Kelly's Reheaursal by Sharna https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0 Description of lesson en-us 2016-11-18 13:18:52 UTC 2025-11-12 08:47:29 UTC hello@padlet.com Swallow sharnaarmstrong98 https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/138680825 We have been looking at a script called 'Swallow'. This is basically about 3 people who are all telling a 'story' and the first one which was Karen; who we thought her character was maybe anorexic and has lost the plot a bit! Ana's character was about a woman who has lost her husband who had found another 'lover'.
My character was about a person (Sam) who is trying to be someone who they aren't (maybe thinking about becoming someone else) I found it very difficult at first to become this character as i didn't know how to act it, this is because they didn't show a lot of character. I felt like the character i had to play was a very confused teenager that wasn't sure if they wanted to be male or female or even just change their appearance.  
We were then trying it out as a pantomime to see if that would bring us any ideas or help us with our characters. this is because we felt like just repeating ourselves over and over in a line and it was boring however this didn't really work as we found it too funny and started laughing and messing around! after ages of trying to come up with different ideas of how to present this play our teacher Kelly then gave us an idea of maybe acting it out in our own bedrooms or scenes wherever we are, so in my case i was in my bedroom looking into a mirror talking to myself whereas Ana was at a restaurant and Karen was inside her house that her character hadn't stepped foot out of in a few years. I found this was a good idea because it got us to look at it in different perspectives. I felt like this helped us a lot as i got to feel like i was in the characters shoes and i could actually be the character.]]> 2016-11-18 13:25:26 UTC https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/138680825 Leaves sharnaarmstrong98 https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/138689384
This was a very stressful day. There was only 5 of us in the lesson so Kelly had to come up with different scripts that we could work with in smaller groups. For this exercise we chose who we were going to be had a read over the script and the got it onto our feet.

]]> 2016-11-18 13:53:38 UTC https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/138689384 Wasted by Kate Tempest sharnaarmstrong98 https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153226756 This is a monologue i chose to learn and do some research on. Its about a teacher called charlotte who wants to make something better of herself. One of her friends 'Danny' recently passed away and she's sat at a bar with one of her other friends, Tony. So They're sitting at the bar, she's just walked out and away from her teaching job. I found it quite hard to portray this character because she doesn't give that much of emotion. so I did some research on charlotte and her character and this is what I got. So as you can see from my spider diagram of charlottes character profile, i found out a lot that would help me become this character. Doing this helped me build up a better image of  how i could act. 

Some of this thing I listed were, she's roughly in her mid twenties, miserable because of her job, seems to be self righteous but also scared of the future. she seems to be lonely. She seems to be still a child at heart but has a grown up mind.  

I think that charlotte was a very laid back character. She was simple and smart. I felt like she would be very organised but very stressed. She seems to still be quite young and i realised this in her vocabulary and some of the things she does. for example: she swears a lot "Im remembering us lot when we was at school - moving through the corridors like we was the fuckin' Roman empire." Just by reading this line you can tell she is still young, by the way she says things, 'i'm remembering us lot when we was in school' i feel like an older adult wouldn't talk like this they would say something along the lines: 'I remember when we were at school'. However i feel like just because she isnt using the correct vocabulary it doesn't mean she could be young it could of been the way she was brought up or the are she lived/lives in.

To progress in developing a voice for this character it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be. This was because the way that she says some things in the Monologue make it easier to picture and hear what she would sound like. So as i was saying before when she says 'i;m remembering us lot when we was at school' I could already kind of imagine or hear her voice and how it should sound. so i was thinking a kind of cockney accent.]]> 2017-02-11 16:25:57 UTC https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153226756 Wasted sharnaarmstrong98 https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153231386 Physicality and how it relates to the style of the piece.

I found that when i was developing my character for this monologue, gestures and facial expressions helped me become the character more. 
I did this by first of all trying to see what the characters personality is like so the character profile helped a lot. 

so for example:
when charlotte was saying: " i'm stood at the front of the class and i feel like i'm drowning. I'm staring out at you lot and i'm thinking who the fuck are you lot anyway? i look at them but i cant see children i can just see the colours of their jumpers and smudges where their faces should be." This was showing that she didn't really care about anything she had some anger and confusion in her. So to portray this I thought about maybe acting a bit careless and have confusion in my face, I could do this by scrunching up my eyebrows and squinting my eyes. I could also have my shoulders a but slumped and maybe i could be looking down at my hands or as she is meant to be at a bar i could be fiddling with the glass as she could be trying to avoid eye contact with tony as she might feel a bit embarrassed talking about it with someone else.

In the first few paragraphs/lines of the monologue she seems that she doesn't really care about anything anymore. So her body language and her clothes might also say the same. As I was saying earlier I feel like she would be slumped into her chair or even upright leaning against the table but fiddling with her drink. 

so as this is a more modern piece i feel like she would be quite laid back with her body language. but where as if she was teaching at the school she would be a bit more uptight.]]> 2017-02-11 17:56:51 UTC https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153231386 Portia x Wasted sharnaarmstrong98 https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153274458 Do I think that the two monologues i chose were appropriate for me?

I found that when i read the wasted monologue I instantly liked it and said I was going to do this one. I thought this because is was such a long monologue i knew i would be able to find out a lot of information and really study the character. As this is a contemporary piece, the character (Charlotte) was quite young and the vocabulary was quite modern i thought this would be appropriate for me because i would be able to act the character better as i am young and am familiar with the modern vocabulary.

