Proposal for Pronoun.

                                        What I want to and achieve 


 My target for this play is to achieve the right emotions for my character corresponding to the play, I will do this by doing some background research on Pronoun so that I am more aware of the situation that is going on and how to use the right emotions for each scene I do and I would also look up on transgenders and how their families cope through the thought of their child transitioning by doing so it would allow me to see an honest reaction on the parents side of the story.

Why I chose the role/ Realising the role from page to stage

At first when we got the scripts I wasn't sure what character to choose but then I ended up choosing to be the mum as the role sounded quite interesting to play and I felt that it would help me to come out of my shell a bit as I always avoid looking at the audience whenever I act but for this role I had to speak to the audience giving them direct eye contact. I also chose this role after reading through the script a couple of times and I just wanted to know and feel how the character mum was feeling having her daughter change into a boy without any warnings before hand.

Reading over the script and actually acting out the character are two different things. When I have been rehearsing at home or college I just say the lines out with not much emotion to it and not much actions either as the lines were still being learnt but once I learned my lines and got into the character as the mum I immediately stopped being Donna and changed into mum from my emotions switching to the normal happy me to the sad concerned mother I was in the play. It was a big difference because I had to really dig deep into my emotions and try to really be the character and make it look as realistic as it can be.

                                              Independent group rehearsal


In my group for pronoun we had a session in which whoever we were acting with we would go up on stage and do a hot seat session just so that we could have a better understanding of the background of our character. For example Tarkan and I are mum and dad so we went on and our group members would ask either one of us questions such as how is your relationship with your daughter ( which is now a boy) and how are you two as a couple dealing with the situation. It was fun because it helped me to think about about my character more and to also think about the dad and to understand that our relationship is not as good as it used to be because of what is going on with our child and so it brings so much arguments because I just want my daughter back and I am trying to hold on to all the memories of when he was a girl but the dad is just taking it as in is and is doing a better job at it then i possibly can.

                                                 Themes of the play

Pronoun has a variety of themes from which include family to the love between Dean and his boyfriend and depression as he just wants everyone to except her for being a male but it is simply not that easy especially when he has to save up a lot of money to undergo surgery. The whole play is portrayed by Deans perspective of his surroundings and how he sees himself through the mirror everyday and also how his friends and family now see him.

Evaluation of Pronoun.

From my point of view I think the performance went great! I remembered all my lines, didn't mess up or stutter on any words and my voice was projected loudly enough for the whole audience to hear. As I would speak to the audience my focus was directly on them and I stayed in character through out the play. I always worried in the rehearsals how I would do it and had second thoughts of being the mum since all I do is speak to the audience and stare directly at them but it went better than I expected and  I wouldn't mind doing it again I really enjoyed this performance. I have been practicing through out the rehearsals how to stand still and to have a straight posture with my head up straight as well and to give eye contact to who ever I speak to and it worked. Looking at little clips on the play and doing some background research also helped me to develop my character as the mother. I had to really dig deep to my emotions and try to understand how I would feel if that actually happened to me as you may or may not know my character is very hurt about the situation of her daughter transition into a boy  and try's to hold onto every memory that she had of Dean being a girl up to the point that Dean even cut up all the photos of when she was young, she is trying so hard to erase the memories out of her head while I am trying hard to cope with how she's changing right before my own eyes and I have nothing I can do about it.

Being the mum in the play gave me an insight of how some families feel when they have a child that  transitions into a male or female. You never really get to know about how the parents or siblings feel about it or how they are copying so I am glad that I played the mum because I feel that I was able to let the audience understand how hard it is for us as the parents to cope with it, in this case it did not just affect Dean but it also affected his boyfriend Josh her little sister Dani and me and the Dad. Dean did not inform anyone about how she felt about her self before it happened and then suddenly waking up to see your baby girl dressing and practising how to be a boy just broke my characters heart.

Pronoun and the rehersals.

