I've done a few very impulsive things recently. The first one was to sign up to an evening acting class for a few months which starts in a couple of weeks at a local theatre. The second thing was signing up to a week of intensive 'summer school' at the drama school I want to go to next year, and a 'taster' day at RADA. Meanwhile, I've been working on a production of Sara Pascoe's 'Pride & Prejudice' with my local Am Dram group. This is how it all went. (Apart from the evening classes because those obviously haven't started yet).
The Drama school(s)
1. Summer School
Well firstly the journey there was quite a shock to the system. I've barely been out of my home town since the pandemic hit in 2020. I had no reason to go anywhere, public transport filled me with anxiety, and after my injuries, my ribs couldn't handle being on a bus or in a train for more than 20 minutes. I was incredibly nervous about my commute because of this and also because I still get very anxious around large groups of people in small spaces. I had to have my noise cancelling headphones on and my eyes shut for most of the journey there. I must have looked like a nutter standing on the train clinging to the pole like it was a life raft while fighting off waves of panic as the commuters crammed on like sardines.
The week at a proper drama school was absolutely fantastic and reaffirmed that this is exactly what I need to be doing with my life. I haven't felt so at home in over 15 years. It was an absolutely wonderful group of people from all walks of life and different countries and we very quickly formed a very tight bond. We played a huge number of games like Monster tag, Hep, after you, pull the tail off the donkey, what's the time mr wolf, imaginary tug-o-war - it was like being back in primary school - only how my primary school experience should have been rather than the traumatising experience it actually was. I don't think I have ever laughed so much in one week. We did voice classes, some improv which was pure chaos and incredibly entertaining, audition technique, mask, Shakespeare, acting....I learned so much just by doing and seeing what others in the group were doing, and the experience of being directed by actual proper directors was really cool. I'd never been directed like that before and it was so interesting to see how they could pull different performances out of us just by giving us subtle shifts in our thinking, and how they could see the potential in a piece of text that we had missed. All of the teachers are working professionals in the industry who came in on their time off to teach. Our improv teacher was teaching us during the day, and then going on to the theatre in the evening to act in a play he was also directing in the Jermyn Street Theatre. Our acting teacher was the AD of 'The Play That Went Wrong' in the West End. He didn't mess around. He had us doing situps if we messed up in a game (he also did pushups if he messed up so he wasn't exempt from his own rules) and would be on our case if we were taking too long to get our shit together. I loved how no nonsense he was.
I found mask and Shakespeare incredibly difficult. Mask, because I'm very inhibited in my body: I have a very expressive face and flail around a lot with my arms when I speak but I have very little confidence in my body generally - I think it comes from horrible dance classes I was forced into as a child where I could do nothing right and couldn't understand what I was doing wrong and was made to feel like I was fat, deformed and incapable. I realise now that I was taught by a teacher who was salty about being too short for the Royal Ballet who came from a very unhealthy world of eating disorders, body shaming and perfectionism - but that doesn't offer my incredibly insecure 9 year old self much comfort when she had her belly rolls and kyphosis pointed out in front of the class and was subsequently dragged off to a physiotherapist to be 'fixed'. Since then I have always felt an inner panic whenever people focus on my body. I'm not a particularly graceful or coordinated person and have absolutely zero memory for choreography. I'm more 'I Love Lucy' than Darcy Bustle.
My body confidence has also really plummeted since getting my injuries because I just don't trust my body to not fail me, quite frankly and I have gained a huge amount of weight. So having to physically embody a character when I couldn't use my face and had to use my entire body was incredibly challenging. Not to mention the masks are horribly claustrophobic - the eyeholes are tiny so you can barely see anything through them and you have absolutely no peripheral vision. Navigating around a room full of people you can't see is quite somethin', and feeling my breath bouncing off the mask back at my face is not my favourite sensation. I'm not a fan.
