Children's books

In this lesson we were all given childrens' books, and told to go into our own spaces and read them to ourselves. After we had gone through them on our own, a few of us performed them to the group. The person reading would be on a chair and the rest of us were seated on the floor in front as if it was reading time a primary school. Surprisingly everyone felt really comfortable when reading, there weren't any mistakes in the sentences and the audience were very supportive of the person reading.

When I read my book 'The Fish Who Could Wish' I was very comfortable, I read slowly and my voice was animated, I faced the book towards my audience so as I was speaking they could see the pictures as I said the words. This increases the level of concentration within the young audience, and I know if I felt this relaxed and confident as I did when reading this book as I do in auditions I could go far.

Introduction

This unit tests our ability to analyse a monologue correctly, find a speech that suits us personally and have confidence when performing them to be graded.
We've started this chapter being lead by Olgar, she picked a handful of monologues both male and female, and asked us to choose one we wanted this way Olgar could overlook our choice, showing whether we know our strengths.

I chose a monologue from 'Death of a Salesman' written by Arthur Miller; the character of Linda. This monologue was all about passion and anger, she was trying to preach a message to her sons by asking rhetorical questions and stating clear facts. When I performed this to the rest of my class, I was confident and paced myself. I didn't stumble on any sentences which was my biggest worry when site reading. Olgar said when I performed by monologue I fade at the end of my sentences which is a really bad habit to get into as it is something casting directors and even audience members pick up on. I have definitely learnt some small details about a smooth delivery from this lesson.


This lesson consisted of monologues and exercises to bring them to life. For example Metin performed a monologue which was supposed to intrigue the audience and make them want to know more, however Olgar felt his interpretation wasn't quite right so Metin was asked to stand when delivering his speech and move around the room, as the audience we were told that when we felt interested and genuinely intrigued we could follow Metin around. This helped him really imagine what he was saying and his monologue turned out at a really high standard.
We also did an exercise for Jovan; his monologue was meant to be intimidating and had the ability to put the audience on edge. So instead of him just standing delivering his speech, Olgar asked Jovan to sit on top of a brick wall which was high off the ground, we were below him and it really made a difference. The height he was at was scary and his menacing attitude added to the piece.