Tuesday, April 20

Today was the Voice showing, so there was no Movement class.


VOICE
I started the showing with a demonstration of a British RP dialect, using the monologue from The Importance of Being Earnest that all the ladies in my class worked on earlier in the year.

After that, we all did our New York dialect scenes from Play It Again, Sam in chronological order. Voice Professor said she's never had a group show New York before, so I think that was fun for the audience members (many of whom have seen several past showings).

Finally, Wifey & Big Show did their Irish dialect scene from Juno and the Paycock

Then we moved on to the 1st-years! They had an IPA-a-thon (which is a sort of relay race where the teams are trying to properly IPA words that have been pre-written on the chalkboard). They also did their Standard American monologues from The Wood Demon (ah, memories!). Finally, they worked with vocal extremes, shouting a scene from Cowboy Mouth. They did great work! Oh, I'm so proud.


ACTING
There's so little time left before our Acting showing. It's kind of insane. But the scenes are going well. Tomorrow we're coming in early for "tech" (which is pretty much "lights up, lights down; music start, music stop").

General notes:
- Take the transition from Reality #1 to Reality #2 seriously. There is no magic formula. You are responsible for figuring out what works for you.
- KISSING 101: Don't make a tepee with your bodies; don't knock your partner off balance; don't have to keep moving/traveling

Richard III:
- "Cousins, indeed." - lower voice, feel outrage, don't use upper register
- "Well then..." - innocent
- "What were I best to say" - this was in the right ballpark today
- Build -- needs work

All's Well:
- Nice work from both
- work on seeing the ring
- rethink the skirt


MOVEMENT MEETING
I met with Movement Professor for a sort of end of the year conference. Here are the notes I took:

- maintain strength, always
- stretch properly, always
- keep working on awareness of form
- use a mirror when preparing for period work
- never let them see you sweat... have a good poker face
- keep doing ballet
- when dancing, focus on the knees up (my feet do the right thing, but my body is approximating)
- look at movement in 3D, not 2D (don't watch instruction in a mirror)
- work on kinesthetic sense and better visual sense
- Go home on day 1 of rehearsal and work on any specific physicality that the director asks for
- keep facial neutrality while receiving notes (otherwise it's distracting to the director, and makes them wonder what I'm thinking, as I have a very expressive face)
- turn body toward director during notes
- don't say "thank you" when getting notes; it makes some directors uncomfortable. Say "okay" instead.
- do meditative breathing
- do the Daily Dozen alignment exercises
- Try to enter a flow state.

I will have my next alignment lesson on Thursday, April 29 from 1:30pm-2:15pm (even though technically, the year will be over by then).


SHOWCASE RUN
The 3rd-year students are doing a NYC showcase in a week. Yesterday, they did their showcase scenes for us! They're terrific, and I'm super proud of them. They're going to rock. :)

Thursday, December 11

Today was a big day for the 1st-years. It was our first ever round of assessments.

Assessments happen at the end of the semester, for your first four semesters.

Basically, you walk into a room and sit at a table with your Analysis Professor (who is also the head of the program), your Acting Professor, your Voice Professor, your Movement Professor, your Tech supervisor, and the 2nd-year Acting Professor. Then they go around the table, reading written statements on how they think you've done over the course of the semester. They tell you positive things, as well as what you need to work on. Afterward, you get to keep a copy of their written statements.

Assessments are also the point in time where they notify you if you're being put on probation or released from the program.

I was probably more nervous going into it than I should have been. It ended up being fine. The only negatives mentioned were things that I was already aware of. Completely painless (unlike ripping off a band-aid, which ALWAYS hurts, no matter what school nurses say).

My favorite comment from my assessment was this one: "Angela is that rare actor who truly enjoys receiving notes and jumping in to implement them immediately."

I'm quite proud of that.



The 1st-years also had a meeting today with the head of the program. One of our classmates (The Pro) has decided to leave the program (he made his decision before assessments, not as a result of them). Therefore, the understudy and tech responsibilities that he had before are now going to be divvied up among us. I think I'm going to end up doing Costumes for Miss Julie now. (Which is fine with me... There are only three characters, so how hard could costumes be?)

Monday, October 13

My class met on our own today to discuss some of the issues that we've been having as of late.

The road to becoming an ensemble has been rocky for us thus far. Our group is made up of intelligent, strong-willed leaders. I love that about us, actually, but it does complicate the way we operate. We haven't yet arrived at a place where we can put our personal differences aside in order to trust and respect each other as artists.

I know that there is no quick fix for the problems that we have had with joining together as an ensemble. I knew going into today that we weren't all going to suddenly be smiling and agreeing. And we weren't.

That said, I think that it means a lot that we were willing to try. The fact that eleven people all showed up to the same place on our day off shows that we're all committed to working out our differences. We stayed for an hour and a half.

Some of the things that were said had been points of discussion before, but there was a generally open environment this time. We were respectful of each other, and allowed everyone a turn to speak. We listened and responded to the concerns that were raised. It felt more like a conversation than an argument, for which I was grateful. I only spoke a couple of times, but I said something that I've been needing to say for awhile. I don't know if it did anything to help the discussion, but it did make me feel a little bit better to get it out into the group.

It's so easy to become divisive in these sorts of conversations. It's obvious what our differences are. The challenge is to look past them in a spirit of unity.

We came up with some ideas about how to alter the structure of our Acting class to be more productive and less argumentative. We shared our thoughts on what we're trying to accomplish and ways to problem-solve. Iceman brought up wanting to work on a creative atmosphere and an artistic goal. Wifey raised the concept of "choosing to agree", quite like one would in an improv exercise. Two-Shots-Up commented that what we're working toward is bigger than all of us. Really, everyone made insightful contributions. And although I sensed frustrations at times, it stayed calm and focused throughout.

I didn't walk out with a feeling that everything was solved. What I do have is a hope that we're getting on the right track.

I don't know if things will be different now, but I've decided to go into the week with the mentality that they will. After all, if we start off tomorrow thinking that we're never going to become a proper ensemble, then we won't be. We can't poison ourselves against it with pessimism.

So here's to tomorrow.

~A~