Shakespeare was challenging in a different way. I didn't really have an english teacher at school - officially we had one - she was about 4ft6 and built like a grenade with a seemingly endless string of pregnancies. When substitute teachers turned up during her frequent maternity leaves / babysitter emergencies, they rarely knew what we were supposed to be doing so we were largely left to our own devices. I can read Shakespeare aloud quite easily and make it sound like I know what I'm talking about, but in these drama classes I learned about the 'Iambic Pentameter' which was a whole headache I had not prepared myself for. I confess I still don't really understand what the hell I'm supposed to do with it, but at least I am now aware of what I don't know so I can work on making it become something I do know.
I LOVED working on script breakdown - different exercises to get the most out of a script, character analysis etc. I think this is because I'm a psychology nerd too.
I discovered that I'm not quite the slug I thought I was. Physically I was much more able than I thought I was. I have conditioned myself into be incredibly cautious with my body since the injuries, and I can definitely do more things than I imagined without hurting myself, and push myself more than I thought I could. I am spectacularly unfit, and that won't do. However, I am more energetic than I imagined. I've been feeling like a creaky old lady surrounded by creaky old people for the last several years, and I surprised myself by being more than capable of keeping up with even the two 16 year olds in my class. In fact, I outstripped them as they were usually flumped on a beanbag in a corner glued to their phones! I somehow even had some juice left in my tank to go straight from drama school, home, grab a sandwich, and then go out to my am dram group and spend the next 3.5 hours reading a play.
At the end of the week, I went to say goodbye to my teacher who had taken us for half the course and to say thank you, and he grabbed me suddenly by both arms and said 'PLEASE audition for the course next year - you are absolutely good enough to get in' and gave me a shopping list of the things I did well. The following gif is an accurate representation of how I felt when he said that
So there was that.
2. RADA
This past weekend I went to RADA for a half day. For some idiotic reason I had built it up in my head so much that I was ridiculously nervous about going and woke up at 5am after only 4 hours sleep. I think it's the status of RADA being the best drama school in the country that made me feel very intimidated. As soon as I walked through the door and met the teachers and saw how warm and welcoming and fun they were I realised just how much of an idiot I had been. Particularly when I saw my voice teacher from the Summer school there and he recognised me. At RADA I did Text, Voice and Movement.
I didn't really learn anything new in text or voice but I absolutely love voice classes so just the experience of doing them makes me happy. There's something incredibly calming about lying on the floor in a circle humming with a dozen other people forming unintentional harmonies. The voice teacher who actually taught me that day (who was not guy from summer school) taught me a really great exercise about pulling verbs out of a monologue and personifying them in isolation to help breathe life into the monologue when they have been reinserted. She also told me I had a lot of sparkle, which definitely made me feel sparkly inside.
I had been absolutely dreading the movement class. For reasons listed above. I thought it was going to be dancing and I'd just be failing miserably at everything and I'd spend an hour beet red, awkward and miserable. The teacher was absolutely lovely. First of all she recognised me from the cafe I had been lurking in for an hour because I had arrived so early, and told me I had been fascinating to watch? I have no idea what the heck I was doing that could have possibly been fascinating apart from trying to call my friend and getting annoyed that no sound was coming from my phone because it was still connected to my bluetooth headphones. To my immeasurable relief 'Movement' wasn't dancing. It was half an hour of standing on one leg placing footprints into imaginary clay and noticing how our body responded and noticing areas of tension and release, followed by being handed a slip of paper with a haiku on it and being told to slowmo act it out with our bodies.
My brain instantly froze. The Haiku I got was by Matsuo Basho: 'Spring departs, birds cry, fishes eyes are filled with tears'.
Oh my sweet Jesus WHAT???!?
Mercifully she gave us a demo. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she looked like she was having a slow motion seizure standing up with her arms stretched out to either side. Her haiku was something about a shadow over the moon. I wouldn't even know where to start with something like that. She instructed us to close our eyes and just feel and move however we feel naturally flows from the lines to our brains and she put on some music.
There was absolutely nothing natural or flowing about the lines and my body communicating but having our eyes shut made the world of difference to me. I had no idea what the heck I was doing but for once it appears I did something right because she said my transitions were really nice.
