Week 20

 Monday 26th February 2024 

Warm ups

Are main warm up from today was a follow the leader type variation warm up, were there would be one person that you had to apply complete focus too- following their exact movements kind of like a reflection. I really like the concept of this warm up, because it forces you to pull all your attention to one thing instead of multiple- exercising that skill of high attention span that is so important when working on singular scenes/projects. As the warm up progressed it turned into multiple people following one singular person, creating  this synchronised movement effect that when done in a certain way can look really pretty. I also feel this warm up delved into that sense of letting go, as you basically gave another person this element of control that you ended up relying on throughout the process. I feel are warm ups at the moment are very much centred around developing skills that are helpful for the projects we're all working on currently, especially when is comes to our connections play "shout" as it's quite weird and awkward at times, meaning letting go as an actor is extremely important when working on these particular scenes. This also applies for our tricky ensemble scenes were we need a large amount of focus and trust.

Improvised scene creation 

We then moved on to an activity that supported our character development processes, using devising as a way to create unscripted scenes between characters in our plays, looking into and thinking about certain character relationships/scenarios that have happened in the past, current time or even the future. Building on subtext and the general life experiences of our characters. Because everyone in our group are playing teachers, we decided to relate it to school so everyone could benefit from the scene in the way of character development- creating a scene based around the first interaction between my character (Andrea) and the rest of the staff in her department. Andrea is the newest teacher to her department so we wanted to straight away show the connection they have as staff before her arrival/the way the characters exist before they meet her. We wanted to make sure all our characters stood out in their own way, fully developing the way they all individually interact with others. This scene naturally became quite comedic as our characters are quite comedic themselves, whilst not letting that comedic element become the focus. I really enjoyed this activity, feeling that it allowed me to just explore and push my character analysis even further, it also helped us collectively understand the further relationships between all the teachers, not just what we see on the surface from them. This is definitely a technique that I will use in the future when developing characters further, and finding that just improvising as your character/ creating scenarios with other actors characters can help you figure out elements about their relationship that you didn't know before. 

Tuesday 27th February 2023    

We spent todays session focusing on monologues and how to approach a monologue for an audition. This is to help us prepare for end of year auditions, but also as a beginning conversation on what we would need when it comes to UNI auditions, and how to pick the right monologue for ourselves. Instead of being told to go and find a random monologue to learn we were given a small selection to choose from, just for this activity. We then had to choose one and start breaking it down- splitting up this process into sections; starting off with the initial read through, just going through them by ourselves individually and then grouping up with others doing the same monologue. This was an opportunity to discuss what we all collectively acquired from our read throughs- reading them outload to one another and explaining/analysing our individual interpretations. I found this element of sharing and communication when it comes to monologue work to be really helpful, as you get to see certain things from a new perspective that you hadn't seen before. This also opens up the opportunity for constructive notes, allowing you to get a better overall insight on the best way to deliver the monologue. 

Wednesday 28th February 2023 

Wednesday we continued with "shout" rehearsals, just getting down some more of the freaks and geeks scenes- putting most of the focus into the meditation scene that occurs just before the therapist scene. Personally I feel this scene has some difficult awkward elements, as towards the end of it we all need to start hip hop dancing randomly in a semi circle- which is one of those things that you have to go full out with to make work, which is quite difficult in a way as you have to just fully let go as an actor. This is were a lot of our letting go warm ups and focus activities really helped out, like for instance the headphone activity we did at the start of our "shout" rehearsals, just focusing on eliminating outward judgment that you will feel as an actor when performing. 

Friday 1st March 2024 

Friday wasn't a scheduled collage day as we're normally not in on a Fridays, but today we had the privilege of a movement style workshop with an actor/director/writer Umar Butt, who offered us this workshop and the opportunity to see his show after coming to see  "snowdrop" (a show written and created by one of our students Alan). Throughout the workshop we focused on a few warm up style activities that were there to help us engage with our bodies fully. This involved walking on all 4s and actively making ourselves aware of the way we were walking etc. We then did an activity that highlighted the idea of creating something from nothing through devising, this involved getting sectioned off into groups- being giving a singular word and then having to create an image/scene from it. Our word for this activity was freedom, which at first we went straight to the concept of creating a physical scenario, but then instead thought the idea of physically symbolising something instead would work better so opted for a freeze frame. We wanted to use composition to our advantage, adding in an element of perspective, in the way that depending on were you were stood you would see it in a different way, which is something I really enjoyed exploring and creating within the workshop. Personally I  feel it highlighted the importance of awareness and picking out the small and important details from performances- really glad I was able to take part in the workshop.