Introduction
In this portfolio, I am going to explore my goals and the professional areas that I have tried to develop the most throughout the first year of the Musical Theatre course. I will do this by outlining the goals I have set, their relevance to the industry, and how I have worked towards these goals. Where appropriate, I will discuss my successes and failures with regards to these goals, and how I plan to continue working towards them in the future. I have selected some of my aims from across a wide range of areas that we have worked on over the year.
Acting
My first goal at the start of the year was to develop my confidence in making braver choices through my acting. I wanted to achieve this so I could stand in front of a room full of people, feel happy in my choices and generally feel more comfortable on stage. In theatre, I think the most fundamentally important thing an actor needs to do is believe in their own choices; if an actor is visibly confident in their choices rather than hesitant, it is much easier for an audience to buy into a performance. The first way I have tried to develop this confidence is by selecting Phebe’s monologue from Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’ (Shakespeare, 2007, 3.5:9-33) and changing the actions every time I perform it. This has helped me to become less afraid of looking silly whilst performing. Working in Meisner classes has also helped me to be less self-conscious of my choices. At the start of term, it felt incredibly uncomfortable to work on these exercises because we were simply repeating people’s essential behaviours back and forth. However, this also allowed me to think less about what I was doing in the moment – Meisner technique requires you to be fast, and this gives you less time to focus on your own actions. Moving forward, I am going to try and make bigger and bolder choices in my Acting Improv classes. I think this will, again, make me feel more comfortable with appearing silly whilst on stage. Some performances are allowed to be silly, and accepting this fact will only improve my confidence.
Another aspect of acting that I wanted to work on this year was to just become more confident at reading – both monologues/plays and generally about acting. I wanted to work on this because I have always struggled with reading, from my early school years right through college. Reading is, of course, a large part of working in the industry and a lot of the time this needs to be done quickly. One of the main ways I have done this is by reading plays for my Scene Study classes. I was initially apprehensive about this as I had never actually read a full play before. I spoke to Dermot Daly about this, who told me to work through the play in chunks and just read as much as I could. I tried to read the plays this way but still struggled to work my way through. Eventually, I read through ‘Constellations’ with my boyfriend with us each taking the lines of one character. I found this to be much easier than reading alone because I felt more engaged with the text, as if I was part of the play rather than just reading it. In the future, I would like to continue reading new scripts and plays with a partner because I currently don’t think I would be able to maintain focus (this is also something I would like to work on). Throughout the year, I have been in the process of professional evaluation for dyslexia and ADHD which may explain my previous and current struggles with reading, but I will not let this define my future.
Dance
Prior to starting the course, I already felt like I had a good foundation of knowledge in dance as I was well versed in different styles such as hip hop, street dance, Latin, ballet, and contemporary. I have been dancing since I was 3 years old which has given me this good base to build from.
When starting dance classes this year, I quickly found that I didn’t understand the technical aspects of dance as well as I thought I did. As a result, my first goal of the year was to develop this understanding. I need to develop my technique because it is the basis of all good dance. The better my understanding of the technical side, the further I will be able to develop my skills. In an industry that is so rooted in performance and technique, it is important to ensure you have the basics perfected. Throughout my first year of study, I have tried to push myself both in and outside of classes. For example, I stretch at home multiple times a week to improve my flexibility. I know that completing the same stretches that we use in class at home will help me to work better in classes and be better prepared for the lessons. I knew that this goal wouldn’t necessarily be achievable overnight and that progress wouldn’t be immediately noticeable, but when I compare myself now to the start of the year, I can definitely see improvement.
