Where am I ? What skills do I posses ? How I developed this?
This is my first year as a student in the United Kingdom, I used to do Drama in my country as well, the educational system here, in the UK, impressed me, everything it's a lot more easier to understand, every single task that we receive, it's targeted, I know what I'm working for. I am happy that I can understand how every single step that our teachers guides us to take helps us to become the best version of ourselves as future actors. In the past two terms I feel like I gathered knowledge, I read "Uta Hagen" and Stanislavski's book: "An Actor's Work", these books taught me some acting techniques very useful for my future. I strengthened my confidence when I played my first two roles in this college, Antigone from the play "Antigone" by Sophocles and Medea from the play with the same name by Euripide, because after the performance I received a really good feedback from my teachers, colleagues and even from the audience. I become faster at learning lines and bringing emotions from the past in the moment, it's a lot more easier for me to work with other people or as an ensemble, I developed my sense of humour when I played Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing" and I learnt how to play a character that is older than me, with the role of Ranyevskaya from "The Cherry Orchard" by Anton Chekhov. Right now I feel like I am in the right place to be, this experience helped me to realise how important acting is for me and how much I love this industry.
Areas
The feedback that I receive after every single performance from my teachers was that I have to improve my pronunciation, diction and projection but besides that, everything is good. I have to work harder on this, tongue twisters will help me and breathing exercises may help me as well.
The essence of performance for me is...
"Acting is behaving truthfully in imagined circumstances", this is my favourite way to say it. In my point of view, the essence of performance is when you look into the eyes of the audience and you are not afraid anymore, when you see in their eyes that they understand what's happening with your character, when the audience feels the same emotions as your character or as you want them to feel about the character. When you are passionate about it, work hard for it and do it for good purposes, not for fame or wealth, you'll find in yourself where this essence was hidden.
Pathways
I've been through a lot of changes since the first day I came to this college, I can say that some things may have changed. I still love to do acting, I am doing this since I was 11 years old, my biggest dream was to go to Hollywood and to learn from the place where the most beautiful movies were made, as I was growing up I started to realise that my dream was almost impossible and that not everyone can go there. The good part of this story is that I ended up in a better place than LA ! England, Shakespeare's home, I didn't liked him at the beginning but after I played the role "Beatrice" from "Much Ado About Nothing" I've changed my mind, I took the challenge and I feel like I won it because until the end I started to love working on Shakespeare. Now I know that there is no such thing as a boring role, the role depends on who makes it and how it does it. The only change that has been made is that I would rather choose to go university instead of drama school because I want to learn more than just acting, I'm also in love with film production and directing even if I know that my place is on the stage, also, I would love to be a part of the exchanging students programmes so I can see how people do acting in the other sides of the world.
Monday, March 27, 2017
Sunday, March 26, 2017
UNIT 5 - Production skills and Context
If I was the director of the play "Much Ado About Nothing" by William Shakespeare, I would place it in the same place as our teacher placed it, in our college, because working with young actors can be really fun, I would let them give me ideas just like our teacher have done with us because it's really important their point of view for me, I want them to have fun and to enjoy what they're doing, I would make it more modern, I would put in there some crazy ideas, like making Beatrice (the role that I had) more foolish and I would make her look like she wants to be smart when, truthfully, she wouldn't be, I would make it a comedy. I would change the Shakespearian language with something that the team could understand, I would let them speak in our days language, I think that this would make it even easier for them to play, I wouldn't want to put them in difficulty.
I would use the "hot seating" technique with every single actor in the play, that's how I can make sure that everyone knows what's their purpose there and what they're supposed to do, who they are and everything about the role, just like they know everything about themselves and then I would use the "raise or lower stakes" technique to make them understand where I want them and how I want them to be in the play. I would be really serious about it and if anyone can't show that it's really in the character's skin I would replace them and, obviously, I would let them know that I am going to do this before giving them the role because I want them to work hard and to be motivated. I think that you have to be true with your team, if they are not able to do the role I would let them know and I would suggest them to find some passion that would suit them or to work even more until they show me that they are in the right place, because I don't think that acting is for everyone.
I would use costumes that would represent the Shakespearian style, some clothes that people used to wear when Shakespeare wrote the play, big dresses for the girls and nice, old costumes for the boys, I would dress the messenger in some green leggings because the person that were in that role, was playing it like a jester, which I really liked, I think that those pants would definitely represent the character. It would be even funnier, in my point of view, to see people dressed like that using the language we use nowadays and even the slang as long as it is appropriate for the play. I would dress the girls in fancy dresses for both weddings and the bride would have the biggest white dress I could find.
I think that the coloured lighting are not good for this play, I may use red for the transition after the first wedding scene because things got really bad, and dark blue when the night is coming, but I think that those two colours are enough. In the rest of the time I would use the yellow lighting for the mornings and white lighting for simple transitions to other scenes. I would also use the circle lighting for moments when the actors are alone on the scene.
