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.

Mosquitoes and moldy jack-o-lanterns

Greetings all 5 of you readers!

Grad school comes and goes in all kinds of waves (as you can probably tell already).

Here I go with an update.

Part of my duties as a grad student is that I’m a TA for an Intro to Theatre class. There are 9 of us and 400+ students.

I’m in charge of 45 students for grading. It’s tedious work and we’ve got play critiques to grade this week (3-4 pages long). Virtually all of them have written about The Hot L Baltimore. One evening this week, I finally decided to hunker down and get some of these done. Even if I spend only 15 minutes on them, which is unlikely, this could take well over 10 hours.

I started with the top of my list, opened up the paper, read a few paragraphs, and stumbled upon this doozy: “The worst actor was Tim Sailer, who played Bill.” And then it continued with an explanation of why the student thought so.

This is not a good way to start a marathon grading session. I swallowed my pride and continued to be as objective as I could.

But the explanation was poor. I think the student had more of an issue with the CHARACTER rather than the ACTOR (a distinction that’s difficult for a lot of these students to deal with; which I can understand, especially if you haven’t seen a lot—or any—live theatre).

In other news…

The university is under attack of millions of mosquitoes. I’m not kidding. People are running from their cars into the theatre today. I think I got at least five bites. Houston had an all-day rain a couple weeks ago. The eggs have hatched and they are hungry for BLOOD! Who knew I’d have to deal with the little buggers at the end of October.

Speaking of that…I carved a pumpkin last week. It’s already mush. The eye started getting moldy.

And since we’re talking about seasons and everything, I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night. It’s fantastic, post-modern, sweet, funny, and surreal. Jack had mentioned it when I was saying how our particular acting technique was a bit on the crazy side (we’re leaping and jumping from all kinds of sensorial stimuli—sometimes they are inherent in the scene, sometimes we’re drawing on our own lives). Jack just nodded and said: “Haven’t you ever seen Eternal Sunshine…?!” I said no and he nearly fell to the ground. The thing is, our minds do not work in any kind of clean, linear fashion. Why should that be the case in our acting? The movie jumps and leaps from memory to memory to present day, to these kind of altered memories—it’s kind of trippy. But I understand this notion better.

I DIGRESS! I was talking about seasons. The film takes place in New York in the middle of winter. All the snow and ice scenes were strange. I think I got a little homesick or something. It was strange.

I should stop. My To Do list is LONG. I’ve got a major audition every week for 4-5 weeks. It starts on November 5, so I need to jump on that work. I feel good about most of the pieces. I still have to find one more Shakespeare monologue. That’s a major goal for today.

OH! I nearly forgot: I’m doing a reading of The War of the Worlds next weekend. Should be a lot o’ fun (I better listen to the original broadcast a few more times to figure out the voices work. I’m playing a couple different characters.

Weeks 4 - 8 or something

I'm still in grad school.

It's tough, illuminating, frustrating, strange, and exhilarating.

It's starting to get to the point that I'm becoming increasingly ingrained into the training that the minute I attempt to explain it, it would require a whole treatise to describe.

Right now we're diving into acting technique through Tennessee Williams scenes. I'm working on a Blanche/Stanley scene with another classmate. Gone are the days when you simply run the scene and drill the lines. That's the least of our worries. Instead, we're delving into our senses and histories which fuel our bodies and minds (but mostly bodies). It feels as though the text is hardly there. The work is slow and tedious, but I'm getting a stronger sense of what my job is as an actor.

We're also starting to work on anger/tears monologues in class. It's not easy (duh).

In combat, we've learned three set phrases of single-sword choreography for the Hal/Hotspur fight in Henry IV, part 1. I'm playing Hal. We got some heavier weapons (verging into broadsword territory). And now we're going back to the epee blades for a tighter, quicker fight next week. I'm having a lot of fun with that, and I'm starting to sink my teeth into the final speech Hal directs to Hotspur's dead body.

I've opened Hot L Baltimore. I love the play. I think audiences are enjoying it. We had a riotous crowd on Thursday. The show closes on Sunday. Admittedly, I'm going to be happy to be done with it though. I'd like evenings to dive into work for more than just a scattered hour or two. Already, today has been great. I was able to read The Crucible in one sitting (we have auditions for the spring in a few weeks).

Right now, I'm struggling with the whole notion that I'm not in school right now. I'm working on eliminating "I gotta get the approval of my teachers." This is training. I'm training for an artistic marathon. It kind of feels like my classmates and I are at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters (the X-Men). We're delving into super-human territory so that we can serve others.

I'm kind of in a weird mood. It could be a number of reasons. I haven't had time to just sit in silence for a long time by myself. I just read The Crucible, which is no easy walk in the park. I'll do a bit more cleaning today and solidifying monologues for a whole batch of auditions that are coming up in the next 8 weeks (which means quite a lot of Shakespeare).

