Acting in a Winter Wonderland

One semester down, three to go! Just a few more days and I’m home for a month! Things are really busy these last couple weeks of school – lots of projects and performances on the rise. As I look back on the semester, there seems to be a running theme in so many of my classes. Everything goes back to staying in the moment and being open physically and emotionally. I met with the head of the department for an evaluation yesterday and was telling him how I really feel like I have opened up much more in the past few months than I ever have. He said that there’s been great feedback from my teachers and that they’ve noticed definite changes in my approach – such a great relief to hear that. I know I have a long way to go but I’m started to really see what I need to work on and what I need to do in order to overcome some of my habits. I’m excited to keep evolving and changing in the work as the year progresses… but for now, I’m excited for Christmas and to eat something other than PB&J for lunch!

Theatre Outreach
As I mentioned in the previous blog, I’m working at a school in the Bronx – CS 211 – with two classes – 8th grade and special education. I love it. It’s nice to be working with kids again, just to have a different balance to the week. When I first arrived, the students had just begun to plan out shorts plays they would present at the end of the semester. My 8th grade group had started with the idea of doing a play about immigration, the premise being that four friends try to immigrate to America; one makes it in while the rest are deported. I was amazed that that was just the beginning of their ideas. While the piece was still a work in progress (which is actually the goal of our work), they came a long way in shaping their ideas and improvising the scenes.

The special ed students were terrific. They did a play about a family whose house burns down, they become homeless and another family reaches out to them. It was really touching as homelessness is actually a reality for a couple kids in the class. I love working with them. All of the students in both classes have great energy and ideas. It was great to see the final “performances” and see how excited they were in the end. It really makes me want to consider theatre outreach as part of my career. I’m planning to take the actual course next year so we’ll see how it continues.

And... scene.

My work in comedy, both in class and in Lampoon (the troupe I’m in), has been a blast. We’ve done a bunch of shows, mostly performing long form improv (in which the characters I ended up playing ranged from a male penguin protecting an egg to the maid from Clue to a lunchlady from the Midwest to Jimmy Stewart (and a pretty horrible impersonation at that!) We also tried out some sketches as we’re gearing up for second semester. Next semester we have some big things happening. We’ll continue our usual late night Sunday night shows at 11 – those are more informal (trying out sketches, working on new improv structures, etc.). Additionally we have three shows in Downstage (the student run production company based in the black box theatre) and one in Mainstage. The big show in Mainstage (which basically means it’s really funded by the department) will be very similar to Saturday Night Live with a band and sketches throughout. I can’t wait. I may never make it to SNL (though at the rate they’re going, SNL may not last long enough for me to get there!), but at least I’ll be able to try out the style of it.

In my comedy class, we just worked on an exercise called “Advancing” which was so great to do and watch. Basically we were expected to choose a mundane task and explore the idea of attempting to accomplish that task without ever being able to do so (in other words, things are constantly preventing you from succeeding). We were to set the scene to music, with the idea of the music being your sort of scene partner – you’d base your scene, actions, emotions, character, etc. on the changes and qualities in the music. When watching it, I was reminded of the Charlie Chaplin and other old comedy routines. It was actually very similar to what you might see in a clown routine. It was really neat. I chose to put in contacts as my task and I set it to the song “Mad Russian’s Christmas” by Transyberian Orchestra. It was so much harder than I anticipated – actually taking hours to plan out and rehearse. I wish I could show you all the performances – it was really wild.

Cabaret Style

In Singing Workshop I’ve been working on a variety of pieces, including “Kiss You Off” by the Scissor Sisters and “Cry to Me” by Solomon Burke. The two songs are pretty different but I was really happy with how they went. In fact, while “Cry to Me” is more of a blues song, my teacher suggested I approach it with a sort of Janis Joplin sound and it turned out to be great. This week we did a “Secret Santa” for songs where we picked a name of someone else in the class and had to secretly choose a song for them to sing. I was given “Mouth” (a song that came out in the 90s by Merril Bainbridge – sort of a one-hit wonder... though not much of a wonder). I’m not a huge fan of the song but the accompanist and I played around with it a made it sort of a rock piece so it was a little more interesting.

Toy Theatre

On Wednesday I just presented my final puppetry project. We were working on toy theatre (see link below) and creating pieces based on short excerpts from a Shakespeare play of our choice. I’m used the prologue to Henry V (“O for a muse of fire…”).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_theaterdia.org/wiki/Toy_theater . It turned out pretty funny – I decided to play on words rather than stick to the true meaning of the text. A guy from class photographed everyone’s pieces so I’ll post them when he sends them out.

