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Hi, I'm Iris!
by Iris Arnold - Wednesday, December 18, 2019, 11:37 AM
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*Hi! I posted this a long time ago after one of our first rehearsals. However, I think I may have posted it to the 'feed' or something as Johanna pointed out to me this morning that she could not see this post. So reposting just to be safe. 

(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

 
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Wow the day is finally here!!!!! I am really excited to see everyone perform today and show us the amazing scenes that everybody has been working so hard on!

For our last rehearsal, Flavio and I ran through our scene a few more times to work on the cut offs and slowing the scene down. Every time there was about to be a cut off, instead of stopping our line, we kept going and let the other person stop us in order to let the scene feel more real and genuine. We also focused on emphasizing specific words in each line and this helped slow down the scene while still having high stakes. 

Thank you all for being such a great class and sharing your thoughts and opinions !!! Good luck today smile

 
by Zach Gilburne - Wednesday, December 18, 2019, 10:28 AM
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Our practice session with Rebecca really helped us to put those final touches on the scene that we didn’t have. Most importantly was figuring out what exactly we needed to do to make it a bit more emotional and intimate between our characters. Much of that improvement ended up being movement. Little things like orientation of the body and timing position changes ended up making the characters more responsive to each other. Kind of an action-reaction situation.
The other thing that improved the emotional impact of the scene was changing the delivery of certain lines. The focus was on lines with either hostility/frustration behind them, or those where Kayleen and Doug are more close and intimate with each other. 
Overall, we’re as close to ready as we can be. Looking forward to performing and seeing what everyone thinks of our work!
Associated Course: TH113-01/19FA
 
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Well this is our last rehearsal blog sad I am kind of sad to say goodbye to this wonderful class, I really had an amazing time with all of you ! 

So for our last rehearsal, Iris and I focused on the new blocking that we added to our scene, we ran through it many times seeing what we liked and what we didn’t. We found out new things that fit perfectly with our lines and that made us really happy. Although we both have been really stressed with school, we managed to get this done! 

I am getting a bit nervous now because I want to do amazing in my performances especially since I started invited all my friends smile))) but I know that we are all going to do great !!!

[ Modified: Wednesday, December 18, 2019, 10:20 AM ]
 
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I found this journal upstairs. It's an old entry and not related to my research but I think it'll make for a good piece of leverage when I give it to Catherine. I'll say it's a present and wrap it up. She'll love it.
  • Designed set
  • Talked about several different blocking possibilities
  • Compared beat analysis and examined different ideas of the text
  • Attempted to layout the set 
  • Read through the scene
  • Acted through the scene
  • Confirmed schedules for next couple of rehearsals

I'd say that our first rehearsal was a complete success in that we were able to figure out what we wanted to do with this scene as well as how we plan on accomplishing our plan. The future is what you choose to take from it.


Associated Course: TH113-01/19FA
 
by Keshav Eldurkar - Monday, December 16, 2019, 9:21 PM
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After our individual coaching with Rebecca we had one more rehearsal in a classroom in Miller. We talked about the notes Rebecca gave, including not pausing too much and letting each other's words really impact ourselves and our body movements. We worked on that a lot for the first twenty minutes of rehearsal, but I think we were struggling to find the proper deliveries for a couple of the lines. It really helped to think about the given circumstances in those situations, so we ended up getting what we wanted out of that rehearsal after about an hour. I think we were both curious how other people would interpret the text of the script so we ended up looking up a production of the play on Youtube. Interestingly, Callie and Peter in that scene were sat really close together and the deliveries of the lines were very optimistic and eager to talk to each other, which was definitely a change from what we had been doing. Also Peter was a woman, which implied some history of Sara that made the story different. We didn't take any specific blocking from the scene, but it was still very interesting to see another point of view. 

Overall, I think both Taylor and I learned a lot from working on this scene, about our acting strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies. It was a different kind of scene for both of us, but I think we ended up coming out as better actors. 

Associated Course: TH113-02/19FA
 
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Ryann and I have been making great improvements since the first time we performed our scene from "The Flick". Yesterday we went to our coaching session with Rebecca and she gave us great feedback on what to improve on our scene. There can be a few tweaks 
Before this class, I always thought acting was just...acting. It is kind of amazing how there are so many strategies to do your best authentic performance. Even though right now I'm still kind of struggling  with things such as letting myself be seen and letting what Ryann tells me to actually affect me. It is a challenge but I know I can do it. Its kind of like putting yourself in someone else's shoes and being in the moment. 
Not to mention, Ryann is a great performer! I can't wait until we do our final scene on Wednesday because we are gonna kill it ! Everybody is going to do great. 

Marilyn Lucas
Associated Course: TH113-01/19FA
 
by Nathan Destigter - Monday, December 16, 2019, 3:07 PM
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Negasi and I met with Rebecca on Friday the 13th. 

We did a full run-through and it was a little bit rough. Part of the problem is that the Black Box is a major part of our scene and all of our previous rehearsals had been in common rooms so adjusting to a larger space was rough. I forgot to count how many boxes I needed to use to bring down which messed up the pacing of the scene, reminding me how crucial knowing your blocking and props are.

We received several helpful notes after our first run, the first one being that I need to maintain the intensity of the running at the beginning of the scene or else the rest of the scene will lack as much necessary energy. One of the biggest notes that Negasi and I got was that he, as a low status character for the rest of the show, needs to assert himself as the one with the higher status in this scene and I need to allow him to take it from me as the scene continues. I have to convey more that Sam is willing to do anything to make Avery not mad at him anymore and Negasi has to assert more in Avery that what he did can't simply be forgiven. 

We are excited for everyone in class to see our final product.

Associated Course: TH113-01/19FA
 
by Brenden Patrick - Sunday, December 15, 2019, 5:06 PM
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Tyler and I just had a very good week of rehearsal. We just had our 1 on 1 rehearsal with Rebecca and we got some great notes. Me personally I have been working on being more in the character with Avery and more playing the status of the character. And I also have been working on being more vunlreable in the scene to what sam says. Overall I think we have been doing a good job rehearsing over the course of the week in Howard Hall. And I think we will be ready to preform for Mondays preformance. 

 
by Julia Starkey - Sunday, December 15, 2019, 4:25 PM
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We had our individual coaching session on Monday the 9th. We both felt that our performance during the session wasn't the best it has been, but we got a lot of really valuable feedback and concrete things to work on. Something that we were both struggling with was making the subtext of the scene clear without overreacting or seeming inauthentic. We are both focusing on making sure we are completely grounded and inside of the scene, as opposed to being preoccupied with how the scene is looking from the outside. Thinking too much about this took us out of the action and made it more difficult to convey emotions. I think that we are definitely getting better at realizing that our actions will look most genuine if we really  understand and embody our characters' motivations instead of focusing on the actions themselves. We are also focusing on making the conversation flow more organically by breathing on each others lines during the fast paced sections of our conversation and making sure our pauses are meaningful and have intention. We met again in a classroom on the 14th, and ran through the scene a few more times. We felt good about this rehearsal, and we were able to incorporate our focuses  and notes well. I think that we were able to raise the stakes during these run throughs, which definitely helped a lot. We both feel that our scene is well rehearsed and we are looking forward to the final performance. 
Associated Course: TH113-02/19FA