18th - 22nd October 2010 (Bad Girls Week 1)

We took part in auditions at the end of last week for Bad Girls The Musical. This audition process was an excellent learning curve and gave me my first experience of a real audition which I feel will prove very useful in the future. 

Crystal Gordon played by Camilla Beeput in Bad Girls The Musical

I was successful in my audition and gained the role of Crystal Gordon. 


"CRYSTAL GORDON
Sentence: 12 months – for persistent shoplifting
As a bible-bashing Christian, Crystal often takes a critical view of her fellow
inmates and believes that the prison regime is too soft – especially where drugs are
concerned. She can be self-righteous and totally blind to her own selfcontradictions
and often comical as a result. But at heart she’s a kind and caring
person who does believe in standing up for what’s right."

Crystal is a character who is always acting; she hides behind religion and uses it as an excuse to conduct herself as if she is better than everyone else, when really her sentence is just as justified as the rest of the women in the prison. She is extremely contradictory and deluded and I am really looking forward to playing this humorous side to her. On the contrary, her song Freedom Road shows her sensitive side and really tackles the authors intention in the lyrics, which I am also looking forward to performing. Overall, Crystal is a comedic, sensitive and fun character to play and I am really looking forward to developing her role over the next six weeks.


Our vocal lessons this week concentrated on the song Freedom Road. Everyone else in the class studied the ensemble harmonies that lift the song whilst I worked on the melody. The song is very challenging vocally, which I know I am able of, but I need to work on my confidence in order to perform the song to the best of my ability.


As a group, we are starting to work together a lot better than we did when we first started the course. We seem to be much more comfortable with harmonies than we were previously and the overall unity of the group has improved significantly. As Freedom Road is such a soulful vocal song, it is important that we sing the song perfectly and I believe that we can achieve this together.


We began to practice Freedom Road in a round as this is how it will be performed eventually. This was a challenge, but I believe that this will become much easier with practise.




Our drama lesson was workshop based. We first of all re-capped our work on the variety show and identified a strength, weakness and learning point:

• Strength: Vocal performance
• Weakness & Target: Keep up confidence throughout the day, not just during the audition.
• Learning Point: Always prepare

We then discussed "What is musical theatre?"

Musical theatre is BODY in TIME and SPACE using song as a vehicle.

Musical theatre uses song because it engages and conveys any information in a more accessible way to the audience. It also adds entertainment to the action.


We discussed the different functions of a song in musical theatre (this is what or how the song adds to the performance):

• Character exposition
• Plot
• Setting
• Mood

This gave us a deeper knowledge of musical theatre and how song works throughout a piece.

11th - 15th October 2010 (Week 6)

To conclude our project, we performed our jazz dance and musical number as well as our ballet piece in a variety performance.


Good Points

• I have gained confidence in dance
• I have improved my skill of dancing and singing at the same time
• I enjoyed having an audience to work with
• Learning how a production works

Improvements

• Put more practise into each number
• Improve skill of dancing and singing at the same time
• Improve flexibility

4th - 8th October 2010 - (Week 5)

Drama

The imaginary world is a tool necessary for an actor to use when performing. This is because we have to allow our minds to see the world we want to portray in order to create an effective performance and thus use 'the magic if'.


The more vivid an actor's imagination, the more creative and interesting an actor's theatrical choices will be. If a character is a product of a writers imagination, an actor must then use their imagination to bring that character to life.


As part of an exploration on the use of imagination in theatre we completed the 'black box exercise'. This was where we were shown a black metal box and asked to write what we believed was in there. We had no idea what was in the box and so it was up to our imaginations so decide what we wanted to be inside. I decided that there were art supplies inside the box:

Other people chose a variety of things; letters, toys, jewellery and even a rainbow etc.

The Black Box exercise was useful because it helped us to see outside the box (excuse the pun) and allowed us to apply our imagination and understand how it works.


We also used an imagination task to support our monologue work.
We were asked to draw the space in which we imagined our character to be speaking at the time of the monologue. I drew a picture of a teenage girl's extremely messy bedroom where there were clothes all over the floor, the mirror was smashed, pill bottles and empty bottles of wine were scattered on the floor, books were scattered open around the room and ripped or peeling posters of Gothic literature hung from the walls. I believe this is appropriate for my character, Nell, as she is a severely depressed teenager who has lost all hope and I imagine that this is what her room would be like. Drawing this picture really gave me a sense of where I was during the piece, which I feel will  benefit me in performance.




This week we also continued progress with our monologues. I presented my monologue to the class and was given feedback in the form of targets to work from:

• Slow down words and try to breathe through the nose whilst talking
• Vary the pace
• Add emphasis for effect in certain places

I have practised the monologue with these adjustments, but I am still finding slowing pace and breathing more steadily a challenge. I think that by breaking the script up into breaks where I should breathe will help me to address this.


Everyone in the class seemed to struggle in the same areas. Pace and breathing seemed to be the problems that everyone shared, however, everyone seemed to have found a monologue which suited them and connected with them in some way. Some people paced their monologue better than others and so I have seen how they slowed their monologue down and I hope to be able to take that technique away and apply it to my own performance.


I believe that addressing the units, meaning and thought processes of the character in the monologue will further establish my knowledge of the character and thus improve the truth of my performance. It has helped me add emotion and meaning to the lines and break down the script into manageable portions.


We were taught not to 'dress up the character' but to 'let the character dress you'. This means that you shouldn't add anything to the character, but let the character's facts and characteristics shape you as a performer. We should work from the foundations of a character and build up as this leads to a truthful product through an organic process.

