Esther Rim’s Blog =D

Hurrah, we are not performing in front of a live audience. Sort of, although the date isn’t postponed we have ultimately decided that we will only perform one of the acts in front of a selected audience if we desire. Although that alleviates some pressure off, it’s kind of disappointing. I feel that we as seniors failed to grasp the concept and thus led to this decision. Which is true. We did not take it as seriously, well except for Sally. She definitely put forth her best effort. We also decided we would do Act II although Sally is not confident because that mean we only have essentially a week and half to memorize and block. Morgan wants to do it because of a certain monologue. I want to do it because frankly, its a lot shorter and there is  a lot more interesting scenes and insights into the characters since the dynamics have already been developed.

I’m still unsure how to start my IPP. Koller says I have to develop a theory and go with it. But a theory of acting? I’m not exactly sure if it has to pertain to my character or a general theory when it comes to acting.

This is definitely frustrating. I’m starting to doubt myself when it comes to theater. I don’t want to fail but sometimes my creative juices just run out. I guess i’ll really have to push myself these last couple weeks to make it through to the end.

I wasn’t able to attend theater class last week because we had no school monday tuesday and then I was gone for Tallahassee Thursday/Friday/Saturday.

This week we are officially no scripts on stage allowed at all. I managed to memorize my lines and just remembering the ques. Also adjusting to people who don’t say their lines completely or haven’t memorized their lines or jumped around on ques was quite difficult. I guess that is part of the experience is adjusting to other actors mistakes, including mine. And if needed saying additional lines to help reel in the actors while staying in character. Although I’m definitely nowhere near that skill level instead. Mr. Koller really emphasized not watching any performances on youtube or any characters. But he took that back and showed us a performance. Sort of. It was only the first couple lines in Act 1 and not all the characters were introduced. But the set was really what caught my attention. I mean obviously we can’t make a set that intricate but I saw that you can be flexible with the set and now follow the picture that came with the script. Also it gave good glimpses on Mrs. Frank who I thought as being strong headed and supporting but in the youtube clip she kind of just sat there like mush on the couch. Morgan basically pegged Anne the exact way it was portrayed in the clip. Morgan is very talented and she gets so immersed in her character. I’m envious, although being a drama queen doesn’t seem difficult, I have a tough time staying IN character consistently. I’m focusing on intonation on how to sound like a drama queen mother and not a drama queen teenager because that is what I sound like. I need to focus on my posture and how I say certain things as well as intonation to make others believe I am indeed a spoiled middle age woman, not a spoiled seventeen year old attempting to act like a woman but miserably failing.

Also, my mother dropped my laptop in the hottub. Of all stupidities in the world, she had to pick NOW to do such an act. One, its my macbook. Two, she took my external hardware with it because she was watching korean game shows I downloaded. Three, My itgs Ia, Ri, and PPP were all on that. Meaning I have to redo it. Luckily my handwrittern notes were spared! But I have to rewrite my socio-culture influences part. and my entire RI. Talk about being amassed in chaos, my head is spinning. This could quite possibly be the worst week turning into month of my life. And right when time is crunching. Is that the right idiom?

This week Sally assigned us to memorize all of Act 1. It seems simple enough I just need to remember my ques but if you think about the lines that fit with the situation in the scene, its not too difficult. I just got to practice saying it while in character instead of just sounding like it’s memorized. More natural…kind of like how they say to do our spanish orals.

Also Ben changed his mind from being Mr. Frank to being the set designer. He threw out some mediocre and basic ideas but, surprisingly it was followed by a theme. Not the strongest but it’s a start. He wants to raise a platform in the middle, the Van daans room, to highlight the different levels in the house. Also he wants to place the attic in a higher level in the back as to differentiate it from the rest of the annex. We decided we weren’t going to show the Franks room or peter’s room at all since there is minimal action in both. At least minimal action seen to the audience.

We only have a month and a half to accomplish this, actually even less. And one of the days of practice there was some tension with some negative words thrown around. I felt that keeping a pessimisstic attitude accomplishes nothing. I understand criticism, but just being negative isn’t the solution. I do agree we need to get things moving, We are moving at a snail’s pace right now in a small period of time. Time we don’t have. It’s a group effort essentially and not one single individual can be placed with all the blame. That’s part of IB I feel, when amassed in chaos, how do you regain control? I guess we’ll have to find out.

And oooh! finally have an RI question =)!!!! How would a traditional set design look for a performance of The Dance of the Water Fairies?

