Monday to Friday 12th to 16th October 2015.    Evaluations for level 2 Drama and week 5 of blogs:

• The targets I set myself to achieve in performing our pieces for the induction 6 weeks at college were to speak loud and clearly, pronounce the words properly and have confidence when performing on stage in front of a big crowd or audience in the theatre or even in class. In artistic terms I would say perform confidently without hinting of being scared so the audience know you are playing role naturally rather than showing you are scared and making the piece look less believable and powerful in drama terms shall I say and completely spoils or gives away the effort and enthusiasm in the performance making it look dull and boring. Also Pronouncing your words in artistic terms makes the audience empathise feel for the character and what they are saying which makes sense as they say every word as though it has meaning or means something rather than just saying it in a odd way, it makes the play more exciting depending on the type of genre the play is. But in technical terms confidence makes the people giving lighting and sound queues in the theatre much more sure about what to do at what point in the play without messing up by doing bigger more clearer or exaggerated gestures so it is clear what they are doing and so it matches with the piece of music etc.. Also the pronunciation or projection of lines gives them a hint of when to start/end the music to leave the audience on a cliff hanger or dramatic pause with shock or happiness in tears.

• The issues we were having during the devising process was were the pieces matching the scenes and time of era, or were they too slow or too fast, loud or quiet and would they match the time we said the lines and would our voices have to be projected to be heard by the audience? once we started shaping and rehearsing the performance and using the songs while saying our lines or even listening to them we knew weather they would match or not. Sometimes we had to cut them to the part we thought would work with the scenes and sometimes we had to change them completely. Another issue was lack of focus or motivation to do some rehearsing or shyness by me wanting to remember big lines which I managed a bit at the end and also attendance from some people or some not coming to college and we had to chase them or contact them to see were they were but I won't mention anyone in particular in the group, sometimes we had to rehearse without them in class which was hard but we tried just improvising around them and sometimes it meant staying late nights rehearsing with the group or new people in the group for long hours which was not 100% convenient or what we would have wanted to do but we had no other plans if we wanted it to be good by the time it was our performance day.

• My strength as a individual were characterisation because I got into the shoes or role of the mother and understood in times of war such as world war1 how the mother behaved at home and what sorts of things she was responsible for such as the cooking and cleaning. Also throughout most of the play my timing was good as I knew when to come in and when to stay in role even when something went wrong I wascompletely focused so I did not let the team down. My weaknesses were confidence as I was shy and nervous that I would forget a line on stage and my mind would go blank or I would make a mistake and also remembering lines was a issue at the start but as I started learning them they were stuck in my head but I am worried about learning big lines but maybe is something I can improve and develop over the years.

As a group our strengths were team work as we cared for each other and helped each other when one person in the group struggled or did not know what to or even panicked or stressed about something. Cooperation as we all came up or agreed with the persons idea and worked together without complaining much throughout the weeks. Our weaknesses were timing as people were always missing so we could not rehearse in Drama lessons and a 100% commitment which improved later.

• I thought the performance went well except for one technical issue with the sound for example we where all focused the whole team on the performance except sometimes In rehearsal were we where tired or put off by what happened outside in the college building, I also thought we were all engaged In our play and what we were doing e.g. our characters and the set or layout of the play and the relationship with one another as characters how we would behave/ act around each would we be closer together or further apart as in proxemics and space were things we all had to consider when working with each other as actors and how different It would be and how we react in the theatre then in the classroom with Rob our Drama teacher and friends in class. I thought overall the as a whole the audience thoroughly enjoyed the plays as did we for the music students who also did exceptionally well as we did and I think we all should have been so proud of ourselves as everyone who watched was and could not stopping going on about it after we left the theatre.

• I think the areas I could work on more as an individual our remembering long chunks of lines when do come to doing script work etc. and pronouncing words properly as I say lines in rehearsal and on stage to become better and better at it and feel confident with it so people will be able to understand me more when I am speaking whether it is too my friends or even family.