Wednesday, September 16

VOICE
Our Lady with the Lapdog exam was today. Everyone seemed to do pretty well to my ears. I stumbled with my memorization once, but then went back to the beginning of the sentence and was fine. I think my Standard American Dialect was pretty good, but I also saw Voice Professor making notes during it, so who knows?


MOVEMENT
I knew I forgot something yesterday! We worked with interdependent balancing. One person started in a position that required them to balance (with a leg off the ground or something). Then another person came in and added to the picture in a way so that they were lightly touching the first person, and using them for balance just a little. Eventually, 9 of us were in this configuration. Then, the other two people found someone within the structure whose position they were going to take, and the one person had to carefully get out so the other could get in (in the same pose).

Today, we did the same thing, but instead of a cluster, we were all in a straight line. After that, we worked on it in partners, and then began giving our partners more of our weight than just a light touch. We had to find a pose that required balance from both people, and then find "stillness" within it (which, Movement Professor explained, is never completely still).

We also have been sharing the poetry that we brought in for our assignment. Here's the poem I brought in (I'm only going to use a couple of lines of it):

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.


I really love that poem.


ACTING
During class, we finished blocking Helen. It's getting pretty funny. I have this idea right now that my character (in the chorus, who is a Greek slave and loyal to Helen) is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. It's making it really fun.

From 7pm to 10pm, the class met again to work on Andromache. We brought in a boy from the community to play my son, Molossus. We still have 3 pages left to block, so we're starting with that in class tomorrow before going back to Electra


MUSICAL THEATRE
I had my first voice meeting with Music Director of the year, in order to prepare for our musical theatre workshop in December. Here are the songs I brought in to potentially sing this year:

"If You Hadn't, But You Did" from Two on the Aisle
(NOTE: I would NOT kill him, just break up with him. And obviously, I would not be doing this choreography, awesome though it may be.)


"Taking Chances" by Kara DioGuardi (yes, the American Idol judge) and Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics. (This was originally written for their band, Platinum Weird. It was later covered by Celine Dion, but the original is better)


"I Wanna Get Married" by Nellie McKay (but the version I have was orchestrated for Audra MacDonald) (song starts at 1:10)


"Old Fashioned Love Story" from Andrew Lippa's The Wild Party



All good pieces, I think. Music Director suggested that I not do "Taking Chances", because he said it was too similar to the song I did last year (musically, not subject-wise). And he said that he thought I had better energy with "Old Fashioned Love Story" and "If You Hadn't, But You Did" than I had on "I Wanna Get Married". I'm about 95% sure that I'm going to do "If You Hadn't, But You Did", even though it's going to be a challenge. Not only is it lyrically difficult, but it's musically really complicated (both with rhythm and with note sequences -- although you can't tell much from Kristin Chenoweth's recording because she doesn't sing the melody as printed and she does so much speaking instead of singing). Luckily, I'm a good musician and I have a few months to work on it.


PRODUCTIONS
I had a costume fitting today for Mystery Plays!!! It was so exciting. For Amanda Urbane (an agent), I'm wearing these huge black stiletto boots. I tried on a bunch of potential outfits, including a black jumpsuit with a python belt. For Lucy Brem (a lawyer), I'm probably wearing some sort of suit (and most of the ones I tried on had shoulder pads that made me look like a linebacker). Yay costumes!