Emily is our next 2017 blogger - another delight of an insight into this year at YTYT
This year, for me, at Yew Tree has pushed me in so many ways that I couldn't imagine. The year started with our National Theatre Connections performance of 'Three' at both our local performance and national performance. This pushed me most in terms of character as Lena was perceived as your typical teenage girl who loves boys and hanging out with her friends. However when I dug deeper into her, I discovered so much more about the way she ticks and how her mannerisms differ depending on who she's communicating with; which we see in the play is either inner self or Jamie. Definitely one of the more... interesting/annoying/funny events that happened during Connections was once we'd done our tech run at Sheffield Theatre to then have a power cut throughout the half of Sheffield so we'd have to perform on Monday. But hey, that'd show business! Then in May we had Yew Tree assembles. Here I was lucky to perform 4 pieces: a trailer of Macbeth with Black company, a piece about modern technology connecting others with the former Scarlet company, WYTDC's Disneyland Paris UK performance and last but not least Mogadishu which was one of my LAMDA Grade 5 monologue pieces. Mogadishu was the first time I'd ever performed a monologue to anyone but Sarah so to overcome that was such a rewarding feeling. Also I got such great feedback from my friends and family in the audience that it gave me a confidence for my actual exam that was in early July. Getting to perform our trailer for Macbeth was very rewarding as it got more interest to come see our full show in June.
This then leads me to our full show of Macbeth. Wow. This was definitely one of my hardest challenges of 2017 in acting wise. Despite studying and taking an exam in Macbeth for my English Literature GCSE (and getting A*), I still found it very difficult to grasp the language in acting terms. And trust me, it's so much different to studying it in class. Because of GCSE pressures that I had at this time too, I only wanted a small role so I could also focus on exams. Therefore I played Lady Macduff which, again, brought her character challenges. Firstly, she's a mother. Something that I can't relate to as the only experience I have with children is looking after my cousins and teaching ballet on a Saturday morning. Also, she has to deal with the confusion once her husband has fled and there's hit men at her door ready to murder her and her son. Definitely my favourite part of the scene was having to be strangled as I'd never really done stage fighting and things like that so I found it really fun. I think it's safe to say that Macbeth stretched me and I'm extremely glad I did it.
That leads me onto my first LAMDA exam. For Grade 5, you chose from the few that the exam board set and one contemporary one of your choice. For my set I chose Vicious Circle; a monologue of a girl convicted of murdering her best friend as she retell the tale to her room mate of how she pushed her to the floor, make sure she fell into the water and she pushed her head down until she drowned. Definitely not the nicest thing to vision however the amount of research that I had to do to achieve this was massive as I had to mentally put myself in her shoes and funnily enough, I had never experienced something like this. Then for my second monologue I did Mogadishu (performed at Yew Tree Assembles); about a girl who's complaining to her mum about a boy in her class being annoying yet always gets his own way but ends up going on a massive tangent to how she feels the world is unfair and how people get advantages over others who deserve it and the way society pressures you. However, this had a completely different tone to Vicious Circle as it was a comedic piece and I definitely felt more comfortable in this monologue.
Then I believe we're on to the Christmas Shows 2017. This year I was lucky enough to be in both Gold and Black company's pieces. For Gold, we did a 1950's take on Cinderella however made it our own. We set it in a bar/club and made the plot so it was based more around getting an opportunity to perform, rather than it being all about falling in love (yet we can't forget that part can we, so we made sure it got in there too). This was one of my favourite Christmas shows I've been in (and I've been in about 8 Christmas shows now) as it was completely different to anything we'd done previously in any of the companies. Again this play seemed to be rather character driven (much like Three in that sense) as most of the characters were on stage all the time so, as actors, we had to be able to portray the diverse personalities of all the characters whilst all the others being on stage at the same time. Next was Black company's. Again we did our own spin on a classic story however this time it was A Christmas Carol. We kept Marley however made him a her and made her the narrator and guide through our play. Instead of focusing on the whole story, as a company we took a specific look into how decisions effect our futures. So, we used the three tenses, gave each pair of characters an ultimatum and showed the audience both possible endings yet you'd only see which they decided in the next scene with how they linked up. I was the future scene which I liked as Charlotte and I felt like we got the pace up and the way our characters bounced off of each other really worked for the scene. Then I took my next LAMDA exam, Grade 6 (you thought I'd stopped after the Christmas Shows). This time I could pick my own monologues for both pieces however one was classical and the other contemporary. So, I chose to do Luciana from The Comedy of Errors and Esperence from Children of Killers. Here we are again with the Shakespeare... Luciana and I definitely had a love/hate relationship as I don't feel like I really grasped her character and how I wanted to portray her until the Friday as my exam was on the Sunday. I tried multiple ways to learn lines, delve into her character however it always felt like I was just missing the target. Yet, when I found her, I began to really enjoy playing her and was able to have fun with her. Then was Esperence from Children of Killers. The polar opposite of Luciana. Esperence lives in Rwanda and is having to deal with her mum that died of AIDS, no father, her brother slowly dying and her killers being released from prison too as a result of the Genocide that happened. A lot of research went into this but I found it fascinating researching into the history of it all.
That leads me to now. In the works of Ceasefire Babies, our Connections 2018 play and believe me, it's going to be great (un shameful early promo before the competitive ticket sales starts). 2017 has had loads of opportunities for me with Yew Tree and I can't thank Sarah enough for all the hard work. Here's to 2018!
