Why I chose the role I chose?

Pronoun is a play written by Evan Placey who is a Canadian-Bristish playwright. It is a love story between Josh and Isabella who are childhood soul mates and are meant to spend their gay year together. But Isabella has now transgendered into a boy and is referred to as Dean. This play explores the topics of transition, testosterone and James Dean; a cultural icon of teen obsession with self-image, feminism and social estrangement.

Last Summer is a screen-play which has not been fully published yet. It’s explores the topic of FGM, cancer and homosexuality. The protagonist, Maisie wants to help change The Meadows to make it a better and more environmental place for people to go and plant flowers. Sareeya is Maisie’s best friend who tells her experience on FGM.

After reading the two plays ‘Pronoun’ and ‘Last Summer’, I felt more connected to a character in Pronoun called Laura. She is a very fun and goofy character and I felt as if I can relate as if this character was made for me. Also, it wasn’t as big of a part as a lead role that I had in my Drama GCSE so I was fine with it. Laura’s also a caring character to Dean especially because he’s transgender and she just wants Dean to feel comfortable with who he is.

On the other hand, reading ‘Last Summer’, I didn’t really like the play as much as I enjoyed reading Pronoun. I thought ‘Last Summer’ dragged a bit and everything serious happened in the end so I didn’t really like that. Although it had a very great story about Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which can really educate students, I just thought it was quite uncomfortable doing a play on FGM where not many people know about it whereas Pronoun is on Transgender and that is a more open topic because many people are aware of it. The characters didn’t seem as interesting to me.

 After going around in a circle and telling Rob our ideas on who we wish to perform as and in which play, Rob thought that I’d be better playing a lead role in ‘Last Summer’ as the character Maisie. At first I wasn’t sure because the character Laura seemed a better role for me but looking back at the script and reading through Maisie’s lines, I thought why not give it a shot. I think the character Maisie is a character that is connected to all the other characters in different ways such as being a best friend to Sareeya and Jas, being a daughter to Ruth and John and being a granddaughter to Grandma. However thinking about it, performing the play people will know about it and remember that my group and I were the ones who informed them on FGM.

Evaluation of The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Shakespeare in Da House

Since my partner and I, and a few other groups didn’t get the chance to perform in someone’s house, I will be evaluating the performance I did on 11^th March.

Dedan and I performed the Shakespeare play, The Two Gentlemen of Verona. I played the character of Speed and he played the character Valentine. Speed is Valentine’s servant and Valentine is deeply in love with Sylvia and Speed teases Valentine about it. We both really enjoyed playing these characters and exploring different ways in portraying our character. For example, I tried making the inside joke Speed says clearer to the audience that he’s taking the mickey out of Valentine. Whereas, Dedan explored the emotion of love by changing the tone of his voice at points in the scene to show he has not a care in the world for anyone else but Sylvia.

For costumes, Dedan wore a blue and white suit to show he has higher status and I wore a black blazer-jacket, a white top and black trousers to clearly show that I’m the servant. In our scene, Sylvia loses a glove and Speed finds it to give to Valentine thinking he lost it. The prop that we used was a glove and a love letter that Valentine wrote for Sylvia to read.

Rob directed our positions on stage so there were five groups on stage at once. The only lighting we use throughout the whole performance was a spotlight which was shown towards the front of the audience so you weren’t able to see the other groups on stage covered by darkness. As Dedan and I were first to perform, after we had finished we rotated anti-clockwise until everyone got the chance to perform and we took a bow and the second half of the class came on.

Since we had already performed to the same audience a couple of times we had gotten use to their immaturity and just focused on ourselves. I think Dedan and I performed really well and we told our relation between each other really clearly so there were no confusions. We both knew our lines fully although I missed a line I don’t think we noticed or anyone noticed because they were so into the performance. Personally, I didn’t find the language of Shakespeare very hard in my scene because there were no advanced type language however some of the meaning of the words were quite hard to understand such as “chidden” “follies” and “to relish a Love-song like a Robin-red-breast”.

The skills I have developed are being able to stand still throughout a performance because I would usually dance a bit or fidget with my hands so I’ve learnt to master the art of a neutral position and only move about when needed. Also, I’ve developed my Shakespeare vocabulary and understand a few words.

10 Minute Warm-up

My 10 minute warm-up consists of vocal and physical warm-ups.

3-4 Minutes

The vocal warm-up I will be doing is an articulation workout. Firstly, the students are to move their facial features around so they are nice and relaxed. This helps to get the face muscles working. Then, take the tip of your tongue out and draw small circles 5 times to the left and 5 times to the right. Now open your mouth wider and draw big circles with your tongue.

The next thing you need to do is get the tip of the tongue working so you start of by making D sounds (duh-duh-duh-duh-duh). Make sure to use the range of sound when you’re making the sounds. Now do it with the letter T (tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh). To make it more difficult try rolling your R’s (Rrrrrrrrrrr) – for those who are unable to do this at least give it your best shot.

For the sides of the tongue, start by doing the sound Ay-ay-ay-ay-a. Try this without moving your chin. Now using your face say Yo-ya-yo-ya-yo-ya

Lastly, for the back of the tongue, use 2 fingers to open your mouth (like a gun) and put the tip of your tongue behind the bottom teeth, take the fingers out and keep the space and start making the sound of G (Ga-ga-ga-ga-ga). Try this without moving your chin. Now try it with the letter K (Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka).

Try these tongue twisters after doing this exercise:

Easy: Black background, brown background.

Hard: The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick.                                                         (According to the Guiness Book of World Records, this is the World's Hardest Tongue Twister)

6-7 Minutes

The game I will be teaching the class is called The Martha Game and it works best with a large group of 8 or more. The class will be divided into two groups. One of the groups will be the audience and the other will stand in a line alongside a wall.

One person runs into the space, forms their body into a statue and announces what they are for example, "I'm a tree." Instantly the next person runs on and forms something else in the same picture.  "I'm a bench under the tree."

The next person then runs and adds to the picture.  "I'm a bum on the bench.” or

"I'm a dog peeing on the tree." Do this until the whole group is part of the picture. This game is to go very, very fast without putting much thought in – just GO! Once the picture is complete and everyone is an object, tell the students on a count of three to become a moving picture or a moving talking picture.

What makes an Actor?

There are many actors in the world but would you consider someone who has a 2 second part in a film an actor? Or would you consider someone with no acting experience whose parents have the money to get them a part in a film an actor?

These are some of the things that make an actor:

·         Passionate – wanting to do something in the future to do with drama

·       Have been wanting to do drama from the beginning – inspirations/role models

·         Talent

·         Skilful – vocal skills (Change their tone of voice), physical skills, being able to play more than one role in different genres

·         Versatile – adapting to different situations in a play

·         Fully committed

·         Believing in yourself

·         Knowing your goal(s) – what you want to achieve and how to get there