monologue assessment

On thursday we were all given a time slot in which we would perform our three monologues to our Tutor Sonya and to Georgia who teaches other acting courses. My slot was at 4:10 so I had a while to wait, I used this time to go over my monologues and  ..well to worry allot aswell, which I shouldnt have done as this effected my performance quite badly :-(.

How do I think I performed?
I am quite unhappy with how I did as I know I messed up lines during two of my monologues and my movement was very wooden.

• I did my shakespeare monologue first (Hero from much ado about nothing) - This was alright, but I missed out 3 of the lines in the second paragraph, which I am annoyed about as I know this monologue inside out! I dont know whether it was noticable to be honest as it still made sense and I didnt pause, but It still effected it and put me off slightly when I realised.
• I performed my contempary monologue next (Alex from as we forgive those) - This was the only monologue that the script itself was all correct, but I remember missing out allot of the movement I usually do, I think this was down to nerves and the fact that I dont like to plan that much blocking as I like it to be spontanious and in character, but sometimes I dont plan enough and I believe this to be the case with basically all of my current monologues.
• lastly I performed my monologue by Nina from The seagull - I have been struggling to learn this monlogue for a couple of weeks so was concerned about lines, I practised this the most the previous night for this reason and I knew it all the way through. But becasue I was so worried about the lines I didnt really think about movement so once again I didnt really move!. And annoyingly I still forgot the lines halfway through and had to pause to think about them before I picked myself up, but I did stay in character when I stopped which is a positive at least.

On the whole I know my vocal skills are quite good and I understand and feel what I am saying, but I am not very good at portraying this through movement. It seems that whenever I get nervous I just tense and dont think straight which leads to mind blanks with lines and restricts my movement. I know I could have done allot better if I didn't let myself get stupidly nervous. I will have to work on improving the way I control my nerves as it really effects the way I perform and think. I am going to think about the way I move and keep on going over my lines, so I will hopefully perform better during second marking.

devised piece - 7/7 london disaster

During our wednesday session we worked on our group devised piece which after some stimulus we decided to base on the 7/7 disaster.
It is set on a tube train that gets caught up in the bombings, and is about how people cope with the situation,  and how their past influences them in the present. First of all we took some time to chat about the scene and listen to everyones ideas, this was easier said than done as everyone wanted a turn to speak but we were all talking over each other! in the end though everyone had their turn and we started to work as a team quite well. There were some really good ideas, shroom came up with the idea that there could be a count down which can be heard in the background that the characters are oblivious to but the audience can hear: this makes it more tense for the audience as they are wondering what its leading towards. I thought that the light could go out during the crash and come back on when everyone was on the ground to give the audience a shock, but then Victoria made a really good point and said that the way we all fall is really effective as we do it at the same time, so we changed it so the light would go off after we fall for a few seconds, and this would give a better effect. We started rehearsing the scene a few times, but it just wasn't really working, nobody was in the moment when the crash happened and it just didnt seem real and fell flat, I think we were all too embarrassed to simply go for it and act completely in character. We stopped to have another chat about how to improve it and decided to add some unaturalistic aspects,  we decided to have character flashbacks and have Matthew as a symbol of fate/death or whatever the audience percieve him to be, we do this by adding him in the background of all the flashbacks, and making him present on the platform and on the tube but nobody really notices him, this makes it more interesting and forces the audience to think about what it could mean... for example has fate been following them?, could it have been anybody who ended up on the train?, was he a symbol of death?. We then went through it again and it worked much better but it still falls flat after the crash as I dont think anybody is in the moment still. So for next time we have been asked to either come up with a flashback or a character monologue which will hopefully make us think about our characters and how they would feel which will make the scene more interesting and as we will understand more about our characters it should be easier to act them spontaniously and believably . I have been asked to do a monologue and I have come up with the idea that she will be confused, therefore she keeps on changing the subject without thinking, so its a muddle of her fears, thoughts and memorys.