An Intuitive & Impulsive Exploration of Text

The class I have with Ed Sherin ended the semester with a presentation of our work from the semester. It was a compilation of over forty monologues and scenes, seamlessly performed one after another without interruption. It was amazing to see how far the actors have come with their pieces. I was really proud of our work and love the technique we’ve been using throughout the term. When we return, our class will be rehearsing for a full scale production of The Trojan Women to be performed in May. This is going to be a huge undertaking, and knowing Ed’s work in the business, I don’t think this will be just some class project. And because no one volunteered to design the set… I’m going to be in charge – good god. I’ll keep you posted.

In my end of semester conference with Ed, he asked about my goals: what I'm planning to do when I leave, why I came to Sarah Lawrence in the first place. It was actually a great conversation. He said that for an actor without an agent, New York is like choosing a slow painful death - a lovely image for any actor.. but a realistic one. There are just sooo many actors all trying for the same roles in this 7 person play or that commercial or what not. And, in addition to the thousands of actors showing up to the "cattle call" auditions, there are hundreds more actors with agents who already have a better show but who still have tough odds. I know this. I've always known it. And I told him that quite frankly I don't want to spend my life waiting tables in New York (though I love this city) and going to auditions day after day after day never knowing when my next steady job will be. I think I'm too practical minded for that. He recommended instead that I research reputable professional regional theatres around the east coast, send out interest letters, resumes, and headshots telling them about myself, what my plans are, my acting work, my teaching experience, my interest in outreach programs, etc. It was really nice to speak with him about this. Just hearing his confidence in my talent and ability made me think I have more of a chance than I often think I do. I don't think in that one conversation i realized my future professional plans but it was nice to really consider making a career that includes acting in a city other than the big apple.

Extra-Curricular...

Flash Gordon

In the radio drama ensemble, we’ve put on two shows so far: Suspense and an episode from Flash Gordon. It’s really different working on these pieces as they are totally character/voice driven. The audiences seem to really enjoy it. This past episode we changed up our structure and decided to set up the actors in front of the audience. It’s strange to actually be in front of them but not acting full out but it’s really great to hear all the voices and sound effects.

Hamlet

The play is cast and the scripts are cut. I got cast as the role of Claudius! I’m really excited. If you’re not familiar with the play, he’s basically the villain. It’s going to be a hugely challenging role but I think I’m up to it. We’re planning to rehearse the play until April and then do a two week run, performing both shows (male and female casts) back and forth with each cast performing about 4 times. At the end of the run, we’re thinking about having a sort of marathon performance when we started mixing up the casts, switching actors midway through the play, etc. It’s no quite figured out yet but we’re getting ideas.

A Staged Reading

Heels in the Sand, the reading I was involved in, went well. One of the faculty members played the part of my mother in the show and it was so much fun to work with her. It’s so different to do a staged reading as it’s all about the vocal and character choices but we had fun. We had a large audience, with many teachers and department members there, which is always good. It was nice to be a part of the creative process of this play. The playwright seemed to get a lot of feedback and ideas, which he will consider as he revises it. Sometimes plays done in these readings are later put into full production through the department. We’ll see…

Time to go home! Thanks for still reading (if you made it this far).

I hope you all have a great holiday. Hope to see you in the new year!

Much love,

Chris

A Full Plate for Thanksgiving

I thank the pilgrims…
I’m so glad Thanksgiving is finally here. While things are still going well, I’m in need of some time away. My classes are great and I’m getting involved in a lot of various performance opportunities. My living situation is up in the air; I’m considering looking for a new place to live but nothing is definite. Other than that, things are ok. Here’s what’s been happening…

This radio broadcast is presented to you by…
Latest endeavor: I auditioned for a radio drama ensemble called “For Your Listening Pleasure”. It’s a troupe at school directed by an undergraduate directing student. There are seven actors involved, and we will be working to produce a series of five radio drama episodes throughout the year. The first one is called “Suspense” – it’s a series that ran on the radio from 1942 to 1962, presenting nearly 900 episodes. We had our first read through last night. In this episode I’m playing the lead part of Helen Brant, originally read for by Anne Baxter. It’s so much fun to do. Because you are reading, there’s no memorization and very little rehearsal needed. The way the performance works is we, the actors, will be at microphones behind the audience, while the audience faces in the direction of the sound effects person. The entire focus is on the line delivery, character voice, and timing of the piece. It’s a really neat experience and I’m looking forward to working on it. Rachel Sacks, our director, seems to have a good feel for the process and has put together a great ensemble of actors. She will cast each episode as we go along, with the attempt to spread the parts out evenly throughout the year. We present our first show on November 27th.

