Saturday, October 9, 2010

"Mahnchestah Is a Luvely Ci'y"


(Me and Zach who plays Alex my boyfriend)

I believe we're about a week and a half into production of 'On The Shore' now and we're farther then I have ever seen at this point. The entire script analyzed, completely blocked, and everyone off book.

This show has introduced to me something called 'Table Work'. Instead of jumping right into blocking after the read through, there is another step involved. Our little cast gathered around the stage and painstakingly, cut, read, and analyzed every scene individually. We found symbolism in everything from counting stars to brushing teeth to tuna. I gained so much insight into who my character was, why she does what she does... it made me wonder how I even could act before without knowing who I was. Needless to say, having this kind of knowledge toward the show is going to bring it up a whole new level. I not only learned about the play itself in this time, but how to think and analyze and put that knowledge into action. This is what acting is about.

After that the blocking began. The most painless and enjoyable blocking I've ever had to do. "Here's your area. Now do the scene." - This is how you know you're moving up in the world and being trusted for you abilities. This sets apart the "I can act when you tell me exactly how to" from the "I can act because I AM an actress". Seeing how people take that liberty and make it into their character is another great learning experience. Aside from that - being so engulfed in your character that YOU get to choose the blocking that THEY would do adds a lot of depth. The show is molding into a complete masterpiece already, and its only a little over a week in.

So now that everyone is off book we're moving into individual scene work. Everyone has been given call times individually and given about a half hour to work on their scene. This starts tomorrow.

My character has quite a few piercings. Lip, Eyebrow, and all over the ear. I've been wearing a lip piercing to get used to the mannerisms and how to talk with it in. I went on Thursday to get 2 piercings in my helix (cartilage). Its going to be a nice way to remember this show for the rest of my life!

The accent is also quite an interesting learning experience as well. I would like to say that I've just about mastered the Manchester dialect - my only problem is that I sound too pretty. I sound like a proper english lady and my character obviously is not. So, I have to work on... relaxing my jaw. Using my lips more then my teeth. I need to be a dirty english girl from Manchester damnit! Haha.

Still, learning so so so much every day. Believe it or not, auditions for Winter quarter are on the 16th already. Like a month before On The Shore even goes up! So I have to memorize my monologue for that too now. I'll be auditioning for Spring's Awakening (the drama) and Midsummer Nights Dream WHICH will be working with THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY. I won't get into the importance of that until after the whole audition process haha.

So basically. I'm in love.


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