Grad School: Week 3

This week went in waves. There were times when it felt like I was back in junior year of college (the spring--and that was a tough one). I was also battling a nasty sore throat. Thank goodness for Throat Coat tea and Immune Boost Emergen-C. I mean, I'm putting in 10-hour days AT school (when you compound classes and rehearsals).

In voice class, we did a long session of pelvis/hip stretching. Afterward, I could touch my toes, and I still can. I really haven't been able to, so I count this as a success. Right now, it's all about alignment and getting as neutral as possible.

In movement, we're learning more rapier work. We're creating our own sequences with different combinations of four basic thrusts/parries and some binding moves. I think I'm going to buy my own practice rapier soon.

We had a quiz on vocal anatomy in speech. We've started more IPA work. I transcribed two long paragraphs about Sarah Perry and her pet bird that has foot and mouth disease. It feels like I'm learning a whole new language, and I kind of am.

In acting we continue to learn about the business. I'm getting word about a couple cool Shakespeare festivals coming to see us audition. One of them is a 10-month contract though, so it's doutbful anyone in my class could make that work. But there's some promise with another company who's coming down in December.

Additionally, I have to present a new 1-minute monologue on Wednesday along with this:

And then, we got a HUGE assignment:
I have to choreograph and perform a four-minute dance/theatre piece.

It has to embody 8 adjectives that aren't necessarily in my profile (we're given these words from our Acting Professor--so everyone has a different list):

• Exuberant
• Muscular
• Driving
• High/Low
• Extended
• Grounded
• Explosive
• Powerful (? - I can't quite remember)

Each adjective has to be separately and boldly defined.

On this assignment our professor said: "Legends are made from this project." We had to give him 3 music options (they have to be instrumental).

He gave me the go-ahead with this piece of music:

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do. I've got a rough, rough idea, but "exuberant" isn't quite part of that idea. We have a couple weeks to work on this before we have to show it to the professor. After that, we have a week to finesse the piece and then we perform it for the public.

There's a lot more going on. I haven't even begun to touch on Hot L Baltimore rehearsals. But that's going well. We're all off book and blocked for Act One, and it's a doozy, lemme tell ya.

Grad School: Week 2

This has been the first official week of classes. I’ll just do a brief summary of what’s been going on in each.

ACTING

A lot of attention is spent on cold reading exercises. This involves two people at a table working on text that we’ve never seen. Everyone’s had a few minutes to look over the text, and then, some kind of “wrench” is thrown into the scene: passing a ball of clay to the partner on an operative word, playing a game of chess/checkers by moving a piece on the operative word, exploring a partner’s face with your hands during the lines. This requires a lot of dexterity to manage the text, maintaining connection with the partner, and abiding by the demands of the particular “wrench.”

We’re also learning about the acting business in various spurts. I’ve come in knowing a bit about some major LORT Theatres, but there’s a lot more to digest.

VOICE

The two sessions we’ve had in voice have been all about alignment and relaxation. We’ve done a lot of floor work with a tennis ball – it’s a strange mix of intense pain and release. On Thursday, we did a TON of sun salutations (a yoga sequence). There’s not much else to report.

SPEECH

For voice, we’re learning about alignment, relaxation, and the kinesthetic awareness of our bodies to engage the muscles that need to be engaged. For speech, we’re learning more about how our instrument is used to produce certain sounds. It’s the groundwork for “costuming” our voice with accents and dialects (that’s not quite the right word, I’m sure, but that’s kind of how I’m seeing the distinction).

Right now, we’re learning basic IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet), which will lead us to General American, Standard British (RP), and some other things. I’ve got to have Sonnet 29 memorized by Wednesday.

COMBAT

We learned a short unarmed fight sequence that focused on wide upper body punches/blocks, lower body kicks/blocks, and some mid-torso work (knee kicks/blocks). We used mixed martial arts (think unarmed fights in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) for this. Our assignment was to work on the fight with a partner and do them cleanly (and as slowly as we needed) to a piece of music. I think my fight went okay – things got a little sloppier when we presented it to the class with music, but all in all, I’m enjoying the combat stuff. This is the one area I’ve been most concerned about, but so far, it hasn’t been too bad.

We’ve also begun basic, basic rapier work.

ENSEMBLE BUILDING

This is a required thing for all grad students, but interested undergrads can join in. We’re doing a combination of Viewpoints and Suzuki training. It’s expanding our aperture of awareness so that a whole room of 20 actors can jump in the air and land (quietly) simultaneously. There’s a LOT more to it than this. Suzuki is “Japanese ballet on steroids.” That’s about all that I can say about this for now.

HOT L BALTIMORE REHEARSALS

Oh yeah, I'm playing Bill Lewis! We open at the end of September.

