Performance Journey Year 1 Term 5

 Candidate Declaration - I confirm that the attached portfolio is all my own work and does not include any work completed by anyone other than myself

Monday 15 April 2024

For my audition today, i chose a monologue from Annie known as her 'locket' monologue, i chose this because i felt like it showed a different emotion to that of which i have shown in my acting so far. The morning of auditions, i felt very nervous, but at the same time i felt like i was as prepared as i could be for the auditions, i had picked a monologue u felt portrayed the things i wanted to in a monologue, and i also had learnt it, for good luck i took in with me a locket that my (adoptive) mother let me use, this also doubled as a prop for my audition because the monologue is all about her locket.  I practised for my audition by saying my monologue to Scarlet Layla and Evie in the LRC, they gave me some feed back, i needed to slow down my lines and act as if i was in a room with the person i was talking about.  

Below is a video of my monologue: 

i took their feedback on board, i then did it again for them, and they said that it was much better, at this time it was my time to go in for my audition, i was extremely nervous, but not as nervous as i have been in the past for auditions. As i was walking in for my audition i became more and more nervous, but as i was stood in the room to do my audition i felt okay as i could only do as good as my best. I stood there and did my audition, and then i was asked some questions by Kelly and Abbie, as i walked out of my audition i realised that there was quite a few things i messed up in my audition and i knew instantly that i could have done better. I was doing my audition as if the other person was in the room with me, and i think i messed up on the spacing because i found myself looking to the side of the room when i could in my head have positioned them in front of me so i was interacting with someone closer to where Kelly and Abbie were sat so i would have been facing towards them. I could have also had better projection. 

Tuesday 16 April 2024

Today, we had our first read through of 'One flew over the cuckoos nest' and 'radium girls' due to the length and wordiness of these plays, we only got half way through both of the scripts, but it still made it easier for us to really understand these plays, and the characters inside them, i think that the characters in both of these scripts feel so real and like you can really delve into the lives and world of these people. 

The read throughs themselves i think ran quite well, but like i did, it was evident that a lot of people really struggled with the american accent, I will definetly have to practice my accent to make sure it is perfect for the shows, which i know is going to be quite a challenge for me. 

Wednesday 17 April 2024

Today, we did a run through of our connections show 'shout' ready for our trip to york to perform it on Wednesday 24 April. Personally i thought the run through was quite messy and could do with quite a bit of work as it was all over the place, which made me feel very nervous because our show is next week and it is approaching very quick, personally for myself, i know i need to keep running over my lines, just to make sure i remember them for the show in york. 

Thursday 18 April 2024 

In a way, today was an extension of our auditions, we were tasked with getting in a group with one or more people and choosing a scene from the script we wanted to perform and for the character we want to go for, which we had messaged to Kelly, and we had to go through the scene and make it up together, i chose to go with Freya, as she wants to go for Grace and i want to go for Miss Wiley, i chose Miss Wiley because, all the roles i have played in the past have been in so many words 'a girls girl' by this i mean part of a girls group of younger girls, so i believe the role of Miss Wiley would challenge me in ways i haven't played yet, we chose the final scene in Act 1, this was the first time i properly tried an american accent in front of people, Freya helped me with it, she said some words and i copied them so i could get in the hang of the accent. Personally i know that my accent was lacking and i could have done better with my projection and i could have slowed down. 

 Monday 22 April 2024

Today, half of the class had the Shakespeare audition, and while they were doing this, the rest of us went off to room 224 or the library and completed a load of work we needed to catch up on, we had to write up the audition and we had to complete our project proposal form, i finished this before lunch so i sat and went thriugh some other things i had to complete then we got to go home at lunch. 

Tuesday 23 April 2024

The cast list for our two end of year shows was released today, i got the roles of Mrs Fryer, (Grace's Mam) and society woman. I am excited for my roles, i really am looking forward to the chance to play these parts, they are very different to any roles i have played before, in the fact that i have always played younger roles who would be described as 'girls girls' I am now given the chance to play older more mature characters who are more level headed and are role models. I am very excited to have a challenge in my acting it will be a good change for me. 

