Unit 5 & 6 - Citizenship

                                         CITIZENSHIP

Mark Ravenhill:

Mark Ravenhill is an English playwright, actor and journalist. He was born on 7th June 1966 and is now age 54. He has written plays such as Shopping and fucking, Citizenship and many others. Mark Ravenhill was educated at Bristol University where he studied English and Drama he also worked foe the Soho Poly in London.

Unit 5 - script work

When I first read the script I realised the characters were teenagers which was perfect as we could all connect slightly with the characters actions and how they spoke. The script was written in 2007 by Mark Ravenhill so the slang written in the play is different to what it is now, for example "there'll be a ruck soon" and " you've got a buff bod".

How I worked Through It :    

Firstly I read through the script and tried to understand as best I can what the storyline was. I worked through the script by trying to understand the characters point of view and who they are as a person so I can try to impersonate their actions through my acting depending on which character I'm going ot be.

Break Down Of Scenes :

Me and my group all spoke about the scenes and broke them apart. We had an objective for each lesson, for example our objective for a lesson might be to go through the performance with no mistakes, another one might be to learn all our lines, each time we will have a new one or an objective for end of the week like completing our blogs.

Obstacles My Character Needs To Overcome :

Amy doesn't necessarily have to overcome anything however she does get caught up in a slight misunderstanding with Tom, when Tom leans in to kiss her in scene 1 she doesn't hold back however after she wants to act distant from him.

Who Is The Protagonist Or Antagonist ?

Protagonist = main character

Antagonist = evil character or the enemy

   

Although the other characters are involved quite a lot in the play the protagonists are both Tom and Amy. They are involved in nearly every single scene apart from a few. Citizenship is not a play which includes an antagonist therefore I can only identify the protagonist.

Unit 6 :

For this performance I have been partnered up with Louis, he plays the role of Tom and I play the role of Amy, during rehearsals we have to try and practice our scripts which takes time as we need to try and memorise them as well as acting. However I'm not the only one playing Amy, we're in a group of four with Louis being the only Tom and 3 girls all playing the character of Amy. We've had to work out who is doing what so we have decided to all split the script in three, during the performance each Amy character will come onto the stage finishing off what the previous Amy character done. We continue doing this until the end of scene 5.

Getting ready for the performance only consists of knowing all of our lines, being able to dress like the part, bouncing off each other perfectly into each of the next scene and most importantly acting like we're in the moment ( which is dying Tom's hair)

unit  7 -

The characters in the script are mainly teenagers therefore the clothing we wear can be based on a casual look, From my perspective the scene which we act out is the hair dye scene therefore what we wear has to link. Amy refers her top as a "crap top", on that account our top must be "crap" too.

                                             CREPPE :

C - context

The play Citizenship is a play written by Mark Ravenhill, it focuses mainly on two characters Tom and Amy. The play focuses on the characters and the problems they are all facing, Tom tries to figure out his sexuality, Amy cuts herself due to the amout of stress she is in and all the other charaters incuding Tom and Amy are all trying to figure out their identity and where they stand in the current friendships they are in. Citizenship is based on many themes one of them being sexuality, sexuality is a big theme as it revolves around Tom (the protagonist) as he wants to know whether hes into girls or into boys, another important theme would be identity, they all go through a faze of growing up in secondary school where they try to find out who they are and what they want. 

RE - research 

For the research we had to find out a bit more about the themes and the story line of the play as a whole. For example we had to look for what age our characters were and how they spoke etc....

In the play I play the character Amy, she's a sixteen year old who's in secondary school. Another part of research I've done is going on YouTube and searching the play citizenship to see how other people/schools have done it. While watching a group of people act out my part I got a visualisation of how I want to present my character I also got some ideas from watching it, such as the accent I'll speak in and what to wear. Overall my research helps me create my character by helping me see different aspects of who they are portrayed as in the play, the part which has helped me most is seeing someone else perform it therefore I get an insight of what my performance will look like.

