Many of the monologues were well-written, but one of them called "The Friends" by Arnold Wesker caught my attention. This monologue showcases a woman who is aware she is dying experiencing some of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This monologue begins by her being annoyed at the people around her who are aware of her condition. This annoyance then quickly turns into a depressing and angry monologue where she becomes infuriated towards those around her for not being helpful in her time of need, but instead just acting solemn, but strange. I found this monologue to be so interesting due to the fact that she is acting similarly to someone who is depressed over the loss of a loved one. The character appears to be numb to what she is saying and the effect it has on those around her due to her illness taking a huge mental toll on her. This makes a lot of sense, she is dying and has to live the rest of their life losing sleep, being anxious, scared, sad, weak and angry. The complexities of this character seem endless and that will, and has, lead the character to an understandable breaking point. Commonly, when there are so many thoughts and emotions to deal with, it can be easier to develop a numbness to avoid overwhelming oneself with emotion. This is what I believe may explain the character's behavior as becoming numb just leads to more emotions being bottled up until she reaches her breaking point and has an outburst.

Upon reading this monologue, I began thinking of ideas for how I could play this character (Esther). After reading through the monologue a few more times, I was reminded of a film that has a similar emotional outburst: 'Killers of the Flower Moon'. The character played by Leonardo DiCaprio, Ernest Burkhart, has found himself in court near the end of the film where he is finally confessing for his and his Uncles crimes. The reason why this amazing performance from DiCaprio reminded me of this monologue was because a rather composed character, Ernest, finally unleashed all of his built-up emotions of pain, anger, terror and sadness all simultaneously. Similarly to Esther, she has an extremely emotional monologue where she lets out a huge mixture of bottled up and heavy emotions all at once. This could prove to be quite challenging, but it would be a good way to push my acting skills further.

Another monologue that caught my eye features a character called Margaret (Maggie) featured in the 1955 play, 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof', by Tennessee Williams. During this monologue, Maggie is expressing the frustration and fear she feels about not achieving her opportunity at wealth if she does not become part of her husband's, Brick's, family inheritance.

This monologue caught my interest because of how it could push my range as an actor in a few ways. Firstly, Maggie has a Southern American English accent (a Southern accent). I have yet to do a performance in an American accent, so trying to master the pitch, pace and tone of speaking that way would be a good challenge. Secondly, since Maggie is ultimately wanting to secure a place in Brick's family inheritance in this monologue, her character is supposed to be acted in a somewhat sexual, and promiscuous way. Her relationship with Brick has been struggling and having a lack of intimacy, but to definitely be a part of the family inheritance, she must have a child with Brick, hence her being a more sexual character. I have never performed as a promiscuous character before, so this would be a good push out of my comfort zone. For these reasons, I am going to consider performing this monologue.

However, I still really enjoyed Maggie's monologue from 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'. Therefore I will be learning this on the side so that I can still have this as an option for future auditions. i want to be able to act as someone who is older than me and to be able to act as a sexual women because it is very challenging. Not only this, but she has a sothern accent, which I would like to learn so that I can have many options out there for me.

In Lady Anne's monologue from Richard the III, she is expressing her fury and hatred towards Richard for murdering her husband. Just moments prior, Richard is attempting to seduce her, despite her going through mourning and grief. For this reason, she curses Richard many times over despite his position of power. Also, in the 15th century, due to the patriarchal society she lived in, it was rare that a King would be on the other side of a verbal berating from a woman. Because of this unique character dynamic and complex emotions of grief, fury and hatred, I decided to consider this monologue for my Shakespearean piece.

Ultimately, I preferred the monologue by Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Scene 1. Portia is a strong, bright and determined woman in the 16th century who has disguised herself as a male judge in order to save her fiancé's best friend from death over unpaid debts. This is interesting as, in her time, women simply did not have the same rights as men to positions of power - like being a judge. For that reason, Portia lies her way into this position of power by creating fake aliases for herself and pretending to be a male lawyer turned judge.

