May 14 - New Works.

I went this last Saturday and saw part of the NW New Works Festival at On the Boards. There were four performances the night I went. The one I specifically went to see was Pants by Annette Toutonghi, who is one of my acting teachers, and some other people I don’t I can’t name, because I don’t have the program here with me.

I ran into some people I know from acting school, which is fun. It makes me feel like I’m a cool hip person when I run into people at performances. See… I know people, I’m an actor, how cool am I? Much better than the feeling of going to a party and not knowing anyone there, and being a big dork, which is how I go through most of my life.

I always try and go see a teacher in action if I can. I saw Annette in The Women which played at ACT the end of last year. This was the second time I have seen her, but this time it is in a piece that she had written and directed collaboratively with some other artists.

I have to say I really liked it. Especially the opening image of Annette scooting off stage followed by a pair of disembodied pants. Delightfully creepy. It was a non-linear performance, with dance, video projection, music, and theatre blended together.

What was it about? Hard to say specifically, but I don’t think that was the point. The image/sense I was left with was about navigating the world and the anxieties that it brings up. If I was more intellectual I could analyze it, but I will just say that it was cool, and I liked it. I hope to see it again in some form, and perhaps a longer piece. I was left wanting more, which is the best thing you can give your audience, right?

The other performances were good as well. There were two other dance pieces. One was a lesbian feminist extravaganza called Eden Between the Lines, Chapter 1 by Shaneeka Harrell and Catherine Cabeen. The two dancers were good, sexy, the choreography was erotic and dynamic. I loved how they worked these long red ribbons in as symbolic ties-that-bind/red tape.

However the spoken word part did less for me, mostly because the message was being sung to the choir. Being gay and all, I’m all for loving whoever you want to love, equality, and gay marriage. But the message was one I’ve heard many times before, and I wanted a surprise, but that’s just me. My friend (also lesbian) who went with me, who has danced in the past and so understands these things much better than me, really liked it.

The other dance piece was OK too. This was a group piece called Junknation by the Northwest Dance Syndrome, a group of six or seven women. I like the group dancing part and I liked the music. They had these cool canisters that looked like scuba tanks hanging from wires that they swung around a bit. I wanted them to do more with that, but they didn’t.

The part I didn’t like as much was these sort of interludes, where one woman was in an “egg” like wire structure. The first time is was full of trash, and we watched as she threw the trash out of the egg. Another time a woman writhed inside the egg for a bit. These parts went on too long for my taste. Boring. I always feel like I am supposed to “get” these bits, but I don’t. Call me simple, but I like it when the dancers just leap around on stage to good music.

The fourth piece was a music and multimedia performance by Holcombe Waller called Into the Dark Unknown: The Hope Chest, which I thought was really cool. It’s apparently part of a larger piece, so if that comes around I am definitely going to check it out, and I suggest you do too.

Anyway, there is another weekend of new works performances coming up, so check it out. Also this weekend I am going to see another of my teachers, Gin Hammond, at the Creation Project another new works festival.

Go check one of these great things out.

May 7 - Swords and Scenery

This last weekend in our Stage Combat class, we spent the first part of class watching the certification tests of the Cornish College of the Arts students.  We have the same teacher, in Geof Alm.  They also have another fight teacher, whose name I can’t remember.

There were a lot more Cornish students, about 30 or so, than our puny class of six, which probably explains why they have two teachers and split the students between them.  It was interesting to see the differences in the two groups of students.  Each group had their own choreography for the three fights.

Geof’s students did the same fight choreography that we are doing, so it was interesting to see how they did.  Part of the choreography of the fight is acting while fighting.  This is the part we are just getting to in our class.  We have to pick scenes from plays for our fights.  Talking and fighting at the same time.

For the test the students would introduce themselves and then begin their scene/fight.  Some pairs were really good, not just at fighting, but at acting too.  The majority were either good at acting, or good at fighting, but not necessarily together.

It was interesting to see what worked in the choreography and what didn’t.  Sometimes there was too much talking.  Sometimes the talking got all mushed from the fighting and became unintelligible.  Some groups worked in short bursts of fighting with short bursts of talking, which I think worked the best in my opinion, and created a syncopated rhythm that was more interesting.

The non-Geof students, the students of Teacher X, got to do scenes from movies and TV shows.  There were three scenes from the TV show Firefly, and related movie Serenity, and one scene from Return of the Jedi.  This confirms my belief that people who like to play with swords are geeks.

Now this isn’t an insult, I consider myself a geek as well, and I love sci-fi and fantasy shows, movies, and books.  Now if you asked people who take stage combat why they are doing it, most would say to increase the skill list on their resume, and make them a more marketable actor, but I say, deep down underneath, it’s because they think swords are cool.  And if you perused their bookshelves you would no doubt find incriminating evidence, such as the Lord of the Rings books, or the Starwars Trilogy on DVD.

