Commedia Order

(Vittoria goes to help Ruffiana with the stew. -- Angela as Vittoria. 04/24/10. All photos in this post are courtesy of Pat Baer.)

In Commedia work, some things are planned, and some are improvised. We had "free play" time in class, where we would entirely improvise scenarios. The things that were fun and good, we remembered and kept.

In case you were curious how much of our Commedia was planned, here's what one of our "structured improv" breakdowns from Movement Professor looked like:




Ruffiana Sells a Stew and Arlechinno loses his Bachelorhood for my Dear Class of 2011!

1. All onstage asleep, Except Flavio who is admiring himself in the mirror, and Ruffiana who is stirring the soup. There is a pile of stuff beside her. The banana is planted somewhere.

2. Vittoria wakes up and practices her balances and her fainting, calling for Flavio.

3. Flavio wakes up at the sound of his name and echoes Vittoria the third time she says Flavio, saying Flavio!

4. Zanni gets a taste of the soup, (good business for Ruffiana) and then starts to eat his own finger, then Vittoria's.

(Zanni eats Vittoria's finger. -- Thrill as Zanni, Angela as Vittoria, & Newbie as Ruffiana. 04/24/10)

5.Vittoria calls for Columbina, she doesn't come.

6. Scapino wakes up, goes towards Rufianna and as he passes Arlechinno, Arlechinno wakes up. They try to buy stew. ( CHANGE ) Arlechinno sells his ring for stew.
Scapino tries to find money to pay Ruffiana for the stew, Scapino plays his lazzi of trying to find money. He can't find any, so he tries to sing for his money. He scat sings.

(Arrlechino & Scapino try to barter for Ruffiana's stew. -- Iceman as Arrlechino, Newbie as Ruffiana, & D-Train as Scapino.)

7.Capitano enters and seeing that Scapino is singing thinks that he will fit in, in this new country, if he sings louder than Scapino.

(Capitano arrives triumphantly in a foreign land. -- O.D. as Capitano.)

8.Everyone wakes up who is still asleep.

Move through scenario as choreographed on Friday

9.Arlechinno, Scapino, Arlechinna, and Zanni move towards Capitano. Arlechinna and Zanni take Capitano's cane.

Capitano reaches for his cane (1-2-3 smoothly) and hold

Arlechinno and Scapino grab Capitano's cape and tug it 1-2-3

Pulcinella walks towards Ruffiana 1-2-3, grabs her stew and runs to stage left with it.

(Pulcinella steals Ruffiana's stew. -- Newbie as Ruffiana, Killer as Pulcinella)

Arlechinno and Scapino tug cape 1-2 , they then wrap the cape around Capitano and either lift or spin him upstage (probably the latter)

Arlechinna and Zanni walk up the big cane, 1-2-3

(Arrlechina and Zanni fight over Capitano's stick. -- Two-Shots-Up as Arrlechina, Thrill as Zanni)


They go to help with Capitano in the sword fight. Capitano falls down dead (he will play dead for quite awhile until revived later)

Pedrolino rushes towards Pulcinella to give him a big hug -- he puts the stew down.

Ruffiana steals her stew back

(Ruffiana with her stew. -- Newbie as Ruffiana)

Pulcinella pushes Pedrolino away.

Ruffiana calls Vittoria over to her and requests her to go and get some cayenne pepper.

Vittoria goes off to find the cayenne pepper takes it to Ruffiana

Then Pulcinella starts to try to 'court' Vittoria.

Vitorria calls for Colombina

Flavio begins to call for Vittoria ---

Then Vittoria calls for Flavio -- they keep moving right past one another not seeing each other

Vittoria calls for Columbina!

Columbina enters and goes to Ruffiana. She wants Ruffiana to cast a spell on Arelchinno, who is involved in a sword fight with Arlechinna and Scapino (since Capitano is now dead for the moment, though he can wake up to watch)

Vitorria calling for Columbina

Columbina enters and goes to Ruffiana to ask her to cast a spell on Arlechinno to make him fall in love with her.

(Columbina shows tells Ruffiana that she wants Arrlechino to fall in love with her. -- All-The-Way as Pedrolino, O.D. as dead Capitano, D-Train as Scapino, Iceman as Arrlechino, Newbie as Ruffiana, Angela as Vittoria, Wifey as Columbina, Killer as Pulcinella)

She explains what she wants by getting Vittoria and Flavio to call for one another with love. Ruffiana gets her message and has an idea of her own --- she will get lots of items for the stew from everyone. She calls for various foodstuffs none of which go together and each actor brings her something

except Flavio, who is doing his lazzi in the mirror throughout and simulaneously (only lazzi to be played while other action is going on)

(Flavio admires himself in the mirror. -- Two-Shots-Up as Arrlechina, Big Show as Flavio)

As they drop their food (items into the pot) they turn to watch Flavio, freeze on him, surround him with menace because he didn't add to the soup. beat 1-2-3. Then, Arlechinna brings her banana. She eats the paper and then drops the banana into the pot.

Everyone goes back to the stew. Vittoria faints from the smell. Zanni faints from the smell. Then wakes up.

Arlechinno takes his jack in the box and goes upstage left with it. Arlechinno skips/acrobats away to where his jack in the box is. Zanni follows him.