 This is the video we watched for stimulus, its really emotional and made you think about just how terrible it was and how scared the people involved would be feeling

Thursday 11th october

We started off with some focus games-

• We all had to lay on the floor and either close our eyes or look up to the ceiling, the aim of the game was to count to ten but only one person can speak at a time, so if somebody says one you have to think about when you can say two because if more than one person says a number you have to go back to the start. This was suprisingly hard and I never got a number right even though I was trying really hard to focus.
• We then did some eye contact exercises, which involved standing in a circle and if you made eye contact with somebone else you had to walk towards them and they would then have to quickly make eye contact with someone else and move before you reached them, this was hard as sometimes you didn't make eye contact with someone and they would walk towards you anyway, and then people would look away from you so you couldn't move fast enough! but this did mean you had to be focused.
• We played a similar game but this time if you made eye contact with someone else you had run towards them and one person would jump and the other would roll, but you don't know whos going to jump or roll so you have to judge what the other person is planning by body language very quickly so sometimes you end up doing the same thing, I went in the middle a fair amount and managed to chose correctly each time but once I went down to roll and somehow forgot to actually roll! so I nearly got squished but I didnt so it was all good :-).
• The final game we played involved walked around the room, two people were given wooden sticks and if they made eye conact with somebody they had to throw the stick to them while still walking, then the person who gained the stick would then do the same thing and so on. You had to be focused as you had to catch it carefully and make sure you throw it at the right time to the right person.

After this we went to the dance studio to show back monologues. We didn't get a choice about performing infront of everybody this time so I had to show mine back, but to be honest I am happy about this as I havn't pushed myself enough to do this yet and I sort of wished I had, so this forced me out of my comfort zone which is what I needed. It actually went quite well and it wasn't that bad, I got positive feedback about my vocals and I feel relieved that Ive got past the barrier of performing infront of the first years for the first time.
Finaly we (second years) were sent to another room to work on a devised piece of our choice, we decided after some debate to base it on a tube crash, we actually worked really well together and we all seemed to listen to each other and share ideas. We performed what we had back to everyone at the end but as it was still a work in progress it was all improvised and didn't work to well, we will have more time to work on this next week so we can improve it further then.

Much ado about nothing- helpful videos

When I was researching Much ado about nothing to understand more about "Hero" I found these video's which explain more about the characters and the plot :-)

monologue contrast and appropriateness for auditions

Appropriateness for auditions-

Hero's monologue from Much ado about nothing- I chose this monologue because The character is close to my own age, so I can portray her believably. Its also by shakespeare, and many auditions require a shakespearian monoologue. It will hopefully stand out as its not an overdone monologue in comparison to some of shakespeares other plays. I also like her point of view as I get angry when people can only see the bad aspects of a person, so I can relate to her opinon which will make it more believable.

Alex's monologue from As we forgive those-  I chose this for my contempary piece (many auditions require a contempary monologue). Its not very well known yet it is from a published play, so I will be allowed to use it but it won't be overdone. I can use the "magic if" to help me relate to it as I have a sister and know how terrible I would feel if I had hurt her, but I also know what its like to feel anger towards her as we have argued in the past, so in auditions I should be able to show feeling through the monologue. Its also lasts around 1 minute 40 which fits in with most of the specifications. The character is also in my age range and has a similar accent to me. This piece would be suitable for a serious audition but not for a pantomime or a childrens theatre audition etc. 

Nina's monologue from The seagull- I chose this monologue as it contrasted to the others as it was written in 1890, the monologue itself is very abstract as its being said in a play within the play!, and its quite odd and hard to grasp but this may make it interesting to a panel. Once again the character is within my playing range and I can use my own accent for it (as I can't do accents). its the right length so it wont take forever to perform and it changes emotion throughout so it won't get boring and I can show different emotions through it.

contrast-

1. They are all from different timezones-shakespeare, contempary and 1800's
2. They contain different styles- serious, abstract, naturalistic and angry/comedic
3. The dialect differs- old english and modern
4. The characters are all very different- they live in different times and their personalitys vary from troubled and angry to sweet and innocent.

