Completed Preparing for Audition (Work Thread #1 Summer 513 AV)

[Amolina]

~ Amolina Moletta ~ ~ 40 th day of Summer 513 AV ~ The first of Amolina's mandatory work threads for Summer 513 AV OOCThere is no description yet of Acting and it’s skill progression in the skill list. There is only a stub. I made a tentative text to use as background for my acting work threads. It’s in the spoiler. Description of Acting and it’s Skill Progression : THE WORK LIFE OF AN ACTOR The glory of the stage, the allure of fame and the promise of stardom can all be tempting to people drawn to acting. But the reality of the profession is often much different. The average actors may spend a lifetime trying to find steady employment, and may never reach anything close to fame. But, actors can make a living at their craft, and can be found in almost every city. The life of an actor can be hectic and stressful. These workers are often employed for short periods, from a day to a month at a time, and can struggle to find regular employment. When they find work, actors can often spend long and irregular hours in rehearsals and performances. Working on weekends, evenings and even holidays is common. Unless performing in a production going on for a long time, actors rarely earn regular income. They typically work under a defined contract, lasting from a day to a few months. Many actors maintain secondary employment during times when they are not acting. Audition To get a role, an actor auditions in front of directors and producers. This can consist of performing a memorized monologue, improvising a performance or reading entirely from a script. And actor may need to audition for hundreds of hours and never get a role. Research Research is important in discovering the writer's intentions with the script and the meaning behind the lines. Research may involve reading other scripts by the same writer, watching plays by the same director, or discovering historical facts. This can also involve researching aspects of the character, such as his profession and lifestyle. Rehearse An actor brings a role to life by rehearsing the part under the guidance of a director. This involves memorizing lines, following directorial cues and discovering ways of interacting with fellow actors so the final performance is polished and exciting. Perform Through the use of talent, technique and perseverance, an actor portrays roles to bring characters alive for an audience. She not only expresses emotional intent through speech and action, but she may need to sing and dance as well. Teach novice actors Lead exercises and discussions. Supervise, support and evaluate students. Director Lead auditions and hire actors. Supervise and direct discussions, research, rehearsals and performances. SKILL PROGRESSION Novice (Amateur actors) The novice actor/actress will spend much time on training. They can also train dance and song.It will be exercises, improvisation, storytelling, and place/imagination work. Novice students explore voice, stage and character movement, character development,, monologues, improvisations, games, and character and technique presentations. Scene choices will highlight each student’s progress and own uniqueness. At this level, students begin to develop acting skills needed to create truthful characters. They learn memorization techniques and overcoming stage fright. They can perform as extras/setting, or in minor supporting roles of lesser importance in a play. Competent (Actors in Average Entertainment Plays) The competent actor/actress has developed … They can portray a characterin a reasonably convincing way and do a decent job of it. They can perform in any role of a play, and participates in ensemble building through a mix of scenes work, research, discussions. They are familiar with tecniques for rehearsal of various kind of scenes. They can perform both in lead roles and minor roles in the average “standard” play, and in minor roles in more challenging plays and performances. Expert (Experimental and Challenging Acting) The advanced actors can work as actors, but also as teacher of other actors and as director or writer of plays. They prepare and present/perform in public performances that are challenging in nature. At this level innovation, experimentation and critical thinking are important and Master (Art) Like advanced, but even more progressed. The emphasis is on the actors/directors/writers individual expertise and expression, with advanced research and analysis, personality, psychology, philosophy and so on.

[Amolina]

Amolina would spend the lion’s part of this day preparing for an audition she was going to. The first part of her work as an actress was auditions, where the actors gave samples of performance for the directors that were hiring for plays. And the preparations were essential for success. They were looking for actors for an average entertainment play named “The Happy Stryfer” and Amolina was aiming for the role as Belinda Boyle. Belinda Boyle was a character type that Amolina was familiar with for previous productions and knew she stood a chance to get – a young commoner woman was engaged to marry her Ebonstryfe soldier. But while he was away on important missions, a rich old man of powerful family would do his best to tempt her to abandon her lover for a more luxurious life in a beautiful palace. And so the good but somewhat weak silly maid would fall for the temptation and eventually turn into a cunning courtesan. Then – the abandoned lover would return of course and lots of drama would ensue. She started by reading the audition's requirements again. It was utterly important to follow the instructions there. At the audition she would need to do two contrasting monologues of her own choice, one comedic and one more dramatic, but both of them within the standard entertainment type of plays. She would also need to recite a poem, sing a song and dance. And it was important to follow these things to the letter. She knew she could do a good job of the role. But first she needed to do a good job of the audition. When it came to the monologues and the poem, she would try to choose them this day and then practice a bit every day until it was time to perform for the director. The song and dance could maybe be more troublesome, as Amolina had little experience of music theatre. Then again, she had a feeling that amateur level for song and dance might be enough for the role. It was after all not exactly high art…it was light entertainment.

