Maddie's Acting Blog

                In the beginning of this semester I said that I wanted to work on portraying serious emotions such as depression, sadness and neglect. While most of my work this semester has been on comedy my final project was serious and helped me to learn to portray those emotions. Overall, I did learn more about portraying those types of emotions by adding pauses, stopping my movement, and using my tone of voice.           Since my first monologue about seeing a ghost I have come a very long way. During my first project I had a hard time memorizing my lines which in turn affected the way that I delivered the monologue, because I was constantly worried about what I was going to say next. Throughout my performance of the first monologue I didn’t pause as much as I needed to which made it hard to understand what I was saying. In my last monologue I paused more which made it easier to understand and I also had the w...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gicWn1k160M

I saw the improv production, Propless on May 18, 2018 in the lecture hall at Cheshire Academy. This production was directed by Sam Weed. Propless was an entirely improvised show in which the actors performed many improv games. These included park bench, the blind dating game, one minute scene, first line last line, and not a box. All of these games highlighted comedy, some of which was through audience participation. In Propless, the director used minimal costumes, set pieces, sound and lighting. All of the performers wore jeans and white shirts with their last names on the back. Due to the fact that the show is all improvised, the costumes can’t correlate to the plot because it is unknown exactly what will happen. The only sounds used in the production were from the timer that was used in some games to determine the length of the scene, and the cow buzzer that was used to stop the scenes. In this show there weren’t specific characters because in each game everyone made up new characte...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H79D-xaC4hI

For my final project I would like to do a serious monologue. This would benefit me in many ways as well as being different than the other projects I have done this year. Throughout this semester I have done a lot of comedic work such as my monologue about seeing a fake ghost, the bank robbery silent movie, and the candy shop scene. By doing a serious monologue I can work on different emotions than I have all semester. I can try to portray sadness, confusion, and anger which I haven't worked on as much as I have done with happier emotions. It would also help to stretch me as an actress because I would have to memorize my lines for the scene, which is one of the things that I need to improve on. In both the rejection devising scene, and the spoken word poetry project I have been able to read off of a script while performing. I think that being forced to go without a script will challenge me as an actress and improve my memorization habits. Doing this monologue can also play to some o...

So far in the devising project we have developed a plot, written our lines, and rehearsed a few times. We now have a clear outline of who is speaking when and what we are going to say instead of improvising. Our next step is going to be memorizing the lines and remembering the order that we have to say them in. We also have to work on the buildup of emotion so much that we end up ripping the papers. In addition, we need to work on all coming together in the end to be a united front against the rejection. We haven’t reversed this part and it is the crucial ending to our piece that ties together the entire plot and conveys the message that we are trying to send. Our performance now has a clear beginning, when we are all on the bridge reading our initial rejections. A middle when we are saying shorter reasons for rejection that become increasingly more unbelievable as we go on. In the end we rip up the papers and become a united force against the rejection.