Quotations: Volume 35

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

(Disclaimer: quotations are often taken out of context and may not accurately reflect the way they were originally intended)


"Naughty, but that's how the theatre industry works. Lie, and make friends."
- Ella Hickson

"That sounds great! Come on in. Someone totally unreliable. That's exactly what we need."
- Tom (one of the actors in Eight), paraphrasing how he was hired for a job under ridiculous circumstances because of being an actor

"Put a lot of faith laterally in your own generation."
- Ella Hickson

"If you get enough people to say you're a good writer, then you're a good writer."
- Ella Hickson

Ella Hickson: Spend an unhealthy amount of time on the internet.
(the entire 2nd-year class looks at Angela)
Angela: Oh, I'm all over that one.

"There's no point to you impersonating what they already have two billion of."
- Ella Hickson, on why Americans shouldn't fake British dialects when auditioning in the UK

"[O.D.], your cues are very sluggish. What do I have to do? Should I bring in my cattle prod? I'll bring in my cattle prod. I save it for special cases."
- Acting Professoressa

"You are trying to raise the wretched child's confidence. You're bringing her up the evolutionary ladder a rung or two."
- Acting Professoressa, to Angela regarding Andromache's relationship with Hermione

"She doesn't know how to behave. She needs to go back to human school."
- Acting Professoressa, to Angela regarding Andromache's relationship with Hermione

"You are an intractable 'don't' 'not' jumper... onto."
- Acting Professoressa, to Angela

"The phrase is friend of mine. It is not friend of mine. Not 'your' friend as opposed to other people. Like Jimmy Carter's friend."
- Acting Professoressa

"I am [Acting Professoressa]. I am not Lucy Bananas who works down at Carr's making sandwiches."
- Acting Professoresa, demonstrating to O.D. how Peleus needed to be more declarative with his status

"When you're in grad school that's the first thing to go, is perspective."
- Acting Professoressa

"[Newbie], it's better, but there are some places where you're bleeding bitch. That's my phrase for when you're too knowing."
- Acting Professoressa

"I love sheep. They're so cute, but they smell funny. Have you ever smelled a sheep?"
- Two-Shots-Up

(when talking about decidedly non-school things at the top of class, someone mentioned not knowing what our schedule was for the week as a result of the Ringling International Arts Festival)
"I'd like to talk about this. Okay. There is class today. Despite what is happening right now."
- Voice Professor

(after a maintenance guy brought in a ladder to the Voice studio, saying he intended to remove the blue gels currently covering the fluorescent light that we can't turn off)
D-Train: I think we should burn his ladder.
Voice Professor: That's a hard thing to burn.
D-Train: Well, it has to disappear.

"I'm not quite sure that we needed more s*** in this room, either."
- Iceman, on the ladder that the maintenance guy had left adding to the clutter in the Voice studio from rehearsals of The Greeks and Mystery Plays

"I love what you've done with the piano, by the way. It just keeps getting better and better."
- Voice Professor, on how the piano in the Voice studio is currently covered with weird props from The Greeks

D-Train: I'm glad we didn't do scansion today. (beat) F*** scansion. (beat) That's a dactyl.
Voice Professor: (laughs) Yes, it is.

"There's a teacher in you. There's a tormentor in you. There's an imaginative sadist in you. [...] You have to be able to make a connection with, shall we say, your dark side in addition to your light side. And if someone comes up to me and says, 'I'm sorry, Ms. [Acting Professoressa], but I couldn't possibly imagine killing my mother,' then I'm sorry, but you can't be a classical actor."
- Acting Professoressa

"'I am a murderer.' It's a discovery. It's, 'Oh my God... I'm an Episcopalian.'"
- Acting Professoressa, explaining that one of Orestes' lines cannot be a statement even though it's a fact, because he's just now coming to terms with it

"See, yes, this is the problem I've been having. What level of gayness are we talking? Blow torch? Flame-thrower? Napalm? Just how flaming am I?"
- Big Show, on one of his characters in The Mystery Plays

"Delicious mountain air doesn't attack you; it hugs you."
- Director JW, to Newbie during Mystery Plays rehearsal

