21/11/22 - 24/11/22

 Week 11 of Milly's acting journey

On Monday 21st November, we spent like most mornings practicing our Christmas Carol piece for the Globe. The performance dates were both the 29th and 30th with a rehearsal happening on the 28th, which meant that it was getting close. It was a short rehearsal since we knew how little time, we also had till our first Wizard of Oz show. I was confident on my lines till we reached the Lion's introduction scene, so that was a personal goal for myself to learn all of Act 1 by the end of the week. I think I found going over scenes again and again with others really helped my script learning process, especially with myself and Emily Howard's scene since we worked heavily on our Munchkin characters which co-insided with our Dorothy meeting The Good Witch of The North scene. Munchkin and Ozian costumes were a staple in cementing our shows, as they gave you an insight into each character. Whether that was with a prop, how your hair was or even down to the shoes you wore, it hugely helped uplift our scenes. I found that it did when rehearsing as Dorothy since you were surrounded by more reactions and the energy from the ensemble created a new atmosphere, and in myself it made me feel excited to be on stage with everyone around me. With that being said, we spent Monday having a look at each other's costume ideas and making sure we all were sorted and that no-one had no clothes that were blue or green. The majority including myself said they were prepared and had an outfit, but those that were left had some and needed a last finishing touch like a prop or something from the costume room to add an extra story to their character. For my Munchkin, I had a blue stripey short sleeved shirt, paired with a glittery blue strappy top, blue jeans and a dark blue glittery apron found from the costume cupboard. Both my Munchkin and Ozian characters were hairdressers, so I used the apron since most hairdressers have one to attach a clip to it so that they don't need to rummage for one, it's there ready and I used a hairbrush and placed it in my jean pocket on show, to further highlight what my role is in Munchkin land. For my Ozian character, I had a bright green top with a suede lime green cropped jacket from Gracie, who was kindly lending it to anyone who needed it, along with my green leggings and plain shoes. To highlight the hairdresser role, I had a green claw clip that I attached to the jacket and placed the same hairbrush in the pocket of the jacket. As an ozian, you needed to wear green glasses so I made sure that when I would perform as an ozian, I'd need to keep a pair with me at all times so that I wouldn't lose them or go on without them. Makeup came up in discussion, and myself and Sienna both said that we would try and incorporate those colours into our makeup, so when I'd be a Ozian, I would have perhaps green eyeshadow on my eyelids or green lips and vice versa when it came to playing a Munchkin but instead, I'd bring in blue. It felt like a productive lesson since I was able to focus on my different characters instead of thinking about my role as Dorothy. This was important to me since I wanted to give 100% into whomever I was playing so knowing my costume was sorted and ready put me at ease.