There are plenty of actors who don’t seek out stage combat until they have to learn it for a part.  Those that do, well they are geeks. Especially the ones that own their own swords.  The other day, I listened to two sword-owning guys discussing swords and sword makers and sounding so much like Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie discussing which shoes to buy. “Ferragamo?  Gucci? It’s so hard to choose, so I had to get them both! (giggle).”

May 1 - Speak normally.

School is chugging along. I am continuing Stage Combat. The test fast approaches. I believe the date is June 15th, but I am still waiting for final confirmation. This coming Saturday, we are going to Cornish College of the Arts and watch the theater students there take their tests. This way we will know what the process is like and what is expected of us. I look forward to seeing it.

I have had two Voice Over classes now. The class is taught by Gin Hammond, who taught the Voice class that I took last quarter. She is a fun teacher, and I was looking forward to this class. There are two other people from the Voice class, so I know some people which is always nice.

In the first class we all had to read some random text while everyone else closed their eyes and listened. The reader’s job was to read the text in their “normal” voice. The listeners’ job was to determine what type of voice the person had, i.e. what kinds of characters they could be, what type of products they could sell, or just overall qualities of voice.

The first woman read aloud as we all closed our eyes. I’m not quite sure that she was using her “normal” voice, as it sounded pretty radio-like and overly enthusiastic to me, but maybe that’s just me. She got feedback saying she could be a sassy best-friend, confidant, or a business executive.

The second woman read, and she had a deeper, more smoky, husky voice. She could be the best-friend too, but not so sassy, more of the “I’m concerned about you, let’s take a yoga class together” best friend. Her tones also resonated “buy a Lexus”, and I could imagine without much difficulty a surly, chain smoking waitress.

The next woman was interesting in that her voice could sound both young and old. If she got a little higher pitched and excited she sounded like a teenage girl, which was interesting since she is probably late forties. If she spoke slower and a little lower, she sounded more her age and mom-like, or perhaps also a business person.

Then it was my turn. I read my text, which I might add we didn’t see until moments before we had to read it, so I literally didn’t know what the next word was going to be until I read it. I tried to read it pretty normally, not putting a radio tone, since the point was to see what our “natural” voice was. I got done, and there was pause before feedback was given, as if people were having trouble coming up with something to say.

Then one guy said, “You voice sounds just really, really normal.” People nodded in agreement. The teacher said I would be good at narration. I tried not to read into this feedback, gee, your voice is kind of boring, but it was hard not to think that, since I didn’t get a character type. No best-friend, no business executive, no “you could sell luxury products”. I did get the quality of “trustworthy”, which is nice, I suppose, though not exciting. And I did get a last minute “you could probably do a mom” from the instructor. But I think that was thrown in to appease what I assume was a look of disappointment on my face, that I didn’t get something more interesting.

Other people seemed to have more interesting voices, and more character types. Maybe that’s why they came to this class, people have been telling them you should do voice overs, you have _______ voice, you should be in radio, you could do cartoons, etc.

Still I suppose their is a place for normal and trustworthy narration. Perhaps insurance commercials and audio-books are in my future. I won’t complain as long as it pays.

April 21 - Pay What You Can

I went and saw the Highest Tide by James Lynch at Book-It Repertory Theater the other night.  I’ve been trying to hit the pay-what-you-can nights and the different theater’s in town.  I feel like I need to see more theater since I am trying to be an actor and all.

I feel a little insecure because I am not theater educated, the way a lot of people in my classes are.  They have either done theater since high-school, or went to college and got their BA in theater, or they’ve been doing community theater for years.

Me, I sort of just decided last year that I might like to try an acting class as a tool to get over being uncomfortable in front of people.  I didn’t realize that I would like it so much.  I wasn’t even sure I was going to be able to get through the first class.

People in class will start talking about plays and playwrights and others will nod knowingly.  I sit there and listen quietly, thinking to myself, I have no idea what they are talking about.   I should read/see more plays (and movies for that matter).

So I’ve looked up the pay-what-you-can nights at many of the theaters in town.  Intiman,  Seattle Rep, ACT, Book-It all have PWYC nights.  Most only let you buy tickets the day of the show at the box office, some are cash only.

Here is my partial list (I’m sure there are more that I haven’t found yet)

May 8 - Father & Sons - ACT
June 5 - Namaste Man - Intiman
June 15 - A marvelous Party (Noel Coward Celebration) - ACT 7pm
June 26 - A marvelous Party (Noel Coward Celebration) - ACT 2pm
July 10 - Streetcar Named Desire - Intiman
Aug 17 - Intimate Exchanges - ACT 7pm
Aug 21 - Little Dog Laughed - Intiman
Aug 28 - Intimate Exchanges - ACT 2pm
Sep 7 - Eurydice - ACT 7pm
Sep 18 - Eurydice - ACT 2pm
Oct 2 - All the King’s Men - Intiman
Oct 19 - Becky’s New Car - ACT 7pm
Oct 30 - Becky’s New Car - ACT 2pm
Dec 4 - Black Nativity - Intiman

Anyway, you can see some good theater on the cheap. Most places have a minimum of 5$.  I always pay try to pay more than that (10 - 20$ depending on that week’s cash flow), because I can, it’s the 40$ I have trouble with, especially if I am trying to go to a show a week.

