Sandy, can't you see I'm in misery.

Last week (18th - 22nd June) all we did was do further research into our birthday party characters and talk about the RI.

PARTY!!!!

Tuesday, and Friday (19th and the 22nd) all we did was continue researching for the Stanislavski birthday party we have coming up. I have been given the influential acting teacher Sanford Meisner, who focus' largely upon Stanislavski system and his factor of communication. But largely is has just been fakebooking (http://www.classtools.net/fb/57/jTNAST), so it is a full blown birthday party for Stanislavski who will be his 149th birthday! Happy Birthday to him. Not much can be said about this apart from that it sometimes is a tedious way of doing such research.

Wednesday (20th) was just as slow as the other days due to the fact we were doing admin upon the research investigation and looking in depth into the marking criteria.

Unfortunately due to this being the end of the year, there is very little to do practically since we are winding down for the end of the year.

Richard W

RI, Extended Essay

Our Extended Essay write up is in two days, and this week I've been freaking out about it so much. I haven't been able to think properly since I was panicking about not having a title yet, so what I did was a massive research about finding titles which I did, titles that even don't interest me, but I just though"doesn't matter, haven't got a choice any more, it's too late!" I regret so much for not having thought about this earlier and I do hope this will teach me a good lesson to not leave everything for last minute. I've always been able to find a solution to "escape" these kind of problems but for this one, I really take the Extended Essay seriously which is why I keep freaking out about it. I will have to work on my organization skills which I am TERRIBLE at, I have nothing that motivates me for doing this EE!!!!! I am so upset about it, I thought it would be really interested doing this project and everything...

I really appreciate all the help I am getting from my supervisor. At the start of year 12 when everyone started talking about how hard the extended essay was (especially the year 13, and lots of them warned me to start early and get as much help from the supervisor). Of course, as I always do, I thought :" Naaah this isn't a big deal, better focus on my 6 IB subjects instead of this essay!" And as usual, I was wrong to think that. It seems as I can ,ever take someone's advice given to me, I always have to experience the dangers and stress to figure out my own weaknesses and strengths, I don't know why, maybe it's not just me, but I'm that type of persons that doesn't anything until I've experienced it.

However, I am super motivated for this RI! I already have my idea and title for it, so it's all good! Besides, I've done most of the research about it as well, which I am happy and confident about. It also relieves all stress, fiou!

I am happy with my self I can keep up blogging my theatre week  every week, I expected my self to miss out the blogging since I have quite a lot of work and everything, and I apologize if I don't write as much as before though! But hey, "Ce qui compte c'est la qualité pas la quantité!" (don't know how to translate it in English, but it's a French expression I use all the time :p )

Good Woman of SETzuan. Get it? Set.

Well it is a bit late but here it is. Last week (11th - 15th June) we pretty much did set designing and eventually got it finished.

The problem with this blog is that it is gunna be tiny. I mean for Monday (11th) and Wednesday (13th) all we did as a class was continue on our set design which was due in for the Friday, so each one of us was working individually so there is very little to say about it.

This is how I imagined mine would turn out.....It didn't

However I am going to say this, I really am not a fan of set designing, my artistic skills are at the level you would see in a 3 year old I really didn't enjoy it, I enjoyed drawing and planning the set. However creating the scale model was hell, at first I had this elaborate set design which would have lights and projections and everything else but instead it was more in the end a very decorated shoe box. IT DID LOOK PRETTY THOUGH. But I am going to admit that Set Designer is definitely not my most preferred role in theatre so I plan to keep my set deigning to a minimum in the future, I'll leave that to the others to do, in my head I feel like I am quite a creative person however tell me to make a scale model and my creativity begins to lack. But anyway it is done now and it wasn't too bad.

