Unit 12: Proposal form

Proposal form: Unit 12

Candidate name:  Deja Lee

Candidate number:  S0194037

Pathway:  Level 3 Acting

Project Title:  Final Major Project

Section one – Review 

Throughout the past two years, and the last 11 units. I’ve grown as an actress and have learnt so many qualities and skills. During this time period I’ve learned what I am good and I’ve learnt to look at objectives and actions in order to create a realistic scenes. By doing so it brings more body to the performance. My knowledge of Stanislavski theory of Action. Action simply means doing something. Imagination. Imagination is like fuel for an artist. Or Chekhov’s technique, according to Chekhov, the work of the actor is to create an inner event which is an actual experience occurring in real time within the actor. With each performance we as a class has done ranging from “Oedipus” to “A Questmas Story” I believe each of these performances have allowed me to display my skills in different ways, which allows me to show my range. I will continue to perfect each skill I’ve learnt over the last 2 years.

I will take my work from these eleven units in to higher education and further on in my career. All the knowledge I’ve learnt have been extremely helpful to help me get where I want to be, and to succeed in what I want to do. I have learnt great skills to help me such as directing and script writing as it is extremely important to understand what’s going on behind the camera as well as what you are doing in front of it. I can say I’ve written my own script and watched it, be performed by professionals actors. That was an amazing experience because of a company called “Papatango”. Papatango taught me the skills to also have some keen interests in playwriting or even better the directing industry. doing the workshop can also be added onto an action CV or even a UCAS application for drama school or university. I have also learnt about the importance of body language. Body language plays a decisive part in the communication. Unlike words or even facial expressions, the body always tells the truth. So it is essential for when acting to not only to know your  own body language, but to be able to use it consciously, deliberately and in various ways. Now I’ll be able to bring all these skills into Midsummers Night Dream.

Section two – Project concept 

Our final project is William Shakespeare’s Midsummers Nights Dream, one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a tragic comedy written in 1595/96. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of Theseus to Hippolyte. There is an adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six mechanicals who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest. 

I have two aims within this performance. The first one is to convey an authentic character, my character that I auditioned for and got is” Puck”. Puck has a miscreant male spirit and capricious humor, and along with his magic, sets many of the play's events in motion by means of both deliberate pranks on the human characters and his tendency toward making unfortunate mistakes. The first challenge of playing this character is that he is a male. Throughout playing this Puck he imitates other males characters voices in a sense of mocking and tricking them. This means I will have to work a lot on voice control and mastering the different voices. So that they all sound different and not just deeper. However it’s not all about the voice it’s to do with the body language, and the essence of the character himself. As puck is very mischievous on one hand but on the other he is also good hearted. He does attempt to undo his initial mistake and in the end, he sets things to rights. He even takes a moment to apologise to the audience.              

I will achieve this through practicing techniques such as body language work and voice control, as well as researching all aspects of the play whether it be the character, or the context.

Our idea for the tragic Romcom is to modernise it and make it our own, however keep the main Greek  essence of the play. We are doing the play in a steampunk style. This will include the types of clothes we will wear for our characters. Steampunk fashion is a subgenre of the steampunk movement in science fiction. It is a mixture of the Victorian era's romantic view of science in literature and elements from the Industrial Revolution in Europe during the 1800s.

As for casting and how we will perform the show. We have been slit into 2 groups as we are a large group. This way we have more options for characters and makes it easier for rehearsing and making sure everyone has a decent amount of lines. Our casting was gender neutral so that we are able to make a statement but keep the aesthetic of the play. This is why my character is male, part of a statement also a challenge. While rehearsing and learning more about this play I will continue to do my research on his attitudes and movements and characteristics to make sure that I’m playing the character to my best ability. We will be doing this performance “in the round” this means we won’t be facing one direction, we have to keep turning around to make sure everyone and see and hear us. This also means that at times our backs will face the audience. In effect, theatre in the round removes the fourth wall and brings the actor into the same space as the audience. For location we are having an outdoor theatre location this well help with connecting with the audience and experience working outside of our comfort zone of working inside the college walls.

Section Three: Evaluation 

To evaluate on my performance during all the rehearsals we have been given feedback and different activities we can do to help us with character building: such as “A day in the life of your character”. This helps me get a better understanding of my character in everyday life and not just the play. There are a few  procedures in which I can assess myself for this project. To self evaluate myself during performance rehearsals, I can ask my tutor to focus on certain parts of my characteristics while I’m performing. For an example one day I could ask my tutor to focus on my voice for my character and projection. Then the next day I could for my tutor to focus on my body language and posture to make sure I stay in character. This helps me perfect every aspect of my character. By doing this also enable me to reflect on my work and see if I am making a progress in various different areas. As learning the lines is the bare minimum. Once you learn the lines it enables you to begin to have control over making the character yours and using everything you’ve learned to make the character great. By setting goals for certain characteristics helps make sure you stay on track to get everything you need done in time. It helps that we are always getting feedback constantly for example, if we run through a scene and part of the scene is not lifted off the paper we will get stopped and will get given feedback and have to redo the scene until it’s better and matching the energy throughout the rest of the scenes. It helps to have tutors that are very persistent and will also set us deadlines to make sure we have structure.

In addition to my evaluation I am making sure I understand exactly what my character is saying, as it shows if you don’t understand. I’ve been using sites such as No fear Shakespeare and Spark notes to annotate my script. Annotated my script helped me a lot understand the ideas and feelings the character is feeling in modern English.This allow me to play with the emotions connected to that scene. 

To make sure that I achieve my goals is by making sure that I try to block out as many distractions as possible. Especially when working in a group, there can be many distractions. To help with my self evaluation I use my peers to hear their feedback as feedback from peers that are also doing the performance and understand the process is a bit different from feedback from your tutors. 

Using the blogs for self reflection is also very helpful, as blogging after each lesson is useful to have something to look back on in your own words at the end of the performance. That is also why taking notes in lesson is also extremely helpful.

Lastly hearing everyone’s opinions and ideas are important so that everyone feels included and feels that their opinions are valued. This is also important to hear others ideas as people make think of ideas that you do. That can make the performance better, working in a group can be very helpful.