A bit of history on Radio Drama: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_drama


About the first episode: http://www.old-time.com/otrlogs2/suspensehx.html

Heels in the Sand
In addition to the radio series, I was cast in a staged reading of a full length play written by one of the graduate playwriting students. I’m playing the role of Jade in the play Heels in the Sand – I don’t yet know the whole play but from what I’ve learned it seems to be about a mother and daughter (I’m the daughter) traveling to Israel for what begins as a business trip for the daughter and ends up being an exploration of family history/relationships and revisiting their Jewish heritage. The cast consists of 1 faculty member, 2 grad students, and 2 undergrads, directed by a graduate directing student. While we haven’t had our first read through yet, I’m eager to start working on it. Like the radio series, the rehearsal process is very different from that of a typical production. Again, we have the scripts in hand and need not memorize lines. In some staged readings the actors are limited to stay in one spot; in others, sparse movement and stage direction is added for certain effect. Sometimes simple costume and prop pieces are added as well. The staged reading give the playwright a chance to hear and see how his/her play performs with actors rather than just on the page. Often playwrights and directors of the reading will work closely to effectively communicate the playwright’s vision and sometimes edit/revise the script as needed. The cast and production team are great so I think the performance will turn out well. We perform December 17th.

Theatre Outreach

When accepting the staged reading role, I spoke with one of the theatre teachers who helps to coordinate casting of the staged readings throughout the year. This teacher, Alan Lang, is also in charge of the Theatre Outreach program at SLC. While Theatre Outreach is a class (which I plan to take next year), he asked me if I would be interested in working with them on a part time basis. They need a replacement for a student who had to drop her role in the program. I’ll be filling in for her by co-teaching two theatre classes at a middle school in the Bronx. The other student-teacher and I will be teaching an 8th grade class and a special education class. I’m only needed once a week, Wednesday mornings for a couple hours, but I’m excited to be able to do it. Obviously teaching is something I’ve always enjoyed and it will be great to try doing it in a new environment with a whole different genre of students (namely boys.. yikes!). I start working with them after Thanksgiving break and will continue on for the remainder of the year.
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Classes:

As the semester begins to wind down, we’re looking ahead to spring. I’m picking up a new course that is only offered in the second semester. Here’s the description:

Acting Shakespeare – “Students will study advanced acting techniques in approaching Shakespeare’s scripts, with special attention on script analysis as a way of unlocking methods for acting the text. In addition, students will rehearse and perform monologues and scenes from Hamlet to be directed by students in the Directing Shakespeare class.”

However, in order to pick up this new class, I need to drop Alexander Technique. I’m disappointed because I really love the class and feel like I’m getting a lot out of it. But I think I’ll take it again next year and continue for the full year.

My other classes are going well. In my puppetry class we spent some time working with marionettes and are now moving on to Bunraku, a form of traditional Japanese puppet theatre. Both forms are very different and really challenging to master. With marionettes, think the scene from The Sound of Music, puppeteers are manipulating the puppets by an airplane rod with strings attached to various limbs and joints of the puppet. Typically one puppeteer controls one or two puppets at once. In Bunraku, no strings are used as the puppet is controlled by three puppeteers. The main puppeteer holds the puppets upright by grasping the spine like rod that runs down the back of the puppet. This person also typically controls the left arm of the puppet. A second puppeteer controls the right arm, and possibly the waist if needed for a particular movement, and the third puppeteer manipulates the puppet’s feet. The picture here is taken from a performance my teacher created called “Hiroshima Maiden”. You can get an idea of how the performers control the puppet. We watched a few clips of the performance on video in class and it was really amazing and beautiful to watch. Operating these puppets (both Bunraku and marionettes) requires an immense amount of focus, choreography, and attention to detail. When doing it effectively, the audience will barely notice the puppeteer as it can be mesmerizing to watch the puppet come to life. And it’s actually a bit of a workout – my shoulders were killing me by the end of class just holding these things up for 10-20 minutes at a time!

