D - Drama

By: Mini Stephens on 19:11

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For about four years drama and acting were a big part of my life. In year 9 I took a liking to the subject and was determined I wanted to be an actor but by the end of year 13 I knew that I didn't have the mindset or confidence that was needed to enter such a difficult and brutal industry.

I decided to take Drama as one of my GCSE options and in year 10 and 11 it was my favourite subject. Being able to make these characters that were previously just written on paper become alive, with a background story and different attributes just made all the rehearsals and hard work worth while. I always remember the first few times I performed, I was so nervous about getting up in front of my class and having all these eyes watching me, but by the end of year 10 it became second nature to me. Of course getting anxious before a performance exam was a given, but gradually I got to the point where performing in front of my class didn't really phase me, and rehearsing and performing my GCSE exam piece "Cage Birds" was probably the highlight of my whole Acting experience. We put so much hard work into the play, using a lot of our free time to go into the drama studio and improve different little aspects of our play to ensure we would perform our final exam to the best of our ability.

"JUST"

For AS drama and theatre studies, we had to perform a monologue. When I first found out we had to perform on stage alone as part of our exam I freaked out big time, but so did a lot of other people on my course. I'd never performed by myself before, with no one else on stage with me to help boost my confidence so it was real test of how confident I had become in myself and how much I had actually developed as an actor. It was also difficult planning and creating this whole character alone, with no group around you to help develop your ideas. But I'm glad I didn't just leave at the first hurdle, that I carried on and completed the performance, as feeling proud of myself after our exam was one of the best feelings. We also did a group performance in year 12 and performing "JUST" was definitely an experience. Three of us had to speak in sync for most of our lines and it was quite stressful trying to portray three individual characters as well as one combined character, however, the experience was also fun as we got to create these really creepy and unusual costumes/makeup for our characters.

A2 was a totally different story to my previous years of studying Drama, as we had to devise a group piece. I personally struggled to devise and contribute any ideas to the group, and I felt kind of useless when the other members of my group were coming up with these amazing ideas each lesson when I could barely create one idea a week. Devising a piece was stressful for all of us, we new the plot we wanted to lead but we couldn't figure out a way to portray it, so we kept coming up with ideas but then changing them when we realised they just didn't fit in. By our tech and dress rehearsal we were still a bit of mess, and when we found out how confusing we'd made our story by not explaining it properly, we realised we really needed to knuckle down in the next few days to be able to pull off a decent performance. We added physical theatre to create more effective scenes and we improved our lines so they actually helped explain what was going on. Which I'm glad to say all paid off in the end.

Monologue Costume!

After deciding to apply for acting at university and attending all the auditions, I received a conditional offer on an acting course. I was so proud of myself that I'd actually managed to get a place on my dream course. Except I didn't know whether to accept the place or not. All the heartbreak I went through after getting rejected from the 3 other uni's I'd applied to, I just didn't know if I'd ever be able to hack the whole "you got rejected now move onto the next one" I felt like every rejection just meant I wasn't good enough; although everyone was telling me all these stories of famous people who had been rejected at the start of their careers, and I wanted to believe that I could do well in the industry, I  just knew that I didn't have the self belief or mindset that was needed and because I didn't have either of those things I was loosing my motivation to continue performing, although I loved it. In the end I did reject my offer, and I have decided to pursue Media at university instead.

I hope you've enjoyed reading a little insight into my Drama experiences.

"One of the best things about acting, is that it allow you to live other peoples lives without having to pay the price"

Until tomorrow,

Alice x