September 2024

Monday 9th September 2024 

Today, we started with warm ups, we played Splat, we play splat to help us with our concentration and quick thinking. We then played Ninja, this also helps with our concentration and quick thinking, because you have to be on alert and always be expecting anything. 

Kelly then led us in some games to get to know each other, we had to go around the circle and say our names and one thing about us, I said that I am playing princess Jasmine in pantomime. After that we played 'What are you doing?' the aim of this is to let loose and to improve quick thinking, because as an actor it is very important to know how to do both those things because if something goes wrong on stage we have to be able to think quick to cover it up and continue, and as an actor you have to be able to let loose to be able to get up on a stage or in front of a camera.

We then moved on to improv in groups, we were given prompts from Kelly, the first one was " Dr i think you've removed her spleen not her appendix." For this, I was on the floor as the patient, and Kieran was the doctor who spoke, and Lola was the doctor who removed the Spleen. our second prompt was " You left the gate open and now the cows have got out." I was a cow and lily was the farmer trying to herd me in, but I kept running away from her until she finally got me back in. After this we moved to a big group, we stood in a circle and one Kieran started the scene, and we all had to build it up around him, we started with a McDonalds and moved to multiple settings. 

After the break, we came back in and talked about different theatre villains, and we split into smaller groups and had to pick a character to research, we chose the murderesses from Chicago. [research]

Tuesday 10th September 2024 

Today, we started the day with a session of Year 2 independent study, I worked on research for Chicago, and then i looked more into a few universities, the Universities i am most intrested in looking into are, LMA, Arden and LIPA. After our independent study session, we had a session with Kelly, where we sat and talked more about Universities and their courses and apprenticeships and their qualifications needed for getting onto the course. We also then discussed in groups with our peers about the universities we were interested in, and what we liked about them. Kelly walked around the room, talking to each of the groups, and giving us tips on which schools would be good idea. Personally, I think think this gave me a better understanding on what was best for me. 

Wednesday 11th September 2024

Today, we started thinking into what made a good villain and why, we talked about our favourite and also iconic theatre villains, and we narrowed down what makes a good villain, and Kelly wrote it on the board, we then as small groups used these characteristics to make up our own theatre villains, after we had created our villains, we then moved into different groups, we made sure that there was only one person from each group in the other groups, so there was one of every villain in the group, we then built up the villains ourselves and brought them to life, the objective, was to be a group of villains that are planning to take down the ETC. We found this quite difficult, because it was awkward and not easy to let go. For the next task, we had to split into different groups and create scenes, our scene was a prison full of these villains, and a new villain had just been brought in. 

After this, we moved on to Globe research, we split into groups and we started doing research on the different character/s, the character/s i chose were the Six Murderesses from Chicago. I had already done research, but i did some more and found out the true facts and what inspired the story for the musical 'Chicago'. 

Thursday 12 September 2024 

Today, we had our carousel sessions, we started off the day with Tom doing our Shakespeare monologues in preparation for University auditions, I chose to do a monologue from 'The Taming of the shrew', one of  Katerina's monologues. We learned about the language and the origins of Shakespeare and the Historical Context. After this, we did a session with Kelly on screen acting, we learnt about the different types of shots when it comes to filming and what the shots are used for and some examples of these shots. 

After lunch, we continued for a bit on the shots in screen, but then we moved on to duologues and directing, we got given a piece of a script and we had started thinking about the ideas we could use for the script. We then had another session, our singing session with Tom, we started with our vocal warm ups so that we were prepared for the singing, we did warm ups such as 'When the saints' and '1,2,3,4,5' these are to make sure our voice is warmed up in order to be able to sing and not damage our voice. After we had finished the warm ups, we started by singing, we sang 'At the end of the day' From Les Misérables, Tom told us to split into high and low parts, i chose to sing the high part, even though both of them were out of my vocal range it felt more comfortable trying to sing the high than the low, and i am going to work on my singing so that i can improve. 

Monday 9th September 2024 

Today, we started with warm ups, we played Splat, we play splat to help us with our concentration and quick thinking. We then played Ninja, this also helps with our concentration and quick thinking, because you have to be on alert and always be expecting anything. 

Kelly then led us in some games to get to know each other, we had to go around the circle and say our names and one thing about us, I said that I am playing princess Jasmine in pantomime. After that we played 'What are you doing?' the aim of this is to let loose and to improve quick thinking, because as an actor it is very important to know how to do both those things because if something goes wrong on stage we have to be able to think quick to cover it up and continue, and as an actor you have to be able to let loose to be able to get up on a stage or in front of a camera.

