Advanced Acting Module
Over the first term of third year, our advanced acting module has explored a wide range of approaches, with the aim of providing a strong foundation as we prepare to enter the professional industry. In this assignment, I will reflect on what I have learned through classes in Uta Hagen, Shakespeare, Monologues, and Screen Acting, and consider how these experiences will inform my practice as I move forward into the professional world.
Uta Hagen
The first lesson I will discuss is Uta Hagen and her Ten Exercises. We began by revisiting concepts introduced in second year, such as Uta Hagen’s Six Questions: Who am I? What are the circumstances? What are my relationships? What do I want? What is my obstacle? and What do I do if I get what I want? Although we were not undertaking extensive character work within the lessons themselves, these questions became an important part of our weekly preparation, even when the answers were simple—for example, Who am I? Myself. Where am I? My bedroom. In the first week, we recapped and prepared an exercise using both Exercise 1 and Exercise 2, Physical Destination and The Fourth Side. At this initial stage, we learned how these exercises worked: we must not improvise, and as the weeks go on, we were to stack exercises together. For example, we would continue to use the fourth side in all of our exercises going forward.
One of the most significant comparisons between the first and most recent weeks of this lesson is the increase in confidence when standing up and presenting work. The initial exercise, the phone call, felt manageable as we had briefly explored it in second year; however, the awareness of being watched was apparent. I found myself still seeing the post-it notes around the room, rather than my prepared location and objects which affected my engagement within the space. As the weeks progressed, this became increasingly easier, particularly once we began incorporating exercises with specific tasks.
The first exercise in which this became especially evident was Exercise 4, Moment to Moment. In this exercise, we had the task of finding something important to us on stage, while knowing where it was. Putting together everything so far, making sure we had worked out our location, rehearsing it so it is repeatable, and adding the stakes of something important in the given circumstances, was a great challenge and allowed me to really understand how this might be useful on stage. The stakes of the moment allowed me to sit within the story telling and not worry about the audience at all – which worked very well within the sharing, not needing to worry about the order of where I searched for my item as I’d done it many times prior in rehearsals. Key notes from this exercise included allowing time for thinking within the scene, using the fourth side more fully, and ensuring there was a clear reaction and a defined ending once the item was found.
Example of preparation before the phone call task. Similar done for each exercise.
The key learnings from Exercise 5, Endowment, included pushing the endowments to their fullest potential without spoon-feeding the audience, recognising that theatre allows space for the audience to fill in gaps. We also explored how to convey spontaneity within rigid choreography and how to find multiple honest choices when portraying an endowment.
One of the most engaging exercises was Exercise 7, Occupation While Waiting. This task required us to communicate where we were without explicitly telling the audience, encouraging us to discover what it is we actually do when waiting, giving us an idea how we approach a scene where we have little to no dialogue. To ground the exercise in something familiar, I chose to replicate my experience of waiting at a cold Leeds railway station the previous week. The main difficulty I encountered was introducing stakes that were too urgent. Although my actions were accurate, the urgency of needing to catch the train resulted in an exercise that felt overly frantic and difficult to read. The most effective adjustment was removing this urgency, which allowed me to fully experience the state of having nothing to do. This in turn also allowed me to fully add the endowment of being cold into the exercise. Becoming comfortable with stillness and inactivity was challenging, but with the feedback and revisions made, this is a skill I intend to apply in future work, particularly in scenes with minimal or no dialogue, understanding my circumstances to the fullest and how this would trigger my actions.
Exercise 8, Talking to Yourself, developed fairly naturally in rehearsal, as it reflects a habit I am aware of in my everyday life, listing tasks I’m doing. For this exercise, I chose a familiar situation: leaving my flat for a half-term or end-of-term holiday. While listing the items I had with me and the tasks I had completed in the flat, I also incorporated an element of Exercise 4 by misplacing my keys before leaving. This created opportunities for spontaneous reactions, including frustration and commentary on my own behaviour. Once again, all the exercises were building together to create a more engaging and layered performance, and my confidence within these tasks grew once again.
The exercise that most clearly demonstrated my progression over the weeks was Exercise 9, Talking to the Audience. This exercise was particularly interesting as it required the idea of addressing the audience without ever directly looking at them. I chose to speak about trains; a subject I am comfortable discussing at great lengths. Through consistent use of the fourth side and confidence in the material, I found the experience of addressing the audience increasingly natural. Although I was aware of their presence, I imagined the audience as family members seated in my auntie’s living room, which created a sense of ease and authenticity. This approach allowed for casual references, name drops, and complete honesty in performance, successfully maintaining the engagement of the audience throughout.