Yayayay…at least some good came out of this rather depressing week.

After receiving my PPP stimuli sheet I was thrown into confusion again. I’ll have to admit this year the stimuli interest me more, especially since it includes a music piece. So ultimately I decided to use “Mood Indigo” by Duke Ellington. I first decided to listen to the piece and write down what I felt while listening. Then I looked up lyrics to see words with the sound. Mood indigo is essentially a song about the “blues”, literally no pun intended. The lyrics describe the feeling of being left by a lover unceremoniously. I’m not exactly sure which direction I want to take this but at least I have a start. I have started the stimuli exploration and already have a general theme including clothing. i feel the the colors of the clothing will generally impact the character making it obvious to the audience. One main character will be covered in various shades of blue while other characters are covered in different shades according to color character reference. Then slowly the mood “blue” will spread and characters will start incorporating blue clothing into their ensembles. My ultimate ending is only one character is able to fight off this infectious spread of the blues by escaping the depressing situation/environment.

We also did a cold read of Anne Frank. I’m pretty nervous because this is a pretty big assignment and I’m not going to lie, our class isn’t really the best serious class. Sally is very reliable and will do her job diligently. Speaking for myself as an actor…I’ll do my best but I know my acting skills are mediocre at best. Also it seems the rest of the class isn’t taking this as seriously and I feel this will generally bite us in the butt. The script isn’t difficult. It’s just how much effort each student will put into developing the character.

So now we’re definitely in crunch mode.

For our IPP, our class has decided to do it on The Diary of Anne Frank. I have decided to pursue the project through being one of the actors. Our senior class is small and therefore we each have a different role in the production of this play. Sally is the director, Toni is lighting and sound, Lauren is costume, and me and Ben are actors. We held auditions for the juniors as well as me and ben as to which parts we would be assigned. Through watching the different skills each junior had to offer along with the known skill of the actor we assigned parts. There were some disputes here and there in regards to which actor should play which part but we feel we assigned the parts fairly well. Morgan is our Anne, and she was a clear cut. Her personality also helps in the fact that she can bring the youthfulness to the character but can bury deep down to find the maturity of the voice from the diary. Schuyler is Peter, and we feel he would be best at bringing out the shy and awkwardness of Peter. Nicole is our Margot and I feel that she naturally has the older sister quality when she says her lines. It’s warming. I was chosen as Mrs. Van Daan while Ian was chosen to Mr. Van Daan. They said that I could either be Mrs. Franks or Mrs. Van Daan but I felt that Alex was better at being Mrs. Franks. Adrienne was a clear Miep as well as Ben who did an excellent job of portraying Mr. Frank, even though he didn’t want that part. He did really well in narrating the ending as well as pausing at the right times to get achieve the right dramatic effect of invoking sadness. The funny thing was he wasn’t really trying to get that part either.

Altogether, the auditions went fairly well. We now have the parts assigned and now we have to figure out blocking and practice making us sound natural with one another. It was interesting because casting auditions I felt like there had been some biases going into the auditions, but essentially it really broke down to how well the actors did during the audition when choosing a part that suits them. When choosing the actor, one has to look at how well the actor performed the assigned monologue and how that actor interprets their character, as well as knowing the skill level of that actor. It is through a combination of things that finalizes the ultimate choosing of actor to character.

Today in theater:

We sat around a table and assessed and interpret a painting. We were supposed to study and analyze every aspect of it, The Lady of Shalott. We were then supposed to write down what we felt and saw and what the painting was trying to tell us. Or how a play could be based off that specific painting. It was kind of a sad painting of a pretty lady dressed in an elegant dress sitting in a boat with a blanket, three candles, and holding onto a chain by the dock. I wrote down she could be trying to escape or waiting or looking for something. It’s very sad and it invokes a kind of sympathy for the girl. Why is she there? Why is she wearing such a elegant dress? Why are there three candles but only one of them is lit? Why is she holding onto the chain? Jelise had a good interpretation of the candles, she said it’s like a symbol for “three strikes and your out” where she’s on her last strike, hence the last candle that is still lit. Sameer talked about the structure of the boat reminds him of the Italian Gondolas and therefore thinks it’s sometime in that era. I felt like she was just looking or hoping for someone to come and rescue her. She seems clingy as she can’t let go of the chain. I also thought maybe someone tried to make her lost by throwing her on the boat while she was sleeping, hence the blanket. They said she was still by the dock so thats not possible. Oh well, I must stop watching action movies. We then read about how an artistic director looks through hundreds of art pieces, poems, or other pieces of art in regards to creating the set. Anything can inspire a set piece or a director into basing a play off that specific piece of art.

