Monday, Acting workshop

Today in the workshop I got the chance to perform my monologue and put it on its feet. This was the first time I did it for people without the script in my hand. You can really start to get a sense of where you're at when you do this. The notes that Joy gave me were actually things I've heard before. I know the answers to all her questions, and I know the backstory and the subtext, but sometimes I have trouble applying it. So when she gave me these notes, it was good for me to know exactly what I still have to work on. I think that I need to practice it in really small sections because sometimes doing the whole thing can be too overwhelming. I think I need to work through it and dig into what I need to work on and make it more solid and confident in my character.

Montclair State University

Yesterday I went to Montclair State for their theater arts day. It was a really long day filled with information about the school and the audition process and all that good stuff. The best part of the day was in the afternoon when we got to watch their production of the play, Arcadia. It was phenomenal! The play itself was a little tough to get through. I feel like if I had read the play before hand I would have understood it a lot more, but the director gave a speech before the play started explaining the basic plot and she did warn us that we would miss a lot of plot details if this was our first experience with the play. But the acting was outstanding! Every single actor on that stage was either very good or ready for a Broadway career. The girl who played Thomasina and the boy who played her tutor had such great chemistry. The scenes they had together moved and flowed so nicely it was almost poetic. The director also played around with apples a lot. The characters were constantly eating apples throughout the play and I think that helped a lot with the acting, which was so simplistic but also complex and filled with subtext. It was quite obvious that even if we, the audience didn't understand some of the math or science references, the actors knew exactly what they were talking about. The director said that auditions were held last spring, and they cast the show in May. The actors had all summer to read the play and research all the math, the science, and historical references. They became experts on these topics and what life would be like in 1809 for a family like the one in the play.

And one more thing.. I got a very special e-mail last night from Marymount Manhatten College! I was accepted =) (on an accademic basis) It was my first letter, and it felt really great to have that first experience be an exciting one. That news put me in a good mood that will last the rest of the weekend.

Acting workshop

It is unbelievable how much you can learn from watching other people. Watching other people work with the subtext exercise that we were doing, I was able to detect when they were using the subtext and when they dropped it, or fell out of the exercise. We also were saying our monologues sitting next to someone, so we had a real person to talk to. When Bari read hers, I was her "listener" person, and I noticed a huge difference when she used the subtext. There was more of a journey that the character went through, rather than just playing the mood of the piece, and it was very honest when she did this. This was really important for me to see because I've been working on this a lot with my songs that I'm using for college auditions.

We also focused on breath, and making sure you allow yourself to breathe during the coarse of the monologue. I realized that this completely relates to something I had learned in an acting workshop in the city a few weeks ago. At that workshop, we were told to try and communicate and make as much eye contact with the person we are talking to. To take beats, and to take time to look at them and let what you're saying land on them. It forced you to get the subtext going because you're not saying anything, you're just "looking" at this person you're talking to and so immediately you're able to focus on what your little mind is saying behind what the monologue tells you to say. If you do this, and also breathe at the same time, it adds life to the piece. It can add contrast, but in a simplistic way.

Getting stuff done = happiness

I was thinking about what we briefly discussed today in class and it kind of put everything in perspective for me!

Even though I haven't hung out with my friends on a Friday night since September 25th (not counting Halloween which was like an event in itself), the past couple of months have been extremely fun for me and although you would expect me to be stressing out since I'm a senior and all, for the most part I haven't been. I tell people that I'm enjoying the college application process and they look at me like I'm a nerd. Maybe I am. But ever since august when I started my college essay, I've been feeling pretty good and confident about myself and it's because I've been finishing stuff. I wrote my essay and I felt good. I edited it and I felt good. I got my english teacher last year to tear it appart and help me make it a "wow" and I felt even better. I got so excited that I blew off doing regular homework one Tuesday night just so I could rewrite and finish the essay. It gets worse... When I gave in my college recommendation letters I wanted to scream and run around in circles. When I spent 4 hours the night before halloween sorting through papers, and addressing envelopes to 7 different schools so that I could hand them into my guidance counselor, I took pictures of me holding up each envelope and put them up on facebook so that my whole social network could see. When I pressed the "submit" button for the first time on an online application I made my whole family come and watch. It was like waiting for the ball to drop on new years eve.

Needless to say, I do get stressed out. Everyone does. I get stressed when it's 11 or 12 at night and I still have more work or studying to do but I know that I have to go to sleep because if I don't I will get sick. I lie in bed trying to get my rest but I just end up stressing out for another hour. Not a good thing, especially with my tummy, which I often compare to the san andreas fault in California because of how sensative and high maintanance it can be. Last friday, I stayed home sick and went to the doctor. I got really stressed out because I had to stay home and rest. I'm the type of person that keeps going and going and going. I push myself until the point where my body has to do something, such as getting sick, to make me stop and let myself rest. So on friday I had to rest and it stressed me out. I felt like I was wasting my time by lying in bed reading all day. It really made me upset.