Our Uta Hagen lessons have been extremely eye-opening and have provided me with an expanded toolkit to carry forward. While at this stage I cannot say exactly which exercises will translate effectively into our third year shows or support me most as I enter the wider professional world, I am confident that I have gained a deeper level of understanding that will prove valuable in the future.
Shakespeare
Our first interaction with Shakespeare this year took place in our monologue class, where we began working with classical monologues. We started by using the well-known “To be, or not to be” speech from Hamlet as a foundation to attach key ideas and examples. One of the central concepts explored in relation to this soliloquy, as seen in many of Shakespeare’s speeches, was the idea of a dialectic: a structure that examines opposing arguments, often framed as “on the one hand” and “on the other hand.” This detailed exploration allowed us to look beyond the Shakespearean language and identify the underlying conflict within the writing.
In this first week, we also examined the concept of thinking on the line, which is a crucial element of performing Shakespeare. In our second monologue class, we were asked to learn the first thought of Hamlet’s speech in order to get it on its feet and begin to understand the demands and ideas behind performing Shakespeare. During this session, we received a significant amount of valuable feedback, which we were encouraged to apply to our own Shakespeare texts. A key piece of guidance for learning and understanding Shakespeare was the importance of fully sitting in the thought and its meaning; without this, the language risks sounding disconnected and like someone reciting ancient language rather than a story. Most feedback pushed back to this point, making sure we really landed the stakes of what we’re saying and thinking about so what we’re saying comes from the heart and shows the audience how much it means to the character without any misunderstanding due to the language difference. The final note was to make sure the end of the thought really lands; it’s the crucial piece for the audience to understand the conflict in the text in that moment.
To continue our monologue work, we then picked our own – I picked Prince Escalus’ monologue from the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet to help me find a character with very high stakes, authority and a losing situation. I chose this piece as I know they play and its circumstances well. The first time I got up to rehearse my monologue, I received a couple of very helpful points to go away and work on. Firstly, I needed to really think about the words I was using to push the severity of the situation and to really understand what would happen if I did not succeed in my objective. In this scenario my people are killing each other constantly, and the order in the kingdom is slipping away faster and faster, meaning my power is slipping and my position is unsafe. With so many layers it’s important to get the severity of the situation across to an audience. The other point I received was to not breathe in the middle of a thought to not lose its clarity and urgency. Especially at the beginning of the speech, the prince is demanding his “rebellious subjects” to drop their weapons and listen to him. The thought itself is a long one, so I put a few breaths in there to get through it. However my main note was to use the drama of the moment (as well as my voice, singing and breathwork training!) to push through the whole thought to show the audience how crucial this is. Although he has authority, he is stretched in this moment and does show elements of his desperation.
As we continued through the weeks with our Shakespeare monologues, the one exercise we did that helped me the most was when I had to enter the room with the entire class arguing and my job was to get them to listen. This was so helpful finding the energy behind the situation, and above all – this exercise allowed me to forget about the words and the language and allowed me to really connect with the situation. As you can see in the video below, this exercise allowed me to find everything I’d been asked to find in feedback – urgency, anger, desperation, authority just to name a few. It allowed me to experience coming into the speech at 100% and allowed me to discover the different tactics the prince uses through the speech to keep the citizens onside. This speech is layered and crucial for this character, and this exercise gave me the right boost to fully understand it and allowed me to say the speech without worrying about the fact it’s Shakespeare.
Running simultaneously to these classes were lessons on Shakespeare in general, which provided us with practical ways into the text as well as theoretical support that proved extremely beneficial. The aim of this class was to help us move beyond the language barrier and better understand the storytelling within Shakespeare’s plays. We explored this through a range of approaches, including imagery, as well as more academic considerations such as the different periods of his work and how these affect the use of verse and the themes present in the plays.
One of the most interesting areas of study was how iambic pentameter functions within the text, and how it can communicate vital information to the actor, such as which character holds power within a scene and the relative intelligence of a character. We saw this most clearly on the MyShakespeare website (myShakespeare, n.d.). The example we delved into was in Macbeth (c. 1606), particularly in scenes between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, where the pentameter tends to show Lady Macbeth has the power in the scene with her often finishing the pentameter. This work was further reinforced by my visit to the Globe Theatre in November 2025 (left image), which deepened my understanding of how Shakespeare’s work continues to be perceived by contemporary audiences, and how techniques such as imagery and breaking down the language barrier remain crucial in modern retellings of his stories. Together, the combination of practical monologue work and a more academic approach has strengthened my understanding of Shakespeare and how to effectively approach his work in the future.