Friday (15th) was the give in day where we would explain and pitch our ideas to our fellow class mates, talking about the ideas behind each part of the set and what each feature would be. I felt I could explain it alot more than I could create it, I found myself in the end being proud of what I had achieved so I wasn't too dis-hearted, but this was clearly a project we all worked very hard on and we should all congratulate each other on being able to do this. Sure some looked better than others but each was a good piece of work and was clear worked on hard, so well done guys!

Really that was it for last week since pretty much we set deigned

Richard #1

I said 10:45 / We Must Build Higher! (Two Weeks in One)

Great, due to technological errors (yeah, sure its raining but should that really affect the wireless) and me just forgetting I'm now to weeks behind. So long post ahead, but I can really wrap up several events rather then two different weeks, so I guess it won't really be too long. (or will it?)

On Tuesday, we went to Victor Hugo (the french school that is right next to ours), and as much it is directly behind ours WHY do we have to walk so far! It would be less then a minute if we jump a gate or two, but due to a large series of housing complexes, the walk takes around four to five minutes (once again, why?). Anyways, we left in the morning and missed our morning classes (Physics and Drama), which came back to bite me later... but anyways our reason for going was a Shakespeare workshop run by Helen Leblique. What really made this special was she was the Director of the Royal Shakespeare company's production of Anthony and Cleopatra, the text that the Victor Hugo class was studying. So Important+ Knowledgeable+Used to Classes=Profit! We spent the entire two hour or so Master class discussing status and its importance in the play. The first activity we did was to draw a card from a deck and put in it on our head so that other people could see it but we couldn't. We then mingled with the class, and the twist was that our importance was related to the card we held. Some unlucky people ended up drawing only low cards and had to play the fool. I personally drew around 9, so I wasn't powerful but I wasn't unpopular. It was really interesting to how people treated the difference in power, both from a theatre perspective and from a personality perspective. As I had no idea where my card was I treated everyone politely and observed their reactions, other people though were much more upfront about their treatment of others, Shoving them aside or jostling for a position. When we finished the activity, we were told to arrange ourselves based on where we thought that our rankings were compared to each other. We actually managed to arrange our selves perfectly. The second activity the opposite, only we could look at our card. This also lead to sharp contrast in actions, some people were very bossy because they held a high card, but others were polite and subdued about it. The arranging at the end resulted in only a few mistakes again. We then read through a section of the play and acted it out. It took a long time so I'm going to abridge what we leaned: 1. Characters interpret status differently 2. Depending on how they are said, words can have very different meanings 3. Character Interaction is defined by Status, assumed or otherwise.

Then there was a performance of Bloody Mist for the Victor Hugo students. I did in fact arrive late, but only around 10 minutes late for the time that I said I would be there. I didn't plan for the weight and bulkiness of my school supplies while biking, I even crashed into a bush. Anyways, it was our worst performance yet. I think that the cause lay in the fact that no one started out with any energy, people were tired, sick, or just grumpy. By the end though we had really gotten into it and the audience was really enjoying it, but not so much at the beginning(this is actually a common theme, the "WTF is going on" section of the piece, where they are still trying to figure it out.)

And that leaves the set designer project, we were basically told to pick any scene out of The Good Woman of Szechwan (Chez-long, or something like that apparently) and design a set for that scene. I totally forgot about it over the time we were given to get started, fortunately most people had only selected the scene and a basic concept. Personally I had been drawn to the public park, where a unemployed pilot attempt to hang himself but he gets saved by the main character, so I picked that scene. Many people really just dove into the design but I wanted to make sure that I understood the space that I had before adding glamour and flair to my design. So I went through the piece and marked every scene change to produce a flow chart. From this I was able to mark out three major areas, the cigarette shop, the outdoors area(park+market), and the minor building(contains all the random places). I then drew out a scale drawing of what I wanted, the two buildings on opposite sides with a courtyard in the middle with proportions. Then on this scaled drawing I added gimmicks to create a real set. Thanks to this I was able to come up with plenty of ideas that didn't really conflict for space (by the way, I'm trying to conserve space, I ended up writing a page on a summery of the different elements so I really don't want that to go up here) My plans end up sounding really cool, but then came the part of the project that I knew I would fail at modeling the stage. I actually know a fair bit about craft work and modeling but I lack the hand coordination so.... yah, right idea, really bad execution. There is a reason why I was good in CAD, there were machines that cut it as you had drawn it on the computer. Overall,(beyond the horrible end product), I found the project to be really fun, but I was really surprised when people just jumped into the design and in some cases into making it. In Richard's case, this attitude resulted in a very very large bridge and what looked like a tiny lamppost, not that I can really say better...     

