1/20/09

Tuesday, January 20

Audition Workshop with Carl Forsman
It occurs to me that I never wrote about this. Whoops. Basically, it was set up vaguely like an audition would be, with someone pretending to be the Reader and the other person being an auditioning actor (a reader is someone who sits in a chair and reads the lines of the other character in the scene for you while you audition). Then Carl would give us some notes, and we'd try it again.

I was the reader twice. The second time, it was for a scene in The Hollow... and since it's an Agatha Christie play, Carl wanted us to use British accents. The problem? We haven't actually been trained in dialect work yet. I did the best accent I could muster, but I was incredibly self-conscious about it.

My scene from Merton of the Movies went pretty well, I thought. I was the last person to go, so I had the benefit of watching the adjustments that Carl had given to my compatriots first. He only gave me one note, and after my second time through the scene said, "Wow, that was a major change. That was way more improved than I thought it would be." (Which then immediately made me wonder how bad it must've been the first time through...) Anyway. I think it went pretty well.

I have to say, though, hearing Carl talk about the industry was a little discouraging. He was talking about how many headshots he gets, and how he weeds through them to call people into audition for things. It made me feel like even getting auditions is hopeless. And then I promptly had one of those moments of, "Why couldn't I just have a normal job?" But after about 24 hours I remembered how much I love doing this, and that I wouldn't be happy doing anything else. Yes, it's going to be hard, but my need to do it is too great to ignore.


Movement
We finally had a real movement class again today! My Movement Professor commented how much better my alignment is. I guess all the "Daily Dozen" work and the Anatomy Coloring Book assignments I've had have been paying off. :)

We worked with our movement monologues, and it was so much more fun than any of us remembered. We were following our movement impulses and allowing the text to follow. We were specifically instructed to explore high areas (with your feet off the ground... like jumping and leaping) and low areas (with your head at least as low as your knees would be if you were standing). It was very freeing. I'm excited to continue developing it this week.


Voice
We had our Sending-And-Landing exam today, and I felt pretty good about it. But man, every time I have to say a line like, "...and a black baby lamb with a bell in its tail," or, "F*** Nerval! I wanna dishwasher," or, "I don't have any housewife s***. I want some stuff ladies have," I sort of want to laugh.


Acting
Another exam. (Why does it always seem like we have two in one day?) It was on observations of animals, inanimate objects, professional skills, and people. Each of us had to do 3 of the 4. Here was our order:

Big Show - Person (Ernie)
Thrill - Object (Chair)
D-Train - Person (Mourice)
Iceman - Animal (Cow)
All-the-Way - Professional Skill (Pastry Chef)
Two-Shots-Up - Person (Lenore)
Me - Professional Skill (Floral Designer)
Killer - Animal (Squirrel)
O.D. - Person (The Reverend)
Newbie - Professional Skill (Cake Decorator)
Wifey - Animal (Cockatiel)
Big Show - Animal (Lizard)
Thrill - Person (Sally)
Iceman - Person (Tyler)
D-Train - Object (Vacuum Cleaner)
All-the-Way - Person (Ally)
D-Train - Professional Skill (Barrista)
Two-Shots-Up - Professional Skill (Massage Therapist)
Me - Animal (Flamingo)
Killer - Person (Twitch)
O.D. - Object (Pencil Sharpener)
Newbie - Person (Matthew)
Wifey - Professional Skill (Hair Colorist)
Big Show - Professional Skill (Wine Maker)
Thrill - Animal (Dog)
Iceman - Professional Skill (Painter)
All-the-Way - Animal (Sea Lion)
Two-Shots-Up - Object (Grab & Go/Claw Machine)
Me - Object (Inflatable Mattress)
Killer - Professional Skill (Butcher)
O.D. - Animal (Tortoise)
Wifey - Person (Kim)
Newbie - Object (Stapler)

Actually, that last one is a lie... We didn't get to Newbie's stapler (but 32 observations in 110 minutes is pretty darn good, I think).

They went really well! I didn't think to take a picture of my floral design thing, but maybe I will tomorrow.

But here are some pictures of Adrian, the baby flamingo I've been observing:


He's grey because he's a baby. He'll turn all pink when he gets older.

I took this video with my camera, and Adrian walked right up to me at the end of it (he snuck up on me, which is why I stopped filming... that's my voice, calling him baby). He's pretty shy around people (and around other flamingos, actually) because he's a baby. But because I've been observing him, he's getting pretty comfortable with me.

Cute, right? (By the way, the fact that there's a place down the street from my grad school where flamingos will eat out of your hand? Freaking awesome.)


Analysis
There were two group presentations today regarding Elizabethan society. The first was on the monarchy (and hoo, boy, was it crazy) and the second was on madness (or "melancholy", which they thought may have been caused by an excess of black bile). Interesting stuff. We're going to discuss King Lear (which I haven't started... whoops) on Thursday.


Homework
I spent some time this weekend working on my Paulina lines for Winter's Tale, but I still feel like a disaster. The show opens Friday, which means I should be ready to theoretically perform on Friday in case of emergency. Let's just say that as an opening night gift I will be giving the actress I'm understudying a big box of Airbourne, along with a card telling her to break a leg and begging her not to get sick.

Tonight, I'll be starting King Lear and probably coloring in my Anatomy book a little (I swear each one of those pages takes me at least 20 minutes because of how complex it is). And I'll probably glance at the text of my Movement Monologue, because I was paraphrasing all over the place today.


Much love,

~A~

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