Introduction

I loved acting from an early age and performing in local productions, such as playing the role of Annie with my drama group. I always got involved in the performing arts however, pursuing acting as a career seemed more of an ideal than a reality. As a result, I applied to study Psychology and Music after graduating from LIPA college with a distinction, with a view to continuing to perform and becoming an arts therapist. The observation and study of human behaviour has always interested me but I was following that path because it felt ‘safe’. In the weeks that followed as I received unconditional university offers, my self-confidence grew and I questioned my decision to attend mainstream university. I reflected on this and after thought and discussions within the family, I chose to apply to drama school. Despite turning down my offers and the uncertainty of my acceptance to a drama school, I felt sure of my decision, I knew acting was what I wanted and always had. After three challenging years of applying, I was offered a place! From the outset, I was ready to completely give myself over to my training, fail, do things that felt scary or unnatural, fail again and hone my skills as an artist. I often reflect on how special my chosen route is and how fortunate I am to be on this journey.

Stage Acting

Developing my knowledge of practitioners and their techniques with Tom has been invaluable to me in starting to construct my actor’s process. The Magic ’If’, which helps me consider “What would I do if I were in this situation?” (Stanislavski 1936/1948) and Given Circumstances, taken from Stanslavksi’s ‘An Actor prepares’, have been particularly applicable as I am a self-aware and reflective person and my work over first year has helped develop these skills. I wish for my introspection to reflect in my acting. As this year has progressed, I have found that by exploring how a scene’s circumstances may affect not only the character I am playing but also Lydia’s actions and decisions, has unlocked a deeper (yet safe) level of emotional connection to my character. In my pre-drama school performance experience, peers have fed back to me that I have been able to deliver a believable performance however I have not understood how I achieved this. Homing in on a range of techniques over this year I hope will continue to support me to unlock a safe level of connection to my characters, scene partners and audiences. Under Esther’s tutelage, I began to recognise an imbalance in my actor’s process, in that I was focusing more on being line perfect as quickly as possible and neglecting the exploration of my character’s objectives & circumstances. This sometimes resulted in referring to my script often while running a scene, which may have affected my connection to others in the moment. A technique which helped counteract this was the ‘line-no line-line’ approach. I found that by delivering my line with its usual intention, then pausing and allowing myself to connect with my partner’s reaction, then delivering my line again, with slight variation in intention, simultaneously helped me memorise my script and actively explore the emotional impact of my words. Additionally, working with small excerpts of script in screen, learning them as well as I can within the class time and then improvising the scene in front of the camera allows me to experiment with intention and emotional connection. The work I have done over this year supported me in my acting assessment and yielded a mark I am proud of.

Creating a character

As I reflect on my Acting classes, I feel that creating a character from an object was a challenge. I chose a remote control as my inspiring object. Whilst I enjoyed creating a backstory for my character, I could have referred to the object more often when shaping my character’s finer details. When taking my character, Amelie, into the public and interacting with others, I sometimes found myself slipping into Lydia’s habits. I often wonder whether my experience would have been different had I gone into the public alone and not (as I did) with a group. On reflection, I understand the importance of staying true to my character, whether on my own or with others, and to not be distracted, which is a risk when taking a character into a less performative environment. I believe in using introspection to develop a persona however I may have leaned too heavily into ’Lydia’. This may also have been a result of my under-developed actor’s process. I am pleased I identified this area to develop and am keen to work on this over summer 2025.

Animal Studies

When I reflect upon my progress in Animal Studies, one of my greatest achievements has been pinpointing areas of my body which were subject to discomfort whilst embodying my animal. By doing this, I was able to choose exercises to work those areas, particularly my neck and upper back (due to the panda’s extreme curvature of spine when sat, lying and moving on all fours). Therefore I could safely embody my animal for longer periods. Cat-cow, spine rolls and resistance neck exercises (ie palm of hand to side of face, pushing against the pressure of my hand) were extremely useful and I felt less achy after coming out of improvisations. I am pleased I was able to take ownership of my process over the weeks and pay attention to my body’s signals. By finding the postural differences between myself and my animal, I found solutions to this problem and, I feel, delivered a more connected, accurate portrayal of my animal. In addition this will lend itself to other areas of my practice as an actor. I now feel I can confidently devise a warm-up to accommodate for differing levels of physical demand in future roles. I felt inspired by my peers throughout the module. Working with others helped when conducting research into my animal’s behaviour and physicality. In the initial stages of research, I was interested in observing my animal’s movement style, skeleton and sound, and embody this to the best of my ability. However, working with others alerted me to other areas of research, including differences between male and female pandas, how they behave at different points e.g. during mating season and pre/postpartum. This led to my decision to study the female panda more closely, something I may not have thought of, had I carried out all my research independently. A block that I experienced in this module was spending sufficient time exploring the panda’s vocal sounds. I only researched this in the later weeks of the module. In hindsight, I focused too heavily on the animal’s physical movement, as it was important to me to replicate this however I adjusted my priorities for research and found that exploring the panda’s sounds helped me feel more connected to my animal.

