Gracie - Portfolio Unit 1-2

UNIT 1-2

23/10/23

monologues

portfolio work

Gracie Lee

evaluation

journey

duologue

techniques

research

INDEX

Workshop lessons

• Voice Lessons - Tim
• Voice Lesson - Robin (Centeral School Of Speech And Drama)
• Workshop from company from hungary

Every day Lessons

• Given Circumstances
• Intentions
• Secret Script
• Duologue Practice
• Monologue Practice

Dance Lessons

• First Lesson
• Partner work for assesment

Research

• Monlogue Research
• Duologue Research
• Stanislavski Research
• Dance Research

Stanislavski's Method

Understanding

His Method - Given Circumstances

Magic If

Konstantin Stanislavski

• Monlogue - From ' The Odd Couple'.
• Duologue (with Bella) - From ' The house of Bernarda Alba'.
• Duet With Darren.

November

For the last few weeks i have been rehearsing my monlgue, duolgue and dance piece for my assesment which is on the:

assesment date

My monologue is from a contemporary, comic, classic play called “The Odd Couple” which was also later created into a film staring Jack Lemon along side Walter Matthau. It was originally written about two men written in 1965, however in 1985 Neil Simon produced a female version. In summary the play features two mismatched, divorced roommates who drive each other crazy, Florence Unger (Felix Unger) and Olive Madison (Oscar Madison) - (who I am playing). Olives character is messy, unorganised and unconcerned about the state of her apartment and can often be very sensitive. Where as Florence is tidy, obsessively clean and obsessed with hygiene. Though they are dearest, childhood friends to each other, Olives out-going outlook on life soon clashes with Florence's strong neurotic tendencies, testing their friendship. The play is based in New York in 1980s. It doesn’t state what age the characters specifically are but they are adults. On Broadway, Olive was played by Rita Monero and Sally Struthers as Florence Unger. They played 9 previews and 295 performances before closing in February 23 1986. This play was also produced as a TV series in the 70s, and then again in 2010s, as well as a film in the late 60s. The apartment they live in was Olives apartment to start off with and she had been living there around 6 months on her own, then she let Florence move in because she thought they could help each other out however, Olive doesn’t like the way Florence lives and ends up wanting to kick her out after only three weeks of living together.

Florence Unger

Florence is clean, uptight, divorced, emotional/ sensitive.

Olive Madison (Me)

Olive is messy, witty, inteligent, slob, divorced, sucessful.

The Odd couple

MONOLGUE Research

Link to trailer:

given circumstances - who? - olive and florence are in the scene.What? - olive is getting ready to go out with her friends - putting on lipstick, putting hair up, shoes on, jacket on, ect.where? - in their apartment - living/kitchen (open space)when? - early evening - dinner time.why? - olive has finally put up with living with florence long enough and lets go of all her anger she built-up and has a go at her because she crys, cleans, cooks too much, ect.How? - olive starts to gradually get angrier and angrier and her words come out in one big breath because she's been keeping it in for so many weeks.

relationship - florence and olive are old close friends who are now roomates.

Motivation - olives motivation in the scene is to kick florence out and let her know the truth.

character research - monolgue

backstory - Olive madison lived alone in an apartment for 6 months until she let her old close friend florence unger move in with her - in the scene its been around 3 weeks of them living together and olive has had enough of how florence lives and she holds in all her anger until now because she doesn't get angry easily because shes so free-minded.

They each cling on to one clear motivation that they express repeatedly throughout the performance.

Main Characters: Bernarda (Bernie) Alba - Aged 60 - Mother to five daughters. Adie - Aged 17-18 - Youngest Daughter to Bernarda - having affair with Peter. Agnus - Oldest daughter to Bernarda. Penny - Maid/Housekeeper. Peter Romnov - Husband to Agnus - having affair with Adie. Marty - Daughter of Bernarda. Maggie - Daughter of Bernarda. Melly - Daughter of Bernarda.

This tragedy play is based on an old Spanish play in from the 1930s written by Fredrico Garcia Lorca, however the Rona Munro is a Modern Adaptation published in September 2009. It was first staged by Shared experience theatre company at Salisbury Playhouse in 1999. In summary, the plot follows the death of Bernarda Alba’s gangster husband (Siobhan). Bernarda is a domineering, controlling widow who forces her five daughters, who are already isolated, to remain in mourning for eight years and will do anything to safeguard her family’s fortune and the future of her daughters. Further on in the play, a deal is struck between families - a marriage of convenience between her eldest daughter and the son a business rival. Problems occur to each character as the play develops. There are a lot of references showing them setting up for a dangerous and edgy lifestyle due to the aftermath of being a gangsters wife. The family lives above a shop: El Paso Club.

Penny (Bella)

The housekeeper - expresses bitterness about bernardas attitude towards her., has known adie and other daughters since childeren.

Adie (Me)

Daughter of Bernarda alba - 17, having affair with older sisters husband.

