Tuesday, September 8

VOICE
We did just one day of basic British RP, so that the fellows auditioning for Blue/Orange would have at least a little bit of information on the dialect before the auditions/callbacks.

We have a whole long packet of information just from today, but here are a few bits of information from it (I'm going to try to explain this without using IPA so that people who don't know it can still sort of follow along):

- The first vowel in "apple" (and other words with that vowel) have basically the same vowel, but it's a more open sound. And for people with midwestern dialects (like my own bad habits), we need to be particularly careful to not go into an "eeyah" sound.
- There is a list of words called that "ask list" (but pronounce the vowel in "ask" as more like the British long vowel...) which all have a vowel shift to something that's kind of like the "ah" in "father", but with the jaw higher than in Standard American, and with the jaw open. Voice Professor gave us a 2-page list of words that this rule applies to (e.g. after, answer, chance, dance, fast, glass, grasp, laugh, past, task, witchcraft, etc.)
- The vowel in "no" (and other words with that vowel) changes from the American "oh-oo" diphthong to more of an "uh-oo". You have to keep it SUBTLE, because over-producing it makes it sound really "stagy". In upper class dialects, it shifts to more of an "eh-uh".
- The vowel in "all" (and other words with that vowel) is similar to the American vowel, but rounder. The lips should be round. Don't let it drift to the "ah" sound.
- The vowel in "not" and "God" (and other words with that vowel) has to be a round sound (which it really should be in Standard American, too, but in many regional American dialects it sounds more like the "ah" in "father"... It needs to be rounder than that). It should be short and quick, and should not drift to the "ah".
- In words like "nurse", "star", "poor", "here", "air", "mother", and "your", no "r"-coloration is used. Drop the "r" sound and just say the final vowel. The exception to this is if the word directly after it starts with a vowel, in which case a "linking r" is used. This basically means that the "r" gets put on the next word. For example, "better off" would sound more like "bettuh roff".
- In "pity" and other words ending in the long "ee" sound, they shift closer to the short "i" sound. If the final long "ee" sound is used, it must be precisely produced without the hard regional American ee quality.
- The vowel in the word "what" needs to be the same as the vowel in "not" and "hot". This is an important shift; using the "uh" vowel sounds, as in the word "hut", is very American. This only applies to this one word.
- There is occasionally an intrusive "r" added to words ending with the "ah" vowel. For example, "Cuba" might be "Cuber", and "idea" might be "idear". Some characters will use this, and some won't.
- A tapped "r" can be used: 1. between two vowels. 2. in the initial position. 3. after a consonant. 4. in the final position when followed by a vowel. ("very", "married", "ridiculous").
- "t" is sharp, precise, and explosive
- prefixes and suffixes shortened in unstressed syllables ("enough" shifts to "ihnuhf")
- words ending in "ary", "ery", "ory", and "ony" suffixes drop the penultimate (second to last) syllable. (So "elocutionary" would become "eh-luhk-YOO-shun-ree").
- words ending in "ile" should be pronounced as "eye-uhl". (e.g. "futile" would be "fyoot-eye-uhl", not "fyoot-uhl")
- liquid "u" is always used following the consonants t, d, n, s, and l. (tune, news, duke, suit, etc.)
- "can't you", "won't you", "don't you" -- very precise with a strong "t" (avoid the "choo" sound)
- "did you", "would you", "could you" -- very precise with a strong "d"
- the vowel sound in the pronouns "me", "he", "she", "you" is shortened
- "again" can be said as "uh-gehn" or as "uh-gain"
- the vowel in the words "hurry", "worry", "courage", "Durham", "burrow", "furrow", "borough", and "burro" shifts to "uh"
- "wh" is pronounced as a voiced sound in all spellings, so "which" and "witch" should sound exactly the same, with both "w"s voiced as in the word "we". (Which is pretty normal in General American, but not correct in Standard American)

Melody: Pitch shifts internally within words. Operative words slow down and use internal pitch shift within these words for emphasis.

