Student Blog: To Build A Portfolio 1.0

There have been many a time I have mentioned why I chose to study at the University of Winchester instead of a drama school and most of these reasons have to do with certain modules that caught my interest. If you have had a peek at a few other blogs, you will have seen all the modules that stole my attention. A great example of this is our New Musical Theatre module where we had the pleasure of being the UK debut cast of Sarah Wynen’s ‘You’re A Catch, Why Are You Single?’

Until this day, I never thought I’d ever have the opportunity to say that I was a part of a debut cast whilst in university as a part of my course.

Now in March, just a week before Pippin rehearsals begin, we prepare ourselves to film our show reels for our ‘Technique & Repertoire’ module that helps us set up a portfolio to leave with after completing our course! How incredible is that? We have to film four showreels altogether, varying from solo to scenes to an ensemble number, covering every aspect of musical theatre. The lessons are spread across our timetable as regular lessons run. Nothing has changed from the way our singing, acting and dancing lessons have been structured, except we have been working on specific pieces rather than technique like the previous two years. While technique is still essential, we primarily focus on the implementation of all that we’ve learnt in our selected pieces.

And here’s how the journey went for each of them! Starting with the voice submodules! Hopefully, these might help you figure out what goes into a portfolio!

Starting with singing, we were required to bring two contrasting songs that best showcase your ‘brand image’. It can be ones that we’ve done in previous years, a special exception as we have never been allowed to repeat songs for multiple assessments. One has to be a minute’s cut, and the other, two minutes. Our singing lecturer was very firm about our casting, but her guidance, along with other lecturers, really helped us understand our image better from an audience’s perspective. Especially having taught us two and a half years now, they know our typecast and voices very well. I settled with two songs from shows that are very sentimental to me, and have played quite a big part in driving my passion to pursue musical theatre.

The songs, one-minute and two-minute respectively, are ‘Sonya Alone’ from the Great Comet of 1812 and ‘Our Lady of the Underground’ from Hadestown – both of which I had the pleasure of seeing live in February. Perhaps the most detailed research I’ve ever done. Range-wise, I’ve always found it funny that my lecturers have always seen me playing a character years beyond my age rather than one closer to mine. A fun little hint at my role in Pippin, my final year show! Our rehearsals were just our regular lesson times with a side of our weekly 121 singing lessons. Regular lessons would run like a masterclass, taking turns to present our songs to the class before receiving feedback. During the later weeks, we would be put into little groups to present our songs to our members before touching into our creative minds with critical feedback and what we interpreted from the performer’s piece. It was an open space to offer suggestions which encouraged the more creative-minded people to push their director mind forward with their ideas – most of which brought out various interpretations of ‘Our Lady of the Underground.’ We will have a live accompanist, who is also our incredible music director in Pippin, so we are in very safe hands.

Alongside singing, in our voice segment, we will be recording audiobooks for another tape! We got to choose our favorite books for this one. The requirements for our choices were that we had to have at least 2 character voices, and our cut had to be at a minimum of 1.20 minutes to 1.39 minutes. Unlucky me, I’d brought all of the books I’d finished back home in Malaysia. So, I had to source my book on the internet which I am so grateful for. My book for this one is The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, one of my favorite books ever. Like singing, with the same lecturer, we worked in groups. We would read to our members, dissect our pieces with one another then note down feedback from an audience’s point of view. A fun masterclass we had just recently was reading in a mock-up of the recording booth. It prepared us to be mindful of our distance from the microphone, if we were leaning or swaying too much, and how much noise the microphone might pick up in the recording from page turning or shuffling. Singing was not as stressful as this was as every little thing was so particular, and our lecturer did not want the smallest thing to ruin our voice reel as we only get to do two takes.

Throughout the semesters, we had brief tasters of other opportunities in the ‘voice’ field which included videogame dubbing, video narration and creating character voices, to name a few.

We get to do all of our tapes twice, which is a great relief to me to have the allowance to make choices for what I want in my reel, and to have a second chance in the case I mess up the first time. I find that getting to do it twice also lets me settle into the role better, but I’ll still very much appreciate every second I get in front of that camera.

In the next blog, I will bring you through the process of our dance and acting submodules as we had to go through a different process for the two! So, stay tuned.

Also, as promised, my casting reveal for Pippin! And the grand reveal is I will be playing the role of Berthe, Pippin’s wonderfully sassy grandmother! The ultimate typecast among my typecasts. Though I auditioned for Leading Player, I came to the realization that she was never my typecast as I delved into the possibility of playing Berthe who was clearly an alto role with a motherly flair and a sassy number. And also very much older than I am! – everything that ticked the boxes of my typecast. Even now, I still dare to challenge my typecast, see where I fit in the puzzle as my lecturer did admit to me that alto roles are majorly older female characters. But I’ve settled with the prospect of it having played many middle-aged women throughout my university years. And it’s a nice bit of closure to receive Berthe as my final role in our biggest show. Just embracing the typecast.