I take my mom with me, who is on disability and a fixed income, and she always pays the 5$. The PWYC nights definitely draw the senior crowd.  I am always surprised I don’t see more young people.  I figure this would be perfect for high school and college students, but mostly it is the gray haired group I see.

So go see some theater, there is no excuse not to at these prices.

April 7 - Up Hill Both Ways

This weekend I returned to the world of Stage Combat.  After almost a month off, I was a bit rusty.  All of us were.  But we picked back up on the choreography pretty quickly.  I was a little worried about my shoulder, since I had torn my biceps tendon a bit just two weeks ago.  I could feel the shoulder, but it didn’t hinder me any.

Since Freehold was forced to move out of their home of sixteen years just a few weeks ago, we had our class at the University of Washington in the Drama Department building.  In some ways this is kind of nice, since I can ride my bike to class.  It is two miles exactly from my driveway to class.

The not as nice aspect is that I don’t ride my bike all that often, because I am lazy, and Seattle has a lot of hills, one of which has my house on top of it, and another which has the building my class is on top of it.  Going to class was pretty good since it is all down hill until the last half mile, which is then up hill.  And of course mostly up hill on the way back.

Now if you are a serious biker, as most bike people in Seattle are, this hill wouldn’t be any big deal, but if you are me, this hill is a big deal.  I rode about half way up and then I had to get off my bike and walk, quadriceps burning and legs of jello.

I reached the top, found the building and room.  It was a nice open space, bright and sunny with white walls, really high ceiling, and hardwood floors.  So much nicer than the black box theatre/oven we were in before.

Even though it was a different space it felt like home.  Why?  Because there were acting cubes.  Ah, acting cubes, how can I sing your praises?  There were acting platforms, and step platforms, and random furniture bits, a piano.  It looked and felt like acting school. There were weird noises coming from other rooms where people were rehearsing.  Some stuff I couldn’t make out, and some opera singing, which seemed appropriate since we started off with some rapier and dagger work.

We ran through the final rapier and dagger bits all the way to the kill, which we hadn’t done before.  A little stabbing, a little throat slitting, bada-boom bada-bing.

We were assigned our partners that we will have for our SAFD certification test.  I got one of the two boys in class, who we will call Quinn to protect his anonymity.  He is pretty good, but sometimes he gets a little excited in that “I am a boy who likes to play  with swords” way, and I want to say (and do), hey, slow down a bit. Not because I am necessarily worried about him hurting me, but because we won’t pass the test if we don’t do it according to the safety procedures.

We have to find three scenes, one for each of our fights.  We have an unarmed fight, a rapier and dagger fight, and a broadsword fight.  I think finding one scene is hard enough, but now three.  Plus, now we have to talk and fight, which is something we haven’t done yet.  I’m starting to get nervous about this test

March 31 - Waiting to Get-it.

So this Saturday I saw another play. Two in one week. I feel so…hmmm, well, I am not sure what the word is I am looking for, but maybe I should start hanging out in coffee shops, and maybe I find one of my old berets. Ah berets, where have you gone? Fashion is fickle and cruel.

Artsy and intellectual I guess is what I mean. I have hardly watched any TV at all this week. Now I just have to read a book and I’m set.

I saw Waiting for Godot, the famous samuel Beckett play. It was being put on by Theatre Black Dog at the Balagan Theatre on Capitol Hill. The director and three of the cast memebers were people who were in my Personal Clown class at Freehold.

I have to say I think they did an OK job. This is a hard play to do for experienced actors, and the cast ranged in experience from this was their first play, to having a handful of plays under their belts.

Now I have to say if I they were not in the play, I wouldn’t have gone and seen it. I remember watching the play in high school on video. I thought it was tedious and didn’t make sense. Now that I’m an adult, I thought perhaps I had missed something, being younger and all, perhaps some underlying message had escaped my youthful naivete.

Nope. I still found it tedious and it still didn’t make sense. I could see now where there was deliberate interplay of dialogue. And I sensed the tediousness was inteded to replicate what the characters were feeling. If so, it worked.

Act 1 - The characters are waiting for Godot to show up, who of course doesn’t show. A couple of other people in the form of a landowner and his slave show up for a bit then leave. Act 2 - Repeat the first day with some variations in Groundhog Day-like fashion. (Maybe Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd as Vladimir and Estragon would have worked better for me - Waiting for the Blues Brothers)

At least Bill Murray in Groundhog Day had a problem to solve. He wanted to get out of his situation, and finally did after many tries. Vladimir and Estragon just keep waiting. They talk about leaving but don’t. Entropy I suppose is one of the points of the play.

