Can I get your hat? Can I get it?

September 20, 2010 at 6:26 pm (Daily Entries)
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A somewhat improvisational game, the self named Can I Get Your Hat? works on the O in CROWM (objective). Two players,  that are wearing hats, are given a situation and then through exploring their scene, attempt to take the other person’s hat.

Miranda and I were given the circumstance of being two ladies on a revolutionary parade float. How exciting. And after a couple sneaky attempts to snatch away each other’s hat, Jane started to count down from ten and we both just lunged at each other, grabbing hats at exactly the same time.

Tie? I think so.

This game explores objective, something that is so super-important in all scenes because everyone always has an objective. Identifying what that is can be extremal helpful in creating a believable person. This is something that I think is missing from a lot of beginning improvisational scenes and is something that we should all strive to become fully competent in.

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A New Year. Time To Start Over?

September 14, 2010 at 7:02 pm (Unrelated)
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This blog was created as part of my IB (International Baccalaureate) Drama Class my junior year. IB is a two year program, that allows college students to get internationally recognized college credits throughout their last two years of high school. This involves a lot of testing and projects, and one of those areas is drama. Part of our portfolio for those pesky IB-graders consists of a journal that we keep, and thus our lovely drama teacher Jane decided that we should start blogs online as an easy way of keeping our journal.

Most blogs got abandoned between the end of November and the beginning of January. Most stopped blogging after winter break, and this includes mine. If you notice the post before this is talking about how I was going to continue updating, did it happen? No. But that’s okay, because I’m starting again this year, and hopefully I’ll have the will to continue on.

Unfortunately my fellow second year IB students (testing seniors), seem to have abandoned their blog permanently in lieu of  a traditional journal. So I think that the links to the left of this page will remain inactive. D: Sad day.

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I’m extremely tiered right now, because the first day of auditions for King Lear were today, and I’m looking next to me at a pile of homework that I have yet to do. I’ll talk more about that audition process once it’s finished, but we can say it’s not conventional at all, especially since tech (yay!) were doing the exact same thing is the actors. ;)

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Lacking In Time

January 11, 2010 at 7:40 pm (Unrelated)
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Right so, I haven’t updated this blog in…awhile. Oh look, only one post made for December! Point made.

So, Jane, this is sort of directed at you I guess, I shall update tomorrow with a summary of what has been happening during drama class. I’m unable to do so now, because I have a ton of English homework that will probably take up the rest of the night. Joy.

I will also talk about my didgeridoo painting experience over the weekend with Sammy…

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Workshop Today

December 1, 2009 at 5:51 pm (Daily Entries)
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Everyone filled in to the auditorium after being told that today, we would be participating in a workshop, kindly being hosted by the two members of Ashland’s Shakespeare troop.

The topic was status, and we participated in various activities concerning social hierarchy.

The first two were both card games. We each had a playing card, ace through king, king high. You only knew the card that you had, and were supposed to embody the social class you were handed.
The second was we had a card that everyone could see except us, and we had to mold how we acted by how other people acted towards us.

This reminded me of freshman year, in drama 1-2, we did the same excercise with the cards. We were also asked to think about who had the status in our class.

It’s interesting to think that of the people I have in my class this year, in IB, because it’s such a small class, and I think, fairly tight-knit. What’s more noticeable this year is the different type of status that people hold. There are the ones who obviously shine in the class; are top-notch actors, but at this age, and this familiarity of Cleveland, there is more of a freedom to form another status quo, less dependent on teacher opinions.

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Cast List: Finally Up

November 30, 2009 at 10:17 pm (Daily Entries)
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We got out cast list today for Our Country’s Good. I got cast as Tench. It’s interesting, because I don’t really remember his character. I’ve only played a guy once before, and that was when I was in a production of Pyramis and Thisbee.

That was an over the top, melodramatic production, something very different from Our Country’s Good. It’s a way different character, and will be interesting to figure out. Also I’m a lot older now, and feel that I should have a better grasp of things.

I remember, last year during the Laramie Project, Jane kept telling India that she wasn’t walking like a man. I think that that’s something I’m going to have to work on. I have a very feminine walk, or so I’ve been told. I cross my feet over each other like I’m walking on a line. Men sort of…swagger. They have a cowboy walk.

Actually the more I think of it, the more I’m looking forward to being a part of this production. Tench is a Captain, and I think it’ll be really fun playing someone ‘higher up’ so to say, on the social scale. He had a certain amount of status, more so than the convicts.

