INTRODUCTION

In my first year of training as an actor musician, I’ve developed ongoing reflective habits that have been integral to the artistic development module, acting, voice, movement, music, research for performance, and my artistic process this year. At the beginning, I made a personal development plan for myself, focusing on my goals for this year. In this portfolio I’ll reflect on the achieving of these goals and where I’d take them further in second year. I’ll do this by sharing methods of reflection, videos from lessons and independent learning, explaining my findings, notable moments, and feedback from skills lessons, checkpoints and assessments. I’ve found that keeping visual records and watching performances has been a useful tool for my development, while also finding it helpful to write a reflective journal to evaluate what is beneficial to me. There have been many key learning moments that I’ll highlight in this portfolio as points when content clicked for me, when I received feedback and when I reached assessment points and project showings.

ONGOING REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

Including assessment and skills lesson reflection to support the journal.

BLOCK 1 ENSEMBLE WEEKS

BLOCK 2 WEEK 1

BLOCK 2 WEEK 3 AND 4

BLOCK 3

BLOCK 4 WEEK 4

ACTING ASSESSMENT, 20^TH MARCH

I brought all the principles of self, character, and practitioner together. Ruffian on the Stair was the play that our assessment was based around. I read the play, researched the context of the play and the playwright Joe Orton, and watched the film ‘Prick up your Ears’ which is about his life, partner and career. This research informed the choices I made about the character that I chose to play, Wilson. I decided to use Laban efforts during the rehearsal process, which we had been taught during the practitioner block. The ‘dab’ effort was most helpful to Wilson’s character, as internally she felt similar to a clock ticking. Making these character decisions have really benefited me so far and I’d like to carry on using this technique moving forwards. I also created a document of ‘character questions’ where I answered about my characters physicality, social status, identity and beliefs and reviewed it often during this block of work. This helped me to figure out where Wilson as a character stood in society, and I’d like to continue using this level of detail in the future. To help me get into character before the assessment, I created a playlist of songs from the 1960’s (which is when Ruffian on the Stair is set) which set the mood for Wilson’s state of mind during the play but also ignites some memories that I created for her as part of my preparation. ‘Unchained Melody’ by the Righteous Brothers was the song where I ‘clicked’ with Wilson the most as I could pilot her after this, having created a vivid memory of her and her brother (when he was alive) dancing to it together. Linking music with characters is something that I haven’t necessarily been told to do but it works for me.

BLOCK 4 WEEK 5

BLOCK 5 WEEK 2

RESEARCH FOR PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT, 7^TH MAY

Devising and creating a theatre company surrounding Artaud’s theatre of cruelty has been a really notable journey for me, because before the course I wasn’t the biggest fan of cruel theatre, but I decided to challenge myself by revisiting it, refreshing myself, doing much deeper, academic and effective research for it this time. My group’s theatre company was called ‘Our Toes’ and we created a manifesto for the group, while also having plans for future development of our company. We had to pitch our ideas in a presentation and performance format, integrating both into one performance. Our group took a focus on the ‘banned books’ in America, and how they are sadly relevant to modern day society. Our brief was to make our theatre production relevant to modern audiences, and we found that adapting a classic novel into a stylised performance was an effective way to do this. We adapted George Orwell’s 1984, taking inspiration from big brother, room 101, the ministry of love and the two minute hate, all of which are well known features of the book. Taking inspiration from the big brother tv show, I directed a section of the piece that was about awaking the subconscious and the ‘dream world’ version of life. I presented 2 minutes worth of Artaud’s techniques and how we used them in performance. I wanted to create excentric characters that might go on a show like big brother, so I brought in random costume items for the others to where, to ignite clown-like, masked characters, that seemed like a ‘double’ of the real person. The Theatre and it’s Double by Artaud had a huge influence on me during this project, and I read the key points and manifestos of the book to help move the piece in its entirety forward. My group and I all contributed very equally and had even work ethic, which was a really good atmosphere to work in for me, as it motivated me significantly to bring this piece to a high standard. I’ve learnt that devising through improvisation and movement is a method that really works for me, and we used this method during our rehearsal process to create movement sequences and characters. During the final performance itself, we learnt that relying on audience interaction is risky, but we found ways around it to create success; other spontaneous moments occurred, and as actors we found this useful to deal with this authentically in the piece.