I had a long chat with an admissions lady after that - RADA don't offer any sort of course for someone like me - they either do short short courses for a few weeks, or their MA/MFA courses which she said are aimed at people with prior training who intend to go into teaching. However she gave me some good audition tips (mainly: For the love of god please don't do Viola, if I have to watch that one more time.... and if you do a monologue read the entire play - we've all seen all the monologues hundreds of times and nothing puts us off more than someone who has read the monologue in isolation and has no concept of how it fits in the play and it makes the piece make absolutely no sense to those of us who have read the play.' Fair points. Duly noted.
The Play
So I had a few days after the Summer School to recharge and read through the script for the play the amdram group are going to put on in November, and start putting into practise some of the strategies and techniques I learned: uniting, actioning, script breakdown etc.
I decided to audition for Jane. I really didn't like her in Austen's book - I thought she was a drip and generally I have no time for sad sacks staring out of windows and pining for a personality, but I liked her in Sara Pascoe's play because she showed strength and a complexity I thought would be fun to dig into. So I did a ton of background work on her and script breakdown and I fell for her a little and was really hoping I would get her.
The casting as a whole did not go the way I expected whatsoever - only 3 people got the roles I predicted they would. It's very interesting to see how differently the director saw the characters to how I saw them. And this is a fantastic lesson in not taking casting personally - because everyone has different visions. As an actor, 98% of the job is rejection and not getting the part, or not getting the part you want. In this world you need to keep your head screwed on and your feet on the ground, so I think the sooner you learn to handle rejection gracefully and without resentment or bitterness the better.
I didn't get Jane. Instead I get to create and play 4 different characters who combined have more lines than Jane. It may not be the challenge I originally wanted, but it's the challenge I needed - because Mary was the character I least wanted to play because I couldn't make heads or tails of her and now I have to. Jane would have been easy for me to play, but you don't grow through easy. This gives me a chance to stretch myself as an actor with a broad spectrum of very different personalities, and really puts me through my paces with physicality, voice and character creation.
The books & audiobooks
I haven't actually managed to read very much this quarter.
Born With Teeth - Kate Mulgrew
The autobiography of Kate Mulgrew on audible. I LOVE this woman. I'm only about half way through but she has had one hell of a life and has faced and overcome heartbreaking challenges no woman would ever wish to face. Her strength, her tenacity and her lack of jadedness about everything she's been through is incredibly inspiring.
An Actor Prepares - Constantin Stanislavsky
The audiobook as well as the book book because I really do want to get through it. I like highlighting paragraphs in books that are useful, but for some reason my brain flat out refuses to cooperate with anything containing Russian names and it just shuts down, so I thought the audiobook would skate over the names for me and let me still get the good stuff that I could then seek out in the book and highlight. I've not got very far into it yet because I just haven't had the time this month.
NOS4A2 - Joe Hill
The audiobook read by Kate Mulgrew. My friend recommended this to me and it was an enjoyable listen and well read. It's not the sort of book I generally choose to listen to or read and it's not entirely my cup of tea but it was worth the audible credit.
The Desire Map - Danielle Laporte
I read this book twice a year every year. It helps me set my goals and organise my life. I meant to read it in June to take stock and start shifting myself forward but for some reason didn't get around to it. It's September now but better late than never!
Hopes for Q3
I hope I manage to learn all my lines and do my characters justice. In particular I hope I find Mary because right now I'm still struggling. I think I know who she is but I'm still not sure how to be her.
I hope the play goes well and is well recieved.
I hope my 12 week course is good
I hope I start seeing more of my friends now I'm able to get out and about more: I'm going for a walk and pub lunch with them next month for the first time since before the pandemic and I am ridiculously excited about it. I'm also introducing a new acting friend into the fold and I love bringing groups of people together so hopefully I'll be watching new friendships blossom.
I hope my body continues to behave itself and my nervous system rewires itself so I don't get palpitations and arrythmia every time I have to get up in front of people because I HATE it.
I hope October is sunnier than summer has proven to be, but with reasonable temperatures.
I hope all the good things from Q1 continue on an upward trajectory.
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