Lewis & Clark Moodle

Kayla and I met on Friday, November 16th in the Troom to rehearse our scene. We combed through our script and marked more beats that we initially missed and different moods that need to be translated into actions. For example, after Doug reveals that he spoke to Kayleen's father we decided that there should be a noticeable three seconds of silence before Kayleen says her next line. Also, we discussed compromises in the scene's stage directions that wouldn't disrupt our performance of the scene. Instead of Doug literally kissing Kayleen on the mouth, Doug will passionately kiss Kayleen's hand (for the sake of the actor's comfort).

Gabe and I were both out of town for Thanksgiving this week, but we FaceTimed to discuss and practice our scene. We are working on getting to know our characters better and figure out what exactly their goals are in the scene. We're still working on blocking where our characters will be at all times during the scene, but we've mostly figured out our set and we're making a lot of progress with our lines.

This week Johnny and I met on Wednesday for rehearsal. Our rehearsal consisted of a two  entire run through of the scene to try and get an idea for how the blocking should feel and how much movement we need to make people feel engaged. In between the two run throughs we rehearsed the third of the scene in more detail, trying to find the exact movements we wanted, and the space that is needed in between characters.

One thing we are still trying to figure out is how we can best set up the stage in order that the dialogue can have very natural movement connected with it. We don’t want to sit at a table the entire scene, but we also don’t want to walk around the apartment in a way that makes it seem like we are searching for something to do. It has to mirror real life.

Me and Sam met up, to like, to go through our lines or whatever and we were surprised at how like everything was just like so emotionally exhausting you know? Clearly, Sam and I need to like reach some sort of closure because he just can't decide if he wants to like get to know me or if he just wants to go for some other internet low flying trapeze artist bitch. Until next time, Rose!

We rehearsed our final scene on Sunday in the black box. The first aspect of our rehearsal was figuring out our set and what props we might want to include. Judging from our script we decided that we didn’t need to many material items within the scene. This is because in the beginning of the play Dennis’s apartment was described as one that could be theoretically packed up within 30 minutes. However, there were essentials that were mentioned in the script like a couch, chair, a bed that was laid out on the floor and a kitchen aid. We also decided that we would be moving within a fairly small space, since it is supposed to be a studio in New York that doesn’t have enough space anyway. We ended up setting up our general set, which our scene will take place (picture below).           

Additionally, we read through all our lines and tried to figure out the spatial relationship we will maintain throughout certain spots in the scene due to the plethora of emotional states that our characters go through during this time.

We rehearsed our final scene on Sunday in the black box. The first aspect of our rehearsal was figuring out our set and what props we might want to include. Judging from our script we decided that we didn’t need to many material items within the scene. This is because in the beginning of the play Dennis’s apartment was described as one that could be theoretically packed up within 30 minutes. However, there were essentials that were mentioned in the script like a couch, chair, a bed that was laid out on the floor and a kitchen aid. We also decided that we would be moving within a fairly small space, since it is supposed to be a studio in New York that doesn’t have enough space anyway. We ended up setting up our general set, which our scene will take place (picture below).

Additionally, we read through all our lines and tried to figure out the spatial relationship we will maintain throughout certain spots in the scene due to the plethora of emotional states that our characters go through during this time.

Everything is going well here with Andrew and I.  We're going to do our best on Monday to play our first 2 minutes.  Wish us Luck!!

Who is your character?

Hal is a semi-hip, somewhat good looking, twenty-eight year old ex grad student who was doing his Ph.D. He plays the drums in a band composed of the math department. Their band is terrible and their hit song is called “i” (lower-case I, they stand there doing nothing for three minutes because lower-case I is an imaginary number). Hal also teaches and does his own personal Research. Robert who is Catherine’s father was Hal’s doctoral advisor. Robert passes away and leaves all his undiscovered work behind and since Hal was in Roberts “Infinite” program he is studying Roberts work.

Growing up in Hawaii I never really watched much movies besides the ones that were popular at the time and when I did watch movies none of them took place in Chicago. So, I knew nothing about my scene and what it would looked like. I decided to watch a youtube video to get a better visual (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxcsY93rjCw). After watching the video, I felt like the scene would take place outside on the porch and also in the house to use the phone. The vibe of the porch and the house should feel old and a little run down. Another limitation of growing up in Hawaii was the lack of exposure I had to mainland people. To really understand a character, I think it's best to know their background. But, because I've never been or met someone from Chicago this was a huge challenge for me. I overcame this challenge by watching movies/videos of people from Chicago. Last limitation I had being from Hawaii was the type of clothes we wear. In Hawaii all I wear is board shorts and a T-shirt, I had no clue what people in Chicago wear. To fix the problem, Ayisha and I did a little research by google imaging what people would look like at that time.

As we come to an end! I would like to give a huge shout out to this entire class. It has been a joy seeing yal twice a week and working with you! As Tuse and I wrapped up last weekend (I forgot to blog... shhh don’t tell Rebecca) I remember we took a moment right before we started our rehearsal of silence just appreciated our characters Sharon and Mary. We spent a lot of time in our last rehearsals really thinking about the different layers of our characters really making sure we added in the complexity, the drama and sass both Sharon and Mary bring to the table. This task was a bit difficult at first but the more we rehearsed the easier it became to image how just who Sharon and Mary are as people. Tuse and I really worked hard to embody these women and I hope that shows in a few hours. In our final rehearsal we felt like sitting at the picnic table was not creating that strong connection we were looking for so we changed it to sitting on the floor with the table behind us. In this progress we learned to truth our gut and do what feels right while thinking about what Mary and Sharon would do.