One of the classes I’m taking is Linklater voice training. It’s a speech/breath class that has been really helpful to me in my acting, especially when applying it to other classes. Elena, our teacher, has great ways of helping us release tension and find more openness in our face and body in order to allow more freedom in our voices. It’s so great to work with her, and I’m definitely seeing the benefits of the exercises.

In my song class I’ve been working on some new pieces – one really fun one in particular called “I’m Breaking Down” from the play March of the Falsettos. This past week I brought in Elvis’ “Burning Love” as I was preparing to sing it at my dad’s retirement party. I never thought I’d be singing “Hunk a hunk of burnin’ love” in that class but it went over really well – I think they enjoyed watching me humiliate myself more than anything but oh well.

My Comedy Workshop class is really coming along. We’ve been working on the long form improvisation style, most specifically the Harold. We’re preparing for our Harold Night on December 10th, when we perform for an audience along with Lampoon (the comedy troupe I’m in). I’m glad I took the class because while I have a lot of experience in improv, Christine (my teacher) really focuses on mastering the basic ideas that drive all improv – something that is always crucial to good scenes and shows. It’s also nice to approach the work from a different standpoint as her experiences performing are much different than the experiences of me and my fellow Baltimore Improv Group improvisers. I love working with Christine and have been thankful to do so more in Lampoon rehearsals as well. We had our first Lampoon show last night for a late night Sunday crowd. It went really well and we may begin gearing our Sunday night shows towards creating a sort of continuous improvised soap opera with recurring characters and situations. We had the audience give suggestions for one last night and we gave it a go to try out a template for a potential episode. It was fun. I don’t know yet how it will be set up but I like the idea and I think the audiences will respond well to it.

Alright, my time has ended. Off to class. Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Halloween

Here's the latest...

Shakespeare Got Naked…

We held auditions for our Shakespeare ensemble and had a very successful turnout. We saw 32 actresses and found plenty of talent to fill the ten slots we had available. I am really excited to move forward on this project. We have a strong ensemble and I think each girl will bring a different flavor to the group. More to come.

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Every year a student run theatre company called Downstage produces a 24-hour play festival. The festival (this year entitled “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”) is comprised of 14 actors, 6 directors, and 6 writers chosen at random from a sign up posted the week before. And as my name was one of those drawn from the hat, I found myself sitting in one of the black bow theatres in the performing arts center on Friday evening (10/26) at 7:00 waiting to see who I would be working with. For each group, the producer of the festival chooses (again at random) the names of 1 director, 1 writer, and 2-3 actors for each of the six groups. Once assigned our teams, all were released for the night while the writers stayed up all night writing the scripts. Each show had the same set of guidelines/restrictions set in place: we all would use the same bare set (three wooden boxes of various shapes for furniture and small immovable black flats with red trim), limited lighting options, and two props (a plastic groucho mask with the big nose and furry eyebrows and moustache and a mardi gras mask); the play had to take place on a Halloween night; the script had to include the line from “The Raven” – “It thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before”; and costumes could only come from the closets of the actors and were only allowed to be black, red, or white. Scripts were due to the producers at 6 am on Saturday morning. Actors and directors were to meet at 7 am to read the scripts and begin work. So on Saturday morning I dug through my closet for any black, white, or red article of clothing and trudged up to the theatre. While the coffee was a nice comfort, the script I was handed was not. I was worried and wondered what our director would be able to do with it. While it is a short amount of time to come up with a good play, I was hoping for something a bit more substantial. Nevertheless, we moved to our assigned rehearsal space and began to work. As the day progressed we learned lines, played around with staging the piece, chose costumes, and prepared for the performance. All the plays were to be performed at two shows that night – one at 7 pm and one at 9 pm. When the dress rehearsal came around, I was nervous. I began to regret my first time on stage at Sarah Lawrence would be acting in this show. We stumbled through the play but got through it. None of us felt good about it and didn’t know how we’d pull it together for the actual performances. To make matters worse, the director of the theatre program was in the audience of the first show and I really didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of him. I don’t know what changed – maybe it was just the energy of the audience or the performance nerves, but somehow the three of us really pulled through. We gave two great shows and felt good about both. Though I never really felt it was a great play, I was happy with how we approached it and had fun with it on stage. I loved the experience overall – I got to work with new people, and to see all the shows come together as they did in such a short amount of time was really impressive.

Tell me a joke.

