After a while for Rob and Sharron to decide whose proposals they're going to use, they eventually decided and the chosen proposals were Kieran's, Chris', Alex's and Jireh's. To be completely honest, I believe other people should've been given a chance to direct their play because some people proposed the most awesomest plays that I believe the whole class would have enjoyed just as much as we enjoyed rehearsing and performing Peter Pan. Choosing Alex and Jireh was quite unfair because they directed the first FMP in first year and I other people wanted to do it as well as I. They each gave us a synopsis of what their play is about and we had the opportunity to ask as many questions as we wanted in order to decided whose play we would like to audition for.
Each director held a workshop in order to get more insight in their play. Jireh's workshop was about naturalism and simplicity because that's what his play was about. We did a few improvisations where we were had a stimulus and mood and with our partner we had to create a story. Then, we were put into groups and we had to create a piece about 'pushing someone away'. For Alex's workshop we got into groups and she put different music tracks on and whatever title we were given, we had to create a movement with each track and theme played without speaking. We did this a couple of times with different music. We were then given a short passage from the text for each character and we got to read through it and decide which character we'd like to audition for. Although I really didn't mind which character I would've played if I was chosen to be in Alex's play, I audition for Mattie for no particular reason. The next workshop was Chris' workshop was based more on our emotional side, he played a music track and we had to tell the class what that music made us feel like in one word and then we had a discussion about what we thought about as the music was playing. For example, for me the music made me feel like I was daydreaming or hallucinating. His workshop was mostly based on sadness and anger. We were told to do a screaming test from 1 to 10, 10 being the loudest and most angry scream. It was quite fun but also quite scary. To enlighten the mood, we played a game of 'Look up dude'.
It was audition day for each piece apart from Kieran's because his play was for a one man show. We each took turns to audition, during my audition Jireh gave me a short line from two characters in his play to read out and perform. He said asked me to read the last female character from his script so that he can make the decision of which character I would suit best. I then auditioned for Chris' character and he asked me questions and emotions and if I was capable of showing the deeper side to myself and if it will effect me outside of rehearsals. Each director had in mind who they wanted for their play it was just a matter of discussion and picking and choosing. After the auditions we were told to come back and write in order who's play we'd like to be in. I wrote Jireh's, Alex's and then Chris' because I wanted to do acting and I was quite worried about Chris' play because it was written from scratch with not much time to rehearse. The next day was the cast list to be revealed and we were all quite nervous with who we were going to be casted as and in what play and also with whom we're going to be working with. I was happy with who's play I was casted in because Jireh was my first choice. Also in my group was Grace and Zulaiha whom I have never worked with before so I'm glad I got to experience working with someone else for a change.
We sat in our groups and had a discussion about the character we were given, the theme of the play and any questions we had for Jireh before we started reading the script. I was casted as the character Olivia whom was Lincoln's girlfriend. The play was about a young boy named Lincoln (played by Isaiah originally but changed to Tarkan) who had committed manslaughter and wanted to plead guilty but didn't know how his friend and family would take it when they come to visit and he tells them.
Unfortunately, on the day of the casting we had lost an actor from our group who was supposed to play the character of Victor and also Chris lost an actor from his group. We had a very long discussion whether they should do their own play together or sacrifice an actor from someone's group to put into someone else's group just so these two actors would be in the FMP. This was one of the problems we faced. We needed to recast Victor as soon as possible so that we can continue rehearsing.
After we got our scripts, we had a read-through and asked Jireh any questions we had about the script and the play in general. Reading through the script I learnt more about my character and who she is. Olivia is a calm and positive 18 year old girl who studies Corporate Law at University. She is Lincoln's girlfriend. That's as much information we were given about our characters. One of our tasks was character work and we were able to make up anything about our character and their past life.
