Quotations: Volume 29

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

{NOTE: From henceforth, the artist formerly known as "Analysis Professor" will mostly be referred to as "Head of Program", as he wears both hats and the latter now figures more prominently into my personal education than the former.}


Head of Program: Faculty, is there anything you'd like to say?
Acting Professor: (with his Russian accent) Welcome back!
Head of Program: What? What does that mean? How do you spell "beck"?

"Suddenly this building is alive, because you are all here."
- Artistic Director

"You tend to grow exponentially in your second year."
- Artistic Director

Artistic Director: You don't have to love everyone. You just have to love me and [Head of Program].
Head of Program: And you can give on him.

Head of Program: (interrupts Artistic Director) [Artistic Director], I have to point out that she's writing. (points at Angela) This is going on the blog. It's all going on the blog.
Artistic Director: I haven't said any swear words.

(after Artistic Director spoke for a long period of time)
Head of Program: The important thing to get out of what [Artistic Director] is saying...
Artistic Director: As opposed to...?
Head of Program: Amongst the multitudes of statements coming out of his mouth...

"I've been here since the sixties, which you could probably guess. Over the years I've sort of morphed into Santa Claus."
- Senior Property Master (who has long white hippie-esque hair and a beard to match)

(while posing for a group photo)
Photographer: I need you to put your hand on your hip.
Acting Professoressa: Why do you need me to put my hand on my hip?
Head of Program: What's the problem, [Acting Professoressa]? Do you need motivation?

"The people who know how this building is run... are me."
- Head of Program

"I don't want anyone coming to class if you have a communicable disease... I mean in terms of a flu or something."
- Head of Program

"You can't leave. You are here. From now... forever."
- Head of Program

3rd-Year AG: Can we meet with David Brunetti outside of his workshop?
Head of Program: I don't see why not.
Me: Can he come to karaoke with us?
Head of Program: No.

"What would happen if we were actually at the Mothership, which is what I call [main campus]..."
- 3rd-Year KS

Wifey: I have been informed that my information may be out of date, and my contact might not work at that branch any longer.
3rd-Year HG: Chip was fired???
Iceman: Whatchu talkin' 'bout? Chip was promoted.
D-Train: Chip is the MAN!

"They're biting at the stick for this one."
- Head of Program (most likely intending to say "chomping at the bit")

"It's really nice to see [Analysis Professor/Head of Program] outside of Analysis class when he's not using his 'I Love You Voice'."
- Me

Head of Program: [Group Therapy Counselor] has retired.
O.D.: We did it, guys!
(O.D. was stating, I believe, that the drama from our class convinced her to retire. He was not implying that it was a goal of ours that we succeeded in attaining... It's difficult for me to figure out a way to make that clear using punctuation and capitalization, so I figured I'd explain.)

"Let's see... (digs through her bag) I have the good tissues. I have... (pulls out pair of pink gloves that she wore last year and holds them out in D-Train's direction) [D-Train], just in case."
- Voice Professor

"I haven't done the bowl, so cut me some slack. I'm hopin' it goes well."
- Voice Professor, referring to the "singing bowl" she hadn't used in a while

"Now cross your left knee over your right knee, just like a nineteen-fifties secretary."
- Movement Professor

"If you want to be actors, I mean real actors, you have to know how to do the classics."
- Acting Professoressa

"The language is there to help you get what you want."
- Acting Professoressa, on the classics

'If you want to be a real actor, a complete actor, you have to find a way to live in that period where the character lives so that you're living as a native and not a tourist."
- Acting Professoressa, on the classics

"You have to believe that the gods are there just as you believe that (she drops her pen) gravity exists. It's a given."
- Acting Professoressa

"You have to know the culture and also the character as it's separate from the culture. There are some things that are accepted by cultures that are like, as I said before, gravity exists. Or that it's wrong to set little kids on fire."
- Acting Professoressa

"Is he a true believer, or does he like to burn a little kid every now and again? I don't know where this analogy came from."
- Acting Professoressa, on character vs. culture

