Finished with The Tempest… holidays approaching…

The Monday and Tuesday night performances of The Tempest went well, the last night especially, my best performance of Alonsa I think, which is good seeing as it was the exam night. The afterparty was a lot of fun of course, then back to school the next day.

Had a final run-through of my music program with Randal. Then that night, I headed out to see CATS at the Derwent Entertainment Centre. I had an absolutely fabulous time. It was a spectacular show… a huge cast, and hugely talented too… in a big space with a gorgeous and well-designed set. It was the opening night so there were a few technical glitches but altogether I felt it was a roaring success and I loved every minute of it. ExitLeft really outdid themselves.

I saw Mate on Saturday night – that was a really nicely written, touching play, and most of the acting was just fantastic.

This morning I had my external monologue exam at Hutchins. It went really well and I am glad it is over with, now it’s time to concentrate on getting my written work done, both for that and music. My internal music exam is on Wednesday so that’s my focus for now. I have the dates now for both my written test and audition/interview for the Conservatorium of Music, which is both scary and exciting. Really need to brush up on my theory!

Also I am sad to say that due to unforseen circumstances I had to give up the job with Santa’s Photo Factory.  Details on my photography blog.

Ah well. Life. Something else will come up I’m sure.

One more day

I went to see a preview performance of Wait Until Dark on Wednesday night at the Playhouse Theatre.  I quite enjoyed it, but then I think I am easily pleased in theatre.  The set could have done with a bit of minimising, but other than that I have no real criticism.  I enjoyed the performances of the evil Mr. Roat (Craig Mears) and the blind woman, Susy (Marti Moroney).

The preview performance/last rehearsal of The Tempest was on Friday.

It went pretty well, apparently the schoolkids loved us – especially Ariel, but no surprises there!  The performance was fine, the storm the best we’ve ever done it, only a few small mess-ups.  We had to improvise for a minute when some spirits were late in coming on, but it was all fine.On Saturday night I saw Miriam Margolyes in Dickens’ Women at the Theatre Royal.  I’ve been there three Saturdays in a row now… quite extraordinary.  Miriam was amazing,a talented woman and you can really tell she enjoys acting thoroughly.  If you have a chance to see her, ever, go for it.  If you need some context, she was on Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope recently, and she played Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films.

On Sunday The Tempest opened at 1pm for our first real performance.  It was quite a small audience, only about 17 people, which was a challenge to keep up the energy for, but we managed it.  A security alarm went off in the middle of the second act, so we had to stop the show, but it was dealt with quickly and we continued.  I am looking forward to tonight’s performance – our first night performance, which will make a difference I am sure.  I am getting rather tired of this show, however only tomorrow night to go and then we will be finished.

Work is piling up as exams creep closer.  The most mind-boggling thing is the amount of organisation required – Uni application forms left right and centre, scholarship application forms of several different kinds, TQA cover pages for all our major assignments, criteria to be met, word limits to be kept under (always my downfall, keeping under word limits… though I did cut my Tempest folio down from 5,000 to 3,400 words today!) and all that sort of thing.  I am now getting to that point of tiredness where I become rather hyperactive, which I hope will last at least until the performance ends tonight.

I ran through some of my program for my music exam, and I am very excited about singing Aretha Franklin’s “Won’t Be Long”.  It is a very fun song to sing, and my accompanist, Randal, has fun playing it, too, and I am just feeling really positive about how it sounds.  I still have to record “Evil Gal Blues” for the Young Jazz Players competition.

On the writing front very little has been happening – I’ve hardly had time to even write a poem, however after seeing Dickens’ Women I was inspired to write a descriptive piece about a person – sort of a portrait in prose form.  I have started that and am feeling quite pleased with it so far.

I’d best be off and continue with my critiques.  I’ve got a few hours until I need to get into costume and makeup.

Bec

Video

Here, for the sake of embedding a video and seeing how it looks, is my favourite scene from Inspirit, starring myself and the fantastic Mr. Stephen Ashton.  I noticed two interesting things when watching this.  One is that I feel much more uncomfortable watching Stephen be sleazy at me on the film than I did when it was actually happening – I’m taking this to be a sign that my reactions worked well to create an audience reaction.  Or something.  The second thing was that when I was acting, I thought I was doing quite a lot in regards to facial expressions.  But watching the video now, I realise that what I thought was “considerably expressive facial movement” was actually “quite subtle almost unnoticeable facial movement”.  Although it could just be me being self-critical.  This has been something quite useful to me in being part of this production – watching oneself acting on film is quite revealing and really helps to pick out things you do well and need to improve on, things you’d never notice otherwise.  The other thing is that my face looks funny when it’s being squished up in Stephen’s hand like that!  But I guess an actress can’t look gorgeous all the time.

We had our last real rehearsal for The Tempest today.  Tomorrow we open our “final rehearsal/preview performance”, to an audience mainly of schoolkids.  I heard some grade four students who are studying Shakespeare are coming to see it.  Who in their right mind would want to make grade four students study Shakespeare??  I’m sorry, that is just beyond me.  Anyway, rehearsals are progressing.  My costume is still frustrating to wear but I saw some photos of me and  it does look stunning – although I do not look particularly stunning in it.  Still, these things must be endured.  Five more days and it’ll be over.  I have written work to do!  Must go!

Bec

Got the job

I got the Santa photos job!  More at my photography blog…

I have my full costume for The Tempest now, it’s absolutely gorgeous… although I don’t think it really suits my figure, I don’t think it is particularly flattering on me… but everyone else looks gorgeous and the costumes are wonderful, so hoepfully the show will look great.

Must be off to music now.

Job interview & The Tempest

I had an interview yesterday with “Santa’s Photo Factory” – for the job of photographer of Santa photos in a local department store.  You can read more about this at my photography blog by clicking here!

