In the last few months we have gained many new skills, as well as applying ones we had already known to our performance pieces. This mainly revolved around dance and musical theatre as we had focused more on acting the previous year. As well as the group performances, some of us were also selected to have the opportunity to perform our monologues and songs from our university/drama school audition pieces or our devised pieces that we had worked on previously. I feel like as soon as we got onto the stage, the pieces we had ran smoothly once the tech run was done and we were able to perfect it for the show in the evening that went to plan. 

The weakness that let me down personally was the fact that I was unwell and kept losing my voice which held me back when it came to vocal numbers, especially my solo song. I felt disappointed that I couldn’t do it to the best of my ability because of this and I could have definitely done better if it was any other time. If I were to do this again, I would have changed the song to better suit what my voice was able to do further away from the date rather than last minute. 

Another weakness that I feel slowed down our show was the delay with the show hands who were in charge of props and scenery. One instance, I went to exit from the number "A little more homework" whilst still singing and bumped into a table that wasn’t placed correctly causing me to have to stop singing briefly so I could compose myself. I also feel like slow transitions with clearing the stage and preparing for the next number had an effect on us as performers as it was unclear when we had to enter the stage for our next number. 

I feel like our stronger pieces were "All That Jazz" from Chicago and "Hello" from the Book of Mormon. The reasons for this is because personally I felt that we were all dedicated to these pieces and felt more confident with our movements and characters. Despite being contrasting with one another, I felt I was able to apply most of my skills to both compared to the other pieces. This is because I was already familiar with what's needed to make a musical theatre piece appealing along with the expressions and subtlety that are needed for a slower and more defined dance that is more Fosse in style.  

When it came to doing "A little more homework" from the musical 13, It got better and better the more times we did it. As it is a very repetitive song, me as well as other people found it difficult learning the lyrics and struggled to the last day, when each time we performed it, the lyrics began to stick. I feel like I was able to portray a character that was clear to be a typical teenager at school, who also gets along with their peers through facial expression and body language. This is important as it is visible to anyone who is watching and it can make a piece much more appealing even if you're just standing there and singing. 

With the feedback I have heard from the audience, they thought the "Angry Dance" from Billy Elliott was our strongest piece. However, I feel like that was one of our weakest pieces as hardly anyone had any experience doing tap dance before and therefore felt less confident doing a very fast paced dance with very little training. Despite this, I felt like I did fairly well in this dance as I was able to cover up any mistakes with my posture, body language and facial expression. Furthermore, I felt like it was a very upbeat piece that I could be willing to work more with. If we were to do it again, I'd like to have more time in perfecting it as we finished it very late and had little time to work on it more intricately.  

In the acting piece we did from "People, places, things" I felt like we worked off of each other well to be able to make our delivery snappier. Through the use of Stanislavski's emotional recall, I was able to show enough emotion in my section of the script without having to go over the top to be able to convey a very touchy subject about addiction and alcoholism and how it affects people around us. Furthermore, the simple addition of movement at the beginning and end of the scene was an effective tool to use so we could pull our audience in. 

In conclusion, I feel like the performance overall went extremely well. We worked together as a whole unit to make it work and coming out of it, I have gotten to know the other years better than what I have previously which will come in handy as we are working with them on our final project. I have also come out of this with better knowledge of quick changes and microphone changes and how to plan and make them more convenient for future pieces as it can get difficult when working under pressure within a certain time limit when you need to ready in the wings for the next number.