"You've got a pad and paper, good good, and you've got a tripod, and you've got a memory. We're all set up."
- Director JW, during Mystery Plays rehearsal

"When you gays were doing it, like, not gay at all, I was like, 'It's gayer!'"
- Newbie, about a scene in Mystery Plays between D-Train and Big Show

"Assume that everyone in the audience is a gay man. 'Oh! Men's Health! We know what that means, don't we.'"
- Head of Program, to D-Train during Mystery Plays rehearsal

"You straight boys have this problem: you think that smiling at people makes you look gay. It doesn't."
- Head of Program, to D-Train and Big Show during Mystery Plays rehearsal

"When I get sent to jail for murder, I gotsta take up visual art. It's either that, or take up bodybuilding and white supremacy, and I hate working out."
- Director JW, making a joke during Mystery Plays rehearsal


ETA:

"We have so many jokes. So many stupid jokes. And new ones every day. I would say, as a rule, if you don't have new stupid jokes every day, maybe you've gotta change up something."
- Mike from Elevator Repair Service, on how to survive as an ensemble

"Whoever refuses to go away."
- Kate, on who becomes a part of Elevator Repair Service

Thursday, October 8

All classes were canceled today, as were rehearsals. Why?

The Ringling International Arts Festival

SO COOL.

I saw six plays today. Four of them were written by students. One was Peter Brook/C.I.T.C.'s Love Is My Sin (which is a show with two actors and one musician, which is comprised entirely of text from Shakespeare's sonnets). And the last was the workshop premiere of Elevator Repair Service's The Sun Also Rises (Part I).

After the show, ERS came and talked to my schoolmates a bit about their process as a company. The thing I think I loved most about them was that they seem to have a lot of fun with creating their art. When Iceman asked what advice they had for working as an ensemble (as my class has to do so much this year), one of them said: "We have so many jokes. So many stupid jokes. And new ones every day. I would say, as a rule, if you don't have new stupid jokes every day, maybe you've gotta change up something."

When asked how they became part of the group, it sounded like most of them did through happenstance (one guy was cast because he looked like another guy who was leaving; one guy did sound for them before being cast; one gal was cast in the role of a receptionist because she had been working in their office as a receptionist... and they've all been doing work with ERS ever since), one of them said, "whoever refuses to go away." I think that's a great way of looking at being in the arts. The people who refuse to go away, who will never throw in the towel, those are the ones who get the work. :)

Wednesday, October 7

VOICE
We had a luxurious warm-up today in Voice class, which we hadn't done for about a week (because we've been focusing on sharpening our mental skills for scansion as opposed to physical skills).


MOVEMENT
I finally got a chance to do contact improv with Two-Shots-Up, who was the only person remaining in my class whom I had not yet been partnered with for it. It was really fun.


ACTING
I got far fewer notes today for Andromache today than I've been getting. Acting Professoressa said that my "linking" was greatly improved and the pace was a lot better as a result. I am now running the script, as opposed to it running me. Here were my notes:

- On the line "What do you think it's like?", draw in the areopagites. It's a tactic.
- On the line "I am merely pleasant", do not taunt Hermione.
- On the line "Yes, feed them at my breast", land the word "breast"
- During argument with Hermione, find more variety in tactics.
- In the "Why should I thank the gods?" monologue, don't do "flipper-action" with hands.
- On the line "Men damage us", don't overdo it with aggression.
- On the line "Out of me will be born men of blood and bone", don't shift weight.


MYSTERY PLAYS
We blocked the end of the second act! Woo-hoo! Preliminary blocking is over. Now we get to hurry up and learn our lines, because the show opens in two weeks. Fun times.

Tuesday, October 6

ELLA HICKSON & CREW WORKSHOP
In lieu of Voice and Movement today, we had a workshop. It was a discussion with Ella Hickson (the playwright/director of Eight, which some of my classmates will be performing in as part of the Ringling International Arts Festival this week). Ella is 24, as I am, which makes me feel wholly unaccomplished next to her. She also had some of her cast members who traveled from the UK with her be part of her panel as well.

