OUR STUDENTS
Diary
Below is an edited version of a diary kept by a student on our Advanced Diploma Course. Jennifer Monk writes about a week in her life at the London School of Dramatic Art.
Mon 7th January
It's the first day back of term, and I am so excited to see everybody and start classes. I didn't realise that I would miss all my new friends so much.
Movement
The first class of the new term was with a guest tutor, a dancer/director called Rachel.
She was great. Through exercises, Rachel showed how we can use movement in a dramatic performance.
She explained it all through the 7 Steps of Tension. We discovered how this tool can help with
characterisation and accurately portraying emotions within scenes.
Speech and Phonetics
In this class we drew our voices, using coloured texts and paper, initially to represent how we
think we sound and then how we would like our voice to sound. This was a great exercise for me to
take a step back from myself and explore what I really thought and knew about my voice. It made
me realise what I wanted to achieve and how I could achieve it. We also continued on with the RP
accent, and learnt that RP does not have glottal attack in it, and by using the H sound at the
beginning of words that start with a vowel will help reduce the attack.
Improvisation
In Impro we discussed what we were going to be working on through this term. We are going to
devise a piece of theatre though improvisation which will be presented in a few weeks. The theme
for the project is one of the 7 Deadly Sins; Our group will work on Pride. It was nice to have the
chance to put all the exercises and tools we had learnt about Impro from last term into something
chunky like this. We had an initial block with how to display Pride, but we soon came up with a
scenario and improvised it a little. Ronnie suggested that we should make the stakes higher, so we
improved more and came up with the basis of our project.
Tues 8th January
Scene Study
This was our first class with Jillian and she is AWESOME. We looked at a lot of things today.
Jillian explained the importance of an actor knowing how to mark up and research the script prior
to rehearsals. We learnt to format our actions, objectives and other character and scene research
alongside our script in a rehearsal book. We also did a time line of our lives. We did this so
that when building a character we can make a time line separate to ourselves. It's also handy to
do for the exercise 'AS IF'; when you can't relate to something in a scene you take something
from your own life that might have given you the same effect and feeling and use that to help
you connect truthfully to the situation.
Acting
Today we read through Edward Albee¨s 'The Goat'. We worked through character choices and
discovered how regional and social background affects character relationships. Holly also
gave a one on one tutorial to each of us to feedback on our progress so far.
Rehearsal
This term we are doing Shakespeare's Richard III (all female cast). Siggi introduced himself - he's great.
During our first read-through he explained the techniques of Shakespearian
language and helped us to explore breath within the text. We worked on rhetorical devices,
which are going to be very helpful. We discussed as a group the plot and characters as we went
along; I really started to understand what the story was about. We talked about casting and how
we are going to perform it; he is thinking a matrix kind of style and gender non-specific. He says
that this play is very violent and it being performed by women will have an even bigger effect on
the audience because most people have become desensitised to violence.
Wed 9th January
Acting
We looked at Shakespeare today. We had a general discussion about the style of Elizabethan
theatre and how it was performed and perceived. Graham and Charlie were the examples for the day
and Adam gave them direction to make it more Elizabethan. One of the main things I took from this
class was how the Elizabethan actor reacted to the audience. Their reactions to the other actors
are also important but it was the audience that gives you your impulses to begin.
Technical Voice
We looked at lines of text from Shakespeare and other poetic styles, read them out to the group
who were walking around the space and tried to get their attention to stop them through our voice
and delivery. We also worked on the 'The Sugar Wife'. We were in 3 groups for this, a beginning,
middle and an end, we all read it out using voices to deliver the story magically, through tone,
style and depth. It's actually a really great piece to have to put in my monologue book.
Play Reading
We read 'The House of Bernarda Alba' by Federico Garcia Lorca. It was a great play; I would
really like to do a production of it in the future.
Thurs 10th Jan
Dance
We did a lot of work on turning preparation, using spots and body strength and balance. We
did our corner work. We are now adding a new one each week as we pick these up pretty quickly
and our group is confident. However, today I found that my technique was not up to its normal
standards and Miles corrected it, which is great because that's why I am here. We also worked
on the basic stepping for the waltz today; male and female parts. I really enjoyed this dance;
it's a lovely flowing moving dance.
Classical Monologues
We are doing Shakespeare's monologues with Jillian. We had a brief discussion about choosing this
genre of monologue. We should do something passionate that you absolutely love and are moved by.
Jillian took a mini physical and vocal warm-up: breathing, focus, vocal range, articulation and clarity.
We were also given some books that we should be reading and suggested what type of Shakespearean
roles we would be suited to.
Voice and Text
This is a new class for the course and I loved it. We did introduction exercises, introducing other
people and then doing a talking CV. We were looking at the difference between the two. We learnt that,
as an actor, we need to think about captivating our audience, our relationship to space and mastering
our timing, both physically and vocally. We also worked on the structures of storytelling.
Text Analysis
Brigid is a new tutor for this class and she is great!! We had a discussion about why we are here, what
our strengths and weaknesses are and what we need to work on this year. Basically because this course is
short we need to be brave this term. Her class is going to be about taking big brave choices and failing
beautifully. We started to read through ˙The Blue Room¨ and discussed the characters and themes as we went.
(It's a very interesting play)
Friday 11th Jan 2008
Acting
We were looking at our 2 hander scenes that we are going to be working on this term. We had to find a high
emotion piece, however I want more of a challenge so the ones I brought in are not going to be enough. Need to
keep researching. We did an exercise called Extreme Emotion Party: this helped us to express and really play
with emotions, listen to each other in a scene and let go of inhibitions. We also looked at a scene that Claire
had brought in, a Sarah Kane text.
Singing
We talked about our homework that we had to hand in over the break. The one term that we had to describe that we
didn't fully understand was MAGNETISM. We looked at what it was and learnt how to work with the gravity in our
own bodies. We did a lot on posture and worked muscles that I didn't know existed. Even though there was no singing
in this class it was still very physical and simulating. Next week we are to have Matchmaker off the page ready for
staging, as we have our showing in week 3.
Acting
Mini warm-up and then we had a discussion about the Acting Industry. We have to research our industry if we are
going to work in it - see films, watch drama. We need to ask why we like it or why do we not. We need to research
the director, the cinematographer, etc. We need to look at this medium as well as theatre and if there is something
we like we should get the script and we will work on this in class. Judy said that we were working a lot better,
that we were playing a lot more and being brave. I am glad that we are improving!