Rhythm: clipped quality; Precision of consonants is critical; non-operative words eliminate from stress. G.L. Plescia explains it as a "rattle, rattle, bing" rhythm. (e.g. "I'm so sorry I was late; there was a traffic jam." The words "I'm", "so", "I", "was", "there", "was", and "a" are rattled off quickly. The words "sorry", "late", and "traffic jam" are "bing" words, meaning that they take more time)

Resonance Let the sounds ping off the front teeth; a distinct shift of vocal placement forward to the front of the mouth at the lips and teeth (vs. Standard American dialect, with resonance/focus at the center of the mouth). Also, there is lots of space inside the mouth, particularly in the production of vowels, thus creating rounder, more open vowel sounds.


Anyway. We all brought in monologues to work on with the RP Dialect. We each tried to do the first two sentences of our monologues using the dialect.

The hardest thing for me, by far, is keeping my forward placement (I have the same problem in Standard American, but it's a bigger deal in RP). For some reason, it's really difficult for me to stay forward without falling back. It's definitely a bigger challenge for me than any of my classmates. I don't know why. I have a really difficult time hearing when I'm doing it wrong vs. right. I have a feeling that's going to be my biggest voice struggle this semester.



MOVEMENT
Two-Shots-Up made us a new mix CD for jumping rope and stretches, and it's awesome. It has Spice Girls. And "Hey Ya". I'll leave it at that. Thanks Two-Shots-Up!

I re-injured one of my hip flexors this past weekend (and I have no idea HOW... but it required an emergency drug store trip for some tiger balm), so stretches were especially difficult for me today. Some days, I think that stretches and my body just were not made for each other. But then we'll do other things (like crossing the mats by doing tripods) that don't bother me at all and seem to cause everyone else pain. So maybe my body thinks every day is "opposite day".

We did Little Bears. I was partnered with Killer, and it was fun. It felt like there was a lot of bounding going on with us, which was fun.

It's interesting to see how different combinations of partners produce different results. When D-Train was paired with All-the-Way, it was very fluid, with a lot of interesting lay-back lifts. But when D-Train was paired with O.D., it was completely different. Sometimes it looked like D-Train was a tree and O.D. was a koala. Very cool.


ACTING
We started blocking The Greeks today!!!

We blocked the first several pages of Electra. I'm in the chorus, but even being in the chorus feels pretty demanding. The text requires so much movement to keep it alive. We have to react physically to nearly everything that happens. It's really interesting, and it's not going to be easy.

As a chorus (at least, for this play), we have to develop a silent chorus language in order to be able to communicate non-verbally.

A good note about focus in a scene: we can only move while someone else is talking IF we keep our eyes on the speaker. Otherwise, we steal focus.

Acting Professoressa says that if we want to stage ourselves, then we need to find out where the transitions are and move on the transitions. I'm planning on marking up my script tonight to help myself with that.

Tomorrow, we're going to start blocking Andromache, and then we'll start Helen on Thursday.

Auditions Coming Up

Curious about my thoughts on auditions next week? Go check out my post on Backstage.com's actor blog, Unscripted.

And bookmark this while you're at it.

Quotations: Volume 30

Here are some of the educational, inspirational, and humorous quotations from my classes this week:

"It's hella ambient."
- Two-Shots-Up, after Killer put gels over the bright light in the Voice Studio

"Take out Lady with the Lapto-... Lady with a Laptop? It's a modern adaptation."
- Voice Professor, stumbling over the title of Lady with a Lapdog

Movement Professor: I learned The Worm from the man who invented The Worm, if there's such a thing as the inventor of The Worm.
Iceman: God?

"One of the funniest things I've done in my career was learning to pop-and-lock."
- Movement Professor

(Discussing the next phase of Little Bears exercises)
Movement Professor: Now we're adding in the next level. We're still doing Shelter/Sheltie and fulcrums, but now we're adding play. We're adding the idea that we're little bear cubs playing.
Me: So, we're adding in awkward?

(During All-the-Way's presentation on Ancient Greek beauty & dress)
"Just think what they would've done if they'd had lycra."
- Acting Professoressa

(As Two-Shots-Up was explaining libations -- wine offerings to gods or deceased relatives -- in her presentation about Ancient Greek food and drink)
"We do the same thing today. We pour out beer on the streets for our dead homies, so, you know."
- Two-Shots-Up

(During Killer's presentation on Ancient Greek values)
Killer: They realized how difficult moderation actually is.
Acting Professoressa: It's a b****. It really is.