Right, what other things do I need to update about?  A quick update on my writing blog is over here…

I saw the state final of Storm The Stage on Saturday.  Some of my friends performed, all were brilliant, Ellen Watts got into the national finals with her amazing monologue.

Rehearsals for The Tempest going well, nearly at an end now!  Our first (preview) performance is on this Friday (the 12th) during the day.  Then we have a 1pm performance on Sunday the 14th, and 7:30pm performances on Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th.  No booking required, just come along!  It’s a good show, with marvellous costumes.

Anyway, I’d best be off to the supermarket and then get into makeup for rehearsal!

Bec

Compliments

I received a reply email from Liz Winfield today, she gave permission for me to post what she said about my poetry, which you can read over at my writing blog, by clicking here!

Sorry about the short update, but I must get back to work… filling out scholarship applications, working on my folio for The Tempest, working out my program for my music exam… plus critiques… my goodness I have so much to do!

Bec

Update

My life has been busy doing homework & rehearsals for The Tempest continue at a bit of a tedious pace.  We filmed the last scene of Inspirit on Saturday, which was good.  I saw the play Ying Tong on Saturday evening, that was amazing, hilarious, and very poignant.  I love Spike Milligan, such a pity he’s dead, I so much wanted to write to him.  I’m going to see Miriam Margolyes next Saturday, that looks like it will be a fantastic night out.

Update on my progress in entering the Young Jazz Players’ Competition, and exciting Southern Gospel Choir possibilities, over at my music blog!

I’ve also posted an update on my writing blog, and finally finished uploading all my poetry in chronological order, both of which you can read by clicking here!

As for modelling and photography, I’ve actually had a few ideas recently so once exams are over I will be back into that!

I must go finish filling out my scholarship application forms… and do my homework!  I’ve done 1000 words on my Tempest folio, so 2000 to go!

Upcoming busy-ness…

School went back today, and it seems Term 3 is going to be a very hectic one.  I have a large amount of work to do in a very small amount of time.  I have a 20 minute program to prepare for a music exam in 4 weeks, plus program notes (research)… then there’s 2 critiques, a self-critique, a reflective statement… for Drama I have 2 more critiques to do, my folio on The Tempest is expected to be 3/4 done by the end of this week, then of course there is the actual performance of The Tempest, then my monologue exam…

The Southern Gospel Choir are rehearsing for our end of year concert, I’m also rehearsing with the Ogilvie High School Old Scholars Choir, and am considering entering The Young Jazz Players’ Competition… read all about it over at my music blog!

I am stressing a bit about all this work, but as long as I just knuckle down and do it, and not put things off, I should be fine.  In theory.  Well, I’d better get to it I suppose.

Possibilities.

They are endless! I have found that this work blog is increasingly useful. Already I have referred three different people to this site and I feel it is a really good thing to have all my endeavours recorded here on the one site – hopefully the way I have set it out makes it simple and easy for my prospective employers to find what they are looking for.

I am currently writing my resume so that I can apply for that Santa photos job. Resumes are a painful thing to create. So many things I want to say that I find it difficult to say in a professional-sounding way. And the marks I receive from school are in an incredibly impractical format for putting onto a resume. So I suppose I must just get more jobs so that I have enough work experience to put on there that I don’t need the school results anymore! My “previous employment” section looks quite bare. The problem is, I have not often had time for a job, because I spend all my spare time chasing my singing, acting, writing, modelling, and photography endeavours! I hope I can easily show that I may not have had much actual employment experience, but have had a lot of other experience. Also I am a very fast and eager learner (if I may blow my own horn) so I doubt it would be difficult for me to quickly pick up jobs in retail, office, or other such things.

On the writing front, I have recently submitted some work to a poetry book to possibly be published, and also have been told some of my poems will be published in a local bi-monthly poetry broadsheet… read more over at my writing blog!

Moving on, tomorrow is the last day in this week of rehearsals for our production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. I know all my lines now, which is encouraging, and there has been plenty of great character development going on, not only with my own character but everyone else’s as well. We have a great cast – I must especially mention the amazing Ellen Watts as the spirit Ariel. Not only is she incredibly beautiful, not only is she talented – she sings, dances, acts, and probably does other things I’m not aware of – but she is such a clever, kind and friendly person to be around. I must also mention that she choreographed pretty much the entirety of Rosny College’s highly successful musical production this year, Chicago. The show was very professional (so say many mouths, not just my own). Plus she taught us all how to dance. She really is an amazing girl, and so busy – I thought I did a lot of things until I caught a glimpse of her planner. It’s ridiculous! I don’t know how she does it. But I digress. She plays a wonderful Ariel, very beautiful and creepy and cunning all at once, making wonderful shapes within her “bag”. What am I talking about? You’ll have to come see the show to find out!

Now it is quite late and I must finish my resume and send it off, Saturday is the last day for applications, plus my eyes are getting sore and I’m getting a headache… (I’ll be getting my new reading glasses next week, hooray!) I would’ve liked to have it in much earlier, but rehearsals and lack of internet have made that difficult.

Oh, and I got a nice little plug on the Inspirit blog today… www.megalithproject.blogspot.com Not a very flattering photo, but hey, a plug is a plug!

I have rehearsal at 10 tomorrow (well, technically today…) so I’d best be off.

Bec

Rehearsals

Well, I’m currently at school rehearsing for The Tempest. What we’ve done so far has felt very productive and effective… and I pretty much know all my lines.  I’m actually really enjoying it.  I come here every morning feeling tired and awful, but by the end of the rehearsal I am feeling much more relaxed.  It’s a great group of people working together, my drama class.  Anyway, I’d better get back to it now.

I have done some photography recently too, and am applying for a basic photography job.  Details can be found over at my photography blog!

Bec