Ruffianno then begins to stir the pot incanting over it. She drops the ring into the pot, then fishes it out, lets Columbina smell it. Columbina takes it from her /pause/ focus shifts to Arlechinno and zanni who are investigating the jack in the box, but not turning the crank). Columbina puts ring on her finger goes to them Tells Arlechinno that she loves him with mime from ballet (I'll teach) and lets them smell the ring. she then asks for Arlechinno's 4th finger and puts it on that finger.

Arlechinno laps up the good stew. Zanni goes for Arlechinno's finger.

Columbina pulls Arlechinno away from Zanni, now that he has the ring.. He won't go until he grabs his music box. They go back upstage left , Arlechinno ignores her in order to play with his music box. She tries to get a smooch. They both get scared when the jack jumps and immediately go to sleep.

Capitano is still dead. Scapino tries to wake him up with scat singing. Pulcinella and Pedrolina get the idea that they will wake him from the dead by offering him a woman. they dress up Pedrolina with the fruit. Pulcinella makes sure we know it is fruit and squeezes it from behind Pedrolina as she walks. Pedrolina counts her flower off to Capitano, who doesn't wake.

(Pulcinella dresses Pedrolino up as a girl to try to help Capitano. -- All-The-Way as Pedrolino, Killer as Pulcinella, O.D. as Capitano)

Zanni, who has been sleeping again, walks over to capitano to wake him. zanni tries to wake him with the body part lazzi. Scapino (what have he and Arlechinno been doing all this time? don't know yet-- riding the big horse stick?) starts singing again. Flavio finally wakes him by brushing his hanky over his face. Capitano grabs his sword from Scapino and a sword fight begins with only one sword.

Dev yells Go! Game! and everyone is free to play. Dev yells Stop or Basta!

Flavio and Vittoria play their lazzi of missing one another and end in their orignal positions.

Dane stomps the cane three times. End of Commedia.

(Arrlechino sings with his magic box. -- Two-Shots-Up as Arrlechina, Iceman as Arrlechino)

Friday, April 23

No Voice class today, due to the Movement showing.


MOVEMENT SHOWING
The showing went really well.

D-Train started things off with his Scapino character doing a bit.

Then Big Show and Newbie did their ballet/contact duet to "Fly Me to the Moon". It was super cute.

The 1st-years did their "simple tumbling" first, which was neat. They turned it into a whole choreographed thing. My favorite part was when a whole group of them did a move called "The Duck" in a V-formation. Pretty great. And at another part, it looked like girls in the class were "riding" boys as they did the combat crawl. Those boys are SO STRONG!

The 2nd-years did our Commedia stuff, and it went pretty well. At one point, I slipped and fell on a prop, which actually fits in perfectly to how I do Vittoria. :)

The 1st-years did their "complex acrobatics". Honestly, I couldn't see most of it, as I had a costume change, but what I saw was FANTASTIC!!! Oh man, they did some awesome things. So impressive. I'm super proud of them. (And in awe of them!)

Thrill & Two-Shots-Up did their ballet/contact duet to "In a Sentimental Mood". It was incredibly sexy.

We came out for a Restoration Salon, and then transitioned into our "Stuffed Turkey" monologues. I had to go first, and I was way more nervous than I've ever been before. I delivered the monologue to 1st-Year Acting Professor, who was sitting right in front of me. He seemed amused. The people who did monologues were me, Killer, Wifey, All-The-Way, & D-Train. Everyone's monologues went well. ESPECIALLY Wifey's, which I think was the best she's ever done it.

From there, we went into the Pavane. It went surprisingly well.

Then the 1st-years did a tumbling/dance routine to "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" (so appropriate for the end of the 1st-year!). It was great! Very cool, and very light-hearted.

So yay! Successful showing!



1ST-YEAR ACTING SHOWING
In the afternoon, the 1st-years had their final acting showing. They presented scenes from short stories by J.D. Salinger (last year, my class used short stories by Kurt Vonnegut). They did great work. They're such a great class, and I'm so excited to see them up on stage next year. They're going to light this place on fire. :)



WRAP-UP
So that's all she wrote.

Can you believe that I've been in graduate school for two years? I've earned both the M and the F in "MFA". :)

I don't know what's going to happen to my blogging now. I'll try to update while I'm in London (OH MY GOD I LEAVE FOR LONDON ON MAY 5TH!!!), but probably not daily. And next year when I'm in rehearsals, I really don't know. As I learned this year, it's a lot harder to write daily posts about rehearsals than about classes. So I make no promises.

But I want to thank you all for taking the time to (even just occasionally) read about my journey. Thank you for sharing it with me.

One more year!



All good things,

~A~

Thursday, April 22

VOICE
Our last day of Voice class. Ever. EVER!

I'm sad about it, but most of my classmates seem to be excited that we're coming to the end of our classes here.

I hugged Voice Professor.

We did a day of vocal production, including vocal extremes.

And at the end of class, we did our closing routine one last time. We sat with long spines, brought our hands together, and said "Namaste". *tear*



MOVEMENT
We rehearsed all of the Restoration whatnot for the showing. The Pavane is still sort of crazy.

My stuffed turkey monologue is actually really great, and I'm proud of it. Movement Professor complimented me on how graceful and elegant I've become.

We also did some Commedia. Things change every time we do it. I hope it turns out alright.




ACTING

We had one last rehearsal before the showing, and here are my notes...