Wednesday 10th October

Thursday 4th October

As Amiee (our dance tutor) was away we started the lesson with some focus games, we played the ladder game where you find a pair sit opposite each other and put your feet against each others. when everybody does this it creates what looks like a giant flat ladder!, each pair is given a number and if it is called you have to run through the ladder and get back to your seat before your partner,if you get there first you gain a point, at the end the side with the most points wins. We also played grandmas keys and sheriff to gain focus.
After the games we did a practise workshop audition, so at the end four of us would be selected.
This started with a devising and team work exercise, in small groups we had a minute to create a human version of an object e.g a washing machine. We did a few of these and I liked this section as I came up with allot of ideas and felt like I worked well in my team. We then did a devisng exercise in groupd of three, we had 10 minutes to create a 3 minute scene which had one tense moment, one comedic moment and a pause, This is where I think I let myself down, we struggled to come up with an idea and I managed to come up the comedy and tense moment and Steven and Dan thought of the setting and character relationships, but we took so long to come up with the idea that we hadnt actually planned out the scene therefore when we were called up it was complete improvisation! this worked for a while but I was supposed to get to a point where I pushed Dan of a chair (to create the tense moment) but I never felt like the time was right at the time so I missed the moment and then our time ran out, I think I let the others down because afterwards I realised there were many opportunitys that I overlooked!. Our final exercise was an improv activity, Which consisted of two people being in the middle (of everyone in a circle) all of the time improvising a scene, at any point anyone could shout freeze and take over from one of the characters in the middle and do whatever they wished to the character and scene. I really struggled with this as I found it hard to find a situation I thought I could enter into and when I did feel ready to go somebody else would shout freeze first (I need to jump in quicker!). I knew by this point that as I didnt do very well in the last two exercises that I wouldnt of been chosen in real life or in this practise but I found it incredibly useful and I now know which areas I need to improve on.

Wednesday 3rd October

We looked into auditions and audition ethicate. here are some of the tips I learnt:

• be prepared
• be yourself
• read the specifications carefully
• be friendly
• be confident but dont go over-the-top
• try and enjoy the experience and dont let nerves effect your monologues
• have back-up monologues

After this we moved onto monologues, we had some time to practise our monologues before performing them back to everyone. I performed my Shakespeare monologue from "Much ado about nothing" which went ok, as in I remembered it and pronounced the words correctly, but it lacked energy and blocking which I need to work on. Its good to gain feedback from others so you know what you need to improve on and so you know your getting the character accross. I am going to keep on going over all of my monologues, and work on my vocal tone, my energy and character development so that I improve them to the best of my ability.

This is one of the videos we watched- its about audition ethicate

and its been created by someone who's attended allot of drama school auditions :-)

Thursday 27th september

we started with a warm-up of zumba and movment. We had to move to the rythm of the music that was being playing, for example we had to step with our toes pointed for three steps, then turn around and step again, it was fun but suprisingly hard to keep in rythm!. This is an important skill though as having rythm and being able to move to the flow of music is helpful and used allot in theatre. After this we practised the chair pillow dance again. I think im definately picking this up much better now, yet I am still struggling with the pace so ive got a long way to go. we then got separated into groups of about 7 to perform the dance infront of each other to get a better idea of how everyone was doing, I was slightly out of time in parts but I didnt majorly muck up which was great! And it put my mind at ease as when I observed others I realised quite a few were out of sync, so maybe we need to practise being in rythm as a group. I gave it my best and with more practise I should improve further.

We then played a focus game called grandmas keys, where we had to snatch the keys when the owner at the other end of the room wasnt looking, yet if they turned around to look you have to stand still otherwise your sent back to the start, you also get sent back if you are caught with the keys. Its important to use teamwork in this game as everybody has to hide the person with the keys and pass them on. You have to be focused at all times as if you laugh you'll be sent back due to movment and you have to be constantly thinking as a group about tactics. Once we were all more focused we worked individually or in pairs on our monologues. I rehearsed my monologue from "As we forgive those" and "Much ado about nothing", once I'd gone over them a few times everyone was asked to change the style of the monologues e.g if we were performing an angry monologue change it to being happy for a few goes! this will be challenge but it helps you to experiment. I did "Hero's" monologue really angrily even though its suppose to be sarcastic, I found it hard but it was helpful to use a different technique to see how mood and tone of voice can completely change a monologue. I think ive imporoved on my lines as I know those two monlogues confidently off by heart now,  I also think my projection and vocal tone has improved during my monologues, yet my blocking still needs allot of improvment.
Overall I think I got allot out of the lesson, I was focused and gave everything my best at the time, I am still dissapointed that I didnt volunteer ...again! so I definatly need to improve my confidence so that I can feel comfortable perfroming my monologues.