BLOCK 5 WEEK 3

BLOCK 4 WEEK 4

SOLO MUSIC ASSESSMENT, 22^ND MAY

For my solo music assessment, I created a 10-minute set. My set was about the stages of life, structured in a film format, with film quotes aiding the storyline. I wanted to set it out like this because I prefer storytelling that makes the audience think and try to decode meanings. I used film quotes such as the Choose Life monologue from Trainspotting, as well as quotes from Little Miss Sunshine, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Shawshank Redemption and Before Sunrise. These quotes all ‘say something’ about the life you lead, and the choices you make in life. It tells the story of a character growing up and learning about how cruel the world is once you step out of fairytales and imagination, how damaged it can make a person, making mistakes through life. But, in the end it will all be alright; you can’t truly ‘live’ without the imperfections. The songs I chose for this set take you on this exact journey, starting with Ma Belle Evangeline from The Princess and the Frog on the saxophone, Looking out for you by Joy Again on the guitar, followed by Brazil and Listen to your friends by Declan Mckenna. The Dying Light by Sam Fender comes next in the set, played on piano and guitar. It’s a cry for help, paired with the Choose Life monologue. The audience will see that the character is faced with two options: to carry on, feeling nihilistic every day, or to give up and give in to ‘the dying light.’ By the end of the song, the character realises that as much as it hurts, it will be okay. Fine Line by Harry Styles concludes the set, ending with ‘We’ll Be Alright,’ and a saxophone solo, reminding the character of the days when they knew nothing about the world, and could only see it for its beauty.

SOLO ASSESSMENT REHEARSAL

SKILLS LESSONS

ACTING

In the first block of skills of acting, the focus was on ‘self.’ At first, I didn’t really understand what this meant, but the closer we got to understanding about character in the second block of skills, the more I understood that I have to know who I am and where I’ve been in my life in order to create a whole new one for a character. By creating a timeline of my life, I realised the intricacies of memories and childhood and how important they are to how a person’s personality is built. Venturing out into Leeds in a long form improvisation with a character was challenging for me, as I have never had to hold a character for this long in an unfamiliar situation. I found interactions with the public difficult as my character would treat people very differently to how I would treat them, so I found myself overthinking how I would speak to people I didn’t know or clashing with other characters from the class in the city centre. Overall, I found this experience helpful to look back on because I now find it much easier to sustain a character for a long period of time, and I’m starting to not be afraid to shy away from bold choices in front of acting partners.

This is also where I discovered that affecting the other person is really important to acting. If I’m not trying to focus on changing or altering the other person, and only on what I’m doing on stage, it will look more like acting than a believable performance. Abi and I had this revelation in a lesson and further along the development process where we felt we had finally reached a moment where the scene truly felt connected.

MOVEMENT

Looking back, I have discovered a lot about my awareness of my body during the movement module. Movement technique has made me aware of warmups in the spine, pelvis, shoulders and more that serve my body the most. This has fed into my devised movement lessons, creating shapes and movements based around the principles of the body I have learnt through technique. I found viewpoints hard to get my head around at first, as I came from a dancing background and so didn’t realise there were so many other elements to moving. The more I learnt to accept that dance is part of my movement heritage and will always have an influence on the way I move, the more I opened up to things like viewpoints, particularly floor patterns and devising movement based around images, objects, music and text.

Dance and choreography has improved my stamina and fitness by a mile, and I have come along way with my core strength and ability to withstand high standard choreography over long periods of time. The cardio every week has helped me to feel more active in my personal life too, going on runs during holiday time when I didn’t have any lessons to keep up the stamina, in order to not fall back on it and result to how I was at the beginning. I have noticed significant improvements in my strength and flexibility after the Speak Easy assessment, rehearsing a high energy dance every week for a few months. Doing the ‘Long Ago’ solo and group dance improved my confidence in creating work for myself that I’m passionate about and made me remember why I enjoy dance so much; telling stories.

