Shall I compare me to an actor

My first monologue in the acting class was Shakespeare's sonnet "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day". It is not the actual lines from some movie or play, but I recited like I'm talking to my lover. The reason why I chose this poem is I was looking for a romantic monologue for this project because I needed to practice the emotion for the winter musical and thought romance was my weakest part. Since I am an international student, I don't have enough experience of saying romantic words in English. So, it was extremely awkward and difficult for me to say those sweet and emotional lines at the beginning. Also, one of the most challenging part of doing this monologue was acquainting those Shakespeare's words. Even though I was quite used to those language because of Romeo and Juliet that I read for my English class and it was a relatively short monologue, I struggled memorizing and putting emotions in the lines.

First thing that I think I did well was the music selection. At first, I had an idea that I am talking by myself looking up the moon. And then I imagined that it would be nicer if I recite the sonnet with nice music. Eventually, I didn't use the idea that talking by myself, but I came up with a perfectly adequate music "River flows in you" by Yiruma. I think the song helped audience to concentrate on my monologue and also helped me to get into the emotion. Another thing that I think I did successfully was phasing. Usually, most of students have problem of reading their line too fast. However, maybe because English is not my first language, my phase is really slow when I speak lines and I think it is easier to control the whole monologue. Also, since I have been singing a lot, it helped to get my breathing points and to control the dynamics.
The thing that I felt I need to practice and think about more after I watched my video was maintaining my voice tone. The video that I posted on the You tube is the third one and I was little distracted by the moments between I was being taken a video. Because of that, my voice wasn't as stable as the second take. 

 

By preparing this project, I learned a lot about acting. Since monologue is the most basic part of acting, this project showed my level of acting frankly. I learned how to project my voice on the stage. Also, I watched a lot of moives to study acting and Leonardo Dicaprio was the awsome actor to study. I am really excited about the next group project which is going to be a dialogue.