We then proceeded to the stage and played a variety of games. We walked around the stage with a purpose. We walked around a stage while maintaining eye contact with a partner. Ran into a lot of people. We then had to individually and secretly pick someone that would be our bomb and stay away from them. We then picked someone to be our shield. We did this many times, picking different bombs and shield. Interestingly, at one point there were two seperate groups one either side of the stage. Then there was a straight line. It was very funny at one point when the side of the stage I was on was completely behind our shield and away from the bomb but the people on the other side (who were our bombs apparently) were chasing each other and running away. Within that group, I think Ian was Ben’s shield but Ben was Ian’s bomb. Ian was trying to run away, Ben was trying to catch him and everyone else who picked either for something were running as well. We then played a game where we were with a partner and we had to mirror their moves. One would instigate one would follow. We then did it at different distances. Ben was able to manipulate Morgan into grabbing Ian’s butt, a fact she didn’t know until afterwards in which she ran away in embarrassment. Koller thought that was genius how Ben could incorporate his actions into affecting another person. We then got in a circle and had to mirror one person. Soon it became a chain reaction, what one person did, another person followed and then another and then so on. It was kind of cool because it was like an action repeated itself throughout the group, like a wave. Mirroring a person is difficult because you don’t know them well enough to be able to read their body language and know how to react right when they do it. You have to really concentrate to follow their actions closely. I tried to concentrate on facial expressions as well as body movements, to me when you mirror someone you’re trying to mirror every aspect of them, even things you don’t normally think about. Like when I was trying to follow Ashish, I tried to follow his breathing patterns, or at least what I thought they were through visual observation. When he smiled I smiled, and when his nose flared, I tried to flare my nose. It took a lot of concentration, but as an actor, when you’re trying to become one with the character I feel like it’s the same aspect, when I act out an character, I think I will try to envision them in the mirror in front of me and then try to act them out to people while I’m observing that character’s little quirks. In order to bring a character to life, you must first envision the character alive as well. A little schizo but I feel it’ll help more visually represent that character.

A dramaturg is someone is responsible for the research and development in theater. His/Her most important duty is when the play actually goes into production. He’s also responsible for the contracts for the actors, going over the manuscripts…etc etc. One that I know is Mr. Koller, our theater teacher. Every year him and Riis, but I think it’s mostly Koller, research different plays and musical and find the right one to perform based on the talent and skill level of our school performers. For instance last year for Grease, Koller and Riis picked that musical through first level auditions. They had people come in and sing some songs (not really an audition) just to assess the talent level of our school and then picked Grease to match it. This year He picked Sweeney Todd. He researched the time period and looked for the right scripts. Even within the scripts, there are alternate “word choices or lines” for the school version, and he decided which one’s he would keep with the original text and when he wanted the actors to say the alternate lines. He was also the musical director but he did a lot to involving the production of the play. Riis did too. Although he mostly built sets and yelled at people in regards to acting.

We had a very productive class today. After discussing about our IPP for a bit, which we are doing it on the Diary of Anne Frank, Koller had a bunch of theater exercises for us to stretch our imaginations and essentially release our inner essence of acting…if we have any that is. The first game was to imagine a fly flying around. Then we had to do it in pairs. and then triples. At one point we all had to move and walk at the same time doing all the motions simultaneously. That did not go well. Then we had to act like we were just built and learning how to use our limbs. I failed at this terrible. It didn’t help I wasn’t exactly wearing a good shirt for these exercises either. Ian did a comical job. He rolled around in different directions. Then we had to walk leading with different parts of our body. This was humorous because even though we were all leading with the same part, it still looked and felt different. Although I lead with my nose…I didn’t lean over as far as my other classmates did. When we led with our stomachs, I had a different reaction. I felt like a hobo. other’s felt slobbish. It’s interesting how just changing our part of our daily actions can completely change ourselves. I guess posture is important. When I was leading with my head, I felt like a child again. I had a tragic experience learning how to walk with an abnormally large head for my age. I still do have that same abnormally large head but no one can notice it unless they take a picture with me. I liked the last game in which partners molded each other to their ideas of a certain emotion, sad, angry, joy. Adrienne was my partner. She did a decent job but I didn’t think she was expressive enough. My final one for depression was my best job. I had her sitting on the floor with legs in an awkward position and her arms open as if she’s given up. I had her head down and shoulders slouched. I felt like when I saw the body, it would invoke pathos because it was that pathetically depressing. It kind of bordered suicidal. I was proud of myself. Morgan and Oleg did a very good job. They molded each other using every aspect of the body. Face, eyebrows, fingers, and toes even. It shows the various levels of creativity and interpretation in our class but I enjoyed the activity. I enjoyed molding someone else into the emotion and image I felt went along with it. I wonder if artists use these same methods when drawing strong emotions? How do they get the facial features just right? I found it hard when Adrienne tried to move my eyebrows to a certain position but because I was unfamiliar with that position of my eyebrows, I couldn’t keep that visage when Adrienne let go of my face. I hope we do more of these games throughout the year. I feel like they do help me expand my knowledge on theater and how it relates to the every part of the body and the dedication it takes to set your mind on it, no matter how goofy it looks. Because acting like an earthworm who just grew a pair of arms makes me feel goofy.