Wednesday 24 April 2024

Today, we went to York Theatre Royal to perform our away performance of SHOUT, Today was a very exciting day, but it was also nerve wracking, for us it is a very important performance, it was a real chance to show our dedication, effort and hard work we put into the show. When we arrived at the theatre, we started on a tech run, we got into our costumes and ran the whole show, we then worked on a transition rehearsal, once we finished working through making sure everything ran as it should, we moved onto a full run. The performance that night went very well, and we were even informed that another director from the NT had come to watch our performance- which mean we had been flagged up as a high contenders. This news was amazing to hear and stands as a true testament to our hard work putting together the performance.  The performance that night went very well, and we were even informed that another director from the NT had come to watch our performance- which mean we had been flagged up as a high contenders. This news was amazing to hear and stands as a true testament to our hard work putting together the performance.

Thursday 25 April 2024

Today was sharing day, where we show the rest of the group what we have done in our casts so far with our end of year shows, so we shared with the group our first scene, where we are all on stage and we turn around singing the song and staring, the whole idea of this scene is supposed to be quite creepy, we are supposed to give off the effect that we are dead. Once we had showed what we had done, we went back and sang through some different songs because the one we originally had was too cheery, the original song we chose was 'down in the river' and the song we changed it to was, 'steal away'. 

Monday 29 April 2024

Today, the warm ups we did were ninja, and layah led the letting go warm up. after this, we took turns swapping with the boys, some of us sat in room 224 and did tutorial questions/ work on blogger/ production role work. And when we swapped we were in dance studio 2 doing radium girls rehearsals, we worked on the first few scenes, getting them better. 

Tuesday 30 April 2024

Today, we started off with warm ups, we did a new warm up that we were taught when we went to York to perform SHOUT, its called the nun game  or the sister game, it is where everyone stands in a circle and they stand like a nun, with their hands in a praying position, you have to walk up to someone and say, sister (their name) i have a message for you to deliver to sister (someone else's name) in the style of, then choose something for them to act out, whilst the people do this the whole aim is to not laugh or smile. We then played wah. We also did a movement warm up and a vocal warm up, for the vocal warm up, we did something new, called London Bridge is falling down, this is where wwe walk around the room singing London Bridge is falling down, and somoene shouts either bridge, where we have to make a bridge with one other person, London bridge, where you have to make a bridge with one person stood inside of it, or London Bridge is falling down where we make a bridge with one other person and sing London bridge is falling down and you have to try not be the last one to say or do the action. 

We then ran through what we have done of Radium girls Act 1 with cast one, in this cast i am society woman, and i am in the second scene, i am supposed to command the audience, and i am a very rich character, i am from the upper class. whilst i wasn't in my scenes, i was writing down my plans for costumes and trying to figure out what would be needed. 

Wednesday 1 May 2024

Today was an independent study day because most of the class was on a trip to London to watch 'Standing at The Sky's edge', so we sat in room 224 and caught up on coursework and also Production role planning. 

Thursday 2 May 2024

Today, we started with filming for Graysons' film 'lost souls', we started with the opening scene. I play the therapist, for me it was a great experience playing this character, it was a big change for me, the whole idea for the character is she is supposed to be a bad therapist, very judgemental and not calming. we filmed scene 2 and scene 4. After filming was over, we went back to our class and joined in the radium girls rehearsal, we went through the Mrs Fryer scene in the house with Grace and Tom from Act 1, In this scene, Mrs Fryer is upset with Grace and Angry, because Grace quits work at the radium plant, she was being paid $35 ($546.58 modern money) at the radium plant a week and she moved to working at the bank where she earned $15 ($234.25 modern money). 

Tuesday 7 May 2024

Today we started off with Vocal and physical warm ups, the vocal warm ups were led by Sienna and Alan, and the physical warm up was led by Scarlet. We then moved on to a rehearsal, a full run through of what we have so far But switching the cast every other scene, I wasn't up much so i sat and worked through my costume plan and my PowerPoint for my my production role. 

