Week One -Y2

 12/09/2022

Today was our first proper day back! it felt kind of odd without the second years being there, and with a ton of other new people in the class. It was nice meeting them and getting to know them the other day, they are very different to our old second years haha. After we played a few warm up games such as numbers and extreme rock, paper, scissors to get us warmed up, we then had to get into small groups to discuss scary stories that we have gone through or heard off. I got into a group with my best friends from my year and a few first years so that we can welcome them and to get to know them more. I already love them! A scary/ paranormal story that I went through was when I stayed at my nan's house. I was in the hallway when I looked into a room and I just saw my deceased granddad sat on the bed looking straight at me. I was soooo scared at first so I ran away, and then I realised he looked like my granddad so I tried to go back to see him but he was gone ;( another scary story that a friend went through was that she had to go to school so she left her dolls on the floor, but when she came back they were gone. All her family said that they didn't touch them. The reason we are talking about all these scary things that we went through is because we are going to be performing in the Globe during Halloween doing a Halloween tour. These stories will help to refresh our mind, and help us to get the spookiest and scariest ideas for the tour. We then began listing ideas of what we can include to scare people. Our teacher wanted ideas that will make the people more scared of the unknown rather than the known. These were some things that we think are good ideas:

♡The dark                     ♡Dolls                             ♡Holes                         ♡Children

♡Contrarianism             ♡Clowns                           ♡Spiders                      ♡Mirrors

♡Mental asylums           ♡Death                            ♡The unknown              ♡Twins

♡Odd Sounds               ♡Silence                            ♡Small spaces              ♡Forests 

♡Screaming                  ♡Fog                                ♡Flickering lights          ♡Creaking

♡Old fashioned music    ♡Blood                             ♡Graveyards                ♡Getting lost

♡Red balloons               ♡Black figures/ Shadows    ♡Loud breathing          ♡Crying babies

♡Heights                      ♡Full moon                       ♡Odd laughing             ♡Fire     

After break we got given a sheet of paper with an intro to a scary story on it. We got into groups and had to finish the story. Our sentence was about entering a cold haunted house. I got into a group with my friends: Sienna, Adam, Millie, Freya and Emily. We Came up with an idea that a girl walks into the house. The house is old and abandoned so its wet and full with mould/ moss. Wind creeks through the walls and there is and old rocking chair. We then had to put it on its feet. Some of us had to act like the house and the sounds. So Emily was the girl who walked into the house. When she walks into the house she looks around and sits down at the table. She then starts to remember the past. We then pretend to be her family. A shooter then comes in and kills everyone but Emily. We revert back into being the house and Emily leaves. We all personally really didn't like our idea. It just wasn't scary. We spent all day on it though so we couldn't exactly change it. 

13/09/2022

We had our teacher Kane today and he wanted us to carry on our ideas/ stories from yesterday, which was really good because this means that we can make it better. Our teacher made us all gather together and watch a short clip of "silence of the lambs". It was super eerie and I had no clue that they were going to be saying the things that they said. We knew that our little story had to be changed, so we first showed our teacher and he agreed haha. we began with spinning ideas and we ended up with one that we all loved! It was about a sacrifice. We still had to include the house. So we ended up making a group of friends take their 'friend' to it. Little did she know that they would be worshipping satin and sacrificing her so that their wishes come true. I was the girl that they sacrificed. They took me to the house and I asked why we were there. Whilst I was looking around they formed a circle around me to trap me in and then they knocked me out. Whilst I was knocked out they tied me up and began writing "666" on a piece of paper. Then they said all the things that they wanted. We all loved doing this story and I hope that we can work on something like this in another lesson. 

14/09/2022

We had a lesson in the theatre today! I absolutely love working there. We started with a warm up game that helped us to remember everyone's name. We then went and did an improv task. Today we focused on Improvisation. We were given a piece of paper with a sentence on it, and we were not allowed to show anyone what was on it. Mine said 'I've already told you, I didn't eat the tarts'. Someone had to go into the circle and start of with saying anything as long as you could get in the line that is on the piece of paper we got given. At any time we wanted we could swap out with someone in the circle (Two in at a time). I was scared to go in but I eventually went in and completely changed the story about 'Tarts'. It was a really funny game which has definitely helped with my improvisation skills. After break we all went back in and worked on our skills even more. We had to get into groups of three. I paired up with two girls from the first year called Emily and Gracie. We then got told that we all had to pick to be a family member. We decided to be a little different and went with having two sisters and a cousin. We then had to pick an age for our characters and a name (In our heads). I was Christine aged 14. Gracie was Jess aged 15 and Emily was Margret (I think) aged 18.  This helped us to decide that Emily would be the older sister, Gracie would be the younger sister and that I would be the cousin. Since Gracie and me had chosen similar ages we decided to be best friends, since a lot of cousins are. We then had to pick one of us to be the perpetrator, the other to be the rescuer and then the last person to be the victim. We decided that Emily as the oldest sister to be the perpetrator, Gracie as the younger sister to be the victim and then me as the cousin to be the rescuer. And from that information with did a whole improvisation. It was actually really easy to think of something because all the things we were given helps to build a charterer really quick. We decided that me and Gracie would be getting ready for a party and then Emily not letting us go being rude to Gracie. Me as the rescuer thought of a solution for us to go. Our teacher then made us all switch so that I then became the perpetrator, Gracie as the rescuer and Emily as the victim. I made Gracie drink at the party so then Emily would come in and I would be getting mad at Emily for coming etc. And finally we had to switch again where Gracie would then be the perpetrator and me as the victim and Emily as the rescuer. Gracie would be mad at me for making her drink and Emily saying that I'm her cousin and that she needs to forgive me. It made a lot more sense when we were actually doing it. It all fir in so well!. Next time I do Improv, I'm going to do these simple things to add to my character as it really helped! After lunch just us second years began working on something new. We started looking at the script of a show called 'Dear Even Hansen'. The reason our teacher wants us looking at it is because it's a show that has songs in it but no dancing. She wants us to start working on our singing, which I'm REALLY scared about because I cant sing at all. Like not one bit. But I guess this will help. I know that this show is also really good and interesting. I'm also scared because I know that people in my class can sing, and I don't want to be the only one who can't because that will be so embarrassing. Oh well, I guess we shall see. Hopefully I'll start to improve. 

15/09/2022

Today we began looking at university and Drama schools. It was a short lesson but it really helped to narrow down some of my options.

These are some of them:

♡Artsed              ♡Rada                  ♡Lamda   

♡Mountview        ♡Lipa                   ♡Arden

♡performers college                          ♡Central school of speech and drama

I have put drama schools such as Rada and Artsed on that list, obviously because they are such amazing schools that I would love to go to! but I'm not sure that I will even audition because if I do get in I probably wouldn't be able to go because it cost about £23,000 to just go to that school, and that's without the living expenses and anything. It even cost £80 to audition, and of course you would have to pay for trains and maybe stay over night. My family are already bad with money and can hardly live with what weve got. So my main options at the moment are Performers college in Birmingham and Arden in Manchester. Now that I know which ones I'm focusing on, I can begin looking for a monologue to work on. I'm going to start looking at contemporary monologues from plays. I have to try and find one that no one really knows as the people auditioning me would like to listen to something different. During next week I'll start looking for a good monologue.