[Amolina]

Despite being competent, she was worried about not doing well enough and not get the role. She would perhaps not feel so confident. But it was utterly important to seem confident – directors didn’t hire actors that were insecure and fidgeted with things, forgot their lines, and other mistakes. They wanted people that knew what they were doing on the stage and liked to perform in front of an audience. So the very first thing she would do was to strengthen her confidence. She had techniques for that. As an actress, she, her own self, was the material she crafted roles and performances of. Like all actors she needed to work with herself, her emotions and thoughts, her body and movements and voice, her imagination and the one she was. Working at herself was part of her job. No matter how down she felt, she would try to pat herself on the back a little and remember the things she excelled at. Focusing on her better attributes would distract her from perceived flaws and boost her sense of worth, she knew. So. First, it was important to feel content with her looks. It would be very hard to be confident if she wasn’t feeling reasonably good looking. She studied herself in mirror. Her looks were not too bad, she told herself. There were people who found her attractive. Well, there might be a few flaws, but in her own opinion she did her best to improve her appearance with imaginative use of cosmetics. She decided she could as well do a few improvements right away, and proceeded to paint her eyelids…nothing expensive or unusual, just the everyday hue of rose she nearly always used. She opened the small box she had the powder in, touched in it with her fingertips and spread it over the eyelids. Ah, she was looking much better already! Then there was the hair. She decided it was looking nice enough as it was, gathered with a loosely bound ribbon at the left side of her neck and falling down over the front of her shoulder. She wasn’t going out and she simply didn’t have inspiration for doing more than this with her hair today. But she told herself it was good as it was. Definitely good enough.

[Amolina]

Making sure to be content with her looks was the easy part of the confidence building. The hard part were to think of talents and personality, friendships and what people liked her for, try to remember compliments she had received and things she had succeeded with and the good things she wanted to be. This could seem simple, but it would take effort … Amolina thought back on the days of this summer 513 AV and remembered how many bad and depressing things people had said to her. Nothing had seemed to go her way. Most people were so not her friends. She had been targeted for lots of more or less hostile intimidation and threats. She had been called stupid, bad and even dirty. To mention a few things. She would need to shrug that off ! Looking at her face with the rose eyelids in the mirror she tried to tell herself she wasn’t as stupid as people seemed to think. It had just been bad luck. She hadn’t been silly, she had just tried to cope with her life and earn a few mizas here and there when she didn’t have any roles. There had been very practical and valid reasons for everything she had done. She had certainly not been looking for danger and trouble. No matter what others might think, she was intelligent enough, she told herself. She was talented at what she did, she thought, when she got to work with her real job instead of trying to carry out things she didn’t know anything about. As an actress she would always do her best and strive to make something extra even of an average role, like Belinda. It was only when necessity forced her to those cursed extra jobs that disaster seemed to wait around every corner. Thinking back at previous roles she had done, she did her best to recall things she had been content with and performances that had went extra well. This too was a technique she could use to strengthen her confidence. Some roles had been quite terrible, but she had used her competence as well as possible and tried to give them life. Now and then she had experienced a moment of professional pride. She could do it again, she thought. She could. So I tell myself I’m good looking and intelligent and endlessly appealing and attractive, she thought. I will do it over and over and over again and then it will come true…it’s said. How easy life would be for a perfect person with no flaws whatsoever and not a single trouble clouding her days, a person as perfect and pleasant as the weather in Ravok…

[Amolina]

