Juggling All the Plates

One Big Juggling Act ...

First off ...

• MND rehearsals: Good work on showing up on time, being mentally ready for rehearsal, and offering lots of ideas for your character & stage movement. Everyone needs to work on getting their lines down COLD and analyzing your lines for subtext & objectives.
  
• Class: The Give & Take game is helping me pinpoint which character-building skills we need to work on. Our 3rd quarter improv activities aren't necessarily supposed to be funny -- although we all enjoy a great laugh. I might ask you to improv a serious situation sometime.
• Who Am I? Game: I will ask around for more suggestions of "characters" we can use to bestow upon our drama class friends (like Bettina's giant). Otherwise, expect this game to run quietly in the background ... you'll show up at school one day and hear about the next "victim." Don't make a habit of asking me WHO or WHEN ... I don't wanna have to skirt the truth or change plans at the last minute. ;) (What if YOU were next on the list?!) But DO give me ideas ...
  

OK, now to the point of my post

Juggling Act
Have you noticed how hard it is to juggle an emotional state, a physical characteristic, a personality quirk, and an objective while playing Give & Take? It's almost like trying to keep 4 plates spinning or juggling apples. On stage, there's the added pressure of "performing." Those stomach butterflies eat away at your concentration.

Take heart: Just like real juggling, your acting skills will improve with practice. Expect me to ask for specific ("complex") characters and emotions in our drama games. I won't forget that we're all learning together. And we'll all be getting lots of practice in class.

If you want to get a bigger kick out of life, think of a "Give & Take" character and whip him/her out at school during class or break... at least you'll have lots of people around to react to! ;)

Some suggestions for pulling it all together onstage:

• Be specific when you create a character. If you don't know who you're playing, neither will the audience!
  

Don't be just an "old person." Be "a very nearsighted, 90 year old man with arthritis in his hip and a hearing aid who is angry because he doesn't like this kind of orange juice."

Make sure you give yourself a motive/reason for your emotional state -- why are you angry? Because you don't like the OJ.
What does that tell us about your personality? Well, you don't respond well to not getting what you want ... (for example)

• Turn adjectives into verbs.
  

You can't act an adjective -- until you turn it into an ACTION that the audience can see.

"Nearsighted" suggests a number of actions, like squinting or peering intently through thick glasses or standing very close to people or holding papers close to your face.
"Old," of course, suggests an entire range of characteristics, but a 90 year old is REALLY old, so exaggerate "old person" actions -- feebleness, stooping, uneasy walk, etc.
The details about arthritis and the hearing aid suggest more specific ACTIONS -- you can't hear well, you walk with a cane and limp, you don't move fast, you don't catch everything that's said -- and probably hear things wrong.
"Anger" can be expressed in lots of different ways, so let your imagination work on this -- but remember -- you're old, your movement is limited, you're probably cranky in general, you might be holding a cane (a weapon!!) ;) ... but you also need that cane to keep from falling over.

• Build your library of "people types" by observation.

Learn the difference between someone who is 50 and someone who's 65 and someone who's 90.... there's as much physical difference between 50 and 65 as there is between you (at 15ish) and me (at 30ish). 60 year olds aren't usually feeble or stooped, especially in today's world of excellent nutrition and health care.

Other examples
How do the 7th graders act / move / react differently than the teachers act / move/ react?

What physical differences (like posture or walk) do you see between your two parents?

How much does gender affect someone's physical expression of emotion or personality? A "hyper" girl doesn't act the same as a "hyper" boy ... a "dumb blond" is usually a girl, while a "surfer dude or "dumb jock" is a boy ... talkative men still talk less than talkative women (... usually).



Question for you to Comment On...

Post a character description (emotional state, personality type, and physical quirk/characteristic). Be specific.

For each part (emotion, personaliy, physical), tell me what actions are suggested.

I'll go first so you see what I want you to do.



Have a very merry day off....
I'll see the mechanicals again on Tuesday ... have you done any outside-of-rehearsal work yet?

**Performance & Preparation grades this quarter come mostly from MND work ... expect to be graded on your off-book status at the end of this week.**


cheerio!
=)