I really wasn't sure what to put for a title, maybe a Double dose of Demanding Drama would have been better... Or I could have just gone with Double D or something... Meh Two weeks = Two Titles

Designing project FINALLY FINISHED :D

I have enjoyed working on our Designing Project this week in our Theatre classes; I wasn't here on Tuesday so I had a little bit more work to catch up with than the others, but I managed to finish everything for Friday. Although I was very proud with my own maquette, I would just like to say that it tok ages to do! I thought I would never finish in time and I was stressing out so badly on how I could finish it. I hate handing in homework late, it makes me feel so guilty and week! But I am also the kind of person that starts doing all homework last minute (still trying to find a solution for this one!), which I confess I have been doing with my Extended essay, I haven't done the amount of work I already should have done. 

I tend to think that the work given to us will disappear if I don't do it and that if a teacher would give me three weeks for a project, I would always start the 2 before it's due. It's always been like this with me, but I better find a way to sort my priorities out before next year, and especially for all of the Theatre exams! For the PPP(I think?) we are given 4 weeks to prepare for it, now I better move into the library if I want to get some proper work done on that!  

Anyways, I don't know how I managed to finish in time but I still did it, so I was really proud of myself. Everyone seemed to look particularly interested in my idea of rotating the props on stage, by using the mechanical revolve. I have to admit it, that was a pretty original idea I got there!

I have seen some interesting stuff I would want to "borrow" from all of them.

 

Saturday evening was the TMA performance, the theatre group I go and help with which took place in Leguevin. Two performances took place, the musical Bugsy Malone, and a Breath of Fresh Air (the group I am in). 

It was a very hot day and the children seemed to have a little problem for concentrating on stage. I wouldn't say this was their best performance, I have seen them do a lot better; a few of them seemed to have forgotten all of their lines and the dance routines which was a shame. All of these months of hard work, and now they forgot everything for the big night! Perhaps stage fright was behind this?

But the audience didn't really see to care (which was a good thing, fiou!) and the children still had a lot of fun on stage.

Just like Georgia, I too am looking forward for our next project, and I think I might have a clue what we will be doing from now on, and that will take up our summer. The Research Investigation, if I am not mistaking?

Set Designer Georgia Stanley here :) ...

So I missed last weeks entry because I could not log onto my account for some reason :/ was not impressed. We continued with our set designing project and also got to perform Bloody mIST again, which was fab as I didn't think we would get too. We performed to the premier class from Victor Hugo (so people our age, and I was surprised to see a few of my friends there, which was lovely!) I know the performance was not one of our best, I was having a bad day and can not yet completely leave my outside emotions out of my performance, so yeah I probably was not on top form. But what was lovely was that at the end we did like a question time, something we haven't done before. Although you don't have the chance to study drama/theatre in Victor Hugo they asked some really good questions, and a few people were't afraid to put up their hands and ask us things which was super lovevly. Although no new questions cames up, or things we hadn't really thought about before, it was good to get a chance to explain the bits of our piece to the audience when they asked their questions.

On friday we also handed in our set design piece. While not everyone was like dead arty the thought and ideas and creativity that went into each set design was incredible. I heard some fab ideas that I will definitely be borrowing, such as using a revolve, it never even crossed my mind to put a revolve in my set design. I was pleased with my set design, despite my lack of arty skills it fit the picture of the space I had in my mind, something new to me. I'm dead excitied about the project we will start next ...

