ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Our schools project process was definitely a success. It was my highlight of the HND year so far and
we had such a limited amount of time that I thought it was a big achievement to put a show together
and do the highest amount of performances there's been for this process yet. Also, I feel that despite
many problems along the way, by the end of the process it had brought the company closer together
again and it was great to finish on a high.
When we started the process and had to bring a monologue to the floor that we'd written as the child
of a cartoon character, it felt like it had been a long time since we'd done something for ourselves as
actors to test out skills that we probably hadn't been using for a while. I did feel nervous about it, as I
wouldn't consider writing Monolgues or script a strength of mine, but I found that once I had started
I was on a roll and I really enjoyed doing it. When it came to performing it, I felt excited nerves
because it had been so long since we'd got up on our own and performed something to the company,
but I loved getting back to that and I feel this enabled me to hand over to a character on the floor and
let go. I think this went towards one of my strengths in the process, that I threw myself into it from
the start because I knew what I wanted to get out of it and that would only happen if we, as a
company, put the work in.
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Another strength would be that I was one of the drivers in the company in this process because I
knew that we had to devise things ourselves and bring developed ideas to the table or they wouldn't be
in the show, Carleigh wasn't going to do everything for us, but unfortunately, not everyone realised
that so it was lucky that a few of us got on with it and came up with something. After the last
Christmas show, where we only had one dance and there was a lot of improvements that could've been
made on the musical numbers, this year Alex, Daniella and I were determined to make the show more
musical and have more routines in it. The most fun I had was creating these with the two girls, we
work so well together and ideas bounce from each other quickly, so it was great to create things
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together. I was proud of what we got out of doing this, because the routines were in the show, so we
achieved what we set out to do, although the biggest challenge was getting everyone to join in. It
didn't bother me that they didn't want to join in choreographing the numbers and it actually worked
out quite well because if there was too many of us we would've just bickered and not got anything
done. However, what really got on our nerves was when they weren't interested in what we'd created
and couldn't be bothered to learn the routines. We were very persistent and made sure it was done,
but what could've taken half an hour could take all day, because only a few co operated. For the lack of
time we had, this just wasted even more.
Credited Google Images
There's been a lot of arguments and nastiness over the past weeks, which has been horrible, but the
company has become segregated and I find that the lazy ones who don't bring much to the table are
the ones who like to pick arguments and tell tales behind our backs to disguise their own lack of
input. It did get me down after a while because I did find I came under attack quite a bit, as I
wouldn't stand for their nonsense and would stick up for myself and the others if they tried to start a
fight. This did make things worse, but I'm glad I stuck up for myself, because I know that I wasn't the
one in the wrong - I was turning up everyday, doing my job as an actor and creating work on the floor,
whereas some members of the company don't have a leg to stand on because they didn't do that.
Despite it wearing me down and make me not look forward to coming in, I tried my hardest to not let
it affect my work or my confidence, because I kept going no matter what they said or what opinions
they had of me.
I was so glad to be paired with Alex when the casting was announced, as we haven't yet been cast
together like that and it was a relief to be working with someone I can trust and rely upon. Holly and
Nicky were a lot of fun to play, but I feel that when it came to the shows we became stuck in what
we'd discovered in rehearsals and I don't feel I did find out much more along the way, as I thought I
would, so I should've strived harder to do that. We played around a lot early on and the scenes were
fun and exciting to be in, but then the more we rehearsed them, they became stale and I felt we were
just going through the motions of what we knew was coming. I remember spending one morning
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where we went through our scenes and stripped away what we done before to play new games and new
intentions in the scenes. For example, in our opening scene, we imagined that Father was asleep in his
chair and we were going to surprise him by organising the pre flight party, so had to creep round him
and get all our decorations together without waking him. We couldn't keep things like this for the
scene, because it wasn't the right kind of energy or set up for the opening of the show, but it was more
about us trying to get unstuck from what we thought we knew and try new things.