"People in medical school save lives. We in the Arts help give meaning to those lives."
- Acting Professoressa, on how MFA students are training to be valid contributors to society

"Once you do the Greeks, you won't be afraid of anything."
- Acting Professoressa

"The people who make it in this business are not always the most talented, but are often the most driven."
- Acting Professoressa

"If you look around, you'll see acting lessons everywhere."
- Acting Professoressa

"What is written about you after you're dead is more important than what happens while you're alive, to the Greeks."
- Acting Professoressa

"Language came after need. I mean, the caveman was going, 'Grunt, grunt, give me that club so I can hit you with it.'"
- Acting Professoressa

"I do things that I'm not supposed to. I mean, I don't rape and pillage, but..."
- O.D.

"Your first professional gig might be playing a guest at Fred's party in A Christmas Carol."
- Acting Professoressa, on why it's good to have the experience of being in a Greek chorus

"You have to learn how to stay alive if you don't have lines."
- Acting Professoressa, on being a member of the Greek chorus

(After Acting Professoressa thought that Iceman was raising his hand when he was really just playing with his brand new wedding ring)
Acting Professoressa: He's just showing his finger as all bridegrooms do.
Iceman: (shows off ring) Hey, look at this!

"You're in a boat, and that's your text. I don't know. It's been driving me crazy."
- Voice Professor, after seeing a picture that Acting Professoressa had drawn on the board representing a modern play (a tiny ship of text on a giant sea of subtext).

"You think you're Tremor Masters now -- and you are -- but your tremors will continue to change."
- Voice Professor

"Now just rest. You can sit and rest, you can go into Child's Pose and rest... The world is your oyster, rest."
- Voice Professor

Acting Professoressa: Did I ever tell you that I was older when I went to graduate school? Older than the professors. Well, some of them.
All-the-Way: How old were you?
Acting Professoressa: Let's not get into specifics, [All-the-Way]. Suffice it to say, I was elderly.

"The La Brea Tar Pit of playing a tragic character is to play the character tragically."
- Acting Professoressa

"I'm not always the most tactful person. I do try, though."
- Acting Professoressa

"Learn to be hungry for notes."
- Acting Professoressa

"Not everyone at a wedding is necessarily happy, and not everyone at a funeral is necessarily sad. If you don't remember that, then you're playing generalities."
- Acting Professoressa

"We don't want to pretend to pretend, do we?"
- Acting Professoressa, on how we should use a real door to make an entrance into a scene whenever possible (as opposed to entering from "the wings" of the classroom)

(after a conversation about who Big Show was in a scene with O.D.)
Me: And [O.D.] was Kulygin.
Acting Professoressa: Who?
O.D.: My Chekov character from last year.
Acting Professoressa: Oh. I thought he was a homicidal maniac.

"[D-Train] has the potential of being a face-crasher."
- Voice Professor, referring to D-Train's violent tremor in The Bow

(O.D. left the classroom after an intense tremor about 30 seconds before class was over, not realizing it was that close to the end. He then re-entered the room.)
O.D.: Is class over?
Voice Professor: And what an entrance. [O.D.], I don't even mind. It was worth it. Whatever you were experiencing is worth it.

"[Killer], you need to get in touch with your inner homo. So we should talk."
- Head of Program, referring to Killer's upcoming role as a gay man in the play Eight

"I don't know who this madcap heiress was..."
- Acting Professoressa, after one of my status experiments

"Here's my note: don't play a prick."
- Acting Professoressa, to D-Train after he did a scene with me where he wasn't very friendly

"Oh my God, you found your humanity! Right here in the studio!"
- Acting Professoressa, to Big Show, after his character stopped being a jerk and started being human

"People respond when they feel you're trying to acheive something positive."
- Acting Professoressa

"Your job is to show the audience what it means to be human. That's a huge responsibility."
- Acting Professoressa

"I have to ask you again, why are you playing a homicidal maniac?"
- Acting Professoressa, to O.D.

