With the following essay I will discuss my strengths and weaknesses as a performer and will try to determine my place in the casting world. I will also extend on my plans for the year after my graduation from London College of Music and introduce a list of strategies that will hopefully lead to my success. Finally, I will consider where I want to see myself in a year after my graduation.
To start strong, one of my strengths is my voice. I was often told that I have a strong but warm voice in speaking and singing and I think that this is a big advantage of mine as I can go for high notes and use my falsetto for soft or strong and hard sounds as well as sing in a gentle mid-range to Baritone range. Of course, there is still a lot of room for improvement as I am tending to slight pitching problems. I also have to work on my vowel pronunciation as the German way of pronouncing and singing can sometimes differ from the English way.
Another strength of mine would be the possibility to demonstrate expressive and versatile acting. I am very open to input and always try to incorporate advice or guidelines I am given into my work. I am eager to try new things especially in acting and enjoy the challenges and tasks this brings with it. That being said, I sometimes tend to overact and lose a bit of truth with that, especially when I am nervous or under pressure. This is especially bad for auditions as it can really affect my performance. It is not so much a problem in actual performing as I am usually not the nervous type of actor on stage. I am very spontaneous and like to freshen up things in my acting which leads me to creating small new moments in shows that I haven’t found before. This is probably one of the main reasons why I love this job so much and also a strength.
I am not a dancer but definitely a good mover. I like to dance and I try to dance as much as I can in my free time, but I am not as well trained as a professional dancer should be. I am however confident on my feet and studied a variety of different dance styles including modern, ballet, tap, jazz, ballroom and latin so that I can make a choreography look good with a bit of practice.
An important part of the plan for my next year is to continue to work on my voice and my dancing, so I can be even more confident. I am already going to dance lessons outside of Uni and will continue to do so in the coming year. I hope to especially improve my flexibility and my freedom and the smoothness in my movement as I often have the feeling that I am not yet on a level where I am happy with those parts of my performance. On top of that I hope that I can afford to keep on taking vocal sessions to improve my singing. For my acting I want to expand further in to Meisner technique acting as I find this practitioner especially interesting and I think it would help me with my overacting problem as it is very much focused on the here and now and a natural way of acting. I am also interested in method techniques and want to expand into this field a bit further as I feel like it could work well with me.
Apart from that I am absolutely open to everything that might come my way. I am fortunate enough to already have the luxury of an agent so I hope to get a few audition opportunities that way, but I will also look by myself and try to find jobs on my own. As I will be in West Side Story until the Summer of 2019 I am already in an acting job for the next year, but I would ideally want to find another job that would fit around the existing dates. I of course want to try and work in Germany as well as in England and hope that I will manage to build a career in between those two countries. Focusing on one would in my opinion not make sense at the moment as I see opportunities for me in both markets.
Another part of my plan for next year is creating enough material to record a show and a voice reel. I already have a few things from the current production of West Side Story that can go towards this, but there is a lot more needed. I feel this is essential to the presentation of a modern actor and will probably create more opportunities and better casting possibilities.
When it comes to strategies of how to achieve my goals, I think it is important to stay in the right mindset. I will try to keep in contact with my good friends and surround myself with those people as I know that I am a very social person who does not strive well when left alone for too long (not saying that it’s impossible for me to be alone but I work better when I have regular social contact). I am fortunate enough to have a big supporter in my girlfriend who I hope will stay at my side for a long time. I am aware though that those circumstances can change so I am building myself a strong friend base and keeping a good contact to my family. I then of course want to keep on going to dance lessons, singing lessons and maybe find an acting group or acting workshops to keep up to date and my skills polished. On top of that I am of the opinion that part of staying in the right mindset is to surround yourself with the industry as much as possible. Working front of house would be a good job for me and would have the added benefit of that, so If I should need a normal job which at the moment is very likely I will choose one that is connected to the theatre world.
Finally, looking on where I hope to see myself in a year it is clear to me that I still want to live in London and build my career from here. I hope to have found a second acting job to either fit into West Side Story or to begin after its final shows. If that is not the case, I want to work in a theatre related environment to pay for my bills and my additional training.