[Insert creative title that I can’t think of]

Over the past semester I have gained a lot more acting experience. While in the past I had done all of the school musicals and plays, I had never really gotten any real instruction, or done anything outside of that. At the beginning of the semester, I wrote that I wanted to work on getting more comfortable on stage and feeling less self conscious. And, honestly, I still felt that self consciousness throughout the whole term, up until my final project. Previously, I couldn’t stop comparing myself to the other people in the class, wondering what I was doing there and why I always felt so awkward. But somehow, my final project managed to overcome that. I was much more comfortable with it than any of the other things we did all year, and I already was familiar with it beforehand so it only took a couple of tries to memorize. But it might also have been because I related to Evan more than the other characters I’ve played this semester - the girl complaining about guys and bad pickup lines, the angry candy shop customer, or the random sick person from the poetry project were all people that I didn’t know very well.

    This is not to say that the final project was just meant to keep me in my comfort zone and be an easy project. The hardest part was between the two monologues - I had to show how Evan changed from the beginning to the end, without any words. I didn’t get to practice it much before the final draft, so it was the part I was most nervous about. I hadn’t had much feedback, so I wasn’t sure what I could be doing to get it the best it could be.

    Towards the end of the year I felt that I was gaining more confidence. When we were doing more serious works I felt a lot more comfortable, like I knew how to express my character much better. During the comedic scenes the characters were more loud and over the top, and everything I was doing felt forced. I didn’t naturally fall into that category. In the future I’d like to work on being more expressive with characters like that. I’d like to build on versatility, because playing characters who are different than you is the entire concept of acting.

    Another thing I learned was how to work better on my own, and how to work better with other people. There are pros and cons of each. One one hand, working alone allowed me to take the project in whatever direction I wanted. My ideas didn’t have to be accepted by the rest of the group, I could just go with what I had. In group projects we had to mix and match ideas, so that everyone got a little of what they wanted but also might have had to work with things they might not have been envisioning. On the other hand, performing alone could be more difficult sometimes because it was just me onstage, while working with others gave me something to play off of - especially in the candy shop scene. Over the course of the class I learned to work with each of these things - getting comfortable being on my own, while also getting better at collaborating with the group so that everyone’s ideas ended up in the final draft.

Link for final project

https://youtu.be/kIJLR6_W9Rc

Improv Comedy “Propless” Review

Last Saturday (May 19) I went to the improv comedy show at CA, “Propless”. Overall it was a very funny show composed of a variety of amusing improv games including freeze tag, not a box, park bench, and more. The actors were all very talented and creative, good at creating scenes and characters in the spur of the moment and making it funny. Sometimes the scene would come together and everyone would be on board with what the scene was, whereas other times it would fall apart into chaos and the scene would dissolve. Of all the actors, Julia Rafferty stood out as one of the best. She was not afraid to go all out with her character/scene and it made it all the better. In every scene she was in she took the lead and directed it in whatever way fit the prompt. During the dating game she made a very accurate Ray and was one of the funniest participants. She was very comfortable up on the stage and made the audience laugh a lot.

Sam Weed also did a great job directing, and occasionally participating. She made the audience feel comfortable and got them ready for the show. She clearly knew the games and the actors very well, and she was confident in everything she did.

I liked the way that the show was set up. The progression of acting games allowed the actors to show their skills in a variety of different ways, including various restraints on their dialogue - the alphabet game, for example, forced them to think quickly and come up with a line that fit the scene while also starting with the right letter, while the laughing game made different characters interact with others that may not have been there when the scene started. This showcased the different ways that improv can be expressed, and it made for a funny and enjoyable evening for everyone.

Final Project Proposition - Dear Evan Hansen

I am proposing to perform the opening and closing monologues from Dear Evan Hansen. They’re from a show that I feel very strongly about and I had already connected with the two monologues even before starting this project. One thing that I’ve been told I struggle with is speaking clearly. Evan’s letter at the beginning of the show is meant to be spoken very quickly, so I will have to push myself to speak quickly but also clearly enough that I can be understood. Evan changes a lot from the beginning of the show to the end. In his second letter at the end of the show he is far more confident, and his anxiety has ebbed since his first rambling letter. He’s definitely much wiser that he was, having gone through everything he did - which included some very difficult stuff to deal with. My biggest challenge will be between the two monologues - I will have to find a way to show the passage of time and the change he undergoes, something which in the real show is accomplished in about an hour and a half but I will have to show in only a minute or two.   

