Wednesday, September 2

VOICE
We finished reading Lady with the Lapdog aloud, and Voice Professor gave us her notes.

My individual notes were:
- In at least one case, I used my lips too much to form the "r" in an "str-" combination. I need to avoid that.
- When words end in the letter "s" but the "s" is supposed to make the consonant sound "z", I need to make my "z" sounds stronger. (I knew that about myself from last year. It's really hard for me.)
- I need to avoid glottal attacks (I knew this about myself from last year, too.)
- In one case, my medial "t" was weak. It occurred in the word "daughter".
- In one case, I used a "ɑ" vowel when I should've used an "ɒ" vowel. It occurred in the word "follow". (I made the first vowel sound too much like the first vowel in "father"; it should be more like the vowel in "wasp")

Notes for the whole class were:
- When saying "unfaithful" or "faithful" to say both the "th" and the "f" in the middle of the words. (Most people skip over the "th")
- The word "chance" has an optional "t" sound in the middle, but the word "else" does not.
- Say the word "to" as "tu", and not as "tə" (in other words, don't say "go t' bed" instead of "go to bed").
- Say the final "t" in the word "just".
- Say the "l" in words like "myself", "yourself", and "self"
- The word "our" is pronounced like "hour", not like "are".
- Keep the second part of diphthongs open.
- Make sure you're not saying "ɑ" vowels when they should be "ɒ" vowels.
- Keep "wh" combinations unvoiced.

We also discussed linking words when they end/begin with t or d sounds right next to each other (like "that dog", where you only have to plode the "d" sound), and also when to move a final "s" to the "z" sound.

We have now each been assigned a section of the text to work on. Our assignment for tomorrow is to look up all the words in our section and start getting standardized.


MOVEMENT
More "Little Bears". Today we added a new element: lifts! I went with D-Train first. It's a little freaky at first to get lifted off the ground by your partner's body, but it's also kind of exciting to take those big risks.

We discussed for a bit why Little Bears and other forms of partner movement improvisation are helpful to our training as actors. Some things that we listed included:
- develops a sense of play
- inspires creative movement
- desensitizes actors to physically intimate scene-work
- instills trust in the partner
- requires that two people follow common impulses


ACTING
Thrill started off the class with his final cultural anthropology presentation, which was on recreation. Dude, the Olympics were even cooler back then than they are now.

We went back to the "Yin-Yangs" that we had conceived last week.

- O.D. & Big Show:
Their father is in a coma, and they've had an ongoing argument about whether to keep him on life support. O.D. is about to go propose to his girlfriend. Big Show comes in with the papers that need to be signed to terminate their father's life, and has a new piece of information: their father is now brain-dead.

- Killer & All-the-Way
They are brother and sister, and All-the-Way and her lesbian partner want Killer's sperm so they can have a baby. Killer is in the middle of a video game tournament and $100,000 is on the line, which he needs to keep his apartment. All-the-Way storms in demanding his sperm now, having just discovered that she in unable to have children.

- D-Train & Iceman
Iceman has a gambling problem and has been trying to get D-Train to loan him money so he can pay back some dangerous people he owes money to. D-Train is in the middle of revising a project that his boss is going to review tomorrow morning. Iceman comes in saying that the bad dudes are waiting outside and are going to kill him if he doesn't get them their money.

- Thrill & Wifey
Thrill & Wifey are exes. Thrill is preparing for some sort of gang battle. Wifey comes in and says that she needs to stay with Thrill for protection from her abusive new boyfriend.

- Two-Shots-Up & Me
We're half-sisters. Two-Shots-Up is mid-feud with our terminally ill father, and I've been trying to get them to make up. She has discovered that he's not her biological father and is forging documents to hide it. I come in, announcing that she has to come with me and reconcile with him NOW because he's writing her out of his will and the notary is on his way.

- Newbie & D-Train
They are brother and sister and have inherited their parents' house. D-Train wants to sell it, but Newbie wants to keep living in it. Newbie is preparing to give a speech at her boss' retirement party and cannot be late. D-Train comes in with a contract, saying that he has found a buyer who is willing to pay $600,000 in cash. Also, D-Train's wife is dying, and he needs the money NOW.

- Thrill & Big Show
They are exes, and Thrill wants Big Show to take him back. Big Show is trying to compose a commercial jingle, which he needs to have done by the next morning. Thrill comes in telling Big Show that he has changed, and that he has started the foundation for disabled children that the two always wanted to start together.

- O.D. & Iceman
They are brothers, their mother is dying, and O.D. wants Iceman to say goodbye to their mother. Iceman refuses to go without his wife, whom his mother despises. Iceman is at work, cleaning frantically. O.D. arrives to announce that their mother has taken a turn for the worst and could die within the hour.

Acting Professoressa reminded us that the "independent life need" that the scene was required to have for the person who was denying "x" to the partner was a way of "getting off the hook."

After my scene, she pointed out that I had mostly used "pleading" as a tactic. It felt like I had used more tactics, but in retrospect, I think that what I did was just use a variety of arguments with the same tactic. I need to work on that.


Tomorrow, we are going to begin The Greeks, and I am SO EXCITED! We're supposed to come in ready to read and do table work. She wants us to make sure that we really understand our own stories. I've read Andromache two more times tonight so far. This is going to be FUN!