SECTION 1 / PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT:

Idea Development:

1. What piece did you decide to perform: Hey, I Miss You (Karina Robles Leyva)
2. Why did you choose that particular piece: I felt that I do really well with emotional and heartfelt pieces as I can step into the character quite well. Minutes after I read through the piece a bunch of ideas popped through my head.
3. What other ideas did you consider: Majority of monologues I was looking at where in the point of views of teenagers/girls, I think I considered these types of monologues because I can relate to them and put myself into their shoes.
4. Who did you discuss your ideas with and what feedback did they give you: I talked to both Charlotte and Ms. Wellington about my ideas. Some feedback I received was to slow down and take breaks in between my actions, and to really show the change in my emotion as I speak.

Planning:

1. What design ideas did you come up with a why did you make these choices? Throughout the performance I used some object transformation when showing the gifts that my ‘best friend’ gave me. I made these choices as we where told to use some Berkoff’s strategies in our performance and I think it made the monologue more effective, emotionally. I also wore pink/childish like pajamas, to help show that I am a teenager girl. The use of the pink shades also symbolized the warmth of my piece. I decided to just use a table and chair, and a piece of paper. This gave me the opportunity to create the story I was telling as I went through it. Sometimes the table was a desk in my bedroom, and once it was the end of my bed. I also used some of the space to re-create my house just using miming, as I was telling a story about a memory I had in the kitchen.
2. Discuss the context of your piece. How did you use the context to inform your decision making: My monologue didn’t have much context and not a lot of information on it, as it wasn’t really well known. The context was that the girl finishes writing a letter, then begins to read it as if she were really talking to her friend. I had to really create the character of Caroline as I was not given any background information. I felt that from her dialogue and mannerisms, she was a teenage girl. So when I made my decisions on how I was gonna act it, and what artistic choices I was going to use, I tried to think about what I would feel like in this situation.

SECTION 2 / REHEARSAL:

1. Discuss the rehearsal process you used to develop your character in the performance: I started off my getting my lines down pat, and making sure I knew the meaning of them and what I was feeling as I was saying them. Once that was done I started roughly blocking and planning my use of props. And then I would practice my lines along with my movements. The more I read my script, the more I got a feel of who my character really was.
2. Outline the specific choices you made in during rehearsal and what informed these choices. Refer to your use of vocal and movement techniques: In my performance I didn’t change my posture/stance much, as my mood was quite consistent throughout the whole scene. But someone physical choices I made was that my posture was quite up straight, but my head was down a lot. My proximity was quite small as I didn’t really use up a lot of space when doing my actions, as I was very shy and compact. My facial expressions changed depending on what I was saying, so when I was happy or reminiscing about memories, my eyes where more open and I was more smiley, but when I got upset and emotional, my eyes would be more closed and my smile was softer. In terms of vocal techniques, I spoke quite slowly in this monologue but when I would get lost in thought I would start to speak faster and ramble. There where times in my scene where my character would get kind of shy or self conscious, and that is when my tone would change and I would sound more sad and my volume would lower. My rhythm was quite inconsistent as I would slow my words down at certain parts and I would take big dialogue breaks in between actions to build suspense and show how hard it was for my character to talk about the topic of her best friend leaving.

SECTION 3 / PERFORMANCE:

1. Were you prepared for the performance? why or why not?: I feel that I was prepared for the performance but I may have left learning my lines a bit late. I did remember all my lines but they where fresh so I still had to think a little bit before I said each one.
2. What went well throughout the performance: I think in my first try I went well with showing my changes in emotion and my thought process. In my second try, I did well with taking breaks between certain lines of dialogue to build suspense. I also think I was more in character in the second try, and my emotions where shown more deeply.
3. What did you need to do differently: I think in my first performance I was nervous so I rushed through my dialogue and did not take my time with each line, and in my 2nd try I didn’t use my arms as much. Like when speaking I didn’t do much with my arms and my body language was not AS strong.
4. How would you have done things differently to improve this process? I think next times I could learn my lines earlier on so I was able to take more time to focus more deeply on my body language and use of physical elements.

SECTION 4 / FINAL EVALUATION:

1. What are the best aspects of your performance: I think some of the best aspects was my use of space and how I transformed the desk and chair to the end of my bed, and really took the audience through my story with me. I also think my use of object transformation was creative.
2. What areas need to be improved: I think my vocal techniques could have been used more, and I could have used more facial expressions.
3. What did you learn: I learnt a lot about different Berkoff strategies such as object transformation and mime. After this topic and this assessment I feel more confident with surrealism and my use of physical elements.
4. What will you do differently next time: Next time, I will make sure to use more of Berkoff’s techniques and the skills we learnt in class during the rehearsal process.

Photos//Artistic choices & elements that went well: