The Musicians: Diary week 1

I confirm that the attached portfolio is all of my own work and does not include any work completed by anyone other than myself.

Tuesday 20th April 2021

Today was audition day so I was quite nervous but not as nervous as I normally get before an audition even though I really liked the character of 'Roland' and had my mind set on playing that role. To calm our nerves we played a game in the morning with the 1st years, at first we played one of our all time favourites Splat to warm and wake us up. Then we played Wink Murder which is a game based around finding who the murderer is and improvising your death depending on the way you got killed. After this we decided to go into the other dance studio to prepare for the auditions. Me and Izzy, who was going for the role of 1st Violin, decided to go find a quiet room so we could rehearse without any distractions. This was really helpful because she gave me ideas on how I could improve which made me feel more confident about the auditions.

After rehearsing for a while we decided to go back to the dance studio where we all decided to connect a phone to the speaker and play The Pinball Wizard from the show- this helped everyone relax whilst getting more rehearsal time in. Then we had a conversation as a group about our future because a few of us were worried about what is going to happen when we leave college. This made us realise we are all going through the same thing and we can talk to each other about what is going on. Kane came in during this to tell us our auditions will take place after lunch. We spent lunch eating and rehearsing so we could be as prepared as possible.

A few people went into their audition before me so it was nice to see that everyone felt confident that it went well and it was nothing to stress about, which made me feel tons better for mine. When I went into the room I could feel my nerves getting worse but I decided to use them to my advantage and try to impress Kelly and Kane as much as I could. They seemed to be happy with how I preformed so I went back to the group and told them the same as everyone else, I was really happy and it was really nothing to worry about. When it came time for Izzy to go into her audition she felt really nervous so I said I would wait outside for her which seemed to boost her confidence back up. After everyone had finished their audition Kelly and Kane came in to tell us that everyone did really well and that it was going to be a really hard decision for them. At the time I was happy with how I had done because I felt like I had put all the effort I had into the character and the audition.

Wednesday 21st April 2021

Today we did another read through of the script with Tom because it had been a while since we last read through it so we needed to refresh our minds. Also, it was Tom's first time reading through the script fully so he got a better understanding of the play and its characters. I enjoyed the read through because it was a nice chill start to the morning whilst learning even more about the play, it was easier this time to understand the characters because I was used to the storyline. Even though it was just a read through I could feel the personality of  all of the characters through everyone's acting. I read through as the character of 'Viola' and really enjoyed portraying her sassiness even though it isn't the character I would like to perform in the play as.

After the read through Tom showed us how to hold each individual instrument properly which was really helpful because most of us had no idea how they were supposed to be held. It was only a quick "tutorial" but I think we all left a little bit more confident than what we had been, well I did and I think most of us felt the same. We spent the majority of lunch discussing the auditions that took place the day before then we had our next lesson with Kane. He told us that we were going to be doing a chemistry test between everyone who auditioned for Roland and everyone who auditioned for Alex. Kane and everyone else who had auditioned for different roles got the job of giving us all feedback on how to improve and what we did well. I had to perform the duologue I auditioned with twice with every person who auditioned for Alex, I enjoyed seeing everyone's concepts of Alex and Roland and no ones was the same. Kelly and Kane definitely had a hard decision on their hands because everyone was so good! Part way through the exercise I decided to try and do a posher voice to see if it would work but I ended up accidently going cockney which is definitely not what I intended to do but acting is all about trial and error to see what suits the character and what doesn't. We then went to go and type up the day on our blogs, I was feeling even more nervous about the roles after seeing how incredible everyone was and their individual ideas but after a talk with Izzy I realised that I tried my hardest and there wasn't anything else I could do but wait.