Recently, iPoly drama club put on their fall show called The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon which I took part in. The show had an amazing turnout and was one of the best shows we have put on since I was a freshman. This show consisted of an ensemble cast, which means we all had many parts in the show. I thought it would be a good idea to asses my own acting to strengthen my take on acting and performance.
Overall, I thought I did a spectacular job in most aspects of my acting, movement, and voice especially since the last show I had to act with a really bad headache.
Here are my individual struggles and accomplishments for each part I had:
"Girl"
Although it sounds like a very small part, "Girl" was one of my biggest parts in the show. This character took part in a story where she sold her soul to an "Enchantress", the "Devil", and "Rumplestiltskin" to gain riches and have a child. The story progresses and she marries a prince and has a child who just so happens to be "Rapunzel". The three forces of darkness then return to take "Rapunzel" and "Girl" ignorantly lets the "Enchantress" take her away.
This character was very simple to play. She is very ignorant, dumbfounded, and a bit sassy. What I think really made this character successful was my facial expressions and reactions. Since I didn't have too many clever or funny lines that the audience would like, I had to make my character really big and fun.
"Gretel"
This is the classic tale of Hansel and Gretel, only with a modern twist. "Hansel" was a teenage smoker and "Gretel" was a teenager trying not to succumb into peer pressure.
I really enjoyed this scene not only because my scene partner and I worked really well together, but because of the way we had to present the scene. Since in the scene the narrator states this story as "teen angst meets horror movie", we were directed to perform the scene as if we were in a cheesy drama flick. It was a lot of fun since we didn't have to act as serious as we would for a drama, we just had to make it funny for the audience. The hardest part about this scene was probably keeping myself from laughing, especially since my scene partner was wearing lederhosen and the audience participation was really funny.
"Giant"
This character was very simple. It was an offstage voice so I didn't have to do much. However, considering my small size and higher pitched voice, the giant voice was so incredibly difficult to make.
"Narrator"
I was the narrator for the beginning of act 2, Snow White. I especially loved this role because I think it fit me very well. However, my scene partners and I had a lot of issues with this scene. Not necessarily because of me, but because of others in the scene. This was a struggle because we had to have multiple extra rehearsals just to go over that one scene. Even if the rehearsals were tiring, we really improved over all and became one of the stronger scenes.