Georgia STanley

THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!( i swear I didn't write this?)

Once again, this week has been filled with lots and lots of drama and performances!!

Monday, the year 7 and 8's had their arts and creativity day at school, along with the 5eme students from Victor Hugo. Two actresses and one writer was there with them the whole day, and they came from London. I of course wanted to meet the actors and have a little career chat with them SO MUCH, which I did at the end of the day. I was really excited to get to know how an actor's life would be. I got to talk to one of them, and before talking I already knew what she was going to tell me; that the pay wouldn't be that great, all actors don't get to be famous, it's very hard to get into business and to find an agent, you have to be a 100% sure you want to do this... Well, that's what I expected her to tell me; she did tell me all of that, but she also focused on all of the positive things I should do; just go for it, go and watch as many plays/movies/performances you can, London is an incredible place to get contacts... So I was a little bit surprised, so far what everyone keeps telling me when I say I want to be an actress is :" Oh well, goo luck, by the way did you know that 99% of actors are unemployed?!" Surely I know this is true and so boring to hear each time I talk about my future with someone, but you know I'm prepared for it and just like the actress told me "you've got to do what you like to do in life". I was really pleased to hear that, and pleased to know I could contact her if I had any further questions. At the end of the Arts and Creativity day, right after their performance, a woman came up to me congratulating me on our show. At first I thought she though I had just performed, so I told her"Oh, I wasn't in it" and I got a bit confused. But then she told me she was talking about the Talent Show, our Bloody mIST performance! It's pretty weird to have a performance and you get feedback about 4 days afterwards. She said that it was a really interesting and original performance, and that it got her think. "I've been thinking about it for 3 days now, it's incredible, I really do get your show/message now".We were pretty successful in this performance I think,most of our audience pretty got the message and what it was about.

Tuesday, we went to Victor Hugo  and we got to meet a director from the Shakespeare Royal Company who was also an acting teacher in the acting school in London, East 15. She was there for the Terminales L and S (which is year 13) who had their English exam on the play Anthony and Cleopatra, next week or something.

Wednesday, we worked on our individual design project. I think it's good to finally get to do some individual work, where you're not working as an ensemble all the time, it gets annoying at a point. I need to work a lot on it, we only have ONE WEEK LEFT!! So long, I'm in between step 3 and 4 from the action plan, which isn't so bad, but I feel I haven't really done anything, and I need to start making and building it.

Friday, we performed our Bloody mIST piece to the Victor Hugo students, the première class this time. Personally, I thought this was our worst one we've ever done (for bloody mist). We definitely didn't get any reactions at all from our audience, and I can tell, because I was staring into their eyes the whole time( héhé, I can do this now) and I kept the eye contact. Of course they looked away when I looked at them (good), but they all looked like freaking zombies to me. They looked so miserable and moody, it didn't somehow seem they enjoyed our performance? So I got a little scared.

Anyways, we had a couple of issues before starting. I was the only one setting everything up since everyone (NERALY) had their self-review appointments. First, One of our group members came very late and he had said that he would have come earlier, which he didn't. So we discussed how we were going to do the performance whiteout him, and last minute, he walked through the door. Still, I think we should have done the relaxation exercise before, to relieve all of our stress and frustration. Secondly, my whip broke (AGAIN) so I couldn't use it at all, which was a shame. Oh, and thirdly, I was very ill. I have performed ill several times before so it wasn't an issue for me, but my energy level was down to zero. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't bring out my dynamic and energetic side (perhaps I did, but I faked it all). I looked around my self and it seemed that nobody else was really energetic and full of enthusiasm in our piece, and, unfortunately, we were filmed this time. So now every time I will look back at this, I will be disappointed into seeing my poor performance on stage, where I know I could have done better if I wasn't ill.

That's it for this week!