Wednesday 8 May 2024 

This morning, we started off with a warm up led by Abbie, and then an accent lesson, Abbie made a PowerPoint on how to say the words and then tongue twisters in the American accent. After this, Kelly and Tom came into the room, and told us they wanted to talk to us, we were all very concerned because she came in really serious, but she told us  FOR SHOUT WE ARE PERFORMING AT THE NATIONAL THEATRE!

After this was finished, we went on break and once we had all calmed down we started on Radium girls rehearsals, we went through scenes from act 1, with cast 1 that we had already done, as in this cast i am society woman, i had a lot of spare time, when i wasn't watching Freya do our scenes, i worked on my original plan for costumes. 

Thursday 9 May 2024 

To start of the session today, Layah led a concentration warm up, we then moved on to signing forms for The SHOUT trip to London at the National Theatre, once we had finished signing the paper work, the cast of radium girls moved all the set for the show into Toms studio (Studio 1) and we started on our rehearsal, today moving on to new scenes from Act 1 we had not done yet. 

Monday 13 May 2024

To start off this morning, Kelly spoke to us more about the travel down to London, the stay in London, Our performance and also travelling back from London. We also talked about the rooms and who we would be sharing with, and the menu (food) and what would be served each day. 

After all the talk about National theatre, we moved on to a vocal warm up, Led by Sienna and Alan, once we had finished our warm ups, it was time for break. After we came back from break, we moved further on with our Radium girls rehearsals, we continued with act 1 today, we did every other scene with every other cast.  

Tuesday 14 May 2024

This morning, we started off with a game of splat, and after that we did half an hour of vocal and physical warm ups, to get us ready for the day ahead, the vocal warm up is especially important for the cast of Radium girls, because we do a lot of singing in our show, the warm ups took us to about 10:45 and for 15 minutes we went through the song 'steal away' to open the beginning scene, which led us up until break time. 

Once we came back from break, we got stared on rehearsing Act 2, scene 1, in this scene it is set in the busy street, for this scene, Freya was the part of 'Shop girl' which means in the other cast, that will be me, when i am not shop girl, i walk on 7th from my side, i walk on with sienna and we are talking about the news, the $250,000. Which is talked about in my shop girl lines. 

Wednesday 15 May 2024

We spent the start of today working on our presentations we would be giving on Thursday, I am on costume with Keira, for the most part our presentation is done, so we went to the LRC and found books on 1920s fashion, so we could get some more inspiration for how costumes should be, we found a lot, and we found some new stuff on hats and accessories too. 

We then moved on to  learning another song for our show 'radium girls' called 'Lord of all hopefulness', whilst people were rehearsing, i spoke to Abbie about costume and my plans for them, and she helped me and showeed me the research she also did. after this, it was then time for lunch. 

after lunch, i went with Abbie to the costume store and we tidied it up but also brought back the costumes we thought could be good to use, and hung them on the ballet bars at the back of dance studio 2. I then went back into Radium girls rehearsal, i did my act 1 Mrs Fryer scene but had to leave early because my rabbit was dying, so i caught up on what we did by asking the other girls.

Thursday 16 May 2024 

Today, we did our production role presentations, mine was at 11:40, i did it on my own as Keira was at the hospital, Kelly and Abbie seemed to like my plans and what i had wrote. 

radium girls costumes.pptx - link to my presentation 

For the rest of the day, we spent the most part either rehearsing individually our scenes or getting on with our production roles. I went round trying costumes on people from what we already had, and making note of what we had on my spread sheet and my planning grid, we got a good chunk of costumes tried on people today, i would say that today was a productive day. 

Friday 17 May 2024

Today, was my day off, but i spent the morning into the afternoon looking through charity shops to see what i could find for costumes. i also made a concrete list of what we had and what was still needed. I then messaged people on teams talking to them checking first if people had the correct foot wear and then checking with most of the lads if they had a suit, because based on the time period most of the males wore suits, and if they were rich then they would often wear a bow tie. 

