Final Audition Monologue Link

http://youtu.be/DoY6754xeKM

My last acting blog

I am happy that I chose to take acting as my fall elective for my freshman year. It was so much different than I anticipated it to be but I grew to really enjoy it. I feel like a much better actress from being in this class and being a part of the fall Varsity Player’s production of Peter Pan. One thing that I was not good at before I took this class was taking criticism. I used to be offended easily and I did not listen to it unless I totally agreed with it. But, I became every comfortable with my classmates because they were very supportive of me. I learned to listen to their suggestions and try new things out even if I did not agree with them. I remember for one of my monologues Lisa gave me a suggestion that I did not want to try at first but when I did, it made the monologue a whole lot better.

In this class, I also learned a couple of new acting techniques that I had not used before. One exercise that really stood with me is the acting exercise that Abby taught Alexis and I. We had not memorized our lines yet but we wanted to practice how we wanted to deliver them. Abby taught us a game she had learned at a broadway camp to in which we pushed off a wall every time we wanted to emphasize a word or syllable. This was a very helpful way to learn to emphasize lines and help us learn them. Also, it was a really fun activity.

I think I could’ve done a better job at memorizing my lines. One things that I don’t like is that while I can memorize lines fairly easily, I usually mess up the order of the lines and/or the words. However, I know now that I can use some of the exercises I have learned in acting class to help me memorize my lines quicker and better.

I also feel like this class helped me to prepare for my role as Nibs and Liza in Peter Pan. Many of the acting exercises we used to get in character in acting class I used to help me get in character for playing Nibs and Liza. One thing that I think I improved a lot on was my projection. I was never bad at projecting my voice but it comes much more naturally to me now. In the Black Box, there were no microphones so I needed to project my voice so that everybody could hear me. I think I did a good job at my projection in Peter Pan.

Overall, I am happy that I chose acting to be my fall elective. I made good friends with the people in my acting class. We all have really helped each other improve our acting skills. I look forward to being in more plays and musicals with them. In the last months I have definitely improved as an actor. It's a great feeling and all my friends and family have noticed it and complimented me. I love acting!

Why there is a wine bottle, a knife, and a pill container in Ms Guarino's classroom.

I am very proud of myself so far with my audition piece. I don't watch American Horror Story, but this monologue makes me want to watch the season now. I love Emma Roberts and was really excited to see that she had her own monologue. I really wanted to challenge myself for my final piece in acting. Ever since Alexis' serial killer monologue, I really wanted to perform something like it. Although my monologue is not as scary as Alexis, it is very deep and shows the emotional trauma that one girl has had to go through in her life. I'm very happy that there was an opportunity for me to find my own piece that would show off my strengths and challenge me as well.

Because I love the monologue and have watched it countless times, I memorized the monologue pretty quickly. The only slight problem I have is that I forgot one line (which was actually a pretty important one) while studying it over break which somewhat threw me off order. However, I have solved that problem and am pretty solid with the memorization now. Now, I am working on memorizing the blocking because although I know what I want to do, I sometimes forget the order of everything. I also have not been feeling well lately so it's been hard to practice to the best of my ability.

This has been very challenging for me as an actor, but I am glad I selected this monologue. It is a monologue that I really like so I guess that's why I have really put my best effort into this monologue and remembered the lines so well. The monologue itself is just downright creepy and disturbing which is something I have never acted before. There's a lot of different layers and I feel that each line of the monologue is interpreted in many different ways. One line I particularly like is "Take away my mother, and my asshole father..." because my character kills her father a couple years before the monologue takes place. Although it is an event in the past, she still remembers it vividly. I have tried to emphasize this line by looking at my knife and holding it a little bit tighter.

I was a bit nervous to perform the monologue yesterday because I knew it wasn't going to be anything like anybody expected from me. My voice was raspy from being sick and I was almost positive I was going to have at least one voice crack in the middle of the monologue.  I was shocked to hear all the positive feedback after my monologue. While I knew I gave it a strong  effort, I thought that I may have not been doing as well as I thought I was. After all, this monologue is like nothing I have performed before. I also received some good critiques that I think will make my monologue better. I thought I was going too slow, but many people said slowing it down even more would make the monologue really creepy. I was very happy that people thought it was my best performance so far and that it was a good choice.

I am very excited to perform the first draft of my monologue tomorrow!

In-Class Writing: Dramatic Monologue

1) Who is your character? Briefly describe.

My character is a girl in her late teens named Madison. She is from the television series "American Horror Story" in the first season. I do not watch American Horror Story, so I had to read up about my character. Madison is one of a group of witches who is a very vain, selfish, and mean girl. One day she is killed by another witch who wishes to take her power. Madison is brought back to life, but she is not truly living because she cannot feel anything and is in eternal numbness. All she wants is to go back to her old life and feel again. Madison is played by the actress Emma Roberts.

2) What is the setting of your piece and what is your motivation?

