17/10/22 - 20/10/22

 Week 7 of Milly's acting journey:

On Monday 17th October, like all usual Mondays, spent it with Tom where we went over the blocking for Scrooge, so that it would be sharp and everyone would be confident when it came to performing the real thing. He realised that a lot of people were still struggling with words, so we all went over them and spoke each line back to Tom, in hopes that we would remember them. From this lesson, I went home and learnt all the words to Scrooge and am quite confident on delivering them and how that will help achieve the feel of the entire song. The majority of people were in which massively helped with the blocking since there weren't any large gaps due to missing people. Afterwards, we spent the rest of the day on our Ghost Light tour performances at Stockton Globe since we hadn't worked on any blocking, those who auditioned didn't know what parts they had gotten and we were all excited to start on it straight away. Kelly last lesson during the auditions mentioned to myself and Bailey that I had gotten Nurse for one night and she had gotten Girl on  the same night as me, so we went away to practise a few times to perfect it. I'm feeling really happy with this part as it allows me to be angry and stern, which in other performances I've been apart of, I've always played nice and sweet characters which I do love playing since I'm always confident playing them, but I'm hoping college allows me to expand my range of character's I've performed, which it's already doing thanks to this role. During the lesson, I was about to perform the House Of Wax piece performed at the end of the tour, when Kelly asked to talk to me where she asked if I was happy about who I'm playing and If i wanted to play anyone else. I obviously said yes since I was, and then said I would be over the moon playing whoever, in which Kelly told me about a stage door keeper part I would play side by side with Laura, a fellow 1st year who is just so lovely. Inside I was so excited to start learning the lines and looking into my character, but on the outside I was thanking Kelly so much that she thought of me for this character. When she left us to work on the lines, me and Laura read through both parts to get a feel for which door keeper we preferred: Polly or Elizabeth. Polly was a woman from the 50s/60s, so I started thinking about my outfit and how I would portray her era through her costume. Luckily, my nannie had given me lots of her auntie's vintage clothes and it was perfect for what I envisioned. I was immediately drawn towards Polly since like the Nurse, she was head strong and overly confident which I'm not either of those things. I'm being allowed to be someone different and I was so grateful to be given the role of Polly for two shows. We spent some time after college, doing a read through of our Copycat scene from Mean Girls, in which we talked about location, props and costume which is vital in making our scene as close to the original. 

On Tuesday 18th October, we spent the morning learning about an upcoming film festival in our area, which I found so interesting. The afternoon was spent learning lines and just going through our own blocking of the scenes we were involved in. Me and Laura kept going through the script over and over, and even tried near to the end speaking off script. We were told to be off-script by tomorrow which I didn't mind as I enjoy learning lines since the outcome of learning them is amazing, since scenes are more flexible and look cleaner. The day was spent going through lines which I found useful since it's such a priority when it comes to blocking and how interaction with the audience goes. 

On Wednesday 19th October, we were downstairs in the theatre and spent the morning doing a full run through of the Ghost Light tour with Cast 1 performing. In this cast, I was playing Polly, the stage door keeper, and the night prior made sure to have all of my lines learnt in time for the following day's rehearsal. I was looking at the script on my phone so that I knew when to be prepared to enter into the scene, which happened to be after the witches which I was glad about since I knew that when they had happened, it meant me and Laura's scene was close by. The rehearsal for me went swimmingly and since I was comfortable with the knowledge of my lines, it meant that I wasn't constantly thinking about them, rather my body language, my stance and my projection in my voice. Kelly at the end, had some notes for us all, in which mine and Laura's was that we needed our chemistry to be a lot better in which I understood completely. We both discussed what we had been told to improve on, and thought that our disagreements should be a lot louder and significant since we needed it to be clear that we did not like another person interfering with our jobs. Kelly's improvement's massively helped our performance from then on as we increased the negativity between us but made sure to keep within it our character's personalities. Another piece of improvement, was to make our lines that were scary and not at all nice to hear, more suspenseful and spoken with more enthusiasm so that the audience are more on edge even after they leave us. 

On Thursday 20th October, much like the day before, we spent the afternoon doing a run through of the Ghost Light Tour with Cast 2, where I was playing role of the Nurse. We began the lesson by practising our scene before Kelly and Kane wanted us to begin. Since this was the last rehearsal before we would meet again at Stockton Globe, Kelly went and worked with the Vaudeville people, others went and practised scenes if they weren't main characters in Cast 2 and Kane was in the theatre observing the run through of Cast 2. This was really good for everyone I feel since if you were struggling with a certain scene or line, you had as chance to practise it at college instead of at home, alone without you're fellow actors. My scene in the run-through went great, and I made sure to act stressed and annoyed during it since that was own personal criticism when I would do it at home. I am so looking forward to our shows, and doing a run through both Thursday and Wednesday, where I could play my character's and observe everyone else in how they portray the character's I too am playing, has made me less nervous and so excited for it to happen. It's my first time doing immersive theatre which is something lots of actors haven't done before, so knowing I am makes me feel so lucky and grateful to be on this course, doing what I love.