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.

Watch This

Shakespeare with many celebrity voices:

George Bush, Morgan Freeman, Jimmy Stewart, Ricky Gervais, Woody Allen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, Garrison Keillor--the list goes on and on. You just gotta watch it.

Audiobook Shortlist

I'd like to listen to an audiobook on my trip to Houston; it's going to be 20 hours I think.

I'm looking for suggestions for what to listen to and how to acquire said book/mp3 files for a reasonable price (because these things aren't cheap).

Other things to consider:

• I enjoy contemporary literary fiction that's a bit on the zany side (a good example would be something like Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story).
• I'd prefer NOT to get an audiobook in place of a physical copy that I already own.(No, I'm not going to list everything I own but haven't read yet).
• I'd also like to avoid anything extremely cerebral or epic (so let's hold off on the Dostoyevsky, George R.R. Martin, or Pillars of the Earth, which is 40+ hours long!)

Here's a short list (in no particular order):

1. In the Woods by Tana French (confession: I do own this, but I can make exceptions because this is my blog and I make the rules)
2. The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter
3. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
4. An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin
5. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
6. Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut (narrated by Stanley Tucci--but it's only 5 hours long)
7. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño (um... at 27 hours, this would lean very close to the epic side, but this author has been on my To Read in the Distant Future list)

And please, if you think any of these titles or others DON'T lend themselves to audiobook, let me know (whether from experience or reading them. I have to believe that there are some books that simply MUST be read--The World According To Garp, for example)

I also want to jump on The Hunger Games bandwagon, but everyone I talk to says I can race through it in a few days. I think I want to read them instead. I can't quite pinpoint why. At the same time, I have severe concerns that reading for pleasure is on an unofficial grad school moratorium. Maybe it can be something I save for Christmas break??

I mean, the audiobook isn't a dealbreaker for me. I've got lots of music and podcasts to rifle through, but it'd be fun to listen to a book, methinks. I mean, there's not much else going on for this drive, which will be a trek across the following states:

• Nebraska
• Kansas
• Oklahoma
• Texas

Oooh. Does anyone know of kind of road-trip-type novels? (akin to On the Road, which I've already read)