Well things have gone very well this last quarter.
Drama School
I went to an open day at the drama school I want to go to, and met some more of the teachers who were all lovely and welcoming and positive, so now I'm trying to find some time to sit down and read a bunch of plays to choose my monologue to audition to get in. Thanks to an incredibly generous gift from my aunt, I almost have the fees together so the financial mountain to climb as a self-funded student is substantially smaller than it was when I started this process!
Drama Classes
I've been doing a term of classes at The Rose Theatre in Kingston under director Anthony Hoskyns which have been incredibly fun - the group of people thrown together in the class varied wildly in experience but Anthony is a truly wonderful teacher - his kindness, support, encouragement and saint-like patience really helped pull some of the more nervous and shy in the group out of their shells and it was as much of a joy for me to see them grow in confidence as it was for me to learn more new techniques and grow in ability myself. The first half of the term was spent looking at a monologue and how to approach breaking it down in terms of characterisation and then actioning it, and the second half of the term was spent working on a one-act play called 'The Skylight Room' which we performed to family and friends at the end of term. I had to play a pipe-smoking irishman, so learning that accent was a great challenge - I love accents!
The only downside to the class for me was that at least half the students had a very relaxed approach to attendance which frankly really pissed me off. In a 3 month term of weekly classes some people only turned up about about 4 times. If you're not going to be able to attend regularly- don't sign up. In my humble opinion, if you sign up to a class where you work as an ensemble towards a performance, unless you're dying you damn well turn up, and if the teacher/director gives you homework, you do the homework! You're there to learn - he's not asking you to do this for his own amusement - it's to enable all of us to progress further in the time we are working together in class. It not only made things more difficult for Anthony, having to constantly rejig his lesson plan with zero notice when people didn't even bother to tell him that they weren't going to show up (which was incredibly rude of them and unfair on him), it also showed a complete lack of respect for him and the rest of us who did make the effort turn up even when we didn't feel well. Because of some people's flakey attendance, and some people thinking not bothering to learn their lines is totally ok, or not even showing up for the performance on the day, so someone else had to stand in on zero notice meant that we weren't as good as we could have been and that really irked me. The class itself was great and I absolutely recommend it. The group were nice people. The dedication, responsibility and communication of the group with each other and with our poor teacher was at best subpar. So if you're thinking of doing a class like this, absolutely do it. But don't be that dickhead who doesn't bother going to half of it because you're not only letting yourself down you're letting a down bunch of other people too.
The Play
My Am-Dram group had a performance of Sara Pascoe's Pride & Prejudice in late November. It was my first play with this group, and in fact my first play I've ever performed in- I'd done a bunch of musicals with a youth theatre group as a kid, but this is the first time I've ever been in a play. I was cast as Mary, Modern Mary, Mrs Hurst and Miss Darcy. It was an enormous amount of fun. The only thing that I would have liked better is if as a group we had sat down at the beginning and gone through the script breaking it down like we did in my class - doing the 'who/what/when/where am I?' etc, rather than just going from cold reading straight into rehearsals. I think we could have been even better if we'd had a more professional structure to our approach to the text. But I also am conscious that this is a hobby for everyone and they are not trained actors, and are probably not even aware that this process is something actors even do. And even if they are aware, they have full time jobs too, and may well not have time.
It was a great experience and it amazed me how many of my lines I just absorbed during rehearsal - I probably only spent about 4 hours actually studying my lines, and even then it wasn't so much the lines that were the sticking points for me but the cues - particularly as nothing Mary said ever had any connection to anything else going on in the scene or anything anyone else was saying - off on her own little planet, that one.
I think I am so pissed off about the lack of attendance in my classes because I knew from working on the play just how much it throws things off balance for the rest of the cast when someone doesn't show up - myself included. I was off sick for couple of weeks and had my drama school open day which I had to miss a rehearsal for, and even though I didn't have a massive part, having someone read in for me for a couple of rehearsals really threw people off and the rehearsal didn't flow as well as when we were all there.
At least half the cast are primary school teachers, and thanks to them I have never had so many colds in one year before. I haven't had more than 3 colds in 10 years and I've had 4 absolute whoppers since joining this group in August! But even so I still managed to drag my arse to rehearsal which is a complete change in attitude for me - before going down this drama route if I was too tired or feeling snotty I would bail on plans - now unless I actually have a fever I'm there. It's definitely made me more resilient and push through a lot of things and turn up even when the last thing in the world I wanted to do was get clothes on and trudge to the rehearsal hall in the rain and cold and be around people, or get on a bus for an hour that I know makes me feel sick to get to my class. Stella Adler said 'the work will lift you up' and so far it always has. I've always come away feeling more energised and glad I went.
It's been a blast learning about all aspects of theatre during this show - from getting costume fittings to learning about set design, to building the set etc. I love nothing more than dressing up so the costume fittings were absolute heaven for me - even if it was in a freezing cold barn in the middle of nowhere and despite only being a uk size 12 most costumes were too small for me which was a little disheartening. I did manage to get sorted out for all my characters though which was good. The show had a ridiculous number of scenes - 26 I think in total. Because I was playing so many characters I had a ridiculous number of quick changes - practically every scene I was playing someone else. I'd literally be running off yelling 'UNZIP ME!!!' at anyone who was near LOL I had so many changes I didn't even know who I was or where I was half the time so under my costume I had a pair of bike sorts with a pocket and a slip of paper that gave a scene number, my character and a key word like 'chickens' or 'goats' so I knew what the hell I was doing. It absolutely saved me. Bike shorts👏 for 👏 the👏 win 👏.
