Start of Second Year-
Monday 9th September 2024
Similar to last year we started back by delving into improvisation as the very first push towards out first project of the year, our Stockton Globe ghost light tour. As I know from last year improv is quite a large component of creating the piece- using devising work as a door towards more developed and structured ideas.
Re entering into the flow of improve
This meant our session began with some improve style warm up games, such as 'what are you doing' and 'yes lets'- two games that allow the actors to push towards an instinctive response, that can later be used very effectively when devising. We then moved onto a more structured activity that is almost like a further step up into improvisation and developing it further. This activity required everyone to be in a circle, with one actor in the middle putting themselves into a scenario. It was then the job of the other actors around them to add to the scene the first actor had created, leading to a snippet scene that you could just let run- continuing the cycle of improvisation. This activity was then further expanded by only allowing a select number of actors the ability to talk in the scene, or only allowing certain actors the ability to be people- meaning the other actors had to take on other surrounding objects that would be in that scenario. This was an effective activity that allowed us to eliminate that element of worry on what's happening around us, as it required the actor to be completely focused on their own trail of thought. Being able to shut your surroundings off and stay in the moment is really important within acting as a whole, but especially improv as its a difficult thing to not worry of embarkment or humiliation- so doing an activity that is really effective in eliminating that helps further fuel our improvisation skills.
Research on Iconic theatre villains- Globe work
The theme of our horror tour at the Globe this year is iconic theatre Villains, using some of the amazing horror of theatre as a way to form a horror tour around the Stockton Globe. To do this we all collectively brainstormed some of our favourite theatre Villains- and then as a small group took on the task of research a specific villain and their story. Our group had the amazing and interesting story of "Bonny and Clyde" to research on- Below is some of the information we found.
Tuesday 10th September 2024
I started today off by sitting in a Stanislavsky session that was being run for the first years. I was originally going to par- take in this session, but had quite a bit of work to look at for drama schools and collage work etc so decided to sit in the session while I was working so I could over hear the information being talked about, and pick up any pockets of knowledge that was being taught. I'm currently practising one of my classical monologue options which is a Helena monologue form midsummer nights dream, and I'm feeling like its a really good fit with me- being a comedy genre play from Shakespeare. I'm also really drawn to the character of Helena and find her very 3D- which is something I sometimes struggle to feel with Shakespeares characters as from a modern day perceptive it can be hard to fully understand their thought process, so to be very naturally drawn to the monologue is something I'm very happy about. I'm also going to look into a bit of greek theatre that I already am familiar with and see if I can pick any exciting monologues that contrast my Shakespeare one with play such as Antigonie and Medea.
Drama school discussion:
we then spent our second year session discussing through our choice for our next step, and what interested us about particular drama school or courses and apprenticeships that we could apply for. This included going through what you needed to apply for the drama schools and discussing with peers what they were asking for- whilst having an open conversation about what we all personally liked about the choices we were thinking of pursuing. Are tutor then came round and had a small discussion with are individual groups about what we were thinking, and advised us on our choices and just let us develop a better understanding on what would be best for us etc.
Wednesday 11th September 2024
Today we were focusing on our ghost light tour theme of iconic theatre villains, so did a bit of work on narrowing down what makes a villain a villain and what we associate them with- building of characteristic stereotypes developed over time through cinema and stage. From these characteristics that we'd built up based of some of our favourite villains, we then in small groups used them as inspiration to form our own villain we then embodied as actors. This then led to an improvised group activity were new groups are formed from the previous existing groups- being given a concept to create an on the spot improvised scenario with using our characters collectively. This was quite a challenging activity, which I think our whole group collectively found quite jarring to get into, as it required everyone to lean into the flow of an unwritten conversation automatically. The problem that we were mainly facing with this was that not everyone in the group felt they could put themselves in the middle of the conversation, making it gappy and clunky- and for me personally the character that I was embodying was someone who sat in the shadowed and watch/waited for there moment. But because we needed to push the conversation forward, I found that I had to be quite vocal and abandon how I would associate my character in that particular situation. This activity was a good pointer on our need to practise improvisation more before we perform our ghost light tour. We then did some work on narrowing down what character we wanted to go for in the ghost light tour, just narrowing down are main options and coming to our final decisions so we can then prep for the auditions. The charter I settled on picking was Nurse Ratchet, so will continue to do a lot of research on her in preparation.
Physical Fitness
Within our sessions we are now implementing in a movement/dance session in each week, so we can build up our personal stamina and become more active performers. Being physically fit is actually incredibly important when it comes to being a performer as it is an incredibly active job- especially if you're doing theatre or Musial theatre. As an actor you also don't know what work your going to be doing and It might end up being a lot more physical than your think, and might even require you to dance. It's important as an actor to be as versatile as possible, you want to be able to offer up as much as you can to allow yourself the best chance of being cast and getting work.
Thursday 12th September 2024
Todays session was a carousel session- meaning throughout the day we switched between two of our tutors, covering different topics that were either catered to drama school work or just general technique. One of the topics that we covered and are going to be continuing to work on are the finer details of acting for screen. This included learning more about other jobs on set, so we are aware of terms and phrases that will be used when working. This is also so we can do our jobs better by understanding the jobs of others in the industry and being able to work more smoothly with other people.
The first part of the session was spent understanding shakespearen English, before we started fully delving into learning our Shakespeare monologues. Its important to understand the general language of the Shakespearean era before learning one of his monologue, because therefor you can easily understand the emotions that the characters are portraying without getting confused or misinterpreting the message.
The next part of the session was spent learning about shot types in film and tv, here are some of the notes I took when in the session:
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