Wednesday
28th June
Today my lecturer took me and another student Erin to a
RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts) workshop in Bristol. The workshop took place
in the Bristol Old Vic in one of the rehearsal spaces. The workshop started at
5pm and ran for 3 hours finishing at 8pm.
When we arrived at the workshop, we spoke to the people
running the workshop, Joan and Angela. They asked us what adaptations we may
need for the workshop and told us that if we needed anything then we were just
to ask. They had already printed off the scripts that we were using today in
our preferred format. We had been sent the scripts previous to the workshop as
well so that we had chance to familiarise ourselves with the text because it is
very difficult to sight-read when you have a visual impairment.
To start the workshop, Angela and Joan told us a bit about
themselves and what they were going to do with us today in the workshop. Both Angela
and Joan had studied at RADA and Joan is now working at RADA as the foundation
course director. We then moved onto the first set of activities which were all
based around movement. We started by getting to know everyone else in the room.
Some people had an advantage over others because they already knew each other before
the workshop. We went around the circle and said our name and did an action to
go alongside it. We went round the circle a few times so we could get used to
everyone’s name. We then walked around the room and we went up to people, did
our action and said our name. They would then respond with their name. We would
repeat this again. Then we would have to say the other person’s name with the
action and they would do the same.
We then carried out another movement exercise. We held
hands with a partner and started walking around the room. We had to be holding
hands with at least one person at all times. We had to then link up to other
people to make slightly longer chains, however we weren’t allowed any more than
4 people in a chain. At first I found this quite difficult as I had to move
around and find peoples hand but after a while I managed to get the hang of it.
After a while of doing this activity, Angela stopped the group and told us that
we were being too nice. We needed to start being a bit fiercer and grabbing
other people’s hands even if they weren’t expecting it.
After this exercise we broke off into partners and
carried on walking around the room. This exercise was now about leading and
following. When walking around the room, we would have to change directions.
This meant that either one in the pair would lead the way. During this exercise
I found that I was mostly following the other person but this depended on who I
was working with. We kept switching partners so that we could work with
different people.
After all of the movement activities, we moved on to look
at text. The script that we were using was a piece from the play ‘Blue Kettle’
which is written by Caryl Churchill. We went around the circle and read one
line each of the text. We were told to go through the text quite slowly and to
leave a pause between each of the lines because there was a boy who was deaf in
the group. Therefore he had 2 interpreters in the room who needed to translate
what was being said into sign language. This worked really well and when it
wasn’t working so well, Joan and Angela adapted it straight away. They made the
workshop very accessible. Once reading through the text a few times, we had a
little group discussions about units. Joan asked us if we knew about units and
how to separate a script into different units. A unit is when there is a change
of direction within the script. For example, a new topic could arise or the characters
could be talking about the same subject but with a different approach. We then
read through the script as a group again, each person reading one line each but
when we thought that the text had come to the end of a unit, we would clap. We
would then had a group discussion to see if we all agreed with where the end of
the unit was. Sometimes there would be a lot of debate as to where the line
would be drawn but other times it was a definite decision. Altogether we separated
the script into 9 units. In pairs, we were then given 2 units each to work on. We
had to choose an action of which we thought our character had. An action is a
verb which the character is trying to do through their speech. For example, I
was working with Alison and we had units 6 and 7. I was playing the character
Enid and for unit 6 the actions were ‘to test’ and for unit 7 the action was to
‘put down’. The actions that Alison came up with for her character Derek was to
‘dismiss’ and to ‘reassure’. These actions then helped us with the expression
and intonation that we would use when delivering the lines.
We then all came back in as a group and showed the rest
of the group what we had been working on. We had a discussion about the actions
that we came up with as a group and spoke about how this has helped us to form
the characters a bit more. Here is a video of us performing the section of
script and then having a group discussion and feedback at the end;
Overall, I really enjoyed the workshop. I did not know
what to expect going into the workshop. I didn’t think that I was going to mix
well within the group but I managed to work well with everyone in the group. I
was nervous as it was a completely new setting and I didn’t know any of the
others who were taking part in the workshop. Therefore it built my confidence as
a performer within a workshop setting. The workshop was very informative as it
taught me new exercises and script techniques which I will be using in the future
to improve my skills. The workshop was made very accessible to everyone
including Erin and I who had visual impairments, Kieran who was deaf and Beth
who was in a wheelchair. Both Angela and Joan made sure that everything was in
place that I needed and also made sure that the other people in the room that
had a disability were included as much as everyone else. They made sure that no
one was at a disadvantage. I would like to take part in more of these types of
workshops because I feel like I will really benefit from them in growing and
developing my skills and my confidence.
Here are some photos that my lecturer Cara took during the workshop:
Here are some photos that my lecturer Cara took during the workshop:
