1. ARTISTIC PORTFOLIO Paige Miner

2. Resume

3. I chose acting because it makes me happy. That is the simple answer behind my love of acting. However, even when I was a young girl, I gravitated toward artistic activities. Five years old, playing soccer, I would kick the ball once, then stand off to the side and sing songs. Artsy from the beginning. In some ways, I did not personally choose drama as my passion, more so life and all its twists and turns made it work out that way. Early in life, my family moved a lot, and there was lots of family stress and turmoil. Moving a lot as a kid makes it tough to get good at sports, or make friends. To entertain myself, I would play games with my brothers that involved “being” or “playing” a movie or cartoon character. Role-playing games. These games also served as a distraction from life when things were very tough. Becoming someone else became a sort of barrier, or shield from the poor situations around me. The games were fun too, so we kept coming back to them and playing them. And I just kept getting better at fully becoming something or someone else. Even to this day, I still turn nearly all my attention to drama when things aren’t great. It provides a positive space for me to focus on, so I don’t dwell on what's wrong with my life, instead focusing on an amazing show and the unbelievable people in it. Through this, I believe I become a stronger, more focused actress. I also find myself, ironically, through becoming someone else. When I am someone else, I can see the parts of myself I love when I play a character that I find unpleasant, but I can also see the parts of me I want to improve on or change when I play a character I admire. In a sense, drama is who I am, and what I always will be. Drama involves a lot of decision making. Particularly in the process. This arises as an issue for me. I’m not the best at making solid decisions. I attribute it to being a Libra. Its tough for me to pin down exactly what I want, because I have a habit of considering other people in my process before myself. I don’t consider this a bad thing, but it doesn’t always help me either. My typical MO is to get ideas from others, but not put in my own ideas, because I doubt that anyone will want to even consider my ideas, or that somehow my thoughts will make others unhappy. Such as deciding who is going to play who. I don’t often say what I think, because I don’t want to hurt others or seem selfish by picking myself. Being involved in drama forces me to make decisions. Either in group work, by weighing in my thoughts and ideas, and making suggestions. Actually contributing. As a director, being clear with exactly what I want, by getting ideas from others when I need them, and being firm with my decisions once they are made. In solo work, I am forced to come up with my own ideas and tweaking and working on them till I am happy. In doing this, I feel I have become more confident in myself as an actress and as a person. Drama has made me see that my ideas are valid and important to others, and that I can make something spectacular on my own. Drama gives me a sense of being a part of something bigger than myself. The process of taking words on a page and turning it into a great show is both amazing and frustrating. “The Pedanta”; an impromptu commedia del arte, was a show like that. It was amazing to see how the show blossomed, since it began with little more than very basic character descriptions, and an even more basic plot line. Creating characters from movement and masks was how the cast really brought it together. It was a completely new character process for me, but I could not believe how much that one day of mask work brought it all together. However, this show was extremely difficult for me, despite it half hour run time. Being an entirely improvised show(other than a basic plot line to keep things moving), I was forced to being more spontaneous and really focus on what was being said and done. Improv was my biggest weakness before this show, because I had a lot of fear around making things up on the spot. This show forced me to let that fear go, and I wasn’t always successful, but when I was, I was on top of the world. Fear was always a big barrier for me before I put myself out there and tried new things. “The Astonishing Adventures of Awesome Girl and Radical Boy” was a prime example. This show was my first musical, and I never thought I could sing. Even with the musical theatre class I did fairly well in, if you asked me if I could sing, my reply was; “No. Not really”. Getting past the self-doubt was a huge hurdle for me to overcome. This show was an introduction to a new type of character as well. I generally play young, crazy, and loud characters. In this show, I was a quiet, professional, and older assistant to a comic book writer. Learning the new type of comedic timing required to make this otherwise dull character interesting was a process that involved more speech pattern, facial expression, and body language work than I ever thought would come from a character with 10 lines. Its things like this that make drama so fascinating. With so much variety in shows, character, and process, I can never be uninterested in what drama has to offer me. As of right now, drama and the arts are a big part of my life. I am currently performing productions of “How to Eat Like A Child”, and taking “Professional Development in the Arts”(PDA), a class designed to improve you as an artist, and to prepare you for the real world. While I love being in a show, I’m finding PDA to be incredibly beneficial. It is the one class I feel is actually relevant to me personally, and I feel it will be more useful to me after high school than my other courses. It makes me look past what I first see when I look at art, and to actually look at the aspects of what makes it art. It makes me look at myself as an artist. It is not easy, but it isn’t a bummer either. It is expanding my horizon of what I consider art, and what art I enjoy. I am finding new confidence in my other skills, as well as a new found need to improve my talents. I ask myself questions I never would have asked myself otherwise, and the answers I find are sometimes heartbreaking. But once the heartbreak is over. I stand up tall. A stronger, better artist. I am an actor. I take a simple script and turn it into a larger than life performance. I make strong decisions that can either make or break a show. I set myself up to be rejected, but I don’t fear it. I come back each time for more. I always have something new to show from each experience I have and lesson I learn. I work hard, I stress hard, and I perform hard. I wouldn’t trade the feeling I get from performing for anything in the world. I am an actor.

4. The following is a composition of pieces that I feel show my versatility as an artist.

5. “Channie” An award presented to all cast members of Owen Chan’s shows The Pedanta “Pedrolina”

6. “Catch” Sports Photography

7. The Astonishing Adventures of Awesome Girl and Radical Boy “Susan/Rat Girl”

8. “ Dancer” Lord Beaverbrook High School Dance Show

9. “Aviators” Shadow Photography

10. V for Vendetta Stencil Art