Learning basic salsa moves has also made me aware of other cultures of movement, and I would like to continue to learn more about this.

Animal studies is a notable journey for me, and the process has been extremely successful. I chose to be a tiger and visited the zoo to observe it in real time, as well as collecting videos online to conduct research on. Some wider reading I did was watching Animal Farm at the Playhouse on the 21st March, displaying the embodiment of animals to me. By the end of the process, I really believed in my animal, and so I found it exciting to morph my animal into a human form and give it human characteristics. This process has also made me more aware of what serves my body the most in different circumstances.

VOICE

In voice into text, using techniques like Cicely Berry’s methods has helped me significantly with the pace and the clarity of my speech. This felt unnatural at first as I didn’t realise how much work there was to be put in to improving spoken voice, but the more that I observed others in my class and then having a go myself, the more it made sense. For example, turning on every sentence or thought has allowed me to think deeper about what I am saying in a text, helping me to connect to it better. Using resonance exercises and warmups have helped to keep my voice healthier, especially when needing to be heard over other sounds. Articulation exercises made me more aware of my voice and my Leicester accent, where more often than not quite a few letters are dropped. I’m now able to keep elements of my accent whilst also subtly and not overly articulating. Ensemble singing has been useful as I’ve discovered that I don’t need to take really large breaths in between lines of lyrics. This has helped me to be less breathy when I sing harder songs, and my quality of speech in my singing has improved from reading the notated music and this helped me simultaneously with the music module. When I was told to imagine my voice as an instrument depending on the genre of music, this was useful in tackling the song and making my voice ‘fit.’ For example, attacking a Priscilla medley with a percussion tone made the song sound more ‘pop’ inspired.

The accents area of this module has been really insightful for me, discovering that I find it easy to dip in and out of the accents we learned. Because I have a midlands accent I can switch between Yorkshire and RP, considering I have elements of both in my accent. I found the Scottish accent the most challenging, as I was not used to speaking with rhotic Rs. I needed to use multiple hook lines with different elements and sprinklings to really work my way into it.

RESEARCH FOR PERFORMANCE

I’ve worked towards three projects in total, not including my research for performance assessment. The two key projects for me were the final two. As a group we researched into Ibsen, who I was previously familiar with and Chekhov. We wanted to focus on the individual’s place in society, attempting to fit in with ‘abnormalities’ which really just made them human. So, we created a story that connected all of these characters together; being oppressed by figures in their texts that represented ‘society.’ We chose A Doll’s House, Enemy of the People, Ghosts and The Master Builder. I played Nora in A Doll’s House, so to prepare for the role I read the text in full and decided which scene I felt connected most with our intentions for the presentation. I chose the final scene, where she finally decides to stop pretending to be something she’s not and leaves her husband. This project helped me with my Stanislavskian techniques, as modern realism was coming into fruition when Ibsen was writing. In a practical sense, it helped me to understand the naturalism of a character and why they would make the choices they did. I think it also helped that I had previously just completed the character block during acting, so I started to develop a more effective way of understanding character.

The final project before the assessment was about theatrical truths, and my group chose Artaud’s theatre of cruelty. We were quite against the idea of using much text in this project, as we had read Artaud’s manifestos and knew that he wanted more of a focus on physicality rather than spoken word in his performances. We chose to develop a version of the Lord of the Flies, taking inspiration from Peter Brook’s film adaptation, as we had learnt that he was influenced by Artaud’s practice. This was in my opinion my most successful project out of the three, as we used all areas that we researched thoroughly in the performance, plus we embraced Artaud’s athletes of the heart, improving our performances as actors. This project helped my group develop our theatre of cruelty ideas further for our assessment.

MUSIC

Music lab has been my biggest opportunity to discover things that I didn’t know about my music ability, and I have learned so many new and notable things in the room that I wouldn’t have done if it was just taught by theory. One of the first projects we worked on in these lessons was genre flipping, and my group flipped Ain’t No Mountain High Enough from a soul song into a folk song. This helped me with vocally switching a song, as well as trying out folky tunes which I had never really had a go at before.