P-planning

 During our rehearsals we had to plan out the setting and what to wear, the scene we are currently working on is scene 5 of Citizenship which is based on one of the characters getting their hair dyed therefore the scene is set in the bathroom. This means our group has to make our own set by bringing in props and setting them up in the way we want. This included well organisation and being well prepared as if we leave it till last minute we may not succeed in getting the right background etc

P-problem solving

The entirety of the play is very successful, we are currently managing everything, with us all knowing our lines it makes it much easier as now we can just focus on the acting and how we can make the play all come together. The only major problem we faced was people not attending and us having to improvise or do their lines. This is one of the most stressful parts of being in a performance, when someone who has an important character is absent we have to either improvise or change the character to someone else which unfortunately changes parts of the play. Other than this there has not really been any problems and all of us as a group have been able to make decisions regarding some peoples absence which has made the situation much easier.

E-evaluation 

Overall, the process is great and we are all on track so far, me and my group have managed to work out what we're doing and what our plan is, for example what props we are using and what Kind of background we want to perform with.

How has research helped me with my acting development?

During the project of Citizenship I had to research a few things such as, when the play was set, what genre it is and most importantly what my character was like, this research helped me understand a lot more and it enhanced my knowledge by making me realise what sort of things I have to do in order to prepare for my performance. While already knowing it was a play based on a group on teenagers I instantly thought I must be able to relate to it, and I could in some ways.


During the time of rehearsals each group had to do a presentation about Mark Ravenhill, who he was, what he did, why he wrote the play, what where his intentions and many other things. My group was a group of five therefore we all had to contribute in the research category, while researching about Mark Ravenhill I learnt so many things for example why he wrote the play, this impacted positively on my acting as when it came to performing I knew what the reason of the play was so I tried to reflect it out of the way I acted

I also looked up Citizenship on YouTube to try and see how other schools had performed it, I saw a couple of videos and understood how I'm meant to act and what facial expressions I must do. This helped me a little by showing the play from a different perspective and how someone else would have interpreted it. Now I had two different options so I tried to combine the two and I shared it with my group and saw how we liked it. We had three girls all playing the same character ( Amy) so we all decided to just carry on from each others lines not having to repeat the whole thing, this way the audience can see one performance and see how each of us can play the character. Although we all played to same character we had to make sure we acted the same only because we all had the same character.

Over the course of time I started to realise how the research I did helped me in my performance and I can say that I am happy with the way I did.

What Skills Do I Think I Have Developed Over This Course And This Project?

Taking everything into account, the project as a whole was very enjoyable in my opinion, I have learnt how to manage my work in the time given. Me and my class had a time where we had to be off script and learn all of our lines which was good as it pushed us to get it done much faster. The skills I have learnt varies between my acting and the way I approach it.

One of the skills I feel like I have improved on is my projection and the way I manage it. Because I am naturally a loud person I sometimes can be too loud however now I know when I'm speaking to be much more quite and to talk slower when speaking, Talking slower has been the main skill I've had to work on. As I talk very fast it causes me to stutter in my speech which also effects my confidence, In my opinion I feel like I am a confident person however sometimes I lack the confidence when my speech doesn't come out how I want it to come out. During my project and this course I have tried to show my confidence in my classes, it is a skill that I continue trying to build as it is a skill required to have as an actor/actress, Without it you will be restricted to do certain things for example, its needed in acting when you perform and also in general when you are being social, it will continue to benefit you in the future and for this reason I am happy I have this quality.

Overall, I am really enjoying this course as it brings my creative side and I also have the change to experience something I love doing.

How My Citizenship Performance Went :

Before my performance I was feeling quite nervous as I didn't want to make any mistakes or forget any of my lines , however as I was performing it I didn't feel as nervous as I was before. All in all I feel like my performance was a huge success as I received good feedback, me and my group managed to remember all our lines and when exactly to come in for our parts. Me and Albiona played the other two characters therefore straight after our scenes we had to go backstage to change the way we look, I took off my jacket and Albiona wore a different jacket and also let her hair down. Other than this I do think I could have done better in my performance, as I lacked a bit of confidence when it came to my part of the performance I feel like it made an impact on the way I acted however now thinking back at it I am pleased with how I did and am looking forward to performing again.