Preparing for classical audition & Evaluation

For our final performance we were to be performing a classical play at the open air theatre in Brighton. For this we would either be performing a Greek play or an Elizabethan play. Out of the two plays my initial thoughts were that I wanted to be able to perform the Elizabethan play which was Dr faustus, I felt this because I had a better understanding of the play, from studying it in my alevel drama course.

For the audition we were to prepare a monologue from either era, I thought that this was a good opportunity to perform a comidey monolgue as I felt that this was the main genre that my directors have not seen my explore yet, so I thought it would give a better idea of what I can do.

I did some research into comidey monologues and thought that the best quality comedy scenes were from Greek comedy plays, as they were souls focusing on comedy, the monologue that I choose was from a play called 'the bees' and was set at a man defending his honour in a court room.

We i first began work on my audition piece I looked into just learning it in sections that made sense to the narrative, this involved splitting it up into three or four lines and learning them with meaning, then adding more sections as I went on. I felt that this is a good technique for me as I found my self coming up with movements and tones in my voice that fit the scene and character. Once I had worked my way through the monologue I just kept running it and seeing how the movements worked with the words.

The second time I did some work on my audition piece, my focus was on the classical wording of the monologue. This was mainly because my monologue of choice had a lot of words that were usual to our modern dialect. I did some research on words that I wasn't familuar with. One word that I was unfamiliar with was the "entreaties" this i was not familuar with so I didn't get full meaning when I said it. After researching the word I found that it means a 'Humble request'. By going through the monolgue with the words it gave everything full meaning do what I was saying.

For this audition on the day I left very prepared for my audition as everyone else spent their time going over their words, where I was prepared so I could sit and think about my characterisation and movement that I wanted to add, instead of going over and over the words to remember it.

For my audition I was really happy with what I did in the room. I went in with confidence and I feel that it showed that I was confident and passionate about the play that I wished to study. When performing my monologue I got thorugh the whole speech, and kept my movement imaginative and on the good and relevant. However if I was to get some more time on the monologue I would look into the comedy moment more, to get more understanding of the meanings. I got this from the reactions from the people on the panel. After I had performed I got asked the question of what characters was I most interested in? I said about a more serous character in the play as I felt that in my time on the course I haven't explored serious acting as much as I would have liked, and would like to take on some more serious scene and explore some more tough scenes.