We then moved on to improv in groups, we were given prompts from Kelly, the first one was " Dr i think you've removed her spleen not her appendix." For this, I was on the floor as the patient, and Kieran was the doctor who spoke, and Lola was the doctor who removed the Spleen. our second prompt was " You left the gate open and now the cows have got out." I was a cow and lily was the farmer trying to herd me in, but I kept running away from her until she finally got me back in. After this we moved to a big group, we stood in a circle and one Kieran started the scene, and we all had to build it up around him, we started with a McDonalds and moved to multiple settings. 

After the break, we came back in and talked about different theatre villains, and we split into smaller groups and had to pick a character to research, we chose the murderesses from Chicago. [research]

Tuesday 10th September 2024 

Today, we started the day with a session of Year 2 independent study, I worked on research for Chicago, and then i looked more into a few universities, the Universities i am most intrested in looking into are, LMA, Arden and LIPA. After our independent study session, we had a session with Kelly, where we sat and talked more about Universities and their courses and apprenticeships and their qualifications needed for getting onto the course. We also then discussed in groups with our peers about the universities we were interested in, and what we liked about them. Kelly walked around the room, talking to each of the groups, and giving us tips on which schools would be good idea. Personally, I think think this gave me a better understanding on what was best for me. 

Wednesday 11th September 2024

Today, we started thinking into what made a good villain and why, we talked about our favourite and also iconic theatre villains, and we narrowed down what makes a good villain, and Kelly wrote it on the board, we then as small groups used these characteristics to make up our own theatre villains, after we had created our villains, we then moved into different groups, we made sure that there was only one person from each group in the other groups, so there was one of every villain in the group, we then built up the villains ourselves and brought them to life, the objective, was to be a group of villains that are planning to take down the ETC. We found this quite difficult, because it was awkward and not easy to let go. For the next task, we had to split into different groups and create scenes, our scene was a prison full of these villains, and a new villain had just been brought in. 

After this, we moved on to Globe research, we split into groups and we started doing research on the different character/s, the character/s i chose were the Six Murderesses from Chicago. I had already done research, but i did some more and found out the true facts and what inspired the story for the musical 'Chicago'. 

Thursday 12 September 2024 

Today, we had our carousel sessions, we started off the day with Tom doing our Shakespeare monologues in preparation for University auditions, I chose to do a monologue from 'The Taming of the shrew', one of  Katerina's monologues. We learned about the language and the origins of Shakespeare and the Historical Context. After this, we did a session with Kelly on screen acting, we learnt about the different types of shots when it comes to filming and what the shots are used for and some examples of these shots. 

After lunch, we continued for a bit on the shots in screen, but then we moved on to duologues and directing, we got given a piece of a script and we had started thinking about the ideas we could use for the script. We then had another session, our singing session with Tom, we started with our vocal warm ups so that we were prepared for the singing, we did warm ups such as 'When the saints' and '1,2,3,4,5' these are to make sure our voice is warmed up in order to be able to sing and not damage our voice. After we had finished the warm ups, we started by singing, we sang 'At the end of the day' From Les Misérables, Tom told us to split into high and low parts, i chose to sing the high part, even though both of them were out of my vocal range it felt more comfortable trying to sing the high than the low, and i am going to work on my singing so that i can improve. 

Monday 16 September 2024 

Today, we started off with an activity lead by Kelly, it was the chair activity, we split off into groups, and each group was given a chair and with that chair we had to think of how many different things a chair could be used as on stage, after we had done the chair, we had to tell the rest of the group what we came up with, then Kelly gave each group different items, we got given a spoon, then we swapped items with other groups, and we had to think of the items in front of the whole class, with a metal bowl, the aim was 40 things and our group came up with 36. The whole aim of this, was to act without worry or too much thought, i found thus really helped me because i find myself always worrying and thinking too much when acting, and this let me just let go. We then moved on to other simple warm ups, including WAH!, and Charlie led a vocal warm up. 

Our next task, was tongue twisters, we had to get in pairs, with people we wouldn't usually work with, i was with Delroy, and we had to learn a tongue twister given to us by Kelly, we then had to teach the tongue twister to the rest of the class and every group did that, so we all had to learn all the tongue twisters, the tongue twister me and Delroy had was "The Great Greek Grape Growers Grow Great Greek Grapes".  

During the afternoon session, we then moved on to picking characters we wanted to choose for the globe ND w would research them, so that we know more about them, we split into groups and my group chose to research Chicago the musical and the six married murderesses from cook county jail. I found out some very interesting information about the musical and that it is actually based off of real people.  

      

Tuesday 17 September 2024 

Today, we started off the day with a session of independent study, I looked into my monologue I had chosen from Shakespeare  "The Taming of The Shrew" and I looked a bit more into Universities and my options. 

