Sunday, January 25

I have officially been put back on vocal rest by my Voice Professor as of about 15 minutes ago. After having a sore throat all week, I started really losing my voice last night. So now, no talking and lots of hydrating until further notice.

Anyway. Being under the weather made me spend a lot of the week resting when I could, so I'm a little behind on this... Back to Friday...

Movement
We finally did our movement monologues individually as performed pieces. I went first, which was nerve-wracking and uncomfortable. I was so worried that I was doing it wrong. But no, this is the kind of thing that you CAN'T do wrong.

After performing, we gave each other positive feedback, talking about our physical vocabularies and individual strengths. My professor said I had excellent "port de bras" (which is a dance term referring to the "carriage of the arms"... I looked it up). I'd write the other comments, but it feels to braggadocious to type out my compliments.

It was a very cool assignment, in retrospect. I learned a lot about the ways in which I habitually move, as well as the physical patterns of my classmates.


Voice
It turns out, I have a weird vowel shift that most people do not, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how I got it.

We started discussing the vowel in the phrase "God's hotdog". All three of those "o"s, in Standard American Dialect, should be pronounced as the same vowel -- the "o" sound in "honest".

In contemporary American speech, many people have started shifting their "honest" vowels so that they sound more like the "a" in "father". (If you're reading this and can't tell the difference between those vowels, you're not alone. They're similar vowels, and the shift is very common. We just can't learn it because it makes our speech sound too modern, which is limiting.)

I, however, somehow got the opposite shift. Instead of turning my "honest" vowels into "father" vowels, I sometimes round them too much and turn them into "law" vowels. So when I say "God's hotdog", I get "God" and "hot" correctly, but for "dog", I might as well be saying "dawg".

The three vowels in question appear in the phrase "tall coffee latte". "Tall" = "law", "coffee" = "honest", "latte" = "father". But I say it wrong, because I say "coffee" as "cawfee".

You know what other word I apparently say wrong? "Wrong". I put the "aw" vowel in, instead of the "honest" vowel.

My professor thinks it may have something to do with the fact that I grew up in the Midwest. The "honest" => "father" vowel shift is heavily present there, so I over-compensated by going in the opposite direction.

I think this is going to take a long (another word I can't say yet) time for me to correct.


Movement Tutorial
I met with my Movement Professor over my lunch hour. She filmed me walking, on the same tape that we've been using all year. Then we watched what my posture and walk used to look like versus what they look like now.

OH. MY. WORD.

I look like I have a completely different body than I had before. I cannot tell you HOW MUCH closer to neutral I am. And it was so weird to see, because I didn't notice the change happening. More than that, I didn't realize exactly how messed up I looked when I got here. And it's so great to see that the alignment work I've been doing on my own has really been making a difference.

I've apparently evened out the weight I put on my legs now, my feet are in parallel, and they're no longer too close together (rather, they're perhaps a bit too far apart, because I have a habit of taking a note and running with it... it results in a lot of overcompensation, but it's not going to be hard for me to pull back on this one).

My new list of things to focus on:
- opening through the sternum
- letting my face "float"
- bringing my feet underneath me
- stop thinking so much about my lower back (yay! I've improved enough that I can focus on other things!)
- breath into my sides and my back lower ribs (right now the front of my rib cage is expanding far more than the rest of it)


Acting
O.D. and I went first with our Vonnegut scene, and I just wasn't in it. When the conversation begins in the short story, Hildy (my character) is crying. Then during the conversation, she starts crying again and Andy (O.D.'s character) has a line referencing it. But I just can't do it.

My professor says that I don't have to put pressure on myself to cry at the beginning of the scene. He also says that if I "record" that I have to cry, the only reason that it won't happen is if I'm ignoring other impulses that my subconscious is sending to me. If I ignore it sometimes, it will stop working consistently. He (and Killer) said that I had denied an impulse to stand up at an earlier point in the scene, which is why I couldn't reach a state of "I am."

The second time we ran the scene, it was much better. I still didn't cry, but I didn't care to. O.D's line became about the reaction that I had, rather than the reaction that I was "supposed" to have, and there was a lot of life and truth in it.

