17/04/23 - 20/04/23

 Week 27 of Milly's acting journey

Monday 17th was our first day back after a long time off and it was lovely getting back into the routine of everything and see everyone again. It always feels the same after a long time off, where especially for me, I'm just eager to get back to the normality of everything. The day consisted of Kelly telling us a summary of Little Women, the script, the adaptations including all of the films and what our assignment may look like, however we didn't really go into detail with that since she was leaving it for a full day. She also went through the Last Resort, where our audition will be in groups instead of on our own. Afterwards, she split our class in girls and boys where the girls were left with Kelly and the boys went with Tom. From there on, we were taught all about etiquette and the book that is Little Women. We went through all the characters and what they are like, their dynamic in the family, alongside what they are like in our script and how many lines they have. In the moment, I was leaning towards Amy as I love how she's depicted in the script in comparison to the book and the film, and I haven't been able to play a younger role before so wanted to challenge myself with that. We also found out our audition information for it, where we have to find a monologue in the script that tells us all about the character as well as make up your own monologue that would fit in a specific place in the play. I love English and writing , so knew I would have lots of fun writing my own monologue. Our audition would take place on Tuesday the following week, which is a plenty of time to study he character we would like to play. I spent the night, re-reading the script and slowly found that I preferred Meg, whose the older sister, a lot more and chose to look into her character further.

On Tuesday 18th, we looked through what our assignment would look like. Kelly went in depth as it's our final one and we all want to leave the year with a high grade. The day for a lot of us was spent in the LRC, where we were left to do a multiple of things that needed doing. This consisted of accent learning, writing our monologue, finding a monologue, mind-mapping our chosen character and so much more. It was spent to focus on Little Women, where I started writing my own monologue. I was slowly flickering still between Amy and Meg, and when I got to thinking and gathered other people's opinions, I found that I preferred he character of Meg more. She's the oldest, which I can relate to, and follows the rules, she's clever yet careful which is always fun to portray. I got to work with my monologue and was loving just being able to feel like Meg and her thoughts. 

On Wednesday 19th, we did accent work with all of the 2nd Years. I love doing an American accent, but find that certain words are a struggle to say at times. For example, words that include a -th and phrases are hard to say naturally so I was glad Kelly had set a lesson for us all to look over. We all got into groups to begin with, and worked on tongue twisters. The tongue twisters needed to be said in English first, and then in American so that we can all see how hard or easy it is for us all. I found it somewhat simple, but I'm no the best at tongue twisters that are long and have the same sounding words. Afterwards, we all went into different groups and were given a piece of paper with American words that sound very different to British words. We had to present it to the other groups and show how we understood it, and teach the others using games that would interest their attention. Overall, I felt that I understood the American accent a lot more, and was looking forward to working on the Boston accent. 

On Thursday 20th, we spent the day working on the Last Resort and the script. For the Last Resort, two of our classmates are stepping back and going to direct the play which is so exciting for them. We did a read-through much like how we did for Little Women and I found the script very fun and flexible so that if necessary we can change and tweak little moments. We also were able to act out moments, such as the Donkey scene and the Seagull scene. We were focusing on being animals and it showed us all that it's all acting and nothing to be embarrass about. I was in a group with Millie and Adam for the Donkey scene, and found it challenging to make into your own as everyone had the same idea of being on all fours and acting like frustrated donkeys but we added in ours how Adam is a very excitable Donkey. There were lines when he was talking about how he was excited about the female donkeys and he got up on his knees and made a loud sound to indicate how excitable he really was. For our accents, we used Geordie and Yorkshire accents which helped differentiate our donkeys. I felt I butchered the Yorkshire accent but I feel that it added an extra element to my donkey. Next we moved onto the Seagulls where I went with Adam, Sienna and Latoya where we all just had so much fun. We felt comfortable to be silly and really come out of our comfort zones, which we all did. I was Gull 3 and we all made sure all of our seagulls were different, like I had a typical essex accent and acted very defensive over the fish I had eaten. We all made the mymymymymymy sounds, which took inspiration from Finding Nemo's seagulls, at the start and throughout where there were slightly quiet moments. Sienna had a great idea of when she shouts car, we all fall to the floor almost like we have been flattened by the car, and then once we get up we are crumpled and crushed together which allows us to try and sort ourselves out by stretching and moving our arms ( in this case wings ) about. After we had performed it, we all agreed to actually audition for the Seagulls and I'm so happy we chose to as with it being the last time with the 2nd Years, it's almost a nice funny send off and time to spend with them.