I sort of feel like I do when I see dance. I always feel like I am supposed to “get” it. People dance and wave their arms around, leap this way, roll on each other and the floor, and that is supposed to be symbolic of European opression of the female archetype in post-modern cranial fragmentation.

So on the one hand want to wear my beret and sit in my Coffee House of Intellectuality (take that Starbucks), but on the other hand I feel like if I do that I should “get” Waiting for Godot (or modern dance for that matter), and I don’t.

Maybe that’s why berets went out of style.

March 28 - Anne Frank

I don’t have much to comment on with my own acting stuff because I am on break from classes for another week or so. And the rest of my life isn’t particularly interesting, so there is no point in boring the three people who read this blog with that.

Instead I will talk about the play I saw last night, The Diary of Anne Frank at the Intiman Theatre. Now I have to say I wouldn’t have normally gone to see this play. I read the book in high school; I know how the story ends, and it’s a bit of a downer.

Still I decided to go see it because it had one of my acting instructors in it. The incredible Amy Thone, who was playing Mrs. Frank. I actually haven’t seen most of my teachers perform. I am sort of going on faith that they actually know what they are doing. As it turned out, Amy confirmed my suspicions that she does indeed know what she is doing.

The play deals with the period of two years of hiding that the Franks and the other people (whose names I can’t remember right at the moment) did from the Nazi’s during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Basically the story of eight people stuck in a tiny space for two years under the threat of imminent death if they were discovered.

When I told people I was going to see the play, they all asked me if I knew that Anne Frank was played by Lucy DeVito, Danny DeVito’s daughter. Actually no I didn’t, at least until they told me. Now often when one hears that the offspring of famous actors are giving acting a go, there is some hesitation felt, maybe a little eye rolling. Oh, did Daddy/Mommy get them this job? Are they going to be any good? Did the theatre decide they needed a name and this is what they could get? Etc.

So I was very happy to find that Lucy DeVito blows those stereotypes out of the water. She can act, and act good. She must be in her twenties, but she was very believable as a 14 year old girl. Some of this is the fact that she is short (she does take after her dad in that respect), but mostly it was the energy she radiated and the physicality with which she moved.

The play actually had a lot of laughs in it, which was a relief. Though I read the book in high school I don’t remember the details, just that they hid, they got found out, then they were sent of to concentration camps, and ended up dead. Still I found my self tearing up at various points, and definitely got some tears at the end.

I don’t know if the performances were that good, I mean, they were good, but were they that good? Or was it the associated reality that this actually happened, and the realization of the horror that these people went through for all those years, and then to know they, with the exception of Anne Frank’s father, didn’t make it.

In either, or both cases, when the house lights went up there were quite a few people wiping their eyes and sniffling. It is probably the most moving theatre I’ve seen in a long time. Not that I go to the theatre that much (I am trying to go more), but there you go.

Watching Amy Thone was interesting as well. At first I saw her and not Mrs. Frank, and I am sure this is because I know her and I was waiting for her to blow me away. She did win the Stranger Genius Award after all. But she played Mrs. Frank quietly and reservedly as Mrs. Frank allegedly was, and by the end had morphed from my acting teacher into Mrs. Frank.

I’d say if you have the opportunity to go see it before it ends, do so. It’s a good show mixed with smatterings of hope, humor, and laughter. Still, if you are an easy crier like myself, I recommend a few tissues tucked in the coat pocket.

March 19 - New Digs.

Acting school is on break, so I am pretty much out of acting things to write about. My school Freehold Theater is moving, so that’s some news, mostly for them, but I suppose a bit for me.

They are moving from Capitol Hill to Belltown. The building they had been housed in for the past 16 years was sold, so they had to relocate because the rents are going up. So they found a place in Belltown at 2222 Second Avenue, Second Floor. At least the address is easy to remember.

When I heard they were moving I was hoping it would be to somewhere else on Capitol Hill, or maybe closer to my house in the U-District, but no. I guess when you need a space with a theater in it, your choices are limited. This new place has a theater in it, although it is smaller. I haven’t seen it, but hopefully you don’t have to walk across the stage to get out of there, like you did at Freehold’s old space.

Now if you are not familiar with these neighborhoods they are not all that far apart. Maybe two miles apart. So the distance is not that much greater than what I drive now. The problem I think is going to be parking. Belltown is known for its nightclubs and restaurants, and drunken homeless people. In the evenings, when I have class, I fear it is going to be hard to park.

Not that Capitol Hill was easy to park either, it is also known for its nigthclubs and restaurants and, yes, for its drunken homeless people, but you also got frequent drunken drag queens to brighten things up.

I guess I hate change. At least I knew the secret places to look for parking, and had developed strategies for Capitol Hill, that will now have to be revised for the new hood. I am sure I will survive, and maybe even like it. It’s just going to take some getting used to.

