Community and Service reflection 2012-2013
At the very beginning of the 2012-2013 school year I found out that there
were going to be auditions for a play. This immediately interested me as I love
drama and have never been in a school play. The play that they were planning to
perform was a musical version of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. At first I
auditioned to be put as Veruca Salt. But when I saw the results of who got what
part I saw that I had been given the small part of a reporter. Disappointed and
upset, I decided that I would give up on this play and not take part in it. But a few
days later, Mrs. Mandy came to find me informing me that the person that they
had set for narrator quit, asking whether I wanted to take their place. Excitement
filled me as I knew that narrator was one of the largest parts in the musical. I
accepted on the spot, wholeheartedly, and thus began my participation in this
play.
In December of 2012, we were to perform several times to different
audiences. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday’s performances any student with
their family and friends were welcome to come. Meanwhile we had two
Wednesday performances that were directed only to the primary school
children. These two different audiences had very different needs that we needed
to address. For the primary school children we had to entertain them in a way
that would be simple enough for them to understand and enjoy. While the other
audience we had to make sure that the play on those days was fairly simple to be
able to meet everyone’s needs while raising the level of humour and
entertainment.
We decided to address the audience’s need for entertainment, comedy
and pleasure in general. Our play, in my opinion was quite entertaining because
of its twist in the story, complex plot and various characters. There are also many
funny moments in the musical that have brought smiles to even the actors’ faces.
The many songs, dances and actions that we perform all while acting, is very
entertaining and brings pleasure to the people that watch it.
There was a long planning process that led to the final performance.
Every Monday and Tuesday after school, different participants had to meet with
their colleagues and teachers to rehearse their lines, get feedback, learn their
songs, steps and how they were supposed to perform. These rehearsals usually
lasted about two hours. We also met almost every second Saturday to rehearse
the whole play all together for sic hours straight. I had to go to almost every
single rehearsal because of my extensive part in the play. After rehearsals I
would go home and practice my lines in front of the mirror and repeat my
actions in order to be perfect for the final performance. The whole group was
very organized to plan together the times we were to meet, what we were to
bring and what we had to learn. We all worked together fantastically, evaluating
each other to give critical feedback and our opinions on what would make our
performances better. The decisions taken were usually made by the teachers but
at times the students took part in them too. We had to decide on certain aspects
of the play: who the characters were, how to transmit this to the audience, keep
them entertained and make it fun for us all.
We performed five times for different audiences. The first performance
was very nerve-racking but we all put in all our energy to perform even better
than how we had practiced. We were pleasantly surprised at the effectiveness
and success of out performance. Nobody forgot a line and we constantly backed
up by our friends if ever we needed help on stage. The two next performances for
the primary children were equally a success. The kids loved it, joined in with the
songs, clapped at the dances, laughed at the jokes and loved us. Performing it for
them was a pleasure and surprisingly it was easy to do it twice in a row. We ran
through those performances with fluency and again did not mess up. When it
came to Thursday, though we were tired we were motivated to do our very best
for the majority of the people came that day. In my opinion it was our very best
performance for the energy we put into it and the amount of effort that we did
was amazing. On Saturday our energy levels were terribly low and our
motivation levels too. We knew that not much people were going to come and we
did not seem to be so enthusiastic as the other times. I also made a huge mistake
on that day. I came on stage to late and my partner had to say my lines for me. I
was terribly ashamed of this and I think this affected the rest of my performance
that day. Nevertheless, we tried our best and our audience appreciated our
performance no matter how we felt. I learned how to take my courage in both
hands and put all my energy into acting, no matter how unsure I felt or how
nervous I was. I think that it has taught me to simply do what I love and excel in
while staring at the light rather than the people’s faces. I have learned to work as
a team and be prepared on all occasions to take someone’s place or fill in for
them. These are all great skills to learn for the future and from now on I believe I
will be more confident and use these skills while interacting with people.
I learnt a lot about myself through this process and honed a lot of the
skills that the MYP learner profile includes. I became more of an inquirer as I
learnt to constantly ask myself how I could perform better and what I needed to
do to get across my words to my audience and entertain them. I became more of
a thinker as I had to ponder in my mind what could make my colleagues and me
better and how to improve our overall performance. I learnt how to
communicate feelings and expressions to an audience. I learnt how to make them
laugh, smile and catch onto my every word. I improved my ways of expressing
myself and discovered the manners through which I could communicate what I
wanted to that group of people. I became much more of a risk-taker as I had to
speak my lines in front of an audience counting only on my memory. I also learnt
to take risks while adding in the odd bit and doing what I thought was best no
matter how the public reacted. I became more knowledgeable as I learnt how it
was to have a career in performing arts, what it was that made an audience enjoy
a play and how to perform in front of a group of people confidently. I became
more principled as I learnt to be fair in my judgment of others and honest on
how I felt and what I believed should be done for the better of all. I became more
caring as I learnt to work with other people, knowing when to give them a break
and how to look after them if in need. I became more open-minded as I learnt
how much effort is put into a play and learnt to appreciate the work of actors,
directors and other such jobs. I learnt to become more well-balanced as I
managed to keep my schoolwork up while learning lines and practicing for the
musical. I learnt to become more reflective on the way I acted, the way others
acted and how to personally improve myself coming to terms with my skills and
weaknesses. Learning all this has helped me understand that I can improve my
traits and become a better person if I put enough effort into it.
It is easy to connect my service to a career pathway. The latter is that of
performing arts. I learnt how it was to audition, rehearse for hours on end,
memorize lines, make mistakes, work as a team and perform in front of
audiences. All these are part of careers such as acting, directing, producing and
all the little jobs that are part of making a play, film or any other kind of
performance.
To conclude, having experienced what it was like to be in this play I am
positive that I will continue this activity, whether participating in the next play or
making a career out of it. I believe that the goals of this activity were definitely
achieved as we managed to perform several times successfully and entertain
many people. The community has been improved in the way that it has learnt
about us as actors and has had the pleasure to watch our performances. We met
several challenges along the way but dealt with them as a team and as
professionally as we could. We didn’t make many errors but whenever we
messed up we had people there to hold us up and keep us going. To insure
greater success for this project I would make sure everyone who participates has
a big role even without having a huge part in the play. But overall, it was a great
experience to have and it has given me much skills for the future.