Anyone have any ideas for a good comedy sketch? Lampoon, the comedy troupe I’m in, works both on comedic improv and sketch comedy. I’ve only been to a few rehearsals but it seems like when working on sketches we throw out ideas that are amusing, interesting, or whatever, and then play around with the ideas doing scenes based on them. They can be based on political issues, celebrity stories, current events, etc. (basically the same sort of idea as you might see on SNL but we don’t do a show every week). Let me know if you have ideas!

Overall the rehearsals are going well. At times it feels a little disorganized but I think we’re still getting into the swing of things. It sounds like we have been given a space to perform (the most difficult task on campus as there are always performances and events going on) on Sunday nights (late night – a 11pm to 12:30 am). We’ll be doing shows there either every week or every other week – improv or sketch and improv. Should be interesting to see how it comes together.

GradWorks

Every Friday the theatre grad students come together for a seminar program. Sometimes we have guest speakers, discussions on required readings, and other such meetings. One thing we’ve been working on is called GradWorks – a production that will be put on solely by the grad students in February. After much deliberation, we finally settled on our plans for the show. We’ll be putting together four pieces – 2 published one-act plays, The Lover by Harold Pinter and Red Cross by Sam Shepard, 1 to-be-written short piece called Alice Blue Gown, and an ensemble piece to be created by the group. We’ll all be playing a variety of roles in the production, from directing, acting, and writing, to playing music, designing costumes, and advertising for the show. I am really excited about it. I’ll be working with the group to create the ensemble piece and I’ll also be playing the lead female role in The Lover (Synopsis at http://dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=641 ). I also offered to help with design and perhaps singing as a way of transitioning between pieces. I begin rehearsals this week. We’ll be putting up the show February 8th and 9th.

So…

Things are good. I’m happy with my classes and really have enjoyed working with my teachers so far. I’m beginning to feel the drag of November – it’s always been a tiresome month of the school year but I think Thanksgiving will come rather quickly. Eli and my friend Jason came up this weekend so it was nice to have a break from the routine. They didn’t get in till late on Friday so I made them dinner (a Cuban feast ala Rachel Ray) and went out in Bronxville. Saturday we got lunch in town and then went into the city for the night. Got dinner at a great Moroccan restaurant and met up with some college friends for a birthday party at a bar in the East Village. It’s times like this weekend when I really wish I lived in the city. But I guess if I wasn’t in Bronxville, we wouldn’t have been able to have front row seats to a fight on the train back home that night – lucky for us. Well, it’s about time I did some work this morning. Hope you all are doing well!

A lot has happened in the past few weeks. I was sad to learn that I did not get cast in either of the two shows I auditioned for but I’m learning how things work and I think it is for the best. I wasn’t really passionate about either of the shows and I already have a lot going on and the plate is filling up. It’s about time – I was starting to watch movies without falling asleep in the first 20 minutes… definitely an indication that I have too much time on my hands. What is nice, however, is that the extra time has allowed me to explore the city, see some shows, work out more, and even take a dance class – I’m taking musical theatre dance… I know you wish you were a fly in the wall of that room. This weekend I got to head downtown … I ended up spending the day in Central Park and exploring the neighborhoods uptown. There was a great dog festival of some kind in the park that was hilarious to watch. I don’t think you can ever get enough of seeing dogs with shoes on all four paws or tiny hooded sweatshirts. Somehow I don’t think Leuven would fit in with that crowd. That night I saw a comedy show in the east village which was pretty good (especially for $5!). On Sunday I became a member of the Westchester county art society. I had been asked to work an event at the school library – basically pouring drinks at an art gallery opening. It was great – I ended up meeting a lot of artists and chatting it up with the locals (I even gave out my digits – to an older woman who wanted me to work for her at her next gallery opening) … not a bad way to make some quick cash, drink wine, and get cultured all at the same time!

I’m funny! Who knew?
Despite my initial disappointment with general auditions, I did, however, audition for the comedy troupe on campus, Lampoon, and was offered a spot in the troupe! This was really exciting for me – while I’ve done a lot of comedic improve with BIG (Baltimore Improv Group http://www.bigimprov.org/ ), I’ve never done sketch comedy (think SNL). Lampoon seems to be a combination of both. We actually had to submit a sketch for the audition, and since I have no experience in that, I was a little nervous about my first attempt at the writing gig. But I guess it worked – let’s all hope to god that my comedy writing improves or this could make for a very long year. Anyway, I meet with the troupe tomorrow night for the first time – more to come!

