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