This monologue, commonly known as "the quality of mercy" monologue, shows Portia trying to appeal to the more human side of the antagonist of the story, Shylock. Shylock wants to kill Antonio since he signed a contract which gave Shylock the right to take a "pound of flesh" from him if he did not repay the money Shylock loaned him. In this monologue, Portia tries to persuade Shylock not to kill Antonio by saying that mercy is a quality more valuable than anything else. Despite Shylock not wanting to take this moral path after the monologue, it is still a pivotal part of the play's story.

One reason why this monologue stood out to me was because if I did Esther's monologue from "The Friends", and then did Portia's monologue, I could show my range when performing these two monologues. Esther's character is rather weak and feeble since she is dying from leukemia, whereas Portia is very strongly-spoken and put together. Esther's character could even be described as being in the first, jellyfish stage of the seven levels of tension, whereas Portia could be described as being in the sixth, passionate level of tension. Performing these contrasting monologues could prove to be an enjoyable challenge.

I watched many videos of different actors perform Portia's "quality of mercy" monologue. In doing so, it reminded me of when I went to Church as a child and would see the Pastor's preaching. This was due to the religious imagery littered throughout the monologue and Portia's extremely passionate delivery. Furthermore, naturally, due to the way my family speaks, I talk in a rather strong, forward way. These two factors leave me leaning more towards doing Portia's monologue, but I have yet to come to a decision.

Firstly, I felt that Lady Anne's performance did not differ from my modern monologue, "The Friends", enough. Both of them saw women in distress, feeling many emotions and going through some sort of griefing process whether it be for themselves or for others. Portia's character on the other hand had an unmatched strength, determination and intelligence which was unseen in the other monologues. Furthermore, Portia is still a complex character due to her defying the 16th century patriarchy and the stakes of what she is fighting for being so high (Antonio's life). Despite her being determined and clever, I think Portia could still feel quite anxious whilst pretending to be a judge. It will be difficult to show a hint of anxiousness layered underneath the character's strength without it being too obvious, but that will make for a good challenge. Therefore, performing Portia would be a good way to showcase my range as an actor due to the difference between my modern monologue with Esther.

As well as being a good way to show my versatility, as stated in previous entries, I have real-life references which I can draw inspiration from. One of these references being the passionate and convincing Church Pastors who I would listen to when I was younger. The way that Portia delivered her monologue with religious imagery in an older English dialect with strength and might was very indicative of that experience when I was younger. Moreover, I felt that Portia's delivery is a better fit with my natural vocal delivery since I tend to speak quite passionately when I speak normally.

Since this monologue is written in old, Shakespearean English, I looked at the modern translation of this monologue. This was because the older Shakespearean monologue was extremely difficult to understand. Therefore, by reading the modern translation, it helped me understand what Portia was saying and how she felt whilst giving her speech. This gave me a deeper knowledge of the character and her script which helped me dictate how I was going to perform the character.

I also watched movies in order to research for this performance. I watched the 2006 film 'She's the Man' in order to see how the actor performed a woman disguising herself as a man. I found that I could not take much from this movie, but it did propose the question again about using a "manly voice". Amanda Bynes performs this character with a slightly deeper voice in this movie when she is disguised as a man. Here I found her deeper voice more comedic than anything. Being a comedy, this makes sense, but I do not want to risk adjusting my voice any lower to avoid having the same comedic effect and compromising Portia's strength and intelligence.

The Devil Wears Prada was the second film I watched and it also released in 2006. I decided to rewatch this movie to gain inspiration on how to act as Portia since I feel that her and the character Miranda Priestly are both determined, firm and intelligent women who do not let any obstacles get in their way. Portia is like this in the fact that she is so determined to succeed despite living in a patriarchal society that she disguises herself as a man and manipulates her way into becoming a court judge.

