9/12/09

Quotations: Volume 31

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


(discussing handout of "ask list" words)
"This is a relatively extensive list. I did not put this list together. I couldn't even spell this list."
- Voice Professor

"I don't know what the first word is. 'Abaft'? It sounds like hurting someone."
- Voice Professor, on the "ask list"

(the class was taking turns saying "nurse, star, poor, here, air, mother, your" in the British dialect without final "r" sounds. Thrill sometimes has trouble with dropping the endings of words when he's not supposed to do so.)
Thrill: (perfectly) Nuhse, Stah, Poouh, Heeuh, Aiuh, Mothuh, Youuh
Voice Professor: GOOD!
Thrill: I can take the endings off.

"I don't want you to be TOO safe. That would be boring."
- Movement Professor, during Little Bears

"I love it when [D-Train]'s a tree and [O.D.]'s a koala!"
- Me

"Everyone looks great, except for [D-Train], who's quivering like the Maenad from True Blood."
- Head of Program, commenting on the group photo of the Conservatory we took during orientation, in which D-Train looks a bit blurry

"This is worth your Equity card. If you want to stage yourself, find out where the transitions are and move on the transitions. Then you will be a self-blocker."
- Acting Professoressa

"You have lots of opportunities in your training to be creative. This isn't it. Be precise."
- Voice Professor, on our warm-ups

"Don't worry, I take everything as a compliment. I hang out with [Head of Program]. I HAVE to take everything as a compliment. I'd be devastated if I didn't."
- Voice Professor.

(after suggesting that as Andromache, I should sit further back on a step to give me a more powerful posture)
"It's always good to move your butt back, as they say in the gynecologist's office."
- Acting Professoressa

Acting Professoressa: (realizing that she forgot to introduce Killer's character at the beginning of Electra) Is this the first time we see you?
Killer: Yes.
Acting Professoressa: Well, f*** me.]

"When I came here with my... hoo-hah."
- Acting Professoressa, unable to come up with the word for a prop

"Don't spend your props like there's no tomorrow."
- Acting Professoressa

(coaching All-the-Way on how Hermione should feel about saying "Sparta")
Acting Professoressa: How do you make it more meaningful?
Wifey: Just have a tiny little orgasm.

"I think I just temporarily lost where the floor was."
- Me, during Voice warm-ups.

(after doing our chewing hums in strange positions)
Voice Professor: We should do this for [Head of Program] so he can make fun of us.
Killer: Can we do it for Showing?

"You have to be able to work with any director, no matter what style, and not blame them for not being what you want. There's nothing to be gained from blame."
- Artistic Director

"In order to inhabit this character, you have to see them as a human being."
- Artistic Director

Artistic Director: Let's talk about different kinds of love.
Me: Carnal.
Artistic Director: She really just went for it, didn't she.
Big Show: I was going to say that, too.
O.D.: So was I.
Artistic Director: But she beat the boys to it.
Me: I remembered it from last time.
Artistic Director: I do like a group that puts carnal number one.

"All we are is observers. We observe behavior, we label it, and we try to reproduce it."
- Artistic Director

Iceman: My need is to preserve my wife and get home.
Acting Professoressa: Preserve her? In what? Brine?

(directing Two-Shots-Up)
Acting Professoressa: Speak to your friends here..."
(Two-Shots-Up begins to speak to the areopagites in the first row)
Acting Professoressa: No, the ones on the f***ing stage.

(when it was O.D.'s turn to demonstrate a hum in Voice class, he wasn't ready, he picked up his water, and he started drinking a lot)
"[O.D.], don't make me kill you."
- Voice Professor

(after O.D. had trouble doing an unvoiced trill without dredging up a lot of phlegm)
Voice Professor: Oh, I see the problem. You're trilling with the medial section of your tongue. You need to trill with the tip.
O.D.: And by tip, do you mean blade? What do you mean by 'tip'?
Voice Professor: [O.D.], did you really just ask me that question? What is the tip of your tongue? What could that possibly refer to? There's only one tip.

Voice Professor: I'm not even going to speak to that.
Thrill: But you gotta understand where I'm coming from.
Voice Professor: I will not. I will deal with your stage persona, and nothing else.

(after a lot of tiring stretching with exercise balls)
Movement Professor: (collapsing on her ball, and indicating that we should do the same) Now give the ball a rest.
Newbie: Awww... The ball is tired.
Movement Professor: Yes. The ball is tired.

Acting Professoressa: Do we have any other business to attend to?
Thrill: Well, technically, yes. I'm supposed to talk about some dead guy.
(This was Thrill's way of bringing up that he was scheduled to give a Great Actor Series presentation)

"That's why we have the word 'conservatory', I think, is that we're conserving the knowledge that gets passed down from generation to generation."
- Acting Professoressa

(after All-the-Way and Newbie followed their impulses to stick together as chorus in Electra)
"The Bobbsey Twins thing is not especially helpful. It worked for a time, but then there's a point where you need to separate. I didn't mean to make fun of your choice, I'm just saying."
- Acting Professoressa

(Newbie's chorus character had been sweeping, and was now holding a broom but not using it.)
Acting Professoressa: [Newbie], can you hold the broom on the other side?
Newbie: (flips broom to a different position) This? This looks like I'm gonna climb on it and go play Quidditch.

1 comment:

Tim said...

Without a doubt, these usually make me laugh out loud (or at least smile). I don't even know these people and it's all very funny to me. Props to your quote-keeping!