The final post.

Looking back to the beginning of the semester and comparing it to my knowledge on acting now, I had no idea how much work went into acting. You have to memorize your lines, movements, portrayal, and everything in between. There are so many different types of acting and different ways for one to act in different types. I have been fortunate enough to take both acting and public speaking, and sort of strengthen the right side of my brain through these courses.

I am a very STEM based thinker, so the artistic expression is very difficult for me. One of the original reasons I chose this class was for these blogposts. When we would write about our character or do posts about our scenes it definitely helped me with writing, which is a skill I will use all throughout my academic career and throughout life. Though I still struggle with writing I have definitely improved by being able to sort of freely get my ideas out, which I’ve noticed has helped me to improve in papers and written assignments in other classes.

Memorizing was probably my biggest downfall in this class. I wish I had put more time and effort into memorizing in order to execute the best possible scene I could. I feel as though when I wasn’t confident with myself knowing the words, I wasn’t able to perform at my best. If I had just put in a bit more effort to practice lines and maybe run them outside of class with a family member, maybe I could’ve memorized better and done better in my scenes. I did do this for the plane crash scene by writing the lines of the people around me and then writing in my lines in relation to where everybody said there lines. I think that was my best performance of the semester (so far- I still have one more to go!) and it is because of the effort I put into it, which just goes to show that the old saying “you get what you give” is right, you get out what you put in.

I’m not exactly sure where I am going with all of the skills I’ve learned in this class. Short term, I’ll probably utilize it for the winter musical next year, which I plan on participating in, and long term I think I am going  to be able to step out of my comfort zone with more ease and speak rehearsed pieces easier. This is a good skill for any public speaking environment or just for life in general. It’s really interesting and surprising how much the way something is said can change the delivery, and now knowing things like that I feel that overall the way i have learned how to speak to an audience and know how to change how I am portrayed is going to help me out very much in the long run.

Mrs. Guarino- here’s a link to a bunch of thank you cards because I want to say thank you and we have to include a link and I have no idea what else to link to.

https://www.hallmarkecards.com/ecards/collections/thank+you

A dramatic puppet

So far the audition piece I am involved in has been really challenging. Abby and I are doing an intense and dramatic scene, and we are doing it with sock puppets. It is a dialogue between an old man and a killer who is debating whether or not to to take the old man's life, and thought the old man doesn't know this, he can sense that something is off.

The main challenge for me is functioning with the sock puppet. I didn't realize that there's a specific way you have to hold it, to breathe with it, you as a person have to look a specific place, and there are so many other complications. It really is a struggle to do all of that and also convey emotions and memorize a script. This character is nothing like I have done before, with the intensity and stumbling awkwardness. The puppet is definitely the most challenging part of the audition piece, as I am nowhere near being comfortable with it, as a matter of fact I'm a little embarrassed working with it, so this is a total stretch for me as an actor and it is pushing me way past my comfort zone, and a little bit farther than that.

The growth for me as a performer are in so many ways. This is definitely a skill I have never had, and now I can say that I'm able to do a puppet performance, and it is a different type of character than I've done before. The old man is a passive personality, as many times throughs the script you can see this by him trying to change the subject and avoid conflict at any means, as well as being defensive as to not offend the other character. This is different from the dominant, powerful characters that I have portrayed already this year, whether the emotion is fear, numbness and hatred, or annoyance. Those are all very oppressive of the other character in the scene or just dominant personas. The passive timid portrayal of the old man will be a huge challenge for me, especially combined with the puppet.

My goal for this performance is to somehow find the shy timidness within myself and portray this through the puppet. I think that the wall activity that I did with Dayna and Abby for the last performance could help, except this time instead of getting more dramatic with certain words, I could get more frightened at them. For work with the puppets I can just practice a ton. I can also make them sing show tunes. Abby suggested that and not only does it sound absolutely hilarious it is so fun to do. To do the dramatic portion of the old man and to get that emotion from the puppet I'll sing les miserables. I can also say things in a dramatic tired voice to achieve this.

Because I think that puppets singing show tunes are the funniest thing on earth as well as the best thing a puppet could ever do , here is the muppets singing bohemian rhapsody. Side note: yes I realize this isn't technically a show tune, but it's the muppets!!!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY

This old man

My character is an old man who runs a convenience store. The other character in the scene with him is a man who is trying to get something and is prepared to kill anything and anyone that gets in his way. As far as my character goes, he is a passive person who seems to be trying to avoid conflict despite being put in an uncomfortable position. For costuming and set I imagine my puppet to be dressed as an old man. Possibly wearing overalls. For blocking, I think the characters will be generally static, however facial movement when speaking will involve a lot of moving. For this performance I honestly hope to have fun learning something completely out of my comfort zone and strengthen a different sort of section of acting. 

