Saturday, January 30

ROY HART WORKSHOP
Today was the last day of the Roy Hart workshop. Totally sad. Carol (the instructor for the 2nd-Years) has been awesome, and we'll miss her. The 1st-Years really loved Saul (their instructor). I wish they could stay awhile longer.

With Carol, we did an exercise with creating random sounds that then evolved into our class standing in a circle and trying to "contribute" to the group sounds. It was freeing and somehow poignant. It made me feel like a part of something larger than myself, which is, I suppose, how one should always want to feel in an ensemble. I liked it. Someone suggested that we should do it as a warm-up before Machinal rehearsals. I hope we do.

We worked on finding different tones in our voices, reciting elongated words. We started with the words "cello", "viola" and "violin" (Iceman had a particularly great example of a voice that has three very different qualities that can be reached on the same pitch). Then we moved on to names. I don't REALLY know how to explain, them, but I'll try.

Maurice: deep, round, full quality
Delilah: soft, open, pretty voice (like I've used in choirs)
Antonio: big brassy belt
Violetta: shallow, nasal, sort of pinched


In my head this week, I started amassing a list of things that my classmates and I have sounded like during our vocal exploration work:

- Steve Urkel from Family Matters
- evil Elmo
- a teapot
- the disposal in a kitchen sink
- Carol Channing
- a motorcycle
- gargling
- a broken blender
- a dying forest creature
- Fran Drescher
- evil witches

It has obviously been a fun week.

Saul and Carol got the 1st and 2nd years together to tell us a little bit about the origin of the Roy Hart Theatre. I won't type it all up now, but they have two websites that you can visit for more information:

- The Roy Hart Theatre Archives
- The Roy Hart Theatre

Then Saul taught us all a song from Ghana, which we sang in a round. Great fun. :)


MACHINAL
I barely had rehearsal today. Rehearsal was going from 1-5pm, and then 7-11pm. But me? I was only called for the first 30 minutes for group warm-up time. Warm-ups went alright today. No complaints.