Unit 9 - STUFF Evaluation

STUFF by Tom Wells directed by Sophia Bowe and Elliott Rumbold

Character played: Stace

Performance day: Not happening due to time management

'STUFF' came to light during Connections 2024, when myself and a few other actors didn't particularly want to be apart of it. For myself, I had just finished filming a feature film directed by the filmmakers at Stockton Riverside, and there weren't any characters in the show that I was drawn to and felt would challenge me. However, when the idea of 'STUFF' came to light, and a few of us went into the black box to read it through, I was immediately drawn to the story and all of the characters and their relationships with one another. I particularly liked Stace as she is a character who I felt I could change from a background character to one you keep wanting to appear on stage. Flash forward to April, when we found out we couldn't do it meant a lot of my objectives I set for myself wouldn't be achieved but being a part of 'STUFF' taught me a lot, and I believe one of my main objectives - work successfully under two of my fellow students - was achieved to the very best standard. Working under Sophia and Elliott instead of Kelly, Abbie or Tom was so interesting since they both had different teaching methods, yet everyone in the cast treat them as the teacher, not someone who they work alongside which made the rehearsal process professional and fun. During performing with Zest, I auditioned as Stace, and found out the next day I had gotten the role. I remember feeling excited as I knew it meant keeping myself busy with a character whilst the majority of our group were rehearsing 'Shout' for Connections, and with a character like Stace, I knew I could make her my own in a way and learn how she is with each character. Stace to me is a peacekeeper, and whenever there is rivalry or an argument, she's the first to try and stop it and get it resolved. I also believe she never changes throughout the play. From the beginning to the end line, she's checking on others which to me tells you her relationship with the other characters is positive and respectable. There's a point in the script where she's trying to be gentle with someone's feelings and let them know that their opinion on an idea isn't the best, which shows even in moments where she has to be tough love on a friend, she's thoughtful with it and not purposefully horrible. Throughout the script, Stace's motivations are clear to me, in that she wants the party for Anita to be perfect and wants her cousin Dani - who has had to come due to family issues - to have a good time and relax. Once again, she's thinking about others and how they'll feel. One of my objectives was to show this on stage, and not make her appear whiny or cringe, rather caring and supportive as I believe those words sum up her personality. The theme of the script is a surprise birthday party for a girl called Anita, who has recently just lost her dad to cancer, and the story follows her friends setting everything up and the hours before Anita hopefully turns up to be surprised. It's comedically well timed in points, which is a group objective to get people to laugh at those awkward moments rather than be awkward themselves. At the same time, you see such lovely moments of friendship where people are allowing themselves to be vulnerable in front of their friends, which is such an important subject matter so I'm glad we are able to bring that to the stage. 

The group of people I was fortunate to work with on 'STUFF' were committed and ready to crack on with rehearsals each day which made our group dynamic already harmonious. We had lots of fun together which was perfect, as the actual characters we are playing are having fun in the script. I had the closest connection to Dani, played by Millie Trodden, which was mainly due to us being best friends in real life so it was easy to form a close dynamic, and because she plays my cousin in the script, we have a lot of long scenes together where we are discussing various things. Our entire show was going to be Eaglescliffe Village Hall, to make it almost like an immersive experience due to us going through the audience and being sat with them at times, whilst actively decorating the entire venue like we are getting ready to surprise Anita. Due to being active and decorating together, it allowed us to improvise small lines and build the dynamic with each other further. For example, I don't have lots of scenes with AJ and Matt played by Connor and Jack, so whenever it felt right, I would go over to one of them and help put up bunting for example. We also responded well to our directors, and because we all respect each other, there was no points where we argued or raised our voices, highlighting that in all of our rehearsals we just cracked and tried to get as much done as possible. 

My favourite moment of 'STUFF' was my small monologue with Dani as it was so different to any other text I've read and performed yet. She's apologizing to Dani for not explaining who Anita is, and why we don't promote smoking. The entire monologue is fast paced yet has to be clear and throughout it, I'm switching the subject up to try and not get to my actual point because I don't want to upset anyone. It was really fun to perform each time we got to that scene in rehearsals, and I'm grateful for the chance to work on a monologue like that.

I understand why we didn't do 'STUFF' but I really wish we could have still showcased all of our hard work and the time we spent in rehearsals going over creative scenes and our own interpretation of the lines. It was such an enjoyable experience of mine hugely down to the group of people I worked with on a daily basis, and being directed by two of my friends was another reason I had such enjoyable time playing Stace. I'm glad I got to adventure into the script and get to know Stace, and it's a play I can say I know which is always great as it expands my knowledge on different scripts. I understand why it didn't happen, and it was purely because of a lack of time we had, and our original performance date was too early for us and we soon realized as it came fast approaching, we all just weren't confident to put it on a stage. Unfortunately, we couldn't have moved it as we had end of year show rehearsals happening so the time we had slotted in was our only chance at performing it, which ended up not being ideal anymore. Once again, I'm so grateful for the opportunity to play Stace for a short time and have another chance to act alongside some of my favourite people.  

I rehearsed STUFF from 05/02/24 to 18/04/24 but due to Connections 2024, I spent a lot of my time in the LRC with Jack Pavey writing blog and starting assignments. Due to me spending more time in the LRC than rehearsing, I thought it would be repetitive to keep writing that on my blog. Hopefully, my evaluation shows what my rehearsals were like.