That thought led her on to think of the fortune teller she had met in The Nitrozian Plaza in the first part of the summer season. Amelia. The woman had been pleasant like a delicate flower, her beauty so mild and her voice so light and so soft. Wouldn’t this be found perfect by many people ? Amolina imagined the fortune teller was given compliments all the time, by every person she met. Perhaps impersonation of the fortune teller was the key to success ? Impersonation. This was something Amolina worked at now and then, because it somehow fascinated her to pretend she was another person. But it was not like acting in a role. It was about trying to look and behave just like another, with her expressions, gestures and way of speaking. Looking into the mirror she made her face be still and calm and patient and slightly smiling just like the fortune tellers face had been. Amolina too could wear this eternal smile if she would practice it, the ever lasting soft and perfect pleasantness, the soft smile like a caress to everyone she spoke with. Wouldn’t people love her for it, the way people love being smiled at and told nice things? She watched her own slightly smiling face in the mirror. The smile was on her lips, but just the fortune teller’s smile, it didn’t show in her eyes. Perhaps I really have lost myself in the masks , like the fortune teller said the card might imply? She thought of this for a few chimes. It wasn’t the first time she had thought about it. If she had lost track of herself, and become what was expected and wanted of her, was this a good or a bad thing? Wasn’t it better to be someone people wanted than be something else that was perhaps not in demand? She dropped the fortune teller's soft smile. It was not hers. She would not compare herself with anyone else. Not everything is a competition, and viewing life that way would wear her out. Perhaps she wasn’t the smartest, prettiest, most popular and pleasant person in Ravok. But trying to be someone else than she was didn’t feel like a solution. She honestly wanted to do a good job of the audition and a good job of the role, if she would get it. That would have to be perfect enough.

[Amolina]

She started to think of the monologues she would need to do at the audition. Two monologues, on comedic and one more dramatic. It was always best to go for safe well known things so she had a look in old copies of previous plays she had starred in. There ought to be something useful there… She browsed play after play. The Dastard of The Docks… Amolina had played the wealthy merchant’s daughter who had disguised herself and sneaked away from the boredom of the well ordered life to seek carefree adventures in The Docks. There she had soon enough managed to get employed as a barmaid and started to entertain herself by flirting with the patrons. And so on… There was lots of more plot in that play of course, but Amolina didn’t bother with it. She decided to do the barmaid monologue from The Dastard of the Docks. That was the comedy. Now she just needed to find a more dramatic one too. “Oh no sir!” Overdone flirty laugh.” You are mistaken! I am a decent working girl and …” Dramatic and dramatic … she browsed on in her old papers until she found The Unfortunate Mercenary. Yes…that one would do. She had played the faithful sister of a dark and brooding mercenary returning to Ravok after several years away. He had left the city with a caravan, aiming to find adventure and success, but returned as a somewhat scarred soldier of fortune, with many a bad memory to drench in the taverns. Bitter and jealous after having discovered that his former fiancée has married someone else while he was gone he …oh.well, that man had been troublesome, but she didn’t need to care about all the details there, it was enough to pick the angry sisters rant monologue. “Oh! So! NOW you’re coming home !” Rage. “Where have you been, you ….” Satisfied with her choice of monologues she went on to look for poetry. This was easy. She settled for a poem about the greatness of Rhysol. That kind of poetry was always a safe choice.

[Amolina]

Lastly, song and dance. This troubled her. She had not done much song and dance and didn’t feel comfortable with it. That part of the audition would be challenging for her. She could sing as well or bad as any average person in the city. There was nothing wrong with her voice, but she just wasn’t a great singer. And when it came to dancing she had done the occasional tavern dancing all people did, but she had never danced on stage. But this role would obviously require that. No idea to try to sing something advanced. She thought a bit and then she sung a lullaby her foster mother had used to sing for her when she was small. She sang it several times. It was odd, but the simplicity of the song had it’s charm, more than she had thought – and she could sing it with true feeling. She stopped singing and got to her feet. Time to dance! As an actress she was familiar with expressing things with her gestures, her posture, her body. But the kind of dance that was done in plays was something else. It would take more time to solve the dance part of the audition preparations, she knew. Then again, why not...no one would see her and she could have some fun now. She smiled to herself and swirled around a bit. The skirt of the dress flowed around her in a way that felt good, and she held her arms out, swirling round and round and round and round, until she went a bit giddy, stumbled and nearly fell. Still laughing she sat down on the bed. She was done with preparations for today. End of work thread 1. Contiues in work thread 2, The Audition

[Verin Rush]

Amolina

Knowledge :

Skills

Skill	XP
Acting	+2
Dancing	+1
Impersonation	+1
Observation	+2
Planning	+2
Singing	+1

Lores

*Confidence Gets The Job

Micellaneous :

Injuries

*None

Loot/Expenses

*None

____________________________________________

Notes

*Nice thread, interesting to have the two job threads related.
*It would have been nice to see more Singing and Dancing as preparation, maybe spread over two posts or something?

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Thank ye!