Some key notes I took down:
- Ella has never cast anyone that she hadn't already met, seen perform, or heard about from a friend/colleague.
- She recommends keeping an eye out for people who are not going into acting/theatre professionally, but who are good "social secretaries" (the kinds of people who like to look good, throw parties, and invite people to things), because they're going to help you make excellent connections (and they might make great producers in the future).
- Try to control your Google hits. If you can get a lot of positive reviews of yourself online, it's going to help you. (The first thing she does after auditioning people is go back home and Google them.)
- Ella's key to the way the industry works: "Lie, and make friends."
- Be proactive. Write letters to every agent around saying, "Come and see me in this show I'm doing." Even if they don't come, they won't think any less of you, and it might impress upon them how badly you want a chance.
- Go to every show you can.
- Sell yourself. You are your own business.
- Don't go meet a big wig of some theatre if you have never seen a show at that theatre.

The cast also advised us of what companies and theatres we should look at while we're studying abroad in London in May (oh my God, I'm going to be in London in May!!!). They said that while we're there, we should try to attend workshops, and that we shouldn't rule out the possibility of auditioning (or even making our own work). They also said not to do a British dialect if we do audition there (as Ella put it, "There's no point to you impersonating what they already have two billion of").


ACTING
We ran the three shows and then got notes. Acting Professoressa says that The Greeks are a crash course in technique, and that we should expect a lot of notes on details. The details are what make us pros, and they make a huge difference.

I'm really proud of the fact that I DIDN'T get notes on some of the things I usually get notes on (things like "playing the problem" or not being likable enough). But I still got a heaping share of them.

- Be unable to say "Troy" without bursting with pride.
- Link everything within each beat.
- Play the need; play the beats. At each new beat, plug back into need.
- Stop paraphrasing.
- At the line, "I am merely pleasant", be pleasant.
- THERE IS NO ROOM FOR PAUSING WHEN TRYING TO SAVE SON'S LIFE! (Acting Professoressa said that it's even stronger than just regular linking.)
- Stop hitting the words "not" and "don't" (a huge habit of mine, apparently).
- And then a couple of specific notes in which I made the wrong word in the sentence operative.

And the hardest note? As Andromache, I say goodbye to my son, telling him that I'm going to die so that he can live. Acting Professoressa wants me to spend some time trying to really understand the concept of loss, particularly loss regarding someone/something that I'm responsible for. She asked if I'd ever had a pet die, but I really haven't (unless you count a goldfish when I was 4...).

I also got a note in Helen today. Apparently I did a "funny walk", and I shouldn't. (I honestly don't even remember doing it... so I guess I just have to be conscious of where my body is in space.)


MYSTERY PLAYS
We got further with blocking the 2nd Act/play, Ghost Children, and then we reviewed everything we've blocked so far.

Quotations: Volume 34

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)


(during a practical exam in Voice class)
Voice Professor: (to D-Train) Head roll with light high forward hum.
D-train: I hate this one.
Voice Professor: It's not about liking it, you know that by now. (with cartoony dialect of some sort) It's good fo' yah! It's castah oil!

(after D-Train performed the head roll with light high forward hum)
Voice Professor: See, but it was well-executed.
D-Train: But?
Voice Professor: Even though you don't like it. It was well-executed.
D-Train: Oh. I thought you were going to say it's well-executed but it sounds like s***.

(as Voice Professor was writing notes on our exams with a furrowed brow)
Angela: (imitating professor-talk) Release your brow...
Voice Professor: (continuing Angela's thought)...slash the third eye. (smiles) I'm so in my head.

(after watching Two-Shots-Up and Thrill do contact improv together)
"That was really beautiful, the way you moved together, it was like watching someone paint with watercolors, or honey dripping, or a spider weaving a web. It was just gorgeous. I wish you guys were my screensaver."
- O.D., giving perhaps the greatest movement compliment I've ever heard

"We had sort of a hillbilly, Southern, trailer-park variety of dialects."
- Voice Professor, on the first table-read of Ghost Children, which is the second play in The Mystery Plays

"It begins to sound old-timey, like a stage manager from Our Town. (in old-timey hillbilly dialect) 'Here in our town, we beat our father's heads in.'"
- Voice Professor, on the dialects people had used in the table-read of Ghost Children

(to D-Train, after the first table-read of Ghost Children)
Head of Program: In terms of Gary, we probably need to make him a little less...
Voice Professor: (supplying adjective) Inbred?