I’ve waited 20 years to get myself on a stage again - I never had stage fright before and I expected to be a bit jittery but I wasn’t - just excited to get out there and give the audience a good time and make them forget how crummy the world is for a couple of hours. (I had labyrinthitis at the time and my dizziness meds were also used to treat anxiety so maybe that helped 😂). I snuck onstage behind the curtain with some of the cast and hearing the auditorium fill up was so strange - I’ve always loved the sound but it hit different knowing it was for me and the rest of us. I don’t think I’ll ever get immune. Judy Garland once said she had the greatest respect for audiences because they travelled for miles and paid good money to sit in uncomfortable seats and listen to her yell and in return she wanted to give them blood. I fully understood that on opening night. My friends trekked from the other side of London to the arse end of Surrey to show their support and were obviously knackered. I had another friend travelling from Yorkshire(!!) on closing night and Judy’s quote was very much in my mind.
I learned that audiences vary wildly from performance to performance and what has one bunch of people howling doesn’t even raise a smile from others, but the more you give them, the more they give you in return. Most importantly in actory terms I learned that during a show it doesn’t matter how prepared you are, expect absolutely anything to happen and be prepared to improvise and think on your feet when Alan decides he needs a wee instead of turning up for his cue 🤣 . A fox had got into the props hut in November and had pissed all over the chaise longue, and we'd just about managed to get the smell out in time for the get-in after using about 108 products on it to clean it up, only for the theatre dog to piss up the side of it in the tech rehearsal. The way I see it, having been brought up in a theatrical environment, that was a very good omen. When faffing around getting ready I also expected it to feel.. ‘special’ like it was a novel experience, but it felt absolutely normal. And when preparing my costumes in the wings when I arrived I had an overwhelming gut feeling that this is going to be my life from now on, and it felt right.
We also got a glowing review from the NODA critic who came to see the show on Saturday. Here's what he had to say about me :)
Tash Page (Mary, Miss Darcy & Mrs Hurst) gave a splendid performance. Her execution of Mary’s one-liners was particularly of note, adding a layer of humour and wit to the character’s typically serious and bookish demeanour. The well-received comedic timing and delivery of these lines showcased Page’s ability to bring levity to the stage, earning her laughs and appreciation from the audience.
So all in all the show was a success, I think.
What's next?
We have just held auditions for our next production which has a significantly smaller cast of 7.
The play will be The Girl On The Train, and I'll be playing Megan, the missing girl who has so much trauma in her backstory she is going to be an incredibly juicy role to play. Megan is not the lead, which I am happy about because the lead (Rachel) has over 500 lines and quite frankly I'm not ready for the responsibility of carrying an entire play on my shoulders just yet - perhaps by the next one I'll feel ready for it, but right now I have a lot to learn before I feel I can do a main character justice and have trained my memory to hold that many lines. Megan does have a couple of fantastic emotional monologues though and I do have significantly more lines than I did in Pride and Prejudice so in my eyes she's a brilliant next step. It'll be nice to have a big solid chunk of text to work with as well instead of the nonsensical zero context one liners I got for Mary, and I can't wait to sink my teeth into rehearsals when we start up again in January. The show will be at the end of April next year! Hopefully the next critic review will say I'm a versatile performer after seeing this!
I don't have any plans for signing up for any more classes at the Rose - like I said they were fantastic and I really enjoyed them and highly recommend them, but I need to focus on getting my arse into drama school now, and earning more money to pay for London rent etc so I can move because the commute from where I live now to Ealing is an absolute bitch: About 2 hours each way! Also it will be nice if I can live closer to one of my best friends as well. Class wise, having said I'm not taking any more at The Rose, I do have my sights set on an audiobook course at RADA. They have done them a couple of times over the past year, but I couldn't go because I was either in rehearsals or at The Rose on the evenings they were scheduled for, so I'm hopeful they'll run them again in 2024 and I can actually enroll this time. They're not cheap (no drama school classes are) but audiobooks are something I really want to do in my career, so I think taking that is a sound investment in my education and future.
And that is the end of Q3 and a good roundup for this year I think. Considering this time last year I was feeling sorry for myself because my ribs had gone out again and I was strugging to sleep because of the pain and relentless panic attacks, and I wasn't able to even get on a bus for more than 20 mins without ribs going out and was terrified I wouldn't be able to get to my friend's wedding, or even do the classes I'd signed up for at The Rose I feel like I have conquered a lot of mountains this year! It may not look like I've done much to anyone else looking on, but going for walks, being in a play, getting on a bus and train to london, doing some courses and just being able to do things again without being in huge amounts of pain or being absolutely suffocated by anxiety has been a huge deal for me and I'm proud of myself. This year has been a solid year.
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