The setting of this scene is in a large, lonely (however, not that creepy) mansion. Madison moves from room to room in this scene (which unfortunately I cannot do) so I plan to have a chair and a table with various objects like a knife, drink, and maybe a fake cigaret that I will use throughout the scene while still moving around the space. There is one motivation in this monologue and one desire of Madison- to feel pain again. She is sick of the numbness of death and wants to be human and feel pain again. However, I am avoiding the supernatural part of this character in this monologue. Instead, I will play this character as a normal human but one that is feeling the numbness of depression and loss instead.

3) What do you imagine for costuming and set?

In this monologue, Madison is dressed simply on a long black dress and black shoes. She does not have much makeup on or any accessories. I think the day I perform my final draft of this monologue, I will wear one of my plain black dresses and black flats to school. I will not do anything special with my hair. For the set, I am still thinking of ways I can get my point across since the monologue is performed while Madison is movin from room to room. I think I would like to have a chair with a table in front of it that includes props of a knife, a fake liquor/poison bottle, and a fake cigarette.

4) What do you imagine for blocking?

For blocking in this scene, I am still planning what I want to do to get my point across. I think I will start off in the chair and interact with the various props as the monologue continues. At the beginning of the monologue, Madison is found smoking so I think I will do that before I start talking. I want to move slow around the table pacing in this monologue. When it comes to the part about drinking, I want to walk back over to the table and pretend to drink all of it. Then, towards the very end I will take the knife and twirl it around and pretend to cut myself.

5) This piece is a very dark and mature piece. It covers depression and a numbness to the world which are not easy subjects. The character I play is also slightly mentally insane, so I feel like this  will be the most challenging thing I have ever performed. However, I really love this monologue and I feel if I give my best effort I can do a good job. Ever since Alexis performed her serial killer monologue I wanted to do something slightly insane like it and I think this is the perfect monologue for me.

Improvisation- Quick and Unexpected Acting

Improv was something I was hoping we would do in this class, so I was very excited when I saw that improv was planned for when we got back from our Thanksgiving break! I have played many improv games before and I really like doing them. I have never performed a true improved skit in front of people, but I would love to do an improv skit one day.

Some of the improv games we did in class on Tuesday were pretty fun, yet challenging. One of my favorite improv games to play is the one (I forget the name of it, sorry) where we stand in two lines and rotate between performing and action and making up a line. I usually have a hard time thinking of a creative action to do, but some crazy one-liner will always come to me pretty quickly. I am not the most creative person, but I think in our improv games I did pretty well in coming up with good reactions and lines. It felt good to make everybody laugh. One of my favorite moments was when I quoted my grandmother in the game and made everybody laugh.

The other improv game we played with the creating a scenario and an objective was much harder to play. While I could come up with scenarios and objectives for my classmates came easily for me, performing it myself was really hard. With the first game we played, the scenes were very short and usually comedic. This game required a lot more thinking and focus. Also, I was laughing a lot throughout the scene as well which is something you don't want to do on stage. While I feel that this was a good improv game to play, it was a bit too challenging and I preferred the first one we played a lot more. It was also much more easy to understand.

Improv is a very challenging part of acting. While some people do it for fun or in troupes, good actors have to be skilled with improv. In case something in the show goes wrong or a line is forgotten, actors have to be quick-witted to say or do something that will make sense to the storyline and keep the conversation going. One things that I learned in class was to never say no while doing improv. It stops the conversation and kills the mood of the scene. I view improv in the way that improv is sort of like surfing in a way that you have to ride the wave in whichever way it takes you, even if it somewhere you don't want to go, to stay afloat. Improv can be very challenging, especially if the person you are acting with does something unexpected. You always have to be focused and thinking about good ways to act and react.

I hope that we can continue to play a couple more improv games if we have the time to before the end of this course, although I am excited to work on my final audition piece which I am planning to be a dramatic monologue.

Dramatic Scene Evaluation and Thoughts

The process of finding a dramatic scene was a long and strenuous one. You would be surprised how hard it is to find a good scene with three women in it that had about the same number of lines! I had originally picked out a scene from Mean Girls with Alexis while Abby was away but during the read through to the class, they did not think the scene would be a right fit for us. We were disappointed because we are both HUGE Mean Girls fans, but I am actually happy that we did not go through with the Mean Girls scene. I do not think it would challenge us as actors. I feel that we would not have designed our own acting but rather copied how it was acted in the movie. We continued to look for scenes, but all we found were missing something that we wanted in our dramatic scene.

Finally, we found a scene that worked for us. Abby had copied and printed it out for us and at first, I was not sure that it would work for us because it seemed like a somewhat poetic scene. However, I quickly discovered that this was a perfect scene that would really require us to channel deep emotion. Also, we all had an equal amount of lines so one actress was not more pronounced than another. The dramatic scene is a collection of accounts from survivors about a plane crash that killed 71 people. However, it is almost like a flashback in the way that we tell the story of the day that a devastating tragedy occurred. The scene is not a pleasant one- it goes into detail about the loss of human lives and how the dead faces haunt them in the present.

