The Dramatic Archive
1- Joining
2- Gaming
3- Acting
4- Frowning
5- Grouping
6- Auditioning
7- Rehearsing
8- Finishing
9- Mistrusting
10- Preparing
11- Failing
12- Retrying
13- COMPLETING!
3- Acting
4- Frowning
5- Grouping
6- Auditioning
7- Rehearsing
8- Finishing
9- Mistrusting
10- Preparing
11- Failing
12- Retrying
13- COMPLETING!
Before I begin, I want to say this really its explaining the delay of the blogging, and what I have been doing, its a whole recap of my drama class experience and how we all started till the end of our performance at KL PAC (Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre) during the Malaysia's Teen Carnival. Enjoy!
Joining- So this year, I wanted to choose Drama for our Skills Enhancement, and you can pick others to try for a month only. But I was sure about my choice and stayed there for the rest of the year. To be honest, I've NEVER SEEN Teacher Erica(Our funny and amazing drama teacher :3) before I joined, so I was a little bit afraid, because there were stories about her fierceness and meeting her for the first time. There were a load of us boys from Amber there(with lonely Victoria....)and there were plenty of strangers from 2 Opal. We didnt know what we were about to endure.
Gaming- We played games to get to know each other better and to test and improve skills of drama itself, there are countless of games through out the year so I cant really explain or describe or even remember some of the games, so thats all I can say. (Sorry! I cant make this post too long... *sad face*)
Acting- Other than games, we also had to do some acting! It was fun and we had our struggle on communicating with other people but through out the year, we were getting the hang of it as a class. There was once we needed to act without any emotions or expressions, plus we couldn't talk, it was so funny I couldn't hold my laughter, some good memories.
Frowning- There are always ups and downs in everything we do in a group or team. We werent really that pumped in drama at the quarter start of the year(February-March), because we were so jealous of our friends at Hip Hop, and drama wasnt really that fun as we thought. Teacher Erica was really mad at our "I dont really care" attitude, and wanted us to respond more and have more energy and enthusiasm, so she stormed out of the class. We also needed to think on what to do for the extra 15 minutes and make a choice whether we should or should not apologize.(Some of us thought that she was acting, because of her amazing skills!)
Grouping- After all the games and activities, we finally start on our big performance project. But first, we organized everyone to different groups to be more easy on people to work on one particular category, and the teachers(Through out the year, there were more teachers to help Tr. Erica, like Tr. Rueben and Tr. Wei Yen) I forgotten some of the groups, so I didnt want to make things look broken, and just move on to the next paragraph!
Auditioning- One of the groups were the "Script Writers", and they are the ones to create the basic storyline and characters. The idea that we all agreed and was satisfied with was the MANNEQUIN idea(those tall looking human statues you see in those fashion/clothing shops).
So these were the groups of characters they created:
1: Footballers
2: Janitors
3: Nobles
4:Know It Alls
5: Witches (Originally Bimbos, but changed due to errors)
Every character in every group is not a "left-over"(KALEFE, in cantonese saying) we all have a purpose in the sketch. So we all had to audition for what group suits us the best. I was selected as a JANITOR. It may sound funny, and a pretty bad character, but our group is one of the main factor of the story.(Mainly my friend, Lim Khang which is one of the main characters)
Rehearsing- After everyone got their groups and characterization (Neither the teachers or the script writers decide what kind of a person or what kind of character we were in the sketch, we decide it ourselves), we rehearsed out parts over and over again, and after a month or 2, we had to stay back at Fridays and Saturdays in the morning at school. There were ups and downs, but at the end, it was a very fun journey practicing with those people.
Finishing- After all the rehearsing, we finished it up with some sort of our sad touching ending. Some of us thought it was funny and was way too cheesy, so some of us just rolled our eyes or looked away looking at teh ending scene, but the teachers said it was a wonderful ending and we needed to blush it up and fix the errors, to make a full watchable product for Theatre Showcase.
