Production Design

If I were to direct a play in Shakespeare, for example Macbeth, I would research the background and synopsis of the play, along with each character. Furthermore, I would watch a collection of past interpretations of the play and adapt my own of what I think is the best way to portray the tragedy.

If I were to take a look at the script I would allow the most important scenes take more time rather than all the dialogue scenes as often youth audiences tend to get bored due to the large paragraphs and so on and so forth. In addition I may translate a lot of the shakespeare language in to modern language english as if this play were to educate those studying the performance, it may make it easier to understand. With the costumes, I may want to make a few changes to it as I have decided to change the language to modern english resulting to a modern version of Macbeth. With the stage, I would use simple objects such as a board with wheels to transition from scene to scene which for one makes it easier for the scene change and two less pieces of set to worry about making when two can be merged to one.

What Drama schools want?

What Drama schools want?

What do Drama schools want? A question often asked when preparing for the future of an aspiring actor. In order for you to have a head start on the audition stage of reserving a place in a drama school are monologues. Monologues are the key components of your audition and where you can expose your full potential in what you love. Factors that often impress the judges in Drama schools are that you have clear knowledge behind your monologues, preferably at least two different ones – one classical and one modern. For example, the monologues I have chosen are Erik’s monologue from The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber for my classical and Jimmy’s monologue from the Ghost of Detention by D. M. Larson. Make sure when deciding your monologues, if the monologue was originally written in a book, make sure to take note of both when the book and play were written and who wrote both.

After obtaining the monologues, make sure you make clear research behind when they were written and a brief synopsis of each to show a clear understanding of how or where these monologues are based around in the play. Furthermore, it is also beneficial if you have clear reasons on why you had chosen these monologues. For example, the reason why I had chosen the monologue from the Phantom of the Opera was because I had grown up around the play and the powerful emotions the scene releases can send over an impact to the audience where they can realise how love can control people, even a Phantom. The reason why I had chosen the Ghost of Detention monologue is because it is based around wanting a detention just to be with a girl, however it juxtaposes with my personal character and in turn makes the scene a slight challenge.

Although having monologues is already a start, having at least another classical and a modern monologue can help secure your essentials for the audition as it shows the judges that you are well prepared. In addition some drama schools may ask for you to sing so having a few songs prepared may be a good decision to make just in case they do.  

When first deciding a monologue, you need to consider on how it impacts you as this makes it easier for you to extract the reasons on why you had chosen this purposefully. Once all monologues are obtained, first of all, you need to annotate it. For example, label specific words or phrases you want to emphasise and in brackets put an emotion or action/gesture you may want to accompany the part with. You may also want to consider the 6 W’s: Who are you? When are you? Where are you? Why am I here? What do you want? What will I do to achieve my want? Using these questions to break down the scene can help contribute to your character development and to allow yourself to relate to the character with your own interpretations. It may also be wise to watch your monologues performed online to give you a slight idea of how to portray that character.

For example, for my modern monologue from the Ghost of Detention, I play Jimmy and the timeline of this scene is based around midday in the 2000’s. My location is in a classroom, play ground or corridor of a school where Jimmy finds himself seeing the girl he likes walk in to a detention. This leads him to wanting a detention to ‘…be with her more and see her more…’ as expressed in the monologue itself. In result, again expressed in the monologue is that he would think to give the Principal a wedgie to achieve what he wants. Having these questions answered not may only help you with character development but also help support you if the judges do ask similar questions.  In addition, this shows the Judges that you have taken the time to break down your character and development; also showing that you are a dedicated aspiring actor.

When practicing do not portray any scene cliché by using hand gestures that convinces the audience of what is already conveyed in the scene. Just think as if you are naturally sending over the scene as if you are talking about something in your life. In other words, you can almost relate to the scene that is taking place. A key component of applying for a drama school is that you must not interpret the scene you are performing as what other people see. You should see to it as it is actually happening to you.

Other than just focusing on the monologues, it is also wise to have knowledge on plays and performances you have watched and go back to research on when they were written and a brief synopsis on each. This may be also a heads up to go out and watch plays and experience different genres in the performance industry. Consequently this leads to a positive view of your personality to the judges.

