Self Generated Project "Waiting Room" Rehearsal 1

We've started work on the self generated project, which so happens to be my project. I thought I could keep track of it here for anyone who cares to read it.

Rehearsal 1

We gathered in room 201, a room where the heat can be set so we would not be hindered by the wacky and unreliable temperature that floats around the Theater School. I thought that this would have a more desired atmosphere which would lead to more desirable results-That is, everyone having fun instead of freezing/sweating to death. 

I decided that I wanted a fun filled environment much like we had in Improv class, so I started with some improv warm-ups until I felt like everyone loosened up from the long day of classes and we sat down in a circle and began. 

I wanted everyone to pick their own characters instead of me choosing them. I thought that in this way people would be more open to who the were, instead of being forced to playing a part that they had no desire to be. I didn't know if this made any or much of a difference, but everyone went along with it. 

Next was a read-through. Scripts typos and grammatical errors everywhere. It is interesting having your script read through for the first time. It made me very excited to move forward. 

We were soon done with the read-through and a general discussion took place on where I wanted to take the project. I really had no idea, only saying "Where-ever it goes, that is where it is going to go". I know I wanted to improv to explore the world that I set out, but that was about it. Cool ideas were given, and we chose to have improv sections in the piece, where during read throughs, we would improv scenes in between scenes/beats. I like this idea a lot, and I think there is some promise.

That's it for now! 

2nd week back, sorting everything out and getting into a rhythm

So, 2nd week back and everything is falling into place.

Acting has been really eye opening, learning to react from what our partner is giving us, and not just what we want in the scene. This is going to be huge in auditions and what not, so its exciting.

Feldenkrais was more atm work. Had two atms, one was called making a smile with our foot, and making a rainbow. Both involved laying on a side and preforming tasks. The most I get from this class is how I limit myself. It's interesting, but rather hard to explain.

Meisner, much like acting, is focusing on responding to what our partner does. We added basic movement on our Wednesday class. Again, hard to explain.

Speech- Learned the phonetic English consonants, and moving onto vowels

Voice- Learning about our soft pallet and how it moves. I wish I had this class before I sang a note.

Workshops start this week! Super excited.

I'm also going to try to get into better shape by going to the gym at least 3xs a week. We'll see how that goes.


I'll probably be adding more talking about how my rehearsals for my piece go! Yay for all 0 of you who read this.

First week complete!

First week complete!

Just kinda was dropped into everything that we left. Worked on our scenes with Dexter, where I have to do two because of only having nine in the class. I actually love being able to work with two, it gives me an opportunity to work twice on everything we are learning.

The scenes I'm working on are:
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Strangers, Babies.

My partner and I are doing the first scene  in Strangers and Babies. A baby bird flies into the glass balcony window of our flat and May (my wife) is incredibly worried for the bird and wants to take care of it. I (Dan) am trying to keep May from being upset and getting overly attached to the bird. There are undertones of the perturbed past of May, and the strain it puts on our relationship.

Dinner with Friends.

I just rushed over to my best friends house (Gabe) after having a fight and hatefilled sex with my soon to be Ex-Wife. I'm coming over to Gabes house to tell my side of the story of why I cheated on my wife. It comes out that I cheated because we've lost our spark, but the scene is really between how Gabe reacts and handles/treats everything.

We have this incredibly awesome breakdown, and added with Dexter's coaching, its really eye-opening.  Can't wait to see how the rest of the scenes go.
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Feldenkrais

We did two ATM (Attention to Movement). First was trying to put a book on the sole of our foot, then without holding the book, try to move it around the room. It was quite frustrating but fun at the same time. Learned a lot about how we think when given a problem, and the progression of using our bodies to fix said problem when given restrictions (No crawling, hoping, etc.)

Second ATM was laying on one side, and trying to see how we move our legs on both sides of our spine. How we did it, how far we could do it, how efficient we do it were all explored. We also were given a task, on one side we had to press the floor with our heel, then the other our toes. It made me realize that I limit ourselves and not thinking about how we can go in two planes.

Linklater

After our first day of reviewing last quarters work, we started exploring how our tounges work, and how much tension we hold in it. It was really interesting, and really hard to explain.

Stage Speech

This is one of the new classes! We are learning how speech is actually formed. It seemed incredibly difficult to understand, but once it was explained I think I'm following.
http://www.paulmeier.com/ipa/consonants.html

There is a website going over what we learned. Click the symbol and listen to the sound. Basically we learned how those sounds are made with how we move our mouth. Really cool, and going to help with dialects later on! Coolness!

Yoga

Yoga. I yoga'd.

Meisner 

Wiki that. It's really cool, a new acting technique that we are learning. Also hard to explain.

Seminar

Big quarter of learning Shakespeare basically. We had our first class learning the history of theater from the greeks to the Renaissance.

That was my week! Tried to explore the city, but wasn't out too long. Cleaned up the apartment and just settling in to being in the city again.

Back from break!

So, sorry for the hiatus, I'm awful at keeping blogs, I'm hoping to change that to journal my experiences so when I look back I can go "Yes I can remember that", or whatever. 

So I'm back from break! Long 6ish week back to Ohio to hang out with my dogs, help my family at the house and do whatever odds and ends I needed to do. Also volunteered at my old highschool helping students with drama and theater! It was very rewarding and actually quite fun. 

This semester I'm working in all the same classes as last year, except for no more improv =(

Instead! We have Meisner Technique, which is exciting, and also Stage Speech! 

On top of our master classes/workshops, the MFA class is going to start doing our own projects, and we are going to work on a play I wrote. Exciting!

I'll keep you posted as much as I can!