Quotations: Volume 34

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


(Disclaimer: quotations are often taken out of context and may not accurately reflect the way they were originally intended)


(during a practical exam in Voice class)
Voice Professor: (to D-Train) Head roll with light high forward hum.
D-train: I hate this one.
Voice Professor: It's not about liking it, you know that by now. (with cartoony dialect of some sort) It's good fo' yah! It's castah oil!

(after D-Train performed the head roll with light high forward hum)
Voice Professor: See, but it was well-executed.
D-Train: But?
Voice Professor: Even though you don't like it. It was well-executed.
D-Train: Oh. I thought you were going to say it's well-executed but it sounds like s***.

(as Voice Professor was writing notes on our exams with a furrowed brow)
Angela: (imitating professor-talk) Release your brow...
Voice Professor: (continuing Angela's thought)...slash the third eye. (smiles) I'm so in my head.

(after watching Two-Shots-Up and Thrill do contact improv together)
"That was really beautiful, the way you moved together, it was like watching someone paint with watercolors, or honey dripping, or a spider weaving a web. It was just gorgeous. I wish you guys were my screensaver."
- O.D., giving perhaps the greatest movement compliment I've ever heard

"We had sort of a hillbilly, Southern, trailer-park variety of dialects."
- Voice Professor, on the first table-read of Ghost Children, which is the second play in The Mystery Plays

"It begins to sound old-timey, like a stage manager from Our Town. (in old-timey hillbilly dialect) 'Here in our town, we beat our father's heads in.'"
- Voice Professor, on the dialects people had used in the table-read of Ghost Children

(to D-Train, after the first table-read of Ghost Children)
Head of Program: In terms of Gary, we probably need to make him a little less...
Voice Professor: (supplying adjective) Inbred?

"It needs to be a little less 'Where are those ghosts? I'm gonna get those f***ers!"
- Head of Program, to D-Train after his first table-read as Gary, a character who talks about how his house is haunted

"Miss Sissypants, my favorite ghost, is the teddy-bear in the corner."
- Head of Program, making a joke about another direction in which D-Train SHOULD NOT take the character of Gary

"First of all, I'm suspect of so many exclamation points, so I would go back and check the First Folio."
- Voice Professor, on the strange punctuation in one publisher's version of a Shakespeare text

Iceman: (to Voice Professor) I didn't go with the trochee in the first foot. I know that's what you said, but...
Voice Professor: Don't go against me, [Iceman].

"I'll never do that again, [Voice Professor]."
- Iceman, after Voice Professor convinced him of her scansion

(when discussing a short line of text -- that had only 4 feet/8 syllables instead of the usual 5 feet/10 syllables, and how the last two beats had to stay in as a pause allowing action to occur)
Voice Professor: What do you think happens in the last two beats?
(random shouts from the class included: "A kiss?", "They faint!", "Heavy breathing.", "They die!", and "Sex?!")
Voice Professor: Sex? Two beats of sex?! I feel so bad for you!

(after complimenting Big Show on something related to his ballet skill-set)
Movement Professor: I'm sorry, but men who can dance? They're very sexy.
Thrill: (to Big Show) Must be nice, [Big Show].
Big Show: What?
Thrill: To be fifty and sexy.

"Some of it's really not fun, but so are a lot of other things we've done that have made a big difference."
- Movement Professor, on our upcoming Ballet unit

(during rehearsing some strange blocking in Helen in which Wifey was on the floor and we were all trying not to trip over her or kick her)
Acting Professoressa: [Wifey], you appear to be an obstacle.
Wifey: I am.
Acting Professoressa: Don't take it personally.

(when Acting Professoressa told Iceman to go further with something in Helen)
Iceman: I'm worried it's gonna be too much.
Acting Professoressa: Don't worry. My bulls*** meter is working well. I'll tell you.

"I know what needs to be done. I'm just freaking out because I have to walk and talk. That's it."
- D-Train, during blocking rehearsal for The Mystery Plays

"It would be alright if this was organized, but right now it's all free-friggin'-form."
- Voice Professor, on how the props from The Mystery Plays rehearsals have taken over our studio

(on a break from rehearsal of The Mystery Plays, in which O.D.'s character has to ride a bike in circles for an entire scene)
O.D.: Uh, [Head of Program]? I don't actually know how to ride a bike.
Head of Program: Oh, I KNEW this was going to happen!
(NOTE: O.D. has spent the last week learning how to ride, and he's really improving.)

(as Voice Professor was writing some Shakespeare text on the chalkboard, and wrote "yeiding")
All-the-Way: "Yielding" has an '"L".
Angela: It's also "i-e".
Voice Professor: I know, crappy spelling. Hey, don't push me or I'll write this all in IPA.

"There is nothing sexier than a man in tights."
- Movement Professor

(when we were discussing a combat scene in Electra that might include stage blood)
Acting Professoressa: Have we made any progress on the blood?
D-Train: I thought [Big Show] was making blood.
Acting Professoressa: [Big Show] is making blood. Why am I not surprised?

Acting Professoressa:(to Big Show) Do you make blood often?
Big Show: Oh, yeah. It's easy. I'll tell you what you do. You take a small animal, any small animal will do, and then you take a big knife...
Acting Professoressa: [Big Show], I know I'm your straight man, but I would like to start rehearsal.

"I would like..., I mean, I don't want to get all 'method' on you or anything, but I would like to have wet blood on me."
- D-Train, on getting into character as Orestes

"You have to go down to the areopagites there, and you can't do it if you're going, 'The chimaera... huh huh... she was on Letterman."
- Acting Professoressa, to O.D., regarding a story where he explains the chimaera on his armor in Andromache

"We're from the same neighborhood. We're alike. Maybe you'd like to f*** me."
- Acting Professoressa, paraphrasing Thrill's lines as Menelaus to me as Andromache where he might be using the worst pick up line ever

Acting Professoressa: You scared me at the beginning, [Killer], because your hands were going wacky today.
Killer: I know. I was a crack addict today.

(near the beginning of rehearsal for The Mystery Plays)
Head of Program: Sorry, I got distracted there. It looks so nice outside. It looks like it's gonna be a nice twilight. Let's skip rehearsal and go outisde.
Big Show: You got it, boss.
Head of Program: What I was saying was, God, I completely forgot my train of thought. My mind is totally f***ed. [Big Show]? Would you do me a favor?
Big Show: Yes?
Head of Program: I brought in a bag of coffee. Would you go into the lounge and make a pot? I'm gonna need it.