Wednesday, April 8

Movement
We did a lot of warming up, stretching out, and combinations across the floor. We then went back to our West Side Story choreography. There's a section where people pair off to do lifts and whatnot. Newbie jumps into D-Train's arms, Iceman dips Wifey, etc. There are 5 females and 6 males in my class, so I end up being the gal with two guys. We just blocked our move today. I'm going to do a back bend and then the guys are going to come over and catch me, and then lead me into a back walkover. We did it slowly today, but I think it's going to be really neat once we get the hang of it.


Voice
We went into the next section of our Wood Demon monologues. My notes today were:
- glottal attack on the word "at" (in "It seemed real enough at the time")
- need more of the middle "l" in "calculating"
- over-correcting the vowel in "man" (away from my midwestern vowel) to the point that it now sounds British
- need to make the first vowel in "already" have the "law" vowel

For tomorrow, we have to prepare the remainder of the monologue. Our exam was going to be Friday, but Voice Professor decided that it would be unrealistic to expect that. The test has now been bumped to Tuesday.

Our Voice Showing (a.k.a. the open class at the end of the semester that people are allowed to attend) is apparently Friday the 17th. I can't believe it's coming up so quickly. It feels like we just got back from Spring Break.


Acting
This is our last week of Chekhov work before we go back to our Vonnegut projects. I'm a little sad about it. I'll be sad to see it go.

Newbie and I have switched as Masha and Anfisa mid-class the last two days. Tomorrow and Friday we know that we'll be doing Act I AND Act IV, so we thought it would be good to do the whole through-line of the characters at least once. Tomorrow she will be Masha and I'll be Anfisa, and on Friday we'll switch.

Acting Professor pointed out today that Masha's whistling (that annoys Olga so much) is actually breaking some sort of Russian superstition about whistling in the house (which is strange, as Masha describes herself as being superstitious).

Acting Professor says that, in general, we're touching each other too much in this play, tapping each other's arms and patting each other's backs. He says that it's becoming a theatrical cliche as opposed to being true to the lives of the characters.


Tech
The whole class had a tech call today to move the props for Three Postcards to the Historic theatre, which is across the street from our building (unlike the main-stage theatre and the theatre that the 2nd-years usually use, which are both in the same building as our school). It didn't take very long.

It was strange having rehearsal in an actual theatre tonight instead of having it in the studio (where Voice and Acting II are taught) that we've been in up until this point. It's a neat space, but it's clear that it's going to present some challenges. The space absorbs sound, so the actors have to pay attention to their positions on stage as well as their diction and projection. As tech, we don't have a lot of wing space, and we're not allowed to touch many things. Also, the theatre doesn't normally allow any food in it whatsoever because it's a historic space (the theatre itself is like a museum exhibit), but the show takes place in a restaurant and involves a great deal of food. Therefore, we have to be EXTRA careful, and the food storage and preparation areas are less convenient than in our usual theatre. Also, there's no good place to wash dishes (and there are a lot in this show).

We start tech weekend tomorrow night, so I'll be even busier than usual over the next several days. Wish me luck.