27th September - 1st October 2010 (Week 4)

Drama


Now that I have acquired my monologue material from Like Dreaming, Backwards by Kellie Powell, I have begun work in exploring the piece (below).

When I first read the material, I loved how beautifully and emotionally it was written. I really shared a connection with the piece, however, I found it quite difficult to first perform as I wasn't sure exactly how to go about it. I felt lots of empathy for the character of Nell who, from this monologue, is clearly in despair with no hope of getting over her depression. I want to make sure that this empathy is what the audience feels when I perform the monologue, as I believe that that is what Powell indented them to feel when she wrote it. Nell is a very intelligent character, but has a very negative outlook on life, and I find this very interesting.




To help with breaking the dialogue down, we looked at dynamics of language, phrasing, clarity and diction and units.
Units create a dynamic shift in the language each time an emotional or thought process changes. This can be represented by phrasing and be made clear through clarity and diction. Units are very subjective and so each person will interpret a script differently.
We used a section of the script Pump Girl by Abbie Spallon to explore these techniques.

The brackets indicate each separate unit. By breaking down the thought process of a character you can understand how they would say each line and what they are thinking and feeling during each line. 


To then break each unit down, we used stresses, bends and phrasing. Stresses and bends add texture and colour to the delivery of lines whilst phrasing helps to break up the dialogue and add appropriate breaths or pauses.

I found that using this technique with Like Dreaming, Backwards helped to lift the monologue out of a cold read and into a performance with much more emotion and complexity.


I have found it very beneficial to lay the ground work of objectives, units, character and other techniques before acting. It has made me consider my actions when performing and has helped me to understand why characters say and do certain things. I feel like I now have a deeper understanding of how to work with a script, which I can only benefit from in performance.


Through reading Like Dreaming, Backwards several times I have noticed a crucial detail that I previously did not pick up on. As the other characters in the play are figments of Nell's imagination and don't say anything that she doesn't already know, all the other characters thoughts about Nell must be what Nell thinks about herself. The more I read the play, the more this quite confusing idea makes sense. It adds an interesting complexity to the play and allows me to understand why Nell is so depressed as a character.


It is important that we set the conditions before we act. If we cannot see  or feel where we are in a scene, then the audience will not be able to see or feel it either and the performance will lack truth.


Antonin Artaud and Semiotics (the 'Sign')


Antonin Artaud was a french playwright, actor and director who believed that theatre should effect the audience emotionally as much as possible. He used heavy imagery and signs in his work to do this.


To explore semiotics and how they are used we did an exercise where a chair was placed in different positions on a stage. We saw that with each position a new sign and emotion was created and we as the audience read that emotion.


For example, when the chair was upright, facing the audience, central, we felt it to be quite a friendly and inviting setting and made us ask why the chair was there and who was going to sit in it.
When the chair changed position to down-stage but still central, turned over so that the legs stuck out at the audience, we could sense an angry emotion and the space looked a lot more violent and uninviting. It left us wanting to know why the chair was turned over and what had happened previously to leave the space in such a way.


This showed us how just the simple manoeuvring of a chair can change the way a space speaks and how it changes the audience's questions of purpose and reason.


We were then given a sheet which would help us evaluate our choice of space in the future:

Overall, the workshop made me realise how effective the use of space, body and time is on an audience. I have realised that things that I would never have previously considered make a huge impact.

20th - 24th September 2010 (Week 3)

Drama


This week we started looking for material for an assessed monologue performance. We were to find three plays which we believed would have a suitable monologue for us to use, read them over and over and choose which one we thought we could perform to the best of our ability. It was very important to read the play over and over again because there is no way that one can take in every piece of information from the work after just one read. Reading the play many times gives you a deeper knowledge and understanding of the work and allows you to pick up details which you have have missed or misunderstood in previous readings. With this excellent understanding of a play, it is made much easier to challenge a character and their monologue.
       It is important to invest money in plays, not just to expand a personal knowledge of theatre and writing, but to support the industry, discover new writers and explore different genres of theatre. By reading three plays before selecting the most suitable, you give yourself a greater choice of characters and monologues. You are also able to compare the pieces, as opposed to having just one play and not knowing whether another would have a more suitable monologue that would be a better choice to perform. Reading plays is essential to the development of an actor because the more you can read, the more experience with theatre you can give yourself.

We used the website doollee.com to look for writers and plays that we thought would be most appropriate for us. Doollee is an online database of playwrights and theatre plays which allowed us to search through thousands of different works. Some of the plays were not available to buy, but the contact details of the writer were listed on the site. As actors, it is good practise to contact writers as you can find brand new plays and pieces that nobody else has seen before, collaborate with writers to find a piece perfectly suited to you and build up a list of contacts that you enjoy working with and respect the work of.



Looking through Doollee, I found three plays which I believed would be of use to me:

That Face by Polly Stenham, Noughts & Crosses adapted from the novel by Malorie Blackman by Dominic Cooke and Disco Pigs by Enda Walsh

However, although these were enjoyable to read, none had suitable material in the form of a monologue which I could use. On further reading I found a play called Like Dreaming, Backwards by Kellie Powell. I believe that a monologue I have chosen from this play will be appropriate for me and that with work I will be able to perform this to the best of my ability for the assessment.

Dance & Vocals

We continued our progress learning Nicest Kids In Town, our ballet and jazz pieces and our various techniques.