Theatre Experience

    I was exposed to theatre in 4th grade when i was in Nigeria. The first play I ever auditioned for was the annual end of year Christmas play about Mary, Joseph and the birth of Jesus. Having never performed before, I was a bit nervous about getting a big role but i performed nevertheless and my teacher loved it. I got he role of King Herod over all the 5th and 6th graders which was amazing, and from there my journey started. I starred in every single school play from then on, wether it was a musical or regular play. In my early stages of theatre, I would say what helped me was my projection, ability to improvise and portrayal of the characters I played. 

    Moving in to a new school and higher grade, I started doing British theatre. I would be asked to read numerous scripts from Shakespeare plays, and be asked to perform the next day. I loved performing plays by Shakespeare because even though there are alot of lines, there are so many different choices and perspectives in which you can play a character. I feel like you have so much wiggle room, so then when you perform, you can feel and portray every inch of your character. I wasn't always great at memorising lines but this is where my improv came in handy.

    My two biggest projects were a musical and a monolgue. I love monologues, but my weakness with monologues is that I tend to speak to myself intead of trying to let my performance speak to the audience. So I needed work on my pronunciation and syntax when performing, so I could get the audience to feel my performance. For the musical, I was in the orchestra and also involved in the plot of the play, so I enjoyed the thrill of running back stage and switching clothes to come on stage and perform. I would say that in the musical, my projection helped me and my stage presence was felt by the audience.