Laura Ferrin (England) BAPP Blog

Hello everyone! Wanted to separate this blog from the previous as I felt it was important to focus on moving forward and talk about what I’m doing now at this strange time! First up, our friend has set up a pirate radio station called Quarantine FM! Tom and I are contributing our skills on the airwaves, presenting and creating a show called ‘Children’s Corner’. Yesterday we recorded lots of idents introducing the different shows and I was very much getting to grips with editing software - trying to improve my skills which will be needed over the coming months! We already had a fabulous mic but we bought a vocal booth because we wanted to make sure we could record over this quiet period in great quality too. Today we’ve been planning the segments and will be recording later on- which is exciting! We also were forced to cancel our cabaret for the safety of our performers and audience,  but we are hoping to pre- record and stream it tomorrow evening. Of course we will be ...

Writing a blog from the flat trying to do our best social distancing/self isolation this week! Like a lot of our friends and colleagues in the arts, the last two weeks have been a hugely testing time for myself and my partner. It’s been incredibly hard to focus on uni work as my day job stopped as schools closed on Friday. Over the last week, very abruptly all my performing work has been cancelled as well, leaving me in a very precarious position. Taking comfort in the fact I’m not alone and taking the breathing space I can right now. We are doing our best to stay positive, active and on task now after reflecting this weekend on the industry as a whole and our personal circumstances! On that note, on Friday we were both part of the module 2 Skype where we discussed our plans for Mod 2 work and planning our inquiries. Lots of great questions and points brought up by our course mates on the nitty gritty of how we would carry out our interviewing- ethical considerations, structure of ...

Quick post today (a little reflection?) Today I took myself off to have a sports massage as rehearsals for a new trio and my active day job were starting to take their toll on my back and shoulders. The therapist was a specialist in treating musicians and we had a very interesting conversation about well being and injury among professionals within the arts.  He said that in similarly physically demanding jobs (for example professional sports) people treat injuries immediately and often have therapists on staff to make sure the players bodies are functioning correctly. However, he sees musicians in professional orchestras who have similar issues with carpal tunnel or shoulder problems from playing a full season and touring, yet they don’t have the same facilities for keeping their physical health up to scratch. Alongside this, they often feel shame and nerves about treating an injury as they worry about loss of future work if their employers find out!  This made co...

Well...it’s been a busy few months personally, professionally and in terms of Module one! I thought I would start off checking in and giving an overview of my professional practice since my last blog before kicking off this term! In November/December I worked on new family musical ‘The Secret of Christmas Eve’ for Oldham Theatre Workshop. For this project, I relocated up North and stayed in digs for the first time in a while (shoutout to my lovely host Anne). I was very excited about the project and it even exceeded my expectations! (with a great cast to work with and beautiful original music and story). Oldham Theatre Workshop is an absolute institution within the area and working to develop the piece with creative storytelling was hugely exciting as an artist, it all just felt very quirky and magical. Upon reflection, the only part that was tricky was the quick turnaround in learning the script and getting new pages each day even up to the dress rehearsal. There were times when I w...

Hi everyone! Just a brief overview of the Skype call in case anyone missed it. This evening we spoke with Helen about where we are at in terms of the essay and diagram. Everybody seems at different stages but generally a lot of us were trying to work out the layout and what to include in the diagram so we talked about the fact it could be different for everyone as long as it was a visual aid to the essay and linked all the different facets of our practice as a whole. This Skype definitely felt to me like a breakthrough moment as I got clarity and now know how to progress with my submission in this respect! Following our discussion on the diagrams we talked about the theories we were using and how they linked to our practice. We talked on reflection in- action and reflection -on action, Kolb’s theories and touched on Gardner’s theories as well. To round off, we discussed what the theories are adding to our practice. Main comments were on the fact the theories help us to think of our...

After an incredibly busy week, I’ve finally submitted my first complete draft of my essay. I have no idea if it’s any good, but this feels like a win due to the hectic nature of the past few weeks! In writing it, I’ve come to the realisation that theories directly relate to ways of working that I’ve always utilised within my practice without realising! Alongside working full time, we’ve had rehearsals for a feature film reading Tom and I are acting in next week, I had an audition for a play and finally the weekend ended with a late night at our latest cabaret ‘Rice Rice Baby’- celebrating the songs of Tim Rice which we performed in and hosted on Sunday evening! (Video below for fun!) I’m sniffling, overworked and coming down with a cold, but equally I’m so proud of all the little achievements during this incredibly busy period. I’d take a few weeks of little wins and small victories over sleep any day!

Quick blog today! Recent studies have shown that only 2% of actors make their living solely from acting. https://www.theguardian.com/film/shortcuts/2019/jun/05/only-2-per-cent-of-actors-make-a-living-how-do-you-become-one-of-them That may shock some people, but for those of us who have shifted between acting jobs and day jobs for a number of years.... it probably doesn't surprise us much.  This next two weeks I'm juggling my practice and a teaching day job as best I can whilst retaining my sanity.   Current Schedule: Monday- Friday- Teaching 8.30-5 at my day job Tuesday- Part of a new musical presentation for composer/lyricist course  Saturday- rehearsal for a live feature film reading   Sunday- Our Cabaret at Above The Arts Theatre Upcoming: film reading at a festival and voiceover work for podcast series 'Pod To Pluto' Christmas Special. As tends to happen in my practice, everything comes at once so it's unsurprising that the ...