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.