Monologues

      Filming my monologue at the Soho Centre has been a completely new experience for me; even though I knew I needed to get a showreel for my actor profile in the near future and  got used to the  idea of filming a monologue, it was quite an interesting and joyful experience. Being in front of the camera, in a dark room where I could only hear  myself made it easy to concentrate and focus on my thoughts and words.

   I have been knowing that we were going to film a monologue since the last summer, after Rob announced us that we need to find a contemporary and a classical monologue. I have had a hard time choosing the right one for me, as there are a lot of aspects to consider: the character's age, as close as possible to mine, a simple and clear objective and the contrast between the chosen speeches, as any person on the panel at an audition wants to evaluate the versatility and the capacity of an actor to embrace different and contrasting emotions.
   However, the contemorary speech I chose is ''The Blahs'' by Shirley King. It is a 4-minute-monologue. On the filming day, we had a warm up in the theatre, making sure our voice and physical condition were ready for our performance.
   I chose this monologue, because since the first time I read it, I could relate to it. Not exactly to suffering of cancer, but I found a way of replacing some thoughts with real thoughts from situation from real life. This is a thing I have learned last year and I find it useful, as you can adapt to the most, if not any text out there.
    Unfortunately, I had to change to modern monologue, as it was not from a published play and it was going over the 2 minutes usually asked for an audition.
   

     Then I chose my two classical monologues, as some of the drama schools are asking for two in the audition day: Viola, ‘Twelfth Night’ and Phoebe, ‘As You Like It’ by William Shakespeare. Firstly, these two monologues have got clear objectives, this being one of the things that are helping me and that the evaluators are looking for. They are expressing simple and relatable feelings and emotions, but at the same time, there is an interesting plot behind the words. I approach my characters in a natural way, keeping in mind my objective.
      At Young Actors Theatre, having in audience David Schaal, I was focused on making use of the stage, embody the character and be spontaneous. One thing I wasn’t focused on was the tension that I need to build step by step, creating stakes, as David Schaal said. His feedback helped me and reassured me that I am on the good path. I wrote down the really useful things he shared with me and I was interested in his suggestion of having someone to bring me a real ring while rehearsing .