THUNDERBOLTS AND LIGHTNING. We are Set Designing!!!!!

This week (4th - 8th June) we have crammed so many things in!

Set Designing, Anthony and Cleopatra Masterclass, Bloody mIST Performance and BLOOPERS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yoq9CWz-GA

I'm going to be unconventional and start backwards in this blog! So on the Friday (8th) it was a day off school for self review day but also we had a performance of Bloody mIST to Victor Hugo (school across the road) in which the students were our age. I think it went pretty well, I don't feel it has been our best performance but it still went pretty well and we recorded this one! I have also put together a video of images and blooper videos from our unconventional rehearsals and here it is: (click the image)

Wednesday (6th) was our double lesson and basically we continued with planning and designing our set for The Good Woman of Setzuan, so I began to sketch out some rough ideas for how the set will be brought on and look. Since I am doing a scene set in a park it will be very interesting to do with a river, bridge, projection and various other things to consider. But that was the basis of the lesson, each student to themselves and work on planning your set.

Tuesday we were very privileged to be invited over to the school across the road (Victor Hugo) to have a workshop with a Royal Shakespeare Company Director (Helen Leblique) on the play Anthony and Cleopatra (since the English class at Victor Hugo are studying it) we began by playing a game which was all about status. The first was you are given a card (King is High and Ace is Low) and you put it up above your forehead for everyone to see but you cant see it, so if a person with a 2 above their head approaches you, you have to act as if they were that status however what must be kept in mind is your status because you could act like a king but you are an Ace, you have to be aware of how others treat you and mould yourself to that. The second game was an alteration of the first however now you are the only person who has seen your card and you have to act accordingly for example as a King you would strut, order people, keep away from the lowers. Whereas for an Ace they will be sitting in a corner not talking to a single person. We then worked with Act 2, Scene 2 in the play which is a rather diplomatic scene, however depending on how the lines are spoke can  make a massive difference on the whole scene, it was really interesting to see the power of lines and how they can be manipulated and but standing up and acting it out you could see a true difference to just sitting down and reading it (unlike what we have done with Hamlet in English Class).

" The three things we discovered as a Theatre class from the workshop were How important status in each scene  since it is always constantly changing and also the difference in characters and how they themselves see their status compared to others. Nearly all stage directions seen in Shakespeare plays have been edited in by an editor and were not in the original manuscripts. The setting whether or not it is a domestic or public scene, the dynamics of language change so much. "

That is it for this week, it has been a pretty good and fun week! Enjoy the bloopers!

Richard #1

Its time...

Wow, what a week, we finally preformed the talent show.  What started off as a feeble idea over a month  ago has finally come to fruition. It really taught me a lot about organising events, like including breaks so that the actors don't have to preform 3 times back to back. We were all so tried by the end of the performance, and I had to walk home after all that...
What really pissed me off though was the number of people who dropped out at the last minute, they were informed of the date way ahead of time and yet still couldn't make it. Grrrrr, it doesn't cause them any issues but it caused us plenty. If they had just told us a week in advance it would have been much easier. There was also some lucky incidents, Hero, who hadn't attended any of the meetings, sent us a really good stop motion video. We ended up showing it in the reception area. It overall was really successful, raising over seven hundred euros! We really should have started the administrative roles much sooner though and communicated more. We were frantic communicating on the night before in order to finish the organisation of the tickets and who was going where. This really should have been done a few days before the show but we were only just finishing it in our few waning hour before the show.
The performance itself went pretty well, there was a sketchy moment where I was caught on a chair, but Richard covered for me, so it all worked out. It also seemed like doing the actual performance caused stuff to break all over the place, Maria accidentally broke her whip (which is a shame, it was rather fancy), and the push broom snapped in half when I tried to use it (really cleanly) but thank goodness for duct tape. Unlike the Doll's house performance, I really wasn't nervous for this one. I don't know if it was because we had practised it so many times (but kept changing it) or more likely, because it came from us and our ideas. Our character's were us and by extension we were able to do whatever will still staying in form. It was much less pressure then Stan's system where it was black and white in the context of characters. It was really nerve racking not knowing how the rest of the talent show was going, even now I still don't know any details. While it was successful, we are so getting everything prepared three days ahead of time and make that we communicate with people, we ran into the issue of the actors not know what they were supposed to do which caused issues during the registration and preparation.