Getting Naked with the Bard…
Additionally, I have joined forces with three of my fellow first year theatre grad students to create a brand new theatre company on campus. The company is called The Shakespeare Naked and will involve two troupes – one all-male and one all-female. The troupes will practice separately – spending the rest of the first semester working to build and strengthen their work as an ensemble and finally choosing one Shakespearean play for both troupes to rehearse. The second semester will be spent rehearsing the two separate productions, which will be presented to the community in April. We are both working on the same play for a few reasons – one to explore the differences in the single-gender interpretations (obviously cross-dressing is involved as they did back when these plays were first presented), and also to allow us to play as one full company – mixing the casts by either a performance in which the audience decides who plays which character or some other idea like that.

I’m really excited about this project. I believe it’s really a challenging endeavor and I think it will be a big success. Besides my improv group, I’ve never worked in an ensemble based setting – typically I do plays with casts that only work together with the sole purpose of creating a final product so there is little time to develop craft and build a true group dynamic. Moreover, Shakespeare has always been a bit intimidating to me. I don’t have a great amount of experience with it so I know this will push me to explore classical text. It feels like blasphemy to say this around a theatre crowd but for years I really didn’t even like Shakespeare. In the past few years I’ve begun to grow a stronger appreciation for it but it takes time to do so. It’s a shame because so many productions are done badly and are therefore a huge turn off to many popular audiences (which was the case for me). So, our goal (as the company’s title implies) is to strip down the text and really get into the essence of what has made Shakespeare to be referred to as the greatest playwright of all time. The show will be produced with minimal sets, costumes, and props – with direct focus on the acting and themes of the play. Alright – I’ll get off the Shakespeare soap box and move on. Anyway, that’s the big project lately.

-Academia-

Acting Up
Riiight… so besides the aforementioned goings on, I’m still taking classes. Overall, they’re going well. It’s definitely starting to pick up in pace. Currently I’m working on a number of scenes and monologues (and even poems) for a few of my classes – scenes from Othello, Agnes of God, Spike Heels, and Danny and the Deep Blue Sea; monologues from The Altruists, Hamlet, and Look Back in Anger; and poems – “She Walks in Beauty” and Shakespeare’s sonnet 130. I thought it would be tough to keep them all straight – memorizing at least, but I’m getting the hang of it. I think my favorite “assignment” as of yet was preparing and performing “Green Eggs & Ham” by Dr. Seuss (the teacher is trying to get us to play around with rhyme when we work on Shakespeare but since I read the book to my little brother at least 5 times a night for about a year when he was younger, this was like second-nature to me). I do so like that Sam-I-am!

Life is a Cabaret
I’m really loving my Singing Workshop class. We work on a new song every week – any song we want so long as it could possibly be performed in a sort of cabaret setting. So far I’ve sung “Jimmy” (Thoroughly Modern Millie the musical), “You Don’t Know Me” (Ray Charles), “Makin’ Whoopee”, “Bette Davis Eyes” (Kim Carnes), “Rita’s Tune” (Sweet Smell of Success the musical), and the next two are “Knock on Wood” (Eddie Floyd) and “Lost & Found” (City of Angels the musical). It’s a blast – it was a little nerve wracking at first because everyone in the class is very very talented but I’m beginning to loosen up and just have fun with it. If you have any requests, let me know :)

Shadowland
Ahhh puppetry class. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not the most skilled at arts and crafts. Ok, so it’s definitely more involved than tracing my hand and adding colored feathers to make a turkey – that I could do. I just don’t have an eye for shadow puppetry. I appreciate it as an art form – more so now that I realize how inept I am at it – but I think I need to be a little more patient when working with a utility knife (I don’t even think that’s what it’s called – box cutter maybe?) Anyway, I’m currently working on a mini-shadow puppet show with another girl in the class. It involved two characters murdered accidentally and the killer driving off into the sunset with a song from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack in the background. Yeah, definitely a disaster. However, I did have to do a research project and presentation on shadow puppetry styles in China, India, and Indonesia (which turned out to be an hour because my topic was so massive – I really do have a problem with curbing information). So, despite the many hours spent in the library and creating a 50 + page power point, I have learned to love it as an art. It’s really pretty cool and I’d like to one day see a live performance. Point of the story – if you’re ever in China, India, or Indonesia, and the tour guide tries to sell you on one of the many tourist attractions, I highly recommend the shadow puppet shows!

Alright, while I’d love to stay and chat, it’s time for some reading. Hope you all are well. Anyone up for a visit soon? Let me know!

