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On April 28th, 6 students from St.Johns Kilmarnock School went to perform at the Drama Festival at Country day school. We arrived at the drama festival on the 26th and got acquainted with all the other schools and students that had also par-taken in the drama festival. We watched many great performances by a big array of different schools, they where all very different and all had unique styles of performing.
On the day of our performance, I felt like throwing up all day. I've never performed in front of such a large crowd before and the nerve was really getting to me. From running lines in the car, or in the Timmies line up, we where all determined to remember every single line. While the school before us was performing we went to get changed and warm up in a smaller drama room. We did Italian runs for every single scene, fixing each other's costumes and reassuring everyone that they where going to do great. The urge to puke really grew by this time, I was not afraid of not remembering my lines I was afraid I was going to puke. I know it might sound like silly butterflies in my tummy but I so nauseas. I didn't want to freak out Mr. Newman so I kept it too myself and just took deep breaths.
Once we started the opening scene was the agent and client, this was Tessa and Jacob. After this scene was the Father, this was a scene where I play Annie a maid. I was so nervous, afraid that I might miss a queue, or drop the tray of all the cups and bowls. Once the scene started I realized I couldn't see the audience because the lights where so bright. This defiantly helped me pretending they weren't there.
After this scene was Carolyn and Grace, this was a fast change for me, but I thankfully got into the robe quick enough. This was defiantly my favorite scene, there where no mistakes and it flowed very nicely. Lizzie did a great job portraying Grace, she was a very motherly figure and all her lines where said with great confidence.
Helen and Sarah was the scene I feared the most, like a mouse fears a cat. I kept running the lines over and over again in my head, making sure there were no mistakes. Once the scene started everything was going smoothly, I messed up on one of my lines, which I was really disappointed about. Apart from that the scene went great, and got a few laughs.
Standish was the last scene in our play, this scene was directly after Helen and Sarah, should I had to change into my maid outfit super fast. While I was searching for my costume I realized that I had to be on the stage in a few seconds, while running around backstage looking for my costume, Lizzie was waiting for me on stage with a face of pure panic, Tessa decided to improvise with Jacob and it made the scene look less like something was wrong. Once I finally got my costume on I ran on stage so Lizzie could say her line. From that point on the scene ran really smoothly and nothing major went wrong.
Overall the entire play went great, the drama festival was great fun, I made so many new friends and watched some amazing performances. If I could I would defiantly go next year as well. I'd like to say thanks to Mr. Newman for arranging this trip for us, I'm sure we are all very grateful you took up your personal time to take us.
For the drama festival I am doing 4 different scenes from the play the dining room. All these scenes contain different character with mismatching personalities and values. We started rehearsing a few weeks ago and since then everyone has been improving and getting more into character, the line memorization I feel is more difficult than the actually acting itself. Getting into character usually takes a run through of my lines a few times to fully get a grasp of who this character is and what they are trying to do or accomplish in this scene.
For 2 of my scene I am a servant that is serving the family while they are going through a conflict of their own that doesn't involve me. In a way I am an irrelevant character in these scenes, I'm just the maid that walks in and out assisting the family. In rehearsal one thing I find difficult is my cues, even though people would think that it is a simple task but I enter and exit nearly 7 times per scenes and after a while it becomes difficult to remember every single one without mixing each of them up. Another difficult I have with being a maid is the different personalities of each, for one maid she is 18 years old, a young new maid that is trying to get everything right and not to anger the father. The second maid I play is an elderly maid that has been with the same family for years, she is very comfortable around them and they treat her more like a family member than a maid. In rehearsal it is difficult to transition from one to another, especially as these 2 maids are very different. The blocking and que's for both these scenes is also a big part, Mr. Newman is very particular and quite a perfectionist when it comes to this. Mr. Newman is always tweaking or changing the que's and it is a very important thing to remember.
The scene I've been practicing the most is the Sarah and Helen scene, this scene I have a lot of larger lines, which is a very new experience for me. I'm usually given the smaller roles or a background character, but now I've got a main role its hard to memorize all the lines and not trying to confuse them. Having a larger role means that more of the attention will be focused on me, which in a way pressures me a lot more to learn my lines and do the best I can at my part. Sarah is defiantly one of the most difficult parts I've played in a scene; she is a rebel teenager who is looking for liquor in her parent's house with her friend Helen. Even though I am struggling to get this scene perfect and to Mr. Newman's standards I've been working as hard as I can to remember my lines and makes the real characters of Sarah come to life. The one good aspect about this scene is that Sarah fits my personality well, not in the way of wanting to steal liquor, but in the way that being a teenager. This factor increases my knowledge of being a teenager and the challenge of what Sarah would act like.
The last scene I've been practicing is Carolyn and Grace, this scene is one of the more easy scenes for me. I'm playing Grace's daughter Carolyn, she has a reasonable small part in this scene, which I'm a lot more comfortable with. All my lines in this scene I have memorized, I have the characters personality and values down as well, like I said before Carolyn is a very easy part for me to play. She is simply a young girl who doesn't want to go to dancing school and her mother wants her to attend dancing school.
Overall the rehearsals for the scenes from the dining room are going great, there is still a lot of work to do but I feel I will eventually get there.
I've never personally been a fan of
warm ups, I've always found them uninteresting and boring. Id prefers to just
get down to what we are here to do, not to stretch and bend all over the place.
We've started doing a warm up at the beginning of everyone of our drama classes;
we will stand in a circle facing each other & do different
excises/stretches. Mr. Newman has also been showing us how to do our warm in
the proper form. Marking sure you stay still, keep your balance, lock your
knees & stay focused on yourself and not what others are doing.
When I first started the warm up I
was just not in the mood so I had no focus, I kept loosing my balance &
copied what everyone else did. At the end of the warm up Mr. Newman told us
that no one had proper focus and that next time we should all try to do our own
thing in our own timing. The second time I did the warm up I focused only on
the pace I wanted to go and the stretches I felt I needed to do. I found that
if I'm more focused on what i want to do i keep my balance is a lot better
&amy posture stays more upright.
To end this very exciting blog I
really enjoy the warm up & I feel that it is a great way to start our
always great drama classes.
