Lewis & Clark Moodle

Sierra & Mattie Rehearsal Blog #1

• We started our rehearsal by talking about the set, costumes, and props. We still have a lot to work out, but we have a start! Below are some pictures of what we had in mind for the scene…

  • 2 chairs (rocking chairs, maybe?)

  • Small porch

  • Railing on at least one side

  • Table

  • No flowers or super fancy decorations

  • Cozy, homey, familiar, well used

  • We’re excited to look at what the costume shop and the furniture storage place have that will help us bring our ideas to life!

• We ran through the scene 3 times, trying out choices, and trying to acknowledge our actor impulses.

• We found out where 2 minutes into the scene was, for Friday’s class.

• The place we rehearsed (Holmes 5th floor lounge) was kind of a nice place to practice because there’s a wall of windows, and it was a beautiful sunny day. Maybe next time we might open some of the windows to get that brisk air feeling too. 

• However, the downside to this rehearsal space is that it might not be a good place to practice projecting our voices and then yelling. Perhaps next time we can use the Black Box and remember the the view of the residence hall lounge.

• It was a productive rehearsal. We got some things figured out, and the scene felt good!

• We plan on meeting either this weekend or Monday, before Thanksgiving break.

Today we rehearsed and finally memorized the first two minutes of our script. We memorized the first page and after a few times we got it. After that, we moved to the second page - still including the first. It was a nice way of solidifying our knowledge of the script.  It worked well! Only took about 30 minutes. Now we have to work on our stage directions, etc. 

Woohoo!

We are struggling with adding movement to our text. Doug is in a hospital bed which limits his options to mostly hand movements. However, we are figuring out small movements for each beat change. For Kayleen, I am working on making appropriate changes in my voice that goes with each beat change. I am trying to stay realistic to my character, while being very specific with my choices. 

(PROOF SCENE 2: Iris as Claire and Johanna as Catherine) Rehearsal has been fun so far! We are at the initial stages of blocking and neither of us are close to memorized thus far but already the nuances in the dynamic between our two characters are coming to life.  Claire's objective in the scene is to have assurance that her sister is OK. She wants this because she's a control freak and also because she genuinely cares about Catherine and these contrasting motivations create an inner turmoil in my character that I am having a fun time feeling out. Catherine has several objectives in this interaction. She wants to get through Claire's interrogation primarily. Beyond being heard by Claire, Catherine wants to be taken seriously by her older sister. She wants Claire to think of her as a competent equal. This brings me to Wednesday's class on character status. In rehearsing on Wednesday, Johanna and I determined that though Claire may have higher universal/external status (she's successful, established, ect. while Catherine is at a ... transitional life moment of sorts), in the context of this interaction it is Claire who is asking for a need to be met. This is exemplified perfectly in the line where Catherine not so subtly puts Claire down and patronizes Claire in explaining, "No, Claire, don't be stupid, there are over a hundred notebooks." I think one question we need to answer is whether or not Catherine's character will chose to meet Claire's need by the end of the scene. 

Over the course of this past week, my scene partner, Keshav, and I have been focussing on the underlying circumstances within our chosen scene. For instance, we’ve discussed the implications of the status dynamic between Callie and Peter. Assuming that the play takes place during the late 90s (when it was written), we factored in the idea that Peter views Callie’s relationship for Sara as “illegitimate” due to the fact that they’re both women. Peter uses this notion to assume dominance over Callie--asserting that, despite her feelings towards Sara, she has no influence in the decision to take Sara back home. Their relationship at the start of the scene seems fairly cordial between the two, with them engaging in some awkward conversation. Eventually, however, Peter gradually begins to assert his dominance over Callie--desperately trying to understand why Sara risked her life for her. Callie is rendered helpless, seeing as she’s unable to publicly claim her love for Sara without repercussions. With this in mind, we felt as though this contributed to the overall dynamic of the scene and helped us be able to more easily understand the hostility Peter feels towards Callie. 