However, I found that with the portia Monologue it was a bit more challenging as it isn't as modern as the Wasted one. This is because it is written by Shakespeare and is set in the 16th century so there is a big difference. I didn't so much this this monologue was appropriate for me but i thought i would be a challenge and so i gave it a go. I don't think it suited me at all as i found it very difficult trying to get the correct voice and pronounce the words correctly. 



]]> 2017-02-12 14:10:33 UTC https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153274458 Research on any other monologues and why i didn't choose them sharnaarmstrong98 https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153274738
I didn't do much research on any other monologues, this was because I waned to write my own one. Before i got the chance to think of writing my own one we had already chosen these monologues. This didn't mean i couldn't have written one, i still could have but where i already had the monologues i think i just gave up and forgot about writing one myself.

]]> 2017-02-12 14:17:19 UTC https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153274738 The merchant of Venice Portia Act III scene 2 Line 40 sharnaarmstrong98 https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153276676 Character profile of Portia

A young Venetian, Bassanio, needs a loan of three thousand ducats so that he can woo Portia. Portia is a very intelligent, soft and wealthy woman. I Imagine her to be very clever and organised, however when a male falls in love with portia she seems to get a bit distracted and she seems to get angry. you can notice the anger in the first sentence of the monologue i was doing: "Away, then! I am lock'd in one of them: If you do love me, you will find me out." I feel like it shows her weaker side in this monologue, its like she doesn't care. 
Furthermore, she could be doing this because she loves bassanio and wants him to not give up.
Going back to portia, I felt like she was brought up in a wealthy family. this is because back then you had to be wealthy to be able to go to school and live in a nice house in venice. o this says a lot about portia already and how she was brought up. 

I found her character very hard to portray ,I thought this was because it was the 16th century language. So when it came to saying sentences like:
"Away, then! I am lock'd in one of them:
If you do love me, then you will find me out. 
Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof. 
Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
Then, if he lose, He makes a swan-like end,"
I found it very difficult to say it fluently without either staggering or pronounce it wrong. 
To prevent that from happening, I would do some articulation exercises. For example I would try and strengthen my muscles in my mouth I could do this by massaging my face, scrunching up my face really, really small and then opening it really wide, pretend like i'm chewing a really really small piece of gum and then imagine it to grow huge amount bigger whilst your'e chewing it, I would actually chew a lot of gum and drink out a straw more often. 
I would also repeat the words and sentences over and over until I thought I got them correct. ]]> 2017-02-12 14:50:20 UTC https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153276676 Wasted Evaluation sharnaarmstrong98 https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153297506 The week all the way through to the day before I was going to be doing my monologue I was feeling confident in performing this monologue. When it came to the Thursday morning and I got on the train, I was going to try and go over it, but I couldn't remember it! the same thing happened with ''The Merchant of Vince". I think this happened because I over did it and panicked too much. To prevent this next time I could:

  • Learn my lines earlier
  • Maybe do some more research on the monologue.
  • remember to familiarise myself with my notes and character profiles to make sure I don't forget them and forget how to be the character.

I think that was another main problem as well, I forgot to look over my notes on everything I had done on the character Charlotte. This then made my end result not how I wanted it to be. I do not think i reached my full potential.

What I think went well was that I feel like The gestures and facial expressions I did really helped me show the character and how she is miserable and doesn't seem to care. To show this I made everything to seem to be an effort so for example when I was saying the line "Behind me is todays date on the board. Im trying to pretend I don't know what that means." I lifted my arm and pointed behind me like i had a weight on my wrist or something.

To improve next time I will: 

  1.  Learn my lines more
  2. Recap on notes
So overall I wouldn't say I reached my full potential. But now I know what I can do next time so I can avoid this. By recapping my notes I will be able to gain more of a better character and by learning my lines I will be able to focus more on developing different speech and work more on my character because once you know your lines you can move on so easily.
]]> 2017-02-12 19:43:05 UTC https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153297506 The Merchant of Venice Evaluation sharnaarmstrong98 https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153300732 I feel like my final performance of this didn't go too well either, I do not feel like I portrayed the character that well. It was the same situation with "wasted". Another way i could prevent this from happening is by setting out a timetable for myself to make the correct time to learn my work. This would help a lot because it would help me be more organised with my time and I wouldn't be as stressed out all the time.

What I don't think went well was probably how I didn't really use the correct voice. I had practiced working on my voice but as I wasn't really sure on how to use it (how portia would sound like when she speaks), so when it came to the 'audition' I was very unsure of how I should read out the monologue. 
What I thought did go well is that I used some good gestures and I used good facial expression to show I was annoyed and upset.

what I am going to improve on next time:


  • Get more research about the play/monologues era.
  • watch some films maybe to get a better understanding
  • practice on my voice - could do think by hearing them speak in films/documentaries 
  • do more annotating on my monologue see which bits i think would be said 'differently' 


I think that overall i feel like I gave it a really good go but I can do way better next time. I really feel like I know what I have to do to work on improving myself for next time. I really enjoyed looking at this monologue because it was not something I would usually go for and I feel like if I put the correct time and effort into it then I would really be able to come out with something good.
]]> 2017-02-12 20:23:19 UTC https://padlet.com/sharnaarmstrong98/9qel3aizkaw0/wish/153300732