Quotations: Volume 49

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)


"Don't do anything... bad."
- Voice Professor, as she left us alone in the room for a few minutes

"I'm not really interested in any of the good parts of these characters."
- Machinal Director

"If Uncle Fester was super fine, that's what he looked like."
- Two-Shots-Up, on a guy she once knew

"I would marry [person], but he's Muslim, so that could cause problems. I mean, I'm Catholic. I'm Boston Irish Catholic. You know."
- Voice Professor

"My expectations are that you will, one: be creative; two: do all of your work; three: as well as you can."
- Movement Professor, on our Restoration work

"I feel like I'm a gynecologist."
- Acting Professoressa, after sitting on a rolling chair

(while discussing the recruitment auditions)
Acting Professoressa: We had three actors curtsy on the, 'Thank you.'
O.D.: Men or women?

"I am so deeply into my character, I'm in Reality Five-Hundred-Twenty-Wight... and it takes forever to get me back into Reality Number One."
- Acting Professoressa, on auditioning actors who had way too long of final moments in their pieces

"We're trying to determine if a student has some gift, in spite of what they're doing."
- Acting Professoressa, on trying to look past actors bad habits at auditions to see if they're good people to train

"Graduate school is not therapy. We just cannot deal with that."
- Acting Professoressa, on not taking on students if they seem like they have emotional problems

"'Throw away the dress,' I wrote. I can't remember what she was wearing."
- Acting Professoressa, reading some of her notes from recruitment auditions

"I saw a semaphore version of that piece. You know what that means? What they do with the flags? (uses arms to demonstrate flag signaling) That's how much indicating she was doing."
- Acting Professoressa, on an audition where someone used a monologue that Angela has done in class

"Ladies, when the word 'womb' comes up, please do not clutch it."
- Acting Professoressa, warning us of bad auditioning behavior that she saw at recruitment

"Don't gesture with your pelvis on sexual references. We had one guy do it three times."
- Acting Professoressa, warning us of bad auditioning behavior that she saw at recruitment

"I wrote down 'dash C' for 'Clueless'."
- Acting Professoressa, on her recruitment notes

"A couple of Antigones... boring, boring."
- Acting Professoressa, on the recruitment auditions

"I wrote down '[person we know] plays Imogen.' You know, to remember."
- Acting Professoressa, on her recruitment notes

"I wrote down that it was the worst audition in history, and then, to make it worse, he SANG! And he couldn't sing!"
- Acting Professoressa, on a particularly bad audition she saw at recruitment

"Always a lot of Benedicks. I've never seen one work. A lot of swagger, not a lot of purpose."
- Acting Professoressa, on recruitment auditions

Acting Professoressa: This one girl looked like Gary Busey. And she did Cordelia.
Iceman: She should do Point Break!

"I start to feel like an old Jewish grandmother. 'Would it kill her to put on some makeup?' 'She couldn't take a comb to her hair?'"
- Acting Professoressa, on her thoughts at recruitment auditions

"If I notice a sense of humor, I'm all over them. Love that."
- Acting Professoressa, on something that she likes to see in recruitment auditions

"One guy said 'a lovely won-ton woman' instead of 'a lively wanton woman'."
- Acting Professoressa, on a recruitment audition

"Why are people selfish? Why do they behave selfishly? It's based on fear."
- Acting Professoressa, giving advice for scene work

(interrupting a scene in which Wifey has an aside, which she spoke loudly while Two-Shots-Up was right next to her facing the other direction)
Acting Professoressa: Can I ask you, is she deaf?
Wifey: No.
Acting Professoressa: Then be more careful in talking to us. A little quieter. Maybe come all the way downstage.
Wifey: I thought it was more 'the magic of theatre', and now she can hear me.
Acting Professoressa: Try it again. The magic of theatre... Tweet, tweet: we're outside.

(after discussing Doings/Actions)
Acting Professoressa: He's gonna remind you? Then you remind him back! (does a little dance)Then you've got something going on!
Angela: That was a nice little dance there, [Acting Professoressa].
Acting Professoressa: Thank you. Only the best.

(mid-scene, D-Train grabbed O.D. by the shirt, and his snap-up shirt completed unsnapped, revealing his bare, hairy chest)
D-Train: (shocked and embarrassed at what has just happened) Oh, wow.
O.D.: I should have shaved...
Angela: WARDROBE MALFUNCTION! WARDROBE MALFUNCTION!
O.D.: [Acting Professoressa] liked it, though.

"You really just have to play a nanosecond - and [O.D.], hear me well, a nanosecond - of, 'Did he just say that?!' Take a second to think about whether you've been insulted."
- Acting Professoressa

(when saying the word "heart", Thrill pointed to his heart)
Acting Professoressa: Don't show me. I know where the f*** your heart is.
Thrill: (breaks character completely, and begins hysterically laughing at himself) I know! I don't know why I just did that.

"We can shoot it up. Shoot it up to Patience."
- Thrill, after a conversation about whether the word "Patience" in his text was a command, or a personified virtue cherub... (which was hard to tell, as the capitalization might have just been because it was the beginning of a line), and it was decided that he should try to say the line to Patience, in the sky

"I don't want to see you in sneakers, because there's no Sports Authority in Cypress."
- Acting Professoressa, on Thrill's outfit to play Othello

"Sit your gimpy-a** down."
- Acting Professoressa, to Big Show in his Richard III scene

"Tricky-Dick."
- Acting Professoressa, using her nick-name for Richard III

"Yes, that's my mission: to make your lives miserable. Poor things."
- Acting Professoressa

Acting Professoressa: (to Thrill on his Othello scene) What do you need from her? What do you want to do to her?
Thrill: I think the subtext of that line is like, 'You whore.'