Mar 14 - In Review

So my voice class is over. In the last class we reviewed the different exercises we went through for each of the body parts, so we could make a list of the ones we liked best so we could keep practicing. We started with the lips, face in general, jaw, tongue, soft palate, neck, shoulders, spine, ribs, stomach, hips and legs. Yes all that is involved when you speak, or should be.

We then ran through our monologues again. This time we were to pick what we wanted to work on, or specifically get out of our monologues. Before the goal was assigned to us, and we tried to do whatever that was that day. I went back to what seemed to work the best for me, and that was the switching up the speeds and depth of breathing during the monologue.

I thought I would try and do it like I had the time before when that was the emphasis for the monologue. I had started out with slow and small, then moved to fast and small, then ended with big and slow breaths.

This time it was different, I started out the same, but I must have changed almost line to line. It just sort of happened. I was thinking I should be doing fast and small here, because this is where I did it last time, but then I started doing something else. But that’s OK I guess, because as my teachers keep saying to me I have to follow my impulse and commit.

So it was totally different, but I think it was the best I have done it. My teacher did say it was the most alive she had seen it. I’ll take that.

Now what I have to do is keep practicing my vocal exercises. They are hard to do, but I guess that’s why we have to practice them. I have been looking for a CD of some exercises that I could follow along with, but I haven’t seemed to really find anything quite like what I want, but I’ll keep looking.

I want to have at least some improvement by the time i get to my Voice Over class next month. want to get the most out of it that I can. It will be fun.

Mar 11 - Breathe.

Acting school is winding down.  My last Voice class is tomorrow, and my last Stage Combat class is Saturday.  Then I have a break until mid-April.  What am I going to do with myself?

I think Voice has been good for me.  If not only for pointing out to me how much work I need in this area.  It is hard to breathe and talk at the same time.  OK, it actually isn’t, unless you have to say your words that you didn’t come up with in front of people who are staring at you. Oh, and do it in a way that doesn’t fry your vocal chords.

I am going to take Voice Over next quarter, and I this will help me continue my voice training.  I am interested in doing that kind of work because it pays, and you don’t have to be a sexy supermodel.  Plus, it sounds fun.

I have to keep working on my monologue.  It is getting better each time, but still needs work.  The breathing definitely helps.  Last time in class we said our monologues while trying at least two of the following breath patterns.  Slow and Small(shallow), Fast and Small, Slow and Big(Deep), Fast and Big.

It was amazing how just trying to breathe in one of those patterns and then speaking through it changed the emotional content of what you were saying.  It was very interesting to watch.  Everyones’ monologues improved a lot just from trying that.

It is pretty hard to do, but I can see where more practice would make it easier.  It adds a lot of dynamic.  I will also be doing another play this next quarter so I am looking forward to putting this to use there.  The more practice the better.

Mar 7 - S is for Ribs.

In Voice class the other night we worked on expanding our ribs.  Three hours expanding your ribs, how often do you do that?

First of all we had a sub for the first part of class. Our teacher had a meeting to be at so we had him watching over us and leading us through first part of our rib-expanding journey.

I think his name was Andy, but I could be wrong, still I am going to call him that anyway.  Andy was really cool, and it sounds like he might teach at Freehold.  I would like to take a class from him.

We started off the rib expansion process by putting our hands on our sides at the bottom of the ribcage, touching the short ribs.  Then we would breath in and try to make them expand.  This is harder than you think.  We should be able to move them, but a lot of us have developed patterns of breathing that don’t move the ribs, or the belly, which is where you get the most bang for your breathing buck.

We then laid on our backs on our yoga mats (yes, now I own a yoga mat), and breathed in, again trying to expand the low ribs outward, then exhaled slowly with a sssssss sound like a hissing snake.  With our backs on the floor our ribs couldn’t move that way, so you got more expansion (if you were getting any expansion in the first place).

We did that for several minutes.  A room full of people laying on their backs, holding on to their short ribs, hissing like snakes.  That was just to give you a visual. Moving on now.

We then rolled on to one side.  This stopped the movement of whatever side you were on and increased the movement of the top side ribs. More hissing. Then we moved onto the other side.  More hissing.

Then we got on our knees, folded ourselves in half, and laid our bellies on our thighs and our head on the floor, kowtow position.  Let me tell you this certainly isolates the breathing to the back.  I am getting over a cold, so my sinuses didn’t appreciate it much, but I soldiered along hissing with the rest.

Then we moved to the back again to relax from that position. Then we stood up again and I do have to say that after all that hissing and rib isolation, my ribs were moving outward more in the standing position.  Are they moving that way now?  No. But then you are supposed to practice this.  It’s like dance or karate.  You have to do it over and over until it becomes second nature.

The reason for all this?  To learn to maximize your breathing capacity so that when you need to project on stage you have the air to do it, and depending on how you are breathing you change the quality of your voice.  The idea then being that you can make conscious decisions about the quality of sound to fit your character.  Complicated and difficult.  Practice, practice, practissssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

March 4 - Just another brick in the wall.

