Quotations: Volume 11

Here are some of the educational, inspirational, and humorous quotations from my classes this week:


"Light! Light. What you do on your own time is your business, but in here, it's light tapping." - Voice Professor, when we were tapping on our sternums

"Improvisation without truth won't do. It's useless. Nobody can believe in it." - Acting Professor

"The calculator is doing its job, but the calculator can only tell you that two plus two is four. But in art, two plus two is not always four. It's often anything but four. It can be four as well, of course." - Acting Professor

"[Acting Professor], I think your class should be called 'The Creative Subconscious Takes Revenge.'" - D-Train

"You're having a beautiful moment, baby, but no one can see it. Step in the light." - Acting Professor

"This is not a competition. Nobody here is training for an Oscar. You know what I mean? Take ten." - Acting Professor

"Everything on stage should be absolutely real. It is so fake that it cannot be otherwise." - Acting Professor.

Thrill: Thank you, guys. That was the first time we have ever been an ensemble. We all stood there with the same look on our faces. Every single person.
Me: It was the will of the group to be as confused as f***.

"Did God send you on an errand?" - Acting Professor to O.D., after he was a few minutes late to class.

"With the help of that God that has been sending [O.D.] places lately..." - Acting Professor

"Talent is labor." - Acting Professor

"Your instrument is not just your body and your voice. It's your soul; your inner-technique." - Acting Professor

"I paid my twenty bucks, I want to see skin." - Acting Professor to Iceman, after he started taking his shirt off in an etude and then stopped the impulse.

(After an etude with D-Train and All-The-Way)
Acting Professor: You know what I think... I think you didn't allow her in.
D-Train: Oh. Maybe not... Yeah. You're right!

"There was a sigh, which was very [D-Train]. And some people might say, 'get rid of that sigh.' Bulls***." - Acting Professor

"One of those jobs... probably working for the government." - Acting Professor, when Thrill didn't try to add imaginary props to his desk in an etude, but just sat there bored)

"You're a swimmer. You're a fish. Do you want to spend the rest of your life on the shore?" - Acting Professor

Analysis Professor: What does Shaw mean here... [D-Train]?
D-Train: S***, I eyelocked you.
Analysis Professor: You should never have looked up.

Analysis Professor: What is the romantic delusion in the second example?
The Pro: That if someone goes through a divorce, then you can date them?
(class laughter)
The Pro: (in earnest) Oh, I wasn't even trying to be funny there.

"The brain is the major sex organ in this play. The brain is the major sex organ for every Shavian play. (points to head) This is the genetalia, right here." - Analysis Professor

Analysis Professor: It's important that you read this like a hawk. [...] [D-Train], did you have something to say?
D-Train: I was going to make a smart-ass comment that hawks can't read.

Wifey: I like how you popped up to correct our Italian.
Me: It's a habit of mine. I don't care what's being said until people are wrong.

(After an etude with Two-Shots-Up and O.D. in which Two-Shots-Up removed her sweater and belt.)
All-The-Way: When you started taking your clothes off, I thought you were a hoo-er.
Two-Shots-Up: A what?
All-The-Way: A hoo-er
Two-Shots-Up: A whore?
Acting Professor: A member of the only profession that is older than ours.

(Acting Professor calls on Wifey to do an etude with Big Show when she was the only person not volunteering.)
Wifey: Oh, I'm up? I didn't even raise my hand.
Big Show: (imitating her voice) 'But, I didn't want to work with [Big Show].'
Me: Yes, [Big Show]. That's exactly what she didn't say.

"What are you smuggling? Are you smuggling a piece of crap, or are you smuggling Cuban cigars, best in the world?" - Acting Professor, on what you're bringing to your scene partner

(O.D. goes off into long, circuitous explanation on something)
Me: Sorry, [O.D.]. I just fell off your train.
O.D.: That's okay, so did I.
Acting Professor: So long as we're on the same page.

"His male partner is oak, and his female partner is a birch tree." - Acting Professor, on a movie in which Michael Chekov was acting opposite some wooden actors

Wifey: [The Pro], I never knew you could laugh like that.
The Pro: It came from my boy place.

"It was a beforeplay." - Acting Professor, referring to foreplay.