Making it up

This week for our class, we spent time looking at what improv is and playing some games so that we could learn the fundamentals behind it. I remembered hearing that last year’s winter musical was mainly improv (except probably the songs of course), but I didn’t fully understand until I tried to do improv myself just how hard it is to come up with something to say when you are put on the spot. One of the biggest points I remember from our lesson is that we can’t say no to anything a fellow actor says at us, because it ends the scene. So if someone were to look at me and ask, “Why is your hair standing up straight” I would have to play along instead of denying this and saying, “No, it’s not standing up.” Though I get how important this is, I still think it is very difficult because during one of our activities was basically interacting two different scenes, and some people would say things that were absolutely absurd and you had to go along with it. This was very hard because you had no idea what your partner was going to do and your partner had no idea what you were going to say, and once you turned around you both had to interact with each other in a way that made sense. 

The most challenging activity was the one with two people in a scene having a different objective. This was extremely difficult because while you were trying to convince them one thing, they were trying to convince you of another, and this got very confusing.

My favorite part of the improve was how funny some of the interactions turned  out to be, like when Dayna said “It’s not littering if we’re the only two people left,” and her reaction was so great that it looked like you could’ve pulled it straight out of a movie. The whole comedic acting was almost scripted, but the fact that it was just things that she was making up as she went along were what made it so much more genuine and realistic. Another funny scene was when I approached John asking for all sorts of toys, a pony, a puppy, and things like that for Christmas while also calling him Santa, and he responded asking me what I was doing in the men’s room.

Though many funny things can come out of improvised scenes, this has its downsides as well. Because you don’t know what to expect, you can’t prepare your reaction and not be surprised when someone says something hilarious. For an example, there was a point where Abby asked me a question that was absolutely hilarious and I just couldn’t contain my laughter.  I need to work on this because during an actual performance with an audience, such as what they did for Spelling Bee, you can’t break character or stop the scene. In the famous words of somebody, “The show must go on.” 

Live long and prosper

- http://www.startrek.com/database_article/spock

Reflecting on the Dramatic Reflection

As a somewhat reflective monologue-like scene, this dramatic scene was probably the scariest scene that I have ever done. One thing that changed the scene more than I though it ever could was lighting. It surprised me how much turning the lights off gave the entire scene a depressing mood. The little lanterns that Dayna, Abby, and myself held made the scene more mournful, and though we didn't turn them off a the correct time and made it in sync, it still looked neat how they were scattered, and surprisingly it worked out in a certain way where they went off in the order of final solo lines, as Abby spoke solo for the final time first, Dayna second, and myself third. This is the order that the lights went off in the filming, which thought it was a coincidence; I think it worked out in a nice way. 

In preparation for the scene, my group did a few acting exercises such as saying our lines as we pushed off of a wall, and though they were a bit wacky at the time, I do think that they helped out overall with the exaggeration of specific words and the connection of emotion to words. We did a few other activities that worked on similar things which were very helpful.

Timing was a bit of a struggle with this scene, as it took us FOREVER to find a scene that we could all agree on. Though it took forever and at first I was a bit hesitant about doing this scene, in the end I do think it was a suitable choice for both myself and the group.

As far as my performance individually went, I feel that this is the best scene I have done so far.  Though there is definitely still a lot of room for improvement, I think that my emotional portrayal as well as line memorization were very good, especially in comparison to my other scenes that I have done in this past semester. Writing the lines out in relation to lines spoken before and after was the tool that I used for memorizing, and it definitely worked really well. I do want to work on improv (which just so happens to be the next unit) because I remember during filming at one point that there was a line or two that was jumbled over and it confused everyone. The skill of improv would be really useful in a situation like that because during an actual live performance you can't sit there in an awkward silence for a long period of time, and by doing improv you can think on your feet and make it so those awkward silences aren't as awkward.

Unfortunately I was unable to see other group's final performances as they were being filmed because my group was out of the way practicing. I did enjoy Lisa and Duncan's performance as well as that of Jack and John. Both fit into the dark theme that played a constant in this performance. 

http://youtu.be/M9ZuMBCKlcs

Improv troupe

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQBQjF5OU1U

Peter Pan

Over the weekend I had the privilege of seeing the play "Peter Pan" preformed by the students in the play at Cheshire Academy. It was very cool how with all of the new concepts I have been taught through acting class, to see how they are applied to a live performance, and it was also quite fun for me to be able to recognize them and sort of say to myself, "look! They're fanning out so the audience can see them better!" I may have also whispered that to my friend who was sitting next to me a few times as well. Some instances in which I noticed these things were when the lost boys were talking, they would fan out as opposed to the normal circle formation the average group of people would talk in. With speaking, everyone remembered their lines and cues amazingly and everyone projected so that you could hear every single word they said. I thought it was absolutely hilarious how there were teachers brought in and that played some of the Pirates. My favorite part of the play was definitely the attitude Amalia's character (I think it was John) had, and how even though some of the ideas he presented were completely insane and I would've busted into laughter with, however she kept her cool and did an amazing job! The audience interaction part was absolutely perfect- when Peter asked them to clap it started out slow and he begged and it got louder. I am still completely oblivious to wether that was improvised or scripted, but it was fantastic to see an audience react with so much energy. The staging of the play was very obvious, however I think it gave an insight into the reality of the play- how this was not actually a magical adventure where things appear out of thin air, but more so a figment of their imagination. Overall, I think this play was fantastic! I would definitely go to see it again, and am looking forward to seeing the play this winter season.