"It needs to be a little less 'Where are those ghosts? I'm gonna get those f***ers!"
- Head of Program, to D-Train after his first table-read as Gary, a character who talks about how his house is haunted

"Miss Sissypants, my favorite ghost, is the teddy-bear in the corner."
- Head of Program, making a joke about another direction in which D-Train SHOULD NOT take the character of Gary

"First of all, I'm suspect of so many exclamation points, so I would go back and check the First Folio."
- Voice Professor, on the strange punctuation in one publisher's version of a Shakespeare text

Iceman: (to Voice Professor) I didn't go with the trochee in the first foot. I know that's what you said, but...
Voice Professor: Don't go against me, [Iceman].

"I'll never do that again, [Voice Professor]."
- Iceman, after Voice Professor convinced him of her scansion

(when discussing a short line of text -- that had only 4 feet/8 syllables instead of the usual 5 feet/10 syllables, and how the last two beats had to stay in as a pause allowing action to occur)
Voice Professor: What do you think happens in the last two beats?
(random shouts from the class included: "A kiss?", "They faint!", "Heavy breathing.", "They die!", and "Sex?!")
Voice Professor: Sex? Two beats of sex?! I feel so bad for you!

(after complimenting Big Show on something related to his ballet skill-set)
Movement Professor: I'm sorry, but men who can dance? They're very sexy.
Thrill: (to Big Show) Must be nice, [Big Show].
Big Show: What?
Thrill: To be fifty and sexy.

"Some of it's really not fun, but so are a lot of other things we've done that have made a big difference."
- Movement Professor, on our upcoming Ballet unit

(during rehearsing some strange blocking in Helen in which Wifey was on the floor and we were all trying not to trip over her or kick her)
Acting Professoressa: [Wifey], you appear to be an obstacle.
Wifey: I am.
Acting Professoressa: Don't take it personally.

(when Acting Professoressa told Iceman to go further with something in Helen)
Iceman: I'm worried it's gonna be too much.
Acting Professoressa: Don't worry. My bulls*** meter is working well. I'll tell you.

"I know what needs to be done. I'm just freaking out because I have to walk and talk. That's it."
- D-Train, during blocking rehearsal for The Mystery Plays

"It would be alright if this was organized, but right now it's all free-friggin'-form."
- Voice Professor, on how the props from The Mystery Plays rehearsals have taken over our studio

(on a break from rehearsal of The Mystery Plays, in which O.D.'s character has to ride a bike in circles for an entire scene)
O.D.: Uh, [Head of Program]? I don't actually know how to ride a bike.
Head of Program: Oh, I KNEW this was going to happen!
(NOTE: O.D. has spent the last week learning how to ride, and he's really improving.)

(as Voice Professor was writing some Shakespeare text on the chalkboard, and wrote "yeiding")
All-the-Way: "Yielding" has an '"L".
Angela: It's also "i-e".
Voice Professor: I know, crappy spelling. Hey, don't push me or I'll write this all in IPA.

"There is nothing sexier than a man in tights."
- Movement Professor

(when we were discussing a combat scene in Electra that might include stage blood)
Acting Professoressa: Have we made any progress on the blood?
D-Train: I thought [Big Show] was making blood.
Acting Professoressa: [Big Show] is making blood. Why am I not surprised?

Acting Professoressa:(to Big Show) Do you make blood often?
Big Show: Oh, yeah. It's easy. I'll tell you what you do. You take a small animal, any small animal will do, and then you take a big knife...
Acting Professoressa: [Big Show], I know I'm your straight man, but I would like to start rehearsal.