(During O.D.'s presentation on Ancient Greek slavery & freedom, he referenced Newbie's poster on sexuality and prostitution)
"When you had that sign up about prostitution, [Newbie], I was looking for the young boys. Not that I'm interested in young boys. Just, I'd done all this research."
- O.D.

(Before Big Show's presentation on Ancient Greek religion)
Acting Professoressa: [Big Show] is next with a huge topic.
Big Show: Huge is an understatement.
Acting Professoressa: I'm not usually known for my understatement. I'm happy to hear that.

(discussing whether to use a liquid "u" in the word "stupid")
"If you say "styoopid" in everyday life, people will hurt you, but in this text..."
- Voice Professor

(during Little Bears, Movement Professor had asked All-the-Way and O.D. to recite text to make sure they were breathing. All-the-Way recited a line of Shakespeare)
"I don't know the next line of Two Gentlemen of Verona. It might be, 'You're really hot and I'll save you from the tower.'"
- O.D.

"There's nothing you can do to a guy that's lifting a bull."
- Thrill, during part of his cultural anthropology presentation about a side show at the ancient Olympic games

Thrill: There was a goddess named Nike, and that's where Nike got their name. She was a goddess of victory.
Iceman: She just did it.

"Think twice before using sarcasm, even if you think it is embedded in the text."
- Acting Professoressa, on avoiding negative tactics

"That's a question you have to ask yourselves: under what circumstances could I kill someone? And if the answer is never, you can't be an actor."
- Acting Professoressa, on understanding the desperate acts of characters

"There is such a thing as being too good of a partner. Don't give your partner what he needs unless he earns it."
- Acting Professoressa, on Yin-Yangs

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, [O.D.], is to banish certain kinds of doings from your repetoire in favor of others. The goal is to have an endless supply of tactics. Everyone will get this note at some point."
- Acting Professoressa

"You need thrust. You know what I mean? An airplane does this really mysterious thing. Well, it's mysterious to me. How does it stay up in the air? It needs thrust. You need thrust, too."
- Acting Professoressa

"[Wifey]'s angry today. She slapped the book twice."
- Voice Professor

(Discussing Electra)
O.D.: I think the problem is that she feels her mother is a murderer?
Acting Professoressa: That is a problem.
O.D.: To put it concisely...
Acting Professoressa: I hate it when that happens.

"That sounds like the title of a show from the fifties: 'This Is Your Need'."
- Acting Professoressa

(Acting Professoressa once asked a man with several sons if the youngest one could play Molossus in The Greeks. During the boy's first day of rehearsal, he was terrified that the actors were going to kill him and started crying.)
"I had to turn him in and said, 'Give me the next biggest one.'"
- Acting Professoressa

Voice Professor: She was so Standard, it was wonderful. I wish I could've recorded it, but I couldn't because of Equity rules. But it was so Standard and so felt. I was moved to tears.
D-Train: Was that because of the Standard?
Voice Professor: In part. (fakes weeping) "Her STS combinations! Her 'oracle'!"

(O.D. explains his poster collage representing Dionysus)
"That's why I chose black for this. And bright colors. And chaos. And that's a picture of Jim Morrison over there."
- O.D.

Friday, September 4

VOICE
We read aloud our sections from Lady with the Lapdog, and Voice Professor gave us notes. One of the notes I received seemed like one that EVERYONE was getting: use the "aw" vowel in the word "morning". The other note was that I had to take a catch-breath in one of my long sentences to prevent myself from going into glottal fry.

We will be having our Lady with the Lapdog Standard American Dialect exam on September 15th, and we need it memorized by then. We will have our Vocal Extremes exam (on things like screaming) on September 18th. For Tuesday, we need to have a short monologue to work on using the RP British dialect, so that the males in our class have at least a little bit of it before their auditions for Blue/Orange (which will require various British dialects).


MOVEMENT
We did stretches with the ballet bars today. I was significantly less frustrated than yesterday, which is obviously good.

