My Personal Project | Raye FengXu

I am creating a theatrical play, for my Year 10 Personal Project, with hopes it will be performed in the future. What I want to learn throughout this process of creating this play, is how to properly engage an audience. Being able to capture an audience through public speaking and writing is a beneficial skill that I will use for the rest of my life.

Ever since I have been at Somerset, I have always immersed myself in the performing arts section of the school. I have performed several plays during Starkey House Plays as well as GCSST plays. I have extremely enjoyed the process of performing in these plays. This has ultimately led me to an interest in writing my own play for other individuals to perform in hopes that they will experience the same joy I had in being able to act in a theatre play.

So far, I have been fortunate enough not to encounter many challenges. However, the main challenge that I have been facing, and still am facing, is being able to make the characters' dialogue flow seamlessly. This is crucial to get right, as it can make the difference between capturing an audience's attention or losing it. This can be fixed by continuously editing my play.

I have learned through the process of creating this play that I am capable of achieving big goals when I put my mind to it. At the beginning of this journey, I had very little belief in myself that I would be able to write a complete play. Little by little, I was able to slowly chip away at the play until I finished.

I have applied and developed my thinking skills, particularly critical and creative thinking skills, in creating my personal project. I used critical thinking skills to analyse my characters, put them into different scenarios, and imagine their actions in each scenario. On the other hand, I utilised creative thinking skills to structure my story and create engaging plot twists and scenes.

This will help me in my learning in other subjects as being able to analyse situations and think creatively will allow me to assess information more effectively.

My favourite part of doing Personal Project so far is that it is a unique subject and feels very refreshing. I have also been able to develop several skills and learn facts about myself that I did not know before.