Richard III:
- use lower voice register
- don't have false start near the top
- after "Be brief" (mildly blow him off), don't look at Richard until his response
- on "handkerchief" speech, don't stop and start. Do it on one long cross, and get where you need to be

All's Well
- on "Will you not, my lord?", don't push Bertram



The showing went very well. And I'm relieved that it's over!

I'm going to miss Acting Professoressa, though. She's awesome. I hope to see her around a lot next year.

Wednesday, April 21

VOICE
We did a vocal production day.

And then we did something exciting. For the first time ever, the entire class did "The Asolo Tremor" (which is an official destructuring position that was created at the Asolo Repertory Theatre). The tremor involves people putting their hands against the hands of others, and then having simultaneous arm tremors. We did it with the whole group in a circle. Very cool. The 1st-years have already been doing it for awhile, but Voice Professor held off on letting us do it until now. I'm glad we got the chance before leaving. (It sounds like there have been several classes that never learned it at all... it's not a typical tremoring position.)


MOVEMENT
We worked on Commedia stuff. I hope it all turns out okay.

I have to say, I'm in love with my Vittoria costume. I took a pale yellow skirt of mine and attached bright orange and yellow (fake) daisies around it. I have a pale pink and yellow corset top (acquired at a recent clothing swap). I have bright purple tights (and an extra pair of underwear that I'm going to wear OVER them, in case I flash the audience during acrobatics). I have a bright pink bead necklace. I have a grey cap that I put an orange daisy on. I have bright purple fingerless gloves. I have a ring that's an orange flower that's made out of a zipper. And I'm wearing my ballet shoes. And I have a yellow bandana as a prop, which I think I'm going to loop around one of my fingers, so that I don't have to carry it.

The joke I have for Vittoria is that she's bad at balancing. She's always about to fall down, and ends up in strange positions. She has a wobbly sort of walk. She faints a lot. And sometimes when she falls down, she needs help getting back up. It's a lot of fun.



ACTING

My notes:
- In Measure for Measure, don't come on as servant until after Iceman says "How now, who's there?"
- don't face full-front out. Always try to stay at least a little bit off center. (General note)

Richard III:
- good momentum
- "And must she die for this?" - walk quickly
- "stone cold heart" - no sarcasm
- "lose their heads" - land
- "Be brief..." - get away with it
- "What, thou?" + "How canst thou woo her?" - voracious innocence. Make sure you understand him
- "Haply will she weep." - land
- Build was good!
- watch the cues
- "Write to me" - don't show anything. too much suffering


All's Well:
- ring sighting needs work
- very good scene; really coming along

Friday, April 16

This is the first day all week with all three of our normal classes. And it's the 2nd-to-last time (or "penultimate", for the fancy folk out there) that this will happen. Weird.


VOICE
We went over all the things we'll be doing for the Voice showing (which will be on Tuesday, from 10:00am-11:00am in the Allen Studio. The things the 2nd-years will be doing:

- I will be doing the monologue from The Importance of Being Earnest that all the ladies worked on for our British RP dialect unit.
- The whole class will be doing scenes from Play It Again, Sam that we worked on in our New York dialect unit
- Big Show & Wifey will be doing a scene from Juno and the Paycock that we worked on in our Irish dialect unit

It's been awhile since we've done RP, so I'm slightly rusty on the monologue, but Voice Professor thinks I'm going to be just fine. I got 100% on both of my RP exams, so she has faith in me.


MOVEMENT
We started a new scenario for Commedia that is based off of some of the stuff that worked the last time we did Commedia.

It is HARD. There are so many times when other parts of the scene are active instead of mine, so I have to stay frozen. But my type, Vittoria, stands on one leg, or in positions that appear unbalanced. It's REALLY HARD to keep those positions for 5 minutes at a time while Movement Professor works with other people. At one point, I had to be frozen in a semi-upside-down state with my legs in the air, and I got so dizzy that I had to stop and lay down. Oh man. My limbs are going to be hurting tomorrow.


ACTING
We did as much of a run as we could of the scenes, although All-The-Way, Killer, and Wifey were out sick.

General notes:
- pick up cues!!!
- the antidote for list-making = internal Landing
- Organize backstage area with Wifey on Tuesday
- footwear is important. Shoes make a profound difference in getting your subconscious to play along with you.


Richard III notes:
- showing too much on face. Especially at "praying nuns" and "beauteous princely daughter"
- Link 1st 2 lines
- "Life" is apex of the list "comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life!"
- "Be brief, lest that..." -- link
- move head less
- "Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king" -- link
- "Ay, and for her sake" -- monosyllabic
- work on Stillness
- "What were I best to say?" -- quieter
- "Too deep and dead, too deep and dead, poor infants..." -- don't breathe, keep building
- Don't grind on "Harp on it still shall I till heartstrings break"
- faster cue on "Yet thou didst kill my children"


All's Well That Ends Well notes:
- sit on the line "Mine honor's such a ring."
- "When midnight comes..." - pick up cue
- Go SL instead of SR on "My mother told me..."



HOMEWORK
Acting Professoressa wants Big Show and I to get together over the weekend and rehearse our Richard III scene while doing some sort of ballroom dancing.

I have to brush up my RP dialect, and re-memorize my New York dialect scene. And also print out copies of both, just in case.

I have to try to write down as much as possible of what I remember of Commedia. (Which will end with me getting more things for Ruffiana's stew, and missing Flavio entirely).