We did some more Little Bears work. I was partnered with Newbie, and we found some pretty neat stuff. It made me happy.


ACTING
We had an action-packed class today.

O.D. started off our "Great Actors Series" with his project on Richard Burbage (aka Shakespeare's good friend, the first Hamlet, and the greatest tragedian of his time).

Then we went into our Adopt-A-God projects. I tried to speed through Hera, because if you don't go into details on the myths, there's not too much you really need to know. She was the goddess of women and marriage, and she punished people who slept with her husband or otherwise did her wrong. I made a chart of people who wronged Hera, the crimes they committed, and the revenges she took against them.

After those projects, we read through Helen for the first time. It has a lot of great comedic moments to it. I'm stoked for it. We will be presenting The Greeks on October 16th at 4pm. If you're local, mark your calendar. :)

We ended class by assigning Greek character names to all of our unnamed Chorus & Soldier roles. In Electra, my character will be Daphne. In Helen, my character will be Eulalia. Love it!




And now I'm off, to a greatly anticipated weekend. :)

Thursday, September 3

First of all, I have a very exciting announcement. As of today, I am a regular blogger for Backstage.com!

Backstage.com has a blog called Unscripted, which is written by actors from around the country discussing their experiences in theatre and in life. I will be writing a few times a week, so make sure to check it out! (Don't worry, loyal readers... I fully intend to keep writing on this blog as well. Obviously, I'm insane.) To see just my posts, bookmark this link.

And while I'm at it, I suppose that this is as good a time as any to mention that I now have a website! Man, I'm just taking over the internet, aren't I? Check it out here!


VOICE
We each had the opportunity to ask our questions about pronunciations of difficult words (like foreign names) and consonant linking and the like for our individual sections of Lady with the Lapdog.

For one of my linking questions, regarding the phrase "his study", the z is going to soften in quality to become the s. In "it all", the t is going to be carried over so that it's like a part of the second word. And in some phrases like "that dog", the "t/d" at the end of the first word doesn't get ploded because of the "t/d" at the start of the second word.


MOVEMENT
As it turned out, it only took 7 class days into the semester for me to have a complete emotional breakdown in class. I'm not proud of that, but that's life.

We were focusing on stretches today, and they're very difficult for me. Some of them are difficult because I'm so stretched out that I can't feel a stretch at all. Some are difficult because I don't realize when I'm hyper-extending my joints. And some are difficult because a couple of parts of my body AREN'T loose (it's really just my hip flexors and my mid-spine-to-lower-back) and I have sudden, sharp pains. Today, after one such pain, I just started crying. I don't know if it was from the pain or from my frustration.

Movement Professor was very encouraging. She doesn't want me to get discouraged. I'm going to keep working hard. But every once in awhile, I have a tough day. Today just happened to be one of them. The challenge, now, is to dust myself off and move on. Tomorrow is, after all, another day.

For our homework tonight, Movement Professor wants us to look at our binders from last year and find our list of "Daily Dozen" alignment exercises. She says that seeing the order of them again will help us to remember how to do them properly.


ACTING
Today we did table-work for the first two plays of The Greeks: Electra and Andromache.

Acting Professoressa gave us a few pointers:
- If you're playing an older character, embrace it any way you wish. Age is not as important as the point-of-view shift that comes with age.
- Remind yourself of your "need" before the scene begins. Say your need to yourself in one sentence before you enter the stage.
- Do not paraphrase lines. Pay attention to the text, respect the playwright, and learn the words correctly. Be strict on memorization.
- When the word "O" occurs, treat it as a moment when you don't have any words and don't know what to say. Vocalize something. It doesn't have to sound like the letter "O".
- Don't confuse weakness with softness in a character. Just because they're using a soft tactic, doesn't mean they're a weak character.

It was actually really fun reading Andromache, especially since I felt like I was already in an emotional state from morning classes. I'm really excited about it.

For Electra, the chorus members are supposed to decide who we are. I think we've decided that we've been working for the kingdom in some capacity and have been pretending to be loyal to Clytemnestra, but are actually loyal to Electra. We have to come up with specific roles in the household now for our double-agent chorus members. I was thinking about being a cook or something...? I'll let you know when I figure it out.