The play I'm doing now is called pronoun  written by Evan placey a British Candian playwright  who has done a few plays such as Suicide in Vegas , pronoun , banana boys and how was it for you. Evan Placey recently won an award for the best writers for a young audience for ' Girls like that' which took place in the unicorn theater. Evan was also apart of the channel 4 screenwriting  talent scheme, he has graduated in the university of school and drama and is now a lecturer in the university of Southhampton.

 Pronoun is a little play which is mainly focused about love and transition. Josh who is played by Jamie loves Isabelle who turns into a boy and names himself Dean( played by Ducey). Dean is strong minded of who is is and believes that he is not meant to be a girl anymore because he wakes up everyday and doesnt feel right in his body he takes hormones and injects testosterone in his but and even binds his chest with a black strap material to hide his breast until he gets enough money to get a breast removal. I am playing the mum in the play,I didn't know much about her wanting to do this or how long she has been thinking about doing so because she never voiced out how she felt to anyone. Tarkan is playing the dad and he doesn't really seem to care that much about it he's just taking it as it is while I am still trying to take everything in. For the performance I'm going to wear all white while Tarkan is going to wear all black since we got told to dress nutural. During the play we talk about the love we have for our child Dean and the failure we feel as parents.

Rehearsals

In Sharon lesson she gave us a chance to get familiar with the script and let us use that time to read through it to understand who our characters are. I am playing the role as mum therefore I decided to go through my lines with Tarkan since he's playing my husband in the script, we read our lines to each other a couple of times before we left to go home. When I went home I decided to go online and do some research on the character that I am playing just to get an idea of how I should play her and what body gestures and tones I should use when I am acting it out.

Rehearsals

We are at our last week of rehearsals and personally I think it's too soon because none of us are ready.I'm still in the progress of trying to learn my cue lines of when to come on stage and I'm just worrying because I haven't had a chance yet to rehearse in the theatre yet that would give me a better understanding of when and where to come on stage. However , I know my lines which is good and Alex has been the one helping us through giving us ideas on how to stand on stage helping us with the actions to do etc and Is doing a good job at it considering the fact that she didn't take on the role as being the director for our group but she's been the one helping us. As a group we need co operation which means EVERYONE should negotiate and give ideas but it is hard for that to work out because not everyone would be willing enough to do so. Our performance is next week so hopefully everyone will know what to do and do it successfully.

 During the rehearsals me and Tarkan we off script but just had the script in our hands so that we knew when to come on stage, we stand at the front of the stage parallel to each other and face the audience the whole time as we are speaking sort of like we are the narrators of Deans life because we are just explaining what is going on with her. We practiced our lines with Zulaiha in one of the rehearsals she stood in front of us and made us look at her while we were saying our lines so we could get into the habit of looking at the audience and not looking down or away, she helped us to stand straight as well making sure we that were not dancing and that we had a straight posture and if we did not say a line properly or with enough emotion and loud projection she would tell us to do it again and i think that helped me a lot because having a peer assess me on how am I acting and giving me live feedback is very helpful and would encourage me more to improve.

Monday 16th Rehearsals.

We were in from 10am till 6pm in the theatre just teaching and running through briefly the script  saying the cue lines only so that Jack and Alex could put the lights and sounds on for that scene. For my scene I would always have the spot light on  me because I am speaking to the audience therefore I would be the center of attention for that moment. Myself and Tarkan managed to get the props so while we were saying our lines I would take off the tie and give it to him to wear and he would take off the apron to give to me to wear but because the stage is pitch black and just two spotlights on the both of us he had to come into my light while we would exchange clothes and then go back into his once he was done taking the apron from me. Everyone had to be off script by today which was not a problem and doing the dress rehearsal was good because it was great practice for when the actual performance happens. This is one of our very last rehearsals so we did not have enough time to go through every line of the script , the time is getting nearer by the hour and everyone is getting a bit stressed but it is natural and everyone has worked hard so hopefully it all pays off!

The source that I got which helped me was from a transgender site called support all students.

