22/01/24 - 26/01/24

Week 47 of Milly's acting journey

Zest was our first project of 2024 hence why it’s my first blog post of the year. The majority of January has been spent working on Connections auditions and filming the feature film ‘Tides’ which I’m apart of. However, I’m not going for Connections this year since I don’t really connect to the script, and if it’s not compulsory, then I don’t want to go for a character for the sake of going for someone. Due to this, a lot of my time at college has been spent learning my lines for Josie in ‘Tides’ which will be documented in a blog titled ‘Feature Film Evaluation - Tides’ and auditioning for STUFF directed by our very own Sophia and Elliott. 

This week was spent with Zest Youth Theatre led by Toby, who we met last year when he came in to talk about his show idea and ask us for our own experiences when entering secondary school. Since our last meeting, himself, Coco who wrote the songs and Katie who wrote the script, combined their skills and created Camp Phoenix. On Monday, we met the Zest team and introduced ourselves to them. We spent the entire week at the Arc in one of their dance studios, and we stayed there everyday from 9 till 4 to make sure that we had a fully blocked show ready for the following week.

On Tuesday, we got given roles and I was chosen to be an ensemble member which allowed me to focus on being important in the background to elevate a scene. Myself and those that were part of the ensemble cast worked very closely with Fayo who is the dance leader. I was in all of the dances except one and they were all very different, which I enjoyed. For example, Cross It is a lot of rope work and synchronised movement whereas How To Be Human is very jazzy and smooth and you have to be very expressive in your facial expressions and dance moves. As an ensemble member, I also was in the background of the majority of scenes, whether that was writing a postcard as part of the challenges the Macaws take part in or looking for Logan's cape after it had been stolen by our rival group. By being a small part of a scene allowed me to stretch my physicality skills and without taking the attention from the main scene happening, add either tension or excitement to it.

I was very fortunate to collaborate with two professional working actors in this show and they loved speaking about their career and how they got to where they are now with us all. The actor who played Zia very generously offered an hour of his time to talk about his experience in the industry so far, and how it doesn't matter where you come from if you want to break into the industry, and that it's important to research agents, opportunities in your area and in bigger places like Manchester or London. I wrote down some notes from his talk, and remember researching extra work in and out of the area. They gave us an insight into how they had gotten the Zest job, and the importance of a good agent. One note I immediately took on board and remembered to keep with me was that if an agent asks for money, he's not the right one. Advice like that is so important because it will help how I move through the acting industry and what to look out for in my journey.

Our final day on Friday was spent going through smalls scenes that need perfecting further and we were fortunate to have the writer Katie sit in to give notes and help adjust scenes that she wrote aren't being portrayed in the way she wrote it to be performed. After going through tricky moments in the show, we took a break and ran the entire show from the beginning with no stopping if possible. A full run through meant singing every song and performing with it the choreography, and also remembering cues for entering and leaving the stage. I was grateful for a full run through as it meant ending the week knowing where and when I needed to be in scenes, and also allowed me to give it my all  after such a productive week focusing on giving so much energy. 

My favourite part of the show upon learning it this week is the How To Be Human dance where Zia is shown that your emotions make you human, and it's a real character development moment for him. Each character throughout the show goes through a development and Zia is the main character where you see him battling with himself to either express how he feels or pretend everything is okay, when it's actually not. This song highlights that it's important to know you are allowed to feel stressed or angry or even upset, but also adds a fun bouncy way to express that. We wear red sequinned scarfs and hats, which adds to the fun and we dance holding broom sticks throughout the whole song. It's an uplifting song and I loved learning the entire thing with Fayo.