Thursday, September 3

First of all, I have a very exciting announcement. As of today, I am a regular blogger for Backstage.com!

Backstage.com has a blog called Unscripted, which is written by actors from around the country discussing their experiences in theatre and in life. I will be writing a few times a week, so make sure to check it out! (Don't worry, loyal readers... I fully intend to keep writing on this blog as well. Obviously, I'm insane.) To see just my posts, bookmark this link.

And while I'm at it, I suppose that this is as good a time as any to mention that I now have a website! Man, I'm just taking over the internet, aren't I? Check it out here!


VOICE
We each had the opportunity to ask our questions about pronunciations of difficult words (like foreign names) and consonant linking and the like for our individual sections of Lady with the Lapdog.

For one of my linking questions, regarding the phrase "his study", the z is going to soften in quality to become the s. In "it all", the t is going to be carried over so that it's like a part of the second word. And in some phrases like "that dog", the "t/d" at the end of the first word doesn't get ploded because of the "t/d" at the start of the second word.


MOVEMENT
As it turned out, it only took 7 class days into the semester for me to have a complete emotional breakdown in class. I'm not proud of that, but that's life.

We were focusing on stretches today, and they're very difficult for me. Some of them are difficult because I'm so stretched out that I can't feel a stretch at all. Some are difficult because I don't realize when I'm hyper-extending my joints. And some are difficult because a couple of parts of my body AREN'T loose (it's really just my hip flexors and my mid-spine-to-lower-back) and I have sudden, sharp pains. Today, after one such pain, I just started crying. I don't know if it was from the pain or from my frustration.

Movement Professor was very encouraging. She doesn't want me to get discouraged. I'm going to keep working hard. But every once in awhile, I have a tough day. Today just happened to be one of them. The challenge, now, is to dust myself off and move on. Tomorrow is, after all, another day.

For our homework tonight, Movement Professor wants us to look at our binders from last year and find our list of "Daily Dozen" alignment exercises. She says that seeing the order of them again will help us to remember how to do them properly.


ACTING
Today we did table-work for the first two plays of The Greeks: Electra and Andromache.

Acting Professoressa gave us a few pointers:
- If you're playing an older character, embrace it any way you wish. Age is not as important as the point-of-view shift that comes with age.
- Remind yourself of your "need" before the scene begins. Say your need to yourself in one sentence before you enter the stage.
- Do not paraphrase lines. Pay attention to the text, respect the playwright, and learn the words correctly. Be strict on memorization.
- When the word "O" occurs, treat it as a moment when you don't have any words and don't know what to say. Vocalize something. It doesn't have to sound like the letter "O".
- Don't confuse weakness with softness in a character. Just because they're using a soft tactic, doesn't mean they're a weak character.

It was actually really fun reading Andromache, especially since I felt like I was already in an emotional state from morning classes. I'm really excited about it.

For Electra, the chorus members are supposed to decide who we are. I think we've decided that we've been working for the kingdom in some capacity and have been pretending to be loyal to Clytemnestra, but are actually loyal to Electra. We have to come up with specific roles in the household now for our double-agent chorus members. I was thinking about being a cook or something...? I'll let you know when I figure it out.