We then did a project on underscoring a poem, and me and Lottie did A Visit from St Nicholas. This helped us to find ways of using our instruments unconventionally for the first time. I found this challenging at first, as I had never really ‘composed’ anything before, but because I was given a stimulus, this gave me a strong starting point.

This led really well into the next project where I wrote a folk song for Teddy to perform. I had never written a full song with music to accompany it before, and I felt like I really started to get into the swing of things. The more these projects went on, the more confident I grew with creating new material. We then covered People Watching by Sam Fender, recreating the music by ear. I found this hard because I didn’t know how to articulate what I wanted to do with the guitar but working it out in a group setting was helpful because we helped each other to create a final product.

ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT

Some of the most memorable lessons from this module this year for me have been during the visiting artist block. Dark Horse Theatre has particularly stuck with me. They accommodated to everyone’s needs in the room, and they encouraged reset breaks after achieving something new, which I benefitted from as some times I find it challenging to move on completely from something I have just created into something completely different. We communicated silently the whole time when we worked, which really helped me to tap into what we were working on, staying available. If the opportunity arose, I would love to work with this company again. Another notable workshop would be Next Door But One company. One of their main elements of their company is playback theatre, in which they take audience’s stories and retell and reimagine it on stage to entertain, and help audiences relive memories or fulfil closure. I like this method of working because I find devising theatre to be a useful resource in the early stages of development for a piece of theatre. I liked using real stories as stimuli and have benefited from this point of inspiration in the past.

SUMMATIVE STATEMENT

There has been so many pivotal moments and learning revelations for me in my first year of training, but I think the biggest journey that I have been on this year has been during my music training. Coming into this course, I had taught myself guitar for 3 years, and while I had worked myself up to an acceptable and successful standard, I knew there was still room for improvement within the technicalities of my playing and my music theory; I also wondered how I’d thrive in an ensemble atmosphere. I took up guitar lessons and saxophone lessons this year, as I had always loved hearing saxophones in songs and in live music locations, and knew I always wanted to try playing it. This has been a challenge for me this year, as I had never tried playing a reed instrument before. It took a lot of getting used to, but I started to get the hang of it and became more and more confident with playing it in front of other people throughout the year.

I am really proud of myself with how far I have come with my guitar playing in just a couple of months; in my lessons I have discovered that barre chords aren’t as scary as I thought they were, and I got really used to playing them now that sometimes I actually prefer to play open chords as barre chords as sometimes they sound nicer up the octave. This can be seen in the music lab workshop I was part of in my final week of skills, where Liv and Abi directed a section of The Western Wind, a song from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, an actor musician musical.

I have begun to pick up music off the page much quicker than I used to, especially when learning new songs in my guitar lessons. Reading notation was quite daunting to me at the start of the year, as I had some experience with it through singing but a very scarce amount through playing instruments, as I could mainly only read tab. The more I persuaded myself to practice throughout the year, the easier it has become to read it when playing the sax. I think my knowledge in music theory has improved across the year, and I definitely think it is better than I thought it was, having a bit of prior knowledge.

Learning by ‘doing’ has been particularly successful this year, as I think being in the room with my instrument and other people has helped me to figure things out independently and in a group which has helped me learn new things too. I am going to take these findings into my second year of training, as being consistent with practice has evidently been the most useful to me in music this year; I have to keep going at it to get better at it. Being braver and not being afraid to get things wrong is something that I need to remind myself to do more, especially next year, because nothing has to be perfect first time. I have realised that the process this year has been just as important as the final product, and I want to keep this mindset for next year and savour my development.  