Dance and Choreography

Dance and choreography class has been one of my greatest physical challenges of this year. During the early days of this class, I found the warm-up session to be extremely intense on my body. Some weeks, the thought of pushing my body to its limits brought about the temptation to miss the class. However, I felt motivated to keep showing up and working hard. I noticed my stamina improving during cardio, tidier form during the abs workout and stretching has improved my flexibility massively. Despite having faced a minor physical injury, likely brought about by the increased level of exercise, I took initiative by consulting a physiotherapist as soon as possible and have been able to incorporate my injury exercises into the warm-up in the class. This has aided me in safely pushing my physical limits and progress has continued.

I’m really pleased with my final grade in this class, and some of the positive feedback centred around my level of initiative when it came to the warm-up. I was able to follow an ensemble and remain connected with the group’s tempo, as well as being aware of my body’s needs, helping me find particular areas of my body which may have needed extra stretching. I felt confident in my process during this part of the assessment and having spent sufficient time stretching my body, feel this enhanced my performance of the routine.

I have also really enjoyed developing character to embed into routines learned over the year, particularly our final assessment, the Speakeasy. Although I have not been part of musical theatre style performances in a few years, I feel the skills I accumulated during this time, transferred to the routine. I also pushed myself to feature in the tap section of the dance. I have been out of tap classes for about a year but was proud of myself for moving out of my comfort zone and learning new tap steps.

Our first project with Donald, which was presented to our tutors, comprised of devising a solo based on a stimulus (open hand, closed fist) and a piece of music; Long Ago by Michael Hoppe. I enjoyed taking inspiration from the potential connotations of this stimulus, and decided for my movements to portray something cyclical, such as the rising and setting of the sun. Also, for my movements to resemble fluidity, reflecting the movement of light on sand and the shadows this creates as the sun rises and sets. I felt that the movement of the sun linked to ’open hand, closed fist’ in that light is given and then taken away. We were able to show our work to visiting artist and Leeds Conservatoire graduate Tyler Pickles, Artistic Director of his company, Rebel Roots Theatre. Having feedback from him was invaluable and I have referred to his advice in choreography classes since, especially pacing myself energy-wise, to ensure my performances are consistently engaging and active, i.e. not wearing myself out too quickly.

Since the assessment, we have explored new styles of dance for example, the basic steps of Salsa. We have also been learning a new routine in pairs, depicting a physical fight on reflection, I have enjoyed testing my strength with new motifs, and I feel the last three rehearsals have reminded me how physically demanding this class can be. I did unfortunately sustain a small injury to my knee whilst working to run the routine with the level of sharpness and energy required, neglecting to perform safely and look after my body. I am taking this experience as a positive by listening to my body when I am performing beyond my safe limits and taking time out if I am in pain.

Artistic Development: Reflective Practice

The artistic development sessions with Claire have been beneficial to me over first year, as they’ve facilitated my documenting and tracking my progress in an efficient way. It was useful to explore different reflective methods, some of which suited me more than others. ‘The 4 P’s’ (Pow, Pin, Prep and Present) have been used in Claire’s sessions and beyond. More recently, these sessions have allowed me to take a step back and reflect on my progress both within my learning and personally. I am keen to cover areas of progress I feel I have made, and occasions when my training has lent itself to more than one class.

Throughout my life, and especially when applying to & studying acting at Leeds, my mum has encouraged me to “take a step forward when I want to step back” and this has been my motto since joining in September. For example, volunteering to play a character in sight reading class, overcoming feeling tired and potentially uninspired at the end of the day. Also, putting myself forward for the tap section in the movement assessment, despite being out of tap classes for over a year. In the last few weeks, I have registered interest, auditioned and been cast in a musical called Bar, which will show at the MA Theatre Fest in Leeds over the summer.

