The Blank Page / Empty Space

Just read Anne Bogart's latest blog about starting a brand new project and all the terror and violence that comes with it (Bogart believes that art is an act of violence, among other things). You can read it all here.

And then, I started digging through my files (which are quite unorganized) and found this quote from A Director Prepares on the violence of art:

“To generate the indispensible excitement there must be something at stake, at risk, something momentous and uncertain. A sure thing does not arouse us emotionally. There is no disgrace in not knowing what you are doing and not having all the answers. But your passion and excitement about something will take you the distance through uncertainty.  If you are insecure and do not really know what you are doing, it’s fine. Just try to work with an interest in exactitude. Be exact with what you do not know. Realism on the stage is generated, not by a general feeling for reality or truth, but, rather, it emerges in the act of exactitude and decisiveness with something that excites you.”

Tomorrow, we begin what's known as the "Turbo Project." Here are the specs:

• We have a week to rehearse.
• There are two cast (called Romulus and Remus) divided to make the load as even. Depending on the cast, some people are playing different characters, some are playing the same character. It just depends.
• We come off-book for the first rehearsal (tomorrow).
• We start rehearsals with a runthru. (and then another run for the other cast)
• This year, the show is Julius Caesar (it's heavily cut, but I'm guessing it'll clock at just under two hours).
• I'm playing Brutus in the "Remus" cast.

Needless to say, I've been working for the past three weeks to get these lines down. It's been tough. I think I've got them all more or less. But it's scary. I've dwaddled around. I've done quite a bit of procrastination like Bogart has described in her post and I think there's a lot of merit to the fear involved with putting a stroke on the canvas, a word on the page/screen, or moving and speaking within a space. But we do have an entire WEEK to work on this. To say that it's not terrifying to go up and run a classic Shakespeare play that thousands of high schoolers read every year in English class is to lie. But we're going to do it, and while it won't be perfect I will live through that day.

There's a great line that Brutus says toward the end of the show I feel is equally appropriate:

"O, that a man might know the end of this day's business ere it comes. But it sufficeth that the day will end, and then the end is known."  Now, he's literally talking life and death in this line, but it's that same feeling of: "I wish I could know how this will all shape out. But there's some consolation in knowing that it will shape out."

So tomorrow, I won't really know what I'm doing. I don't have blocking. I'm still having a hard time visualizing which of my ensemblemates are playing which characters. I'll be taking swings (large swings, I hope) in an effort to make the play happen right off the bat. There will be a lot of crap, but that's what we can wade through in order to bring it to life for an audience next week. And unless we take these first dives into terror, we won't have ANYTHING with which to work.

-----------------------------

Addendum: If you thought a week wasn't long, check out the American Shakespeare Center's Rennaissance Season. They're putting up Much Ado About Nothing in two days, and they've got no director! You can read all about it in this fun intern blog post.

PINA

I have never been so entranced by a film trailer before. I can keep watching this over and over and over.

Needless to say, I've got to see this. And soon.

There are more clips if you're interested:
Obstacles
Wet
Dance Hall
Love Dance

What Movies I Saw in 2011

This is a new list for me. It's safe to say I've watched a lot more, but fell asleep during or quit halfway through, or something. I also haven't counted the amount of television I've watched. Some honorable mentions of television series include (in which I've watched at least four episodes--at least):

• Mad Men
• Breaking Bad
• Downton Abbey
• New Girl
• Parks and Recreation
• Party Down
• Battlestar Galactica
• Slings and Arrows

Anyway, here's the official list:

MOVIES WATCHED 2011

1.       The Social Network - Jan

2.       500 Days of Summer - Jan

3.       OT: Our Town - Jan

4.       Being John Malkovich - Jan

5.       The Dark Crystal – Feb

6.       Dune – Feb

7.       Greenberg – Feb

8.       There Will Be Blood – Feb

9.       The Town – Feb

10.   Annie Hall – March

11.   Love and Other Drugs – March

12.   Clue – March

13.   The Adjustment Bureau – March

14.   Bad Cop – April

15.   Cedar Rapids – April

16.   The Fighter – April

17.   Black Swan – April

18.   The Walking Dead, season 1 – April

19.   The Young Victoria – May

20.   The Jerk – May

21.   American Psycho – May

22.   The Illusionist – May

23.   Thor – May

24.   Bridesmaids – May

25.   Six Degrees of Separation - May

26.   Never Let Me Go – June

27.   X-Men First Class – June

28.   True Grit – June

29.   L.A. Confidential – June

30.   Coraline – July

31.   Moulin Rouge –July

32.   Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 – July

33.   My Dinner With Andre – September

34.   Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – October

35.   Herzog’s Woyzeck – October

36.   Dangerous Beauty – November

37.   As You Like It – November

38.   The Three Musketeers – November

39.   Magnolia – November

40.   Disney’s animated Robin Hood – November

41.   The Muppets – November

42.   Midnight in Paris – December

43.   The Darjheeling Limited – December

44.   Easy A – December

45.   Our Idiot Brother – December

46.   How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Jim Carey) – December

47.   National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – December

48.   Muppet Treasure Island - December

Plays Attended 2011

Plays Attended

1.       Compound/Complex by Steve Moulds (Brouhaha Comedy Festival) – Jan

2.       The Winter’s Tale at the Guthrie – Jan

3.       Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the Steppenwolf - Feb

