Unit 24 - Auditions for actors

Monday 12^th March

Today was a continuation of progressing on with the development of my 2 audition monologues.

We started by working on my Shakespeare piece. We decided to work on incorporating some movement into this piece as at the moment, I am just stood still saying the monologue. Also, the movement may help me with my characterisation for this monologue because this is something that I struggling with a bit at the moment. For this piece to work really well and for it to be as close to the original story as possible, I need to carry out some research into the movement and setting of this piece. Below are some videos of some people acting out the monologue. These will help me to work on my rendition of the piece:

As well as thinking about the movement for this piece, there were also a few other things. One of these things was including the use of props. My lecturer gave me a small bottle of perfume which I will be using as a bottle of vial. Something else that I worked on during this session was my emotion. This is something that I am currently struggling with because the piece is quite out of my comfort zone and is very different from what I would normally perform. Therefore, I need to work on this emotion and bring in my emotion memory in order to portray the emotion of sadness which Juliet is feeling. Lastly, I have been working on learning the lines for the speech. This is the first time that I have ever had to do a Shakespearian monologue and I am finding it really hard to learn because I am finding it hard to understand. I therefore think that once I start to grasp an understanding of what the monologue is saying and the meaning behind it, I will begin to find it easier to learn the monologue.

We then moved on to working on my contemporary piece. I already have a connection with this piece because of my past dance training. Also, using my tap shoes to perform this monologue really helps with my characterisation. My lecturer notified me of this because today I forgot to bring my tap shoes to the lesson and she said that she felt that she wasn’t feeling my character as much as she does when I have my tap shoes on. This means that I need to try to remember to bring my tap shoes to all of the rehearsals that I attend as it will help me to build my characterisation. I worked through the piece with my lecturer and we altered some small parts throughout. For example, at one time I turn to face away from the audience but I was using a closed position. We therefore changed this so I am now using an open position. We have also added in some more movement so that I do the dance routine a few times during the piece. A note that I was given from my lecturer was that some parts of the monologue are really good and they don’t need to be altered at all. However, there are a few parts which still need some work such as the line “bust troubles” where this line can be made a lot bigger. Some other parts to work on are the parts where Mavis refers to Geoffrey. This needs to be a lot more patronising. Overall, the piece needs to be more dynamic and more like an old fashioned dance teacher.