Similarly to one of my acting goals, I also want to grow in confidence when doing the dances and the warm ups. At the beginning of the year, I noticed that my arms and upper body were lacking in strength. My core strength was also needing improvement at that time. To improve this, I work in the same way as I do to improve my flexibility – I complete the class warm ups and work outs at home when I have time during the week. I still sometimes struggle with the exercises, but I am seeing improvements in my classes. As an example, in jazz class at the start of the year I struggled to hold my arms out wide in the side lunge as my muscles were quite weak. Now, however (and still with slight struggle), I am able to keep them held up throughout the whole exercise without giving up. At the beginning of the year, I struggled to maintain a plank for more than 10 second which was a sign of my poor core strength – now after using these exercises, I am coming up to holding it for thirty five seconds (or up to forty five seconds on days where I am feeling strong). There is absolutely still room for improvement in this area, and I will continue to work on my upper body and core strength by completing the exercises, but I am proud of the progress that I have made so far.
In jazz classes, I have been told that my posture is poor because I am arched in my back which leaves me without proper alignment when doing specific exercises. This, again, relates to the technique issues that I discussed earlier. It is important for me to maintain proper posture at all times so that I can keep my body in good working order, which will help to prolong my career. Because of these facts, another of my goals this year is to improve my posture and maintain good alignment as much as possible. In classes, I have been looking at myself in the mirrors and correcting my posture by squeezing my glutes and engaging my core. I was first made aware of this issue in January by Laurie Scarth and Elissa Hicken. This is when I started to become more aware of myself and focussed on trying to correct it. Moving forward, I will continue to be mindful of my posture and hopefully the corrections will become more natural over time.
Singing and Music
When working on my singing, my main goal was to improve my voice as a whole. This is obviously a broad aim, so I had to break it down into smaller aspects. These ideas came as a result of my classes.
Firstly, I wanted to reduce the amount of tongue root and jaw tension that I carry. My singing teacher, Bethany, was the first person to point this out to me. She helped me to understand that this contributes to me feeling very tired after singing lengthy or soprano legit-sounding songs. To reduce the amount of tension I have, Bethany gave me some tongue and jaw stretches to complete as and when I feel like I need to. My Sing Tec teacher, Scott Harrison, also provided me with exercises to complete to further improve my tension. In my own time, I found more ways to work on this from the vocal coach Cicely Berry. (Stagemilk Drama School, 2017) I learned of her through a group project in Sing Tec and took on board a lot of what she said. She focuses on this issue a lot in her work as she believes a lot of younger performers deal with it when singing or even speaking. I am currently working on this by completing a range of the exercises at least once per day and have noticed that I am feeling less tired following the songs that I struggled with as mentioned previously. I have done this since December, around when Bethany first pointed it out to me. I do still deal with some level of tongue root and jaw tension, so I am aware that I need to continue using these exercises throughout my studies, and most likely during my musical theatre career, to keep my voice as healthy as possible.
Early in the year, I set myself the goal of maintaining an up-to-date rep folder on a weekly basis. I wanted to do this to help me be more prepared for my singing lessons, which would in turn make me more productive in those lessons. I also knew that this would make me more confident in ATS lessons because the songs I wanted to work on would be more polished and I could be more confident in the choices I was making. By doing this, I have been able to focus more on the quality of my performance in the songs rather than finding the songs themselves. I felt that getting my rep folder up to standard as soon as possible would allow me to manage my time better for other tasks later in the year as assessments drew nearer. Overall, I would say that this was a good decision for my studies this year, and I will complete my rep folder in the same way in both the second and third years of my degree.
I have struggled with my music theory lessons from the start of the year. This is something that I had never studied before, and I found the first few lessons extremely confusing, which made me apprehensive about going to them. Being able to understand music theory and read sheet music is, or course, very important in the musical theatre industry as this is how you will receive the book for any show that you get cast in. It is, therefore, incredibly useful to understand how to read sheet music. The first thing I did to develop my understanding of music theory was to download Duolingo, which has music theory lessons. This helped me to learn at my own pace, revisit ideas that were taking longer for me to understand as many times as I needed, and check my knowledge through their minigames and tests. Working this way has made me more confident in my classes because I have built a good base of knowledge to build from. I sometimes still struggle but once I get into the rhythm of the lessons, I feel much better.
