Toolkit: Acting Class 1, 2 & 3

• Sculpting: The moulding of the person to get the character across to the viewer.

• Status: High or low status are completely different and the body language and mannerisms of the character is what determines if the character has high or low status

• Staging: relates to how the person is staged in the scene, if they have their back to the audience the staging isn't good and results in the audience not understanding the character.

Lesson 1 - sculpting 
The sculpting lesson was about how body language can really tell the difference between a person and what it is that they are doing. We were put in groups of two and we were tasked with one of us being the sculptor while the other was clay, the sculptor had to move and mould the clay into the character and their action, some examples included a drug addict, a gardener, a hair dresser and a conductor. It was eye opening to see how the slightest flick of a finger such as with the conductor can make all the difference in getting across the persons action that they were conveying.



Lesson 2 - Staging and Status 
In the second acting lesson we learnt all about Authority and status. We were given a random card from a deck of cards and that number correlated to the status of whoever picked the card with one being the lowest status and ten being the highest. We then had to act out entering a room and try and get everyone to guess our numbers from acting with either a low, medium or higher status.

Another Scenario that we acted out was one of us was allocated the highest status of being the King or Queen and we had to enter the palace of the king or Queen and try not to net get killed by the King/Queen from a snap of their fingers.



Lesson 3 - Staging and Status
In our third class we had to pretend that we were in a saloon with each of us given random characters such as the drunk, gambler, and a pianist. One member of our group was the antagonist and had to enter the saloon with a high status while the rest of us with a lower status had to watch in threatening awe. This lesson really thought me about tension and to keep the tension for the audience silence is needed even if you really want to break it, also the slightest look away from the antagonists eyes really shows off their higher status.

We also gave a whirl of improv. we were split into groups of three and we were given an environment where we had to improv our scenes out. our group was given a zoo and at any given moment one of us had to be standing, sitting and lying down. Improv thought me that its all about movement, you cant stand there all together at the same time because the audience will lose interest. You also need to say yes to anything that is given to you by a group member to keep the story unfolding naturally otherwise you can jumble back and forth with a story that doesn't flow nicely.

Alex, Jenn and Ruth acting out their scene in a garden using improv