After our independent study session, it was time to go into the dance studio with Kelly, and we looked into duologues, I was partnered with Alex, Kelly gave us a few to choose from from Dear Evan Hansen the musical, and we picked one between Heidi and Evan. And we were given some key tips on what to do in a good duologues and then me and Alex read through our duologue so we had an idea of what we were doing. 

Wednesday 18 September 2024 

Today, we worked on enforcing the element of fear into our acting, we started off by having everyone walking around the room and 4 people were themselves and everyone else had to try and intimidate them and scare them. We had certain people doing different things like screaming and evil laughs, and people started humming and singing nursery rhymes.  

After this, we moved on to changing it slightly, We had people stand around the pillar in the middle of the room, and we all stood around them, on number one we moved in to a circle number 2 we stepped forward and tilted our head to the left, number 3, we stepped forward again and started humming the nursery rhymes, and then on number 4 we stepped forward again whilst putting our arms out as if to be reaching out to touch them but we can’t quite reach them, and on the final one, number 5, we stepped even further towards them and got in their faces whilst putting our hands down.  

First, we tried it on each other and then Kelly asked the film and tv kids to come in and we did it on them, which was fun. At one point, I chose to go in the middle, because I wanted to see how it felt being on the other side of the situation, I felt very intimidated and creeped out, I had all of the tall people surrounding me and Sienna humming in my face which was very creepy and I think the class managed to carry out the task perfectly.  

After this, we moved on to more specific character work for the Globe, at first, I wanted to go for one of the married murderesses from Chicago, but on doing more research for a few days, I have done quite a bit on Carrie and I really like her as a character and I think it would be a challenge for me, because she is a very different role from anything I have ever played before, me and Layla sat together and worked on the ideas we had for Carrie, we talked about lighting, spacing and costume and also how we would bring the character to life on a stage.  

Finally, at the end of the day, we had Abbie for an hour of dance, we finished the dance everyone learned last week, which I learnt for the first tie today because I went home early last week, after we did the dance, we did a cool down and then did some theory work on dance about what things an actor can do to keep themselves healthy and which of these things we already do as actors.  

Thursday 19 September 2024  

Today was a carousel session, we had Tom first for Shakespeare, where we talked about monologues and Uni auditions, I chose two Shakespeare monologues, the first one is The Nurse from Romeo and Juliet Act 1 Scene 3, and the second one is Katherine’s from The Taming of The Shrew, Act 4 Scene 3.  

After our session of Shakespeare, we moved on to a session with Kelly where we looked at directing, we got given a piece of a script from 'The Flick' where we were in groups of four, and two of us directed and two of us were acting, and we took it in turns so that there was two people directing the other two. 

After our session on directing we moved on to an afternoon of singing with Tom, we went through some of the sings from Pinocchio.

Monday 23rd September 2023 

Today we focused on working as one, and synchronization because both things are very important as actors because you always work in a team, it also helps as an actor because it makes sure that if you make a mistake on the stage you can work as one to cover it up so that it is not as noticable.  

Tuesday 24th September 2024 

Today, we started off the day with independent study in the LRC, i worked on my personal statement and also did some research on Carrie. After our indepenant study session, we had a lesson with Kelly on duologues, the duologues we are focusing on are from ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ i am working with Alex and we are doing a Heidi and Evan duologue. Today we started to block it and get it up on it’s feet.  

Wednesday 25 September 2024 

Today was audition day, I went in early this morning. I met with Layla and we went through our auditions. We decided that we wanted to go as some of the first so we told Kelly. We started off the day by dong some warm ups, until break time. After break, auditions started. 

Mine was one of the first auditions, I went in and did mine. I knew straight away that i messed up. But i kept going. Once i was done, I got some notes from Kelly, she told me it seemed too forced, and i needed to do it in front of an audience. So i went back out and spent the rest of the day preparing again, I found some people in the Black Box room and i rehearsed it for them, they said it was good, but I changed some things and did it for them again with some tips from Layla. 

Once I had rehearsed a few times, and i had performed it again for the same people and Scarlet and Sienna came in an told me to do it again for them, and they told me it was so much better. So wehn it came to me doing it again, I took my audience in with me and Kelly told me that it was a lot better but the ending needed to be pulled back because it was too much. 

At the end of the day, Kelly gave us the chance to do our auditions again, so I did, I really wanted to show that I could do it, so I did it infront of everyone and I was happy with how I did it. We watched loads of people do theirs again. And I was so amazed by all the talent of the people on the course. 

Thursday 26th September 2024  

Today, we had a brilliant chance to take part in a free LAMDA workshop, we got a chance to experience what thier teaching style was really like, and what we would experience if we went to LAMDA. We then had our usual singing workshop this afternoon where we focused more on the songs from Pinocchio, and started to look at more of the songs.