Introduction

My second year of training has enabled me to analyse my acting style and optimise the processes that work for me when creating and developing a character. This portfolio delves into how I wish to present myself as an actor, the type of roles I have a preference for, and the areas and style of acting I wish to pursue. It also portrays my research of the industry, for example which agencies I believe would be a good fit for me personally and professionally, as well as an analysis of my CV and biography, explaining the reasoning behind how I represent myself.

Acting Techniques and Style Preferences

During Year 2, I have tried different techniques when developing a character, becoming more confident in the process that works for me with each new role I perform. On receiving a new part, I research the play, character and context by creating mind maps, and study the era and script in order to understand and appreciate the writer’s intention. I then highlight my lines and start learning them, which has become less challenging since my diagnosis of dyslexia this year helping me understand the difficulties I have with reading and processing. On discovering I learn pictorially, I now highlight each of my lines with one of three colours, rotating them in order, enabling me to visualise the colour and correspond it with the line. Yellow paper also makes sight reading easier and helps keep my place on the page. After completing my research and reading my lines, I develop an idea of the character’s personality and background, trying different voices and physicality based on the character, era, location and setting. Lastly, I figure out the relationships between characters in different circumstances to build layers to their personality, and create a map of the layout to give a pictorial image of the whole setting, helping me with Uta Hagen’s technique of place. Before any rehearsal or performance, I will do a physical and vocal warm up, and run though what my character has done that day before the scene, incorporating gestures, in order to understand their emotions. This helps me to get into the physicality and voice.

At the start of the year, we studied our process and delved into what we could do to improve it. We researched different techniques to get into character, for example creating a playlist of songs to connect with their personality. I struggled to link songs to a character however, and it took a lot of time so, on reflection I will not continue with this. Instead, another technique I tried was using a trigger word, sound or gesture to snap me both in and out of the character which worked well for me when I played the role of May in F.M. I used a trigger gesture of holding my notebook close to my chest with both hands which helped me remember May’s nervousness and desire to learn. I will continue to include this technique in the physicality section of my process.

My personal acting style has become clearer this year by leaving my comfort zone and trying different roles. I have always been interested in television, particularly detective series, as I love the change of pace, the attention to body language to allow the audience to capture minute clues within the story line, and the different personal quirks of the characters. During this year however, I have also become drawn towards the Shakespearian comedies giving me the confidence to try other comedic roles, which I discovered I also enjoy. During Term 2, we had a 3-hour workshop on clowning and stage craft, using the last scene of Act 1 of “The Play That Goes Wrong”, which I had the pleasure of seeing at the Duchess Theatre, London. This play is run by the Mischief Theatre Company (www.mischiefcomedy.com, n.d.) and they use a chaotic mix of slapstick, physical gags and great lines to create the comedic piece. The workshop clarified my love of performing comedy, and made me realise working in this area is one of my passions and where I feel naturally comfortable. This confirmed an ambition to be in this play, and my wish to pursue a career in this area as well as physical theatre, Shakespeare and detective series style television.

Agents and Casting Directors

I would like to work with agents and casting directors who have connections with the Royal Shakespeare Company, comedic plays and TV detective series to help me with auditions and roles within these areas. For example, AHA agency (Ahatalent.co.uk, 2026) have actors on TV series such as ‘Midsummer Murders’ and ‘Murder before Evensong’, which are both British detective series with comedic elements. They also have actors with roles in Shakespeare productions, most recently Sharon Ballard (Shakespeare’s Globe, 2026) in the Shakespeare Globe’s newest rendition of Romeo and Juliet where she played Lady Capulet, in which she was a standout performer for me when I went to watch it. I have also looked into the Simon & How Agency (Simon & How, n.d.), in particular the agent Lou Davidson (Davidson, 2017), as her actors have performed in multiple roles at the Globe and with The Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as the new Young Sherlock series on Amazon Prime.  I am happy to work in any type of theatre as the production, my enjoyment of the work and alignment with my beliefs are more important than whether it is subsidised, commercial, independent or community.

Another branch of acting I would like to become involved with is voice acting as you can venture outside of your casting type and voice a role you might not necessarily perform. Within this area I would also like to pursue audio books to help those who struggle to read as I think books should be accessible to everybody. Both my brother and I are dyslexic which has affected our love for books and, for my brother, it has stopped him reading books all together. I believe that if he had more access to audio books when he was younger, he would enjoy them more now. Fiver (Fiverr.com, 2026) is always looking for actors to do voice overs for audio books and so is ACX (Acx.com, 2025), who are owned by Audible. However, with audiobooks, I would need to be mindful of the additional time required to edit the audio and ensure the pay reflects the total time required to complete the work.

On this course, I have looked at different contracts to understand the contractual obligations and expectations but I have found it very difficult to understand the legal terminology. When I get offers from agents, I will therefore need to seek guidance to ensure the contract does not benefit the agent more than me and includes reasonable clauses. I will also need a good agent to help review contracts for future work and to relay the contractual obligations to me, although I am sure this will become easier with experience.

Social Media and Self-Promotion

I am starting to market myself as an actor on social media (Yeates, 2017) by putting my personal account as privet and my acting account public. I have started the account by posting my work from this year and will look forward to including my 3^rd year shows. I am also starting to draft emails to agents to express my interest and explore potential representation.

