broken hearted youth theatre (BHYT)

On the 28th of November we had our first meeting with two members from broken hearted youth.
They helped us in the sense of direction. They directed us and we followed. This really helps because in the acting industry we will need to understand that direction is important and if we cant follow simple instructions the whole play will fall apart because you'll have random actors being on stage when not needed or actors just doing what they want, which is unacceptable.

We played this game called columns. There were five vertical columns, we all labelled column one to five. If one member said the number 2, column two had to jump. If they said 3,3 column three had to jump twice. If they said column 1,4 , columns one and four had to quickly swap places. If they said column 41 , it was the same as the previous example and so on. you were caught out if you jumped when you shouldn't have or swapped, if you were in the wrong column. But the point of the game was being on the ball and taking direction seriously. I thought it was fun , even though I was the first to be out.

Secondly we talked about cartooning. This is when you think of someone , say and old man that you see everyday on the way to college or work. You know how they act and their mannerisms but the point of the exercise and the name is to act like the person your thinking of but exaggerated, like in cartoons, the drawings are sometimes exaggerated and the mannerisms are over the top.
we partnered up, in this case my partner was Kieran. We had to act as the character that the opposite partner came up with, so I was Kieran's character, and Kieran was mine. But whoever was becoming the character had to act like clay and our partner essentially moulded us into place. So Kieran became my eccentric neighbour down the end of my landing, because I live in a flat, and I became Kieran's younger brother.

The final exercise of the day was that we had to write a short speech. They were all jumbled up at the end and everyone ended up with someone else's speech. They were all performed. The topic was random.


On the 17th of December, Three members of B.H.Y came in and this lesson was a longer duration than the previous. This time we spoke about the practitioner Sanford Meisner who taught that acting is behaving truthfully in given circumstances, but essentially the whole piece would look believable if the actors rely on each other and not just themselves.
We played a few warm up games, but the first task we did was that he asked us to count all the lights in the room. Now some people went around the room, was quite lazy and didn't bother to try and count all the lights, where as some people did try and may have still got it wrong but that was still okay. The point is that you need to try your best even though it may be difficult to do but still acing is about giving your all and if you don't it could let the whole team down.
the second task we did was the repetition game. The point of it was that your simply batting responses back and forth to your partner and actor, and sometimes the tension could build or it could end up a good atmosphere, but it doesn't mean that the actors hate each other really, its just reacting in the moment. For example, it started of with the demonstration from the two broken hearted youth members. One noticed the other had blue shoes and played on that. So one would say "you're wearing blue shoes" the others response, " I'm wearing blue shoes" then the other may notice the other one laughs and the mood switches and so on. The point of the exercise is that your meant to play off the other actors reactions and constantly analysing for change in their behaviour because that's what happens in real life, to act truthfully then that needs to happen.

The next exercise was an improv technique in partners. so my partner was Danielle, our plot was that she was the mother and I had come home later than what she had told me to be. The point of this was that there had to be problem with the other actor. I thought it went quite successful and that we played off each others reactions really well and stayed true to the moment.

I thought todays session was very useful in terms of gaining knowledge about direction and acting and I feel that that I leant a lot from it and I'm looking forward to working with them again.