I love looking at my agenda book and seeing everything crossed off because I completed them. It makes me feel worthy. Worthy of what, I'm not sure. Even by doing this blog, I'm feeling good because I'm reminding myself of all the things I've done since September. All the things that may have seemed daunting in the beginning, but which now are completed and finished. Maybe instead of writing a list of things to do we should also write lists of things I've done. It might keep us affloat. Especially us seniors.

reflecting on 1st quarter

This past quarter has been a lot about me embracing and setting free the deeper me. I have this reputation of always being happy. There’s nothing wrong with such a reputation, and it is true, I’m a happy person, but nobody can be happy all the time. That’s a superficial standard to have to live up to. My college essay touched upon this, and that’s where this whole learning started. The end of last year was when I started to let some of the other parts of me come through, but I wasn’t really aware of it. When I wrote my college essay, I became aware of it and started to keep track of it. I’ve been more open to experiencing whatever emotions come my way, and more open to sharing them with my friends and parents.

Seeing other kids in STAC open up to their different emotions has helped me and reading what they write on their blogs has helped too. It reinforced the idea that sadness, anger, and frustration are all normal. Fuertzabruta also really helped. It was such an intimate performance, especially when the women were swimming right on top of us. They weren’t necessarily happy. They were just being themselves. I was able to get in touch with this other side of me during some of the serious improvs and during the poetry that we did. I’ve also cursed more than I ever have, and I’ve been more open to saying my opinion if I don’t like something. I don’t think that it’s a matter of me changing. This part of me was always there; I just never let it show. I always thought of myself as comfortable with who I am and confident, but I guess this is the true test of confidence. I can be whatever I feel like being in that moment, and be okay with it. It’s still a growing process, but it’s definitely a start.

I know you asked for what we’ve learned this quarter, and I don’t exactly know if this answers that question, but it is how I’ve grown as a person. I think that counts as learning too, especially since this is such a huge part of acting. It’s kind of like I’m becoming more aware of some things that have been in my library my whole life. I just never wanted to access them. The acting that I’ve done, especially in the last few months, has really been all about pulling from my library. So it’s good that I’m opening up that access.

Kontroll take 2

I had a completely different experience watching Kontroll the second time around. The first time I was so wrapped up in the suspence of the story that I felt like I was watching a scary movie. I got nervous, anxious, and sometimes wouldn't even look at the screen. But now that I knew what was coming, I wasn't even the least big nervous. I was able to watch the entire thing, except for some of the parts when they showed blood. (Blood in movies makes me gag - it's gross)

A random nuance I noticed while watching it today: the killer and Buchul are basically wearing the same leather jacket. Only the killer's is a little big longer. They're also both wearing hoods, except the killer has his hood on and Buchul leaves it off for the entire film, but he does have a black hood on. They're the only main characters in the film to wear leather jackets because they want to. Gonzol and his crew wear leather, but those jackets are part of the new uniform, and they're much shorter.

The movie went by really quick. The first time I was watching it, it seemed like it dragged on forever and that there were so many more scenes in between all the big plot twists. But watching it again today, I realized that every single scene has to be in the movie. It is one big scene after another after another. The movie actually moves forwards like the speeding midnight express train, without stopping at any of the stops. I didn't realize how quickly the killer comes into the movie. I had thought that we didn't see him until halfway through. But he's actually introduced right at the beginning..within the first 20 minutes or so?

The scene when Buchul is trashing the bathroom right after Bootsie gets pushed supports the theory that Buchul is the pusher. He's looking into the mirror as if he's trying to look into himself to try and find the evil that's causing him to murder. Even if Buchul isn't physically the killer, even if it's just a symbolic connection, it would still support that he's looking deep into the other side of himself. The Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde of his personality.

Quick response to interview with Nimrod Antal

I was listening to an interview with Nimrod Antal, director of the movie Kontrol and something that he said stood out to me.

"Hungary was a great place for me at that time. I made a lot of mistakes there"

A lot of times we get caught up in perfection. But perfection isn't the key. If a director who made a movie as fabulous as Kontrol can admit that he made mistakes while shooting the film, then how can we expect ourselves to be flawless? It puzzles me. But we all do it.

Today I took a workshop in the city. It was an acting and vocal workshop focused around college auditions. I learned a lot. A point that the acting teacher stressed to us at the end of the workshop was that we are in the luckiest place in our lives. We're young, we've only been around for 17 years or so. People don't expect us to know everything about technique or theater or acting. They don't even expect us to know a lot. That being said, that doesn't mean we should use it as an excuse to be lazy and avoid information and avoid the chance to learn. But we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves to expect perfection.

She's a bad singer, and her lyrics aren't good, and the only reason she's famous is because of her father and great marketing team...but even Hannah Montana talks about mistakes: "Nobody's perfect, I've gotta work it, Again and again til I get it right."

We all talk about accepting mistakes and getting perfection out of our minds.. easier said than done.