The task of The Year 1 Performing Arts Students was to put on a production of 'The Cinderella Pantomime'. We were to participate in lessons that helped us to improve on our acting, dancing and singing skills, as well as numerous rehearsal sessions. We had to write a blog, as evidence of the rehearsal process and also to track our progress. Finally, we had to perform in 9 shows, to an audience, using all of the knowledge we had gained as of then (at college and prior to college).
Our first task was to read through the script, with the class ( in which I read as the baroness) and then to prepare for an audition, which would ultimately decide the role we would take on for The Panto. I prepared to audition as 'The Baroness' alone and as 'The Fairy God Mother' in a group. I prepared for both parts, by reading through the entire script twice, choosing the characters I thought I could bring the most to and then reading through all of their lines, until I knew them. I watched various films, such as 'Ella Enchanted' (for The Baroness), 'Roger And Hammersmith's 1997 Cinderella' (For The Baroness and The Fairy Godmother) and TV shows ( For The Fairy Godmother's more comedic side) to help me with the development of my character. Then I practised in front of a mirror to improve on my facial expressions and physicality and improvised with them to better my characterisation. I was called to audition for the Baroness twice, instead of for both characters and was unsuccessful. As a result I was cast as a 'Villager'.
Then, once we knew our roles we began 'blocking' (blocking is the process of planning where, when, and how actors will move about the stage during a performance) The Panto. Once the director was satisfied with this, we started to run through The Panto, without the songs. Afterwards, The Main Chorus and Villagers (including myself) were given choreography for the dances and asked to learn the songs, as we were going to sing and dance at the same time.
Somewhere in between, running The through The Panto and rehearsing for the dances and songs, we were 'Hot-seated' (when you are asked about your character's background, behaviour and motivation, and you are expected to answer the questions 'in character' on the spot). As we were told that this would happen prior to the time, I prepared for this by practising in front of a mirror, working to develop the character I already used during rehearsals. I had also written about the background, and personality of my character, so I had an idea of what to say. I found this exercise truly beneficial as it helped me discover things about my character that I had not already written down.
My character was called Veronica Anastasia Greene and was aged 27. I decided to use a cockney accent, as I thought it suited her job as a market trader. She was quite tomboyish, outspoken, cheeky, friendly and always happy. However, she had a dark past. She had been a thief since she was 14 and was subsequently disowned by her family, which caused her to move to Merrivale. As a result, she wanted nothing but to please her fellow villagers in Merrivale as she longed for the warmth and love of a family again. She went as far as to steel vegetables and bread, just so that she could give them to the villagers for free. She also had a job as a waitress, which she thoroughly enjoyed.
Over time, I made some dramatic changes to my character and some were more subtle ones. Most notably, by the last few weeks. I made sure that she had a huge smile on her face nearly all of the time, to show how elated she was to be a villager of Merrivale and to be singing and dancing. I also made her much more melodramatic, so that she overreacted at everything (e.g. when the Baroness came she jumped back, hand shaking and looked incredibly shocked). This was to make me stand out more, as before, my acting style was more suitable for a contemporary performance, as my movements and expressions were more subtle. Through the process of developing my character I tried to experiment with my facial expressions and physicality (the physical actions of a
character, specifically those which convey information about certain aspects of a character. It's the way they behave, and act physically- physical movements communicate aspects of the characters, usually their emotional state), where I learnt that some of my facial expression/ neutral face can make me look, evil, moody and miserable (not suitable for Panto). I also learnt that sometimes my movements come across as week, and as a result make me appear less confident and less experienced. To improve this I made better use of 'the tonic body' (s
teady rigid muscle contractions with no relaxation, used on the stage, especially when the character is angry or frightened). Watching The Gorden Craige's "Cinderella Pantomime' helped me to get better acquainted with the atmosphere of Panto. It also helped a great deal with my facial expressions, as I watched how confident The Chorus appeared when they had wide eyes, and huge smiles on their faces.
I tried to keep this smile on my face through the entire show of every show, with the exception of reacting shocked, gossipping or looking intrigued.