You will be mIST... Bloody mIST

Well it has been a broken week for me this week (28th May - 1st June) since I only can back from Scotland Wednesday Afternoon so really I have only had 1 lesson this week.

Ridiculous Richard (It's ME!!)

Well I arrived back on Wednesday (luckily to no drama rehearsal) but I had to go into school any way. But I was disappointed I missed over 3 hours of lesson but it made be rather happy to hear that we had managed to sell over 100 tickets, so my afternoon was made up of making 20 or so more tickets for the next night! IST'S GOT TALENT!

This was it Thursday, I was looking for to it so much all day and was getting really impatient by the end. But I was (just like Georgia) disappointed and slightly angry at a few people for dropping out literately last minute, and was astonished of how the Guides were treated when they arrived at school, but other than that it was a great night!

Spectacular Spencerella

However I'm going to have to disagree with the other two and say the second audience was my favourite (maybe cus they got really into throwing sweets at me? I dunno I just really enjoyed the easy-going atmosphere they gave off). It was so nice being able to see all the hard work we had put into this such as making the posters, making the tickets, selling the tickets, keeping track of the acts, and everything else come alive and work in unison with everything on the night of the 31st of May. It was really something, and with it being for charity it just made everything so much sweeter. Hearing everybody getting great feedback no matter what the act, was great too! It was a really really fun night and I really hope to see something along the lines of it happen again next year! Where do I sign up?

Gory Georgia

Mean Maria

I just want to say a huge thanks to Mr Fearnehough too even though he said it was run by the students without him we wouldn't have been able to sort the whole security thing out, and the friends (who were doing refreshments) too! So a big thanks to you guys too! After hearing that we raised 766 EUROS!!!! it made you see how the night was so worth while despite all the bumps along the way. All the hard work really paid off that night, I WANNA DO IT AGAIN! However I really wished I could have seen some of the other acts though cus I didn't get a chance to see many of them in rehearsal. As you can see from the 4 images of us here and there, we had a blast!

 Friday was a slight wind-down lesson since we were all exhausted, I was filled in about what I had missed over the past 3 lessons so I am currently catching up on that (all to do with Brecht's way of set designing and action planning). Also after last minute rushing around on Friday we are now going to meet a director from the Royal Shakespeare Company on tuesday so it is going to be really interesting!

Well that is it really for this week, I'm so proud to be part of this Year 12 Ensemble since we all worked just as hard as each other and performed just as well as each other on the night too! And now that over 1,000 Euros for Theatre Versus Oppression, it has been a really nice week. Thanks Everybody who help with IST's Got Talent!!

Ridiculous Richard

The End.

So in our lessons this week we have started looking at set design for Brechts play "The Good Woman of Setzuan". We began by looking through action plans for acting and set designing and discussing asking questions about the action plans. I have been rereading the play and highlighting key stage directions or parts with relevance to the setting so I know what the stage has to look like according to the script. We have also been talking about the set of a Brecht play that Mr F saw which used scaffolding, which sounded very exciting. The scaffolding stayed on stage at all times and backdrop type things were used to change the way they looked, they could become mountains and homes, and in typical Brechtian style projection was also used. For our set design we are to use key Brecht ideas, such as projection and placards, but we can also used other set designers we have studied, such as Appia and Craig, as inspiration.