"I would like..., I mean, I don't want to get all 'method' on you or anything, but I would like to have wet blood on me."
- D-Train, on getting into character as Orestes

"You have to go down to the areopagites there, and you can't do it if you're going, 'The chimaera... huh huh... she was on Letterman."
- Acting Professoressa, to O.D., regarding a story where he explains the chimaera on his armor in Andromache

"We're from the same neighborhood. We're alike. Maybe you'd like to f*** me."
- Acting Professoressa, paraphrasing Thrill's lines as Menelaus to me as Andromache where he might be using the worst pick up line ever

Acting Professoressa: You scared me at the beginning, [Killer], because your hands were going wacky today.
Killer: I know. I was a crack addict today.

(near the beginning of rehearsal for The Mystery Plays)
Head of Program: Sorry, I got distracted there. It looks so nice outside. It looks like it's gonna be a nice twilight. Let's skip rehearsal and go outisde.
Big Show: You got it, boss.
Head of Program: What I was saying was, God, I completely forgot my train of thought. My mind is totally f***ed. [Big Show]? Would you do me a favor?
Big Show: Yes?
Head of Program: I brought in a bag of coffee. Would you go into the lounge and make a pot? I'm gonna need it.

Friday, October 2

VOICE
Something interesting I learned: Shakespeare wrote in a dialect. And the dialect he was writing in (and spoke himself) was probably closer to a Southern American dialect than it is to RP (standard British). (Voice Professor said that Jane Lapotaire wrote about this.) In fact, it's closer to most American dialects than it is to RP. So anytime that you've seen Shakespeare plays where American actors were conjuring British accents? Yeah, that's really not necessary. In fact, it's more likely to screw people up than to help them nail flow of the language.

We're going to be working with a Juliet monologue (from Romeo and Juliet, if that wasn't obvious) to work on our scansion whatnot. We started by looking at the metrical feet of the poem and figuring out what was iambic ("unstressed-stressed", like the word "because") and what was trochaic ("stressed-unstressed", like the word "mother"). We also found some examples of spondee ("stressed-stressed") and pyrrhic ("unstressed-unstressed") which are often found together (i.e. "that was SO FUN!"). There are also feet with three syllables, like anapest ("unstressed-unstressed-stressed"... my instinct is to use "limousine" as an example, but I guess that could be said with the first syllable stressed too... so you'll just have to guess on this one) and dactyl ("stressed-unstressed-unstressed", as in "Angela").

Voice Professor also explained a concept that she has code-named "red houses", which is when two words next to each other form a concept in a way that both words need to be stressed. So in the monologue we're working on, examples include "dark night" and "light love". So those word phrases are spondees, and usually some words before or after them are pyrrhic.


MOVEMENT
Movement Professor started having us do contact improv in groups of threes and fours. It was interesting, but I think most of us were too tired to be able to do what we wanted to with it.

Next week, we're going to be starting our 6-week ballet unit. I'm looking forward to it.


ACTING
We ran all three of the excerpts of plays we're doing for The Greeks.

I obviously wrote down more notes for Andromache than the other two, since more notes were directed specifically at me. I had tried really hard to follow my impulses during the run and live in the state of "I am" with Andromache. And as a result, I got more notes than I have ever gotten before. They included:

- Don't stress too many words in the same line.
- Don't let your "need" get too casual.
- Don't forget to use prop fan to fan self.
- Don't say lines as monosyllabic (meaning all words stressed) unless you have a good reason.
- Don't play the futility of the situation.
- Invest more in the proposition of having the areopagites imagining themselves in your shoes.
- Play more with the vowels of words.
- Don't make faces on words like "pointless" and "evil".
- Link lines together. (I got this note on many specific lines.)
- Don't fall off vocal energy.
- Land lines (which means not only "sending and landing" as it did in Voice class last year, but also involves not letting them have a downward inflection pitch-wise... And I got this note on many specific lines.).
- Keep talking through while fighting to escape.
- Stop putting stress on words like "must", "not", and "don't".
- Pick up cue for final monologue faster (i.e. find a quicker impulse)
- In the phrase "who are our masters", be careful not to emphasize "our" because of trying to distinguish the vowel from "are".
- In the last monologue, highlight the words "happens" and "happened" with verbal quotation marks.

