Lewis & Clark Moodle

I know you're saying "Blog entry one? Goodness, Izze, that's quite late." Isn't it? But for some strange reason, this entry that I wrote a while ago has not yet been uploaded too moodle, though I swear I had posted it, so I thought I'd do it now while I'm working on the final posts. Anyway, here we go. 

So far, I have had a lot of fun during rehearsal times. I’ve definitely noticed the scene change and shift through time. Before getting much into rehearsal, I tried to read through the entire script to gain a better understanding of my character, but since we’re only doing one scene from the show, I am constantly wondering how much of the character from the rest of the play I channel and how much I adapt it to fit the context of the single scene. I’m coming to realize that it’s better to focus a little on both, but mostly the single scene as it’s the one thing the audience will see - they don’t know the character from any other context. Even so, I feel like I’m having a lot of trouble getting grounded in the character and the scene. See, I know that if I can foster the ability to open myself up fully and completely to the possibility of the character and the scene, groundedness will come much easier and naturally. There’s also the very strong possibility that I’m overthinking it. Anyway, as of now, what I need to work on is my groundedness in the scene.

It’s been fun throughout our rehearsals to try new things in terms of blocking and movement and all - I have seen how our scene has changed over time. At this point, Emily and I agree that we are at a place in our scene that is ready for the wise words of Rebecca.

Yaay! (Falsely) Hungover Emily!

Yaaay!! Selfie with (falsely) hungover Emily!

Just went through our second full performance today. This time we had full costumes and everything, which really helped, and taking into account the previous feedback had helped our scene improve by "leaps and bounds".

The feedback from this time - directed mostly at me, I think, rather than Will - is, again, to allow myself to stop anticipating and live in the moment, which seems to be something I struggle with. To be honest, I'm... not entirely sure how to actually do that... Also, there's the thing about not letting audience reactions throw us off. Regardless, the scene itself is fairly polished by this point, so things are looking good. Just need to keep working at it. We're in the final stretch!

- Nicholas Brittain & Will Beck

During our rehearsal Thea and I decided that we needed to work on making our voices louder, finding the spots in the play where there is more tension, and realizing who our characters are. It was a little bit hard for us to focus because students kept coming in and out of the blackbox, which made us a little uncomfortable. We found out that they didn't realize we had rehearsal so they moved out, but it was odd because they kept opening the blackbox doors to see if we were still there. It was a little distracting, but we still managed to get some things done. For a while Thea and I just looked back at the script to see where we thought there were moments of tension and we brainstormed how our characters would feel in that moment. At the end of the rehearsal we decided to work on our voices. We shouted our lines to each other across the room and made sure that we were breathing. After that we still felt like we didn't know the spots in the play that had the most tension so we decided to do an exercise. We chose to just say our lines to each other while taking up the entire space. When I thought that my character wanted to be closer to hers then I would go towards her and when I felt that I wanted to get away I did that too. I feel like that exercise helped the most because we learned how our own characters felt and how the other felt too.

We have finally come to the end! Having a small one on one with Rebecca at the end of our last class helped us to show our problem of connecting with each other. We have had a problem with connecting with each other at the beginning of our scene. We need to connect with each other from the get go and not halfway through our scene. We also fixed our issue with height at the end of the scene. Other than that, we have been having a chaotic time of getting ready for the end of the semester, so best of wishes to all and good luck with finals!

Today's rehearsal was probably the best one for Taylor and I. Before we began, we decided to talk about our character's personality. This helped tremendously. We broke down the scene into small sections and talked about each of them and the message we wanted to get across. This rehearsal had more gestures and facial expressions than previous rehearsals. We did more listening and responding as opposed to just reciting our lines. Also, there was more movement because we went with our impulses. 

We are looking forward to showing our scene on Saturday! Best of luck to everyone!

-Momo and Taylor

Today's rehearsal was probably the best one for Taylor and I. Before we began, we decided to talk about our character's personality. This helped tremendously. We broke down the scene into small sections and talked about each of them and the message we wanted to get across. This rehearsal had more gestures and facial expressions than previous rehearsals. We did more listening and responding as opposed to just reciting our lines. Also, there was more movement because we went with our impulses. 

