Alex's monologue "As we forgive those"

I have chosen this monologue as I feel like it will be a good challenge for me, but I think if I can perform it effectively it could improve my skills and hopefully stand out at auditions.
I also feel like I can relate to some of the characters feelings, which will mean I can understand her and portray her situation believably.

During our last lesson we worked on a monologue of our choice, we experimented with vocal skills , the characters feelings and how we can portay them.

• PROJECTION -  The strength  and volume of your voice. It is imporant as an audience or panel need to hear everything you are saying and how well you are emoting the monologue. I havn't performed mine infront of everybody yet, therefore I dont know how loud I am yet but I have practised projecting my voice (in the monologue) at home and in the theatre, and will continue to work on this vocal aspect of the monologue.
• ENUNCIATION - The articulation of speech/the clearness of words. This is improtant because you need to  make what you are saying clear to others, otherwise they might not even understand what your monologue is about. I think my enunciation is fine in this monologue, but there are times when she gets quite angry and speaks fairy fast, therefore i need to practise these sections slower to make sure I don't get into a habit of letting my enunciation slip in these sections.
• ACCENT OR DIALECT - A distinctive mode of pronunciation of a language, esp. one associated with a particular nation, locality, or social class. Its important to make sure that your character has the same accent as you or you can do the accent to a high standard, because if you have a completely different accent, it won't sound believable. Also it means you have come from a different social background to the character, therefore you won't be able to relate to them very well. As I know my accent skills are poor at the moment I made sure the character had a similar accent to mine. So I don't have to worry about the accent to much.
• INTENTION OF MONOLOGUE - Its important to get accross why the character is saying and feeling what she is, so you can portray the characters story. Her intention is to tell her sister how she feels but in an odd sort of way its also an apology and trying to get rid of the past tension between them in an honest outburst.
• EXPERIMENTATION - Trying out new concepts or ways of doing things. Its crucial to experinent with monologues, as otherwise you won't find out the best way of performing it or what works for you. I have tried using allot/very little movement, using anger as the main emotion, using her sorryness and vulnribility as the main factor or saying it quite subdued yet you can see she is very hurt secretly. At the moment I am using a mixture of the emotions,  and a small amount of movment that I feel its enough.
• GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES - what the author or playwright have given you as an actor to work with in terms of where you are, who you are, what you are doing, and why you are doing it. You need to think about the imformation that is already there and take in into account otherwise you could miss out important imformation about the character and thier personality. I made sure I knew about where "Alex" was and took into account all of the information I was given (which isn't actually that much in this script).
• MAGIC IF - The magic'if' is where you as the actor puts yourself in the position of your character and you use how you would react in that situation. Its important that you can use natural reactions and emotions in monologues so the acting comes more naturally and realistically. I thought about how I would feel in "Alex's" situation and am now using this in the monologue. I think she would be feeling very sorry and secretly knows she has done wrong, yet the anger within her won't let her admit it. I know how anger can block out anything else, now I think I understand how she is feeling I can put myself in her situation.

Thursday 21st september

We started the lesson with a warm-up to prepare ourselves for further work on the pillow dance.
This was tiring but nothing compared to what we might get in the future, therefore its important to get used to them and to improve our fitness levels. After this we moved on to the chair pillow dance again, we learned the rest of the routine and practised it numerous times to make it easier to remember and perform. The routine involves three rows (first row starts, followed by the second then the third) , I am in row three which meant that after the second verse my row had to run on stage with the chairs to start the dance, yet this was hard as the music changes after the second verse therefore its hard to keep in time. We got into pairs to work on monologues, I went with Victoria who is doing a monologue from the play "DNA" by Dennis kelly, she performed hers first which was really good, she had allot of energy and character in the piece which made it comical and believable, yet I told her that although its great she could emphasise some of the words more to give it more effect. I did perform mine back yet I found it difficult to come up with blocking for the piece, therefore we decided to give ourselves some time to work alone on our characters and movement. The next part of the lesson consisted of focus games, improvisation and feedback. We were told to hide in the main section of the theatre which is basically an open space which made it hard!, everyone was found very quickly this time round. We were then told to hide again but this time to imagine that it was the worst thing in he world to be found, everybody was more creative with their hiding places, and I managed to find a much more inventive place than before, the point was that if you have a reason to do something its always easier and comes more naturally. The improvisation was unexpected to be honest, we were told that three people would come into the room of who we really wouldn't want there. but i wasn't exactly expecting a acted hostage like situation!. so my reaction sort of came naturally, me and Victoria were talking at the time and got a bit freaked out and sort of hid behind the curtains, which I think is what I would probably do if this situation actually happened but looking back I probably should of stayed and improvised properly. Finally we watched back some monologues and gave feedback, i didn't perform mine as i didn't feel ready and am still a bit nervous of the first years, but I aim to start pushing myself more this year so I will really try and volunteer next time.
Overall I believe I understand the dance moves much better, although theres still room for improvement!, I have thought about my characters further and have more experience in improvisation.

Yvonne Rainers contemporary dance routine

            This is a video of the contemporary dance we are working on
                                                                         :-)

Tuesday 18th september

Improvisation exercise- as improvisation in an important element of acting, it is commonly asked for during auditions and practised in workshops, therefore we need to cover this to improve our improvisation skills. Our tutor gave us a situation which we would have to improvise... the situation involved an argument  between Victoria and Chloe the night before which had been spread all over Facebook! as a group we were asked to come up with a devised scene for the end of the lesson which we were all going to be marked on, so obviously this would be difficult in-between an ongoing argument!. The improvisation was funny to perform and watch as everybody did it differently, some people were being as naturalistic (I think I was naturalistic) as possible whilst others were playing it over the top with added comedy which gave others something to bounce off. I was quite pleased though as we did manage to make the scene flow even if it wasn't too believable!. 