Finally, make sure you have a clear introduction speech before performing your monologues including: your name, your age, the monologue you are performing and the research you had made earlier from the monologues (when they were written, who they were by and a brief synopsis before each monologue is performed). 

Final Major Project

First of all, before Easter, the whole class sat down to do script readings for our Final Major Project. The two plays were 'Pronoun' by Evan Placey and 'Last Summer' by Heather Speake. My initial thoughts on both plays were that they were both touching upon sensitive topics which meant we had to jump over the barrier of portraying this to the youth of this generation. Furthermore, it gave the class brief interpretations on how both can be explored. We had then been set the task to re-read both the scripts over the 2 week Easter break and decide what role we would like to play. As shown in my post 'Why I chose the role I chose', I explain why I chose those characters. I had then been casted to be James Dean in the play 'Pronoun' which triggered the responsibilities of researching my character, character development, coming up with my own interpretations of my character and what he does to contribute in the play. 

From the start of the introduction to the play 'Pronoun' by Evan Placey, my initial thoughts of the play were that the life of a transgender is not easy as the people around you who care about you and who you are become affected. As I read through the script after being given my role of James Dean, I had begun to research about who he was and how he could be portrayed. Although I have heard who he was before the introduction to the play, I have not known much about his history and what he had taken part in. I had researched that James Dean was born on February 8th 1931 and died in September 30th 1955 from a car accident. Dean was seen as an actor who were loved dearly by fans and who portrayed his characters well in the films such as 'Giant', 'East of Eden' and his most acclaimed role as Jimmy in 'Rebel Without A Cause'. Furthermore, his true character and personality were seen in this film. In addition, I had been told by many of my classmates to watch the film 'Rebel Without A Cause' as Dean plays the main role and also clearly shows how he says his iconic quotes that are also stated within 'Pronoun'. The clothing also required for the performance was shown in the film and in result from this, I had an initial interpretation of how he walks, talks and his perspective of life. Alongside the movie, I also watched interviews with James Dean and the way he answered questions, observing his posture and accent.

His iconic look was a Red Leather Jacket, however watching the film, it looked more like a bomber

jacket. I was required to obtain my own costume, as did the rest of the cast, so I asked my friend if I could borrow his as I did not have one of my own. In addition, to help more of my character development, I asked my friend to provide me with a packet of cigarettes as Dean was often seen smoking while he talked. I was given a packet of cigarettes to practice holding it in my mouth as I require to put one in my mouth for the first and last scene I am in as this symbolises James Dean quite a lot. At first the smell of the tobacco took time to get used to but I eventually got the hang of it. Another factor that portrays James Dean is that he was also a very lazy talker and person in general so what I decided to do was to try to adapt his accent over one weekend whilst sitting in his iconic position (legs open, laid back, one arm on the back of the chair and one between the legs). A personal opinion of James Dean, I felt I built a connection with who he was and in result felt really enthusiastic towards this role. In addition I used one of his known lines from 'Rebel Without A Cause' to get me in to character as it simply portrayed his whole personality throughout this line - 'If I had one day, where I didn't have to be all confused and I didn't have to feel that I was ashamed of everything. I felt that I belonged someplace, you know.'

Having read through the script with the rest of the cast, we had initial ideas on how each of the scenes may have taken place. As we had knowledge that there was going to be a poster of James Dean, I had initially asked if I should stand in a frame imitating the poster, however this was dropped due to the fact that I may need to help backstage with props and the poster would have needed to be ripped in one of the scenes any way.

In class, Rob set the task of extracting the themes that were seen from our first initial thoughts of 'Pronoun'. Reading through the script many times, I personally came up with a possible theory and themes that may have been the original idea the Placey was trying to portray. One of which that the journey of the transgender of the play Dean had a history with Josh, her ex-boyfriend. Over the course of the play, their relationship may have constantly been compared to Amy and Kyle as they were due to get married but are also seen in society as being 'normal'. Another theme that may be interpretated from the play is that it is mainly based in modern time but has a 1950 theme to it which is shown in final scene and with the characters James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart who were all recognised at the time. This also may lead to James Dean being a vision in the play to Dean as he may only listen to James as he starred in Dean's favourite movie.

