Wednesday, April 15

Movement
We added on to the "partnering" section of our West Side Story dance (the part where I dance with O.D. and Big Show). Now after my assisted back-walkover, I have a lift that involves a scissor kick, the boys drop into push-up positions with me pushing on their backs, and then we get up into something that Movement Professor has been calling an "X" (legs and arms extended so that the body is in an x-like shape). I hope it looks cool. It's pretty fun to do, I have to say (even though the whole thing is in about 8 counts).


Voice
We started working with a new scene from the play Cowboy Mouth for the purpose of learning how to do it as an "intimate scene" without the audience losing what we're saying. Killer and I were the first guinea pigs to give it a go. Voice Professor had someone being an audience member 10 feet in front of us, someone else sit in a place in the room where they couldn't see us (she called it "the obstructed view seats"), and a third person sit outside of the room, behind the door (so we were forced to project and articulate).

For me, the biggest problem was not getting my voice to a place where it could be heard and understood; the problem was trying to do it in a way that made it still seem realistic that I was sitting on a loveseat with Killer's head in my lap having a conversation with him. Way, way harder than I thought it would be.

Some people had the opposite problem. The scene seemed intimate to the 10-feet audience, but the obstructed view and out-of-room audience were missing words and phrases and had to work to pick up what was being said.

Tomorrow we're (theoretically) going to try it on the mainstage (instead of having to create these bizarre obstacles, we'll probably just have people in various parts of the house).


Acting
I was nervous about our first day back with our Vonnegut scenes, but it went really well. Acting Professor told me last week that my subconscious was working on the character the whole time I'd been focusing other things because my inner-artist knew that I was returning to the project. I didn't fully believe him at the time, but now I know he was right. Hildy made sense to me today in a way that she didn't before Spring Break. I'm excited to keep working with it.


Tech
Tonight was opening night for Three Postcards, and it was a smashing success. Everything went pretty smoothly (aside from a couple of almost-disasters that happened in the 30 seconds before the show started). I'm proud to be working on this show. It's really lovely.