I have to buy glitter to stand in for Cayenne pepper.

I have to get props with my classmates on Sunday.

I have to work on the end of my Stuffed Turkey monologue.

I have to solidify all my costumes. For everything.

Wednesday, April 14

No Acting class today, as the cast of The Game of Love and Chance had a final tech run before their opening night.

VOICE
Another day of vocal production, for the benefit of the actors.


MOVEMENT
Movement Professor wrote a rough sketch out of a whole LONG 11-person Commedia scenario for our class, incorporating all the lazzis we came up with for our characters. We played around with it for awhile, and then eventually, it evolved into something completely different.

We started it over and tried again.

Lots of fun things happened. At one point, there were two Flavios (who is the man my type, Vittoria, fancies) because someone else had disguised himself as Flavio. And the Harlequino took both of their handkerchiefs, and then Vittoria thought that HE was Flavio. It was insane.

At one point, Columbina (Wifey) and I switched places, but then the three men took Ruffiana's love potion and had fallen in love with Columbina, and I revealed the switch to get away from them.

Very fun stuff, this Commedia. I wish we had more time to work on it before our showing.



THE GAME OF LOVE AND CHANCE
Opening night!!!

I am so proud of my classmates. The show was completely hilarious, and they still found truth within it. They're awesome. I was laughing at all the wrong times, and apparently they could tell it was me... Haha. It's a lovely light show amongst the rest of our relatively dark season. If you get a chance, go see it and support them!

Tuesday, April 13

No Acting today, as the cast of The Game of Love and Chance (i.e. All-The-Way, D-Train, Iceman, Killer, O.D., and Two-Shots-Up) is in tech.

VOICE
Now that our Irish dialect exam is over, the rest of the year is smooth sailing in Voice class. Today was a "vocal production day", in which we did a full warm-up, tremored, restructured, and worked on vocal extremes.

MOVEMENT
We spent the entire class period working on the Pavane. SO MUCH PAVANE.

The Pavane, as a reminder, is a Baroque period dance. Our version of the Pavane also includes some steps from the Menuet.

The Pavane isn't particularly difficult. The Pavane is just incredibly precise. And Movement Professor wants everything to be absolutely perfect, so we're often doing small things over again to get them right.

Friday, April 9

Happy Birthday, Two-Shots-Up!!!

Acting class was canceled again today.


VOICE

We had our Irish Dialect exam, and I think it went well. I had both Iceman and Killer as partners, so I did the scene twice, but Voice Professor only graded my first time through. I hope I did alright. It sounded like most people did well.


MOVEMENT

Movement Professor says we're now ready to take on the next level of Commedia work. Instead of being focused on the story, we have to focus on digression. It's like when you have a dream that just keeps hopping from one thing to another instead of having a logical plot arc.

We started off by getting into our small Commedia groups, and then a few of us were sent to other groups to upset the balance of the scene, and throw it into digression.

IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!

Not long into it, all 11 of us were in one long, insane digression, with several plots evolving all over the room. It was hilarious and awesome.

We have to e-mail Movement Professor a list of our favorite 5 things that happened. Mine are:

- Zanni (Thrill) thought my finger was food and tried to eat it.
- Ruffiana (Newbie) put a wedding veil over my face, so I couldn't see anything and kept almost falling over
- When I saw Flavio (Big Show), I fainted, and then couldn't get back up
- Harlequina (Two-Shots-Up) took a ring that I was trying to give to Flavio. She kept switching directions and showing me the hand it wasn't on so I would think she didn't have it.
- Flavio and I spoke different grammelot "languages", and Ruffiana had to translate for us.


We also have to come up with a lazzo to show the class. Here are some I've tried:
- using a stick like a baton to twirl
- almost falling over one direction, then the other (like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz during "If I Only Had a Heart").
- falling down and being unable to get back up
- pretending to be Ruffiana

Thursday, April 8

Acting class was canceled today.

VOICE
I practiced a ton last night (including going to the grocery store and keeping in dialect the whole time). I feel ready for this exam finally.

In class, for some reason, I started saying the word "leave" incorrectly in my scene, which I've never done before. The reason that's especially ridiculous? 'Leave' does not shift. It's exactly the same in Irish as in American. I'm just dumb sometimes.


MOVEMENT

We're continuing working with our small groups in Commedia stuff.

As it turns out, Pedrolino, Columbina, and Vittoria are not easy characters to incorporate into the same scene. The hardest part is that I'm still figuring out my OWN character, and I don't have a solid grasp on what the other characters are at all. I hope we figure it out better soon...

Wednesday, April 7

Happy birthday Iceman!!!



VOICE
Practice, practice, practice. We'll be ready for our Irish exam before you know it.


MOVEMENT
We worked on the Pavane. We haven't done it in a while, so it wasn't particularly great. It's just not a terribly exciting dance to do, to be honest. I wouldn't mind if we never did it again.


ACTING

More Shakespeare scenes...

Acting Professoressa has asked us to e-mail her with our preferences on which of our Shakespeare scenes we'd like to do in the showing. I can't believe the showings are coming up already. Time flies.

Tuesday, April 6

VOICE
We went over our Irish scenes more.

Currently, the sound that troubles me the most is the vowel of words like "hut" that switches to the vowel of "wood". Luckily, Iceman and Killer are doing well, and they're my scene partners, so that helps me a lot.