I’ve already gone on about all the reasons I haven’t posted lately on my other blog, so I won’t go on about it here too.

Things are chugging along methodically in the acting world. The two classes I am currently taking are more about the craft and less about “art”. Not that there is not art in the doing, but they are technique classes first and foremost.

Stage Combat is about how to safely wave pointed metal sticks around without injuring yourself, your stage mate(s), and the inanimate objects in the immediate area, all while looking like your sole purpose is to do the opposite. The art comes is in telling the story of the fight: Why is it happening? What is at stake?. Who is the winner? Who is the loser? The craft is how do you do that without getting your eye poked out by a pointy metal stick.

In Voice class the art would be how you use your voice to again tell the story, blah blah blah. The craft is how to do that with out frying your vocal chords while you try and reach the people in the cheap seats, and then do that 7 times a week for 6 to 8 weeks.

So I have been trying to do that. It is a bit like stacking bricks. Someone hands you a brick, you put it in your stack. The teacher says, here is way to relax your abdominal muscles, so that your breath can more easily support the voice. OK, I’ll take that, and stack in with my pile of how to relax the jaw, how to balance your weight to reduce tension, etc, etc. Another brick on the pile.

Right now my stack of bricks isn’t particularly organized. There are varying shapes and colors, and sizes of bricks. And I certainly haven’t built anything out of it yet. It looks rather like my desk, or the floor of my closet. Oh, thanks, hmmm… I don’t know quite what to do with that yet, so I’ll put it here for now.

The quarter will be over mid-March. The next quarter starts up at the end of April. I have already picked out my classes. Time to dust off the ol’ credit card.

I am going to take Rehearsal and Performance. I’ve actually taken this class before a year ago. In the class you do a whole play, and perform it in front of actual people. I think it will be a whole new experience now that I am a year “older” in my acting training. I’ve gone through the fiery pit of Clown, through the blender of Movement, I’ve had some Shakespeare, I’ll have had some voice training and combat training. It’s sort of a new me. And of course it will be a new play, so I am looking forward to it. Plus I get to show off in front of a crowd. Terrifying, yet exhilarating.

The next class will be Voice Over. It’s the same teacher that I have for Voice this quarter. This is geared for doing more commercial work, for commercials, industrial training videos, film, tv, radio and the like. This is one of those things I think is valuable for actually making money. Theater is nice, but how often does it pay good. I’m not above doing annoying car insurance commercials for the radio, or whatever to make some money. Really. I put numbers into spreadsheets and sort mail. It’s a step up in my book.

The third class will be Stage Combat part III. More of the same type of thing to finish off the series. More bricks for my pile. I am looking forward to it.

Feb 19 - Open up and say Ahhhhh.

First I have to apologize for not blogging the past week.  I will blame it on my busy schedule.  This last week was Kangeiko at my Aikido school.  What’s that?  It is a special mid-winter week of training where the goal is to go to class every day, which I did.

I also went to work, to my weightlifting classes, to my Voice classes, attended a celebration for two people who had just gotten there third degree black belts (using me as cannon fodder), dealt with the landlord showing up unexpectedly to rip up the floors in our bathroom and kitchen to replace the ugly torn linoleum with different (a little less ugly) not-torn linoleum.

So though blogging was on my mind, it got placed on the back burner, then fell off the stove and landed in the dog hair nest between stove and fridge.

I went to voice class twice.  I have picked out my monologue.  I think it is a good one.  It is a scene that Joan Cusack did in the movie In & Out with Kevin Kline.  I saw the movie when it came out in the mid 90’s, but I only vaguely remember the scene, which is good.  I don’t want to do it like Joan Cusack, although I think she is cool, and it was her name that drew me in to look at the monologue in the first place.

We spend a lot of time in class working on relaxing our mouths, jaws, throats, tongue, rib cages, oh, and everything else as well.  Apparently, when you are tense you don’t breathe as much, and tight vocal cords and lack of air make it hard to be loud and clear.

I hold a lot of tension in my throat and tongue (and everywhere else for that matter). Last class we focused on the tongue, which I think is my most tense spot, which sounds strange to most people I think, but there you have it.  Some people clench their shoulders (oh I do that too), some people clench their jaws.  I clench my tongue.

We spent almost the whole time making our tongue do this contortion or that.  I should say trying to make.  I wasn’t very successful with some (most) of them.  My throat hurt at the end, which is what it does when I talk for a long time.  The point is to learn to relax so this doesn’t happen.

I think I am going to need more than this class to get loosened up.  My teacher also does vocal coaching.  I think I see some private lessons in my future.

Jan 8 - Lift up your voice

I had my first voice class the other night. I think I am going to like it. I definitely need it. We did the standard say your name and tell us what you want out of this class sort of thing at the beginning. My reasons I want to be able to be heard without my voice box being ripped to shreds, which is what it feels like if I spend to much time talking. I am also a chronic mumbler, not so useful for the stage.