Monday 20 May 2024 

Today, we started the morning with our sponsored walk around tees barrage, i went and did mine with Pheebs, layah and Evie B, we went the opposite way round than the rest of the group, we did this so we could get around not distracted. After we finished the walk, i had a talk through what costumes we already had with tom and he helped me figure out who should wear what. We then moved on to a run through of the songs we have learnt for Radium Girls with Tom. And after that, we did a full run of the show. 

Tuesday 21 May 2024 

We started off the day with Warmp ups, and then we worked more on the songs, after we had filled in the questionare we had to do for the college.  I then tried a costume on Sienna that i had found. We then in the afternoon moved on to A cast 2 run through And then a cast 1 run. 

Whilst i wasn't on, i sat and worked out who's costumes we had and who's we still needed so that we had a more clear vision on what we still needed to get, i also tried costumes on people and helped find some props. 

Thursday 23 May 2024 

Today, we were called in for an early rehearsal, we are not usually in on a thursday morning but we went in, a few of us helped Tom bring his costumes in from his car that he had got from his costume store, and after that, we sorted through those costumes and worked out a more solid plan of who had what, today was a very productive day, during the morning break, me and Pheebs sat and found the costumes which had holes in and sewed them, there was quite a few but we patched them all up so they look as good as new. 

After we broke for lunch, we moved on to a cast one rehearsal, some people chose to put their costumes on for the run, i chose to wear mine, it was nice to sit and watch it whilst people rehearsed in their costumes, i saw my work coming together from my production role, there is still a couple of costumes to find, but for the most part we are sorted. 

Friday 24 May 2024

Today was my day off, but i went in to town and wanted to look through the charity shops for costumes, i found two dresses, and i found some costume jewellery, i found a lot of pearls, some necklaces, and i also found a watch and some bracelets. Even though it isn't my production role, i have been helping to find some props. In the charity shops, we found some vases and class jars for the front of house team, and i also found some tea sets which will come in handy for the household scenes.

Monday 27 May- Sunday 2 June- Half term 

 W/C Monday 3 June 2024 

Monday- Today i got everyone into costume so that i could get photos of their costumes, and see where we were at for them. 

This week was One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest show week so we sat in the dance studio and did our own bits of scenes we needed to work on, and i finished costumes, i also helped on front of house for One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest Front of house. 

Monday 10 June 2024 

Today, we started by doing a full run through of cast 1 in costume for Kelly in Dance studio 1, After this run, Kelly gave us some notes so that we could take them and improve the show. The note Kelly gave me was that i needed to be more excited as the Society Woman. After this run i sat and organised the costumes so people would know where their costumes were. 

In the afternoon we did a cast 2 Run through, This is my main cast so i was happy to get another run through in, Kelly also gave us notes on this as well. We then all showed up to watch the level 2s show and support them like they support us. 

Tuesday 11 June 2024 

We spent this morning getting all our set into the theatre and setting up the stage and the platforms for the radium girls set. and the tech team also sat and worked out all the lighting and sound that we needed for thw whole show. In the afternoon we then did a full Tech and costume run of cast 2. 

Wednesday 12 June 2024

Today was the first show day, we started off the morning with a full tech and costume run of cast 1, after a singing rehearsal to make sure all the songs were perfect for the show, Tom gave us notes and we then in the afternoon ran some parts that needed work. After this, it was show time, Tonight i played society woman, i think the show went very well, everyone knew that there was parts that messed up, but upon talking to audience members, they said that it was really good and they enjoyed it. 

Thursday 13 June 2024 

Today was second show day, we started the morning with a warm up and a run through, we then did a singing rehearsal to make sure everything ran smoothly, After this, Tom gave us some notes and we took the time to work on scenes we needed to work on, After this, it was time for the show, tonight i played Mrs Fryer I thought that the show tonight went really well, i know personally i messed up and muddled up a few of my lines, but i went on that stage and gave it my all, i really enjoyed playing Mrs Fryer she is my favourite part i have ever played.