Another way I have worked on understanding music theory is by calling my brother, Kole. He completed a music degree at the University of Central Lancashire, so it is very useful to discuss concepts with him when I am struggling to understand. I find that sometimes, I need things to be explained to me in different ways for me to absorb the information. If one explanation confuses me, I struggle to get my head around that and take the information in until I get the chance to hear it from someone else or just in a different way. Whilst I know that I won’t always be able to call Kole when I’m having difficulty understanding certain concepts, I will continue to discuss things with him wherever possible. Not only is it a great way for me to get my head around a topic that I struggle with, it’s also a nice way for me to take a break and de-stress by speaking with family.
One lesson that felt like a lightbulb moment in music theory was when we were discussing major keys, flats, and working out which key pieces of music were in. In this class, it clicked for me earlier than it did for a lot of the class. This felt incredibly rewarding because it showed to me that the work I had put in through the year was paying off. I devised a rhyme in this lesson to help me understand what key a piece of music is in when looking at the sheet music (if it isn’t displayed on the piece). It goes as follows:
“Father Christmas goes down and eats biscuits”
With flat keys, I count how many sharps appear next to the clef and add two. Counting along with the rhyme helps me work out the key. For example, 5 sharps would get me to ‘and’ in the rhyme, moving forward two steps means the music is in the key of B. If there are flats on the stave instead of sharps, the rhyme is reversed and the rule changes slightly. In this case, I count the number of flats and then subtract one. Using the example of 5 flats this time, we reach the key of D.
Collectively, these improvements in music theory have helped me to annotate my sheet music in a much better way which only helps my development, both in music theory itself, and in singing/ATS lessons.
Fitness and Overall Health
I have included this as a section of my development portfolio because I knew that I wanted to improve my fitness and overall health throughout the year – both for my professional career and my personal life. Initially, this was something that I struggled with as I found it hard to stick to the routines that I was setting for myself (both in terms of fitness, and healthy eating/meal prep). I found myself telling myself that it would be easy for me to drop back into a routine even if I broke it for a few days which I found was not the case. Getting back to a schedule after ignoring it for a while was almost more difficult than starting it in the first place. Since I have found that rigid schedules do not tend to work for me, I have worked on a different technique to make sure I keep up to date with everything I need to do (again, professionally and personally). Rather than scheduling everything I need to do down to the minute, I will write a list of jobs that I need to do in a given timeframe, making sure I have time to relax and destress between jobs if needed. I have found this method to be much more successful for me, so I will continue to use this in the future.
Whilst I started the year with more health goals (for example: improving cardiovascular endurance, weight loss, healthier eating), I have also dealt with health issues throughout the year. From mid-November until late-January, I was suffering from an illness that made me feel more fatigued, stressed, and generally unwell. Early test results indicated that I may have had cancer, but we later found out that I was suffering from Epstein-Barr Virus. This had a significant impact on both my mental and physical wellbeing, which I met with the university’s wellbeing team to discuss. My health has improved since, so I will carry these goals over to second year and beyond.
Conclusion
When looking back at the goals I set for the year, it is clear that I have not fully achieved them all. I think this is because a number of my goals have no set ‘finish line’, as such. They are ongoing, and things that I can continue to improve upon throughout my academic and professional career. At times, I feel as though I may have lost focus or motivation in some of my aims, so I am aware that I need to stay grounded and remember what I am working towards. I will not necessarily see changes overnight and I need to accept that that is okay.
To help me maintain focus and motivation, more of my goals in the coming years should be things that I can measure over time and that I can work towards a specific target. That may be increasing my plank time to sixty seconds, the number of push-ups I can do to 10, or be able to run a 5k by November. If I continue to work on the habits I have created this year, these aims are more than achievable.
Bibliography
Shakespeare, W. (2007) As You Like It, Act 3 Scene 5, The complete works of William Shakespeare, Wordsworth Library Collection, pp. 629–629.
Voice Warm Up (2017) Module Two: Voice Warm Up. p.6 Available at: https://stagemilkdramaschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Voice-Warm-Up.pdf (Accessed: 08 May 2025).
