Introduction to professional practise

The various roles you will find within performing arts are; 

- Actor 

- Broadcaster / Journalist

- Musician

- Drama/Dance/Music Teachers

- Film/TV producer.

- Sports presenters 

- Screenwriters

- Directors

- ECT...

There are many options you can choose from within the wonderful world known as, "The Arts".

From Sports presenters to broadcasters there is one thing that they all have in common. And that is they too, are performing. Maybe not from a script or with a storyline; but they are selling themselves to an audience of who watches the specific programme. Even news presenters have an audience. And overall the common they thing they all obtain is a "Voice". it is a powerful trick all humans can use. Some ae loud some are quite but the joy is that everyone has one and can use it to their advantage. Some voices cause bad situations, but some voices change and shape the society we all live in today.

A director uses their "Voice" to input and change a shot, which could in-fact change the show/film  for the better and it only takes one person to suggest something that has the power to change for better or for worse. 

A singer/musician is another example. A particular singer may suit a kind of song which another may not. And its their voice that may make the song memorable and the audience love. An original singer with raw talent, will not use even think of using auto tune. If they constantly practise using their voice on its own it will begin to settle into something raw and full of talent. Olden day stars like The jam would perform in pubs/bars and backyard events before being noticed which geared them up for the real stage and Motown stars especially were used to the crowd because they weren't allowed during the 60s to perform in front of their own stage because of their race and colour. They used to perform on pirate radio stations before they were allowed to integrate onto their own radio stations and under the record label Motown. My point is that if one person never spoke up or they never fought for their rights using their talent and Voices then people wouldn't have been able to enjoy their music. I remember hearing of a story that Diana Ross and the Supremes; Miss Ross is understandably the most notable artist under Motown but one commented that she wasn't the best singer out of the whole group, not knocking her talent of course,  but what she had was charisma and charm and loved her audiences that's what got her to the top, as well as having a beautiful voice. 

In order to work as an actor my chosen career path would be to continue my studies at Westminster Kingsway until I my expected finish date of 2020.Then I hope to go to Mountview: academy of theatre arts, and possibly study adult courses at the Sylvia young theatre school. Mountview is situated within the Peckham are of south London. It was founded in 1945, by Peter Coxhead and Ralph Nossek. It was an armature Repertory staging company that launched a six day run every second week. It officially launched in November 1947, and in 1969 it started full time drama courses. The current president is Dame Judi Dench herself. The support an FdA Undergraduate in Theatre Production Arts. They also support a BA-Hons performance (acting). At Sylvia young they provide Adult part time classes. It is for any age from 18 upwards with any skill an ability. They give out acting and singing classes. At the acting classes you will learn devising and improvisation skills as well as stagecraft and performance. On Fridays the package now includes the art of camera technique.  Singing lessons are provided and you are taught vocal technique, performance and repertoire. they are given to those who have experience and to those who are completely new to the skill. Talented people like Amy Winehouse went here; she was a talented singer with an incredible talent , And actress Billie piper went here whose most notably started off with a singing career then starting acting when she was cast as Rose Tyler, companion to the 9th and 10th Doctors in the revived series of Doctor Who. 

The health and Safety aspects involved with voice for an actor are warming up the voice and supporting muscles that help with that. We as actors at West-King already use warm up techniques to help us prepare for the roles. We tend to stretch out the whole of our body. We roll our joints slowly, vertebrae by vertebrae of the spine till we cant touch the ground and slowly back up again. This helps to focus and gets rid of any tension we have within our joints and muscles. It helps us to get into "Neutral" position. This helps focus and get into the "Zone" for a good performance. We use vowel warm ups which consist of "Nah nah nah, mah mah mah, bah bah bah baaarr.". These help with pronunciation and clarity with in speeches of dialogue. A vocal warm up is necessary because it well prevent vocal strain and damage to the chords. Also overall body warm ups help to warm up the diaphragm and all supporting muscles that help the vocal ones; helps to focus the mind and voice.  

Recieving our parts ; analysing objectives. week commencing November 5th

Monday the 5th November

Today we received our individual parts that we will be playing in the play we were given. Im playing the part of Pyortr Nikolayevich Sorin in, "The Seagull". As I researched my character "Sorin" I found out that he is Irina Arkadina's older brother. He is sixty years old and lives with Konstantin Treplov on the farm, his nephew. He has bad health, which over the course of the play (possibly his through-line) his health deteriorates. He is quite jolly, he listens to other peoples woes and he's the main person everyone confides in, he is quite the patriarch. He admires his sisters and nephews work and talents. He seems unsatisfied (unsatisfaction being one of the interpreted subthemes of the play) with his life choices and how his life has therefore turned out. He wanted to find love and become a writer. My interpretation of my character is that he is very wistful and nostalgic, he tends to look back on his past and seems that he never quite accomplished what he wishes he had. Yet this doesn't really get him down, as seen by other people. I feel that he does regret, and that his predicament does somewhat get him down but he puts up a front so that others don't worry. Like with his ill health, it is hardly mentioned, most likely because he doesn't want people to fuss over him, he just wants to get on.

