When Greta, a young girl living in Nazi Germany, reads that the nearby women's concentration camp is hiring guards, she sees it as a chance to find her place in the world and provide for her sister Lise. But soon she learns the reality of her duties, and so too does she learn how to justify her crimes, heading further and further down the dark road laid by the Third Reich. Kind-hearted Lise is shocked at what her sister becomes, and though the two drift apart, their fates remain inextricably and dangerously linked. A powerful drama about the choices that allow evil to become ordinary.
This play was my second year in UIL OAP, the audition process began and I auditioned for the role of Daimler a Jewish interviewer who attempts to enlighten Greta and get her to understand that what she did was wrong. My process began with looking over the script during the summer. I read over and meditated on the overall tone of the production. When I got to the audition scene I did some character work and tried to understand and get to know my character. I think one of my biggest flaws that has continuously come up in my auditions is the fact that I never let go of my previous roles as I am auditioning my acting is influenced by the previous role I played.
I believe given that I now understand what brings me down performance-wise during auditions I need to take some time to neutralize my characters. I spend a lot of time getting to know my characters and they keep coming up in my acting. That is most definitely something that I have struggled with in the past with skeleton stories, where I become the character and get lost as that person. In the future, my process would be to step back and do things that best represent me as an individual. I need to step back and analyze who I am and let go of my character. One of the biggest notes that my directors gave me was that there was no accurate physicality in my auditions which all goes back to my inability to let go of my characters. Since I played a nine-year-old kid it was hard to harshly transition to a 30-40 year old man.
My second UIL OAP felt a bit more structured and professional as everyone was closer together and the directors helped us with lots of workshops. Our first workshop was a voice and diction workshop in which we learned different voices and how to use all of the parts of our voice. We also were left with a project to practice these elements by voicing characters in a cartoon scene. Our second workshop was about consent and how to implement it in a theatrical setting. We learned systems that we can use in a professional.
For this show, we went all the way up to the bi-district competing with 5 other schools. I feel that I've succeeded in creating an individual role through snapshot-like movements. I also feel that I have grown a lot in my ensemble aspect. Although I was a little rusty and I've never played an ensemble role such as this one I feel that with the time given, I have grown my overall knowledge of theater. I think that I need more training in stage combat. Although I feel like my movements were great I kept feeling as if the movements weren’t exactly motivated and I felt that although at first, the movements came from a strong place they just kept losing their power as rehearsals went on.
I think what I'm trying to say is the same realization I had in my acting where I started to realize that my acting was falling flat because there was no motivation and there was no difference between each of my performances is the same realization I had with my movements. I think what I lacked was motivation. I found it hard even at the beginning of the process to find motivation to work. I believe that it was the fact that I was burnt out from the previous shows and the built-up tension I had in my personal life. I was successful at creating an overall image of what our play was and how costumes played a part in this story. This show was very conceptual and I feel that the costumes fit this show there wasn't a single costume that didn't fit the overall vision or statement. I think during this process I learned to problem-solve.
Although I didn't feel like the costumes crewhead during the construction process I felt successful during the competition and performance process as I continued to problem-solve through multiple issues. There would be clothing items missing or clothes that wouldn't dry in time, however at the last moment I found a solution. I think that given the knowledge and mistakes that I've made in future processes, I feel that I will be able to problem-solve a whole lot quicker. I think that in future leadership positions, I need to be more confident and more sure of my actions. This show felt as if most of my time was devoted to the stage and I couldn't give the time I wanted to for costumes.
However, even off-stage I never felt as if I was leading it always felt as if someone else was leading for me. I believe that this all comes from my fear of being assertive and people laughing at me for it or getting angry because I'm trying to demand them. I also believe that it stems from my fear of leading in fear and yelling when I don't have to. I think to improve this I need to find a system that works and I simply need to be more confident in myself and find my voice. I feel that during this process I got to grow closer to people that seemed so distant to me. My biggest fear is making new friends and talking to new people because I feel like they are always judging me. There's just something that I developed from last year where I can't exactly trust anyone however, I overcame that fear towards the end of the process because I pushed through and ignored my fears leading me to strengthen my relationships.
