Briary Gap Drama Competition

So the day finaly came when we were to perform our very own play infront of a judge on a big stage in a theatre. We were all so nervous but very excited!

I am in the group that performed "Time of Your Life". There are about ten people in our group and together, over weeks and weeks of script writing, acting and choreographing, managed to pull off a great show.

We were told abput the Briary Gap Drama Competition about two months before christmas and we got to work straight away. First of all we were realy interested in a commedy act but soon discovered that it would not work :L

Next we decided to go the route of "over the top" drama. We wanted to impress the judge with a tragedy that would have an impact on her and the audience.

We knew a death would be hard to pull off but we decided to keep our heads down and realy focus on getting it effective.

First of all we needed a script.
We came up with the idea of a girl who just started college and is finding it hard to make friends and settle in. Our play was to focus around the difficulties in her life and how she trys to overcome them... if she does.
We named our main character Sophia.

When we had developed all our characters, we decided on who worked best in each role.

We decided Zoe, would play John, Sophias boyfriend who gradualy becaomes dominant over her ending in tragedy, and i was to play Sophia.
Ciara played James, one of Johns friends who flirts with Shophia.
Fiona, Laura, Grace and Jessica play friends of the main characters.
Daniel and Sarah would play Sophias parents
and finaly, Kellie was to play a college lecturer.
Rachel was our backstage/prop/scene chamger and Elaine and Aoife were in charge of music and lights :).

After weeks and weeks of practice and preparation, the day finaly came when we were off to Mullengar :D We were all very excited. We knew our lines back to front and everyone had great outfits :) We arrived in the school at 8:45 and were on the way by 9:10. The journey was realy fun because Rachel had a camera and she was taking lots of pictures and videos :)
It took us about an hour to get there.

Finaly we arrived and started to get ready to perform. We got changed and put on our makeup. The girls who were playing male roles painted on realy good beards and made them look like boys :L ha.

Before the competition, we got a chance to go onstage and practice. However, we quickly realised we were talking way to low for anyone to hear us. It was a challenge for us to raise our voices without shouting however we got it right in the end :)

The judge was realy nice. She was an experienced theatre acctress and was very profesional. She gave us tips before we performed our drama for her.

Soon, it was our turn to go onstage. Now we began to feel the nerves. However as soon as the schoolbell rang and we were to walk onstage in a college scene, all our nerves seemed to dissapear and we performed realy well :)

The last scene of our play is the most tragic and effective and the judge told us we did it realy well. The scene is set in Johns appartment. Sophia and John have a fight over a different guy and John eventually looses his temper.

Not realising what hes doing, he strangles Sophia and she slowly falls to the ground. In the background we played Rhianahs song "Love the way you Lie" because we thought it tied in very well with the scene and the overall message of the play. John soon realises what he did and regrets it straight away. He bends over and kisses her forehead as the music gets louder. It is filled with saddness and the play finaly ends as her parents find her dead and cry over her body.
Believe it or not, it was the first time we performed that scene without laughter :)
When we finished performing, the judge asked us to sit down and she went up on stage. She had nothing bad to say about us and was very impressed by the level of acting skills within the play :)

After St.Wolstans had finished all the performances, we got to leave the theatre and go to find somewhere to eat in Mullengar. I went with Jessica and Rachel. We found a small cafe that looked lovley. We went in and ordered lovely wraps and sandwhiches. After a few minutes, Ailbhe, Leah, Micheal and Jessica M, walked in and so we all sat around one big table and ate lunch together. It was realy nice to sit with them and talk because we never usualy have lunch together :)

After an hour, we went back to the theatre where we took our seats in the audience and got to watch two plays from a school in Donnegal and two other plays from a different school. I found that the two plays from Donnegal were realy well performed. I also loved listening to their accents haha.

Over all, our trip to Mullengar was realy successful and i enjoyed every minute of it :) We havent found out yet if we got through to the next round or not but i really hope we did :)

Katie :P X x X