This year, for me, at Yew Tree has pushed me in so many ways that I couldn't imagine. The year started with our National Theatre Connections performance of 'Three' at both our local performance and national performance. This pushed me most in terms of character as Lena was perceived as your typical teenage girl who loves boys and hanging out with her friends. However when I dug deeper into her, I discovered so much more about the way she ticks and how her mannerisms differ depending on who she's communicating with; which we see in the play is either inner self or Jamie. Definitely one of the more... interesting/annoying/funny events that happened during Connections was once we'd done our tech run at Sheffield Theatre to then have a power cut throughout the half of Sheffield so we'd have to perform on Monday. But hey, that'd show business! Then in May we had Yew Tree assembles. Here I was lucky to perform 4 pieces: a trailer of Macbeth with Black company, a piece about modern technology connecting others with the former Scarlet company, WYTDC's Disneyland Paris UK performance and last but not least Mogadishu which was one of my LAMDA Grade 5 monologue pieces. Mogadishu was the first time I'd ever performed a monologue to anyone but Sarah so to overcome that was such a rewarding feeling. Also I got such great feedback from my friends and family in the audience that it gave me a confidence for my actual exam that was in early July. Getting to perform our trailer for Macbeth was very rewarding as it got more interest to come see our full show in June.
This then leads me to our full show of Macbeth. Wow. This was definitely one of my hardest challenges of 2017 in acting wise. Despite studying and taking an exam in Macbeth for my English Literature GCSE (and getting A*), I still found it very difficult to grasp the language in acting terms. And trust me, it's so much different to studying it in class. Because of GCSE pressures that I had at this time too, I only wanted a small role so I could also focus on exams. Therefore I played Lady Macduff which, again, brought her character challenges. Firstly, she's a mother. Something that I can't relate to as the only experience I have with children is looking after my cousins and teaching ballet on a Saturday morning. Also, she has to deal with the confusion once her husband has fled and there's hit men at her door ready to murder her and her son. Definitely my favourite part of the scene was having to be strangled as I'd never really done stage fighting and things like that so I found it really fun. I think it's safe to say that Macbeth stretched me and I'm extremely glad I did it.
That leads me onto my first LAMDA exam. For Grade 5, you chose from the few that the exam board set and one contemporary one of your choice. For my set I chose Vicious Circle; a monologue of a girl convicted of murdering her best friend as she retell the tale to her room mate of how she pushed her to the floor, make sure she fell into the water and she pushed her head down until she drowned. Definitely not the nicest thing to vision however the amount of research that I had to do to achieve this was massive as I had to mentally put myself in her shoes and funnily enough, I had never experienced something like this. Then for my second monologue I did Mogadishu (performed at Yew Tree Assembles); about a girl who's complaining to her mum about a boy in her class being annoying yet always gets his own way but ends up going on a massive tangent to how she feels the world is unfair and how people get advantages over others who deserve it and the way society pressures you. However, this had a completely different tone to Vicious Circle as it was a comedic piece and I definitely felt more comfortable in this monologue.
Then I believe we're on to the Christmas Shows 2017. This year I was lucky enough to be in both Gold and Black company's pieces. For Gold, we did a 1950's take on Cinderella however made it our own. We set it in a bar/club and made the plot so it was based more around getting an opportunity to perform, rather than it being all about falling in love (yet we can't forget that part can we, so we made sure it got in there too). This was one of my favourite Christmas shows I've been in (and I've been in about 8 Christmas shows now) as it was completely different to anything we'd done previously in any of the companies. Again this play seemed to be rather character driven (much like Three in that sense) as most of the characters were on stage all the time so, as actors, we had to be able to portray the diverse personalities of all the characters whilst all the others being on stage at the same time. Next was Black company's. Again we did our own spin on a classic story however this time it was A Christmas Carol. We kept Marley however made him a her and made her the narrator and guide through our play. Instead of focusing on the whole story, as a company we took a specific look into how decisions effect our futures. So, we used the three tenses, gave each pair of characters an ultimatum and showed the audience both possible endings yet you'd only see which they decided in the next scene with how they linked up. I was the future scene which I liked as Charlotte and I felt like we got the pace up and the way our characters bounced off of each other really worked for the scene. Then I took my next LAMDA exam, Grade 6 (you thought I'd stopped after the Christmas Shows). This time I could pick my own monologues for both pieces however one was classical and the other contemporary. So, I chose to do Luciana from The Comedy of Errors and Esperence from Children of Killers. Here we are again with the Shakespeare... Luciana and I definitely had a love/hate relationship as I don't feel like I really grasped her character and how I wanted to portray her until the Friday as my exam was on the Sunday. I tried multiple ways to learn lines, delve into her character however it always felt like I was just missing the target. Yet, when I found her, I began to really enjoy playing her and was able to have fun with her. Then was Esperence from Children of Killers. The polar opposite of Luciana. Esperence lives in Rwanda and is having to deal with her mum that died of AIDS, no father, her brother slowly dying and her killers being released from prison too as a result of the Genocide that happened. A lot of research went into this but I found it fascinating researching into the history of it all.
That leads me to now. In the works of Ceasefire Babies, our Connections 2018 play and believe me, it's going to be great (un shameful early promo before the competitive ticket sales starts). 2017 has had loads of opportunities for me with Yew Tree and I can't thank Sarah enough for all the hard work. Here's to 2018!
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