Miranda Priestly was acted very well by Meryl Streep and she created this dominating, powerful and intimidating character by being very firm in everything she did. She was firm with her looming eyes that felt heavy on whoever she looked at. Her posture was very firm and straight which made her look dominating compared to everyone she was around. Moreover, her hand movements were exaggerated and large which made them seem very powerful. Overall, this firm way of acting feels so calculated by Miranda Priestly that it leaves everyone she meets, and even the viewers, intimidated. Now, Portia is supposed to be strong and powerful, but not as menacing as Miranda is. For that reason, I am going to use large hand gestures, but keep a slightly more relaxed posture and slightly nicer eyes. This is so I can adapt Meryl Streeps brilliant performance into something I can use as Portia.

All in all, from this research I have come to the conclusion that I will not be making my voice deeper to have a "manly voice". I also realised that I need to be passionate yet slightly desperate for Antonio's freedom due to how much I care about my fiancé.

As mentioned in my research notes for Danny, I am drawing inspiration from the Victorious character, Charlotte. As said then, I incorporated moving constantly into my performance. After some experimenting though, I did find that, similarly to the way Charlotte acts, if I turned my head quickly to look around and make sure that no one else could be around us, listening to our conversations, it did add more humour to the scene. Expanding on this though, I decided to also be shaking sporadically throughout the play to show that I my extreme fright and stress. Moreover, I found that I could not simply just be pacing back and forth throughout the performance though as that would get quite boring. To add more variety to my movements, I decided to use more physicality for body humour. Once I began rocking back and forth on the floor, crawling on the ground and pulling my hair whilst crying, I felt that my performance was taken to a new level.

I decided that it would be good to experiment in our rehearsals with what movements I should be doing, and when, to see what would make the audience laugh the most. My director Emily really enjoyed when I collapsed on the floor and started crawling whilst crying profusely in the beginning of the play. As a continuation to that, I tried to cling onto my peers' Amarnie and Dima's arms to grab their attention to show how distraught I am before delivering my line "I can't get mixed up in this, I'm going to be a dentist." After trying that out, my group and I thought it was quite funny and that I should keep delivering the line that way. To add to it though, I thought it would be funny for me to try grab Dima's attention and then cry into Amarnie's shoulder when that Dima's attention is not given due to him being very stressed and not caring about my dental career. Although that is a small detail, I think it will overall add to the humorous delivery of my character and hopefully build a more immersive experience for the audience.

To further build on my character, I decided to expand upon my character's screaming. People found it really funny when I screamed which I was happy about since making the audience laugh at my expense in this scene is ultimately my goal. For that reason, I experimented with variations of screams and decided to add the occasional high-pitched scream when I get caught off guard. I did this taking inspiration from watching "Victorious" as almost all the main characters did this whenever they got shocked or scared and it was funny just about every time. An example of me using this is when Phil tells me that part of the cover-up plan will mean that I need to tell an adult that a "fat caucasian man" showed me his "willy" in the woods. The audience already should find that funny, but whilst I am sobbing into my jeans Phil tells me that. Danny is quite weak and is not cut out for doing something like that, so I thought it would add to the comedy here when I scream a really high pitched "WHA-WHAT?" At this point, the humour comes from my character not being able to catch a break, despite not even wanting to be involved with this in the first place. The audience could also feel pity for Danny at this point since she just wants to be a Dentist, yet her situation just gets worse and so does her stress, something which should be funny to watch.

From practicing this character, I have really grown a liking towards Danny and I think she is one of the most fun characters I have ever had the joy of playing.

I experimented with many different ways that I could try and impersonate a man through my performance. Paying attention to primarily body movements, I tried out many different hand gestures, postures and even how I walked and bent my knees. Then I came to the crucial realisation that Portia would have most likely not thought about all of these specifics. She is a bright, young woman who is acting as a male lawyer as an act of passion. She is full of determination and has most likely not thought about the exact specifics of acting as a man like I was. Furthermore, it is likely that my audience will not know the contexts of the play outside of my monologue. Therefore, if I act too convincingly in a masculine way, they might think that I am playing a male lawyer which is not what I want. For these reasons, I am going to be acting manly by doing some subtle things I mention in the coming paragraphs.

