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.