4.       Metamorphoses at the Commonweal (apprentice prod.) – March

5.       Sylvia at the Commonweal – May

6.       Boom! at the Legion – June

7.       Little Shop of Horrors at the Commonweal – June

8.       A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Great River Shakespeare Festival –June

9.       Henry IV, Part One at Great River Shakespeare Festival – July

10.   Street Scene with Girl Friday Productions – July

11.   Othello with the Houston Shakespeare Festival – July

12.   The Taming of the Shrew with Houston Shakespeare Festival – July

13.   Ether Dome at the Alley Theatre – September

14.   Dividing the Estate at the Alley Theatre – October

15.   Our Lady of 121^st Street at UH – October

16.   Zombie Prom at UH – October

17.   A Christmas Carol at the Alley Theatre – November

18.   Macbeth at Rice University – November

19.   Charley’s Aunt at the Guthrie – December

20.   I Am My Own Wife at the Jungle Theater – December

21.   Parfumerie at the Commonweal - December

I really hope I can see more theatre in Houston (that's not just at the Alley). There are some promising shows down the pipeline, and I even know some of the folks who are in them. The trick is time and money. But I'd say, for living in a town of 788 people for the first half of the year, and then moving to Houston and starting graduate training, this is an okay list that's fairly eclectic.

If you're curious about what I've seen in years past, you can check out lists from 2010 and 2009.

Books and Plays Read in 2011

Books Read

1.       The Write to Write by Julia Cameron – Jan

2.       Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon – Feb

3.       Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith – Feb

4.       Prayer Book (poems) by Matt Mauch – March

5.       Reality Hunger, A Manifesto by David Shields – March

6.       Backwards and Forwards by David Ball – March

7.       Bossypants by Tina Fey – April

8.       An Actor’s Work (a fusion of An Actor Prepares and Building a Character) by Stanislavski – May

9.       Advice to the Players by Robert Lewis – May

10.   Method or Madness? By Robert Lewis – May

11.   Creating a Role by Stanislavski – May

12.   The Open Door by Peter Brook – May

13.   Acting the First Six Lessons by Boleslavsky – May

14.   Audition by Michael Shurtleff – May

15.   The Empty Space by Peter Brook – May

16.   Acting Power by Robert Cohen – June

17.   Acting Professionally by Robert Cohen  - June

18.   Acting is Believing by Charles McGaw – June

19.   True and False by David Mamet – June

20.   Writing in Restaurants by David Mamet – June

21.   Impro by Keith Johnstone – June

22.   Improvisation for the Theatre by Viola Spolin – July

23.   The Shifting Point by Peter Brook – July

24.   The Craft of Comedy by Athene Seyler – July

25.   Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen – July

26.   The Craftsmen of Dionysius by Jerome Rockwood – July

27.   My Life in Art by Stanislavski - August (I honestly did read this entire beast...)

28.   Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugene Herrigel – August

