Thursday, January 7

The first day of a new semester, and already I'm up later than I should be, writing a blog post.

This is my final semester of normal classes (even though I have a year and a half of grad school left). And this semester is short! Due to the Roy Hart workshop, Film workshop, Stage Combat workshop, and Cold Readings workshop... as well as Spring Break Week and Production Week (which we're required to be here for because we have performances of Machinal, but don't have classes during), it's not the usual length. I think that, as a result, everything is going to feel fast and intense, as we have to squeeze a ton in to the classes that we do have.

Today, we just had Voice class and Movement class.


VOICE
Voice Professor gave us a syllabus. This semester, the big things we're working on are:
- One Voice; Volume
- New York Dialect
- Irish Dialect

Everything seems pretty straightforward. Irish is a really hard dialect, so it's a larger portion of our grade than New York. Originally, we were going to do three dialects this semester, but Voice Professor thinks that doing two dialects and really delving into them might be better training for "how to learn a dialect" than learning an additional one but having less time for each.

Voice Professor said to look over our notes for "Screaming Without Suffering" before class tomorrow.


MOVEMENT
We only have 10 Movement classes before our Roy Hart workshop. We're going to meet 9 of those days and start by doing a Ballet Barre as a class. Then, most of the class will be excused so that Movement Professor can meet with us to work on duets, which will be a combination of contact improv and ballet. Our duet pairings are:

- O.D. & Newbie
- Iceman & Wifey
- Killer & Angela
- Thrill & Two-Shots-Up
- D-Train & All-The-Way
- Big Show & Newbie

(Five of the pairings are ones that we did Contact Improv with for our Showing, and then Newbie is going twice because we have one more male than female.)

Movement Professor wants us to put aside at least half an hour every day to work with our partners outside of class. She says that rehearsing in small chunks is going to be the best way to get a lot done. We'll be showing the class our work on January 20.

For our Stage Combat workshop, we will most likely be put into M/M and F/F scenes. We're up for certification this year! CRAZY! 3rd-Year AG will be probably going through testing with us, as she was injured last year and couldn't test with her class.

After that, we move into Elizabethan, Restoration, and Baroque styles. We'll be starting off with short research projects, where groups will just share 30 interesting facts on their topic, as it relates to theatre. The groups are:

O.D., Newbie, & Angela - Spanish Baroque & Golden Age
All-The-Way, Killer, & Iceman - France & Italy
Big Show, Two-Shots-Up, Thrill - Elizabethan
D-Train, Wifey - Restoration

From there, we'll learn three dances, all of which Movement Professor had to spell for me:
- Pavan (a Spanish walking-style dance)
- French Menuet (which is different than an English Minuet)
- Gigue (which sounds like "Jig", but with a "zh" sound...) or another quick-stepping dance

For Restoration, we'll be doing "Stuffed Turkeys" (aka monologues from Restoration plays which are jam packed full of movement metaphors, and which looked AWESOME when we saw the current 3rd-years do them at their showing last year). And we're going to have to get Restoration costumes. For ladies, that involves corsets, fans, handkerchiefs, skirts, soft blouses with open necks, and petticoats (or something that Movement Professor said that sounded like "pan-gay", but I have no idea what that means). For gentlemen, it means tights, breeches, shirt with draping off the cuffs, handkerchief, high heels (which she recommended they buy at a specialty store for drag queens in order to find shoes that will fit), and short pants (because calves were eroticized).

And in the final weeks, we'll be doing Commedia! Movement Professor has been telling me since the first month I was here that she thinks I'm built for Commedia, so I'm filled with anticipation. She wants us all to find the "type" that we want to play (she has already suggested that I should be a Colombina). Then, we will bring in 10 interesting facts about our type (including the animal they were identified with, and the common predicaments they find themselves in). We're going to learn something called "Grammalot", which is a type of gibberish created by using the common sounds of a language. I'm geeked!



THEATRE
Last night, I attended the opening of Blue/Orange, which stars my classmates D-Train, Thrill, and Big Show. They did a stellar job, and I'm super proud of them. As All-The-Way said to me after the performance, it shows all three of them off really well. It's funny, but also intense. And they pulled it off. (I love you, fellas!) If you're in town, don't miss it!