April 20th 2020, the first day of my final ever term at college. It's not exactly how I expected it to be but I cannot wait to get started. The meeting had begun and it was bittersweet. This was because my old lecturer would be with us for the rest of the course with her new baby in tow, but it would also mean that my other lecturer will be leaving. Even though I may not have long left it was a shame that he could not stay for the rest of year. Nevertheless, I cracked on with the lesson.
"Good morning everyone! Lovely to see you all again," my old lecturer stated, enthusiastically. "I hope everyone is well."
Me and the rest of the group responded, "Yes we're good."
"Now I do have some news... after much consideration, we have decided to create a show to stream online."
When she made this statement, I was confused, but I continued to listen.
"So the plan is, to film some material, and then either yourself or a group of editors will collate it all together to create one final product. I feel it will be better this way as a lot of celebrities are now having to turn to online to keep themselves current. However, as your presentations are due in 4 weeks, I would recommend focusing more on the presentation, but occasionally come back to your performance project along with your other unit so you don't lose that momentum. Is that clear to everyone?"
"Yeah," we all stated.
"Any questions? Thoughts? Feelings?" that was one of my favourite quotes from my lecturer, always trying to lighten the mood at the end of each sessions by any other queries.
"Cool! I shall see you all in a few days time. The schedule is on Teams and just give me a message if you need anything. Take care, bye!" We all waved goodbye as we signed off.
An hour after the session, and I had just listened back to the notes I recorded. I mean I'm still confused, how do I do a presentation online? Never mind performing a show online! HOW DOES THAT WORK?!? This was definitely the biggest challenge I had to endure throughout college. Moments later, I got a message from a cast member in my current show, which is currently on hold because of the pandemic. She suggested to do a reading of a play/film every week to keep us connected, creative, and keep us in the active rhythm during lockdown. I liked the idea. But it left me wondering how can I fit it in with my college work?
Before then, I looked at a job description for an entertainment company, which do shows in theme parks, scare attractions and children's theatre. This looked promising, as it could be potentially my first proper paid job as an actor, but with the amount of work I had to do it all became too much for me.