We all did many acting exercises to help us get into our character and the dark story in acting class. Abby had a lot of useful strategies to help memorize lines and how to deliver lines. We each had a unique element we added to the scene and while it was hard to figure out how we wanted to block it at first, we worked together and created the scene's blocking and emotion. One of my favorite parts of the scene is the ending in which we each turn out our lanterns and the scene ends in darkness. I liked that we shot the scene in the dark with only a small light on our faces. It made the scene very dramatic and eerie. When we finally performed our scene, we were so happy with the outcome! Our classmates really liked it too and it felt great that after all the struggles, we performed a great scene. I feel that this scene challenged me the most as an actor because of how tragic and depressing the scene is. It was not something I have ever performed before and I feel happy with my final performance.

Unfortunately, I did not get to see the other groups' final cuts of their scenes. I really enjoyed Duncan and Lisa's scene in classes. It reminded me of a scene straight out of an action movie. I think all of us were challenged in our dramatic scenes and it helped us become better actors.

Improv Troupes Assignment

http://youtu.be/2D2F7VUCl10

Second Star to the Right!

I am very proud of my performance in Peter Pan! It was the most lines I've ever had in a play and I was in every single act. It was a big accomplishment for me and one of the best play experiences I've ever had. The first night, I was extremely nervous. I was terrified that I would miss my cue and very nervous that I would not get changed in time. Thankfully, I did not have any problems with the quick changes. I was rushing a lot to get changed, however. The first night I believe was my worst performance simply because I was so nervous. I'm usually very calm before plays but I was stressed out on the opening night. Erin really helped me calm down when I was backstage in Act Two and I was really grateful for that. I then became less and less nervous the more I was on stage. On the last act, I did break character for a little bit. When Mr. Porter said his line, the audience was hysterical and some of the people around me were laughing too. I bit my tongue, but I knew I was smiling a little too. The next performances I did not laugh or smile, but it was really hard simply because of how funny his voice was and how much the audience enjoyed the line. The second performance was also a success, but I was bit tired from the last night's performance. I think the whole cast was a little exhausted and unfocused, but we still did a good job I believe the last night was my best performance because I was very focused and had experience on stage. A lot of my friends came Sunday and I was really happy that they came. They enjoyed the show and I was happy that they did. I am very proud of the cast, crew, student directors, and Ms. G for making the play a great learning experience in acting for me. I had a great time and can't wait for the winter musical!

In-Class Writing: Dramatic Scene

Second Choral Dialogue

The scene that I am performing with Abby and Alexis is a very dark one. It is about three women who encounter firsthand a plane crash that kills 71 people and recall the events. My character is an unnamed woman (Woman 2) who experiences the tragedy. I was driving to the petrol station when I see the plane crash and then I see a man who is holding the body of his daughter. Like the other two women, I also see the other bodies of those who died in the plane crash.

The scene is a hard one to reform because of how horrible the event is. For this scene, I am trying to convey that I am a woman who witnessed a horrible tragedy that will forever be scarred. However, I have been trying to show my emotions and voice in a monotone way, like I am trying to tell the events but keep myself calm and not lose it as I remember them. I think at one point I should show severe signs of PTSD (maybe on the line "we saw the bodies ) and start to panic/have a nervous breakdown. I don't think this scene requires too much movement, but I would like to work with Abby and Alexis to add a bit more. I like what we have in the beginning with the stepping forward and the raising of the head. In the end, I would like to close with a bit more movement.


When we perform this scene, we are planning to hold lanterns with both of our hands solemnly. We will also have dark music playing softly in the background to add to the element of sadness.

Mean Girls Acting Scene with Alexis

Here is the link to the dramatic Mean Girls scene I am performing with Alexis:
http://youtu.be/sT8wMBeVffk

Pringles or Ruffles or Aliens?

To my surprise, Abby and I finished our scene today, and I think we did it very well! Today, I was very nervous about performing our scene. I wasn't feeling that great today and the weird schedule today totally threw me off my game. However, I felt very focused while doing our scene today. Abby and I were planning to go last because we had gone first the other day, so we were a little nervous going up to perform after watching Jack and Duncan's scene.

Abby and I had a lot of fun performing our scenes. We both really got into character. I remember practicing with her the other day and we just burst out laughing because we both could never imagine being so rude, especially to each other. It was a stretch for both of us, but it was such a fun scene to perform. I've always been the type of person to be super patient and understanding of people. If you read zodiacs, the Libra is often portrayed as the easygoing doormat of the signs that just wants everyone to be happy and peaceful. I am a Libra and most of these zodiacs are absolutely true for me. That is who I truly am, but growing up I've always loved e mean characters in movies. One of my favorite mean girl characters as a little kid was Tess from Camp Rock, who was a rich girl that had 2 loyal followers and hated everyone else. Totally opposite of me, but I've always loved these characters! Now, my favorite mean character is Regina George from Mean Girls.

Both of our characters are rather rude and unfriendly, which is what makes the scene so funny. I think we did a really good job at being snotty and passive aggressive until the end where I trip Barbara (Abby). It's silly to think that such a thing as chips would cause such an argument, which is why I love the scene. One thing I think we both could've improved on our scene is fanning out more. For some parts, I was faced towards Abby and you could only see a side profile. However, I think our facial expressions, vocal tone, and body language was great. Our characters were fun to portray and I think we did a great job in character development exercises which led to a good performance.