The other hard shift sucks because of how often it comes up. The word "it" shifts to sounds like "ut". It comes up a lot more often than I thought it would. (As evidenced by the three instances in this paragraph.)

In my car when I'm listening to the radio, I try to recite the lyrics of pop songs making all the shifts of the Irish dialect. I have particularly enjoyed doing this to the song "Tik Tok" by Ke$ha (apparently the $ is pronounced like an S... I won't go into how much that bothers me). It helps me a lot, and makes me feel like I have a good handle on the dialect shifts.


MOVEMENT
We lifted weights at the top of class. I started this year with 3-pound weights. Then I started using both 3-pound weights in one hand for certain lifts (so, really 6-pounds). I recently switched to 5-pound weights, but they're not hard for me, since I was essentially working with 6-pounds before. So now I grab a 3 and a 5 with each hand, to give me make-shift 8-pound weights. :) It makes me feel strong.

We worked on our Commedia characters in small groups. My group is me (Vittoria), All-The-Way (Pedrolino), and Wifey (Columbina). Our homework is to come up with scenarios that involve those characters.


ACTING
Newbie and I met with Acting Professoressa over our lunch break to work on Twelfth Night. We're adding an element into the scene: Newbie desperately wants to touch me, and I desperately want to avoid her touching me..., while still appearing polite.

So the big things I have to work on are:
- be polite, so that Olivia won't report to Orsino that I've been rude in any way.
- stop the touching... in a polite way
- be a BOY (I'm playing a character who is pretending to be a boy... and I have to get away with it.)


During class, I worked with D-Train on our All's Well That Ends Well scene. I think it's going pretty well. It's kind of a silly scene, but it's fun to work on.


KING JOHN
We had our final performance of King John, and it went exceptionally well. I'm proud to have worked on this show. I wish we could do it again. :)

Friday, April 2

VOICE
I finished reading through the Irish scene with both Killer and with Iceman. The dialect is definitely getting less intimidating as I go.

The hardest sound for me to consistently shift is the vowel in "hut", which shifts to the vowel in "wood". I know how to do it, but for some reason I don't always in the moment.


MOVEMENT
We continued exploring the space using our Commedia movement styles. We also worked on the evolution from our Commedia animals to our Commedia types.

We did a full group exploration/improv as the animals that our Commedia types are connected to, and then as the characters themselves. Eventually, we started playing games as the characters (like a variation of soccer, and a version of duck-duck-goose), speaking only in Grammelot.


ACTING
The scenes that went today were Comedy of Errors and Two Noble Kinsmen.

The only notes I took down today:
- Finding a shared perverse sense of humor can be the difference between friends and best friends, or sometimes between best friends and lovers. (I think it was connected to a discussion about the Taming of the Shrew scene.)

Newbie and I will be working on Twelfth Night during tutorial time on Tuesday, and I believe D-Train and I will be doing All's Well That Ends Well Tuesday during class. We're supposed to be off-book for all scenes on Tuesday.

Thursday, April 1

I came in to class today with my hair dyed to have pink and purple streaks. And with bangs.


It was an April Fool's Day prank, of course. (Man, the theatre would have my hide if I did that to my hair! Especially without permission!) I didn't take my hair out until Acting class. So that was fun.


VOICE
We started talking through our scenes. And guess what? I'm not doing NEARLY as badly as I thought I would! Irish is getting a little more intuitive, although it's still not easy. I'm encouraged by this. Which is good, because Voice Professor has decided to move up our exam by a few days.


MOVEMENT
As a side note... On Tuesday, we jumped rope for the first time in AGES, and I felt like I was in the zone. Five minutes of jumping rope barefoot, and I never once tripped or hit myself with the rope. I felt awesome. And five minutes? Didn't feel that bad. But now? My legs are killing me for it. So instead of jumping rope, I did the Daily Dozen alignment exercises.

We had a long discussion on the origins of Commedia, and what we're going to do with it.

Movement Professor says that there are three different forms of comedy: comedy of incongruity, comedy of meanness, and comedy of wit. Commedia is primarily comedy of incongruity (look! a car in the tree!), rarely comedy of meanness (mostly just Brighella), and never comedy of wit.

And we also talked for a while about London. Oh my word, we're going to London!!! AHHH!!!! May 5th cannot come soon enough. (Although that being said, I sure have a lot to do before we go!)


ACTING
D-Train and I did our All's Well That Ends Well scene. Acting Professoressa didn't seem to love it our first time through, when we stuck close to the blocking that we'd done the previous time we'd worked. D-Train suggested that we do it as an etude, and not worry about any of the blocking. When we did, it was SO much more free and real, and so much easier to play the scene. But as a result, Acting Professoressa said that some of the stage pictures were bad, and some of the physical story-telling was being lost. So we're going to have to work to combine the two.

Other notes I got:
- in Diana's final monologue, be less knowing
- more men-vs.-women mentality
- justify behavior to the audience
- keep it fresh
- Diana is not a b****, and she wants the audience to know that
- Point-of-View on Bertram cannot be "You stupid jerk"

Tuesday, March 30

KING JOHN
Last night was our first performance of the King John late night, directed by 3rd-Year KS. We had a great crowd! And it was a lot of fun to tell that story. It's been a long time since I was in a Shakespeare play (not just a reading, or a scene, or an understudy role... but IN one. The last one was in 2006), and it was nice to get another chance to be in one.

