2/10/23 - 5/10/23

 Week 37 of Milly's acting journey

On Monday, we began the day in the theatre playing some games that focus on listening and using your eye contact. We played ninja and heads up, which are two games that we play a lot so we knew what to do, however we were introduced to a different game called 'Don't ask me, ask your neighbour!' It's a game where you need to make sure you're looking carefully so that you don't get caught, and choosing who you swap places with needs to be strategic. I found it very challenging at first, but slowly got myself into it and enjoyed it as I got the hang of it.  Our main theme of the lesson was diction and articulation, we went into groups of 7 so I was with both Adams, Charlie, Keira, Millie and Jess. We were all given a tongue twister that we would have to present and say clearly to the other groups, and we were given 'Friday's Five Fresh Fish Specials'. Obviously, there is a lot of f's and s's so speaking clearly and not rushing was the key to speaking the tongue twisters well. The other groups spoke their own tongue twisters, and it turned into a competition, where the group that introduced their tongue twister could choose who spoke it the best. Our group had won 2 out of the 5 groups tongue twisters so we were very pleased as it showed that we can be clear in our performances. On the afternoon, we decided which enrichment groups we wanted to join, in which I choose the writers group called 'New Views', the dance group which is on after the writing group so it's all perfect timing, and I also chose the self-care group which we can alternate between that and dancing. I chose the writer group as I didn't do it last year and really did regret not doing it due to the amount of opportunities and skills the people that did do it achieved. I also chose the dancing as it's another string to add to my bow and I have always wanted to get better at it. I also chose the self-care as it's important to talk about how you're feeling and learn to relax after the first stressful day back after the weekend. I look forward to properly starting them all next week.

On Tuesday, we went in early to work on more Peter Pan rehearsals. Instead of singing however, we focused more on the art of stage combat. We had to learn the basics and know that to look your partner in the eye before a slap is a part of the consensual agreement you have between one another. I was partners with Adam, and we learnt how to do a side punch, an uppercut, a hair grab and a foot stomp. My favourite was the foot stomp as it had more impact in the choreographed scene we came up with. My least favourite was the uppercut as it took me ages to get to grips with, and I still feel I can't really make it look real. Like I stated earlier, we then had to choreograph a fight scene and me and Adam decided to begin with some dialogue along the lines of 'What you say about me?'. We then had Adam side punch me, I then stomped on his foot saying, 'Your so vain!', Adam then hair grabs me, and I end it with an uppercut. I felt my uppercut could have been better but overall, it went very well. After a small break, we then started choreographing some stage combat into a hypothetical scene that could be used in Peter Pan. I found the stage combat very fun and incorporating acting into it, made it even more interesting and challenging all at the same time. Seeing how one person goes into another stage combat fight was amazing, as it showed how important knowing where you need to be is and being there on time is even more vital. On a Tuesday afternoon, we are with Tom and Kelly, so with Tom we showed him our Shakespeare monologue. I didn't show mine last week so made sure to show it this week. My monologue is a comedic one so making sure it's funny is so important as it's the main objective of the speech. Tom helped me by bringing Aiden and Callum up, where Aiden was the horrible side of the man I 'love' and Callum was the perfect side of the man I 'love'. Making sure I was full of emotions and over the top was something I went away and worked on. Tom also expressed that I need to be a bit sillier and not care about being dramatic, which I totally agreed with him on.  With Kelly, we went into our partnerships for Dear Evan Hansen in which I was with Elliott, and we showed our scene to other groups. We then swiftly moved onto the directing component of our final year where we got into groups depending on what script we chose to work on. There was 3 spread out, and I went into the 'Girls Like That' group with Gracie, Pheebs, Millie, Emily H, Keira, Alayah and Adam. I'm really looking forward into discovering more about the characters and dissecting the script to get a clearer understanding of the main message. 

Wednesday this week was a lot quieter for me however very productive. However, we did begin Wednesday by making devised scenes and working in groups. We were given an action, which for our group was someone drinks out of a bottle and dies, and it had to be included somewhere in the scene. I had lots of fun doing it and it allowed me to work on my devising skills. Wednesday was also a chance to focus on our monologues for the Thursday following to show to Kelly, and me and Keira had decided to present a PowerPoint showcasing our ideas instead. Keira is going for the role of Police Officer, and I am going for the role of Child Recruiter and we realized that we could work very well together. As the police officers would tend to warn people of the child recruiters presence, it would only make sense that they would be in a scene together. In our PowerPoint we listed all of our ideas to make sure that they would prove our point and idea even further. We had slides on involving the page2stage kids, our costumes, our research on our individual characters and much more. That very much consisted of the day but I'm glad we got it done as it meant we didn't have to do anything the following day or even on the night. 

On Thursday, we presented our PowerPoint to Kelly and Alayah and they both thoroughly loved it. They thought that the idea was amazing, and it was very detailed and was clear. We went away very pleased and went down in the LRC to talk about a possible script idea.