Musical Theater Reel
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Acting Reel
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Influencial Roles
I have gotten to play some awesome characters, here is the story about how I performed one of them and the lessons I learned!
Amy in Company
Navigating a Challenging Part
I was cast as Amy! I was so excited to get to play someone who struggles with anxiety and is still such a loving person. Also, singing Getting Married Today was so exciting.
Characterization-
The writing of Company is so lovely because it let me know who Amy is, then let me create how that looks.
Some of the first choices I made were in relation to her physical and vocal life. Things like, the only thing that moves faster than her brain is her mouth. She talks with a nasally voice and has a head lead that goes a little backwards and she hinges at the knees not the hips.
As I went, I found more and more things that made me love her. Her and Paul’s story and the love that they have for each other. Through the good times, and the days where Amy is breaking down or Paul isn’t admitting he needs support.
The last piece that fell into place was Amy’s anxiety and the connection to her self-loathing. Amy goes into anxiety spirals a lot. In the show we see her worst one as her thoughts are sung aloud during Getting Married Today. This happens because she thinks she is going to ruin Paul if she marries him.
The lovely thing about this show is that we find out that she has what it takes to also support Paul. As someone who has struggled with anxiety I love getting to show that you can be deeply affected by this yet still care for others so deeply that it is done almost instinctively. So often it is shown as a character flaw that you must completly sort out to help others but Amy shows that you can still be working on managing your anxiety while being in a happy and supportive relationship on both sides.
Tackling Getting Married Today-
Figuring out who Amy is wasn’t a challenge; she is someone who is very near and dear to me. The challenge was doing her justice through her song.
If you don’t know anything about the song Getting Married Today here is a quick run down.
It is FAST, like 6.5 words per second fast.
It is a manifestation of all of her anxiety about getting married. Like ruining the wonderful Paul because she thinks that she isn’t equipped to do the things a wife should do.
The first thing to do was to figure out the diction and the breath support. It doesn’t matter if you are awesome at the acting part; if the audience can’t understand you, the song will be a flop.
For diction, I started working the song slowly with a metronome, and built up speed. Once I was up to speed I focused on the ending constonants and the important words.
For breath support, I started running the song while doing cardio. Over time it allowed me to do longer and longer sections without needing a breath.
With 25 hours of work under my belt the song was finally where it needed to be so that people could understand it.
Then I fully dived into the acting, figuring out how I can add Amy’s fear and need to escape into the song.
Performance-
With the hours of work done, I finally got to perform it in front of an audience. Here is a short clip.
Gallery
