Good grief, I haven't done a blog post since 4th December 2014! That was during my first term of university. Now I am nearly at the end of my second year! I ave somehow managed to achieve two Firsts in my grades! Both for performance modules. Think it shows where my strengths lie! This isn't just acting, but the whole creative process including ideas, dramaturgy, basically everything that is involved in making an original performance from scratch. I wouldn't have achieved these grades without the awesome people I was working with. If any of them ever read this, you guys are brilliant!
The course is being discontinued once we have graduated. Things did go downhill after the announcement, and three of our tutors were given 'voluntary' redundancy once the academic year finished. With two of them, it did show in their teaching. The other one kept his teaching standard up, he is now running an edible bug farm here in Cornwall!
Semester 2 of first year wasn't without its problems. We had a site specific module, and I ended up having to work alone, as I couldn't easily get to where everyone else was working due to health problems. I did get to do some creative writing though, so that was something. The period leading up to performance time was hell though. I needed some surgery, and the hospital scheduled it just at the time of our pre-Christmas performance. I had to phone up to get it rescheduled. Imagine how unimpressed I was when I got a letter scheduling it for the exact day of this Spring performance! I couldn't postpone again without being taken off the waiting list and having to be re-referred, so I applied for extenuating circumstances. I was permitted to perform mine at a different date. Just as well, because I had an accident while acting in a student film a few days before the performance & surgery week. I spent the next few weeks on walking crutches.
Anyway, I passed my first year and spent a nice few weeks in Crete during the summer holidays. I hadn't been planning to go, but shit happened and then I found a really good flight deal. While I was there I did something way out of my comfort zone. I sang at Open Mic night! Playing ukulele and guitar. I am so not a singer so I probably sounded like shit, but never mind. It was fun but scary. I'm not likely to do it this summer though, over this past winter I have lost the confidence I'd built up.
The rest of the summer, back in Cornwall, was a wash out. It rained. And rained. And rained. It didn't stop. The garden turned into a swamp, with a lake in the corner. I don't really have anything to write about those 5-6 weeks.
Year two at uni started off rather crap. We had lost three of the most experienced professors, and the tutor they gave us for our first module never old us what was expected. And he was one to go off on tangents. We'd start off having a lecture on critical thinking or adapting books for stage, and end up in a debate about the word c**t. This really happened.So none of us really knew what we were doing for that module. Many of us got our lowest grades ever. Also, the Head of Theatre had been offered another job somewhere else, and it was obvious he didn't care about this course. To be honest, we were glad when he went. The deputy took over, and she has been doing a much better job. Her hands are tied because of the course being discontinued, but she has been working hard to make things better.
The second half of semester one with the post-dramatic performance modules went better, as we had more established and professional tutors. It was during this that I got the second of my two Firsts. My personal life was not so good though. I was struggling with various health issues and was having a really hard time.
Semester two brought the ecodramaturgy module, and a new tutor who quickly gained the rank of favourite tutor. This was the module that was based in the woods, as people on my Facebook will have read about. Despite the time of year we were lucky with the weather, and only had one wet miserable day. Our performance went well, the presentation went ok, and the essay was handed in this week. I hope we get good grades! We are now concentrating on a module that is about the performer as a real person. This is with the person who quickly gained the rank of least favourite tutor. It is the belief amongst us that she simply isn't suited to teaching above primary school age. This is her first university post, and she really isn't doing well. And she really does talk to us as if we are primary school age! Ah well, one more month to go. We have three weeks to create performances, and 4 weeks to make a portfolio based on it. Hey-ho, that's Theatre at Falmouth!