I am hopeful that it will continue to bloom and grow, bloom and grow forever.


Theatre
I went to see The Imaginary Invalid again last weekend, which was the first time that I had seen it since the opening. I think it's gotten funnier since I saw it last (or maybe it just seemed that way because I hadn't heard the jokes in a while).

The opening of The Winter's Tale was on Friday, and it was the first time that I had seen the show entirely tech-ed. I have to say, it's pretty spectacular. And intimidating.

I went and saw Blur again last night, and I'm so glad I did. I thought it was even better than the last time I saw it (which was opening night). It's great to be able to observe actors continuing to develop their characters throughout a run.


Understudying
I'm pretty sure that I'm ready to go on as Béline in Imaginary Invalid if -- God forbid it should ever happen -- the actress gets sick. But Paulina in Winter's Tale is another story. If I have to go on for her any time soon, I'm seriously worried that I would ruin that show.

As an opening night present, I gave both of the women I'm understudying (the woman who plays Béline in Invalid also plays Hermione in W.T.) Airborne, cough drops, tissues, and hand sanitizer. I included notes telling them "Break a leg (but not literally)", and telling them to "Stay healthy!" (I also gave those things to my 3rd-year roommate, who is playing Perdita, and is also Hallie/Marguerite in Inventing Van Gogh.)

I've been working on my Paulina lines diligently, but man, they're rough. A challenge that I've had with both of these understudy roles is that they're commanding women who lead the scenes they're in. Therefore, most of my lines are not reactionary, making it more difficult to remember the cues for them (especially considering that I'm learning them alone, with no scene partner to feed me the aforementioned lines). An additional difficulty with Paulina is that many of her lines are similar to each other (for example, "...think anon it moves." & "...think anon it lives."), and if I confuse them, everything else gets thrown off.

Today (Sunday), we had our first understudy run for The Winter's Tale (which I did with the hoarse and meager voice I had, before being put on vocal rest). So much of the blocking changed during tech. Paulina is suddenly sitting on a different chair, entering on the opposite side of the stage, crossing on a different line, etc. The lighting is specific, so our blocking has become so as well (standing a foot away from your mark in any direction could leave you in shadow). I feel as though all the rehearsals I attended in December did me little good by practical measure. Still, I'm glad that I went to them. I think it helped me to get more in tune with this production's interpretation of the character.

Anyway. As long as Paulina doesn't get sick next week, I'm sure it'll all turn out just fine.


Tech
I've been doing box office, which I've rather come to like, actually. It's like a cross between two of my previous employment experiences: a customer service desk at a mall, and filing medical records. As long as I smile and alphabetize correctly, everything is a piece of cake.

Tonight is the Blur strike, so I'm called for that. I attached a sticky note reading "I'm on Vocal Rest" to my shirt with a bobby-pin. I hope it all goes quickly, because after that, I'm going to come home, hydrate, and sleep.


Workshops
This is recruitment season for the conservatory, which means some of the professors are off at auditions in New York, Chicago, and Las Vegas for the next couple of weeks trying to get a new class together (which is SO WEIRD... I feel like I just got here). In their absence, we are not having regular classes, but are instead in workshops.

We're having an "On Camera" workshop and a "Stage Combat" workshop. The 2nd-years are also having their certifications for hand-to-hand combat this week. And apparently, some directors are coming from our school's main campus (which is about a 4.5 hour drive away from our MFA Acting campus) to work with us in some capacity (although I'm still vague on that).


My upcoming schedule is:

Tuesday, Jan 27 - Thursday, Jan 29:
9am-12pm - Stage Combat
1pm-5pm - On Camera
(and on Wednesday, 7pm-8pm - Box Office)

Friday, Jan 30
9am-12pm - Stage Combat
2pm-5pm - Stage Combat
7pm-11pm - Meeting with Main Campus film directors

Saturday, Jan 31
1pm-5pm - On Camera
7pm-11pm - On Camera

Sunday, Feb 1
1pm-5pm - On Camera
7pm-11pm - On Camera



Phew! I think that's everything.

Silently yours,

~A~