The only question I have concerning the play, is under ‘Suggested Tech Roles’ Sammy K and I, only us, are listed as Tech.
I’m just wondering what that ensues. I thought it would be something like moving set pieces, but I see there’s a spot for set. The only thing that’s coming to mind is if set means set construction, and tech means the actual moving of pieces during the performance, although if that were the case I would think that more people would be listed as tech.

Anyway, that’s about the only thing I’m wondering about. Other than that: let’s get crackin’!

Cast List:

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Ashland’s Shakespeare Troop

November 30, 2009 at 10:09 pm (Daily Entries)
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Walking in to drama, the class found out that today would be no normal lesson. Two members from Ashland’s Shakespeare theatre group were visiting and had a performance that they were performing for various second period and fifth period classes.

They were doing a bit about Shakespeare’s fools. It moved throughout Shakespeare’s writing career and analyzed a bit about his developments as a playwright, and how the actors in his theatre troop affected the characters he wrote about and ultimately the tone of his later works versus his earlier plays.

The performance was filled with humor. I was laughing so hard at some points. They managed to pull off very believable characters in a short amount of time, and even made sense of plays that I wasn’t so familiar with.

There was one part, when one of the actors acted the part of a dog. It was…interesting. He was so out there. It was a typical on all fours and panting type of pantomime of a dog, but he was so in to the physicality of it, it was weird.

That part of the piece was so out there, it almost made me uncomfortable, and now I know a bit more about what Jane talks about sometimes. That if a piece is too radical and different from what people are used to, then it drives them away.

It was an interesting position to be put in to, and it gave me more insight as to what to pay attention to while creating a performance piece, and how to make a piece of theatre more appealing to an audience.

I think this will be helpful while constructing my performance piece for IB. It’s another thing to keep in mind while constructing my ‘pitch’.

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Finished With Our Country’s Good

November 28, 2009 at 4:33 pm (Daily Entries)
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Well I finished the script.

I like it,
I’m excited to be performing it,
And it sort of makes me want to go back to school on Monday,
Sort of…

The more I read of it, the more I want to be Dabby; but also the more I wouldn’t mind being someone else. All of the characters in this play are interesting and dynamic. Fun to explore no matter what.

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A Bit More of a Read-Around

November 18, 2009 at 8:08 pm (Daily Entries)
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Today Jane wanted to get through the rest of the script for Our Country’s Good.

We also meditated today. The most interesting part was probably the discussion that came after it. What we talk about it drama is often the highlight of my days. Points were brought up about over-crowded minds, and being unable to clear them. Then a small wondering of, is meditation actually healthy for you?

Let us never stop having these conversations…except when we should be reading the script.

I miss doing the read-arounds, where each person says a line and we go around in a circle. It seems to bring a life to it, I mean, when we had people reading certain characters, it was lacking in expression, and how the lines were said. I think that was mostly because we’re only reading it now, not adding physicality of some sort. When we read it in a circle, the interaction between each new person was fun, and kept it upbeat.

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Read-Around-Again

November 16, 2009 at 10:55 pm (Daily Entries)
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The IB drama class settled down in a circle after stretching. opening up the script, Jane started the class off by reviewing some of the points from what was read yesterday.

Round robin style, the whole class read, line by line, the last of the first part of our script, and the beginning of the second part. I would say what scenes, but my backpack is around 30ft away from me right now.

I actually really like the script. It’s rather funny, and the more I read it, the more in to the characters I find I’m becoming.

I think one of the best parts of reading is when we stumble upon a rather racy line and Jane pauses to say something like, “yeah, I think we might have to edit this part a little.”

*****

I’m picturing us performing this, and I don’t see scripts. I think that we could memorize the play, no need for a staged reading.

Staged reading worked well for Laramie Project, because there were a lot of monologues, and people moving on their own. But in some of these scenes, with the interactions, I think it would me much more freeing if we didn’t have scripts, and were able to fully utilise both of our hands.

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Last Night of One Acts: What’s Going On?

November 15, 2009 at 10:27 pm (Unrelated)
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The last night of one-acts was fun to watch. All of them seemed to be different in a way. The pace was noticeably slower in some, and in others it had picked up.

Some mistakes were made, but overall I thought that this was one of the better performances. All wrinkles that occurred on stage were, for the most part, smoothed out without the notice of the audience.

Jane says that we had no one call in to complain about the one-acts. That’s good. There were some pretty raunchy content in this year’s.

That’s the last of it until next year. While I shall miss them some, I’m afraid that my need for time has overcome the sadness. I look forward to a more reasonable schedule.

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