There were a few people in class that I already knew from other classes I have taken. One from Rehearsal and Performance, one from Clown, one from Accent Study, and one from Shakespeare. The teacher is a new one to me, Gin Hammond. I saw her perform a bit from a one person show she does, called the Syringa Tree, where she plays something like 24 different characters. All I can say is, if you can pull that off you must know your stuff.

We have to get a yoga mat for class, apparently we are going to be on the floor a lot. I will go pick one up this weekend. And really, I live in Seattle, shouldn’t I have a yoga mat already?

The other thing we have to do is find a monologue. I hate looking for monologues. I like someone to just hand me something and say you’re doing THIS. Then I don’t have to stress out about whether or not it is a good choice.

I am not very educated in the theater. I am often in class and people will start discussing plays, and many others will nod their heads knowingly, oh yes,yes, that play. Or maybe some will say a name of a playwright, and the heads will nod knowingly again. I feel a bit stupid, so I am going to try and find some play anthologies to start reading. I need one titled, the 100 Plays You Should Know: So You can Nod Your Head Knowingly. Say that five times fast.

We did warm ups and exercises as usual. Nothing to wacky, some stuff I had done in George’s class. I did notice this time that when I messed up, I sort of missed the “punishment” that George used to dole out. It made the stakes higher. Someone just telling you to start over again isn’t the same as being told to do a five second death scene in front of everyone, or the fake hand slapping.

We did a lot of stuff with breathing because apparently that’s where the power comes from when speaking/singing. I actually know this, but I don’t utilize my breathing apparatus efficiently. I hold too much tension in all the necessary areas, from throat to pelvic floor.

So the main goal of the class is to learn how to relax and go back to a more natural and efficient form of breathing and speaking like when we were children. She did point out that babies can get a lot of volume and go on for hours without any apparent signs of wearing out their vocal chords. I think we have all heard that screaming toddler in a restaurant or supermarket and know it’s true.

Jan 5 - Snoozeville.

I have finished up my Accent Study class. Now I just have to keep practicing.  I think I am going to buy me a couple of dialog CD’s to practice with, but I am not sure which ones to get.  That and I need to go to England for month or so.

Tomorrow night starts Voice class.  I am really looking forward to this.  I expect it will be a little more interesting than Accent Study.  Not that Accent Study wasn’t interesting, just not a lot of weird stuff to do and write about like some of my previous classes.  Hopefully this will provide more fodder for my quill, and more meat for my adoring fans.

I am going to see a play tonight.  I haven’t been seeing much theater, which is sort of shameful when you are training to be an actor. If only it wasn’t so expensive, or really if I was better with my money, I could go more. Support the arts and all that.  Plus you learn by watching, so they say.

Hopefully I will have more to write that’s interesting soon. Maybe as soon as tomorrow night.

Jan 28 - Roight nice noight it iz.

Woil, we ‘ave moved on frum proiper British RP English, an now ar stoodyin’ de moor woiking accen’ Cockney. There are a lot of similarities between the two, and then of course a lot of differences, because they obviously sound very different. In both the “R” before a consanant is dropped, wehk for work, for example. But where Cockney differs the most I think is in the pronunciation of the vowels, and specifically the vowel sounds of RP turning into diphthongs.

So the “ay”sound, is pronounce like an “I”. So same, becomes sime (rhymes with time). The “I” sound becomes “oy” So time becomes toyme. And there are more. Also a lot of consonants get switched out. The “th” as in think becomes an “f”. So “I think I got something stuck in my throat becomes”, “Oy fink oy got sumfin stuck in my froat.”

We spent Thursday night wrapping up RP, and moving on to Cockney, and then three hours on Sunday morning speaking Cockney, which of course we mushed up with RP, because we have been studying that. I started to forget how to talk like my regular old American self.

I don’t know if I am sounding accurate when I am practicing on my own. I need to rent a British person, to follow me around and correct me as I try to talk my way through the day. Moik shur oym speakin’ tha roight whey, an oll.

Jan 21 - Aye luv tah heah ya tock.

Last Accent Study class, we started working on a scene from a play, A School for Scandal, by Richard Brinsley Sheridan.  It is a comedy of manners written in 1777.  The language is very pompous and lends itself naturally to the British Received Pronunciation’s stuffiness.

I got to read the part of Lady Sneerwell as she plots with her friend Snake to break up a relationship so she can get the man.  We did some of our usual warm up exercises, but then spent the majority of class reading the play out loud.  After three hours of attempting to speak RP I found it hard to turn off when I got home, much to the amusement/annoyance of my roommates.

I have been finding that working on learning the RP accent has affected my everyday speech a little.  I find I am easily slipping in at least the cadence of RP, if not the whole accent.  I find my mouth moves a little differently.  RP is spoken in a different part of the mouth than General American.  To me it feels a bit like talking with a small piece of had candy in my mouth.  It sort of rolls around in the front of the mouth.