Mistrusting- 2 weeks before the Teen Carnival started, we had to go to Sri Emas for a full run of all the classes' performance, so we had an hour of preparation for the run. During after a practice run, some of us went out to buy food or something, and we didnt know where the others went, so we practically was just waiting around until they came back. Later on, TEACHER ERICA came in with a VERY LONG face, and sat down telling us that we were about to be cut off. WHAT??!!! The reason was that some of the Opal boys went to the football court and I think(Im not really sure what happened) they went secretly went to play football there(We have our ball as a prop, and some times for breaks at rehearsal we play a little bit)
So Teacher Erica didnt trust us with our safety and responsibility, and said we werent ready for KL PAC. But lots of us were devastated and shed lots of tears, then Tr. Erica gave us a second chance of trust.
Preparing- The day was finally here, our doomsday-- no, our Judgement Day, on how all of our effort we put in will end up like. After all the months of training, we were very nervous and a tiny bit of confidence on our play. Sweat dropped down as we put on our costumes and our face paint.(We were the only group with the face paint, which was pretty cool, but some people disliked it, and the name for our show is "A MASK FANTASIA", which was the unique theme of the entire show. The face paint were some what burning and itching at the same time. Cruel moments just for looks. Lucky Footballers.(They didnt need it because they
werent mannequin...)
Failing- There were two shows of two different times for that day, one in the afternoon, and one at night. Logically, people would choose the 2nd show which will be at night, because its the best time for performances and showtimes.(I dont think that much people will be busy at night....) So our first performance, we were nervous but not more than the 2nd, main reasons were our family were not there and the number of people GREATLY changed between the afternoon and the nighttime show. We were really lucky most of our parents choose the 2nd show, because we did AWFUL during the first show. Let me explain from the top.
The teachers were very busy and stressful, so we didnt have time to do a practice run on the IMMENSE stage. So we had to just straight away perform without any runs at the 1st show. Some of us were quite unclear on where we should come out or go back to, and its was just so messy at the backstage. The cues of the music were out, but the show must go on, we learned but we just were freaking out and didnt really gave out best act out. There was a scene, where I needed to kidnap one of the footballers. I didnt know where to put my props and DELAYED the time for me to come out, so I came in rushing in(Not part of the play), PLUS BUMPING INTO MY FRIEND'S HEAD. So it was a complete disaster.
Retrying- After the 1st show, the teachers gathered all the groups to the stage for a quick brief and feedback from the audience and themselves. Everyone got positive and good feedback, EXCEPT our group and the Form 5 group, "Fractured". At one point, teachers scolded everyone for not being obedient and asking unnecessary questions. We all felt extremely lucky for a second and final chance, especially our group.
Minutes before the show starts, Teacher Wei Yen found a kid who had tape wrapped around his arms. His arms automatically looked and moved like a mannequin. Teacher then broadcast to everyone to try that out and see what it look and feels like. We all loved it. Our adrenaline bumped up, we felt the excitement.
"It was now or never."
COMPLETING- Our sweat was colder and went down through our hyped up body much faster. We warmed up how we were gonna look like when we move backstage. Then we only realized, it was our very last time acting together as a team. Then, it was time.
Everything was perfect at the last performance. The music, the cues, the movement, the organization and the ending. It was truly the best performance through out the year. "We did it." We said very happily and tiredly at the same time. We pulled out the tape from our legs and arms excitedly and painfully. It was one of my happiest and most memorable days of my life.(Sometimes, being cliche is necessary.)
But Drama is not going anywhere just yet, we still normally have drama classes every Tuesday but just ended on the big heavy rock we were lifting all those months, the rock is finally up.
I'm really happy that I could finish this post in time and let you guys look at my experience in Drama through out the year, performing on a stage, in KL PAC, with hundreds of strangers, friends and especially my family to see our long hard work. Thanks for being so patient to see this post, thats all I want from you people.
See you next time!!
