30/01/23 - 2/02/23

Week 18 of Milly's acting journey

On Monday 30th January, we spent the morning practising the scene we worked on during Wednesday lesson in the theatre which included mostly the younger version's of the characters. I made sure to keep up my reactions on my face to show I'm reminiscing on old times since the older versions surround the scene happening. I really enjoy this scene as it allows me to show my presence on stage without being involved on stage. In addition to this, I made sure to look at younger Stefi as in this scene I'm playing older Stefi, and it was important to react to moments that define change as an older version, I now realise the consequences. The group I've worked with for a while now all want to be a part of Connections, so there's always this great energy since we are striving towards one goal. After break, Kelly had made random teams with everyone's first and second choice, that they informed her about the previous night. I chose Older Stefi and Older Belle, as they are both very complex and I prefer acting as an older version because they all have big pasts and portraying how they have grown and moved from it differently is interesting and exciting to turn into my own idea of them. Team 3 is where I acted as older Belle, and personally I felt it went okay, definitely could have been better but due to myself having one line and doing a scene with people I haven't worked with, it was challenging to get to grips with. I made sure however to keep my presence there despite not much dialogue. Team 4 I performed as Stefi, and the first scene we did, which was the same scene as the scene I performed as Belle, went better since I was performing as a character I have studied and grown to really like and adapt to and speaking more lines with lots of emotions allowed me to show to Kelly what I'm like in the role of Stefi. Leaving today, I'm not sure how to feel with Connections, there are so many talented people who suit the roles and have a better understanding of it that I'm not as confident with it all. I'm still going to give my all into Stefi and Belle since I'll regret not and see what happens. 

On Tuesday 31st January, we started the morning with Kane and looked at scripts in groups. It was out of groups of 2,3,4 or 5 and I got into a group with Millie, Adam, Laura and Keira where we looked and acted out a script from Modern Family. Kane explained how in the coming weeks, our small scenes will be turned into actual filmed scenes in nice locations to allow us to have a chance on screen. I really enjoyed doing this, as Modern family is filmed like mockumentary style, which allows that realism to be acted but what's happening is funny so we also have to be slightly exaggerated to highlight that some lines are unnatural. I played Alex and we all decided to do the scene in an american accent to get it as close to the original as we could. We all had lots of fun doing it, and seeing Adam try and play a very masculine straight version of himself made us laugh. Later on the day, we had our final lot of Connections auditions where all the Stefi and Zafer's would pair up and perform scene 1 together, to test out chemistry and how well we perform it. I was paired up with Alan, which I was excited about since he said he mentioned how he had wanted to perform with me if we both got into Connections. We both had ideas when it came to the scene, like we both overlap each other at times and say things at the same time to create more naturalness in the scene. I felt confident in my audition, but because they never said anything afterwards I didn't really know what to think, I saw it as a good thing as they wanted to keep it fair between everyone but due to the auditions going on for a while I felt an added amount of suspense and nervousness. When I left, Emily Howard who was sat in the room during my audition called me asking me to return back to do the scene again but with Callum instead. Throughout the audition process, I've felt so unsure as no reassurance is given understandably and both Kelly, Morgan and Kane gave nothing away with who they thought would fit the role well. So upon hearing they wanted me back, I was more than surprised and further surprised when I found out it was Callum they wanted me to act alongside since I already had a gut feeling he would be getting the role of older Zafer. However, as we have worked together before during our Wizard of Oz show and are good friends in real life, we bounced off each other and our scene to me just flowed more and I felt really comfortable throughout it all. At the end of our audition, I caught Morgan smiling at Kane which I took as a good sign and I really hoped that I had given my all in the entire audition process.

On Wednesday 1st February, both Year 1's and 2's like usual met in the theatre where Kelly would announce the Connections cast and understudy cast. Both me and Millie were very anxious, as we were going for Stefi along with so many others so we went in open-minded and proud of ourselves that we had given our all. We played some warm-up games before last minute touches were made to the cast list and eventually it was read out. I couldn't believe it but I was given the role of Stefi! I could not keep my smile back and everyone around me was so supportive and pleased for me, in which in that moment I felt so loved. Adam was given the role of younger Vee in which I was so happy for him since he had worked so hard on studying the role and Vee's underlying emotions and motives. Millie was given younger Amma which again I was overjoyed about as she is such a talented actor and I hoped with a script as good as this one, she would be able to showcase this and shine all the way through. I honestly couldn't wait to get stuck right in with rehearsals now knowing the entire cast list and who I would be acting alongside. Before the cast and understudy cast was announced, Kelly briefly talked about end of year show ideas, and she mentioned both Little Women and Clue. It made me laugh as Clue is my favourite film ever and when I get the chance too I'll insert it into my conversation, whether that's a line or a connection to something i'll be doing, so when this was announced all of my friends turned to me just as I was turning to them which I found hilarious. Finding out Clue could be an option for our end of year show and getting the role of Stefi made my week, even my month! After we took a little break, we dived straight into how we would open the play as Stefi and Zafer's duologue feels a lot like a filler and doesn't entice and give you insight into the play. We went into small groups and all thought of one feeling and then in response to that, came up with lots of questions in relation to the play and Tom Joy. For example, our feeling was anger, in which we asked out loud 'Why did this have to happen?', 'Why did we put our lives at risk?' etc. Morgan and Kelly had the idea of speaking our questions quiet and gradually getting louder until it's incredibly loud, where on Morgan's cue we all abruptly stop. When we practiced this, there was a feeling of high emotions and it felt very impactful, so I really hope we include it into our final performance.

On Thursday 2nd February, it was just us Year 1's where we started with some warm-up games in the theatre to energize us all. Afterwards, Kelly told us about an exciting new opportunity that'll occur in a couple of weeks which was interesting, and she told us what we would be doing in our lesson. Thursday's lesson was focusing in on radio work, whether that's radio plays like 'The Archers' or Introductions to radio hosts shows and so on. We worked on small little snippets of the examples in pairs and got to add our own music and say it how we felt it should be said. I had lots of fun doing this, and what made it interesting is we closed our eyes whilst listening to everyone else's to imagine us listening to it on the radio. I learnt a lot like how expressive you have to be as a listener can't see your acting only hears it, and if something happens you would include it into your next sentence. For example, if the wind is strong outside you would say something like ' These winds are howling outside...'. We moved onto accent work, even though we used strong American ones in our radio work. However, we stayed in our pairs and worked on the mid-atlantic accent which is very very accentuated, clear and posh. We were given a script and shared our attempts of the accent with the rest of the course. I loved seeing everyone have a go, and some did an amazing job. At the very end before we all left, Kelly handed out the Connection's cast script with our names and role on the top where me and Millie went into the LRC and highlighted our character's lines.