We’ve spent a few days doing table work and figuring out what’s really going on. This is a play about family, except we’re all on the “island of misfit toys,” according to our director (which is quite fitting). We’ve started to do some open viewpoints on our rehearsal set. The first time we did that, the director played part of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” album, which dropped two months before the events of the play.

On Friday, we spent the whole day watching YouTube videos: speeches from the Lanford Wilson memorial (from Jeff Daniels, Bobby Cannavale, and Craig Wright), an episode of All in the Family, Amtrak train commercials, and some other odds 'n ends from the 70s.

The costume designer wants me to keep the mustache. I'll share pictures, I'm sure.

We’re in the middle of blocking right now. It’s tedious. I’ve got a tough part—there’s a lot of “multi-tasking” and business to do. I’m operating a hotel switchboard, and the phone rings a lot. I need to get off book as soon as humanly possible too. But now, it’s bed time!

I have to go to bed.

Grad School - Week 1

First Year Acting Intensive

This past week the dream team of ’13 spent 45+ hours working on ensemble building, acting, and orientation for school. We covered the course work for a standard “Acting for Non-Majors” in five days. It was a strange combo of playing the games (involving some kind of degree of improv, usually) with learning the what/how/why behind it (the “why” being something you would rarely tell students when you teach it to them).

I won’t get into details, because that would simply take too long, and I don’t want this to become something that’s too prescriptive or a day by day breakdown. Committing to that would be impossible.

Anyway, there are many goals and outcomes of the intensive. But after six days of living in the theatre, the nine of us (and a couple others) are quite close. I don’t know a whole lot about everyone, but we’ve been staring into each others’ eyes, doing cold readings while squeezing a partner’s hand (or exploring their face with our hands). Needless to say, we’re quite an ensemble of such variety. Some of us are movers, and some aren’t. Others of us can sing rock the house. The next 60 weeks of training will be about learning about weaknesses, capitalizing on strengths, and getting “gooder sooner.”

A “trick” that the training requires is to recognize WHY things are working well (or aren’t). We have to learn about the nitty gritty details that can make us efficient, savvy actors. We’re talking about LORT theatres, directors, how Houston works, AEA, non-profit/for-profit, etc. In addition to that, we’ve been doing ab workouts, a kempo P90X video (kicking and punching for an hour), light tumbling, and beginning Suzuki work (which is a giant core and lower body workout). This has been a whirlwind so that we can hit the ground running with an intense shared experience and vocabulary when we officially start classes.

On Friday, we showed the following to faculty, students, and staff:

·         A pair of contrasting monologues (about 2 minutes each)

·         30 Seconds of Standard British

·         A verse and chorus of a song a capella

Afterwards, there was a reception. I talked with some professors, alumni, and undergraduate students (quite a few undergrads have told me they loved my selections over the past couple days). Before we were released, J (the head of our program) held us back and had us rank everyone’s performances (privately). It’s a little nerve-wracking, but it’s a way for J to gauge our sensibilities and tastes.

THEN: FALL SEMESTER AUDITIONS

We had three minutes to present two contrasting monologues and 16 bars of a song (or “Happy Birthday”). It went ok for me. But my Friday night showing went much better. I may have misjudged one of my pieces, but it’s not the end of the world. I don’t think I showed enough of a contrast.

Anyway, I was called back for EVERY SINGLE SHOW this semester:

Zombie Prom

The Trial of Ebeneezer Scrooge

The Hot L Baltimore

Our Lady of 121^st Street

Each call back meant waiting around for a good two hours (at least). I think my callback for The Hot L Baltimore went the best (and that’s what I want to be in anyway). It’s hard to tell. But now, I’m back in educational theatre. There are variables that extend beyond any show (it’s an intricate puzzle to fit everyone in the casting). But it’s safe to say that I’ll be in something. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll configure a small studio show catered to any actors who may be “left out” from substantial casting.

We start classes today.

I’ve got Acting, Voice & Speech, and a TA course (Intro to Theatre with 400 students in a giant lecture hall).

I’m learning LOADS already. I’ve got lots of notes that I’ll sift through, and I’ll sit down and evaluate how my performances/auditions/callbacks went

Annotated Mess

1. Tim's Monster Book of Monologues: A 3-inch binder that is starting to fill quite nicely.

2. A graphed Moleskine with notes from the "Monster Reading List" - opened to notes from Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen.

3. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

4. My Life in Art by Stanislavski (I'm reading this right now)

5. American Theatre - a subscription is on of the "Monster Reading List"

6. A copy of The Crucible, which is part of the spring semester's season at UH.

7. A map of the UH campus. It's big.

8. A stack of monologue selections and a song (taken from #1) I'm working on for the first week o' fun.

9. Stacks of plays I have yet to flip through for monologues. You cannot see how high they're stacked, however.

No. The photo is not candid. I'm not a trained wildlife photographer. These books and papers were given sedatives for the purposes of the photoshoot. Otherwise, they're usually running wild. They're not allowed to wander the kitchen or the bathrooms. Some of them are not mine. But I'm taking care of them for the next week. After the initial "getting to know you spine sniffling," they seem to coexist peacefully. Although the Restoration comedies are pretty uppity and need extra TLC.