Wednesday, September 2

VOICE
We finished reading Lady with the Lapdog aloud, and Voice Professor gave us her notes.

My individual notes were:
- In at least one case, I used my lips too much to form the "r" in an "str-" combination. I need to avoid that.
- When words end in the letter "s" but the "s" is supposed to make the consonant sound "z", I need to make my "z" sounds stronger. (I knew that about myself from last year. It's really hard for me.)
- I need to avoid glottal attacks (I knew this about myself from last year, too.)
- In one case, my medial "t" was weak. It occurred in the word "daughter".
- In one case, I used a "ɑ" vowel when I should've used an "ɒ" vowel. It occurred in the word "follow". (I made the first vowel sound too much like the first vowel in "father"; it should be more like the vowel in "wasp")

Notes for the whole class were:
- When saying "unfaithful" or "faithful" to say both the "th" and the "f" in the middle of the words. (Most people skip over the "th")
- The word "chance" has an optional "t" sound in the middle, but the word "else" does not.
- Say the word "to" as "tu", and not as "tə" (in other words, don't say "go t' bed" instead of "go to bed").
- Say the final "t" in the word "just".
- Say the "l" in words like "myself", "yourself", and "self"
- The word "our" is pronounced like "hour", not like "are".
- Keep the second part of diphthongs open.
- Make sure you're not saying "ɑ" vowels when they should be "ɒ" vowels.
- Keep "wh" combinations unvoiced.

We also discussed linking words when they end/begin with t or d sounds right next to each other (like "that dog", where you only have to plode the "d" sound), and also when to move a final "s" to the "z" sound.

We have now each been assigned a section of the text to work on. Our assignment for tomorrow is to look up all the words in our section and start getting standardized.


MOVEMENT
More "Little Bears". Today we added a new element: lifts! I went with D-Train first. It's a little freaky at first to get lifted off the ground by your partner's body, but it's also kind of exciting to take those big risks.

We discussed for a bit why Little Bears and other forms of partner movement improvisation are helpful to our training as actors. Some things that we listed included:
- develops a sense of play
- inspires creative movement
- desensitizes actors to physically intimate scene-work
- instills trust in the partner
- requires that two people follow common impulses


ACTING
Thrill started off the class with his final cultural anthropology presentation, which was on recreation. Dude, the Olympics were even cooler back then than they are now.

We went back to the "Yin-Yangs" that we had conceived last week.

- O.D. & Big Show:
Their father is in a coma, and they've had an ongoing argument about whether to keep him on life support. O.D. is about to go propose to his girlfriend. Big Show comes in with the papers that need to be signed to terminate their father's life, and has a new piece of information: their father is now brain-dead.

- Killer & All-the-Way
They are brother and sister, and All-the-Way and her lesbian partner want Killer's sperm so they can have a baby. Killer is in the middle of a video game tournament and $100,000 is on the line, which he needs to keep his apartment. All-the-Way storms in demanding his sperm now, having just discovered that she in unable to have children.

- D-Train & Iceman
Iceman has a gambling problem and has been trying to get D-Train to loan him money so he can pay back some dangerous people he owes money to. D-Train is in the middle of revising a project that his boss is going to review tomorrow morning. Iceman comes in saying that the bad dudes are waiting outside and are going to kill him if he doesn't get them their money.

- Thrill & Wifey
Thrill & Wifey are exes. Thrill is preparing for some sort of gang battle. Wifey comes in and says that she needs to stay with Thrill for protection from her abusive new boyfriend.

- Two-Shots-Up & Me
We're half-sisters. Two-Shots-Up is mid-feud with our terminally ill father, and I've been trying to get them to make up. She has discovered that he's not her biological father and is forging documents to hide it. I come in, announcing that she has to come with me and reconcile with him NOW because he's writing her out of his will and the notary is on his way.

- Newbie & D-Train
They are brother and sister and have inherited their parents' house. D-Train wants to sell it, but Newbie wants to keep living in it. Newbie is preparing to give a speech at her boss' retirement party and cannot be late. D-Train comes in with a contract, saying that he has found a buyer who is willing to pay $600,000 in cash. Also, D-Train's wife is dying, and he needs the money NOW.

