Summer Productivity

This past week, I wrote a 12-page paper on Twitter's integration in the Theatre, I graded 50 critiques on The Cripple of Inishmaan, and I have cooked 3 meals for myself (as in, chopped things and heated them over a stove). I've slept in. I've taken a couple walks and went for a run. I still feel incredibly lazy. A sliver of me says I'm entitled to that. The other part says, "but you start rehearsals for Twelfth Night and Richard III soon!"

Today I:

• Did an hour yoga workout with a video I downloaded from Yoga Today. It was tough, but not ridiculous. What amazed me was how grounded I felt afterwards. This is definitely something I have to implement regularly.
• Read Richard III - paying particular attention to when new information was delivered that make either Richard or the others "start." I was made marks any time Hastings was mentioned. But I didn't want to get so self-involved. I aim to know as much as I can about the entire play. This is a biggie though. But today's reading made the play less of a beast than I have always thought it was. It's still a beast, but I think I can see the silhouette of the whole best, rather than just the horns.
• I meandered my way to Starbucks with the commitment of listening to the entire Decemberists' Hazards of Love album before I arrived. It was hot outside. My nose got sunburned, but it was a great trip. I can't imagine listening to this album any other way (confession: I hadn't done that before). Here's to having more of these walks or meditative listening journeys this summer.
• I did some cooking! (Pan-fried curried salmon with a cucumber, lemon, serrano yogurt sauce--all on top of naan bread)
• I cleaned up my dishes afterward!
• I started reading Mastering Shakespeare by Scott Kaiser. In seven lessons, Kaiser teaches some students how to use technique they already have and implement it in Shakespeare. The eerie thing is how much Kaiser uses the very same language that we have been taught in grad school. When I looked at the opening "credits," I found out Kaiser implements the acting technique of Robert Hobbs, which is what we're using at UH. I feel like I haven't left school at all. It's equally a comfort and a bit unsettling (but mostly comforting).
• I've also been going over my Twelfth Night scripts and Richard III scripts looking up strange phrases, words, or references. I want to be offbook before rehearsals start, but I also want to have a sense of all the language and circumstances on top of that (which will aid in memorization anyway).

I’ve got big plans for this summer

IN SHAKESPEARE:

·         Prep for Sir Andrew in Twelfth Night (then play the role)

·         Prep for Hastings in Richard III (and play the role)

·         Read The Elizabethan World Picture

·         Read The Rediscovery of Style

·         Re-Read The Training of the American Actor

·         Read Instant Shakespeare

·         Read Mastering Shakespeare

·         Watch/Listen/Read as much Shakespeare as I can

·         The MIGHTY 5/BIG 10:

o   5 Audition Pairs of Classic monologues (around 3 ½ minutes)

o   8 must be Shakespeare, 2 must be from Moliere or Restoration Comedies (or something similar)

o   Saturday, September 1 the second years will unleash our offerings for faculty the first years and anyone else who would like to witness the “fun”

FALL PRODUCTION WORK:

·         Read/Wrap My Head Around Serious Money (the fall show that goes up at the end of September). This play is a doozy: rhyming couplets, scatological, rapping, the crash of the London Stock market in the 80s.

·         Prep/refresh knowledge of Mother Courage

·         Work up monologues for fall auditions (August 25).

PHYSICAL:

·         Get stronger and more grounded

·         Get a regimen going. I’m thinking about a combo of yoga, body weight training, and running.

·         Tai Chi

·         Rolfing appointments once I’m done with my Arkansas Shakes contract…?

LISTENING/CONCENTRATION/FOCUS/CONNECTION

·         Listen through an entire major work (a symphony or an album). No breaks. Listen from start to finish. I have aspirations to take this to the next level and do this on a weekly basis, interspersing major symphonic works with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Miles Davis, etc.

·         Cold Reading dense language in RP

·         Read a few novels

TRACKING PROGRESS/LEARNING

·         We’re to keep up with Jack over the course of the summer through 3 emails , answering “What Do I Know Now That I Didn’t Know Before?”

·         I’m toying with crafting weekly updates to send to my classmates and faculty. I may copy them on this blog. My Voice Professor is doing something similarly with her notes as vocal coach for As You Like It at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and assistant vocal coach for Henry V (isn’t that freaking awesome!?).

RESEARCH/WANDERLUST…

·         I’m seriously considering an Amtrack or Greyhound pass to travel to a handful of theatres this summer. I’ve got “artistic cousins” and classmates performing all over the country, and it would be great to see them and visit other theatre companies. This is all fund-permitting, but I think something can happen. And shoot, I haven’t really been on a vacation since…I don’t know when.

Spring Break

1. This term has been difficult. My hunch is that I've entered a new level of this training that is a long plateau. It's not quite level. It slopes upwards a few degrees. Any improvement is a micro notch (I'm mixing metaphors). My sense is this is a difficult part of the training. Yet, our failures in Acting class seem to be victories for our professor/talent coach (and not in this sadistic/punishing way--it's more: "YES! YOU'RE LEARNING!" kind of thing).

2. Spring break is here. We have an entire week off. I've allowed myself to indulge, but I'm already starting to feel guilty. Mad Men and Battlestar Galactica call, but so does my to do list, which I can now do on my own terms.

3. The amount of grading on my plate is ridiculous. I have 50 discussion board responses to grade, 50 hand-written quizzes on Fences, and 50 critiques on The Crucible. The first two batches need to be completed by Friday. The critiques have a little more wiggle room. The upside is my students this semester are much more intelligent.

4. The action/objective scoring in Acting has been immensely difficult for me. I'm in two scenes. It's the same scene with a different partner, and the work we're doing is vastly different. On Friday, I began the first scene and had an intense (but short) bout of stage panic. I couldn't recall where the portrait of Ezra Mannon was (it's all imagined and placed differently, depending on the scene). This bullet point probably means nothing to many of you readers, but I thought it was noteworthy.

5. We've had a couple prospective students visit this past week. It's helped me zoom out. It's easy for me to become engrossed and myopic through this "slog" of the training. Seeing their drive and enthusiasm has been refreshing. I'm transported back to a year ago,  tracking all that has happened since auditions, receiving the offer, working on the reading list, figuring out moving, completing the first term, etc. A LOT has happened. The skills I've got are palpable, and working on Cripple of Inishmaan has been great to see what is sticking (plus I'm honing a Western Irish dialect). I'm a different actor. And we're working our way toward being second years, which is a different kind of training/responsibility (from what I can tell).

6. I wish I had summer work lined up. It's hard not to be discouraged about everything when this lack of work is a looming cloud. I have a couple other auditions lined up in the coming weeks. I need to get some monologues on YouTube to send to a few theatres.

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.

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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