I wanted to write a post about the whole subject and my own personal experiences as I am rediscovering what it is.
I am training to become a Drama teacher/tutor.
First of all, Drama is EVERYTHING. Everything is Drama. That is the beauty of it. Everywhere you go and everything a person does is Drama. Sometimes people can fail to realise this. From going to the shop and buying a newspaper to watching a football game to taking a bus to work. Everything that happens in life can be a scene.
Life is a play and you are the actor. Only it isn't scripted. You make your own script.
Everything you learn in life can be put in Drama. Everything you learn from Drama can be put in life. That is why I love it.
http://muksblogaboutstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/music-acting-performance-and-people.html
I studied Drama for five years in college. And sometimes I well and truly hated it.
I hated the fact that every time I saw someone in a play or a scene, I always used to think I could do it better. Why would I get so big headed like that? Maybe I just needed to mature a bit.
I hated how a lot of actors, not just me but a lot I knew were just up their own backsides in general.
But most of all, I hated how a lot of the times it was never about acting the part but more like looking like you fit the part.
I'm not saying that happened at college because it didn't. I'm saying that in the real world especially for TV, it was more about how you looked and not about your actual acting skills that got you the part. You could have years of acting training and experience but if you didn't "look" the part, you wouldn't get the part. There are a ton of actors who have "made it" purely because of how they look. That is something that will never leave the TV world. It's just the way it is. But I want to change all that. It is the only profession (not including modelling) where it is more or less guaranteed that it is the way you look which affects whether or not you get the job. Imagine if a Doctor or a Scientist who didn't get a job because of the way they looked. It just doesn't happen. I really couldn't stand that thought. I didn't want to become or be a part of that.
There was an open audition for a certain TV show whilst I was at college. I didn't go to the audition myself but a lot of the Drama students did. Most of them returned without even saying a single word at the audition. The casting people were literally just looking at who was pretty. Even though it was and still is a popular TV show, it isn't about the acting and never has been. To me that is pretty disgraceful. It's one of the reasons why I don't watch too much TV. But I also don't go to the theatre anymore. No actual real reason why. Sometimes I just don't feel like I actually belong there. But sometimes that goes for everywhere I go anyway.
So what do I actually LIKE about Drama? This post isn't just going to be about me moaning about something again. I obviously MUST like something about Drama for me to want to train to be able to teach it.
Well what does it do? It helps you to get emotions out and flipping heck, I am one insanely emotional person. It helps you with confidence, it helps you to connect with things in your life and in your memories in different ways. It gives you a different perspective on things and on people. It can help you understand the psychology of people (how many times have I wrote on this blog and questioned why people do/say what they do etc!).
Nearly half a life time ago when I was 16, I opted to do Performing Arts in college. I originally wanted to do just Music but at the time, I was awful on the guitar so had to do a course where I would have to to Music, Drama and Dance (they called Dance "Movement" to make it sound cool) and I would have to pass two from these three subjects to go onto the next year where I could specialise in one subject and at the time I was hoping it would be Music but within the course of that year, I slowly changed my mind.
I remember everyone in the Drama class had to learn and perform a monologue. And I remember thinking "Wait a minute, a monologue?? Getting up in front of everyone by myself and performing whilst everybody stares and judges only me?? I can't do that!"
So I have no idea and still to this day have no idea what possessed me to ask my tutor this:-
"Can I write my own monologue?"
Long story short, I wrote it about bullying. I performed it countless of times as people wanted to see it so much. And then see it again. It became a big deal. Someone who saw it cried. People who I didn't know/hadn't met were hugging me. Strangely at the time the HND students were doing a bullying project too. The tutor saw it and wanted me to do it at the end of one of their performances and when that day came I was so nervous I must have gone to the toilet about 16,000 times. They did their performance and then everybody included the tutor started to get up and leave until the tutor remembered about me and bought everyone back into the theatre. I performed it again. It went well. Everyone talked about it more than what the HND students did. Some guy said he wanted me to perform it at The Edinburgh Festival which he could organise. Eventually telling me I would have to change it and take the word "Paki" out of it which I say in it three times. I refused to do that. Changing the monologue would take away what it actually was. The power of it. I couldn't do that.
I was only 16 years old and still going through the stages if you like. I didn't know much about Drama or much about life or anything. At the time 16 was young. Unlike now. It seems like kids/teenagers are much more older now at 16 then when they were back then.
That year I went onto be Eddie in a play called "Blood Brothers". The play was done in a Brechtian style and several characters were supposed to be played by different actors but I did the whole of Eddie apart from one scene. I passed my BTEC 1st with flying colours and opted to do Drama in the BTEC National which was a two year course. The first of those years being less than stellar. Most of the class in the main end of year show were props including me with a four line part. I learnt monologues but I wasn't good at performing them at all. For some reason, I was more insecure this year than the last.
But the second of those years, I learnt so many different techniques/styles from Stanislavski, Peter Brook and the Alexander technique-the latter I couldn't stand doing and eventually had to tell the tutors this.
I had to dress up as a woman for Commedia Del Arte. I think this was the tutors' way of punishing me as I was always late. I actually did it well. I had long hair at the time and people actually said I looked better as a woman than as a man. D'oh.
That year we were doing two plays. The first was The Crucible which we performed at Christmas time. Again I wasn't having a great year and had a part with about 6 lines. But the tutor told me to be an understudy for someone who at the time was ill and if he couldn't make it to rehearsals then I could have the part. It was a big part. The part of Reverend Hale.
