Week 9

Whoa these past few weeks have been crazy. It has been pretty difficult to find time to practice with my scene partner, but we have found times that work for both of us. It also has been pretty difficult because we have different rehearsal techniques. I am more of a 'lets run through our scene multiple times and change things or try new things every time' and she has more of the 'lets sit down and talk about our characters' type of rehearsal gal. But, over time I think we found a way to work around our differences. We also had to switch our scene pretty late in the game because it ends up that our scene was written for two colored women. It seemed like we could have done it because nothing explicitly says that the scene was written that way, but we wanted to be certain that we were doing a valid scene. So we found this other scene from Independence which is a crazy show. It is a pretty serious drama so it has been really challenging for me to find that acting style in me, but I hope I can have it by the time of our final performances!
I loved the scene because each of our characters had very specific goals. Mine is: I want her to stay. I think when we performed our scene it wasn't the best, but we did alright. I definitely need to find motivation for my vocal changes. I wrote it into my script what I should be feeling, but after we performed I got the note that I need to have my yelling move me toward my goal and not just yell to yell. I definitely felt that as I performed, so over this weekend I am planning on writing specific tactics at those moments so that my vocals changes will convince my other to accept what I want her to do.
Really though, my main goal through this whole assignment was to make myself sound natural. I have such a fun time making odd character choices physically and with my voice that sometimes it is difficult for me to find that 'real place' inside of me. I started with my voice and I have practiced so that it sits in my normal voice register and I tried to make character movements that were specific, but natural looking.
I also think that by changing our blocking in our scene that I can really help myself be natural in a dramatic world. I think some of it is pretty abrupt and cheesy. We also received notes on this as well at the end of our first performance. I realized that I don't know that the room we were in looks like! I should talk it over with my scene partner to make sure we know how the room looks. I think it would be cool to be able to walk behind the couch or have the recommended separate chair. This would help with the dramatics of the scene and it could create some physical obstacle that my other would have to overcome and that would be a cool dimension to have.
Basically I am working hard over thanksgiving! I am so grateful for this class!