I think I might be losing it.

Our orientation/intensive begins on August. 15.

Getting to know you...

Things are getting better. It looks like I can't move in until the 9th. Kinda stinks, but I'm more at peace with knowing what the heck is going on.

I caught the opening of Othello last night at Houston Shakes. It seems as though a million UH people are part of it. I met my movement professor and a bunch of MFA alumni (quite a few are in the productions). It was a swift, fierce production. I've never seen Shakespeare outside, and it was fun (aside from the wailing banshee child. Thank goodness for the usher who asked the mother and kids to leave, it was egregiously disruptive). The crowd really bought the show. They booed Iago at the curtain call (played by the head of my program). The stage and park is beautiful (and the tickets are FREE). I'll see Taming of the Shrew tonight, which is promised to have this 80s twist. I've never seen Shrew before, so this should be a lot of fun. And if last night was any indication, it should be another great production.

Afterwards, a classmate and I went to the chair of the UH Theater Department's house for an opening night party. It was a little awkward because we were some of the first people to arrive and the chair's wife was letting in some other people and we bopped in. She was incredulous of who we were (and we weren't necessarily wearing opening night garb), but that was the only supremely awkward moment. More people showed up and it was all good. For whatever reason, we were some of the last people to leave the party.

It was a little weird schmoozing with people. I'm sure I was all bright-eyed and completely bewildered the whole time. It was most fun talking to undergrad students and then the recent graduates. There's this bristling energy about the undergrads, which was fun and then the wizened grads who have this little glimmer in their eye that just says "you're going to have so much fun and want to die at the same time."

Aside from the bits of self-consciousness, I I loved the aura of it all. I can't quite explain it, but there's a great sense of pride and enthusiasm for what's going on down here.

As for the rest of today. I slept in and have been working on sifting through a stack of plays to see if there's ANYTHING I can glean monologues from. I re-read Our Lady of 121st Street. I think I'll make tomorrow a Shakespeare day (snatching up Othello and Taming of the Shrew monologues especially).

Otherwise I just sit in this apartment, staying indoors and not spending any money. It's my calm before the storm.

I've been in Houston for 22 hours...

I'm in Houston.

That was the Sisyphean rock that I have been tossing about for the past two weeks. Now that I've managed to get that rock up the mountain, a giant Zeus-ish figure pointing back at the bottom and says, "now go get the other five and bring them here."

I'm not sure how much stock I can put in how I'm feeling right now. But I'm a bit of a wreck. Here's why:

1. I'm not moved into my apartment yet. I have no idea how the status of getting fully 100% approved is working. I traveled to the complex today and handed off paperwork. I should know more tomorrow (which is the mantra of the year, it seems like). I won't even begin to explain the situation on this blog. It gives me anxiety.

2. I traveled around the UH campus today. It's big. It's a state institution. I juggled parking meters and had to take care of paperwork to three different buildings, only to come back to the place I'm crashing (THANK GOODNESS FOR LAUREL AND SHANNON!) to find more paperwork in my email. I took care of that summarily. I'm quite proud of myself for that.

3. Driving around Houston is going to take getting used to. The streets are in abominable shape. There are bumps, gorges, and cracks that just astound me. I thought Minneapolis roads were bad. They're not. I don't feel like I can quite discuss traffic yet. It hasn't been too crazy. The other thing is that it's pretty claustrophobic. Gone are the large parking lots. So far (and I haven't done MUCH driving around), it's very compact and condensed.

4. I'm driving around the 4th largest city in the country in a Minivan. I'm not totally familiar with either so...there you go.

There's a lot more to do. But I cannot cope with anything or hope to feel comfortable until I can set up my bedroom. And I just hope, hope, hope, hope that can happen this weekend (I'm even hoping for tomorrow, but that's supremely wishful thinking).

So...I'm in a foul mood. I know this is likely to be fleeting. I guess next to getting divorced and having kids moving is probably one of the most stressful things in the world. I knew it would be, but it's kind of hitting me in this soppy humid sludge and I can't do a whole lot about it all right now.

I will say that the theatre building at Houston (the lobby is all I've seen, essentially) is cool. They've got big photos of past productions, and it reminded me of the Guthrie. I love perusing production photos.

But I've done what I can for today. I think I'm just going to use the rest of my time to work on monologues (after a nap) and read. That's about all I can do. I have no money to spend, and I just don't feel like exploring right now. I hope the shock and awe wears away sooner.

Sooner is gooder.