Production skills and context

From my point of view I think the performance went great! I remembered all my lines, didn't mess up or stutter on any words and my voice was projected loudly enough for the whole audience to hear. As I would speak to the audience my focus was directly on them and I stayed in character through out the play.

 I always worried in the rehearsals how I would do it and had second thoughts of being the mum since all I do is speak to the audience and stare directly at them but it went better than I expected and  I wouldn't mind doing it again I really enjoyed this performance. I have been practicing through out the rehearsals how to stand still and to have a straight posture with my head up straight as well and to give eye contact to who ever I speak to and it worked. Looking at little clips on the play and doing some background research also helped me to develop my character as the mother. I had to really dig deep to my emotions and try to understand how I would feel if that actually happened to me as you may or may not know my character is very hurt about the situation of her daughter transition into a boy  and try's to hold onto every memory that she had of Dean being a girl up to the point that Dean even cut up all the photos of when she was young, she is trying so hard to erase the memories out of her head while I am trying hard to cope with how she's changing right before my own eyes and I have nothing I can do about it.

Being the mum in the play gave me an insight of how some families feel when they have a child that  transitions into a male or female. You never really get to know about how the parents or siblings feel about it or how they are copying so I am glad that I played the mum because I feel that I was able to let the audience understand how hard it is for us as the parents to cope with it, in this case it did not just affect Dean but it also affected his boyfriend Josh her little sister Dani and me and the Dad. Dean did not inform anyone about how she felt about her self before it happened and then suddenly waking up to see your baby girl dressing and practising how to be a boy just broke my characters heart.

1st February 2016

Monday - At the beginning of the lesson we did the usual warm ups then we got split into 5 and then got into a line in different parts of the room and got given a tennis ball and had to through them across to each other while saying our lines from our script. Then later on we had to observe each others performances. Me and Segun observed Tarkan and Stephan and they observed us. My objectives was to be able to use my voice in different ranges e.g high to low when I am shouting and to practise on my articulation making it much clearer. When Tarkan gave me back my feed back he said that my projection was well and I just need to slow down which is the usual feedback.

Synopsis of much ado about nothing

Benedick loves Beatrice but none of them would admit it so it is difficult for them to agree with each other which leads them to continusly argue, Beatrice tells Benedick to kill Claudio to see if he really loves her but he refuses to as they are good friends which makes her go furious at him.

The setting of the play can take place in a room with Beatrice shouting loudly  to Benedick as she feels he does not love her as he claims he does. Beatrice could wear a dress as she's a vulnerable but strong female character and Benedict could wear a suit to show his manliness. 

Unit 7

Unit 7: Prep for specialist study

Since I have started college I can say that I have developed various amounts of skills while doing either the Shakespeare project that I am currently working on or our country’s good project I have done last term. Doing the Shakespeare project I believe that I have developed my vocal skills well because in other plays that I have done they were not written in a very different way but simple English but this Shakespeare play is slightly difficult as it is written in old English that is not very easy to pronounce nor understand and I feel that working on this play has helped me a lot  with my pronunciation especially because I have a lisp so I struggle to say certain words and Shakespeare uses a lot of ‘th’ and words with ‘ s’. In lesson Rob helps us to develop vocal skills by doing warm ups at the start of the lesson, we do exercises to work the diaphragm such as saying “Oo oh or” in a deep voice because if we have a scene in which we have to shout doing that exercise could be very helpful.

Another skill that I have learnt is using my memory. You may wonder how is using your memory a skill but in drama you have to use it in order to remember your script and any monologues that you need to learn at the top of your head.  It is difficult to memorise a lot of things at once especially if you have a really long play it is hard to remember some of the lines that is why it is good to learn them in chunks for about 30 minutes a day because if you push yourself to do longer than that you’ll end up frustrating yourself.

One other skill that I have learnt is articulation. It is very important to pronounce the words as clearly as possible because your audience need to understand whatever you are saying. Whether you are talking fast or slow your mouth needs to be moving correctly to pronounce anything you want to say correctly.