By no means did I want the person who had this part be ill. Of course I didn't. But I had to think how well I could do this part. Obviously learn the lines and the character etc. I couldn't help but get a bot excited and there was one day when the tutor said that if the guy who had the part doesn't come in today, then I can have the part. And on that rehearsal I was stood behind the curtain and it was coming up to my first line and the guy hadn't turned up yet. I was just about to start my scene and my first line when...he comes in! It was the craziest timing ever. As unprofessional as it was, I gave him the script and just went home. I was so glad he was better. It was just the timing which wasn't the best! We talked about it for ages afterwards with the tutor and actually had a laugh about it. He played the part probably a lot better than I would have done anyway.
So for all of that year as well, I failed to deliver until the very last play. The tutor said that everyone would have to audition for the last play and based on how our auditions went, she would pick parts for us accordingly. The play was Cabaret. Now I HATED musicals. But at the same time I had to do something worthwhile this year. I wasn't a good singer and everyone had to do a song and a monologue for the audition. I think we had a month to prepare. I learnt a monologue and a song on guitar. When it came to the audition, I did the song first, messed up like crazy. I could have got a backing track and played that but I chose to play my guitar and played wrong, sang wrong and everything about the song was wrong. Then just as I was about to start my monologue, in the middle of the audition, I decided to not do the monologue I had learnt. I had to pull the big gun out. I had to use the ace in my sleeve. I did the bullying monologue.
The next day, the class sat in a circle whilst the tutor read the parts out. I was given the massive part of Herr Schultz. The rest of the class didn't seem happy. I could almost hear their thoughts saying, "why him?" "what has he done to deserve that?" etc etc etc. But this was my chance to really go for it. And go for it I did.
Like I said, I couldn't sing. I had to sing! But I couldn't. What do I do? They say practice makes perfect but I just couldn't imagine the thought of me SINGING in front of up to 200 people! I couldn't sing in front of one person. But I would have to otherwise I couldn't do the part. There was only one thing I could do to practice in front of an audience without them really judging me...karaoke.
So the three months or so leading up to the play, I would go to a karaoke place every week and sing as much as I could. Obviously this would be along with learning lines, getting to know the character. I learnt, practiced, rehearsed, over and over and over. I had done nothing worthwhile for two whole years and this play was going to be for three nights just like every other end of year show. I had three nights to not just prove to everyone but to also prove to myself that I could do this. Strangely and I am not sure why I used to do this, but in rehearsals, I would NEVER give 100%. In any rehearsal ever. I wanted to give that bit extra on actual performance nights. I had a few ideas of what I was going to do. I always saved that bit extra just to really try and blow peoples' minds!
So did I blow peoples' minds?
Not to sound as arrogant as hell but I sure did.
It was one of those times in life where I could look back and say, it was one of the best things I did. I felt like the whole audience was actually in the palm of my hand. On the last night there being 200 people!
I got asked for my autograph and again, people were again hugging me after the show. There was a massive sense of overwhelming achievement. I had proved to everyone that I COULD do it. I proved to MYSELF that I could do it.
After that academic year was over, I stayed another 2 years to do a HND course which was basically a university course. The idea was the people that were on that course could then go to university for just a year to top up their HND and get their degrees.
Again, this was like the BTEC national. The first year went to awful that I ended up leaving.
The tutor said that at the end of the year, we could do whatever we wanted for our last project. I had an idea of dressing up as Death and walking around the town centre. Just to see what reactions I got. One of the tutors loved my idea but the main tutor didn't. I came up with a lot of other ideas but they all seemed to get pushed to the side and so our end of year show was to dress up as women and walk around the college. This wasn't what I wanted to do but somehow ended up having to do this. This wasn't challenging, this wasn't anything. It was just about goofing around and getting a reaction. It was ridiculous. We weren't learning anything.
After leaving I realised it was a bit of a silly thing to do to just not have a qualification. I went back to the college and said that I wanted to complete the course and wanted back in. The tutor said it wasn't possible but I KNEW how much the tutor wanted me back on the course as much as he would not admit it. So we ended up having a chat that was almost two hours long. I said I wanted to be challenged. I wanted to do something that was ground breaking. Dressing up as women wasn't ground breaking to me. It was nothing. He took me back on the course.
The second year was a lot better. We were able to do a project individually on whatever it was that we wanted. About ANYTHING. I did a "performance" pointing out how people get caught up more with celebrity shit rather than what is important in life. People choose to miss the important things and choose to live a life gossiping and basically intentionally missing out on making the world a better place. It was epic.
Our end of year show was Marat/Sade. We didn't want to do just the play. We wanted to do something (as I said before) groundbreaking. So we came up with the idea of being a character within a character. For example, we were in character of someone who had some form of illness/disability who would THEN be a character from Marat/Sade. We were being 2 characters and everybody was on stage throughout the whole play. Of course, anyone that knew us like the people in college would know were weren't disabled but when we took the performance out, people didn't know this until after the end when we broke character. We got standing ovations and people were amazed. It was pretty fulfilling I must say.
During the whole second year, it was pretty good. When I did go to university, they said that I was too qualified. But they also said I would have to do the whole course. So it would be another three years of doing what we basically had done in the whole HND course only we would be with people who had never done Drama before. They wouldn't let me or any of the other HND students go onto the third year which they originally said that we could so all the students that had the HND didn't bother going through university.
These are just some of my personal experiences. Just some. I have written this because I am JUST getting back into Drama and I guess I wanted to remind myself of what I am doing. Why I am doing this and what I hope to achieve.
Today I did a 15 minute micro-teach session with my classmates. Each of us are training to be tutors and are all learning different subject. My micro-teaching session happened to go absolutely amazing. Almost perfect. I had it all planned out and had a lot of notes but when I started doing it, I felt natural and hardly looked at my notes.
It feels like I am slowly getting back to my roots. It's going to be hard work but I think it could be great.