If you missed it, we're having another performance! It will be Tuesday, April 6th @8pm in the Cook Theatre. Hope you can make it!

FIZZ
Over the weekend, I saw a staged reading of Fizz by Rogelio Martinez, which is part of the Unplugged Festival of new works. It's about the president of Coca Cola in the 1980's, and it was awesome. So, so, so funny, but also poignant. And the 3rd-years who were in it were fantastic. It was wonderful to see.

VOICE
Today Voice class was optional, for anyone who hadn't finished their Irish transcriptions, or who wanted extra help. So I went. Because Irish? It's super tough for me. As I may have mentioned.

There are tons of shifts, and they're all super specific. And, unfortunately, the text we're converting has the dialect written in, which just makes transcription harder. (Why do playwrights do that? WHY?)


MOVEMENT
We started off by walking around as our Commedia characters. Then we got out the mats, and started moving as the animals that are connected to our Commedia types. (My character Vittoria, is connected to both pink flamingoes and love birds.) Then, we had to "evolve", from the animal into the character, keeping some of the animal characteristics in tact. It was really funny to watch.

Then, we were put into groups of 3-4 characters that often work together (my group was me, Wifey, Iceman, and Two-Shots-Up... aka Vittoria, Columbina, Harlequin, and Harlequinetta), and had 2 minutes to come up with a scenario to play out. Then we played them out, using Grammelot.

Grammelot is a way of speaking gibberish that is based off of the sounds of another language. Some people find it's easier to create Grammelot based off a language they know. Some people find it's easier to do Grammelot based off of a language that they DON'T know. I'm in the latter category. I've studied German and Italian, so I'm going to do French Grammelot. All-The-Way is already really good at her Italian Grammelot. I was impressed.

If you want a good idea of Grammelot, watch this video. It's a bunch of Italians singing a song in "English Grammelot" (aka, what they think English sounds like, including a couple of actual words, and mostly gibberish ones).



ACTING
We moved our set pieces down to the theatre, where we'll be doing our Acting Showing at the end of this semester. Acting Showings are usually done in a classroom, but we requested the stage and got approved.

We began staging the "Comedy of Errors" scene (All-The-Way & Killer) and the "Two Nobel Kinsmen" scene (O.D., Thrill, Newbie, & Two-Shots-Up).

Friday, March 26

VOICE
We turned in our Irish Cheat Sheets.

We started doing transcriptions for our scenes from Juno and the Paycock


MOVEMENT
Commedia presentation day!

I talked about my character, Vittoria. She's sometimes a zanni, and sometimes and innamorata, depending on what is required. I turned in my list of interesting facts. I'll type them up when I get them back.

We all showed our "walks" for our characters (or as much of the movement as we've figured out thus far), which was neat to watch. I already have some ideas about how our scenes might play out.


ACTING
We started staging our comedy scenes.

My scene with D-Train is going to be silly and ridiculous. It's a short little scene, but it's fun. It's just a bunch of awkward sexual situation happenings. Good times.

Thursday, March 25

VOICE
Even more Irish dialect notes... Are you ready?

a. -ing spellings end up sounding like "-un"
b. The unstressed syllables in words like "cabbage", "laughing", "demanded", and the word "it" in unstressed positions, end up having a schwa (uh) vowel.
c. The word "any" (and it's deriviatives, e.g. "anything" and "anyone") is pronounced with the vowel of apple (so it sounds more like "Annie" than "any").
d. Words spelled with "-ow" in unstressed positions (e.g. "yellow", "pillow", "window", "fellow", etc.) shift to a schwa (uh).
e. In CASUAL speech, in UNSTRESSED positions, the word "my" sounds like "me".
f. Sometimes, words like "look", "book", "shook", etc. are said with a vowel closer to the vowel in "moo" than the vowel in "good".
g. One-off pronunciations include film (fil-um), tea (tay), decent (day-sunt), peacock (pay-cock), Jesus -- when used as an oath (Jay-zus), old (owl-d), idiot (ih-jut).
h. In working class dialects, medial and final "t" sounds like "d" (like in "writer" and "sitting").
i. (OPTIONAL) Long, close vowels become two syllables. (So "clean" sounds like "klee-un")
j. (OPTIONAL) Dublin working class dialects are often heavily nasalized.\



MOVEMENT
We started working with Laban elements with our characters. This means that with movement qualities you try to determine if the character is:

direct/indirect
heavy/light
sudden/sustained
bound/free

By my math, there are 16 possible combinations. Eight of these are ones that come up often and that we have names for.

I showed my walk/sitting/lying down/essential gesture for Alma from The Eccentricities of a Nightingale. I decided to go with what I feel she is at the beginning of the play. Fast inner tempo, indirect, medium lightness, sudden, bound. It seemed to go well.


ACTING
Table-working scenes.

I am also now doing a scene with Newbie from Twelfth Night. She is Olivia, and I am Viola (dressed as Cesario).

Wednesday, March 24

VOICE
More lessons in Irish... New things we've learned include:

12. Irish has bright, light [l] sounds. The sides of the tongue are relaxed, instead of scooping up. (So L-sounds are closer to the L that we use for "lemon" than the L that we use for "all".)