Finally, I am going to use up all the space I have on stage. By taking over a lot of room and walking around the area I have slowly, I should imply my characters strength and dominance over the environment and the courtroom. This should make my character appear passionate, but also very powerful. Secondly, I am going to be using overly-exaggerated hand movements in order to demand attention, but also to assert more emphasis and strength to my words and character.

After coming up with solutions on how to showcase Portia's complex character, I feel more prepared to perform my monologue due to my deeper understanding of her. I am going to make sure to show her passion, youth and strength both physically and vocally.

After practicing my monologue a few times, I tried out different hair options in my free time to see what would work best. First, I tried my hair in a few different ways. After trying out a few different styles, I figured that it would make sense for my hair to be down and slightly messy. This is because my character is at home surrounded by family and dying. It would not make sense for her to have her hair done in any way since she is depressed and going to die - she has no need to have her hair styled and neat.

Furthermore, I made sure that my lips looked and were extremely dry for this performance to make my character look frail and as if they were suffering. Dry lips are usually symptom of illness, fatigue and dehydration. Therefore, making my lips look and be very dry will connote Esther's declining health to the audience, even before I perform. Therefore, using the same pallet as I did for my eye bags, I put white eyeshadow on my lips to make them look devoid of any colour and life. To make them even more dry, I sucked air in through my mouth to dry drain the moisture off my lips, which actually worked. This not only made my lips look incredibly chapped, but it also made them feel very dry too. This meant that when I spoke, I sounded that little bit more frail. Behind stage I was breathing like this a lot prior to the performance to ensure that my lips looked and were as dry as possible. It also allowed me to get into my character even more.

As for my costume, I wore pyjamas and socks. I did this because my character, Esther, is at home dying in the actual play. This is as opposed at a hospital because she is terminally ill and they won't be able to treat her to be better regardless. Therefore, it made sense that she would wear comfortable and warm clothing, rather than something like tight jeans or something you would wear out. In addition, I chose not to wear shoes because if she doesn’t have enough energy to speak, she would also not have the energy to leave her house and go places. I decided to wear a grey pyjama set because the colour grey has connotations of old-age, but also lifelessness. Because it is a rather bleak colour, I think it mirrors Esther's situation and feelings well because of her lack of liveliness and colour. I chose to wear socks too because I think it likely Esther would be cold due to her condition as a dying woman. Poor blood circulation is rather common in terminally ill people which usually leads to cold feet and hands.

The final part of looking like Esther was my hair. She is not going out and she has finished having chemotherapy because her illness is terminal. For that reason, it would make sense that her hair is down and a bit messy. She is slowly dying and staying at home with loved ones before she passes. Her life is almost over, she is tired and drained and I do not think she would have the drive or energy to take care of herself since she doesn't even have much energy to speak.

These may be small details, but all of it comes together in the end to create a strong and immersive monologue performance regardless of how minute they can sound separately. I ultimately think that I looked like Esther and was able to embody the character and embrace the role even more because of my costume, hair and make-up.

For my hair I did a tight slick back bun so that It looked like I had short hair like a man. I could have worn a wig but I had to have a fast change back stage so I thought it would be easiest to just have a slick back bun, no hair spray, no hair foam or gel, just some hair clips and an elastic so that I can take it out quickly and get into my Esther characters costume. This was perfect because Esthers hair has to be messy and taking out the bun really made my hair look rough and scruffy.

For portia’s costume I wore a suit. The suit included black slacks, a black blazer, a white buttoned top and trainers. I chose this because again she is pretending to be a man, she is in court and has to look presentable and on top of this I think that back in shakespearean times they wore ties? wearing a tie just felt too modern.

As for my hair, I tried to wear it in a bun at first, but that simply did not work. This was because I would be frantically moving by running around or going on the floor and rocking back and forth which meant that the bun kept on coming undone. Whenever that happened, my hair got in my face which distracted me from my performance. Therefore, I thought it best to have my hair already down which worked really well because it not allowed me to grab and pull out my hair to look even more hysteric in my panicked state.