Learning the dances was probably the most challenging thing for me, as I am still very slow at picking up choreography. I found it quite frustrating as it took me an average of running through the dances 30 times before I knew them fully. However, I took the time to rehearse at home in front of the mirror and during my breaks at college. Recording myself also helped me to see where I was making mistakes and which movements I could improve on. I also found singing and dancing at the same time a challenge, but I recorded myself singing the songs at home, until I knew the lyrics and sung from my diaphragm to help me to project and I breathed from my abdominal muscles in order to better my breath control when singing.
From Recording videos of myself practising the dances, I realised that I appeared to be a much more confident dancer when I kept a smile on my face throughout. Therefore I tried to remember to do this, while singing during the actual shows.
When It came to the shows I found that overall, the intentions of The Writer and Director were portrayed clearly by the actors. However, I thought that certain parts of The Pantomime and some characters were misunderstood by the audience and so this affected the flow of each show. In a few of the shows the scenes fell flat and so the comedy of the pantomime was lost. This was a more likely occurrence, when the audience were less responsive and verbal. Some scenes were more difficult to understand than others, but when the comedy timing was right- these were the most well received scenes of all. Members of The Chorus identified areas that we needed to improve on as a group, and did. We were also quite professional, in continuing to run through the show, even when when members of the audience walked out and some of us walked on late for the opening dance to Act 2. I could have better contributed to picking up the energy in flat scenes. However ,I did attempt to make every one of my performances better than the last. At times this did not happen, but usually it was the shows that I had warmed up backstage (chewing to relax the jaw and massaging the face to release tension and to make it easier to make bigger facial expressions) that I felt I performed the best in. I felt that in the first few shows, I had more energy than in previous rehearsals, but not as much as I needed. The more shows that we did, the more energy, physicality and facial expressions I used.
My main strengths are my experience and my ability to work hard to improve myself as a performer and the way in which I dedicate myself to the task set. My many years of acting experience on the stage and in drama clubs, helps me to deal with nerves, create unique characters and to identify the things that I can do which work well with audiences and those things that do not work so well. This can also be my downfall, as this can leave me inhibited, stopping me from performing my best or going on stage in the first place (during improvisation exercises) as I become almost certain that my idea will not work. Once I realise which aspects of performance I need to improve on, I will spend hours working on it until I am satisfied. For example, I would go through new dances up to 20 times a day, in front of a mirror, everyday until I knew them completely. I took time to look up youtube tutorials to help me to better my singing and dancing ability. I spent a lot of break times practising my facial expressions in the mirror and the dances with my friends, helping them with the moves that they were confused about, once I knew the dances thoroughly. I also wrote on my blog nearly everyday after college since late September, so that I could track my progress.
My main weakness is my lack confidence within myself. Although I am quite a confident actress, due to my experience, I find that my lack of confidence as a person causes me to doubt myself and makes it very difficult for me to put myself forward. I have however become better at putting myself forward as I volunteered to take part in 'In.De.Pen.Dance' at the Alban Arena and for filming in Royston. I still need to be more willing to volunteer to improvise (a performance without planning or preparation). Sight-reading, I find very difficult due to my poor reading ability, I find it hard to understand that which I am reading in the first instance and so that which I am reading makes little sense to me and this is probably reflected in my voice. As a result I find it difficult to get into character straight away when reading through a script for the first time, as I demonstrated when reading as 'The Baroness' as my voice was very uncontrolled and all over the place and I stumbled on my words a lot. However I have taken time to read more monologues and articles out loud in my free time to help to better my reading skills. Another major weakness of mine is the time it takes me to pick up choreography. I can improve this by trying to pick up choreography from tutorials without having to rewind, which will force me to learn the routine quicker. I need to work on my posture when acting and also my physicality as often my movements are week. I can improve this by adopting the tonic body. I also need to be aware of my facial expressions and try not to look evil, moody or miserable, unless requires.
In conclusion, I believe that I have learnt a lot during the rehearsal process of 'The Cinderella Panto', as well as during The Shows themselves. I learnt singing and dancing techniques that I was not previously aware of and I also became aware of different acting techniques. The shows received positive reviews from audience members and I ended up putting on a better performance than I would have done at the beginning of September, due to all the new techniques I have learnt. There are still many elements that I need to improve on, but I will work hard to do this, to make sure that the next show I am involved in, I put on a better performance.
