FINAL PERFORMANCE - 07/06/07 + Drama Evaluation

The performance was a success! Apparently it was great from the audience's point of view, and that is what matters! There were no big mess-ups, and everyone remembered their lines!

We met outside the PAC, in the courtyard, at 6:30 and proceeded in playing a game of bang, our last ever as an ensemble. It was fun, except i was first to be knocked out, and i do not actually think i have ever won a game of bang, which is quite sad, really... After that, we got ready for the play. This meant make up and hair and all that. For me, this meant that i was going to get my hair slicked back. Caroline sat me down, and proceeded in squeezing a blob of gel into the palm of her hand the size of Bill's ego and then into my hair it went. This was followed by enough hair spray to kill an adult moose. I then put on my leather jacket and the cigarette went behind my ear, and the consensus was that i looked like someone "straight out of Grease". Fair enough...

We then went inside and during the intermission we set up. Everyone was fairly nervous, but i think we all knew that we would do good. Finally, it was time to start, the lights dimmed, Nick walked on and the sound of traffic started...

It started of well, everyone knew what they were doing (well, almost everyone...) and there were no real mess-ups. That is, until Alex Dal accidentally started one of the SFX far too early, in the middle of a scene with Joe and Silva somewhere towards the beginning/early-middle of the play. That was the biggest mess-up of the play, but it was not a huge problem.

Then it was time for my scene with Nick. It went very well, in my opinion, and we did the scene justice. It was not a very hard scene, sure, but we still did well and that is a good thing.

Then came my scene with Maria. This was it! We went out there, and we remembered all our lines, like i knew we would, and everything went smoothly, except at one point the cigarette fell from behind my ear, but that did not cause an issue, merely a few laughs from the crowd, which was no problem. I think, despite all the problems we had had with it, that we managed to pull that scene off very well with no real problems. Nick came on a little late, though, and i felt it was a little awkward when i simply stopped after "when girls like you try to sell me that stuff..." because it would have been better if he would have interrupted me. He then pushed me quite forcefully off stage which probably created a nice effect.

The other actors then finished their scenes, and it all ended with Nick's mock salute and the sad tune, which i feel symbolized our goodbye to drama class. The sad song definitely summed up many of the emotions we were feeling, while the salute fit in with the somewhat light-hearted nature of our ensemble.

The crowd clapped and we bowed, and it was all over.

That moment marked the end of an era for me. It was the end of drama class. I have to do chemistry and biology next year if i want to go to medical school, and thus cannot do IB Theatre. I have enjoyed these past three years enormously and do not want them to be over, and cannot believe the reality of it. I have learned so much. I have progressed as an actor, I project better, i know how to use my body better, and have discovered a love for improvization which, unfortunately, we did not get to do much of this year, and when we did we were very rusty as we had not done it for a while, which was a shame.

A moment this year that definitely stands out was when Alex Dal and I did our monologue, about a hunter in the woods. We were told we did an amazing job and i am actually very proud of our monologue. Apparently it was one of the first times where we had shown a darker, more emotional side to our performances, as opposed to the usual comedy.

The past three years in drama have been great, and i have learned an incredible amount. Because i am not doing IB Theatre next year, i am definitely joining ETC in order to satisfy my drama needs.