Unit 10

1. Critically evaluate own strengths and ambitions to support own development and meet identified goals.

As an actor, I feel my strength is playing more awkward characters, as I can pull from my experience of being quite awkward myself, allowing me to be completely realistic with my performance.  I believe this strength was shown the best during The Ghost Light Tours, as my performance as The Sceptic, where I spent most of my time guiding the audience trying to keep them calm by making awkward jokes and trying to rationalise everything that happens.  However, a weakness I would like to improve on is my acting for film as I believe I haven’t fully developed my skills on that front.  I tend to struggle a lot more with film, due to the nature of it, how it is split up during scenes so it is difficult to remain in the headspace of the character I am playing when the camera is moving to a new position.  Furthermore, I find it difficult to focus and stay in character with a camera so close to my face.  Another strength of mine is quite childish characters, as I played a Lost Boy in Peter Pan and in most of my ensemble roles for Pinocchio I was a child, whether it be a perfect one or one who misbehaves.  

2. Use knowledge and understanding of progression routes to make applications within performing arts education or related employment.

Acting is a long-term passion of mine, from going for lead roles in school plays & joining a drama group to build my confidence and skills’ its been a big part of my life and journey so far  During my time in school, I looked forward to drama the most spending as much time as I could on acting, developing my skills of working with other people as well as my skills onstage. While in year 10 I joined a youth theatre Page2Stage performing arts, a place which I found it easy to settle into ith like minded people and this solidified my choice of wanting to pursue acting as a long term career.  This led me to enrol onto my current course, studying acting full time. My time on my college course has been nothing short of incredible, working closely with people like me to put on amazing shows across the year and, because of this course, I built my confidence and feel that I have truly improved as an actor, however I know that I have a long way to go yet and I feel that your institution is the best place for me to be.

I have had the privilege of performing in many different roles across a range of genres over the last few years and each has taught me so much.  Musical theatre has been something new to me in the last couple of years, with my first musical being Peter Pan which I performed at The Arc. This helped me become a more confident singer which helped me take on my next Musical role  for my next musical “Aladdin Jr”, where I was a more prominent role, who had a lot more to sing.  I have also been lucky enough to be a part of the National Theatre Connections project many times, tackling contempory texts and performing in a range of different theatres, culminating in this year when I was lucky enough to be in the cast of a production of ‘ Shout’ by Alex Ziegerman that was selected to make the transfer to the Dorfman stage at The National Theatre.  This was such a big challenge for me, performing in such a prestigious theatre and it taught me so much and pushed my ambition to even higher heights, I loved the rush of working in a building where such great actors have performed and working with the huge production team was inspiring. While we were there we also spent some time with the author who gave us tips for the acting industry, for my final show of year 1, I took on my greatest challenge yet, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, where I played a different Aide in each cast.  Also, in my 1st year, I wrote a script for the first time in the National Theatre New Views competition, which helped me gain a better knowledge of how difficult being a writer truly is.  This enhanced my creative side and also improved my acting ability, as I learnt how important every word is in a script because the writer had a reason behind everything they wrote.  However, my largest role has been my most recent, a tour guide in our courses yearly production of The Globes Ghost-Light Tour.  This interactive production fully utilised all of my acting capabilities, due to how close I was to the audience, as well as my ability to improvise when necessary.   

 

The reason I have chosen your course is a believe the opportunities that are presented to me will help me become the best actor as well as giving me a good jumpstart into the industry of acting.

3. Critically evaluate communication channels used to promote progression within performing arts.

I have decided to stay in Stockton Riverside College next year and join to the Level 4 of the course. This gives me the chance to improve my range as an actor, as well as further prepare me for university as it gives me another year. I am automatically provided an offer to stay and all I need is a merit, as the teachers already know my acting capabilities.

4 Monologue Analysis

https://youtu.be/-VH9raWs_Ug?si=SIYQoBwzLD1uy0wJ

For my monologue I chose one delivered by Jonesy, the main character in Tom Wells play of the same name. I feel I performed this monologue quite well as I think bought the character of Jonesy to life.  In this monologue I really played into the comedic beats, taking advantage of my skills of portraying characters that are similar to Jonesy.  However during this monologue, I felt times where I was stumbling or forgetting what came next, but I always was able to recover myself so it wasn't obvious, and even when there were awkward pauses, I feel it added to it as he was quite an awkward character himself.