Finally, for my costume I wore blue jeans, a black top, and a black zip-up hoodie over it. When we were discussing costumes for DNA, we thought about wearing some sort of school uniform, but then realised that this was all taking place a few days after the incident with Adam, so they would most likely be wearing normal clothes. Therefore, because I am playing as a teenager who most likely does not care too much about what they are wearing and would like to conform and not stand out much from her peers, I figured I would just wear quite basic clothes. This is what all the other cast members too. I dressed in darker colours to mirror how upset I am about the current situation and fact that my career in dentistry could be ruined.

All in all, after some experimentation, I think my messy hair, smudged make-up and plain outfit, effectively showed the stress of my character and represented a teenager well.

I put no other props on the stage which allowed me to use up the entire space. This was good because I am acting my character with passion and strength. Therefore, I could walk around a large area that gave me room to exaggerate my movements and show my character's power to the audience. Some of the most effective and convincing public speaker speak using similar techniques like having good posture and using up lots of space to give a sense of power to them and their words. Therefore, I thought it would be good to really use my space and clear hand movements to get my point across, something that having a simple and open stage design would allow.

In the beginning of this short play, I am going to be using the whole stage and pacing around it. This is to make it obvious to the audience that I am very stressed out and in the sixth level of tension where I cannot control my emotions and they are visibly all over the place. After pacing around, I then collapse in the centre of the stage behind the character Lou. Once some time passes, I will move around the space again all the way up until the I finish my line, “dead people are not part of the plan. This is not dental college!” Once I deliver that line, I slowly make my way to the upstage right log which is where I sit the rest of the play, crying whilst rocking back and forth, occasionally interacting with the group.

The first monologue I did was my Shakespearean monologue. I felt rather nervous before doing this performance because I was so afraid of stumbling on my words or forgetting the lines. I was afraid because this was my first time ever performing a Shakespearean monologue and having to speak in this style of English. Moreover, I spent a lot more time going over my Esther monologue because of how vulnerable and emotional I have to be when I act as her. For that reason, I dedicated more time to Esther's monologue to ensure I would give a good performance. In addition to that, it was a very challenging monologue to perform and I wanted to prove to myself that I could act it out well. Regardless, I found the Shakespearean language to be quite repetitive and difficult to keep track of at times during my practice and was scared that I could mess up and lose my flow on stage. Luckily, this did not happen and I made it through the entire monologue with passion, despite my nerves prior to the performance.

Finally, I performed my monologue from "The Friends" as Esther. This was my first time in costume, hair and make-up for this character, and also my first time using all the props I had chosen to perform with. I felt more confident going into this performance because I had already done my Shakespearean monologue which I was the most nervous for. A skill I have found I have is that I tend to forget there are cameras recording me because I am so focused on acting as my character. It was quite easy to become Esther because the darkness of the room was very peaceful and I felt quite alone which made the transition into a vulnerable and solemn state more natural, something I hoped would show in my performance. By the time I had finished my performance as Esther, everyone was completely silent. I took this as a good thing then because my goal with the character was to make people feel sad for her and hopefully even be moved. I was surprised and also flattered that I had made my director, Emily, cry. It felt like such an achievement and I felt like I must have performed my character really well in that case.

After all of the performances were done, we received feedback on them. For DNA I was rewarded a distinction for the performance which I was very glad about. Regardless, I was given some feedback which I should focus on fixing before the next performance. Firstly, as stated earlier I was very nervous to start performing DNA which Emily picked up and said that she could pick up on it near the start of the performance. Nonetheless, she complimented how I was very funny which was my goal, so I am glad I achieved it.

I received a merit for my Portia monologue which did make sense given her feedback. She said that she loved the way I interpreted the monologue and said that it was quite different, but worked well. Emily also said that she could sense my character's passion which I was really happy about. Finally, she said that my character had a good sense of justice. By this she meant that I portrayed Portia's smartness, youth and expertise well. What dropped me into the merit category was my hand movements. Emily said that my hand movements were not convincing and too conservative. Because I was focusing so much on remembering my lines, I think my performance faltered for this reason. A valuable lesson I learnt from this mock performance was to not think about my lines so intensely right before a performance, and to not be too hard on myself because I had rehearsed enough times but thinking about it too much really threw me off.