Rehearsals, where should I begin? As this was the Final Major Project of not only our class, our instructor Rob was required to help other classes which was understandable, especially the other half of the class as 'Last Summer' was originally a screenplay and had to be altered to be a stageplay. In result of this, Rob set two cast members to br Assistant Director and to be in charge of leading the production, one for both plays, Rose for 'Pronoun' and Jireh for 'Last Summer'. All was going well in the first individual rehearsal with our cast going through the first scenes, however the tables turned when Rose had the urge to walk out over being in someway 'over powered' by another member of the group. If I were to be completely honest, I observed that she hardly got up to say anything and then complained about someone else leading. Jamie and I tried to encourage her to stay but she resisted as this is a team work based project, we stick together and if one member falls, we work to bring them back up. As the next rehearsal days came by the same incident occured where Rose would repeatedly walk out over small things resulting in the relationship with her and the class to fall apart. For one instance, all we did was wanting to reset the scene that she was in to refine the transitions yet she decided not to. This lead to unnecessary events and pulled the cast from the assistant director even further apart. Because of this, most of the time we had been given to practice the play had all been consumed on the first half as every time we got to her scene it always managed to fall apart, despite our efforts to get her involved. In result, as an ensemble, we decided to choose another assistant director, Alexandra, who actually lead us and noted down what props/costumes we needed to bring and what scenes we needed to practice over others. Another factor the affected our rehearsal time was attendance and punctuality. Many people turned up late to class and some not even turning up. This lead to numerous scenes not rehearsed and others having to fill in for those missing. We only managed to get a full runthough when it got down to 4 days left before the performance which was very poor. 

By the time we got to technical we managed to get another run through in alongside lighting and sound with the help of Jack and Alexandra. This was also an opportunity to practice our transitions as our previous rehearsal was refining them. I was mainly staying backstage right to help with who needed to be where at what time in the play as Alexandra wrote up scene to scene what props and what characters were needed on the stage at a specific time. For example, at the end of scene 3, Dedan and I had to set up the tent and at the end of scene 4, we had to take it down during the blackout. As a team, the SMT characters were mainly discussing who needed to be where on what side of the stage at what time which I found very efficient as they always reminded themselves on what had to be done; in addition, I tried to offer support on what they may have to do as whilst I was offstage I kept an eye on the scene to scene sheet that Alexandra had written up.

As we did our dress rehearsal a few more times, the transitions were becoming much more refined and as an ensemble we were gaining confidence on how the final performance was going to turn out. As it came to the last few run throughs, the whole play began to show its true colours, the scene changes were becoming cleaner, the pace was sustained and improvments were all developed on. On Wednesday 18th of May, we were due to perform twice, (2pm and 7pm) allowing us to give it one last rehearsal. As the first performance was dropping by it came by as a blast, I personally thought it was great, however the I had forgotten to say some lines due to nerves but managed to carry on without hesitation with the work of the characters in the scene. Although this happened in the 2pm performance, in the final performance at 7pm was even better, everyone gave it their all and no mistakes were made; the transitions were smooth, a lot were really humourous in my opinion as SMT were not only my favourite part of the play but gave the play that 'comedy' factor as the play in general was covering a sensitive topic toward a majority of youth audiences.

In conclusion, the whole play was a success in the end and I absolutely enjoyed portraying the role of James Dean and I would love to do it again. Here are so pictures from the performance:

The Voice

Since the start of the college year, many skills have emerged in to my inventory in the acting industry. This can help benefit me in the future when it comes to in depth analyzing of acting and the performance industry. From a brief explanation of what I have learnt since September is that acting does not have to be pretending to be someone else and that a part of the character can live within you or vice-versa. For example a part of you can live within the character to allow you to portray the character as natural as possible. Activities that helped me with this are vocal exercises, physical warm ups and a deeper analysis of a script given through annotations.