On Tuesday 22nd November, we spent the morning with Kane and anyone who was left to do their monologues had to perform it. This included me and I sensed that no one wanted to go first, but I think because I had practiced it for so long over the weeks, I just want to get it done and out of the way whilst it was still fresh in my head, so I volunteered to go first. Kane asked what film my monologue was from, what emotions I was trying to portray and why I chose this scene. My answers to those questions were it was from La La Land, in which was coincidentally both mine and Kane's favourite film, I could feel upset yet acceptance since Emma Stone's character Mia realizes that maybe this isn't what she wants to do for the rest of her life due to the number of setbacks she's faced. I chose this scene since I hope I never feel that way about acting and performing since it's given me such joy and happiness whenever I do it, so I felt that I could really have a go at it and give every emotion that I hope not to feel towards acting in it since I know there will be other monologues where I'll have to replicate those same feelings for a different reason. Once I performed my monologue, I received so many kind compliments which gave me confidence that it went well. Whilst doing it, I just stared at the wall in front of me whilst moving around and trying to remember how her posture and body is in the scene, so I hoped my face was showing that my mind was going 100 miles per hour. It felt like such a relief once I had done it however since we had known about it for ages and to have finally done it felt amazing knowing I gave it my all and I tried my best. My feedback from Kane was that it was superb, but next time to give more of a reaction when someone else was inserting their line. I totally understood this, as when I knew there was a line from Sebastian, I skipped it and continued with my monologue, instead of giving myself a pause to reflect on what was just said. Everyone else had done their monologue and we all collectively felt that same relief that we had finally done it. After our monologues, unless you weren't apart of the main cast Kelly wanted to talk to some about her upcoming feature film, she wants us to be a part of. Since I'm a part of the main cast, I stayed in the dance studio with cast 2, and we decided to perform any scenes from Act 1 needed some more help with. I, Emie and Connor went over the scene where we all meet which then led us into meeting Geoffrey as the Lion. I took from this to act more afraid when I meet the Lion since I felt as though I straight away was acting strong since I know what's to come, when I should be thinking more of how young Dorothy would react to seeing a Lion jump out and scare her and her friends first of all. The run was well needed as we all agreed that we can feel our chemistry as our character's is so well placed and that we work great as a team. In this time, we had, we also worked on the poppy scene, and how we would go on and off in our scenes. Geoffrey came up with the idea that he lifts me and Emie over his shoulder and takes off stage and then pushes Connor off stage since as the Tin Man he needs to be stiff and stuck in place. This worked great as Emie is floppy which you could see through this, I'm sleepy which was also present, and we wanted to highlight the Lion's strengths so we thought him carrying us would show this completely. The day ended with us performing our Christmas Carol piece to both Musical Theatre and Higher Education because they were a part of the Globe's community showcase as well. We also would perform Have Yourself a Very Merry Christmas with soloists from Higher Education and our course alongside Musical Theatre joining in on stage near the end, so we practiced that too. I loved watching both courses perform, and I loved performing our piece for them. After that, our course with Kelly and Kane all met in the Dance Studio to discuss what we all thought of the last song and what our outfits would need to be like. We were reminded we needed to appear Victorian in which I straight away thought of my baker hat, and thought I'd make my character a Victorian tomboy who cleans the chimneys when needed to. 

My monologue: 

On Wednesday 23rd November, we spent the entire time we had going through a run through of as far as we could get to. We started from the beginning and since Cast 3 were performing in the theatre, we went straight up to the dance studio to rehearse. We had all characters and even a few Munchkins who were available kindly came and helped us out. It was a strong rehearsal and I found ways I could improve like my facial expressions could be more expressive and stronger. I believe we got up to the start of Act 2, where we were then told to meet in the theatre to go through our chants. Kelly told us about a chant that included the 4 of us, in which she told us to look at it, think of how to make it your own and that it fits with all of your characters. Fortunately, Keira videoed ours which we performed first, and Kelly was over the moon with it. We were too since it meant when we would come to it in the rehearsals it wouldn't be something new to us. It highlighted our characters individually yet showed our new friendship. This to me was such a great lesson, as we were able to go away, work on any scenes we needed and for the first time we had a full run through of Act 1, start of Act 2 without any major breaks which was exactly what we needed to have done by this point. 

Thursday was such a huge day in terms of our journey to Oz. It was set day, which meant I was able to start my background role of working on the set and it also meant that we were getting closer to where we were wanting to be. It was so exciting since we were all getting our hands dirty, and all placed a brick on our yellow brick road that would start from the door and go all over the stairs and backstage. I started out strong helping out on the morning with Millie and Adam, as we tidied clothes away in the costume cupboard and put pieces of rubbish in the bin to prevent it getting as cluttered again. We were all really happy with what we did, as since we had the same backstage role, we aimed to help out wherever we could really. I wish I helped out more however, but due to rehearsals with my cast, both Ozian and as Dorothy I was needed in those areas. I made sure though however to helped paint the boxes when I could and placed a few of my own bricks using yellow paint and a cut in half sponge to achieve that affect. Ash, Laura and Gracie were amazing and whenever I came in to get my script, or see if I could help anywhere, they were always there doing the set. Rehearsals as Dorothy were just happening naturally, and I was definitely in the swing of things when it came to who I was rehearsing with and where I felt I could improve. It was also important as we worked on the Ozian march in the dance studio, which we had to choreograph and come up with since hadn't done it before. We didn't spend long on it as the day was coming to a close and it was quite last minute, but a structure was put together and we made sure that would be our main adjective for the following week. During this lesson, I was also taken by Makeup to have the Dorothy makeup applied so that they could test it out and I thought they did an amazing job! I'm excited to share my Wizard of Oz journey with them.