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My Name is Grace Paulton and I am 19 years old. I have been acting for about 8 years, mainly with school, and have been in a number of productions. My choice of this course was an easy one, as acting has been my biggest passion for quite a while. It is really important to me to be as well-rounded as possible and to have as much knowledge of every aspect of theatre as I can get. Going to the theatre is my favourite and biggest hobby. In Sheffield we have a huge variety of touring and local companies come to our theatres and I go as often as I can. However not only Sheffield; this year I have been to Manchester and London to see shows such as Hamilton, Wicked and Heathers, and loved every second. I am interested in every role within theatre, particularly stage management, as I don’t have much experience of working behind the scenes and would love to learn about all the work that goes into producing a piece of theatre.

I have always enjoyed entertaining people, making them laugh, making them cry with my performances so I think I’d say I want to be the kind of actor that has an impact on people, that makes them go home and think about life or the world in a different way. It is my dream to perform on stage because I love the feeling of a live audience, being able to work off of their energy and seeing their reactions to your lines, facial expressions or body language in the moment is a satisfaction that is indescribable.

My most memorable acting experience was my final production of Secondary school playing the role of Salty in John Godber’s ‘Teechers’. This was definitely my most rewarding role because, if you know the play, it only consists of 3 cast members, each playing around 12 characters. So it was definitely really hard adapting to that way of acting. Although my most challenging role would have to be playing Cathy in Dennis Kelly’s ‘DNA’, this was mainly because her personality was so different to mine that I had a really difficult time connecting to her character.

My chosen performance is ‘Life of Pi’ which I saw live at The Lyceum at the beginning of September. It is an amazing story about religion and belief, journeying and storytelling and holds a great meaning of processing loss and traumatic experiences as Pi has to deal with the fact that he was made to watch his mother’s brutal murder. The puppetry was nothing short of perfection and the puppeteers controlling and voicing the animals were magnificent. The acting from the puppeteers was greatly detailed, down the the quiet breaths or whimpers coming from the animals. And the way the actors interacted with the puppets was breathtaking, truly making us believe that they were real animals. The play holds a great metaphor about fighting with identity and religion (shown within the scenes in which Pi wrestles with a Bengal tiger). Pi is shown to take a lot of interest in various religions, which he is then ridiculed for by his family and told he must choose one. It’s also a great story about trust and friendship as Pi learns to trust the tiger and eventually comes to really care about it. However it seems that the overall theme is a great meaning of not altering your beliefs just because they aren’t believed by others.

I am incredibly excited to join Level 4 acting and performance, especially after completing my foundation year last year. I am ready to solely focus on my passion, enhance my craft, learn more about the field and meet loads of new people.