Headshots

I am currently researching studios offering headshots. I would prefer shots where I am smiling, to reflect my happy outlook, with a couple of serious ones for the more serious roles. I am also looking for a focus on the face, especially the eyes which I believe are the window to the soul and a good way of seeing someone’s personality. Therefore, I would like a photographer who will capture that glint and life behind the eyes. As this is my first experience with headshots, an additional preference is to have a longer session to allow time to get comfortable and used to the space and photographer.

During my research, I narrowed my headshot options to three studios and then further analysed why I would or would not choose them.

Amy Rose Brown Photography

Yellowbelly

Tom Barker

CV

Biography

Summative Statement

My biggest learning curve in Year 2 has been the analysis of my acting style and the optimisation of the processes that work for me when creating and developing a new role, giving me confidence to push the boundaries, play with the personality of the character and therefore enable me to build layers which I had not previously done. During the play ‘Our Town’ I acted the part of Assistant Stage Manager (ASM), a role created for this version stemming from the Stage Manager. As there was no information about this character, I created it from the basics to make it my own, linking a Laben effort as a starting point to create the physicality. Mapping out the setting also provided a pictorial image which helped with Uta Hagen’s technique of place allowing me to understand and visualise each character’s journey throughout the production and their connections with one another. Once I understood the context of the ASM within the story, I developed a strong understanding of the personality I wanted to portray, allowing me to play with it and add layers. After overcoming the initial apprehension of there being no reference, I found this very freeing, enjoying the process, and will keep developing this for future work. One area I struggled with however, was maintaining the New York accent and will continue to work on accents to improve this area. Following the play F.M. another technique I will continue with into Year 3 is to maintain the persona during a performance by using a trigger word, sound or gesture. I found this technique helped me to keep focus and to snap me both in and out of the character.

During Term 2 of this year, we focused on two Shakespeare plays; ‘Much- Ado About Nothing’ and ‘Twelfth Night’. I really enjoyed adding the physicality and comedy to the scenes of both these plays because it felt natural, fit with my acting style and I found that the comedy came easily. Having practised street and contemporary dance for many years, I am comfortable with movement, and find that my thoughts and words come more naturally, allowing me to express emotion more freely through that medium. The physicality acts as a translator for Shakespeare’s language, enabling me to fully understand the words linked to my character. When stationary I find it more difficult to connect with emotion and find the reality and truth behind the words as it feels unnatural and less comfortable. Due to my new found love of Shakespeare I would like to perform a Shakespeare play in 3^rd Year, but work more on connecting to the emotions and language of the character whilst stationary as Shakespeare’s tragedies are more suited to reduced movement whilst portraying emotional turmoil.

In Term 2 we also practised different styles of comedy, including the clowning workshop, which further clarified my love of performing comedy and confirmed this is where I feel most natural. The style I enjoyed most was restoration comedy where you perform larger than life characters. This was difficult initially, and I had to build up the confidence to go out of my comfort zone but within my group we agreed to push the boundaries together. Increasing our confidence as a unit made us realise the fun we could have experimenting with new ideas, feeling free to go to the extremes of a character and then pulling back if necessary. Once the confidence had been built-up, we could re‑enact our parts with other groups and I enjoyed how far I could take the stereotypes of the character. As well as a Shakespeare piece in Year 3, I would therefore also like to find a comedic part for my showcase and experiment with this style further.

During this year I have increased my understanding of the industry and where my acting style and personality can fit into it, focusing on agents that will suit me and my ambitions. I have tried to capture my personality when creating my initial CV, Biography and Headshot style, aiming for the liveliness, physicality and glint behind the eyes to be apparent, hopefully enabling the reader to connect and which I can further enhance during auditions. Going forward, I will regularly update my CV and biography as my experiences, skills and interests develop. My research of plays, television and Shakespeare has given me a good foundation of the type of work I would be interested in pursuing but I will continue to broaden this knowledge with further research through social media and by watching a range of performances. This will help me to keep up with what is being produced to remain fresh with my ideas and opportunities. 

Overall, this year has built my confidence as an actor, solidified my process and aspirations and enabled me to see how I can move forwards within the industry. One of my key breakthrough moments was applying the Laben efforts where we would start with embodying the most relevant of the eight efforts as movement and then internalise it to define the main emotion for a character. After discovering the main effort, we experimented with adding another to combine the two, giving the character outward and inward showing emotions which could reverse depending on the circumstance.  I found using Laben efforts an easy, accessible way to access an emotion without delving into the dangerous route of emotion memory. The other breakthrough moment was using the Five Levels of Why. For each change of objective, asking ‘why’ five times allowed me to think of the character and what shaped them at a deeper level to better understand the reason they acted in a certain way giving a greater connection to their emotions and feelings.

Throughout the year my confidence has grown as a person as I have felt more comfortable to be myself and share ideas with my peers, which the dyslexia diagnosis has helped with. I want to continue increasing this confidence so I can be the best version of myself going into industry. With the two projects we have completed this year I have felt my process solidify and I am excited to finetune this during 3^rd Year with different styles of plays and the showcase in order to improve further and increase my opportunities and chances of success.