"You don't want to be the character that says 'no'."
- Acting Professoressa

"Maybe I go out and a tree falls in front of me and I go, 'Bah! There's a tree!'"
- Acting Professoressa

Thrill (in character): Are you f***ing with me?
D-Train (in character): I would never f*** with you.
(Thrill pulls out a cell phone. D-Train starts to leave)
Thrill (in character): No, no, no. You stay here.

"You want your work to be pure. You don't have to tell me how you're feeling."
- Acting Professoressa

"I hate to say it twice in one class, but I have to give you the 'don't be a prick' note."
- Acting Professoressa, to Killer after a scene where Wifey said she was in love with him and he laughed cruelly

"Sounds like... something more than a woman... might be in there."
- O.D. (in character), in a scene where he opened the door to the "women's bathroom", and we all heard male voices

(after a status game where O.D. said he had to fix the chair that Newbie was sitting in)
Acting Professoressa: How did you know it was that chair that you were supposed to fix?
O.D.: They told me it was.
Acting Professoressa: They told you it was the chair with the broad in it?

"I know my chairs. I'm a chair-fixer."
- O.D.

Acting Professoressa: I'm just saying, don't be a prick. It's the message of the day.
All-the-Way: We need t-shirts.

"Teasing is great. Put it in your little books. It is a much undervalued tactic."
- Acting Professoressa

"You will always be playing characters who are faulty. If you don't, you're playing cardboard cut-outs, because everybody has faults."
- Acting Professoressa

Acting Professoressa: You don't have to be too inventive with the writing. You don't have to be playwrights. Only be as creative in the writing as pleases you.
Killer: Angela...
Me: Shut up.
Acting Professoressa: What?
Killer: Angela is very inventive in her writing.
Acting Professoressa: I know. I've read the blog, man.

"[O.D.]'s gonna take his clothes off. Because that's what [O.D.] does."
- Anonymous

O.D.: (begins to leave classroom just as he's supposed to begin an exercise at the end of class) I'll be just a minute.
Acting Professoressa: [O.D.], we have fifteen minutes. Hurry up.
(O.D. leaves)
Thrill: He's just gotta go talk with God. He'll be right back.
Acting Professoressa: Is this a usual thing?
Thrill: Yeah. Don't worry. He's comin' back.
Acting Professoressa: Oh, I won't worry.

Voice Professor: Is it me, or is it darker in here? I think it's darker in here. Or is it a good dark?
(Big Show, who sits under the one light in the classroom that can't be turned off, laughs)
Me: It's eternal summer for [Big Show].
Voice Professor: Hmm... [Killer], let's get that light gelled.
Big Show: (in a scheming tone) Oh, I'll fix it.
Voice Professor: No, I've tried to take out the bulbs and things before. The building people always repair it. But if we gel it, they'll be like, "Oh, arty stuff. They're acting."

(while discussing well-enunciated consonants)
"I got in trouble the other day in my singing lesson with [Music Director]. He said, 'Could you lighten up on those just a touch?'"
- Voice Professor

Big Show: Do you sing, [Voice Professor]?
(Voice Professor doesn't answer)
Big Show: You do! I bet you have a beautiful voice. Now that's all I can think about, is trying to imagine it.
Voice Professor: You can't.

(while watching "Little Bears" Shelter/Sheltie partner movement improvisation)
"It's like watching a Windows screen saver."
- Me

"I am going to eat to my heart's content, even if it makes my bowels discontent."
- Iceman (example of antithesis)

"I must have an open heart to handle close-minded people."
- Thrill (example of antithesis)

"She looked like a prostitute, but she acted like a saint to me."
- D-Train (example of antithesis)

"The biggest problem with you is that you have no small problems."
- Big Show (example of antithesis)

Newbie: (jokingly pronouncing Andromache the way it's spelled, instead of "and-RAH-muh-key") AND-row-muh-SHAY.
All-the-Way: And meet my sister, Paper Maché.