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.

Unit 6:Shakespeare project.

 Many young students like myself may find Shakespearean plays quite boring as it uses olden day English through out most of the play which is not a fun thing to listen to nor easy to understand. As a modern day actress I am more interested in stuff which is modern as I find it more intriguing but in the industry you have to overcome that and be versatile with what you do. To assist with my progression on this assignment I need to take the Shakespeare duologue that I am given and love  it even if I
may hate it, I can not let it be obvious that I do not like the play I am doing because then I would not be able to perform in the right manner.

Monday 11th January 2016

I got given my duologue which is called much ado about nothing. I am Beatrice and Segun is Benedick in this play Beatrice is angry at the way Claudio has treated her cousin  (hero) so she persuades Benedick to take revenge and kill his good friend but he refuses which makes her question the love he has for her.


Friday 15th January 2016

In this lesson we were playing a quiz to start off then we got into the work and had to make a Shakespeare leaflet talking about what we would do to advertise it and that's what we done below. In the second half of the lesson we performed our pieces in our pairs to the class then rob gave us some feedback on what we should work on etc projecting our voices or if we were over acting.

Anthony & Cleopatra Duolouge.

ACT I

SCENE I. Alexandria. A room in CLEOPATRA's palace.

Enter DEMETRIUS and PHILO

PHILO

Nay, but this dotage of our general's
O'erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes,
That o'er the files and musters of the war
Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,
The office and devotion of their view
Upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gipsy's lust.
Flourish. Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, her Ladies, the Train, with Eunuchs fanning her
Look, where they come:
Take but good note, and you shall see in him.
The triple pillar of the world transform'd
Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see.

CLEOPATRA

If it be love indeed, tell me how much.

MARK ANTONY

There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.

CLEOPATRA

I'll set a bourn how far to be beloved.

MARK ANTONY

Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.
Enter an Attendant

Attendant

News, my good lord, from Rome.

MARK ANTONY

Grates me: the sum.

CLEOPATRA

Nay, hear them, Antony:
Fulvia perchance is angry; or, who knows
If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent
His powerful mandate to you, 'Do this, or this;
Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that;
Perform 't, or else we damn thee.'

MARK ANTONY

How, my love!

CLEOPATRA

Perchance! nay, and most like:
You must not stay here longer, your dismission
Is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony.
Where's Fulvia's process? Caesar's I would say? both?
Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt's queen,
Thou blushest, Antony; and that blood of thine
Is Caesar's homager: else so thy cheek pays shame
When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers!

MARK ANTONY

Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life
Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair
Embracing
And such a twain can do't, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless.

CLEOPATRA

Excellent falsehood!
Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
I'll seem the fool I am not; Antony
Will be himself.

MARK ANTONY

But stirr'd by Cleopatra.
Now, for the love of Love and her soft hours,
Let's not confound the time with conference harsh:
There's not a minute of our lives should stretch
Without some pleasure now. What sport tonight?

CLEOPATRA

Hear the ambassadors.

MARK ANTONY

Fie, wrangling queen!
Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired!
No messenger, but thine; and all alone
To-night we'll wander through the streets and note
The qualities of people. Come, my queen;
Last night you did desire it: speak not to us.

Alls well that ends well Duolouge.

BER.
They told me that your name was Fontibell.

DIA.
No, my good lord, Diana.

BER.
Titled goddess,
And worth it, with addition! But, fair soul,
In your fine frame hath love no quality?
If the quick fire of youth light not your mind,
You are no maiden, but a monument.
When you are dead, you should be such a one
As you are now; for you are cold and stern,
And now you should be as your mother was
When your sweet self was got.
DIA.
She then was honest.

BER.
So should you be.

DIA.
No;
My mother did but duty, such, my lord,
As you owe to your wife.

BER.
No more a’ that.
I prithee do not strive against my vows.
I was compell’d to her, but I love thee
By love’s own sweet constraint, and will for ever
Do thee all rights of service.

DIA.
Ay, so you serve us
Till we serve you; but when you have our roses,
You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves,
And mock us with our bareness.

BER.
How have I sworn!

DIA.
’Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth,
But the plain single vow that is vow’d true.
What is not holy, that we swear not by,
But take the High’st to witness. Then pray you tell me,
If I should swear by Jove’s great attributes
I lov’d you dearly, would you believe my oaths
When I did love you ill? This has no holding,
To swear by Him whom I protest to love
That I will work against Him; therefore your oaths
Are words and poor conditions, but unseal’d—
At least in my opinion.

BER.
Change it, change it!
Be not so holy-cruel. Love is holy,
And my integrity ne’er knew the crafts
That you do charge men with. Stand no more off,
But give thyself unto my sick desires,
Who then recovers. Say thou art mine, and ever
My love, as it begins, shall so persever.

DIA.
I see that men make rope’s in such a scarre,
That we’ll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring.

BER.
I’ll lend it thee, my dear; but have no power
To give it from me.

DIA.
Will you not, my lord?

BER.
It is an honor ’longing to our house,
Bequeathed down from many ancestors,
Which were the greatest obloquy i’ th’ world
In me to lose.

DIA.
Mine honor’s such a ring,
My chastity’s the jewel of our house,
Bequeathed down from many ancestors,
Which were the greatest obloquy i’ th’ world
In me to lose. Thus your own proper wisdom
Brings in the champion Honor on my part,
Against your vain assault.

BER.
Here, take my ring!
My house, mine honor, yea, my life, be thine,
And I’ll be bid by thee.

DIA.
When midnight comes, knock at my chamber-window;
I’ll order take my mother shall not hear.
Now will I charge you in the band of truth,
When you have conquer’d my yet maiden bed,
Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me.
My reasons are most strong, and you shall know them
When back again this ring shall be deliver’d;
And on your finger in the night I’ll put
Another ring, that what in time proceeds
May token to the future our past deeds.
Adieu till then, then fail not. You have won
A wife of me, though there my hope be done.

BER.
A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee.
Exit.

DIA.
For which live long to thank both heaven and me!
You may so in the end.
My mother told me just how he would woo,
As if she sate in ’s heart. She says all men
Have the like oaths. He had sworn to marry me
When his wife’s dead; therefore I’ll lie with him
When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid,
Marry that will, I live and die a maid.
Only in this disguise I think’t no sin
To cozen him that would unjustly win.