Later that lesson, me and my co-actors Daniella and lucky, started to think how we could start to stage the play. We thought of having me and lucky slow walk on, appearing as we had just come back from a walk. we would walk in like an S shape towards where the chairs are placed toward the centre front of the stage. We also tried to stage the beginning because we wanted to know how well we acted together and what came naturally, and it did indeed felt very natural when acting with them.


Wednesday the 7th November

Today with Sharon,  first of all, we sat in a Circle and spoke about yesterdays visit to watch the hit musical/rap play called Hamilton. it had mixed views and on the contrary had positive views. I thought it was pretty well scripted, it allowed you to follow the story easily even when the play was entirely sung with minor bits of dialogue. I liked the staging of it all, parts of stage were mobile as in they moved the stair well back and forth with a slick transition to a different setting. They also had conveyer-belt flooring , to show the forwarding of time, the consequences of actions ( especially the love affair of Hamilton and Peggy) and to show the people walking in the streets of New York.

We then started to think of subtext of our lines, and what our objectives would be. As I want to really play my part with Sorin putting up a front, hiding his true emotions behind his invisible wall, that would be his subtext.
We sat as a group with all the different plays together, had to think what our objectives would be in each line of dialogue. My characters main objectives would be that he wants to stay light hearted. If he lapses into his nostalgic regretful state, he wants to make sure that he doesn't let his guard down because he doesn't want the people to worry or feel sorry for him. we were taught that the actions, are what enable our characters to fulfil their needs and goals. So a simple sort of facial expression change shows the audience that he has realised he is showing his inner emotion and immediately lifts that guard up again so its sort of dramatic irony as the audience can see what's going on but the characters don't.

We were left at the end thinking what our character essentially wants at the given circumstances; what they want out of the whole play, and thus how they will accomplish these wants and needs.

Receiving our parts and studying Stanislavsky. week commencing October 30th

Wednesday the 31st October

I am part of the group that will be performing the 1896 play The Seagull, written by Chekhov.
On Wednesday, the class went at our designated times to meet with Sharon. We discussed what we thought the play could possibly be about. We as a group had realised it is definitely Russian; given the name of the playwright and the characters. Now researched I never expected it to be late 19th century, we thought it would be possibly the 1920s, especially how the characters spoke.
We decided we would take the original script, but make it our own. Make it modern; maybe not 21st century to keep with the context of how the characters are speaking but early to mid 20th century, I.e; latest 1960s. We in pairs, with pieces of sugar paper and a marker, wrote down ideas of what comes to mind when we think of The Seagull. We came up with themes of freedom, and wanting to take off with their ambitions.  I suggested that when we see seagulls migrating, you never really see one specific among the crowd, they all tend to blend; one of the characters feels dissatisfied that nobody sees him for himself but for his mothers sheer fame. Seagulls are also seen as scavengers, they scavenge for homes and food; this is another sub-theme we thought the play could be about.

We then discussed what Stanislavsky had studied and practised and what made him renowned in the arts industry;

He practised Naturalism within the industry. Everything was natural. It was family orientated, and focused within people and their families, similar to soap operas today. But it is known as naturalism because the passing of time was applied, e.g; if someone was to bake a cake, they would have to make it from scratch, these plays could be up to 2 hours long. He wanted people to watch the play and be-able to connect with it fully because everyone has a family, unlike Brecht who later would create pieces with hidden meanings behind them, yet you emphasise with its characters.
He stressed that that actors really delve within their characters. This brought in the terms ,    Through-line , objectives and actions. The Through-line is the journey the character has been taken on throughout the play. they may have started off jolly and innocent, and in the mundanity of their family world. Yet across the play, the character may have had life thrown at them in disadvantages and soured and decomposed in personality.
The objective of the character is what the character essentially wants within that given circumstance. It is what motivates them and gives them drive to complete a goal they want to achieve. So, say they feel dissatisfied and incomplete, they will want something to complete and fulfil their given needs. But it is the Action, that allows the character to complete their need. So they will go off to find that certain something that completes that need. A Super-objective is what the character wants out of the whole play, so across a timeline. The character may want to settle down and have a family and that may be their direst goal that want out of everything.

We finished off Sharon's lesson, with what we feel that we get from the play and what overall theme/s the play withholds. we all realised that each character is some-one what dissatisfied within their predicament. And they all want something more from life than what they have; alike a seagull, wants to scavenge for their true meaning of what they want and and their ambitions, and soar away from the pack to fulfil their goal.


Thursday 1st November

Today the main topic of our lesson was Subtext. Subtext is the two way meaning of a line within dialogue. The simple line, "Oh... its you", could take the actor on a two-way street when delivering it. It could be said with dread, and disgust. It could also be said with compassion and sheer love. The art of subtext is that the line is subtle and appears as though it should be said how it is written, yet due to the given circumstance and context of the relationship between the two characters, is delivered in an unexpected manner.
Rob gave us an exercise where the duo pair are a shop assistant and  customer. The customer had to be very edgy, picky and most of all annoying as hell, but the shop assistant has to keep their cool for the whole entire time. The purpose of this exercise was that the characters had to have a hidden meaning behind what they said while delivering them, without giving the audience the impression of rudeness. But with next being given the circumstance of the shop closing at 5 and the customer comes in 5 minutes before shop closing, which the audience knew the character wants to be somewhere else.

we used what we learnt here and applied to the scripts and parts we had been given today.