Finally, I received a distinction for my Esther performance. Emily said that she did not write any feedback on her notes because of how moved she felt watching the performance. I was surprised enough to see her cry, but I was so happy when all she said was that she wishes she could give me a distinction plus.

Overall, I think that this mock exam was a really good learning experience for me. Primarily the fact that we had multiple entirely different performances to act out one after another felt like a good challenge and something that will really help me going forward in auditioning for universities and conservatoires.

Out of all of the characters, I decided to play Danny. Originally, Danny is a male character, but, since I am a woman, we decided to compromise and made Danny short for Daniela. I wanted to play Danny since this character was by far the most comedic character of the bunch. The comedy of this character derives from her repeated and main focus on how Adam's death could ruin her chance at becoming a dentist. This creates an irony because, while all the other characters are focused on not getting caught, Danny is in a hysterical state, only focussed on what could happen to her career in dentistry. What makes this even funnier is that all of this worry comes despite her not being directly responsible for Adam's death, but only now being aware that it has happened.

I felt as if I was well-suited for this role due to past experience acting in a comedic play which we have already studied called 'Gargantua'. In that play, I acted as two different characters who are not too dissimilar to Daniela in the way that they create humour. All of these characters are completely serious in what they say or do, but what they are doing is utterly ridiculous. One of my characters was as a secret agent in 'Gargantua'. My character was absolutely over the top and everyone in the audience could understand my character's stupidity and ridiculousness. Therefore, the irony created between the contrast of my serious delivery and my ridiculous character made for a humorous experience for those watching. Going forth, I will do more research into my character and how I will / can act them out. Despite that, I definitely know that my character will be quite loud, dramatic and hysterical.

This play is very interesting to me due to the way it litters darker themes underneath the comedy throughout. DNA shows just how cruel and selfish people, particularly teenagers, can really be. The piece of the play we will be performing demonstrates this quite well. The characters are truly all thinking about themselves throughout our script. Phil attempts to come up with a plan for them to all not receive consequences for their actions by covering up the murder. Cathy shows a real lack of her remorse when she explains the events leading up to and around Adam's presumed death. Danny also seems to feel no real guilt or remorse for Adam or any of his loved ones despite her thinking Adam has truly died. What really intrigues me about my character, Danny, is that she can make for hilarious comic relief, but also reinforces the key message of this play which is that a lot of people lack empathy. For all of these reasons, I am really looking forward to playing this character, not only to challenge my acting skills, particularly physicality, but because of the complex meanings that give the whole play, and our short script, so much depth.

I was really excited to perform my monologue as the character Esther in front of everyone because I felt confident I truly knew this character. I had worked so hard on this character because my goal was to try move people with my performance as that is an important yet difficult thing to achieve as an actor. Back stage, I was sitting down and trying to dry out my mouth and lips so that when I come on stage, I feel like Esther already, which worked. I believe that this was the best performance I have done as Esther yet for a few reasons. Firstly, I felt very engrossed in my character because of the costume, hair and make-up, but also because I had practiced this monologue a lot. Secondly, the pacing I did for this performance was the slowest I have done yet. It was something that came naturally with the performance whilst I was really so embodied with the character on stage. Walking off the stage was a weird mix of emotions. On one hand, I was proud of the performance I had just given. On the other hand though, I had this heavy feeling still lingering with me once I had finished the performance. I felt like was a good thing because it showed that I was so in my character on stage that I carried some of her emotions myself afterwards. Acting very vulnerable on stage in front of this audience of mainly strangers was very nerve-racking, but I completely embodied this character on stage and I really felt her pain and grief which was such a rewarding feeling. Afterwards, I found out that I made a bunch of people cry, even my mum. I can’t express how honoured I feel to even have been able to affect so many people. I am beyond happy that I was able to achieve my goal in playing Esther, which was ultimately to move people.