To fill you in...

As September draws to a close, I figured what better way to spend a Saturday night than to create a blog - I know you envy my life already just in knowing how I spend my night off. So, I have been meaning to e-mail friends and family for a while now to fill everyone in on how the school year has begun. The last time I did anything like this was when I studied abroad and I'd write lengthy (to put it mildly) e-mails about my travels around Europe. So, after recalling how my brother Joe mocked my travel novels, rather than bombard your inbox with e-mails you probably don't want to/have time to read, I decided to create a blog for anyone who is interested in knowing what I'm doing and if it was worth it to invest two years and an exorbitant amount of money into earning my MFA. I hope you enjoy the light reading.

What I'm doing:

I'm at Sarah Lawrence College, a small liberal arts school in Bronxville, NY (just north of the city). I'm going for my Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre with an Acting concentration. There are about 18 theatre grad students total but about 130 undergrads who also take theatre classes. It's a two year program and, while I have very clear ideas about what I want to do with the degree, my hope is that throughout my time here I'll learn and discover new things that may completely reroute my career plans.

For now, if you ask me what my current goals are, I have three ideas:

1. To teach at the undergraduate level or to teach acting at a conservatory/arts-focused high school.
2. To serve as an educational director at a professional theatre. While there I'd like to create and run an after school theatre/acting program for inner-city and/or underprivileged children. As a lot of city schools don't have funding for the arts, I'd love to find a way to give kids that outlet.
3. To act on the professional level (without waiting tables all my life).

Now, with that said, if Saturday Night Live calls me asking to replace Tina Fey, you can assume the aforementioned goals go right out the window. :)

So, how to reach these goals? While my focus is acting, I can also take classes in other theatre disciplines (a major reason I liked Sarah Lawrence) - such as playwriting, directing, design, production, dance, etc. However, for my first year I've stuck to focusing mainly on performance based classes.

I'm taking 7 classes (on average theatre grads take 6 to 8 classes) and private voice lessons once a week. These are the course descriptions of the classes I'm enrolled in:

• Acting the Poetic Text: The emotional, vocal, and physical demands of acting in poetic plays are extreme. In order to rise to the challenge of performing in such works, the actor’s instrument must be capable of expressing poetry. The objectives of this course are to explore various techniques designed to tap and release the actor’s raw passion, to develop the physical stamina necessary to perform poetic text, and to work toward creating a performance vocabulary appropriate to the scale of poetic text. Particular attention will be paid to honing the skills necessary to speak complex language with clarity and precision. We will begin with the works of Shakespeare and move backward and forward in time, depending on the composition and the specific needs of the class. The course culminates in a performance project. This class meets twice a week.
• Singing Workshop: We will explore an actor’s performance with songs and various styles of popular music, music for theatre, cabaret, and original work emphasizing communication with the audience and material selection. Dynamics of vocal interpretation and style also will be examined. This course requires enrollment in a weekly voice lesson and an Alexander Technique course. Class members will be selected by audition during registration week. This class meets once a week.
• Comedy Workshop: This is an exploration of the individual’s comic voice and the classic structures of comedy. It begins with a focus on improvisation and ensemble. Theatre games, status play, storytelling, and the Harold Exercise develop the artist’s freedom and confidence. The second semester introduces the students to commedia dell’arte characterization, vaudeville comic and straight partnering, political satire, and parody. The workshop produces a Comedy Night at the end of the year. Each student performs five minutes of stand-up comedy in a club atmosphere. This class meets twice a week.
• Alexander Technique: The Alexander Technique is a neuromuscular system that re-educates and enables the student to identify and change poor and inefficient habits, which may be causing stress and fatigue. With gentle hands-on guidance and verbal instruction, the student learns to replace faulty habits with improved coordination by locating and releasing undue muscular tensions. This includes the ease of the breath and the effect of coordinated breathing on the voice. An invaluable technique that connects the actor to his or her resources for dramatic intent. This class meets once a week.
• Linklater Voice Training: Students will begin to open the channels of communication as physical and psychological tensions release. Using technical and imagistic exercises, students will open their connection to breath, develop resonance and range, increase sensitivity to their creative impulse, and strengthen their voice. There are two separate sections (and times) for this course, and each meets once a week
• An Intuitive and Impulsive Exploration of Text: A Useful Tool for Actors and Directors: This course strives to release the creativity of each student through intuitive and impulsive responses to text—primarily plays, film scripts, and poems—and to discover the practical uses of this approach to acting and directing in theatre and film. The participants will do exercises, scene work, and a year-end performance with a view toward increasing their ease, imagination, spontaneity, and power. Although physically demanding and largely visceral, the course work will provide an enlarged intellectual and conceptual understanding of acting and performance. This class meets once a week for five hours.
• Puppet Central: Through puppetry, this course will develop student’s skills as directors, writers, and performers and encourage the pleasures and rigors of creativity in a performing medium. Students will research and study a global range of puppet styles and forms—Western models like hand, rod, and string puppets, as well as Eastern practices like Indonesian shadow, Japanese Bunraku, among others. Contemporary construction methods and a variety of manipulation techniques will be explored. Students will build a short, original puppet piece from the ground up. They will design and construct the puppets, write the scripts (or scenarios), choreograph, rehearse, and publicly present short works in progress. This class meets for four consecutive hours, which includes a two-hour lab, once a week.