I really enjoyed Jack and Duncan's scene as well. At first, I thought the scene was horrible and I had no idea how they could pull it off. The time they performed it the other day, I saw great progress. I really liked Jack as the alien and Duncan as the agent. I can tell being an alien was a stretch for Jack, so I think he did a great job! It became a really funny scene as well; at first I did not find it amusing at all. It's weird, but I like watching things get knocked over/destroyed. I also think they did a great job portraying the scene as a hallucination, which I thought they would have trouble with. I would've loved to see Jack to a weird alien-y voice, but I think it still worked out fine.


I can't wait to see the last scene tomorrow!

Link to my acting scene with Abby

Here is the link to the scene:
http://youtu.be/RmicFziWYqU

Link to silent movie

Here is the link to the silent movie:

http://youtu.be/qJYfdbPu9zI

Character Study/Scene Study

The character I portray in my short scene with Abby is named Ally. In the scene, Ally and Barbara (Abby's character) fight with each other over the last tube of Pringles.

Ally
Who is Ally?

Age: 28

Backstory: Ally grew up a spoiled only child with two loving parents who let Ally run the house. However, they always taught her to be proper and to have good manners. In this scene, I hope to portray Ally has a person who is proper and poised but is not afraid to argue to get her way because she is so used to it.

Family: Ally has no kids of her own because she does not want to be pregnant for 9 months and "get fat." She has one adopted child from Italy and a husband named Louis. She married her husband when she was 20 for "true love" aka, good looks and money. He is often at work and does not pay much attention to her, but Ally believes that he is very loyal to her because she is beautiful.

Education: Ally graduated college and medical school to become a nurse. She just finished her education and has been a nurse for a year.

Status and Living Situation: Ally is definitely a socialite in her neighborhood. She is not the most wealthy herself but, because of her husband, she has a lot of money. Many of her friends also have wealthy husbands, and they get together for dinner parties at least once a month. Ally is used to getting what she wants, so dealing with a person much different than her like Barbara will be challenging.

Motivation: Ally's motivation to come to the grocery store is to get some food for the week to bring home for her husband and kid. Pringles are her child's favorite snack food, so she decides to get the Pringles. It is not so much that Ally really wants the Pringles, but she is used to getting what she wants and it is outrageous to her that someone could so rude as to argue with her.

Appearance:
Good posture
Hands on hips while arguing
Hair kept in a tight bun with no flyaways
Fancy gold silver jewelry with pearls
High heels that always make an obnoxious 'clomp' sound

Movements:
Slow, collected at the beginning of the monologue.
Hands folded or on hips as Ally gets more annoyed.
Rolling of eyes and exasperated sighs as Barbara gets madder.

My acting journey and progress so far

Wow! I have come such a long way since the beginning of the school year, and it has only been 2 months. It feels like just yesterday I was sitting in the pews of St. Bridget Church at convocation surrounded by people I didn't know at all, starting high school. I still remember our first acting class, where we learned each other's names through games.

Since I have had experience acting before, I assumed that going into this class I would do really well and learn a couple extra tips, but not a lot more than I already knew. Boy, was I wrong! Well, I am satisfied with myself in acting class so far, but there are many things that I have learned and can still improve on. My first monologue I performed was easy for me because I wasn't playing a character, but rather myself. However, it was somewhat challenging for me to perform. One thing I struggled with was balancing good facial expressions with good body language. It was much more hard for me than I thought! Each draft I did of my monologue, either I would have great facial expressions and poor body language or great body language and movement but horrible facial expressions. It took me a lot of attempts to get a monologue that balanced both of those out well.

My second monologue was definitely a challenge for me. I loved the monologue, but knew it would be a stretch for me to perform. The character I had to portray was very different than any I have played before. Also, the monologue was very confusing to block. The first couple times I performed the monologue to the class, everyone didn't' really know what I was performing. It was disheartening to me because I thought I was doing well, but I learned from others' feedback on how to make it more believable. Everyone's advice and encouragement helped me to do better with my dramatic monologue. I still don't think I did the best job with this monologue and could've chosen a more simpler one to perform, but looking back the monologue was a good choice because it made me learn many things about the importance of blocking and body movement to convey emotions.

My most recent performance in acting class was the silent movie. This was by far my favorite assignment to perform because I like working in groups and performing comedically. One of my goals for the silent movie was portraying a nurse well. I think I worked hard and did a good job at fitting into that role! A couple nights ago I showed my mom the silent movie and she found it hysterical. I was so happy that she enjoyed watching the silent movie just as much as I did performing it. Of course. I have to thank Lisa, Alexis, and Abby for doing an amazing job at being old people.

My goals for this upcoming semester are to continue being focused in acting class and working hard. I also want to remember to take criticism as a gift, not an offense. My goal is to listen to the feedback of others and to give good feedback in return so our class as a whole can have a great experience acting!

