The Senior Capstone Project Journal of Aaron J. Holt

Journal Entry #9

​I've set up a third meeting with my advisor. I've gotten stuck in a bit of a rut lately. I've accumulated all of this information but I'm unsure as to where to go from here. Thankfully, Kym is very understanding and is more than willing to meet with me. She'll know what I can do to get things moving again.

​While I await the meeting, I need to choose the five monologues that I will perform to prove that my method works. Early on, back in our first meeting, Kym and I determined that each monologue should be from a different genre, to showcase the adaptability and effectiveness of my character development method. The genres should be classical, contemporary, musical, comedy and experimental. Hopefully, Wilson Library will have the scripts of the plays that I choose. I wouldn't be too worried about it; I'm sure they do have what I need.

​Thankfully, for the experimental genre, I recently read Samuel Beckett's Endgame. The character Hamm in particular has some very interesting monologues that I can play around with. That would be interesting. And the comedy genre as well. Less than two years ago, I was in the Abridged Works of William Shakespeare. Perhaps I could do a scene from that, maybe Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet. Playing multiple roles in a slapstick comedic fashion would be a great challenge. I'd have to jump back and forth between characters, making subtle changes to indicate the differences. Maybe by whipping a hat on and off to distinguish characters. Though I wonder if doing a scene instead of a monologue will be allowed. I've been wondering about it for a while now. However, while thinking about it, I realized that monologue means one person speaking. As long as I'm the only one performing on stage, what's the harm? And isn't one supposed to take risks in the theatre?

​For the classical, I'm thinking of using my monologue that I'll be using for my final in my Intro to Characterization class. I could knock out two birds with one stone. The classical monologue is the Creature from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I've already delved into the scene due to my scene analysis worksheet. I'll have to remember to include that in the notes section of my report. The contemporary monologue is tricky. I can't seem to find one that interests me. However, back in acting class in high school, we did a read through of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. And I seem to recall that the character John Proctor had a very moving monologue in the second act. I'd have to reread the play, as it's been almost ten years since I've looked at the script. And finally, the musical monologue, which I'm very excited for. Kym said for that, I can sing a song from a musical if I want to. I have to have the character well developed and portray him well, but still. I know, without a doubt, that I want to sing Endless Night from Disney's The Lion King. And Simba is a character that I know pretty well.

​So I finally have my five different monologues from five different genres: the Creature from Frankenstein (classical), The Abridged Works of William Shakespeare (comedy), Simba singing Endless Night from The Lion King (musical), John Proctor from The Crucible (contemporary), and Hamm from Endgame (experimental). It will be interesting to see how I develop each character for each performance. No doubt it will take a long time and will require a lot of research and construction. Up until my time at the university, I wasn't used to such a large amount of work. I usually just did what the director told me to do; I never considered doing so much on my own. But now I realize that this is an essential part of being an actor. It's up to me to develop my character and play him the way I think he should be. If I wait for others to tell me what to do, I'll be waiting a very long time. It's up to me; there is no alternative.