Auditions (4) - Workshops & Monologues

To begin this lesson we did a physical warm up (consisting of jogging and jumping to increase our heart-rate, and stretching to increase the elasticity of our muscles to avoid injuries). This lesson was run like an actual audition. We took part in a variety of different workshop activities that would be lead in an actual audition.

Workshops:

• Discovering a new world: We had to lie on the floor in a neutral position and then imagine that we were the first life form on earth. We then took our own time to start moving and exploring. The purpose of this exercise was for the audition panel to see how we worked on our own, and how we used the little things. Ollie, Rob and James were complimented in this section as they really took their time on the little details (e.g. they explored each joint in their fingers).
• Soldier: We all had to lie on the floor with our eyes shut - when we were tapped on the shoulder, we had to get up as if we had just come to after an explosion, to find that we were the only surviving soldier. This exercise happened one at a time. This took away the visual element of the audition, as we couldn't get any ideas by watching other people, and instead had to think for ourselves - the panel got to see what we would bring to the scene. Ollie and I were complimented for this scene as we were believable and took our time with it.
• Corner exercise: We had to do five runs and five jumps, then four runs and four jumps, then three of both, and down to one of each. This exercise was to test our timing and concentration. I found this exercise quite challenging as you had to ignore the bars in the music to be able to do the right amount of runs and jumps, but have to listen to the beat at the same time to keep the right timing.
• Walk neutral: We had to line up across the wall and walk neutrally to the other side. This turned out to be a lot harder than we thought. However, we all managed to get it eventually. The reason I didn't get it at first was because I was walking too much like a dancer - I was holding my carriage up too much and therefore wasn't completely neutral.
• Animals: For this exercise, we had to create individual freeze-frames of any animal we liked. I picked a lioness (having done the show Lion King at my theatre school, so had done a lot of work on how this animal moves). I sat on my knees, with my hands on the floor (with my elbows outwards) and my head slightly lowered but with my eyes up. This was to show that I was watchful but ready to attack at any moment. We then had to move around as these animals and interact with everybody else. Charlie, Ollie and I got complimented on this section as we jumped straight into the exercise and weren't worried about what we looked like.
• Colours: We also had to think of a colour and all move round as this colour. I found this exercise quite interesting as some people thought of the emotions connected with some colours, whilst others thought of the connotations connected with these colours.
• Noodles: We had to pretend we were a noodle in a microwave. I thought this was a challenging exercise as I have never had to do this before! However, I found this really fun and just jumped into the exercise. I thought about the severe heat, and my fellow noodles around me, and how they were.
• Group work: We then had to get into two groups. We had to think of a group of people, and create five identical movements with sounds. Charlie, Lew and I decided to be circus performers (as this would give us a wide range of possible movements). The purpose of this exercise was to see how well we worked in groups, and to see our creativity too. The three of us were complimented for working so efficiently together. 

Monologues:

• First Time: We only had time to perform one monologue, so I chose to perform my classical monologue. I performed my monologue as honestly and as convincingly as I could. I varied my tone throughout to ensure it wasn't boring, and thus, I varied my emotions too. I tried to use pauses as effectively as possible throughout to add a deeper meaning
• Second Time: To see if I could take direction, I was then asked to perform my monologue again, but this time as if I had a really painful leg and I couldn't act at all. To do this I altered my body language by limping and sometimes stopping at various points to hold my knee. I also performed the text whilst intently looking at the paper and then briefly looking up and over-acting sections of sentences. For example, I performed the line "pour our treasures into foreign laps" whilst throwing my arms about but instantly went back to reading from my paper, and completely ignoring the audience, and reading certain words extremely slowly as if I am having trouble reading. I don't do a lot of comedy, so the fact that I got quite a few laughs during this was really nice.