Also this week the wait ended and we had out Talent Show. So much hard work has gone into this. I worry about sounding a bit negative as I write about it but I want to highlight things that did not go as well so when I look back on this I can see where I went wrong and improve. However, I must stress I think the night was a huge success and I had so much fun. Personally, one of the best comments I heard all night was a teacher saying I'll do something for it next year, which just made my night knowing it had inspired people to work on it next year as well.

One little difficulty we had was some people dropping out, we all put a lot of hard work into the show and I sent out countless emails and messages (not nagging, simply explaining details etc.) about the Talent Show and how it was going to work and how excited I was and how I would like replies if there was anything I needed to know. Some people did not even reply to my emails, even after saying they would be in the Talent Show and making a committment, they did not have the ( for want of a better word ..) decency to say to me they would not be attending. I got told through other people they would be pulling out, one such person pulled out on the actual day of the talent show.

But all was not lost, other acts upon hearing people had dropped out asked if they could perform another act. So many people asked if they could do a second performance that I had to say no to some people! The enthuasiasm the acts had for the Talent Show was so heartwarming.

One other things I was a bit upset about was the ticket giving out thing. I am very close to the Guides and it was my mum who told them about the Talent Show to see if they fancied coming (I have promised that in future I will tell them of any more events, as they are keen to get involved). When the Guides arrived no one greeted them, gave them a ticket, explained what group they were in or how the night would work (as this was not a typical Talent Show). However, this was out of my control as I had a show to prepare for myself, and whats happened has happened and I can't change it now.

I am incredibily pleased with how the night went though, everyone put in so much hard work and effort and it really paid off. I really wish I could have watched the whole things, but it is impossible to be in two places at once haha.

Performing Bloody mIST again was fab. I had an absolute blast. The piece is exhausting and hard work but so much fun its all worth it. I agree with Maria when she says the first and last performances were stronger bit I still think it is the best we have ever done. The audience was great and not at all shuy when it came to joining in, whether it be shouting out, throwing sweets or dancing with the actors. I wish I could do it all again and again and again. I'm at a bit of a loss at what else to write about the night as I'm like lost in my memories of the evening (and I'm hungry) but if I think of anything else I will add to it.

Georgia Stanley

SHOW TIIIIME!

Thursday night was finally the night for the TALENT SHOW!! We pulled of a great show and we had a great audience!

However, we got very disappointed with the lack of professionalism and responsability some people didn't have. Several groups dropped out from their acts the night before the big show! I mean come on, seriously, when 4 year 12 students are running this show and some of the acts come to us and just say:"Yeah, I won't be in it tomorrow, soz I can't" SOZ?? SOZ?? I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that!  This got me very angry and frustrated, I mean when you sign up for something you have to commit to to it, and especially don't drop out last minute, great team work guys, thanks!

But it didn't really matter, we didn't need them, I mean they will regret this their whole life and when they'll look back at it they'll start crying. Good for them.

We were in school earlier than the others because we had to prepare everything and check everything was at its place. I had a last talk/check with the CAS students to check if they were ALL okay and if they knew what to do in case anything went wrong. They were all happy with what they were doing and had everything under control( as I've heard)

We started with
 The night itself went SUPER well, we had over 100 people who came to watch us!  Personally, I thought that our first performance and our last one were the most successful and best ones; the audience interaction was better the first and the last time, no doubt, I felt closer with the first pack of audience we had and the last one. The second, I don't know, there just wasn't any connection for me. And I did try, but I though they weren't as much entertained as the 2 others. Our audience did laugh when they were supposed to, and OOH EMM GEE! By the first 5 minutes of our performance, MY LITTLE WHIP BROKE! I was so so sad and I had to think of something quickly to say, which wasn't very difficult. WHatever happened, we could just go with it and pretend as it would be in the act! Compared to our performance of a Doll's House, we certainly couldn't have done it! If a phone would have gone on during the performance, Nora could definitely not jump out and say:"Oh my good, who's phone is that.????Is it my little Dr Rank?" This is a great advantage for these kind of performances where you can interact with the audience as much as possible, without failing as an actor in your performance in a way when something goes wrong (phone on, whip breaks, Spencerella's scarf get's stuck on chair...), we just played along with it.
Also, at one point, the music seemed to have a little problem when it started to make that funny "BZZ-BZZ" so we all started to say :" Oh my goodness, what is happening to the music??" "Just go and fix it Georgia, can't you do anything right????" "Hello, I am on stage and I have no music?????"