A weakness of mine in the process was a lack of character development. I'm not happy with how I
played Nicky in the show, as I felt I could've found more to her than I showed. In every scene she was
in a fluster about something and I didn't give her much of a journey or a build to her panic. I found
the physicality workshop we did extremely useful, as it was a test to how much energy we could put in
and sustain, but also find animalistic elements to the characters was great and it enhanced what I
already thought of my character's personality by making her more cartoon with the mix of human and
animal traits. It was a shame we only got to do one workshop, as I felt we only touched briefly on the
relationships between characters. I felt with Holly and Nicky, we established that Jane was their good
friend and they look after each other, helping one another out with the party punch and then the
truth potion. Also, I felt that we had fun with Erol when Arthur and the twins dance together and also
when he comes to rescue us from the eggs, so in the show it felt as though Arthur was like an older
brother who looked out for them. I don't think we succeeded in showing the close family friend
relationship with the girls and Little Al, because although he said we were his 'two favourite twins' and
gave us free fruit, I never felt that it went a long way back and we probably visit his stall all the time.
Same with the eggs, although I knew they were bad, I wasn't scared by them. In our physicality
workshop I did find Grumpty very intimidating and frightening for a young girl like Nicky, but I
didn't carry through what I felt into the shows. As much as we're working to get the audience to
suspend their disbelief, it's about us doing that to and really handing over to the character - keeping
the actor's monitor on, but at the back of my head. I found that hard with this show, because there
was so much going on and so much to think about surrounding the show, for example, getting
everything set up, making sure all the props were there, not knowing what space we'd be performing
in, how far the audience would come forward. I felt all this didn't allow me to prepare myself properly
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before going out on stage and take a minute to concentrate on the performance and get into character,
it all feels a bit of a blur from setting up to suddenly being out in front of the audience!
Credited Google Images
Another weakness would be vocals when singing and dancing at the same time. I love to dance and
feel it gives me lots of energy that I just want to keep dancing, however, adding the singing into it too
made it hard work! I love singing and really want to get better at it, as I'd love a much stronger voice,
but also need to be able to use it whilst moving! I remember in the 'Oh What A Lovely War' process
we had a voice session jumping up and down and lifting each other whilst singing a note and had to
use our intercostal muscles to sustain it. I understand much better how it's done, it's just the doing it
part I find difficult and I felt that I would try really hard to push out the first few lines, but then I had
not much puff left to put into the singing as I needed to use it for the dancing! I would love to do
more voice workshops and put these techniques into practice, learning how to do it safely without
damaging our voices. It's my goal for next year to work on my voice much more - singing and speech,
as there's always so much to learn and I'm determined to improve! This did let down the musical
numbers because the vocals were weak and inconsistent, with harmonies being all over the place. If we
had more time, this is definitely something we should've drilled more.
If we did have more time on this process, as well as working on our voices, I would've loved to have
had more chances to explore characters and do Flights of Fancy type workshops playing whoever we
wanted, as I feel I could've challenged myself by trying more roles. Casting happened very quickly and
we'd only spent a good amount of time playing around the egg scene. Also, after casting, it would've
have been useful to take the characters away from the script and do some improvisation in a workshop
discovering how they react to different situations and interact with other characters. I feel this
would've given us much stronger, more 3 dimensional characters on stage.
Putting together this show has had it's ups and downs, but I am very proud of what we created and
achieved with 'The Secret's Out'. It was a great experience to have touring a piece of theatre and I
found the show endearing because we'd all pitched in - brought in props, packed up the stuff, mopped
the floor, taken one for the team and providing company entertainment by slipping over on it! I liked
having this much input and being part of all aspects of putting the show out. It's made us more aware
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as actors and fully realise that it doesn't matter what your job is in the theatre, it's a team effort and
takes everyone to pull together to make it a success. I hope that this is the start of good things to
come for us as a company and we can use this positive note that we finished on to make us stronger as
a company and in our future work!