In Class Writing

Dayna Freeman                                                                                                                   10/15/15

In Class Writing - Acting


To my surprise, I really enjoyed doing a silent movie in class. It was really fun to perform and really entertaining to watch the other group. I think both our groups did an excellent job with their silent movies. Silent movies are not an easy thing to pull off and can be confusing to the audience if not performed well. I believe the greatest strength of both of our groups was doing a great job portraying stereotypical characters and working along well together. You could tell in the silent movie we all knew how to interact with each other to make it funny and believable.

 My group did a silent movie called "Back in my Day". My group got along really well together and all put in our ideas for the silent movie. We had good coordination working together to perform our silent movie and we helped each other if we were struggling. I really liked our story line. My role of the nurse I could understand and relate to because my grandmother has dementia and absolutely hates senior centers. She says they're full of old people and that she hates card games and bingo. She refuses to go to any senior center and insists on living on her own. While performing, I was imagining that Abby, Lisa, and Alexis were my grandmother that was cranky at a senior center. I imagined that I was trying to calm down my grandmother when she got mad. Of course, towards the end, I get exasperated with the fighting seniors (I can get a little exasperated with my grandmother too!) and just give them a blank stare as they continue to be annoying. My group did a great job at facial and body expressions. I could absolutely believe they were stereotypical cranky old people at a senior center. I think one thing I could've done better was having more consistent facial expressions throughout and showing the contrast between the kind, patient nurse and the annoyed, exasperated nurse. As a whole, I think our group could've been more focused in rehearsals. I feel like if we were a bit more focused on the performance than the music we could've done a better job.

The boys' group performed a silent movie called "The world's best cupcake". I loved their silent movie because it created suspense but was also very funny to watch. I also love the opening song to their silent movie (I forget what it is called but I've heard it before) because it creates a serene atmosphere but also one of mystery. Another thing that stood out to me was Jack behind the wall peeking his head around the corner to watch John. It was a classic "bad guy hiding" move and it was stereotypical but funny. I also liked the exact moment when Duncan and Jack reached for the cupcake. It was the iconic moment of the silent movie where the fighting starts. One thing I think could've been done better was a little less talking in the beginning. It was a little tedious to me and I think it could've been shorter and more to the point. Another thing I would've liked to stand out more was when Duncan was dying, but John actually killed him by stepping on him. It was a little difficult to understand and I think it could be more pronounced.

Senior Centers and Silent Movies

Performing a silent movie was surprisingly a very fun and exciting experience for me. I have never really known what silent movies were before this project. If you'd have asked me what a silent movie was, I would probably just stare at you blankly and ask how a movie could be silent and still be a movie. Well, now I know better and I really enjoy them! I loved working with the other girls in class for this project. We had a rocky start and experimented with a lot of different ideas, but as soon as we agreed on doing one about old people playing bingo we knew we had an idea we could work with. The plot actually came very easy to us- we didn't need to do a lot of brainstorming on it. We all agreed that it would be a really funny and cute silent movie. My role in my silent movie was the nurse of the senior center that I work at. I was the one character in the silent movie that wasn't elderly, so I had to clearly act out that I wasn't like them. I think I conveyed that I was a nurse well in the story because I moved at a normal pace and my body actions weren't delayed. I think in my facial expressions and emotions I conveyed that I was a nice caretaker that was trying her best to take care of the elderly. Well, a caretaker that gets a little exasperated working with cranky old people all day! Looking back on performing the silent movie, one thing I could've improved was showing the contrast between the kind and incredibly patient nurse at the beginning to the exasperated and annoyed nurse after a long day of dealing with angry seniors. However, I liked how I did my ending with Abby where we went off stage together on the wheelchair. It added a little romance to the plot and a lot of humor to the ending. One thing I definitely could've done better was to be more serious during rehearsals. Although I was having a great time rehearsing our silent movie, I could've been a little more serious and focused. However, I believe our final result we were all very serious and concentrated on performing well. One my group's biggest strengths in performing our silent movies is that we all worked very well together and our silent movie was made up of all of our ideas. We all really contributed to the movie and I think that's what made it so fun for us to perform and (hopefully!) very entertaining for the audience as well. Abby, Alexis, and Lisa all did a really good job as old people. They got super into character and did a great job. After we were done rehearsing each day, it was weird for me not to see them shaking with their canes and moving slowly! One of the most important factors for a silent movie is for the characters to be well understood, or stereotyped. They all did an excellent job stereotyping cranky old people at a senior center.

Plot of the silent movie

Here is what our plot of our silent movie looks like so far:

Beginning
elderly home
Middle
Smb claims to have bingo
Fights breaks out for the bingo
Alexis accidentally hits Abby's face with a cane
Abby's dentures fall out
Ending
Trying to pick them up

Movements
Alexis and Lisa are sitting making puzzles
Dayna is rolling Abby in and then she says: "Bingo time"
Everyone sits down and play bingo says" B 52"
Lisa and Alexis claim they have a bingo( stand up at same time. cards that says "bingo bingo!!!")
The fight starts:
Alexis bites her thumb at Lisa meanwhile, Abby is sitting with Dayna behind fight (
lisa throws bingo card at Shannok
Shanok SLOWLY moves Cane to hit Lisa
Lisa ducks
Cane hits Abby in face (close up shot)
Dentures fall out of Abby's mouth close up shot to where they fall on ground
Alexis and Lisa very slowly me in pain bend down to get dentures.
Eventually Dayna bends down
Zoom in to her hand only picking up dentures
Hands to Abby
Dayna sits in Abby's lap and they  wheels off, while the other two are left in pain
Heart that closes off scene