One part of our performance I was really really scared off in order to not be successful as an actor, was the part where me and Spencerella talked about the different types of fear. We were supposed to have eye contact with our audience and I don't know what is wrong me me, but I can't look into someones eye while acting.I can do anything else while being on stage, dance, "sing" (lol)... BUT LOOK INTO SOMEONE'S EYE WHILE PERFORMING, NO! It deconcentrates me so so much, and all my focus just drops and I start laughing. Well, that's what I've assumed so far. I've never really tried to look into someone eye while performing, only for some performances but just for like 5 seconds (which seems like 10 MINUTES)
So I was really nervous about that and thursday morning I was running around the whole school yelling at people I couldn't do it and that I was going to fail. Those were my exact words :" I CAN'T DO THIS I'M GOING TO FAIL NOOOO" Some people were quite surprised hearing me saying "I'm nervous about a performance", well I am sorry, but I do get nervous while performing sometimes, usually I cover it up and just say"I NEVER GET NERVOUS" but that's all a lie and an act, I get scared as much as you lot people! I just try to hide it and I've also learned how to control my nerves to not show it everyone. There, I said it, I do get scared as well before a performance. So please stop assuming that just because I've done a lot of performances and shows that I don't get nervous too, well that is what my mum thinks. HA!
Anyways, I decided not to be a pussy and just do it; and somehow, I went really really well, I just happened, I did not start laughing or blushing, I just started right into their eyes. I was successful in this, people started to stare away when I looked right into their eyes telling the stories, and some had a little nervous laugh, WHICH IS GOOD because you're making them feel uncomfortable!

At the end, I got to sign AUTOGRAPHS I was so so happy to do that! A little girl (from primary I think?) came up to me with the prospectus we had done and gave it to me with a pen, and then said:"You were my favorite, you were really scary". I was so so happy to sign autographs, I felt so PROFESSIONAL(again!) and it was a lot of fun! Some of the children at TMA wanted my autograph as well, I was really pleased with that! (the children I help with )

And OMG! I got so so many compliments from random people! Yes, random people, which made me even happier coming from strangers than my friends!Of course my friends went up to me and said:" Ooh Maria you were amazing, you were my favorite" but coming from a stranger that you don't know and you haven't been telling:"Sooo who was your favorite character wink wink!"(hint, better say me or i'll start crying) This is why I never ever ask my parents if I was good and who their favorite character was, because as a parent, of course, they will "Yes you were amazing, you were so so good!" I also read this in my book "So you want to be an actor" (bought it at the national theatre in London) that you should avoid asking your parents how good you were on stage, because they might lie or encourage you even if you're not that good. So whatever my parents tell me, I don't listen to them, HOWEVER I do when they start with the critics, because I know they're being honest
Anyways, a woman congratulated me while walking out the door; she first asked me how long I had been acting for, how old I was and if I wanted to be an actress later. Of course I started to get these weird thoughts that she might be a director under-covered looking for talented actors to bring back to Hollywood where she came from (DON'T LAUGH AT THIS I AM SHARING MY THOUGHT HERE WITH YOU AND WE HAVE ALL HAD THESE THOUGHTS once in our life) She then said:" When you'll get famous, I will tell everyone I went to see you here at IST's got talent and I knew you!" I was really happy with this, and a little later when I went back inside two parents came up to me and congratulated me on my performance. They thought I looked so confident on stage and that I was born to act. They also said:"Hey, you should be an actress!"  This made me very very very happy, you might not understand it but for me it means a lot!!! :D