drama schools, you could end up in debt as drama schools are expensive.

UniversityAdvantages - Degree, experiences - sorority/parties, friends, housing - campus, independence, extra curriculum activities.Disadvantages - Debt, stressed out, work load, not guaranteed a job mental health.

Other
Advantages - many options, guaranteed work from your agency, a degree from your apprenticeship and you will be paid to earn, music - get to be creative
Disadvantages - it may take a while to decide what you want to do, you may not get an agency so that would mean no work, going into music is a gamble, apprenticeship, only a qualification.
 After weighing my options I decided to have more than one path. A reason for this is to avoid feeling any overwhelming uncertainty  about my plan for the future, just in case something doesn't go to plan. Path one would be to attend drama school and path two would be work with an agency and audition for roles that they get me. 


During the first term, we worked on Greek Theatre, I worked along side Ben Taylor and Katie Miller on Antigone. My character was Ismene, I connected with my character by finding similarities, for example, Ismene is the sister of Antigone and she cares a lot about her, I also have a sister who I care a lot about. Doing this helped me become more confident, we also began touching on Stanislavski techniques like subtext, what is my character really saying? objectives, what does my character want?  why is my character on stage, which bled into the through line of my character, what happened before I went on stage?

Feedback that I got during this time to  help improve our  performance was, keep the eye lines up and to keep the face up, less is more and do not stand in a line. Our teacher Rob then went on to say that we have made it our own, that there was good listening and reacting, we were subjectively and subtexually strong and next time we should pause for a moment and take our time with things.
Following my second term, we worked on Stanislavski. The Seagull was the name of the play and I was working with Lucky Asare and Harry Kelly. As finding similarities worked well the first time, I decided to try it again, My character's name is Nina and she wants to be an actress. Focusing on the techniques of Stanislavski, I looked things like her given circumstances, she wants to be an actress like her mother and I also looked at the magic if, I would take the help of people around me if I was her. During rehearsals we focused on playing the objective, some feedback that we received was that the energy was good, we should continue to make it our own and keep the dynamics, continue to play and feel the moments and awkwardness with Treplyvov. Work on breaking down what your objectives are for each section. Asare and I further worked on the dynamics, as we got more feedback, like to be less conscious of his feeling and not notice how every word I say means something to his character or to simply stand still, let him come towards me, keeping the eye contact in order for the audience to feel the awkwardness too our acting became more natural and less your line, my line. We even added in a part where Asare cuts me off, which was peak "reActing".
End of term feedback that I got was that I had good leadership skills, creative insight and that I was grounded and had good stage awareness. 
We went on to work on Macbeth, where my character was Macduff, this was quite the jump from working with two to three people at a time to working with ten individuals, not to talk about working with ten individuals on a Shakespeare play... safe to say it was a bit ambitious. As a class we were in a difficult time and I found myself naturally taking the lead, this could be because of the eight years training to get my leadership qualification. I found myself organising my group and our ideas. We researched other Shakespeare production to try and find inspiration, we constantly gave feedback to each other to help us develop the skills that we already had. Macbeth was the first time that we really go to work with the production team and discuss things like lighting and costumes, Our teacher Shenagh brought in a guy to teach us a stage fighting  sequence for Macbeth, which was also the first time that myself and the people in my group did stage fighting. So for Macbeth I  didn't just develop my acting skills but technical skills too.

Monologue

The monologue that I have chosen is from an episodic play called  "The Vagina Monologues" and it is  by Eve Ensler who is a playwright, writer and performer. The monologue is called "My Vagina is Angry" and it is exactly what it sounds like. The monologue is a humorous rant about offences against the vagina, for example, the tampon. I found this monologue in a bookshop and I chose it because it was blunt and straight to the point. Often the female anatomy is censored and you have other people (men) telling you what your body should be.