Matthew's Connections Blog

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This year at connections has to have been one of my best so far as, once again I was granted the opportunity to work on a great piece of theatre with an amazingly talented group of actors. When I first read the play I decided I wanted a part that was both large and challenging to help me develop my acting skills, so I chose Paz. In my audition I tried to capture some of the elements that make Paz a downright hate able character. 

When I found out I would be playing both Paz and nova alongside Alfie I was delighted and excited to get to work. As we rehearsed the play I wanted to distinguish the characters of Nova and Paz significantly and so I tried to bring out the fun and easy going elements of nova’s character and then the manipulating elements of Paz’s personality. 

One of the main highlights from this year’s connections was connections week where we as a company dedicated a week to the play allowing to make my characters much more 3 dimensional through working on parts of the character I may have neglected previously, putting me in good stead for the local performances. 

Finally I got the chance to present my hard work to an audience of friends and family and I have to say it was likely one of the best performances of my life as all of the cast worked perfectly together to convey the play’s deep emotional story to the audience and having great fun along the way. 

After our local performances we began working on how to alter the play so it would be ready for CAST in Doncaster in just a few weeks, this was when I began to exclusively play Paz as opposed to playing him and Nova which allowed me to give more thought once again to the character to bring out the human side in Paz and remembering that although he performs terrible actions in the play he is still only a 15 year old boy and there are reasons why he behaves in the way he does. 

However, before Doncaster we were privileged to perform the play to an audience at Crofton academy which was both challenging and exhilarating as not only did we have to execute the very prop heavy play with little preparation time but we also had to do it in a completely alien space but thankfully we persevered and had one of the best runs we could’ve especially considering the circumstances. 

Finally, it was time for CAST the day was jammed with tech and rehearsals which prepared us for the evening. It was time for our last performance with Mia and the fish which was filled with emotion as we had to say goodbye to the play at last and looking back I’m so thankful that I decided to take part again this year and am looking forward to what next year will bring.

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