There are several ways this could be accomplished. First, I could utilize music from the show. There’s one part, at the end of “Disappear” and the beginning of “You Will Be Found”, that really shows a change in him in a short amount of time. He receives a tie from Cynthia Murphy, and the time from when he puts it on and begins his speech to the school is the part I would use. He goes up, gets nervous, and starts to have an anxiety attack, but he slowly stands back up and continues his speech, only this time much more confident. The speech would be too out of context but the piano at the end of disappear would be a good backtrack to the transition. Another idea for the transition is that I could use the overlapping voices technique from “You Will Be Found” but record my own version to fit the transition. Finally, I could video the recording and record different scenes from the show that demonstrate his change, and then edit them all in iMovie. I could also not do the last monologue and instead get a scene partner to the scene right after the first monologue between Evan and Heidi.

This monologue will push me to perform something longer than the other monologues this semester. It’s a lot more to memorize than what I’ve done so far but I still think I will be able to handle it. The whole project will encompass both the memorization part and the creative problem solving part of the class. I will have to memorize the monologues but figure out my own transition between the two.

Devising Unit First Draft Reflection

I really enjoyed the process of deconstructing the original video and then using different pieces to create something new as we went. It’s very interesting how the process of creating the piece involves everyone and builds as we each add something on. There was a lot of putting ideas out and seeing if they stuck, and it eventually formed a big web of ideas (that may or may not have completely made sense) that we then had to translate into something that we could perform. Eventually it came together and we started performing by walking up onto the bridge and reading them and then walking off, but it felt too formulated and the same every time. Doing the whole thing improv was very hard at first. My mind would go blank and I wouldn’t know what to say and have to stand there for what felt like a long time thinking of something. After a couple of tries however I had a basic idea of what I wanted to say and it got easier. It was more fun to come up with the short, funny rejection letters at the end, though they started to feel repetitive after a while. We now need to work on videoing our final draft and coming together at the ending so that it isn’t so awkward when we throw the papers and go off and it makes more sense.

Girls Gone Wild - Red LIght District and Devising Unit

-The girls started almost like this was a performance for the people on the street, but they then used it to drop a message after everyone had gotten into it and surprise them - they were enjoying themselves and weren’t expecting it
-I was very confused at first and wasn’t sure what was going on and why they had started dancing
-The music and actions were kind of intense and the red lights and dark colors made it seem surreal in a way.
-Women on display in windows

The idea that people think that they are just watching a performance but they are tricked into receiving an important message, while at the same time (in the girls case in the video) the performers have been tricked as well. It also creates a greater impact on the audience when they don’t see it coming and were just enjoying themselves, especially because they were part of the problem.

People trying to ignore or avoid a reality that they might not like or that makes them uncomfortable, even though they might know about it.

Ideas for devising:
- Leading the audience on and then twisting the ending by revealing that the characters had been tricked

Spoken Word Poem

I was sitting in a classroom

With two good friends

In an after-care program

That took place after school ends.

We were talking just like normal

So I felt right in place

When one of them said something

And I almost felt erased.

She said she’d pick the other friend

That it was Allison who “got her” more

And I’ve only just now realized

What I didn’t know before.

That she’ll never know I “get her”

If I never let her “get me”

I’m always so closed off

So there’s this part that people don’t see.

That they don’t know.

They don’t know.

They don’t know.

That in my head there are

Fireworks

That ricochet off my

Skull

And sometimes they are

Beautiful

But also very

Loud

And those fireworks are

Passion

And I feel them in my

Bones

But they never seem to

Stop

So I always feel a-

lone -

No, not really alone

There are people around me

Always

But they don’t know

What I

Know.

And the fireworks get

bigger

but they never

explode

I’m a tiger in a cage

One that nobody can see

Because that cage is my head

And the tiger is me.

And I know if I could

Let go

It would all turn out just

Fine

But my head won’t let me

Do that

So the tiger waits in

Line.

Because the truth is

Fireworks were not meant to be contained.

What they don’t know, they don’t know, they don’t know,

Is the tiger.

They don’t know.

But I want them to.