How my Arden school girl character developed throughout the rehearsal process:
 

We completed a whole cast exercise in which we introduced our Arden school girl characters to the rest of the room one by one. My character was initially very rebellious and moody as I wanted her to contrast the character of Celia who generally tends to be more light-hearted and cheery. As each of us introduced our characters in front of the cast  we became quite harsh toward one another when describing sports and hobbies which he did or didn’t like and this formed a sense of “cliques”. We all realised and were reminded by Tim that the school girls are bound together by their one uniting love and desire to escape the surrounding they are forced into and to explore certain banned literature together. If this was cliquey it would not hold the same sentimental value or have a strong ensemble feel as we need to work as one and support one another as we all want to put on this play and must feel we are there to encourage and be there for each other for our concept to work. Tim usefully gave us “Glee” the t.v show as a referral point for our characters as this also features students which extreme differences in social reputation, hobbies and fashion sense but are all united by their common love to express the same thing. We were told to go away and further work on our character profiles, developing them to suit this concept.

I considered this information, did some research and changed my character profile:

Donna:   I looked up popular 50’s school girls names and decided upon Donna as my Arden school girl name. She has been a member of Arden School for Girls for nearly five years now and is dedicated to her studies. Her parents put her there where she boards and she rarely visits home. She is particularly close to Linda (Ffion’s character) who she bonded with on the first day as they share dorms and has felt close ever since despite the fact that Donna hangs back more. She looks forward to not only the event of the climbing frame but is eager to bring and find new material secretively for future meet-ups and discusses with the other girls whether this is a good idea as she is eager to keep the organisation running. She is curious about boys and love which she has very little experience of so takes what she hears in books very seriously – maybe a little too seriously as she follows them dedicatedly as she has nothing else to compare them to. She is not sporty but excels in more academic subjects and is forced to play hockey at school as she must choose a sport as it’s what her friends do. Despite being quieter she is always intrigued and entertained by Saskia’s school girl’s more mischievous nature (as she plays Touchstone) egging her onto to do tricks and really connecting with her sense of humour. She may appear more quiet at the school but is more bold and daring at the frame where she can escape from this.

I chose Donna’s characteristics purposefully as I want her to contrast Celia’s playful nature which is more upbeat as she encourages Rosalind to be “merry” and suggests that they venture into the Forest of Arden together.

Added after further development of character:  After writing this new character profile and following another rehearsal I realised that I had taken my school girl character from one extreme to the next. Initially she was really moody and downcast and then it changed to more quiet (above). I have found a mid-way point now through rehearsals where I feel my Arden character has reached a point where she is balanced which is really important in the telling of the story as the Arden characters are really prominent throughout and overall we spend more time as them engaging in action than we do as our As You like It Characters. I now understand that although the Arden school girls will have their individual personalities and traits they are more as one and work as a cohesive rather than being against each other which I think I am portraying more now that I have further understood our concept.

(In blog post order put 50’s stuff before this)