Another area of progress has been taking steps to wake up earlier each day. I recognise that I am not a morning person however, I also understand that my plans for the day dictate how I feel about getting up early. Improving in this way gives me more time in the morning and helps me feel more prepared when I enter the classroom. On mornings when I wake up feeling tempted to sleep in, I have adopted a strategy to overcome this; the motto “I have had all the sleep I need” and counting down from three has practically reversed this bad habit.

I have found the introduction to intimacy co-ordination zoom sessions with Christina Fulcher have opened my eyes to potential pursuits once I have graduated. I have discovered intimacy co-ordination to be of great interest to me, and plan to contact Christina and other relevant staff within the conservatoire to learn more about necessary qualifications and plans as a graduate. I am really interested in working as an intimacy co-ordinator alongside acting.

Referring again to my artistic progress, I have curated a list of work to explore, recommended by my tutors, peers and visiting artists. From series and films, to playwrights and their work, I am currently reading playwright Jez Butterworth’s Plays One – discovered through sight reading class. I am very pleased that I continue to work through and add to the list; knowing myself as I do, it is one thing to make the list and another to engage with it.

Reflecting on occasions when my training has lent itself to different modules, I have found that developing my physical stamina in Dance and Choreography has also supported me in Devised Movement with Eilon. In the initial stages of this class, I struggled with staying on my feet for longer periods, causing me to feel lethargic quite quickly. However, doing cardio every week has increased my energy levels, and I have also improved in pacing myself so that I can take advantage of every exercise in Devised Movement without tiring too quickly.

Another example of how my training supports me in different areas of my learning, has been through building on my understanding of the Screen Actor’s Scene Approach (actor’s and character’s objective, obstacle, and conflict) in my Screen Acting class, and applying this knowledge to Stage Acting. I have found I work more efficiently with such a template. I can organise my ideas and develop my character’s circumstances and experiences whilst also engaging my imagination and considering ‘what Lydia would do.’ During screen group’s scene work on ‘Ivan’s XTC,’ my engagement with the Screen Actor’s Scene Approach was successful, demonstrated in my feedback; the decisions I made were believable and carefully thought-out. This preparation gave me more confidence in front of the camera, so I will use this model for future work.

WAlongside portfolio work, we have collaborated to create an original work to show to our year group on 22nd May. Pre-actor training, I started developing ideas for comedy sketches, some of which I shared with my peer. Maddie and I share a similar sense of humour and writing style. We collaborated to write a sketch, casting ourselves and our peers. We finished shooting on 15th May, and as a first collaboration, are really pleased with the result. It has been extremely rewarding to combine the cast’s skill sets and see our idea come to life. I am excited to share our sketch with others, and for future projects together.

Spoken Voice

Something which surprised me when I began my Spoken Voice classes with Joanna, was the level of physical intensity that comes with this training. The classes homed in on building strong diaphragmatic support, improving resonance, articulation, and finding the correct placement in the mouth for different pitches of voice (for example, working on a text which requires speaking in a lower register, I have been taught to use a yawning placement to achieve this sound.) Attaining these skills required me to speak text whilst moving certain areas of my body, lying on the floor, doing body rolls, and running around the space. I have also learned a wide range of exercises to support my vocal development and compiled these into a warm-up routine to show to my peers and tutor, on which I was assessed and given feedback. Throughout these classes, I have found myself better able to support my voice and these sessions have highlighted areas which require improvement before second year. My final assessment feedback has helped me set realistic goals for the summer, specifically, working on my vocal folds to reduce breathiness when speaking. I will use my warm-up routine to help with this. Since September, Joanna has emphasised “The 10,000 Hour Rule” (Gladwell, 2008.) This concept, published in ‘Outliers’ by Malcolm Gladwell, suggests that one must dedicate 10,000 hours to a skill to master it. This concept resonated with me, as I hope for my future acting career to combine my spoken and singing voice. I understand, to train my voice to be able to perform safely and skilfully, I must make time in my daily routine. I am determined to continue developing in this area whilst I train.