29.   A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan - December

Plays Read

1.       Beyond the Horizon by Eugene O’Neill – Jan

2.       Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman – Feb

3.       An Enemy of the People (Jeffrey Hatcher/Ibsen) - Feb

4.       Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams – March

5.       Ghosts by Ibsen – March

6.       Anna Christie by Eugene O’Neill – March

7.       Hedda Gabler by Ibsen – March

8.       The Master Builder by Ibsen – March

9.       Desire Under the Elms by Eugene O’Neill – March

10.   The Homecoming (Mourning Becomes Electra) by Eugene O’Neill – March

11.   The Hunted (Mourning Becomes Electra) by Eugene O’Neill – April

12.   The Haunted (Mourning Becomes Electra) by Eugene O’Neill – April

13.   A Touch of the Poet by Eugene O’Neill – April

14.   A Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O’Neill – April

15.   Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams – April

16.   Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams - April

17.   Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee Williams – April

18.   The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams – April

19.   The Eccentricities of a Nightingale by Tennessee Williams – April

20.   Parfumerie by E. Dowdall – April

21.   Penelope by Enda Walsh – May

22.   The Hot L Baltimore by Lanford Wilson – May

23.   Some Girl(s) by Neil LaBute – May

24.   Our Lady of 121^st Street by Stephen Adly Guirgis – May

25.   The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh – May

26.   Julius Caesar by Shakespeare – May

27.   Leonce and Lena by Buchner – May

28.   Don Juan by Moliere – May

29.   The Unmentionables by Bruce Norris – June

30.   Blue / Orange by Joe Penhall – June

31.   The Country Club by Douglas Carter Beane – June

32.   The Shape of Things by Neil LaBute – June

33.   Toronto, Mississippi by Joan MacLeod – June

34.   Pterodactyls by Nicky Silver – June

35.   Dissocia by Anthony Neilson – June

36.   The Lion in Winter by James Goldman – June

37.   Come Blow Your Horn by Neil Simon – June

38.   Red by John Logan – July

39.   My Zinc Bed by David Hare – July

40.   Cymbeline by Shakespeare – July

41.   Deathtrap by Ira Levin – July

42.   Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris – July

43.   Look Back In Anger by John Osborne – July

44.   The Cripple of Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh – July

45.   Bug by Tracy Letts – July

46.   Richard III by Shakespeare – August

47.   Twelfth Night by Shakespeare – August

48.   Troilus and Cressida by Shakespeare – August

49.   Fortinbras by Lee Blessing – August

50.   Scenes From An Execution by Howard Baker – October

51.   The Crucible by Arthur Miller – October

52.   Woyzeck by Buchner – October

53.   Defiance by John Patrick Shanley - October

54.   Doubt  by John Patrick Shanley – October

55.   Misalliance by Shaw – October

56.   Candida by Shaw – October

57.   In a Dark Dark House by Neil LaBute – November

58.   Two Rooms by Lee Blessing – November

59.   Art by Yasmina Reza – November

60.   Ruined by Lynn Nottage – December

61.   Noises Off by Michael Frayn – December

62.   The Glass Menagerie by Tenneessee Williams – December

SOME THOUGHTS:

I only read 2 novels in 2011. There was a huge gap of reading any kind of books during the second half of the year, because...well...I'm in grad school. I am halfway through Lev Grossman's The Magician King, but it's not gripping me as much as I'd thought. It probably doesn't help that I was using it to put me to asleep at night. I was more just reading it to digest something that wasn't acting theory or a play. That's probably not the best way to enjoy a book, but there you go. 

The amount of plays I've devoured this year has tripled from the other years, which you can examine in the links below.

I'll provide a list of movies and plays I attended next.

Here's what I read and saw in 2009.

Here's what I read and saw in 2010.

My Blogging Metabolism Has Slowed Way Down

It seems every time I come home for Christmas, I get  the itch to blog more. I consider making a list of resolutions. I have ideas of posting every day. I also have plans to share what culture I've "consumed" over the year. I think about extended essays, short anecdotes, pictures, quotes, videos, etc.

But this year, I've been less enthusiastic.




Writing about all my grad school homework does very little for me. Also, because I don't brandish this blog, I feel less obligated.


I've got loads of homework. The biggie is learning the role of Brutus in JULIUS CAESAR. We're rehearsing this beast for a week, and then giving four performances. It's trimmed fairly well, but it's still JULIUS CAESAR!


The other thing is that I've grown quite tired of reading "Actor Blogs" and don't want mine to turn into one. I find them (most, anyway) incredibly annoying.


Actor training blogs aren't, actually, I found them quite useful--especially in realizing that I wanted to go to grad school (shout out to David and Angela). But there's a dearth of them, and I think that's for a good reason.

Generally, "Actor Blog" posts are: "I scored an audition. I got calledback. I didn't get calledback. I can finally announce what I'm doing a month after I've scored the gig. As I rode on the subway, memorizing the sides, I just really felt a connection to the character!"

And then there's a sticky relationship with actors brandishing news and gossip (even if it's harmless) online for anyone to read. From what I can tell, they either reek of too much information or a ton of vagueness.

Gosh, I sound like a downer.

Egad. I just remembered the title of my blog DRIPS of "Acting Blog."




But writing more would probably be better for me (and I need to remember that I can make some posts private). I actually wrote very little during grad school. (Although I did take copious notes in Acting class. I filled up a notebook quickly, and those pages are ALL OVER THE PLACE! Oh man, if someone who had no connection with my graduate training got hold of it, this person would most definitely think I was crazy. I'm not kidding.)


Who knows what the future of this blog will be. I don't want to eliminate it. I've considered transferring this over to my official website, but I think I'll keep that separate for now. I've always had aspirations of commenting more on television, current events, music, literature, and the like. I've just never got there. Goodness, I think I say this every year.


And, really, there's no time to do that while I'm in training.


So, perhaps my haphazard musings will have to do.


The Christmas tree glows. Everyone in the house is asleep. Except for the animals: the cats, and this ridiculously charming and rowdy golden retriever puppy (though he's probably 70 pounds). I'm listening to this incredible new band Polica. There are plenty of treats (chocolate almond toffee!) and drinks. What I'm trying to say that this atmosphere allows for blogging. It doesn't when I have to rush off to combat class at 8:30 am, or drill the open "o" vowel for a General American dialect, memorize, rehearse, clean, or, if I do have some precious time, it's for necessary vegging out and catching up on Parks 'n Rec.