My first experience with silent movies

The link to the silent movie I watched is here: http://youtu.be/oj20onQnTww

I really liked the silent movie because it was cute and had moments of sadness and happiness. I think the setting for the monologue was very realistic and that the characters were relatable too. Although the boy who was the main character was a teenager, he did a good job of portraying a younger boy well. One thing that I disliked about the silent movie was that the facial expressions could've been much better. While they conveyed enough emotion for me to get the general message, atoints the facial expressions were very average and bland. All the actors could've shown much more emotion in their faces. Silent movies are a lot different than talking movies because talking is one of the primary ways humans interact with each other. In real life, most conversations we have with other people are more talking with the other person than being really emotional. Typically, we don't use extravagant facial expressions while talking to one another. While you have to be an actor in movies, you have to be a very emotional actor in silent movies. Since there is no language for the audience to understand, you have to convey your emotions through body movement and facial expressions. Silent movies don't rely just on the actors' body movements and facial expressions. They rely on other things to make a silent movie entertaining and understandable. Sometimes in silent movies there is background music to add a tone to the story. In this monologue, a youthful piano tune was played in the background to symbolize a story about a child. In the silent movie I watched, the boy's best friend was a teddy bear. The teddy bear is a prop that pieces together the whole monologue. Most of the story is revolved around finding the boy's teddy bear that is missing. Another prop in the story that stood out to me was the notebook that the boy was drawing in. He missed his best friend, the teddy bear, and is shown drawing a picture of him and the teddy bear holding hands right before the girl gives him his teddy bear. It was a sad but cute moment where it showed that the teddy bear was important to the boy. Setting is also very important for silent movies. The setting of the silent movie that I watched was in a stereotypical suburban neighborhood. The setting seemed like a very realistic place for the boy and the other characters in the story to be. Another thing that is important for silent movies to be understood is predictable characters. The boy and girl in the story are typical little kids that like stuffed animals and would be very upset if the lost their teddy bear. When the girl gives the boy his teddy bear in the end of the movie, the boy is very happy and also makes a new friend- the girl. The movie ends with the boy and girl running down a street, both holding each arm of the teddy bear. I learned from watching this movie the importance of facial expressions and that silent movies can work and be entertaining with the right elements.

Link to my dramatic monologue

Here is the YouTube link to my monologue:
https://youtu.be/xz7WiEoziYU

Evaluating my Dramatic Monologue

Although I have not performed my final draft yet, I have evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of my monologue. I believe my strengths in my dramatic monologue are my facial expressions and my vocal tone. I am strong at articulating my words and being loud while performing monologues. I also believe that I can believably convey nervousness and anxiety through facial expressions. However, I think that in my final draft I need sound more nostalgic when I talk about when my father was a cop. I believe that my weaknesses are pacing in the monologue. My monologue is not that long, and when I perform it too fast I end up finishing it at around 45 seconds. In my final draft, I want to be able to wake sure that my pauses are just the right amount of time to add tension but not too long and drawn out. I believe that if I pace correctly than I will improve the monologue and make the one minute mark. I also think that I can improve my body language and movements throughout the monologue. I have experiment a little with my body expressions for a while and I think I finally have them set down. Being strong with my actions will contribute to making this monologue believable and help me become my character. One thing I want to work on and hope I achieve in my final draft is building up tension as the monologue continues until the ending where it finally is released. I also want to be able to convey my monologue in a way that the beginning lines of the monologue are understood as a conversation with a police officer and that the rest of my monologue is a flashback to when I was younger. The dramatic monologue I am performing now is a lot different than my first monologue. This monologue, I have to play a character instead of myself. My monologue is also very serious and does not have any comedy unlike my "Who am I" monologue. I feel like this monologue is harder to perform because the character I play, Sue, is very unlike me and has a very different background than me. There is not a long backstory revealed for my character, so I had to be creative in imaging how she would act and talk. I really have to get into character and be serious for this monologue. Watching other students in my class perform their dramatic monologue has helped me perform my monologue. A lot of our monologues are very similar to each other and have dark undertones. I have learned how to get into my serious character by watching other people playing their own characters, although our monologues and characters are all very different from each other.  Everyone's feedback in class has really helped me to connect more with my audience. My first draft of the monologue is extremely different than what I am working on in my monologue now. When I perform my final draft, I will do my best to follow their advice and to remember what I have worked on. If I do that, I know that this monologue will be both interesting and believable for my audience!