Spoken Voice Into Text

Alongside developing vocal technique, I have been learning how to ‘perform’ text. Under Chris’s tutelage, I began to adopt techniques encompassing storytelling skills and engaging the audience. One of the techniques resonating with me has been unpacking a bag of items to examine and utilise in my performing the poem or story. Following a change of tutor, Lily’s classes provided me with the opportunity to reflect on what I have learned rather than developing new skills. From this, I have found that I need to practice developing character voices for storytelling. Part of my assessment feedback detailed making bolder choices and differentiation between the voices. I am keen to get involved in my dad’s radio play on a local station, where I will be able to create my own characters and voice them. I look forward to lessons with Chris to resume in September so I can expand my learning.

Accents

Before I began my training, I enjoyed listening to different accents and found I was able to mimic them with ease. However, I did not own the technical understanding behind them, so Accents with Jess has been so valuable. I have had an introduction to phonetics which make up the sounds of received pronunciation, Yorkshire and Standard Scottish and later researched my chosen accent, Liverpudlian, to teach to my group. I have had positive feedback from my tutor, recommending I am in a good place in terms of progress for a first year and am excited to branch out into other dialects. Whilst I feel strong in listening and repeating, it will help me to explore phonetic kit lists and revise some of the symbols and their sounds. I would like to begin developing an accent process, which will serve me in future auditions. This will include drawing on my pre-existing skills in mimicking accents, by listening to a speaker of the accent, and familiarising myself with the kit list, so I can perform the accent as accurately as is possible for me.

1-2-1 Singing & Ensemble Singing

I have found my 1-2-1 singing lessons to be extremely valuable to my training. I have had classical training previously however, was out of practice for over a year, so it was especially important to re-develop the foundations of safe singing and diaphragmatic support. This, alongside my technical voice training with Joanna has helped me recognise my vocals strengths and areas to work on; particularly my breathy tone, which I understand I must work to use less when belting and performing sonnets & storytelling. Within my first few 1-2-1 sessions, I developed a vocal warm-up with Michael, which has made such a difference to my technique; I feel able to sing material which previously seemed out of reach, such as Les Misérables’ ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ and ‘On My Own’.

When my 1-2-1 sessions were taken over by Jacob, I began working with him to show a less breathy vocal mix. I have found this challenging as I am in the habit of singing with a breathy tone but I have learned that this can be damaging if not performed with a safe technique and if used when a song requires a stronger vocal mix (such as belting sections of a song). I have heard breathiness in my voice even when trying to sing with a chest mix. Exercises to strengthen my belt have included singing with a nasal quality and working to narrow my larynx for a sharper sound. I have also branched out to singing Disney, most recently ‘Colours of The Wind’ from Pocahontas. I have enjoyed bringing character to this song and value Jacob’s feedback in our sessions. I am getting constructive and precise guidance, down to singing certain notes slightly flat or sharp, to compliment the change of key in the song. With more work, I would be ready to perform this to my peers given the opportunity. Beyond these sessions, I am keen to have further 1-2-1 singing tuition and if possible, may approach Jacob for this.

Upon reflection, I preferred the split of the sessions with Michael, between warming up and rehearsing songs. There was emphasis on warming up the voice and practicing breath support, which would take up half of the time. Having said this, I now feel confident in using this warmup independently, and try to be available to warm up my voice before Jacob’s session and ensemble singing on Fridays. I think this will help me not only towards safer singing and better breath support but also owning my own process. This change in teaching style in my 1-2-1 has required me to rely on myself to ensure my voice is warm and taking initiative like this will help me as a working actor.

Ensemble singing has been a wonderful experience, collaborating with my group beyond acting and being part of choir-style group again. Despite the differing levels of singing experience between us, there is an sustained positivity when tasked with more challenging material and lots of encouragement. In return, I have felt confident to share my 1-2-1 work with the group and receive feedback from Craig while working on my chosen song with him.

Research For Performance

Research for performance has, at times, been a challenging area of my training. As I have not completed any earlier acting qualifications, my knowledge of practitioners and their approaches, such as Boal and Stanislavski, is limited. This module has required initiative and to engage in independent research. I am pleased with myself in terms of organisation and prioritising the time to prepare for my Research for Performance assessment. In hindsight it would have helped to set aside further time for researching to improve my general knowledge and thus apply this to work beyond the assessment. I am keen to borrow reading materials from the library to read over the summer.

When preparing for our assessment, my group split the work evenly. This enabled me to home in on specific areas of our pitch and break my workload into more manageable parts; a strategy which helps me memorise new information and expand on knowledge in a productive way. When creating our 20th century Political Theatre piece, we built our performance around domestic violence and societal attitudes towards women, through our adaptation of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. Our assessed performance, covering 21st Century Political Theatre, was based on this. During our initial research into political theatre, I was also interested in familiarising myself with ‘The Theatre of The Oppressed.’ A book I am keen to read over the summer is ‘The Theatre of the Oppressed in Practice Today’ by Ali Campbell.