The houe of bernarda alba

Duologue Research

Link to full play:

relationships - Agnus, Maggie, Adie, melly, marty - all sisters - daughters to bernarda alba.Agnus and peter romanov are engaged (they do not actually love eachother - marrige of convenience)adie and peter romanov are having an affairpenny is bernarda alba's housekeeper/maidantonio - bernarda's late husband and father to five daughters.

Motivations - adie - adie's motivations in the scene are to keep her secret about the affair, be with peter romanov and get away from penny.Penny - penny's motivations in the scene are to force adie to admit about the affair and not keep it secret.

Given circumstances - Where? - In the house of Bernarda Alba (living room) Who? - Adie and penny are in the scene.What? - PENNY IS forcing adie to tell her about adie's affair with peter romanov and adie is refusing to respond. why? - because penny knows it will cause drama in the family and perhaps wants to protect adie, however penny doesn't want penny to talk about it.When? - How? -adie drefuses telling penny by being sarcastic and threatening her.

Backstory - Father died which follows onto how the family become widowd for 8 years, The arrival of Peter Romanov, a suitor for the eldest daughter (agnus) sparks jealousy, resentment and rebellion among the sisters: play ends in violence and death.

character research - Duologue

Despina asked us to come up with presentations about dance companys she gave us, I did this task with Plando and we were given the 'Gecko Theatre'.

Dance Research - Presentation Task

Powerpoint Link Here:

We presented this on 13th October, Friday.

Dance Lessons

Final Rehearsal

Partner Work

first few lessons

First Lesson

Group work

+ info

+ info

+ info

Throughout the course I have written my notes on notion to show my improvment over the weeks. Link here:

- Duologue and Monolgue Practice

- Tension- Intentions- Secret Script

- Stanislavski - Dance - Given Circumstances- Voice Lessons (Tim)

weeks 5-6

Weeks 3-4

First 2 weeks

My Journey of Learning and new skills

Overall, all of my performances could have each individually improved but thats what learning is for, next time I can improve all my skills.

Lastly, the dance piece was good until the last bit because me and my partner hadn't figured out the ending so it looked a bit messy, so next I know I need to have a bit more communication with my partner. Also we changed the music a few days before so we could have practised a bit more with the new music so we knew the timing.

I am writing about my experience of the assesment. My monolgue could have gone a lot better, as it was very overwhelming because it was the first time I've ever been on stage myself. In the middle of the performance I froze and couldn't remember my lines, however I did eventually recover and get back into the scene which was really hard. I think my duologue went really well, I find it a lot easier to keep focused when I'm on stage with atleast one other person just because I know I'm not by myself. Next time I can work on being louder and really get into the character I am playing and not be suttle about it and go for it.

23

02

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assesment

Asessment Evaluation

Unit evaluation

The main things I have learnt in this unit are:- Always think of key details, e.g. stanislavski method, given circumstamces (who,what,ect..)- Partner work - I have developed a lot of new skills working with people I have never worked with before and have just recently met and I have learnt how to properly work with other people.- Improvisation - In the past I haven't done improv too much so it was quite challenging to be expected to do improvisation straight away since I've never really done it.- Confidence - From my begginning of the unit to now, my confidence has improved so much. I was very quiet and by doing all these group excersises and working with new people I have started to be more open to new things and being myself.The main challenges I faced throughout the performances was remaining eye contact with audience/looking up even at the lights. Aswell as getting deep into the characters which I think is just due to the challenge of confidence.Overall, what I will take away to my next project is, new skills.

THE END

Partner Work

I got partnered with Darren who is not a strong dancer so we had to think of ways around it. Our dance is a twist of ballet vs hip hop and in the dance we are battling against one another but by the end we are teaching eachother our styles of dancing.This link is the 3rd week of of our dance.

Final Rehearsal

In our last rehearsal we had to finish the choreography and keep practicing the dance over. Also a end position. This link is the from our last rehearsal.

In my first dance lesson of the term, we only worked in groups to begin with because some fof us didn't know anybody so we were just getting to know eachother. We warmed up and then had a dance circle which was quite hard for me because even though I do dance, I found it quite nerve-racking going into the centre of the circle by myself and dancing.

First Lesson

Weeks 3-4

With Shan, we worked on tension which was actually harder than it sounded because we had to show the tension through our voice and bodies which is challenging. Then, intentions, we learned how to use our bodies to show intentions first like to entertain, to judge, ect. And we also saw how interpretations can be shown through different languages aswell. Lastly, we performed our secret scripts, where we had to look into very specific details due to how we were'nt giving away the secret and had to again show the secret through our bodies and voices.

Weeks 5-6

In the last 2 weeks I've mostly been practicing my monolgue, duologue and dance piece and all research for all 3. All these performances have really helped in my confidence and acting skills. I think this because in the monologue and duologue both of my characters are quite angry and I usually play happy and funny roles.

PRESENTATION

We performed this presentation in dance class to show the rest of out classmates. We all did this to prove we know what were saying and did not copy and paste, also helps with speaking in front of the class for a long period of time.