In terms of actually rehearsing, I think we would benefit greatly from more meetings. However, so far, I think we're making good progress with determining the motivations behind our actions within our scene. I think we also need to work more on incorporating a sustained physical action into our scene as well that makes sense for our characters. 

I think that our rehearsal process is going really well, although we still have a lot to work on and improve. We both felt that our showing of the first two minutes went relatively well, and we both understand the notes we were given and are working on them I think that the two of us work well together, and we get a lot done both in terms of character work and scene planning whenever we meet up. We are both willing to put effort into making our scene interesting and authentic, and I really appreciate that this motivation is coming from both of us. Although our scene is short, it has a lot of complexities and there is a lot for us to work on. For much of the scene, the characters are arguing instead of saying what they really mean, which presents a challenge for us in terms of line delivery and physical action. It is difficult but very interesting to work on trying to convey such complex emotions through a frustrating conversation about clothes and an awards ceremony. I look forward to continuing work on this scene, and I am impressed at our progress so far. 

Over the course of this past week, my scene partner, Keshav, and I have been focussing on the underlying circumstances within our chosen scene. For instance, we’ve discussed the implications of the status dynamic between Callie and Peter. Assuming that the play takes place during the late 90s (when it was written), we factored in the idea that Peter views Callie’s relationship for Sara as “illegitimate” due to the fact that they’re both women. Peter uses this notion to assume dominance over Callie--asserting that, despite her feelings towards Sara, she has no influence in the decision to take Sara back home. Their relationship at the start of the scene seems fairly cordial between the two, with them engaging in some awkward conversation. Eventually, however, Peter gradually begins to assert his dominance over Callie--desperately trying to understand why Sara risked her life for her. Callie is rendered helpless, seeing as she’s unable to publicly claim her love for Sara without repercussions. With this in mind, we felt as though this contributed to the overall dynamic of the scene and helped us be able to more easily understand the hostility Peter feels towards Callie. 

In terms of actually rehearsing, I think we would benefit greatly from more meetings. However, so far, I think we're making good progress with determining the motivations behind our actions within our scene.

Rehearsal Blog #1, Stop Kiss (1998)

In my first stages of rehearsing for the scene between Peter and Callie in the hospital waiting room, I have focused a lot on Peter’s identity. He is not a character who I’d say I have a lot in common with. I imagine him as traditional, masculine, prideful, and opinionated. None of these words have an especially flattering connotation. Consequently, my first obstacle is finding myself within Peter’s character. 

The component of Peter’s identity that I have decided to emphasize in my performance is his longing for control. Throughout this scene, Peter seems defeated, helpless, and angry. Towards the end, these emotions pour out of him when he verbally attacks Callie. Through this overflow of emotions and passion, Peter is expressing his desire to be in control of Sara’s life. He believes he knows what is best for her and that as long as they are together, she will be safe and happy. At the core of all of this is Peter’s desire to protect Sara. I often feel I know what is best for people and overstep in providing guidance. It is this overlap between Peter’s character and myself that I will emphasize in my performance. 

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Julie and I have made good progress in deciding how to set up the scene along with our body language throughout the scene. We, especially me, are still working on building confidence in memorizing our lines so the performance can be more fluid. 

P.s.

Sorry I don’t have any creative visuals to display the progress we have made. I’ll be sure to be more innovative in my next blog.

Over this past week, Brenden and I have worked a lot on developing our characters and actions in our scene.   I think that the beat analysis really helped us to do this and I feel that we both have a better grasp as to what our characters are feeling and doing throughout the scene.  I think something we want to work on collectively is the way that we react to one another as well.  I think of this especially in terms of what beat that Brenden does that causes me to react and shift/what causes me to say my next line and vice versa.  I feel that once we do our first 2 minutes of the scene, we'll get a lot of useful feedback as to how we can improve our performance.