13. In words that are spelled with a "wh", use an unvoiced "w" (which sort of sounds like "hw").

14. "th" words are more plosive than fricative, and are dentalized. (So they sound more like "t" or "d" than "th", depending on whether they're voiced or not, and there's more breath involved, making the sounds splashier.) This is also true of words that involve the spellings "tr" or "dr" (which some playwrights who write in dialect attempt to spell out... "thrim" instead of "trim", or "dhrink" instead of "drink"... which, to quote Paul Meier, ends up "leaving the actor to guess what that means.")

15. [t], [p], and [k] (the voiceless plosives) have a weak or absent "stop stage" (they're not very plosive at all) and then a really breathy release stage. (This is always true of consonants in final position, so Voice Professor says that she made her rule to only apply to final positions.)


Oh, fun with dialects.


MOVEMENT
In preparation for class today, we were supposed to find a character in a play that we'd like to work on, and then read the play looking for clues about them that might affect their physical characterizations. Today, we had to come in with a knowledge on how we, as the character, would walk, sit down, and lie down. We also had to find a distillation of a gesture (sometimes called an "essential gesture" or "psychological gesture") that is definitive of the character, and that we could do to immediately enter the character.

We did a really great exercise in which we were all walking around our studio as our characters at once (just sort of focusing on our inner-tempos and walks), and then had to mentally assign two other people in the class to be roles from the play. They were still being their own characters, but we just changed our point-of-view on each other. Movement Professor said that it could be as simple as thinking "this person is a GOOD THING, and that person is a BAD THING."

It was so cool. D-Train, Two-Shots-Up, and I ended up playing out a fascinating silent scene. From Two-Shots-Up's perspective, we were in Big Love, and I was her sister, and she was non-verbally warning me not to marry D-Train. From my point of view, D-Train was my friend/crush (from Eccentricities of a Nightingale), and when Two-Shots-Up was trying to get me away from him, she became a woman that I had been warning him against... and I gave up and left. And for D-Train? He was Orestes from Orestes 2.0. (I didn't talk to him about it, but it seemed like I was a Good Thing, and Two-Shots-Up was a Bad Thing).

After that, people started showing their walks, stances, gestures, etc. Then we discussed how they got to those points, and how they could take them further.

A really great note I took from Movement Professor:
As actors, we should be trying to collaborate with the playwright, not please the playwright.


ACTING
As we were starting our comedy scenes today, we discussed what you should do when cast in a play before table work.

- Read the play EVERY DAY. (Acting Professoressa recommends that you read the play every day from the day you get cast until the day the show closes.)
- Research
- Figure out your character's context and world view
- Know what every word means, and how it is pronounced
- Be able to paraphrase everything
- Have ideas on your Need
- Point-of-View on other characters and situations
- Script demands on characterization

D-Train and I read our All's Well That Ends Well scene. I love it! I'm Diana, and he's Bertram. In the scene, he's trying win me (or sleep with me... or make me his mistress). I, on the other hand, have been scheming with his wife, and am trying get him to fall into a trap. It's going to be a lot of fun to work on. I'm excited! :)

Tuesday, March 23

VOICE
We picked up where we left off on our Irish dialect work.

I'll be honest: I'm terrible at Irish.

I rocked the New York dialect. That one was a piece of cake. And British RP was tough, but I worked on it super hard, and I ended up being great at it.

But Irish? It's twice as hard for me as RP was. There are SO MANY SHIFTS! And a lot of them are shifts that are very difficult for me to hear.

For example: compare the first vowel in the word "alien" to the vowel in the word "pay". They sound a lot a like, right? Well, in IPA, the first vowel in "alien" is written as [e], and the vowel in "pay" is written as [ei]. What that means is that "pay" has a diphthong, where the vowel is actually shifting from one vowel to another. "Alien", on the other hand, starts with a pure vowel.

When we originally learned the difference between these 1st-year, I made a note that for me, it was easiest to think of "alien" as a shorter vowel, and "pay" as a longer vowel. That's not REALLY what the difference is, but that's the only way that I could think of to tell them apart.

But in Irish? All the words that would have the "pay" vowel in Standard American shift to [e:], which means it's the vowel of "alien", but longer. You have to stretch out the vowel WITHOUT going to the diphthong.

I can't tell you how frustrating that is for me. It's hard for me to hear when I'm doing it wrong. And sometimes, I end up using the vowel of "get" (which is marked kinda like [E]) by accident.

I'm going to work as hard as I can on this. Wish me luck.

Our Irish dialect cheat sheets are due Friday.


MOVEMENT
A few days ago, we got the following e-mail from Movement Professor:

March 23 -- Perform your Stufffed Tukey for the Class. Everybody will perform, and then I will give any notes to address before the showing, in class, after everyone has shown their piece.

March 24 -- Character Work (as scheduled before break)

March 25-- Character Work

March 26 -- Commedia Presentations -- limit your presentation to 5 minutes, including your type's walk. You will be pre-empted at 5 minutes so be concise, and quick.


The Assignment for the Character Work was the following:

Find a role that you would like to play, and are right for. This role does not have to be age appropriate, but should not be as far from you as say, Lear or Queen Margaret.

I encourage you to pick a role that you would really like to do. Read the play, and take notes on every clue to the given circumstances of physicality that the author gives you about the character. Age, externals, movement qualities, etc will be noted, usually by other characters, and by the character him/herself. There are also ways to discover/create character that come from the rhythm of the writing, the period (as you know), economic class, and importanty, occupation.