My Monologue's Character

The character I read as, Sue, does not have a detailed backstory but one that provides a basis for the monologue. In the beginning of the monologue, Sue is talking to a police officer and offers to help the officer in any way she can. She states that she respects officers a lot and that her father is one. Because her father is a police officer, she has a lot of admiration for them. Sue and her mother worry a lot about her father because being a police officer is a dangerous job. They often watch the news and see reports of injured or killed police officers, which gives them great anxiety because they don't know if Sue's father is okay. The setting is not clearly described, but I imagine that it is Sue sitting in her room telling this monologue, waiting for her father to come home late at night. I think that for the blocking, I will start off sitting down but will eventually stand up and start pacing around because I want to portray that I am anxiously waiting for my father to get home so I know he is safe. When I say the line "I'd watch him from my bedroom window and when I saw him come home, I could finally sleep", I will stop my pacing and sit down back in the chair.

Text for Dramatic Monlogue

"Nervous" by D.M Larson

Sue

Of course. I'm always happy to help an officer of the law. My father was a police officer. I have a lot of respect for what you do.

Mom was always so worried about him... I was too... so worried about what might happen to him.  There are a lot of crazy people out there who aren't afraid to hurt a cop. We'd watch the news each night, worried we might hear something about dad.  The news would always do these horrible teasers... officer shot in the line of duty... story at 10...  mom would always scramble for the phone.   She had to know he was okay.  But I'd still stay up late and wait for him... every night... waiting.  I'd watch from my bedroom window and when I saw him come home, I could finally sleep.

End of Scene

(Here is the link to the website I got the monologue from: http://www.freedrama.net/nervous.html)

Evaluating my Monologue

I feel confident that I had both strengths and weaknesses in my "Who am I" monologue. I think that one strength was my facial expressions. I feel like I had a lot of good facial expressions that were appropriate for the monologue. I also feel like I did well on my hand motions. At first I was very nervous about my hand motions and was afraid to be too fidgety or too still. When I fully memorized my monologue and used my facial expressions, the hand and arm motions came naturally to me. I also feel that one of my strengths was my articulation. In my posted video, I was articulate and I had pretty good pacing. I felt like it all flowed really well. I could also easily understand what I was saying. I think that one of my most important strengths was that I was really into my monologue because it was very true to myself. I also had a couple weaknesses, however. I definitely feel I could've cut out a couple sentences or two that were unnecessary details. One example is "we don't go there often, but it's always a treat when we do (about the Cheesecake Factory). I also feel that one of my weaknesses was not having a consistent tempo while speaking. I feel like at some points I went fast and then went slow soon after. I feel like I have learned a lot from performing my first monologue. In my next monologue, I know that I will be much more comfortable presenting my monologue in the first place. I also feel like that I will be able to memorize my monologue and act it out much more easily. One of my biggest struggles was learning to balance the memorization aspect with the performing aspect of the monologue. During my monologue takes, I would either have great facial expressions and hand movement but forget my lines or I would memorize my monologue but not have good hand movement and facial expressions. I think that now I know how to balance these aspects to perform a good monologue. From watching my peers, I learned a lot of things. Every one of them did an amazing job in the end. But I could also relate to their process of the end result. I loved learning about each person's story. Some were funny and some were serious, but they were all very well delivered and very interesting. I think that giving feedback to each other was very important because we helped them improve their monologues and we learned how to improve our own. I think we all learned from each other's mistakes by watching everyone perform their monologue multiple times in front of the class. Receiving feedback was very helpful for me. A lot of people recommended that I should do more actions with my body instead of staying in place. Once I started doing that, I feel like it made my monologue a lot better. I was also happy to hear the positive feedback, like how they enjoyed my monologue and that I had great facial expressions. In all, this monologue has made me much less nervous to give a "speech", and to use my acting skills in my monologue.

Who Am I Monologue Link

Below is the link to my "Who Am I" Monologue video, enjoy!

https://youtu.be/ltSyOIxtLw4

About Myself Monologue

Hi. I'm Dayna Freeman, and I am 13 years old. Yes, I am thirteen years old and a freshman. Explanation? Well, I didn't skip a grade- technically. My birthday is September 30th which is an odd time of the year to be born. It's about a month into the school year, which is precisely why my age can be so confusing to others. A week before Kindergarten started, my parents were really concerned about me being the only four year old in the class. The teacher, Mrs. Silver (who is the nicest person I've ever met) recommended that I was smart enough to go straight to Kindergarten. Well, thank God I did, because I would be incredibly bored and frustrated as an 8th grader. Unfortunately, being a year younger than everyone else always causes problems for me.  New people I meet are almost always shocked when I tell them my age. Throughout my life I've been pretty tall for a girl up until about a year ago since I've stopped growing and I'm staying an average 5'6". It's not that I want to give the appearance of being older than I am, but it is almost like people are disappointed when they find out I'm younger then them. It can be incredibly frustrating, especially because most of the time the person is only a year older than me. As a little kid I would hate when kids a year or two older than me would talk in a baby voice to me. Well, that doesn't happen any more, but my age does cause other problems. For example, last week I was signing up for my dance classes this year. I decided to take only tap and jazz because I really wanted to focus on school and afternoon activities. The studio had implemented a new system where you typed in your age and it would sign you up for the appropriate class. Of course, I got selected into Junior jazz and Junior tap. I had no idea what time my actual classes of senior tap and senior jazz would be until just a couple days ago. It's incredibly frustrating, especially because it happens every single year with dance. But, my age doesn't bring me down. When my birthday comes along my parents and I make a huge deal of it- I get what we call a "birthday week", where everyone has to be an angel to me and I can pick a restaurant I want to go to. I usually choose the Cheesecake Factory, which is my favorite restaurant. We don't go there often, so it's always a treat when we do. My birthday isn't a bad time of year either - the beginning of fall where it is still warm but the leaves change colors is my favorite time of year. I know that when I'm in college, being a year younger won't be such a bad thing either.

