We Tell The Story

“Two different worlds, never meant to meet!” I still cannot believe that this show is over. “Once On This Island” is the first musical play I ever did, and I still don't believe I did. Since I have memories about my singing, my mom has been telling how bad I am at singing because I always get the wrong note. However, I truly enjoyed every singing and dancing rehearsals, and I love all the people in this play. I learned so many things on singing and got to know so many people after we tell the story! Anyway, I'm so glad that I improved a lot through this play and I will keep working hard in the future. Now let me tell the story!

Once there is a boy called John, and he is really scared to sing, so he decided to do wrestling for his winter afternoon activity. However, there was some God’s power guided this boy into the theater by cancling the wrestling program in the winter. The story began in the music room. This was the first time this boy went to the music room, and he did terrible on his first singing rehearsal, but he didn't felt bad and he laughed because it was too funny that seeing James’s suffered face. His long journey began, his singing improved a lot because Ms. DiGiacomo and Mr. Trier asked him to go to CATS, then James’s “torture” began. However, after two weeks this James, Ryan and this boy started to have their own karaoke in VdP. Later and later he was getting better. 

Except the singing rehearsal, the dancing rehearsal is also very interesting because I never danced before, so when the first time we ran the whole “We Dance” I felt so happy because I could actually dance while I'm singing on stage. And I feel much easier when I memorize the lines in the musical play than straight play even though it seemed hard to memorize all the dance movements and songs, but it actually helps you do better because it makes a string connection between songs and dances. However, there is another problem I relarized in the play that it is so hard to put our emotion in the musical play than the straight play because when we focusing on the rhythm, lyrics and movements it feels extremely hard to show our emotion to the audience. For example, I always sing “Pray” in a very nice way in the rehearsal, but I should do it with a very intense emotion. I am glad I didn't have to do it in the actual play because until now I still sing “Now the sky is turing dark” as it is a beautiful scene. 

After all, I want to say that musical play is such a new and special experience and feeling for me, and I like it because now I cannot stop singing now! I am looking forward to work on more next year. At the end I want to thank all the cast and crew members who gave this great show, and I also want to thank teachers who didn't give up on me even I was doing wrong in almost every single rehearsal. Of cause, I want to thank Ms. Guarino who guided me in this world I enjoy. We Tell The Story!!!

Script

http://hollywoodactingworkshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Taking_Advantage_-_2_men_1_woman_70s.pdf

It must be three

We finally get this monologue project done after we had a super long weekend. To be honest, being a director is a old and new experience to me in this class. I am very happy and excited because we have so many talented and creative students in this semester. By coaching and watching all of their great performances, I have seen things which I ignored or could not completely understand. The first thing I learned is about the line which is the most basic and important thing in a monologue. Another thing I noticed is the pacing and the pauses which make the performance even better.

It must be confusing that I learned about lines because I didn't even do any monologue. However, when I  am watching and coaching others I found out that most of them have problems on transition from one line to another. For example, Cade always forget the line when the hands line is coming. I feel like that he is always worried about the hands line, so he couldn't remember the order of lines. So I suggest that we can memorize important lines with the line before or after. It can help actors to remember the order, and they will be more relax when they're performing. Another example is when Josh messes his pop corn line, and it happened multiple times. I don't think that he doesn't remember the line because he goes smoothly with that line, then I found out that he does that because it is easier for him to say, and it gives the exact meaning. I used to focus on the exact words in script, but I find out that it works better if you can add some personal speaking habits which can make the monologue yours. I am very glad that I watched all of their works, so I can learn the lines. 

Second thing I noticed is that they always go too fast, and they all triedto go slower and slower overtimes. For example, Angel went super fast in her first draft, but I showed her the video of I Have A Dream and Jayden found a music for her. I told Angel how to pause in at some strong line or words to make it even stronger. Another thing I like so much is the dramatic pause; for example, Ryan paused a long time in his first video take. Even though plaguing long time is not good, but when he put a back ground music and emotion changed from one line to another line it was too good to believe that he accidently forgot the line. I'm impressed that Jayden and Ryan came up with perfect musics for their monologue which I have never done before in my past monologues. I have to confess that musics do make the scene looks better and easier to understand the emotion and meaning.

At the last, I want to congrat everyone who has shown us all these great performances, and I hope they all learned, and use them to make next project even better. I will always see my future works from three perspectives which are actors’, directors’ and audiences’. I believe a great performance must be correct by these three different people because a show can not go on without anyone of them.