Reflection

At the beginning of this course, I first wanted to work with some sort of dramatic and some comedic material.  I believe that I have completed this goal. I have done multiple comedic roles, such as my first personal monologue and in my silent film. I think that these two comedic piece have helped me become more serious about comedy. For example, what doing my silent film, I learned that in addition to have funny lines, body motion and expression is very important. An actor can be extremely hilarious by doing certain faces or motions with their body. 

I have also been able to act in a dramatic role. When I first picked my "Fantastic Mr. Fox" monologue I had no idea how much effort I would need to put into it to make it have a climax and to make it as dramatic as it was. This monologue was by far the mist challenging project that we have done in class for me. I struggled with channeling anger and learning how to express it properly. I felt that at times I was holding back key emotions that my character was feeling, and that resulted in my mongoose not living up to expectations. However, once I fully kept in mind all of the suggestions that I received from my peers and Ms. Guarino, I was able to accomplish every emotion that I wanted to show to my audience. 

Another goal of mine was to improve upon my memorization skills. In class I was given many helpful strategies on how to improve on this, and I feel that they all really did help me. by writing each monologue out or recording and listening to it, I was able to memorize them in an effective and timely manner. I also used these strategies outside of class on Peter Pan. Because I did this, I felt comfortable when for when we were required to go off book. 

I feel like acting class also allowed me to improve upon working with others. I think that the silent film project allowed me to get to know my fellow students and learn how they work. I look forward to work with them for the second semester and every one that I didn't get to work with too. 

Lastly, what I want to work on during the second half of class is learning how to develop my characters more. I thin this is something important to do before acting in a production. When we developed the background of our characters class it helped me get more into my emotions for a monologue by picturing my character's past. In addition, I would love to work on a one-on-one dramatic dialogue with someone that I haven't worked with yet. I think that by doing this it will help to learn how to work on my feet, and improvise in hard situations. I think that learning this skill can really benefit an actor if they ever get stuck in a scene on stage if someone forgets their line.