- Thrill & Big Show
They are exes, and Thrill wants Big Show to take him back. Big Show is trying to compose a commercial jingle, which he needs to have done by the next morning. Thrill comes in telling Big Show that he has changed, and that he has started the foundation for disabled children that the two always wanted to start together.

- O.D. & Iceman
They are brothers, their mother is dying, and O.D. wants Iceman to say goodbye to their mother. Iceman refuses to go without his wife, whom his mother despises. Iceman is at work, cleaning frantically. O.D. arrives to announce that their mother has taken a turn for the worst and could die within the hour.

Acting Professoressa reminded us that the "independent life need" that the scene was required to have for the person who was denying "x" to the partner was a way of "getting off the hook."

After my scene, she pointed out that I had mostly used "pleading" as a tactic. It felt like I had used more tactics, but in retrospect, I think that what I did was just use a variety of arguments with the same tactic. I need to work on that.


Tomorrow, we are going to begin The Greeks, and I am SO EXCITED! We're supposed to come in ready to read and do table work. She wants us to make sure that we really understand our own stories. I've read Andromache two more times tonight so far. This is going to be FUN!

Tuesday, September 1

(According to Blogger, this is my 200th post... Just thought I'd mark it with a nice little celebration. Hurrah!)


VOICE
Over the weekend, Killer took care of gelling the one light in the Voice studio that we can't turn off. The effect is fantastic. As Two-Shots-Up said, "It's hella ambient." (She's from California...) Thanks, Killer!

We read Lady with the Lapdog aloud. Voice Professor took notes (I assume that they were about things that we'll have to watch for with our Standard American Dialect within the piece). We're going to continue with it tomorrow.


MOVEMENT
Today, we took the next step in "Little Bears". So far, for those who haven't been keeping track, we had been doing partner movement improvisation using the concepts of sheltering and being sheltered, and also finding "fulcrums" so that the weight of one partner can be taken by the other. The next step? Becoming little bears, of course! Moving with all the clumsy awkwardness of bear cubs, while keeping in mind the other notions we'd been practicing.

Observe the adorable clumsy awkwardness of bear cubs:

So did that feed your imagination enough that you can kind of picture our class time?

It's SO MUCH FUN. So much fun to watch, AND so much fun to do. I kind of want to teach it to everyone I know and do it every day.

We have to be mindful of safety during it, especially since some of my classmates have physical limitations due to past surgeries and whatnot. Movement Professor says that, "In contact improvisation, you are your brother's keeper." She also reminded us that the less you use your hands and arms, the better off you are.


ACTING
Today was presentation day for our Cultural Anthropology projects. We were supposed to take a maximum of 15 minutes, but I think mine went on for longer that than because I was answering questions mid-presentation... As a result of a couple of people's projects going long, Thrill will present tomorrow.

I'm continually reminded of how brilliant my classmates are. Part of what makes my education here so great is that I can really trust them to bring a ton of information to the table. With these projects, we're all getting all the important information about Ancient Greece in a fraction of the time it would take us to research it individually. And because everyone has done such a great job with their individual assignments, we can trust that we have our bases covered. It makes me feel really lucky to be a part of my class. I heart them.


AUDITIONS
Our auditions for the season will be on Saturday, September 12th. We'll each have 3 minutes to do 2 contrasting monologues (just like last year, and like URTAs). There will be callbacks on Saturday, September 19th.

Voice Professor has been in communication with the guest director for our season (who will be directing my entire class in Machinal by Sophie Treadwell), so she passed along some info to us. The guest director is going to audition us by doing a workshop the day after our auditions for everything else. For the workshop, he has asked that we all acquire The Proposal by Anton Chekhov (preferably the Paul Schmidt translation). We are to find scenes to work on with partners, somewhere between 1-2 minutes in length. We must be off-book for the workshop (which will be Sunday, September 13th... Oh my God, I just realized how soon that is. How did it get to be September already?). We need to bring a copy of the scene, and wear clothes that we can move in.