Lewis & Clark Moodle

The hardest thing about rehearsing with a partner is finding time to rehearse with a partner. 

That aside, I think Sydni and I have been doing good work in what rehearsals we are able to do together. We've used the game in which you switch where you are in relation to your partner depending on the beat, and I think that has helped us drop in more effectively. I think it also helps us differentiate beats, which is a problem we've been having with this scene since the beginning. 

Things that we can still improve on is not rehearsing the scene in just one way. I worry that we do too much of the "just run through it over and over" technique, but the activities we've gone over in class really help. This week, I think the best thing we can do is try to really listen and respond -- as well as we know our lines now, there is still a moment of remembering that slows us down and fills the scene with unnecessary pauses. 

We're looking forward to our second showing! At least we have the costumes and props together.

Don’t laugh don’t laugh don’t

Laugh don’t laugh don’t laugh don’t laugh

Don’t laugh don’t you dare

Talk slower because

You are talking too fast and

No one understands

Listen and respond

respond to what she says to

To you and react

Change delivery

Of my lines and my movements

For a real response

Red couch disappears

From the black box theatre where

The hell did it go

Roll up roll down my

Spine to relax and feel calm

To steady my breath

Dropping in is like

Taking a test while high you

Focus later on

But once you drop in

The world disappears you are

Alone with Sara

Kaia pinches me

And I have to respond but

Ouch is hard to do

Alec is sick and

I don’t want to kiss her cause

I too will get sick

Fever so recent

Lips on lips is bad idea

Dress rehearsal though

Haikus seem a weird

Expression of rehearsals

But it’s just more art

Must slow down the lines

No matter how slow I go

It is still too fast

This pull-out couch is

Not a little bit comfy

The floor is so hard

Time races by when

We are on stage did the scene

Just take twenty mins

Up to this week when we had our rehearsal, we really tried to work blocking and listening and responding. We tried to fill in awkward gaps with movement to make it less awkward. We also think that our rehearsal times may have hindered our practice because we only had super early times in the black box that were available. With this in mind, we may not have been fully awake, and therefore we may not have fully dropped in.

This week we had our rehearsal, and we felt as though we again struggled with dropping in right away within our scene. We feel as though our monologues need to be slowed down, and voice articulation needs to be amplified. With this in mind, our voices need to be more dynamic, and the pace of our scene needs to be more regulated in rehearsal.

For next week, we will do the exercises of dramatically slowing down our scene, and we want to practice the scene over the top so we can practice getting out of our shells. We think the more ridiculous we practice it, the easier it will be for us to be more animated and dynamic on stage.

This week was super busy for both of us so it has mostly involved squeezing in rehearsal time whenever we could. While we have very similar schedules, I don’t think either of us anticipated how hard it would be to block out time for rehearsing.

We had a tournament this weekend so we tried to be a bit creative with our rehearsals. On the trip to Puyallup, I drove and Kaia and I ran lines (much to the confusion of our other passengers). We also performed our scene for our team in the hotel room after our games were over for the day on Saturday. We initially saw it as a fun and goofy activity to do with our teammates, more of something to keep us entertained rather than actual rehearsal. But I actually found it to be very useful. It forced me to get into and stay in character in a more difficult circumstance than in class or closed rehearsals. It also felt surprisingly high stakes. I really wanted to impress them so it forced me to really get in the zone, so to speak.

This week, I’m really focusing on the motivation behind my lines. I feel like I know the lines well enough now to really go beyond just the words and focus on the intention of what I’m saying.

Ellen and I have been trying to warm up differently and creatively instead of just jumping into the scene. Doing the roll down the back imagining bones, and the partner warm up where we kind of massage one another. And just asking each other what we need. I think this really has really helped get into the zone, to be able to drop in right at the beginning. We also have been practicing saying each others lines back to one another before we start, to work on the pinch ouch, as well as saying our lines different distances apart, and moving closer or farther depending on the feelings. I think doing all of this has helped immensely when we go to practice the scene. It also really makes me feel in tune with Ellen. I’m still definitely working on dropping in at the beginning. Its weird because I am so similar to Sara, so I feel like at the beginning of the scene I’m in this flux state between me and Sara… if that makes sense? I think what I need to do is channel Sara all the way, and let the parts of myself that identify with Sara really be a part of Sara. Its almost like forgetting yourself to be the character?

While we were rehearsing yesterday, I had the idea to try to go through the scene, but slightly different: we were going to actively try to freak each other out while playing the scene. The reasoning behind this was to try to give a bigger, more extreme "pinch" to make the "pinch-ouch" a more natural response. Also, since Ben and Kenny have such a competitive/combative relationship, this seemed like a good way to get our characters to get under each other's skin.

The result was very interesting, and made a lot of our dialogue a lot more explosive in the moments where we're arguing, and more tense in the quieter moments. One thing that really surprised me was how much going into the scene with that mindset of trying to catch Dan/Kenny off-guard changed the dynamic. Some of my lines that I had previously interpreted as a defense or a justification (ex. when I'm trying to convince Kenny to pay me for financial advice) now seemed like an attack, giving a clear, yet different reason for Dan to shut down the argument. It created a really cool, more exciting energy that I hope to keep in our scene.

One thing I'd like to work on still is our blocking; a lot of the time, it feels like we're either making a lot of it up as we go through the scene or sticking too rigidly to the blocking we decide on; is anyone else running into this issue? I'd like to try to find something somewhere in the middle, but I'm not really sure how.