For the near future, I've got some more posts up my sleeve. I have been keeping track of every book and play I've read, every play I've attended, and every movie I watched this year. So I'll get those lists up soon. (Some of it's impressive, some of it's meh.)

Otherwise, I've got ACTING to do (I really do--though I'll probably watch the final episode of Downton Abbey right now). That's what I want to do. It's not about keeping a blog about acting. And I'm ok with that.

Thanksgiving

The AC's off. The heat isn't on. The windows are open. Happy Thanksgiving Eve Day!
It's surreal. I think this juxtaposition of the Texas weather and the (lack of) change of seasons is a perfect analogy to graduate training. It's bizarre.

I'm two weeks away from being done with my first semester of grad school. That means, I'm about 25% complete with the degree. It's scary. It's empowering. I undulate between feeling good about it all and then feeling completely inadequate and wishing we had another month. But then I wish we'd be done with this semester yesterday.

This is the paradox.

Another paradox is the auditions we've been having every weekend. We've got one round left (next weekend for another Shakespeare Festival). This is when we've got to shed our "training" skin and step up to professional actor status (that should never really leave, I suppose). We're looking for summer gigs. I'm hoping for a summer Shakespeare gig (if it could be in rep with something, that'd be great too). It's kind of hard to tell where my leads are at the moment, and I probably won't know too much until February or March with these. The best I can do is follow up with directors without pestering.

The casting and artistic directors know my class is in training. We've been getting some notes about how eager they are to see us in a year (or two), which is good to hear...I guess, but it still feels a bit backward. Then I have to remember that most of us have virtually NO SHAKESPEARE experience. The second year of our training is devoted to the Bard. We're basking in the poetic realism of Tennessee Williams right now and applying what we can to the Shakespeare.

Letsee...what have I been working on?

A lot.

Yesterday, we presented our final combat scenes. We've paired up and picked scenes where a single sword fight would logically make sense (quite a few Shakespearean options, Jacobean, shoot, there are some Greek possibilities too). Something that wouldn't make sense is George and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf or Gwendolyn and Cecily in The Importance of Being Ernest. I worked on a Three Musketeers scene with a duel between Athos (me) and his ex-wife whom he thought he had hanged (Milady). In the scripts/book, it's a pistol ultimatum scene, but we took some liberties. Everyone had the same choreographic sequences, but our job was to orchestrate them with the text and have them make sense. Combat is probably the more difficult part of training for me, but I think I'm getting a handle on it.

In Speech, we're working on the RP (Received Pronunciation) British dialect. This is the standardized dialect they taught in British schools in the early 20th century. BBC announcers were required to have it in probably through the late 70s/early 80s. We presented 10-minute scenes in RP the other day. I'm doing a scene from Shaw's Candida (playing Marchbanks). I'm having a lot of fun with it. We also have to present 2-minute RP monologues for the final (and a 2-minute General American monologue). General American isn't a "real" dialect, but it's ideal for translation pieces (like Ibsen and Chekhov) to get everyone in a cast on the same page (wiping away regionalisms and colloquialisms in someone's speech). Additionally, we've got a long(ish) passage of text to transcribe in IPA.

The Acting final is the biggie. It's hard to fully describe without writing a whole book about the sub-textual technique we're been working through the whole semester. In any case, I'm presenting the final Stanley/Blanche encounter from A Streetcar Named Desire, in which I provide a score of every single focus of attention that I have throughout the scene (basics: every noun has some kind of sensory attachment, every moment has some kind subtext, and it's all blended together in a logical, evocative composition). We've also got to present a 2-minute Anger/Tears monologue. This means flipping between legitimate fury and real tears throughout the whole monologue. We've done this before, but our teacher provided some "help" in coaching us throughout the pieces. It's all gotta come from ourselves.

In Voice, we're continuing to work on various placement of the voice through different resonant chambers. Yesterday, we worked on the break (the point at which my voice leaps into the head--falsetto--voice), flipping through it (which gives you a yodelling quality), and voicing in the crackle of the break (it sounds awful, but it doesn't hurt, or it shouldn't). This is paving the way to screaming on stage in a way that is healthy and supported (and visceral)!

There's a lot more to reflect on. I'm trying to wrap my head around it all. I'm also trying desperately to move away from the fact that all of this is "school"--as in I have to please my professors. I need to own this stuff and take charge of the short time I have left.

But now it's Thanksgiving Break! About 17 of us are all gathering for Thanksgiving tomorrow. I'll do some more work on the monologues today and work big time on my TA grading (so many essays....). Tomorrow is all about turkey.