Lastly, we performed DNA. Truthfully, I was not nervous before playing Danny because of all the rehearsing we did for this play and the fact that I had already performed twice in front of this audience already. Moreover, even if I felt a semblance of doubt, I was able to more effectively reassure myself that I knew the lines and would be able to give a great performance after learning my mistake with this issue in the Portia mock performance. Everyone found my act hilarious. People were laughing throughout and I felt like I must have been acting well because I saw some of the cast members almost break character on stage. I felt like my physicality was great when I went on the floor and think that my use of space was effective in creating humour through Danny's hysterical nature. I gave my all to this performance and think that it paid off. It was really nice to finish on DNA as it was a fun way to bring this project to a close whilst giving a performance I am proud of.

After all of the monologues were over, we were given our final grades and feedback for each performance.

Starting with my "quality of mercy" monologue as Portia, I was rewarded a merit. I was told that I effectively portrayed Portia's youthful nature as my director said she could see the incredible passion I gave the character. Furthermore, I was told that it was obvious how meaningful this case was to my character and that she really wanted to convince people with her speech. Despite this, I got a merit because I was not in the spotlight the whole time. This did honestly upset me because I had never rehearsed in the lighting and felt like I did not even use as much of the stage as I could have. I am supposed to express my passionate character to the audience and a way to do that is to move about the large space with power. Therefore, I didn’t give enough focus to staying in the spotlight. For that reason, in future performance I will definitely be putting this into consideration as I was not aware of just how important this way, particularly on this small and intimate stage.

For my Esther performance, I was told that I really sold my mature character and that it really looked like I was dying. They complimented the fact that my performance was moving and really sad to watch too. However, I got a merit because of my projection. I was really frustrated by this because I was marked down although I had no idea that my projection had to reach all the way to the back of the room despite there being no audience back there as they were very close to the stage and almost surrounding it. I was under the impression that all I had to do was act exactly how I did on my mock test that got me a distinction, and add a little more projection. However, I was obviously wrong and I will not be doing that again, making sure that my projection is loud no matter what circumstance I’m in.

For my performance as Danny, I got a distinction. My director said that every single one of us got distinctions because of how well we worked together. She said that there was an obvious chemistry between us and that we bounced off of each other incredibly. It really showed that we had worked hard together as a team and the performance was great because of that, hence a distinction.

I started off my research by looking into videos and documentaries about leukemia itself, leukemia survivors, family or loved ones who have lost people in the fight against leukemia and more. Although this did not teach me much on how I should act out Esther, it did give valuable insight and context which should help me immerse myself in this character. A valuable thing that I can take away from these emotional pieces of media is how weak leukemia, amongst all cancers, truly makes people. Chemotherapy and other cancer treatments leave people wholly fragile and I need to communicate that through my performance in order to effectively act as Esther.

I decided to also watch movies which had people grieving and/or fighting deadly diseases. One film I watched was 'A Man Called Otto,' a 2022 movie which starred Tom Hanks. This story does a brilliant job at showcasing several of the seven stages of grief through its acting and story. Otto is grieving from the loss of his wife in a tragic bus accident throughout the film. Though he is not sick himself, watching this movie did show how angry and depressed Otto was having lost his wife. Esther is obviously angry and frustrated whilst being depressed similarly to Otto. Moreover, Otto and Esther both are treated well despite them lashing out at people or doing bad things because those around them now they are struggling deeply. These multiple connections between these two characters further solidified my idea that Esther was grieving losing herself in the not too distant future. For these reasons, I definitely be putting a level of anger and fury into my performance. I tried to show my anger quite forwardly, but it did not work very well when I did. I think this was because Esther is supposed to be in a very feeble and tiresome state since she is dying, so being loud and aggressive contradicts that heavily. I think that a better way in which I can show my anger will be through sarcasm and long pauses. Therefore, I am showing the audience how poorly Esther is whilst also expressing the fury she feels with her situation.

