Hey all! I hope you've been having a good second term here at UWTSD. I literally cannot believe that the second term of university is over and I only have a few weeks left here. I'm totally going to miss being here so much. I feel like UWTSD is my home, it's going to be so strange to be out in the big wide world soon. Anyways, I thought I would give you all a little insight into what the Main House Theatre module is like in third year.
Instead of a workshop audition this time we did an audition in front of a panel, on the panel was two of the directors, Ioan Hefin and Peter Doran, as well as Lynne one of the lecturers on the course. We had to do two contrasting monologues that were modern, we also had to write down our top two choices of shows and why we wanted to do them. The audition wasn't as stressful as I initially thought and I actually quite enjoyed it.
There were four main house shows this year:
The Elephant Man - Directed by Peter Doran, shown at The Torch Theatre at Milford Haven
Animal Farm - Directed by Ioan Hefin
Our Country's Good - Directed by Suzanne Phillips
Gwaun Cwm Garw - Directed by Carri Munn
I was cast in my first choice, Animal Farm, which I was so excited about. It will be Ioan's last show directed here at UWTSD and I love the book so much. I was so glad to be cast in a show that I was so passionate about and that had so much relevance to society today, what with the Brexit vote and with Donald Trump being elected as President of the United States. We were given our research tasks and we started rehearsals a week after The Elephant Man.
We weren't initially cast in any parts until about the fourth day of rehearsals. Before then we read through the three different adaptations we were looking at, then deciding to do the Peter Hall version, we also analysed the script and looked at our tasks that we prepared the week before hand. One of the tasks we had to create music to one of the songs that was in the script, that was probably my favourite task, bar doing a monologue as a different animal. I was cast as Mollie, a pretty white mare, a hen, a cow and Napoleon's Dog.
We were lucky enough to have a third year BA Dance student, Sean, help us as well. This show was the first time that all three courses (Dance, Design and Production, and Acting) have been in collaboration together which is something we were all really happy about. Sean warmed us up every morning for an hour to help build our strength and stamina and although it was so tiring at times, it really helped us in our performances. I think without Sean we would have found it very hard to be that physical for the whole time while we were performing.
Although there were some parts that had a lot of lines and some parts didn't have as many, we were on stage pretty much all of the time so it didn't matter that much if you didn't speak as much you still had something to do. As we were on stage all of the time our rehearsal schedule was super busy, we were in 9-5 pretty much every day which was exhausting for all of us physically and emotionally.
We all had to make sure that each animals physicality was clear so the audience knew what animals we were playing. There was only about four of us who had only one character to play so it was so important for us to have a clear physicality and vocal quality so that the audience didn't get confused. That was quite difficult for me because there were times when I literally had to switch between different characters so quickly.
In order to do this we all had to research our animals very carefully, we watched so many videos of animals and their behaviours. We also had a trip to Manor Wildlife Park in Tenby which the whole cast enjoyed. We observed the animals there and took notes to see how their physicality could be filtered into our characterisation. We were unsure for a while as to whether we were going to be on two legs or on all fours and after some experimentation with crutches we decided that two legs would be better and easier for us to do.
We all had to work collaboratively to create the animals physicality and we all had to make sure we were clear on the differences so that any one of us could switch and play a different animal at the drop of a hat. This was hard for us at first but with the help of Sean and the wonderful direction of Ioan we all managed to pull it off effectively.
Ioan was very clear from the offset what he wanted to get across with this piece. He was so passionate about the message and what he wanted us to portray on stage. We had regular chats about what was going on in the world and how disconnected people are to what's going on. We spoke about how meat gets to our table and why some people don't seem to care about where it comes from. A lot of people in our cast had their eyes open, mine included, about what was happening in the farming industry, many people decided to go vegetarian or vegan from watching the things we had to and from the discussions. 
When we were cast in this play none of us thought that we would have to sing or dance as we didn't have to sing in our audition. But as we decided to do the Peter Hall version there were a lot of opportunities to sing and do a bit of movement. Luckily two of our cast members, Rosey Cale and Charlotte Edge, were very good at putting their original music onto the lyrics that were already existing in the play. They created their own original tunes to go along with the songs and they taught us them. We didn't have any accompaniment to the songs, we just sang them all acapella as Ioan just wanted the music to be more raw and have a little bit more of an impact that it would have done if we had music backing us up.It would also have looked a bit odd if a horse or a cow suddenly started playing guitar or whatever. I think it worked quite well with just us singing. Sean then choreographed any pieces that Ioan wanted movement in, my favourite of which was an awesome dance to Sugarcandy Mountain in the style of a gospel choir. This show also gave me the chance to have my own solo, something that I had never ever done before in a show. I had sung before but I never had a solo in front of such a large audience and I was so nervous about doing it. I think I pulled it off... well at least I hope that I did.
I have to say, the show wouldn't have had the impact that it did if we didn't have the amazing Design and Production students designing and organising every technical thing to do with our show. Alice Walker did a fantastic job at designing the whole of our set, our costume, our hair and every tiny little detail about the show. She and Ioan worked collaboratively on the concept of us being in an abattoir and having us all in scrubs, I have to say I think she did an excellent job on the whole visual concept behind Animal Farm. We also had the talented Ben Males who created all of the AV for the show, he spent upwards of 300 hours creating his own version of the Animal Farm game and working through it all and making it work. He basically did what he calls a cheating version of stop start animation. He did an absolute amazing job at it. I couldn't believe what he came up with and how amazing it looked. He worked so incredibly hard to create the AV, I certainly couldn't do it. He did a fantastic job, I cannot sing his praises enough. We have such talented DP students here with us at UWTSD, I feel so grateful to be around them and to be able to work with them. I can't forget to mention our fantastic stage manager Prunella Marsh. She organised all of us and was so helpful and calm at all times. She brought us all together and ran the whole operation. We would have been so lost without her. She was brilliant. I cannot sing our DP's praises enough. Unlike us, they worked on three shows at once which meant that they were always so busy, but they totally pulled it off. It might have meant late nights and early starts but they managed it. I'm so proud of them all and they should be proud of what they've achieved too.
Although pretty much our whole cast was ill in some way or another we managed to do our three shows and we were all so proud of what we created. I would like to thank everyone who came and supported us in the show, it means so much to all of us that people would take time out of their day to see us and laugh and clap. We had the best audience anyone could ask for and we all appreciate it so much. I hope everyone who watched Animal Farm enjoyed it.
I would also like to thank our director Ioan Hefin for casting me in this and giving me such a fantastic opportunity to make something great. I know I was a handful at times, but I will be forever grateful for your patience. You made this show wonderful and so unforgettable, I will never forget this experience and feel so blessed to have had you as a director. Good luck in everything you do.
Thanks guys!!
Photo credit to Jennie Caldwell
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