After the feedback from class on Tuesday, Tiffany and I worked on the maintaining the energy in both our scenes. We started our rehearsal with the distance exercise we did in class last week. Being the furthest apart and yelling our lines at each other was super effective because it let us both release our voices when running through the scene. The note for both of us going into the final scene was to 'share our voices with the audience' and I think this exercise definitely let us do that.  

What we got from looking at videos of our play before was that Detroit was a comedy, so we had been struggling with how to play that in our previous rehearsals. Knowing now that we shouldn't be looking at it like a comedy or like we have to try to be funny helped us move forward with making Mary and Sharon's relationship more genuine.

I've been working on the Magic/If of my character (Sharon) to figure out how each beat changes through her monologue (especially because she's vulnerable and a little crazy on top of being a loosely recovering drug addict). I spoke to a friend about the complexity of her character and they suggested I watch a show called Shameless, whose main character has similar given circumstances as Sharon (they're both poor and broke and trying to do better, and failing). Seeing the way this actor played these given circumstances helped me understand Sharon's vulnerability better. I'm excited to see how this works in our future rehearsals     

I am an avid backpacker, skier, rafter, and hiker. There is always one trend which confuses me. Where are the minorities? Outdoorfoundation.org reports that "Consistent with previous years, minorities lagged behind in outdoor participation. In general, Caucasians had the highest participation rates and African Americans had the lowest" (Outdoor Participation Award 3). What is the reason behind this disparity? It seems as though most minorities choose to spend their time doing other activities rather than be outside. One explanation for this may be the cost of outdoor activities such as skiing and backpacking. More expensive outdoor sports might be hard to afford or justify spending money on for economically lower class citizens. We have learned in our readings that many of the poorer citizens in America tend to be minorities, or their families previous generations were part of the lower class. It is not that minorities don't want to participate in outdoor activities, it's that lower economic class citizens cannot afford it, and many minorities are of a lower class. If the current minorities are of a lower class, then it is granted that they are going to be less likely to spend money on luxury items such as skis or backpacks. Minorities have historically been oppressed, allowing for no culture or history of leisure time or ability to spend exorbitant amounts of money on outdoor equipment. There is also no history or tradition in their families or friends of going camping, backpacking, skiing, or hiking. This is an issue. It can be difficult to see the value in outdoor sports if there is no outside influence to inspire people. It is very important that everyone has access to the outdoors in order to become excited about it and inspired to vote in a way that reflects this inspiration. So how do we close this gap in outdoor participation? I believe that this will be solved through programs and camps that start a history and culture of minorities engaging with nature. 

There is a reason why people of all classes and economic standings should have quick and easy access to the outdoors. Being outside is proven to be the best way to connect with nature and to care for it. A connection with nature is crucial when accounting for our current environmental situation. In order for the world to change it's ways there needs to be an internal drive within each person. This wont happen if people are not able to see and interact with what they are saving. Outdoor sports is one example of how people can get this inspiration. However as I just discussed, there is not enough money in the lower class to participate in this industry. In order to do that we need to have some way of raising money to help the lower class engage with nature. This could be done by increasing taxes to create more government programs aimed towards getting lower class citizens outside, or by finding new, cheaper ways for people to get in touch with nature. This could be through public gardens, parks, or opening more land owned by the government to the public for people to get the connection they need to become inspired to protect the areas they love.

Virginia and I met today to solidify blocking for the entire scene and to work on moment to moment.

We used the exercise that we did on Tuesday, where we lay with our heads next to each other, to run through all of our lines once first.  Our characters are best friends and are really connected in the scene, so it was important that we established a feeling of closeness and being two young friends hanging out.  Our scene takes place after the girls have already spent an entire day together, so we wanted to get into that headspace of being with a person we spend a lot of time with and are comfortable around.  This helped us be grounded and helped with listening later on.

We met in Howard because the BB was in use, but we were still able to set up the furniture so that we could block as if we were in the BB.  We took Rebecca's advice not to move unless we had a reason and to use the space between us to show the characters' relationship.  In the intimate moments of our scene we sit next to each other, when we argue, we are farther apart and standing up.  Our blocking gets more natural the more we pay attention to the character's intention.  

We practiced the kiss at the end of the scene for the first time today.  We have a fairly easy kiss because it is supposed to be awkward, so it's easier to play than a passionate one.  That moment is really dramatic, so we're playing with pauses and body language to make it as dramatic and realistic as possible.  We are also working on our objectives during the scene because it's all leading up to the kiss.  Virginia is trying to be more flirty so that her objective is clear and I am trying to work on establishing the power dynamic so that it seems like I am trying to impress Virginia because she is more confident than I am.  The power dynamics are really helping us with moment to moment and figuring out why we say certain things.

I am struggling with keeping my voice consistent throughout the scene.  I play a character who is much younger than I am, and I'm trying to figure out how to convey that in my voice without overacting.  I've tried approaching it by really dropping in to the scene and my character and if I really feel like my character, I'll naturally say my lines like I'm a 16 year old.  But I find that even when I'm really dropped in, my voice changes throughout the scene from normal to younger.  Is anyone else experiencing something similar, and if so do you have any advice?

I'm so excited to show you all tomorrow and hear your feedback!

Rehearsal this week has been especially challenging. We are attempting to put everything together, remembering all our lines, figuring out our blocking of the scene and trying to have a reason to say each line. Balancing all of these with the full script can get a little overwhelming at times as well as finding time to rehearse. 

We are both super excited to perform tomorrow and get some great feedback on what we can do to improve our scene. I look forward to seeing what everyone else percieves of my choices I have chosen for Claire as well as being confident with my higher status. Also EVERYONE GETS TO HEAR ME YELL!!! Can't wait for tomorrow y'all!