Two other films I watched were called 'Five Feet Apart' and 'The Fault in Our Stars'. These are two different romance films which are focussed on people who are deathly ill and are grieving others. Of course, this is very similar to Esther's situation where she is grieving for herself and terminally sick. The way the actors in these movies effectively showed that their characters were very sick was quite effective and will draw empathy out of just about anyone who watches them. Another way I want to communicate how much my character is struggling will be by controlling my breathing. By having a shakiness and wheeze in my breaths and laughs, I think I will be able to really communicate to the audience just how much my character is battling. Moreover, acting in the first stage of tension, the jellyfish stage, should be successful in showing the audience how difficult I find it just being alive because I will barely move and try keep my movements to only propping my head up. Moreover, I want to speak with a very small pace, making each word long to show that it is even difficult for my character to talk because of how sick they are. This also works well with the script because in the final line Esther says 'I keep wanting to talk, and I keep getting tired.'

After watching these sad movies and documentaries, I did notice that each one was truly an emotional roller coaster, leading me to cry and genuinely feel moved. That to me is one of the highest compliments you can give to an actor, and I truly hope to be able to make people feel grateful for their lives with my performance.

Danny is superbly afraid for his career in dentistry throughout the entire play. It is all that she can think about which is funny enough due to the fact that there are more dire consequences at stake. I think a way that I can add to this performance is by acting as paranoid as Charlotte does, but in a slightly different way. As opposed to just checking around myself, I am going to also be pacing frantically in order to use up more of the stage and exaggerate Danny's feelings to make this performance more humorous. Additionally, I always found it hilarious how Charlotte is always so loud. It is a trait which is absolutely ridiculous, but works. I think my performance would be worse if I was loud the whole time due to it being slightly too forthcoming for Danny since she is a pretty reserved, nervous character a majority of the time. Despite this, I will definitely use varying levels of volume to exaggerate certain lines, and their emotions, in order to keep my character interesting, funny and slightly more believable.

Danny's character really reminded me of the character Casey Orth from the original Scream movie that came out in 1996. This character was on the phone with the villain Ghostface and was being tormented by playing a 'game' over the phone with them. She was, understandably, severely freaked out and terrified by this, and her emotions escalated so quickly because of the intense situation she was in. I imagine I would act Danny in a similar way as Casey by being very jumpy and also screaming with a high-pitched tone. There are many comparisons to be made between these two characters, but those are the two I will take into my performance.

IfMusicBeTheFoodOfLovePlayOn. (2017), The Merchant of Venice, Portia 'The Quality of Mercy' speech. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akzeQtR2vAE&t=59s

NEJM. (2012), Targeting Cancer: The Story of Leukemia | NEJM. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSuwwRi0GHI&t=715s

The Fifth Estate. (2019), Fighting Back: Children battle against leukemia (1980) - The Fifth Estate. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWE06MUq2Bw&t=360s

Nebraska Medicine Nebraska Medical Center. (2011), Battling Leukemia - Alex's Story - The Nebraska Medical Center. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgl7O_9KPpQ&t=213s

RSC Shakespeare Learning Zone. (2019), Act 4 Scene 1 | The Merchant of Venice | 2015 | Royal Shakespeare Company. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCkhgfDQUzI

Guardian Culture. (2016), Laura Carmichael as Portia: 'The quality of mercy' | Shakespeare Solos. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmmBT_4dmI0

StageMilk. (2020), Portia Monologue (Act 4, Scene 1) Available at: https://www.stagemilk.com/portia-monologue-act-4-scene-1/

A Man Called Otto (2022) Movie. Directed by Marc Forster. United States. Sony Pictures Releasing.

Five Feet Apart (2019) Movie. Directed by Justin Baldoni. United States. Lionsgate.

The Fault in Our Stars (2014) Movie. Directed by Josh Boone. United States. 20th Century Fox.

She's the Man (2006) Movie. Directed by Andy Fickman. United States. DreamWorks Distribution LLC, Paramount Pictures.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006) Movie. Directed by Dave Frankel. United States. 20th Century Fox.

Victorious (2010 - 2013) TV series. Created by Dan Schneider. Nickelodeon.

Scream (1996) Movie. Directed by Wes Craven. United States. Dimension Films.