We are looking forward to showing our scene on Saturday! Best of luck to everyone!

-Momo and Taylor

(Third? Fourth? I think we might've skipped over a week in our coverage, but to go and put in an entry anachronistically... Nngh.)

The day before our first "official" in-class rehearsal, we met to rehearse again in the Black Box... or, more accurately, in the hallway outside the Black Box. Although we'd booked for 4:30, whoever was in there before us was still using it. "Fifteen more minutes, it's for a class," we were told... We didn't press the issue, but that 15 minutes turned into about 40 or so. Thus, as mentioned above, we spent most of our rehearsal time in a somewhat more cramped setting than what we'd staged. It was interesting to see how that shaped the way we proceeded through the script; the relative confinement gave it a rather different feel.

After that was the whole in-class thing. Since you all were there for that, I needn't go into any detail on it. Needless to say, the resulting notes should help direct us in refining the scene, which we plan to work on later this week.

- Nick Brittain & Will Beck

This was the first time that we did a full run without holding the scripts to write down blocking, and it really allowed for us to feel how the characters wanted to physically act and react to each other, which allowed the blocking to go from "yeah, this will help things look more dynamic and interesting" to "this is a naturally dynamic and interesting scene". Not worrying about writing down blocking also let us listen and respond (as opposed to reading the text off of the page).

Now if we can ever find a time to rehearse in the blackbox, maybe we can really get into the spacial relations of our actual set instead of three chairs and a desk....

--Delaney and Roan

I went into the blackbox and noticed that Thea was not there. I had gotten there a few minutes early so I set the scene up for the rehearsal. I finished setting up and Thea walked in. We decided that it would be best to start out with running the lines to each other to see how much we both knew. I told her that I still haven't quite memorized them all since it was only a day, but nevertheless we ran the lines quite soothly for our first run through. We did that a few more times and decided it was time to try out the lines with our physical actions. We ran through the scene a few more times and we finally got our lines down, but decided that we needed to figure out some of our blocking and most importantly what were our stakes. We decided that our stakes would be the sexual tension between our characters. With that in mind we ran the scene again, but it still was not quite where we wanted it. So we decided to run the scene like we were obviously flirting, trying to get each others attention and being in love with each other; we did this run through not to really block anything, but to get more of the sexuality out in the open. It seemed very silly while we were doing it, but once we went back to our normal blocking there was a change! All of the sudden the tension between the two characters was more obvious and it was easier for us to be comfortable with our characters. Finally, we touched up on a little bit of our blocking, like deciding which moments in the scene we could show the most tension in and what we wanted from each others characters through our actions. We ran it one more time and felt satisfied enough to present it to class.

I went into the blackbox and noticed that Thea was not there. I had gotten there a few minutes early so I set the scene up for the rehearsal. I finished setting up and Thea walked in. We decided that it would be best to start out with running the lines to each other to see how much we both knew. I told her that I still haven't quite memorized them all since it was only a day, but nevertheless we ran the lines quite soothly for our first run through. We did that a few more times and decided it was time to try out the lines with our physical actions. We ran through the scene a few more times and we finally got our lines down, but decided that we needed to figure out some of our blocking and most importantly what were our stakes. We decided that our stakes would be the sexual tension between our characters. With that in mind we ran the scene again, but it still was not quite where we wanted it. So we decided to run the scene like we were obviously flirting, trying to get each others attention and being in love with each other; we did this run through not to really block anything, but to get more of the sexuality out in the open. It seemed very silly while we were doing it, but once we went back to our normal blocking there was a change! All of the sudden the tension between the two characters was more obvious and it was easier for us to be comfortable with our characters. Finally, we touched up on a little bit of our blocking, like deciding which moments in the scene we could show the most tension in and what we wanted from each others characters through our actions. We ran it one more time and felt satisfied enough to present it to class.