Introduction
When I started this course I came in feeling quite evenly confident in my acting and music skills and wanted to learn to be an actor musician in the sense of putting these skills together into one form. However, this year I have discovered that there is a lot more to being an actor musician and thus have discovered new skills such as leading a room. Specifically, something I found I was passionate about this year was musical direction. I decided to do some research on this (see 2a) to expand my options for the future. I also made sure to research theatre companies and agencies (see 1e) that specialise in actor musician musicals however I initially found this difficult as I didn’t know where to start. In doing this, I came to the realisation I’m also be interested in making my own work and began to research creating my own theatre company (see 2b) as an option for the future.
Additionally, this year I had several learning moments. These included trusting my abilities, having confidence in a rehearsal room, making bolder choices and communicating with my peers efficiently. These moments have also influenced my goals and intentions going into third year, the industry and what skills I want to improve on before I graduate.
Industry Research
Headshots
CV and Biography
After looking through the coming graduates and other industry professional headshots (see 1a), I realised that I was drawn to headshots filled with colour and a focus on eyes and smiles rather than dark backgrounds, harsh lighting and serious expressions. I liked the Akta headshots because there was a range of background colours which fit the specific person’s features and made them stand out. Whilst I looked at Emily Goldie, I prefered Akta because I consistently liked all of these headshots regardless of hair and eye colour whereas with Emily Goldie’s I mostly liked photos of people with different features to me. Additionally, Akta’s headshots were the ones I was most drawn to when looking at the programmes for the third year shows. I also found out that they run a pay what you can scheme which meant that I would be able to pay a more manageable amount for headshots without compromising the quality as headshots are often expensive. Therefore, I decided to book a headshot session through Akta.
In my CV (see 1b) I put my headshot and name at the top in the biggest font because they are what I want people to remember. I put this in pink to reflect my fun and outgoing personality and create an inviting and eye catching look. I set out the rest of my CV with clear headings and sections, putting the headings in capital letters and important information in bold for ease of skim reading. My key details and experience are at the top as these are the things I want to convey first followed by my skills and training underneath. For my theatre credits, I have put them in order of most to least recent and have chosen to include a credit from each type of theatre I am interested in working in. I chose “The Moors” to present that I can do queer dark comedy roles, the Rock and Roll Pantomime to show my actor musician skills and “The Runaway Royal” to show my opera background and singing experience.
When creating my biography (see 1c) I focused on how to communicate my strengths and realistic ability on newer skills without downsizing myself. I decided to begin with my instrumental abilities because they are most relevant for the type of work I want to go into as an actor musician. I began with flute as it’s my most confident instrument then added my additional instrumental skills to show my abilities in a positive yet realistic light. I then decided to mention my strong singing background as it is something I want to stand out, making sure to mention having worked with “Opera North”. I went into the work I’ve done in my training, mentioning again the type of work I’m hoping to go into. Finally, I ended with the roles for my third year season for any agents coming to the shows and showcase so that they can identify me more easily.
1c
Agencies, solar system and theatre companies
I did lots of research on which kind of agencies would be a good fit for me when I graduate (see 1e) based on the kind of work I want to go into. I want an agency that either has a base in the North or London because I have a base in both of these places. I also want an agency that works with both screen and stage as I am interested in working in multiple parts of the industry. I specifically aimed to see musical theatre or actor musician work listed on agencies’ website or social media since theatre with music is the work I am most passionate about pursuing . I made a list of all of the agencies the graduates from the past two years were signed with as well as ones that other actors and friends I knew were signed with. I researched each one’s website and social media and colour coded green, orange and red depending on how much they fit with what I wanted from an agency. I have since followed these agencies on social media and started regularly interacting with them and I hope to invite them to my third year shows. One of the agencies I specifically resonated with was AKM talent management as they are female led, have been going for 60 years with a strong reputation, are based in London and Manchester and have strong examples of screen, musical theatre and actor musician work. Others that I liked for similar reasons include Nicola Bolton, Crockford Casey associates and 33 Entertainment Group.
I researched several theatre companies that I might want to work with and colour coded them in the same way as the agencies depending on if they made work that excited me and aligned with what I wanted to be part of. This includes political theatre and theatre including music and movement. The companies I felt most drawn to were Archipelago Arts because they use actor musician work to create new musicals and pieces based around historical objects. Having done history at a level, this excited me and made me curious about how my other passions could come into my work in this way. Another company I liked was Red Ladder because their aim to create radical socialist theatre to influence the world to be a kinder place is the exact kind of political message that I would want to portray through art.
As well as liking these theatre companies, I also have an interest in creating my own theatre company. I started creating a small solar system (see 1d) of all the connections I already have within and outside of the conservatoire that could help me create this. I decided to do this because when researching companies, there were lots of theatre and movement companies but few that were creating original music, musical theatre or actor musician pieces and that’s what I’m passionate about. I have started creating a plan of the kind of work I want to make and why. I hope to carry on this research into third year, potentially starting by premiering something at next year’s MA festival.
Reflective Break
The Rock and Roll Pantomime
The Moors
Starting rehearsals for the rock and roll panto was a big learning moment for me and a slight shock to the system. The jump from first year where skills were all separate to then all being thrown together in 2 weeks was a lot. However, I do believe this project was what developed my skills as an actor musician the quickest this year because of having to trust the process and have confidence in my ability to pick up music and choreography quickly in such a small space of time. Going into this project, I did not think that I could learn 8 songs without sheet music on my less confident instruments in 2 weeks and yet I did. Trumpet was the challenge I faced the most in this process. I can memorise lines and singing quite fast and I had experience in dance but learning uptown funk off by heart on the trumpet took a lot of practice and a change of mindset into looking confident even when I don’t feel it. I have already taken this on board in the other projects this year and will continue this mindset in musicianship and choreography and in next years shows.