Analysing monologues (picking them to pieces to figure out the character and their intentions)-

We were all given a monologue which we knew nothing about and as a group we started to analyse it to figure out what the characters personality is like. We realised straight away that she is a pushy mum who wants fame for her daughter and probably herself as well, we found this out because she was talking about taking her daughter to auditions and arguing with her daughter when she messed up. we thought that she probably wanted the fame more than her daughter as at the beginning she says "when we first started out", and why would she say "we" when its only her daughter attending the auditions?. her language was also incorrect and involved swearing ("i mean she's fucking illiterate") which suggests she isn't posh or very well educated. After analysing it more we came to the conclusion that she is attempting to live her life through her daughter and puts fame and money before her daughters happiness. Its helpful to understand how you pick a monologue to pieces (to learn about the characters) as its really important that you fully understand audition monologues so you can perform them with meaning. It was also interesting that even the punctuation used can teach you a great deal e.g if theres allot of short and sharp sentences it may mean that the character is really angry,  upset or not educated to a high standard.

For the last half hour we worked on our monologues individually, this gave me time to run through Polly's monologue a few times to get a grasp of the language used and time to memorise the first half 

Friday 14th september

Today we were looking for and researching monologues for both units. I found it really hard to settle on a contemporary monologue, so I borrowed some books from my tutor which contain plays for young people produced by the national theatre. 

I have watched "much ado about nothing" for character research but I can't find "as we forgive those" on any videos or the full version of "The seagull" but I am doing character research into these online to get a better grasp of the characters personalitys. 

The monologues I have chosen so far...

• Ninas monologue from "The Seagull" by Anton Chekhov. I need to do further research on the play but so far I know she's 19 and is an actress. She isnt the best of actress's but gives it her best! the monologue I am doing is quite strange as its a piece that she has to perform in a play, she thinks its brilliant, but the audience think its a bit strange.
• Hero's monologue from "Much ado about nothing" by William Shakespeare. In this monologue hero knows that Beatrice is listening to the conversation between herself and her maid Ursula, she is deliberately saying nasty but quite comical things about Beatrice's personality and attitude towards men to make her realise what her behaviour is really like. The style will have to be quite over the top as its a comedy and she wants beatrice to hear everything shes saying.
•  Alex's monologue from "As we forgive those" by Andrew Smith. Alex is troubled girl in her late teens who left home after injuring her sister, she has appeared at her sisters house a few years later after an unfortunate coincident with   her sisters roommate Jenny of whom she had robbed the night before without realising!. she secretly regrets everything she has done but she can't seem to admit it for a while. the monologue is when she has finally cracked and she is telling her sister why she went to such extreme lengths, it turns out she thought she was ugly and nothing compared to her sister so it was done out of jealousy. She still feels worthless but she also feels deeply sorry for what she has done and wants forgiveness. The style is quite naturalistic and I will need to use the "Magic If" to portray it.  

Alex's monologue srongly contrasts with Hero's monologue, as Alex's is quite depressive and involves anger and negative emotions whilst Hero's monologue is sort of a comedy and involves humour and teasing. They are also from completely different time periods, contemporary and classical.

here are some links I found which will give you more information on the plays-
http://www.enotes.com/much-ado-about-nothing
http://www.gradesaver.com/the-seagull/study-guide/section1/
http://www.stageplays.com/products/as_we_forgive_those/Andrew%20Smith

Thursday 13th september

This was our first lesson working with the new first years, which was great but also quite scary at the same time! in a way this experience in itself is helpful for both units, as during auditions and workshops you often have to work with people you don't know and you have to learn how to deal with this to perform your best (keeping confidence and teamwork etc). We started the lesson with a group warm-up to prepare us for the contemporary dance routine. The dance routine goes with the song "river deep mountain high" and is a modern style of dance which uses lots of simple but effective movements, it also involves a chair and pillow. Contemporary dance can come in many forms and is used fairly commonly, therefore its important to have some experience and knowledge in the style. During workshops and auditions you may also be asked to undertake some form of dance or movement activity; which makes it all the more important to give it a go.  For the next hour we looked at notes from professionals explaining what they look for in an actor (during auditions), I found the information very helpful as I had never even thought of some the aspects they covered. 

below are some of the notes I found helpful and will use for future auditions:

•  The audition starts from the moment you walk through the door
•  They look at how you dress, so you must make sure you dress appropriately for the part you are going for
• don't babble on or over sell yourself
• They may not ask you directly to leave, therefore you must look for the hints
• always listen and respond carefully to thier questions, never argue a point with them!
• try to relax and not let nerves get in the way, as your acting probably wont show very well and will become forced if you tense up to much. 

After this we paired ourselves up with somebody we have never worked with before to work on a monologue called "tbc!". We had to interpret in ourselves as we weren't given any information on the character or the backstory. everybody interpreted it in different ways, I originally thought the character would be in his twenties and was complaining about an old school friend who got him into trouble on numerous occasions, as it turns out it was about a teenager with schizophrenia who was talking about his other personality which causes trouble. The activity made a good point though as it proves that you have to read the whole play to understand the character, their feelings and aims, as if you don't it will become apparent by the way you perform it. we continued the activity by watching a few versions of the monologue, it became clear that even if you know who the character is, everybody will put their own stamp on a piece and you have to find out what works for you and your interpretation of the character. During the lesson we also participated in a game to get us all used to each other: we all stood in a circle with a chair in the middle and one by one had to get up and simply sit in the chair and look at everybody for as long as we felt comfortable, this was to show us that we can get up in front of each other without being scared as we now already have and are all in the same boat.

overall I have taken allot out of the lesson, I have met all our first years, gained helpful tips for auditions and learned the importance of character research.