Becoming an actress

Acting has always be so much fun for me. While I never participated in real plays as a kid, I always loved watching them. I would love to go to the annual shows at Wallingford's public high school, Sheehan. One of my favorites that they performed was The Wizard of Oz. I would really look up to the high schoolers in the play. My first real play was a musical. It was Peter Pan, which I performed in the Wallingford Community Theater. I knew a couple people going into the theater that I danced with, but I really did not know anybody at the theater. I remember the first few weeks of rehearsal I was so shy and nervous of the people around me. I became friends with some girls my age, but I still was very introverted. However, the last month of rehearsal began to change me. I had always had fun at rehearsals even if I was not extremely outgoing. But towards the end of the musical I had grown with everybody and was a lot more comfortable with what I was learning. I remember the last week before we took to the Sheehan stage for dress rehearsals we were in one small, crowded room. We were all really upset that we couldn't get a bigger room at the Park and Rec at first. But after five hours a night of being in each other's company, we really grew close and bonded as a cast. By the end of that week, I had made a lot more friends in the theater and was much more comfortable than I had been before. The last two weeks, including show night, were the best part of my summer. We were all having such a great time and the costumes were truly fitted to the story. On the closing night, we were all really sad to leave each other. When school started, I decided it would be fun to do the school's musical which also turned out to be Peter Pan. The school's production was much different because it was based off of the Disney movie Peter Pan and not the original English play. It was still very fun, and I got a lead in the play. This summer was my third musical called Happy Days: A New Musical. It has definitely been my favorite musical so far. However, I was very sad when it started because a couple of my good friends had left and a lot of people I knew left as well. We gained a ton more children in place of them which was not helpful because the musical is based off of teenagers and adults. The kids, however, really grew on me and I became very good friends with the new people that joined the theater too. I loved the songs, storyline, and background of the musical. All of us had a really good time performing. Acting is about being clear, understandable, and most importantly, being your character. In this acting class, I hope I can learn to grow into my character, be louder and clearer, and be confident in my character. I look forward to my next performance!

About Myself

Hi everyone!
I'm very excited to be posting my first blog on blogger.com. This blog will be about myself so that you can get to know me better. My name is Dayna Freeman and I live in Wallingford, Connecticut. I am 13 years old. Yes, I am a freshman and not an 8th grader. My birthday is on September 30th and I had the option to stay in preschool or skip straight to Kindergarten and I chose to go to Kindergarten. Thankfully I made the right choice, I can't imagine myself as an 8th grader right now. I live with my parents and 4 cats. Their names are Buddy, Chub-Chub, Holly, and Mimi. They are all 10 years old except for Holly, who is 8. They are all rescue cats. I love them a lot, even if they can be really noisy when I'm trying to work or sleep. I have been dancing at the Academy of Dance and Music in Wallingford for 11 years now. I have taken a variety of classes - Acro, Jazz, Tap, Hip Hop, Ballet, Street Tap, and more. This year, I will take Tap, Jazz, and a special class on Saturdays for Disney. This is the second year my studio has a special class where we learn two routines to perform in Walt Disney World. It was a lot of fun when I did it two years ago and I'm excited to go to Disney again! Another big part of my life is being a member of Wallingford Community Theater. This summer was my second year as a member of the cast. My first musical with WCT was "Peter Pan", in which I was a member of the pirate chorus and a featured Indian dancer. This summer, I was a Pinkette and featured dance in the musical "Happy Days: A New Musical". Happy Days has been my favorite musical so far because the songs are very upbeat and the characters are very relatable. WCT takes up a lot of time in summer at night, but it is so much fun and the shows are amazing. My favorite color changes often, but right now it is iridescent. My favorite singer is Ariana Grande. I saw her live in concert on her Honeymoon Tour in March and she was amazing. She is just as good live as she is in the studio which I really admire. My favorite season is the summer because I love the warm weather and going to the beach. However, fall would be my favorite season if it weren't so cool here in Connecitcut. Halloween is my favorite holiday which is one reason why I love fall (and October) so much. I love having a valid excuse to dress up in a costume and Halloween is the perfect occasion for dressing up. I also love doing makeup. One of my favorite youtubers, Madeyewlook, posts amazing tutorials on makeup. She is best at doing creepy makeup but can do incredible things with normal makeup too. I'm nowhere near as talented a makeup artist as her, but I love trying out some of her tutorials when I have the time.

Thanks for reading my blog- I hope you learned something interesting about me! Keep updated for more posts soon!
Dayna Freeman