I probably should have done this post first…

This week our school performed Sweeney Todd and it was a splendid success. The vocals and acting were quite impressive, especially Sydney’s Scodras. Her voice was beautiful throughout the whole performance and almost flawless. I have no idea how she can hit the high notes so well. Truly jealous. But that’s beside the point. I worked in the soundbooth and you’d be surprised how many problems we can run into. Yes its true, actors must act and that’s what the audience sees and is captivated by, but without sound or light crew working things smoothly, things can go very wrong. For instance, Tyler’s mike kept going fuzzy and midway through the way we had to figure out a way to get his mike replaced. I had to literally rush behind backstage, assist in Ben’s helping into getting Tyler’s attention while he was on stage without distracting the performance, and in a limited time rewire a new mike through his costume in time for his next appearance. It was a lot of work running to and fro before, during, and after the show. Replacing mikes within the intermission times and making sure everyone’s mike is properly functioning. Lights are also important because light cues set the mood. Having a blue light during a red light portion, you can just tell the feeling is off. During a murderous mood in the scene, the red light added to that ambiance. It’s a huge group effort during a performance and one can only hope nothing to bad goes wrong. We managed to pull it off with minimal number of huge implications or problems and the show was a success. It does feel like a big weight is heaved off my shoulders now, or at least the shoulders of all that participated because, in the end the musical turned out great.

Working on the set was also important. Walking on that set, actors have to feel confident that its put together confidently. More than once I saw an actor almost face plant over a part of the set. Imagine what could’ve happened if the face plant actually happened. It disrupts the mood of the play and interrupts the audiences train of thought while watching the performance. Therefore its important to know each piece of the set from bottom to top. Not only is it embarrassing to trip but it does indeed distract the audience from truly believing the play and the characters rather than watching their daughter trip on stage.

We are officially undergoing our Research Investigation! I’m extremely glad its due after winter break since I was basically bombarded with so many assignments these past few weeks.

Currently I have no clue where I am going with my Research Investigation. I did so some research and initially I was interested in Greek Theater, but my passion fizzled quite quickly. Looking through some of the theater genres however, I came across three genres and plays I feel like I would be able to follow through quite well.

I either want to do musical theater on something like “The Fantasticks”, Comedy – “Pygmalion” or American Contemporary Theater – Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet.

I feel like I’m more swayed towards David Mamet since I initally wanted to research him last year, on Oleanna. It was funny because initially I was researching theater of the absurd when I came across David in the article. It said that there are strong traces of absurdist theater in the relatively realistic playwright David Mamet’s play “Glengarry Glen Ross”. In the television production, this essentially shot Alec Baldwin into stardom when he played the main role. It’s interesting how essentially all genres of theater have influenced another genre of theater in some role. Especially absurdism inspiring realism. That in itself is an oxymoron. Yet, Glengarry Glen Ross is a good example of realistic play with absurdist traces. David Mamet, by himself is easy to research since he is so renowned but I’m still going to keep my options open. I just hope I can find a good RI question to answer because essentially thats the hardest and most critical step to all of this.

Edit: Just looked at the email Koller sent us. Now I’m kind of intrigued about the Vietnamese Water Puppets and Balinese Dance. While researching through other genres both those topics had come up but I could barely find any information while I was on the sites i was browsing through. But seeing as that is a legit topic I can focus my RI on, I will have to do more research before I make a final decision.