Another key learning journey I have had this year is in voice. I used to get really bad stage stutter, and once it started, I struggled to stop, so starting off this year I was determined to improve on this. The exercises I explained earlier have helped with this not only in performance settings but social settings as well. Learning how to warm up my voice effectively has been useful, and I am much more aware of using my voice in a healthy way. I want to continue my development in voice as I feel it is the area I was least confident in at the start of the year, and while I have improved, there is definitely still room for more, as with all other areas because this year I have realised that as a performer, there will be flaws, and nothing will be absolutely perfect. My confidence has improved by not being afraid to just go for it, and this applies to other lessons in different modules too, especially animal studies. I was afraid that I would get self-conscious during this module, but the space felt really safe, so I could really just dive straight in to the process, which I was very proud of.

Some repeated feedback that I have received across various areas is grounding myself. I tend to be a fidgety person, and when I get nervous, or am stood performing solo in front of others, my legs move a lot. This therefore creates a less grounded performance. This is something that I have attempted to work on, and so far hasn’t come up in any of my final assessment feedback. During the musicianship workshops for the solo assessment my feedback has also been to ground myself when playing the saxophone, and in my opinion, I think this also applies to when I play the guitar stood up.

I feel much more confident in the way I present myself in a performance, and I have been repeatedly told in feedback that my stage presence is excellent, I want to keep this up next year, as it has been something I have clearly been able to switch on quite well this year.

CONCLUSION

To conclude this portfolio, it has been extremely enriching to look back on the year and reflect all the way back to the first few weeks of training, seeing how far I have come, celebrating the journeys I have been on this year. During this portfolio I have explained my findings throughout the year, my key learning moments, areas for improvement and my developing reflective practice that I will continue to utilise in second year. I have achieved a number of the goals that I set for myself, some of them happened in ways that I didn’t expect. I have shown evidence of my ongoing reflections and video and audio learning achievements by pin pointing moments when rehearsals were successful and memorable. I have learnt so much in this academic year that I will continue to embed into my practice moving forward, and I am so excited to develop my craft even more next year, topping up my knowledge that I have collated this year. If I had to name a final main takeaway from my first year of actor musician training, bold choices in every principle are something that I want to focus on; because I’ve learnt that good acting is in the choices you make.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Orton, J (1976) Orton Complete Plays: The Ruffian on the Stair. London: Bloomsbury.

Frears, S (2007) Prick Up Your Ears. The Samuel Goldwyn Company.

The Righteous Brothers (1965) Unchained Melody.

Shakespeare, W. ed. (2002) The Complete Sonnets and Poems. Oxford University Press.

Rowling, J.K. (1997) Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. UK: Bloomsbury.

Ashman, H. (1982) Little Shop of Horrors: Skid Row (Downtown).

Mitchell, A (2006) Hadestown: Wait for Me.

Artaud, A (1938) The Theatre and its Double. France.

Orwell, G (1949) Nineteen Eighty-Four. UK: Secker and Warburg.

Boyle, D (1996) Trainspotting. Channel Four.

Faris, V (2006) Little Miss Sunshine. Searchlight Pictures.

Hughes, J. (1986) Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Paramount Pictures.

Darabont, F (1994) The Shawshank Redemption. Warner Brothers.

Linklater, R (1995) Before Sunrise. Warner Brothers.

Cummings, J. (2009) The Princess and the Frog: Ma Belle Evangeline.

Joy Again (2016) Looking out for you.

Mckenna, D (2017) Brazil.

Mckenna, D (2017) Listen to your friends.

Fender, S (2021) The Dying Light.

Styles, H (2019) Fine Line.

Steel, B (2024) Till the Stars Come Down.

Alfreds, M (2007) Different every night.

Orwell, G (1945) Animal Farm. Leeds Playhouse: 21st March.

Ibsen (1879) A Doll’s House.

Ibsen (1883) Enemy of the People.

Ibsen (1882) Ghosts.

Ibsen (1892) The Master Builder.

Golding, W (1954) Lord of the Flies.

Brook, P (1963) Lord of the Flies. Columbia Pictures.

Gaye, M (1967) Ain’t no mountain high enough.

Moore, C.C. (1823) A Visit from St Nicholas.

Fender, S (2025) People Watching.

Dark Horse Company – https://www.darkhorsetheatre.co.uk/

Next Door But One – https://www.nextdoorbutone.co.uk/

Clark, D (2024) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: The Western Wind.