Firstly, an introduction to the voice itself, we had been lucky enough to see a break down of the human voice, how it works and how we can explore its range. For example, where our tongue is placed, our volume of our voice and how it can be adapt to different situations or case studies. There was also an explanation of how the voice is produced and how everyone has their own unique voice that no can directly imitate another's. The voice is built up by air pressure when breathing out against the larynx. When the voice is not in  use, the larynx just opens and closes up to allow air to pass through. But whilst the vocals are in use, the larynx vibrates. With higher pitches, the larynx gap is smaller compared to lower pitches. From watching this video, it allowed us to realize how powerful our voice can be in the performance industry and how it can be changed with tongue positions, tempo and so on. Some of the vocal exercises we had done ranged from tongue twisters to breathing exercises to test the strength of our diaphragms. For example, some of the tongue twisters we had used were 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers' and 'Red leather, yellow leather.' By doing these tongue twisters often helped us with our articulation, especially when it came to playing a character from a Shakespeare play where the language slightly differs from modern language. When confident with  articulation, tongue twisters can also help with tempo and pronunciation with words at different speeds.

Relating to tongue twister exercises requires warming up our breathing. Some of the activities we had done to see if we had been breathing and using our diaphragm correctly, we had been put in to pairs. We had been set the task for one of us to position ourselves on a chair bending our top half over to the ground whilst sitting down. Whereas our partner had to place their hands on our lower back to see if it was expanding whilst we breathe. Various other exercises such as leaving a gap between our mouths whilst expressing the consonants helped the movement of our tongue and how this can deeply affect the range of our voices.

Combining our voices and breathing together, the exercises we had been doing frequently such as 'OO, OH, OR' helps sustain and practice the strength of both efficiently. The benefit of exercises like these is that we are able to perform as naturally as possible throughout the use of our voices.

Music certificate

At the start of the college year we had the option to choose an additional course alongside our core one, in this case it was Acting Level 3 UAL Diploma. We had cousrses such as Technical Theatre to Dancing to Photography. I decided to do singing as a personal challenge due to the fact that I was not very confident with my voice and in addition wanted to improve on my projection, in result the singing certificate was a clear benefit on my behalf. 

To get in to the course, we were faced with an audition where we had to show our course leader, Philip, with our range and abilities. The first few weeks of the course then consisted of basic warm ups such as scales and tongue twisters; this also may have come in handy to the Drama course. We were then introduced to our first assessed unit which was the Solo Performance Unit where we had to collate a couple of songs and write up a program whilst updating our blog every session. We were introduced to the different genres in Music such as Folk, Classical and Jazz music. Every week, a few members of the class had to sing a song from the allocated genre, whereas I was given Folk music. As far as I can remember, we were required to always have a song prepared as a lot of the time, Philip would ask members of the class to perform solos in front of the class, in turn giving feedback to the singer in order to improve their confidence and presentation on stage, as well as spreading the voice itself. A couple of the songs I performed were 'Eyes Shut' by Years and Years and 'Suddenly Seymour' from a previous musical I had participated in - Little Shop of Horrors.

As the weeks went on, I had collated the songs for my solo performance whilst timing it and making sure that it hit the bench mark of 20 minutes at least. Whilst performing I had gained some feedback on how I performed and what I could have improved as although in the past I have performed in front of audiences before, I kind of lost confidence and felt that this certificate provided a clear solution for me as a solo performer.

We had then moved on to the Ensemble Unit where we had been given the opportunities to choose our groups and put together a short collation of songs or medley's as a performance without the guidance of Philip. My group and I wanted to be unique and decided to go acapella for our performance since we had been previously practicing this outside the class itself. During every week we had discussed ideas on songs on what worked and what did not work. We then decided to use the songs 'I won't give up' by Jason Mraz and 'Price Tag' by Jessie J with a little rap included by myself. In the end of the medley, my classmate and I provided a little improvisation with what we had been doing outside the class which was beat boxing and bass with our voices. 

The next week we had to provide an Ensemble presentation which had to be prepared alongside the group work where we had to state what an ensemble is, give examples of some, state every member and their roles and compare them to another group. I had chosen Westlife and Years and Years since they both share responsibilities off one another, however the difference is Westlife are pure vocals but depend on a backing track whereas Years and Years have one lead singer and the others providing the backing music.

Overall I have really enjoyed the Singing/Music Certificate as over the course of the year I had gained confidence in singing in front of audiences again solo and learnt new warm up techniques to help me even in the Drama course as stated in the previous paragraphs. In addition, I even found a new acapella group which I am so honored to be part of.