Following our assessment, we took time in class to reflect on the assessment experience, homing in on what was important to us as a group and individually, and areas we struggled with. We communicated effectively as a collective and stayed true to our company’s vision; enabling our audience to receive unbiased information about our chosen topic and the opportunity to be involved in the performance & have their say using Boal’s Forum Theatre.

Towards the beginning of our assessment work, I frequently found myself feeling overwhelmed having impact on my own motivation to do the work independently. This was partly contributed to by a lack of self-belief in understanding the content. To overcome this, as previously mentioned, I separated the research into smaller chunks helping me to better understand our assigned topic. Another area of concern for me throughout this assessment was making points within the presentation that may have counteracted other’s work. It was important for us to understand & deliver our points concisely and present a strong pitch. We achieved this through effective communication and giving sufficient time to work as a group. Furthermore, our chosen topic; media representation of perpetrator versus victim; was something that interested the entire group. This encouraged us all to learn more, to contribute ideas and conduct primary research.

I am pleased with the extent to which Research for Performance has challenged me. It has opened my eyes to styles of theatre, practitioners and techniques previously unknown to myself. I have pushed myself to contribute ideas and approaches to collaborative work and to use initiative to name my areas of development. I have strategised to overcome occasional doubt in my ability in this part of my actor training and look forward to expanding on my knowledge over the summer. Particularly, in American playwrights and classic American Literature.

My Goals Ahead of Second Year

To summarise, firstly, I am interested in using the Personal Development Plan, introduced in Artistic Development. This will help me to organise my goals for second year and track my progress. Additionally, I will research the necessary qualifications to become an Intimacy Co-ordinator. I will also start a conversation with Christina Fulcher and Haley Muraleedharan to gain a better understanding of their roles and responsibilities.

With regards to movement, I wish to continue improving my flexibility, building on what I feel to be considerable progress. Having begun to recover from my knee injury, I am restarting my running plan and wish to start Pilates, both for physical stamina and flexibility. This will improve my energy levels, help me sleep better and support me during long rehearsal days in second year – I wish to bring good habits with me when I come back in September. Thanks to devised movement, I am now able to tune into specific areas of my body and become ‘aware’ of them – this in turn has helped me recognise my physical strengths and limits and adapt accordingly, resulting in my taking better care of my body. I will have plenty of opportunity to maintain an exercise routine over the summer.

Research into theatre styles, practitioners and new texts is an important goal for me. I understand there will be a focus on American playwrights, plays and accents, for a performance near the beginning of term. Having a better knowledge of playwrights, phonetics and classical works will not only help me in my general development as an actor, but I hope will also support me in constructing my actor’s process. Also, my assessment feedback from first year and current knowledge of techniques will help build this process.

On my acting process, I am interested in incorporating the Screen Actor Scene Process alongside Stanislavski techniques learned in stage acting; The Magic ‘If,’ The Unbroken Line of Action and Given Circumstances. These helped me shape a natural and connected performance for my stage acting assessment and I look forward to seeing how these techniques will support me in future work.

Another important target to meet is improving my vocal technique. As previously mentioned, I have a naturally breathy tone when speaking and singing, which under some circumstances, especially stage performance, will not be sustainable. I aim to improve this by regularly referring to my written feedback from my voice assessment and practicing my vocal warm-up I created earlier in first year. I will also create a condensed version of the warm-up for when there is little time before a performance.

Similarly, I will continue practicing my singing warm-up and work on new material such as Disney and more musical theatre.

My voice feedback recommended making bolder choices for character voices. I have had little experience in this prior to my training but am keen to improve this skill. To reiterate, my dad writes a radio play for a local station which includes creative and diverse character voices; I can develop new voices and record these for the show, this will be so beneficial to my artistic development, and I look forward to getting involved.

Whilst writing this portfolio, I have been able to see my journey in its entirety, with the challenges and positives it has presented. I look forward to second year with great enthusiasm.

Bibliography

https://lcmacuk-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/24103423_lcm_ac_uk/EWTLhHuP0ERHhow9WzBxreABz9n71G6Zq6M8fxdgh0Ojsw?e=2qaYNn