My First Scene

Evaluate your performance in your first scene. Were you happy with your performance and the audience reaction? How well do you think you created a physical performance for your character? How well did you and your partner work together? How successful do you think you were about establishing clear tactics for your character? What would you do to improve your performance? What did you learn that you will apply to later assignments?


This past Monday we performed out first scenes in class. Many groups did very well and I was very impressed and entertained with the scenes. My scene partner and I were lucky enough to go second and I was expecting it to go very well, so I wouldn't say I was nervous or upset at going second. However the performance was not what I expected it be - which happens and I am more than understanding when things get twisted - yet when you know the scene was down packed and a third of the scene is gone, that is a bit different.

Unfortunately, working on the scene in the beginning weeks of rehearsal was difficult because my scene partner was sick. Yet, the last week and a half before scenes were due we really stuck it out together. We went over lines, get props together, thought about placement - everything was falling well into place. There was some pushing on my end to really get everything together but my scene partner was very open and understanding that we had limited time and had to get things done. In the end I feel if we rehearsed together more than alone we could have been a bit more prepared and less rushed. Although I felt very confident about how everything was turning out my scene partner may have felt a bit more intimidated because I was throwing lots of information at her in a short period of time.

As for myself I thought I got into character fairly well. I knew what my character was about, who she was, what she was going through, how she acted and how she acted towards other people. Yet, I do feel I could have portrayed the character a bit more, or be more consistent in who Billie was in the scene. My final scene definitely did not show all of who Billie was due to lines I was unable to recite, however in everything that was recited Billie was revealed. My tactics were there, yet, I could see if one would think they were not clear. I would play around with how I said my lines often so the way they were said could have changed from the original tactics I wanted to apply.

Aside from being clear and consistent to my tactics I believe I could work on keeping up with lines and working on how to come back into a scene when something is off. Something I thought about after the scene was how I could come back in once I was thrown off. What I did for the first half of the scene was memorize both my lines and my scene partners lines - this helped me know what was coming next. If I had done this with the whole script I would have had an easier and better way of coming back into the scene to help both my partner and myself. This strategy I feel works for the two things I need to work on - when I say work on keeping up with lines I mean knowing both mine and my scene partner. Giving yourself ways to come back into the scene is necessary for any situation because it is easy to depend on the other person, but not when the other person is depending on you.

Otherwise, the performance was alright. I know it could have been 100 times better, because we rehearsed it 100 times better. I wish I knew what the audiences reaction really was, because I know for me it was very uncomfortable. I only hope the scene was clear and made sense and that what did come out of the scene was done well and what was confusing in the scene was minimal.