The Moors was another huge learning moment this year particularly for making bold choices. I had often been told to make bolder choices in first year but never fully understood what this meant and what was actually being asked of me. I learned that as an actor my instinct when starting a new project is to start nuanced and subtle and build up to bigger and “bolder” choices which I hadn’t realised was my habit before. This was challenged by my director, Sean Linnen, during the Moors whose main philosophy was to make bold choices that can then be pulled back if needed. Therefore, I learned that I need to go beyond my comfort zone and what I think is a bold choice because this reads better from an outside perspective, appearing as a stronger choice to the audience. This is something I am still working on and will continue to work on in third year, pushing myself to go big from the offset without needing external permission.
Shakespeare/music assessment
The Shakespeare and music assessment term was a definite test of my resilience this year and taught me a lot about my process of working and managing multiple things at the same time. The music assessment taught me a lot about my ability to lead a room and helped me discover that this is actually a real strength of mine. I am able to communicate my wants and needs to a room very efficiently whilst also staying kind and respectful. This also taught me about my ability to learn lots of different tracks and genres at the same time and being able to balance giving priority to each person’s assessment equally which sometimes proved difficult based on energy levels and time of day. I learned that I need breaks, snacks and time in and out of the room during long rehearsals in order to stay focused and crucially I learned to communicate this.
During the Shakespeare assessment I learned a lot about how to navigate language in a physical way. When rehearsing I noticed I often end game the scene straight away and I learned a lot about slowing down and enjoying the process. I discovered that you don’t always need the “right answer” because there are lots of interpretations and ways of understanding the text. We did exercises on just saying the vowels or consonants, the last or first word of each line and different movements on antithesis. All of these helped me to understand I didn’t just need to google other people’s translations to understand this language. I can work it out myself, have my own interpretations and know that these can change and develop throughout a process. These are all skills I will take forward into third year in either actor musician shows or other Shakespeare and classical work. I can also apply these skills in the future with any text as a starting point in understanding the language in my own way.
Summative Statement
Overall this year I’ve realised I have lots of things I want to do in my future including musical direction, creating my own work and collaborating on other new work – with all of this incorporating music.
First of all over this year I have realised that I enjoy musical directing. This especially hit me when working on the Moors and our music projects where we were working closely with the MA Musical directors. When composing transitions in the Moors, there were moments when I led the room and I came to find that this was something I was expressive and efficient at as well as something I enjoyed. In first year I found that I backed away from leadership moments because I was scared of people being angry at me or not listening. However, this year I faced my fears and decided to do it anyway and it ended up being something I felt I really thrived in. I also found this when doing our music assessment and leading our small groups. I managed to use my time efficiently and create a collaborative and productive environment which was something I was very proud of. All of these moments combined led me to think about this as a future career option as well as performing which opens up more job opportunities. I started researching which universities offer MA musical directing as a course (see 2a) , which of them I liked, what was included in the course and what would be beneficial for me. I liked the sound of the Mountview and the Leeds Conservatoire courses. They felt the most collaborative within the university and offered lots of one-on one skills lessons including piano which is something I am currently working to improve. They also offered lots of opportunities to shadow or practically lead a room to learn on the job. This is something I work a lot better with than only learning theoretically. Therefore I would like to keep researching these courses and their requirements and in the next few years think about applying to one of them.
This also links to my want to create my own work because I can use the skills of my musical direction and actor musician abilities to create work that I want to be in and that I’m not seeing reflected in the industry currently. When researching theatre companies, although I did find ones I would like to work with, I didn’t find any that created the specific type of work that I am most passionate about which is comedy and parody style actor musician musicals. Therefore I would like to continue to explore writing work and research new work I can create. Collaborating with my peers and nurturing the connections I made during the MA festival last year will help start the foundations to creating my own theatre company. I began by looking back at the workshops we did with Ruth on this and have started writing music for a show that ideally I would like to put on at the MA festival next year. This would help to get a starting point of a creative team and vision. I would like to enlist the help of others in my class for movement and other musical creative roles to create this show together. Additionally, I will ask older years that I worked with on the MA festival last year for advice or directorial roles within this production. As a starting point, I have followed Ruth’s plan of action from her PowerPoints (see 2b) and I plan to continue working on this and getting other people on board during my third year. Although this is not a full plan yet, it is something I will carry on having to research and plan steps for.
Finally I am very interested in finding new work to be a part of. I’ve found there is a lot of new actor musician work at the moment because actor musicianship as a concept is relatively new. Constantly adapting to mean different things, in the past few years the actor musician industry has leant more into the folky musical theatre side rather than actors who can also accompany in a band. I love a lot of mainstream new work such as Benjamin Button and Hadestown but am also interested in the type of work I did at the MA festival last year. This was an actor musician comedy show called BLT based on a demon teacher who put a curse on a human via sandwich. I enjoyed this especially because it also fit into the type of work that I want to create – a weird comedy and an actor musician musical. The creative team were also actor musicians which was great because it meant they could understand how to communicate with us in a room. This made me also think I want to work with actor musicians in a creative role in the future as well as with them as fellow actors.
Conclusion
Overall, this year I have discovered that I have a lot of options to explore going forward instead of just wanting to be an actor musician who “sings, acts and plays instruments”. I have realised there are lots of options for other avenues as well as this and being an actor musician can be many things. I have other passions that I’m good at as well as these specific skills. I have also realised this year that I want to make my own work to make the kind of theatre I’m interested in as I didn’t see much of this during my industry research. Therefore, I would like to explore creative roles in the industry in addition to being an actor musician performer.