I would use different songs, not like the ones that our teacher used, I think that the piece needs more modern music to entertain the young public, to make them want to see more plays and to enjoy the theatre experience, most of the teenagers are really connected with the music that they listen to and I think that this would make a strong connection between them and the actors. I really liked the fact that our teacher used our idea in the play and made "the mannequin challenge" on the stage, we felt released when he accepted our offer because we didn't had to dance on some latino music in that part of the play, where it was the masquerade, not everyone knows how to dance and some people are not confident enough to dance in front of everyone, even if actors should be able to do everything on the stage, I would not be that strict with young people, they can have confidence issues after, if the dance is not going really well and people start laughing at them and I wouldn't want this to affect their future.
I would use the same props as our teacher used and I would add a big mirror for the scene where Hero was preparing herself for the wedding with Margaret and Beatrice. I would also add some gloves in the same scene because Hero was talking about them but she didn't have some and natural flowers for the bride and bridesmaids. On the wedding scene I would add more people, more benches, more wedding decorations.
In my opinion, our performance went really well. It was really different compared to my original expectations, I was expecting it to be boring because it's Shakespeare and, as bad as it sounds, I am not his biggest fan. I expected it to be hard to learn the lines because the language is too old and I didn't understand a word of what I was reading in there. Even if I researched the meaning of every each line and read the play, watched the movie of the play and searched online for opinions and reviews of the play, I still found it hard to understand, until the end I managed to build a subtext and to learn the old English, I was happy with my role after I knew what I was saying. I think that the lighting, sound, costumes and preps were good and I can't contest the way our teacher directed us because every single director has a different point of view of the play.
It was the first time to perform a whole piece on a stage with audience for me, the experience felt amazing, I am content because the performance went good, I developed my learning lines skills and I'm more confident on the stage now. I learnt my lines in the right time, people enjoyed our performance and the teacher gave us a good feedback, he said that we treat the rehearsals with maturity, that the performance was brilliant and that we should work more on articulation and pronunciation, which I totally agree with.
I would use the "hot seating" technique with every single actor in the play, that's how I can make sure that everyone knows what's their purpose there and what they're supposed to do, who they are and everything about the role, just like they know everything about themselves and then I would use the "raise or lower stakes" technique to make them understand where I want them and how I want them to be in the play. I would be really serious about it and if anyone can't show that it's really in the character's skin I would replace them and, obviously, I would let them know that I am going to do this before giving them the role because I want them to work hard and to be motivated. I think that you have to be true with your team, if they are not able to do the role I would let them know and I would suggest them to find some passion that would suit them or to work even more until they show me that they are in the right place, because I don't think that acting is for everyone.
I would use costumes that would represent the Shakespearian style, some clothes that people used to wear when Shakespeare wrote the play, big dresses for the girls and nice, old costumes for the boys, I would dress the messenger in some green leggings because the person that were in that role, was playing it like a jester, which I really liked, I think that those pants would definitely represent the character. It would be even funnier, in my point of view, to see people dressed like that using the language we use nowadays and even the slang as long as it is appropriate for the play. I would dress the girls in fancy dresses for both weddings and the bride would have the biggest white dress I could find.
I think that the coloured lighting are not good for this play, I may use red for the transition after the first wedding scene because things got really bad, and dark blue when the night is coming, but I think that those two colours are enough. In the rest of the time I would use the yellow lighting for the mornings and white lighting for simple transitions to other scenes. I would also use the circle lighting for moments when the actors are alone on the scene.
I would use different songs, not like the ones that our teacher used, I think that the piece needs more modern music to entertain the young public, to make them want to see more plays and to enjoy the theatre experience, most of the teenagers are really connected with the music that they listen to and I think that this would make a strong connection between them and the actors. I really liked the fact that our teacher used our idea in the play and made "the mannequin challenge" on the stage, we felt released when he accepted our offer because we didn't had to dance on some latino music in that part of the play, where it was the masquerade, not everyone knows how to dance and some people are not confident enough to dance in front of everyone, even if actors should be able to do everything on the stage, I would not be that strict with young people, they can have confidence issues after, if the dance is not going really well and people start laughing at them and I wouldn't want this to affect their future.
I would use the same props as our teacher used and I would add a big mirror for the scene where Hero was preparing herself for the wedding with Margaret and Beatrice. I would also add some gloves in the same scene because Hero was talking about them but she didn't have some and natural flowers for the bride and bridesmaids. On the wedding scene I would add more people, more benches, more wedding decorations.
In my opinion, our performance went really well. It was really different compared to my original expectations, I was expecting it to be boring because it's Shakespeare and, as bad as it sounds, I am not his biggest fan. I expected it to be hard to learn the lines because the language is too old and I didn't understand a word of what I was reading in there. Even if I researched the meaning of every each line and read the play, watched the movie of the play and searched online for opinions and reviews of the play, I still found it hard to understand, until the end I managed to build a subtext and to learn the old English, I was happy with my role after I knew what I was saying. I think that the lighting, sound, costumes and preps were good and I can't contest the way our teacher directed us because every single director has a different point of view of the play.
It was the first time to perform a whole piece on a stage with audience for me, the experience felt amazing, I am content because the performance went good, I developed my learning lines skills and I'm more confident on the stage now. I learnt my lines in the right time, people enjoyed our performance and the teacher gave us a good feedback, he said that we treat the rehearsals with maturity, that the performance was brilliant and that we should work more on articulation and pronunciation, which I totally agree with.
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