The day of the lion king musical performance! (aka my acting debut)

Thursday the 7th of November
Today was the day of our performance of the lion king musical. Over this 4 week journey, I was either learning lines or screaming out "I will be king"! I was given the honour of playing one of the main characters, Scar. Scar was the villain of the musical, plotting to kill his brother and nephew in order to become the king of pride rock.

Being the committed student I am, my day started with waking up at 4.30am in order to get my hair washed and dried, (since I was going to have it out all day). I had an amazing costume that suited not only me, but my character, Scar. It included a grey, choker top, full length leggings, chunky boots and a trench coat. When I arrived at school at 7:55am, I started to practice my lines, going over and over them, making sure that my voice was not only loud, but articulated. At 8:25 our school bell rang, signalling all students to get to their form classes. Since I was in a costume, I was eager to get form time over and done with. When I arrived to my form classroom, I was continuously pestered, all of the people in my class where saying "why are you wearing that?", or "oh my god, you look so good"!

After form time, all of the musical theatre group assembled in the auditorium and waited for Mrs Clark, Mrs Beer and Miss Richardson to approach. When they did we all got some feedback from the previous practice, most of my feedback was to talk slower and louder. Since I am the villain, I need to be able to gain all attention and be scary at the same time. I took all this feedback on board, focusing on my voice and facial expression. We were soon going to have a dress rehearsal/performance for 60 Hornby Primary children. The dress rehearsal went very well and we got some feedback at the end from our teachers. I didn't really get that much feedback.

It was now time to get into makeup. My makeup look was exactly how I pictured how it was going to look, bold brows, black lip and a scar running down the left side of my face. Thanks to Mrs Beer for doing my makeup. After everyone's makeup looks were completed we started to go over some key parts of the musical, such as the circle of life and me killing Mufasa.

Now it was time for the big show, I rarely get nervous so I was in the zone before stepping out on stage. Nathan was announcing our arrival on stage and our performance. I elegantly but scarily slinked on stage with the occasional growl at one of the audience members. I spent the whole musical on stage, just sitting casually in my cave looking regal. At some points of the musical I got a lot of "Ohhhs" and "Ahhhs" and the occasional "shot Nadia"! When I was talking, I attracted all attention and made sure that I was loud and enunciated enough. At the end of the musical, it was time for our bows, when it was my time to bow I got a lot of applause, signalling that I did very well and that I should be proud of myself. Funny thing though, at the part where I scare Zazu out of my cave, I think I scared him a bit too much because he fell back, causing the backdrop of the stage to fall with him!

After the musical performance, I got heaps of hugs from all of my friends. I was so proud of everyone in the performance for their stellar efforts to make sure that the musical was perfect. When I went to my classroom to look at everyone else's work, people were flooding me, telling me that I did a wonderful job. Even Mrs Gibson said that I should be an actress or star on Broadway! Lately I have also been approached by many teachers (some I haven't even met) within my school, congratulating me on my performance.

But the one person that I was really proud of was Jaime. Jaime was the person who did a whole solo all by herself while playing Rafiki, a wise old monkey at the start of the circle of life. At the start of our musical theatre journey, Jaime was doubting herself and her abilities, but during that performance, she let that all go. All of the worries seemed to vanish.

Overall there is mainly one thing I could change during my performance and that is talk slower. I think that if I talked slower, it would get the point across to the audience more. The part where I am plotting to kill Mufasa is definitely where I could've spoke more slowly.

I would just like to take this moment to thank all of the teachers who have supported me through this journey, mainly Mrs Clark, Mrs Beer and Miss Richardson. These three teachers have been supporting me from the start, encouraging me and explaining how to do things properly in order for the performance to be perfect. Again a massive thank you to all that have supported me through this journey. Hopefully I will be talking about this to an audience when I am a famous actress staring on Broadway or something similar.

Here is a photo from after the performance...

Ok, can we just take a minute to appreciate how downright awesome I look in this photo...
Photo credit- Jaime
(When I get them, I will post some photos of the performance)