Screen Acting and Contemporary Monologues
One of the most exciting new skills we explored this year was acting for camera. Although it was a significant shift, it was engaging to discover how a performance can be scaled back to a minimal level while still effectively telling the story through subtle movement and gesture. My first hands-on experience in this class was directing a scene. While it took some time to find my footing, I ultimately found the role highly enjoyable. Working with good actors made my job simple, but it was interesting to experiment with small adjustments and camera angles to enhance the effectiveness of the scene. Having this directorial experience in the bag before acting for camera myself came in useful as it showed me how subtle and nuanced a screen performance can be, while still being highly effective.
Throughout this class, we took part in mock screen auditions to give us an understanding of how to approach them in a real-world context, even when working with a script at short notice. Although the material we used was quite different from the roles I would typically play, it was exciting to be on camera for the first time and experience what that process feels like.
My first full performance on screen was a scene from Back to the Future (Zemeckis and Gale, 1985), which presented an excellent challenge in attempting a slightly heightened performance for camera. One of the main challenges we encountered was making the work too stage-like, particularly by angling our bodies outward for an imagined audience, when a more direct, face-on approach was required. Nevertheless, it was a valuable first experience of screen performance, especially as it explored a heightened acting style—an area I particularly enjoy and would like to continue developing for screen work.
When it came to performing independently, I chose a monologue from Peter and Alice (Logan, 2013) so that I could explore adapting it for both stage and screen. As this was my first time performing alone on screen, in my rehearsal process I made sure to record myself so I could get an idea of how it looked and whether it could be made into a smaller and more focused performance. The video below shows an early attempt getting to know my monologue.
My first work on this contemporary monologue in a class was in the context of screen, which proved to be a very interesting experience. The piece I selected was quite dark, with many underlying layers, despite being set against the context of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. Discovering this depth was the biggest challenge, particularly for screen.
As this was my first experience of this kind, I found that the most effective tactic for screen performance was to vividly visualise the circumstances and fully imagine the traumas described in the text. For safety, these were not personal traumas, but rather situations I created in my mind based on the words I was speaking to “Mrs Hargreaves.” Finding depth on screen required nuance, and for me, this came from concentrating on the character’s thoughts—understanding when the words were pure and straightforward, and when they carried additional layers. This process helped me identify what the character was primarily thinking, which I aimed to communicate subtly through my eyes.
Even during the larger, more desperate moments at the end of the monologue, I consciously scaled the performance down from how I might approach it on stage, maintaining the same intensity but bringing it through facial expression rather than extraneous hand movements. This approach ensured the performance remained as genuine and truthful as possible for the camera.
Working on the monologue for screen was an incredibly valuable learning experience, but it made returning to stage performance more challenging. As someone who is usually quite loud and well-pronounced, I struggled to maintain my usual volume and sometimes found myself swallowing words in the stage context. Emotionally, the screen work remained very useful, providing clear stimuli to latch onto; however, performing the same piece so differently after extensive work in another medium was difficult. This lesson highlighted just how significant the jump between stage and screen is. Achieving the same emotional intensity and meaning while projecting my voice felt especially challenging, particularly in the more intimate monologue setting, where raising my volume risked making the words feel less genuine. By the end, I began to feel more comfortable on stage, but it was fascinating to see how the meaning of the words must adapt to the format.
Next, I would be interested in taking a monologue I have performed on stage and adapting it for screen, as I think adding volume for stage is harder than scaling back for camera—particularly since I am more accustomed to larger stage performances. Overall, it was a fascinating experience that taught me not only the craft of screen acting but also the significant differences between the two mediums, each requiring different tools to achieve similar impact.
Conclusion
Overall, this advanced acting module has been greatly beneficial in moving me towards the professional acting world. Not only has it bolstered my stage acting toolkit, in both contemporary and more classical settings, but it has also opened my eyes to the different skillset required for performing on camera. I will take my learnings with me into my career, and I’m sure this work will prove itself to be extremely useful.
Bibliography
Logan, J. (2013) Peter and Alice. London: Methuen Drama.
myShakespeare (n.d.) myShakespeare. Available at: https://myshakespeare.com (Accessed: November 2025).
Shakespeare, W. (c.1606) Macbeth, Act 2 Scene 2. myShakespeare. Available at: https://myshakespeare.com/macbeth/act-2-scene-2 (Accessed: November 2025).
Zemeckis, R. and Gale, B. (1985) Back to the Future: screenplay. Available at: https://www.dailyscript.com (Accessed: October 2025).