You may also want to run the psychoanalytic game that you used to create your Restoration character.

With these given circumstances, begin to instinctively work on the character's walk. Then find a significant and essential gesture (psychological gesture) that exists within the behavior called for (or that could be called for) within the play.

For example, for George in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", it could be the way he picks up his drink. After that and Michael Chekhov qualities and dynamics that most closely describe your movement work on the character.

Bring your walk and psychological gesture into class, on Wednesday. I will then introduce Laban terminology that is useful to physical characterization, and other tools for physicality of character.

Let's make the most out of the last 4 weeks of your Movement Training!

We'll talk about the showing in class. I will also be setting up individual end of training conferences with each of you over the next 4 weeks.


So we came into class today and did our "Stuffed Turkey" Restoration monologues. I actually really like mine. It's a lot of fun to do. I think my ending is kinda weak at the moment, but I'll have time to work on it before we show them again.

Watching my classmates monologues was HILARIOUS. Oh man. Two-Shots-Up has an amazing sense of physical comedy, and is rocking it. Thrill changed his monologue a bunch since before break, and I almost fell over laughing. O.D. experimented with speeding his up, and it grew by leaps and bounds. Wifey has another prop in addition to her fan, which she throws around hysterically. D-Train and Killer are doing theirs in other dialects (Spanish and French, respectively), while the rest of us are in standard British RP. I wish we were working on them in class more than we are, just because they're so much fun to watch.


After school, I got an e-mail from Movement Professor about my Stuffed Turkey:

"Angela - The Rover/ Angelica

Excellent. Very beautiful. Soft quality that is linking lines well and moves throughout. Ease in face and gestures. Precise. Ends of moves are now clear.

Be sure to get the fan out before the beginning word so that you can get on the movement score. Pick up the tempo at 'who'. Add more vocal action and pitch shifts without becoming shrill (pitching up). Very good on getting the lines to run in their own tempo and verse. Gestures can be smooth, or quick, and accents can be more or less operative, just like words-- you are ready to work on this level of precision. On weakness, try moving backwards more onto the diagonal before. Not sure about move on folly.-- out of character? Gesture that she quickly wishes she hadn't made?

'Long worshipped idol...' list seems like it could be more creative. RP excellent and natural. Suggestion – listen to Noel Coward – for some more pitch and soft sound idea that is exaggerated – excellent work, felt a girl from a convent, actually."

So I still have things to work on, but I'm on the right track. :)



ACTING
We ran all of the tragedy scenes, and then got notes on them.

Some general notes I wrote down:

- Commit to winning every argument you have a stake in. LUST after winning it.
- Don't just make statements; USE your words.
- Energy should rise out of your Need
- Commit to LANDING words with vigor, confidence, and expectation


And notes that applied to me:
- avoid rushing the language
- getting much better at physicality
- good job at being a good match for Richard III in the argument
- don't be the character who just always says "no" -- figure out when the armor comes off
- be innocent
- make sure the "brothers" speech feels improvised, not planned
- WEAKENING on "What were I best to say?"
- "To veil the title as her mother doth." <- don't be sarcastic
- "Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?" <- don't be sarcastic
- Remember that at the end, Richard's offer is the lesser of the evils.


Our homework for tomorrow is to be ready to table-work our Comedy scenes. This entails:
- scansion
- Needs
- definitions
- operatives
- read the play again
- be an expert on the character
- know the performance history
- check different text editions

Monday, March 22

Hello world! Long time, no blog.

So things have been hopping around here on Spring Break. What, you ask? Let's see...

- The run of Machinal closed on March 21st. It was a great show, and I'm sad to see it go. I'm proud of the work that I did in it, both as the Matron and as the Nurse. And I will miss the Matron's unibrow. (Um, yeah... I might have not mentioned this, but I gave the Matron a unibrow. It was intense.)

- I've been rehearsing for a Late Night production of Shakespeare's King John. We have a performance on Monday, March 29 at 8:00pm, for anyone reading who is local. It's free. (Yes, we know that it's on the first night of Passover... We're looking into the possibility of having a second performance for the people who won't be able to make it on the 29th. I'll let you know if that happens). I'm playing Queen Eleanor and Lord Salisbury.

- The New Play Festival has started up. I've only been able to attend two of the readings: How to Pray by Michelle Carter, and The Innocents by Steven Drukman. Both readings were excellent. If you're in town, I highly recommend trying to see some of these. I think tickets are about $5 per show, and it will totally be worth your while, I promise.

- My parents came down to visit. Which was awesome. And I already miss them.

- I've finished blocking my "Stuffed Turkey" monologue for Movement class

- I e-mailed the incoming Class of 2013. (WOWZA! I feel old.)

- My classmates and I have started brainstorming ways to do fundraising for our Showcase trip next year. If you have ideas for us, please let me know.


Spring Break (break? what break?) has ended. Let the games begin!

Video: Ballet/Contact Duet

So remember at the beginning of this semester when we were working on duets in Movement class that combined principles of ballet and contact improv?

Yeah, I know, that was months ago... Anyway. I thought you might want to see what I was talking about.

Here's a video of Killer and me doing a rehearsal of our duet. It was the first day that we had shown them to the rest of our classmates. Enjoy. :)