Now that you have the descriptions of the classes, here are my thoughts:

My professors are amazing. They all have incredible backgrounds and expertise. Many of them act/direct/write on a professional basis in the city as well so they're a great collective resource. My comedy teacher, Christine Ferrell, is my newest hero. She's a terrific teacher, is currently acting in a show off-Broadway. Her passions are improv, comedy, acting, and teaching - I want to be her someday. The teacher for the class with the really long name (Intuitive.. bla bla bla) is Ed Sherin. Ed has directed Broadway shows for decades and was the executive producer for Law and Order for ten years. His wife is Jane Alexander (which I had no idea and actually saw her with him last week!) I am excited to get to know all my professors - more to come on them. I do like all my classes. Comedy is my favorite, we're doing improv now and I enjoy working with all the students - very different skill levels but all very funny. Singing Workshop follows right behind (though it makes me nervous - the talent in that class is amazing.. i feel like I'm in an episode of American Idol every Thursday afternoon. The first day of class I realized that we had been expected to bring in a song. I told the teacher, Dave, that I hadn't brought music. He told me to use the audition song I prepared and had me go first to try it out. Thanks. So I sang the song "Jimmy" from Thoroughly Modern Millie. I felt ok about it until everyone after me rocked out some blues number. I learned quickly. Last week I did "You Don't Know Me" (a Ray Charles song) and my next one will be the 80s classic "Bette Davis Eyes" - look out Kim Carnes. Linklater and Alexander Technique are great. Both are very low key, relaxing classes that basically aim to give an actor more ease and comfort yet physical and vocal strength when performing. The poetic text class is challenging for me because we're dealing mostly with Shakespeare, Hamlet to be exact. And Shakespeare has never been my strength - well, I just don't have a lot of experience performing his works. And (don't laugh) but Puppet Central is definitely going to be the most challenging. It requires a huge amount of creativity and a sense for choreography and movement. Next time you see Kermit the Frog, think of me.

When not in class, I also work about ten hours a week at the Sports Center at the front desk. It's pretty easy and it gives me a chance to get work done.

I'm living in Bronxville in a two-floor apartment in a three-story house. It is a 10-minute walk to school and a 5-10 minute walk to town and the train station. The Metro-North Railroad is what I use to go into the city. It's about a 30 minute ride and trains usually leave twice an hour or so. The train is about $11 roundtrip so it's not bad. The town is very nice, almost remind you of The Stepford Wives for its extreme degree of perfection. Good restaurants, cute (but expensive) shops, a handful of bars, a movie theatre, etc. I live with two guys - one graduated from the grad writing program last year and works in the city and the other is in his second year of the writing program. However, I don't see them all that often because I'm on campus quite a bit.

So, how am I doing?

It's definitely been an adjustment. It feels like college all over again except not as carefree. I miss Eli and Leuven a lot, my friends and family, Baltimore, some of my students, having my own place, a steady paycheck. I don't miss dorm parenting, living in the suburbs, driving myself nuts with a 24/7 job, or faculty meetings. I love being so close to the city. I walk everywhere I've seen 2 Broadway shows already, enjoy not driving all the time. I'm anxious to see how the year progresses - work load, shows, classes, etc. I had auditions last week for the fall season of plays. I got called back for a show but will find out tomorrow if I made it. I am also auditioning for the comedy troupe on campus on Monday night. I'll keep you posted.

So, that's the long and short of it (more the long) for right now. Miss you all!!!