Despite all the notes, I think I made progress. There were a few lines that finally came out of me in a way that was natural and useful (even if getting there did involve not linking or landing for this rehearsal). So that's good. It's just incorporating everything that makes it difficult.


MYSTERY PLAYS
Another day, another rehearsal. We were all pretty tired (as is to be expected when you're rehearsing until 11pm on a Friday after having classes and rehearsals all week). But we're moving along. Head of Program said his goal was to have the whole play blocked by the end of rehearsal on Sunday.

Thursday, October 1

Highlight of my day? I made up some example sentences for the 1st-years' voice class. Earlier in the week, I wrote one for "g-l" endings:

"I giggle as I Google a gaggle of geese wearing goggles."

Tonight, I made up sentences with "t-l" and "d-l" endings.

- "I put on the kettle, and ladle a puddle of pancake mix onto the griddle."
- "A little kid'll waddle and toddle to get a rattle."
- "On American Idol, Paula would coddle, Randy was subtle, Kara would riddle, and Simon would battle."
- "They huddle like cattle as they meddle and tattle."
- "After my car was idle in the middle of Tuttle, I put the pedal to the metal."

Fun, fun.


VOICE
Voice Professor said today that we should buy highlighters and colored pencils because of how much we're going to have to mark on our texts during out upcoming scansion work.

Voice Professor prefers that with short lines in Shakespeare (aka lines that are in prose but have fewer than 5 feet) that we take the pause (of equal length to the missing syllables) AFTER the line. (Voice Professor calls this pause "howl at the wind" time, meaning that you're not JUST pausing, but also using that time for non-verbals)

In Voice class, when we come across an Ecphonesis "O", Voice Professor wants us to pronounce it as "O" (as opposed to Acting Professoressa who says we just need some sort of vocalized exclamation).


MOVEMENT
We did some leg stretches to prepare us for ballet using the bars. Movement Professor says that I have "ideal turnout", meaning that my toes can go out to opposite sides naturally and my legs have a lot of rotation. So that's good...

But as a result, I have to be really careful not to let my feet "sickle" when I'm trying to point them. Unfortunately, I'm still kind of confused about what "sickle" means. Movement Professor said that it has to do with keeping the line of from the hip socket to the foot, but that's not a concept that's easy for me to grasp. D-Train tried to simplify it for me by saying that I was over-curving my foot in the point, and after that, it seemed I was doing it right. But then Movement Professor said I had to make sure not to sickle when my feet were flexed, and then I got really confused.

We did more contact improv without mats. I was partnered with All-the-Way for the first time ever, which was fun. Both of us are used to being lifted more often than being lifters, so we had a couple of comedic off-balance moments. It was pretty entertaining. The only person left in class that I haven't been paired with is Two-Shots-Up, so I hope I get a chance to do so tomorrow (as tomorrow is our last day of contact improv -- *tear* -- before moving onto a 6 weeks of ballet).

I forgot to mention something that happened yesterday, so I'll mention it now. The boys were excused from class 30 minutes early so that the girls could have instruction on how to walk in high heels on stage. So entertaining. I'm wearing high-heel boots for one of my characters in The Mystery Plays, so I wore those. Movement Professor showed us a "Country Club" walk, a "Runway" walk, a "Power" walk, and a "41" walk (which is our code for how to walk like loose women). It was a ton of fun, and good bonding time for the five Ladies of '11.


ACTING
We ran Helen a few times, and it's going well, I think. Acting Professoressa said, "The chorus is doing so well, and it's such a big help in this play." I wrote it down because I'm in the chorus. ;)


MYSTERY PLAYS
We blocked some more of the first act. I show up in a couple of random "move on props" or "walk across stage" kinds of ways. Then we blocked my first scene as Amanda the Agent. I get rolled out sitting on a desk, which is way more fun for me than a 24-year-old should admit to. I may or may not have squealed "wheeeee!" while doing it.

The Director (Head of Program) says his goal is to get the entire play blocked by the end of rehearsal on Sunday. *fingers crossed*