I spend my time in the car saying my practice phrases.

Barbara was very barbaric, very very barbaric indeed.
Bah-beh-ra woz veddy bahr-bear-ick, veddy veddy bahr-bear-ick in-deed.

The other day I was going to say something amusing.
Thee uth-er day aye woz goh-ing tuh say sum-thin a-myoo-zing.

The Secretary of the Home Department
Thee Seck-ruh-tree ov thuh Hoh-im De-pah-t-ment.

I know I don’t know how to get over to the road.
Aye kna-oh aye don-ta kna-oh ha-ow tuh get oah-vah tuh tha row-a-da.

I try to spend a lot of time going over my pronunciations, and also just practicing everyday speech with an accent.  I’ve been telling everyone I work with, go to Aikido with that I am taking this class, so don’t think I am going crazy when I start speaking like a rich upper-class English lady.  I often don’t get the accent right, but the more practice the more naturally it comes.  I am sure an English person would be able to tell much better when I am on and when I am off.  Sometimes I can tell too.  What I need is some Brit to follow me around all day correcting me.

On a side note, when I was doing some research on Received Pronunciation and British dialects, I came across a few websites where people discussed whether they preferred an American or Standard British accent.  These were people who were learning English as non-native speakers.  I was actually surprised at how many people said they preferred the American accent, some because it was easier to learn, others because it sounded less stuffy, others gave no reason.  It was probably split 50/50 overall, but that it was so even surprised me.

I guess I assumed that people would naturally prefer the British. Of course I am a native American speaker, so I find it rather mundane.  I don’t know about other cultures, but Americans find non-American accents intriguing, and many of them outright sexy.

I haven’t run into anyone who thinks American accents are sexy.  A lot of Brits look down on American accents, at least to the point of commenting that we pronounce and spell English wrong, which I guess is true from their point of view.  Even Americans don’t seem to find American accents sexy, outside of a few of the Southern drawls, though I must admit I have a fondness for Boston accents.

I remember being in the fourth grade in school and we had a substitute teacher for a while who was from Boston.  At the time we were reading 101 Dalmations.  So there were a lot of dawgz bahking (dogs barking), and Cruella Deville’s cah (car).  I had never heard anyone talk like that before, and I thought it was so cool.

Jan 16 - Ball and change.

Last night was my second Accent Study class. We did some vocal and physical warm-ups at the beginning. We did a ball tossing exercise, the purpose of which was to get us to pay attention to each other. One person stands in the middle of a circle and has a ball they throw to people around the circle’s edge. Whoever the ball is thrown to, throws back to the center person. At some point someone else from the edge of the circle stands behind the center person and they change places.

The point is to keep the rhythm of the ball throwing as the exchange is made. Then a second ball was added. The people on the circle’s edge throw to the middle at the same time the person in the middle throws to the circle. Again the goal is to keep the rhythm as the exchange of the center person is made. What has that got to do with learning British accents? Nothing directly, it is more of an exercise in listening and paying attention to what is going on.

Another exercise we did was “Honey I love you.” Again it is the circle formation with a person in the middle. The person in the middle (PM) walks up to a circle person (CP) and says, “Honey I love you. Can you give me a smile?” The CP replies “Honey, you know I love you, but I just can’t smile.” The goal is for the PM to make the CP laugh, and of course for the CP to not laugh. If the CP laughs, then they go to the middle of the circle and it is their turn to try and make someone laugh.

I am an easy mark when it comes to someone making me laugh. I was laughing when the PM was working on someone on the other side of the circle. Often they wouldn’t even get “Honey, I love you.” out and I would be laughing.

Some people were better at resisting laughing than others. One woman was really good. No one could make her laugh. After about my fourth or fifth time in the middle, I thought OK, I am going to go for her. I am going to make her laugh.

My clown training helped. I walked to the far edge of the circle opposite her, as far away as I could get from her. Then I undulated my way over in my clownesque walk. Right as I got to her, I got the instinct not to say anything yet. I circled around her, undulating and making eye contact as I went. Then I stopped in front of her and said my line. No laughter.

I maintained eye contact, giving her my crazy clown eyes. She started to say her line. I saw the corners of her mouth twitch just a bit. I stood about 6 inches in front of her and pointed an index finger at each corner of her mouth pretending to push them up into a smile. We weren’t allowed to actually touch the person, so I just mimed it and made little squeeling noises as I maintained eye contact. She got almost to the end of the line and burst out laughing. I raised my fists to the air triumphantly. Gotcha!

Thank you George again for the clown class. I had the determination to follow the thread I picked and it worked.

What has this got to do with learning British Accents? We had to say the lines in our best Received Pronunciation (Uppercrust British) accent.

We also worked on reading a monologue in front of the class, and the teacher would correct our pronunciation. We will be working on scenes the next time with our proper British Accents. All good fun, but for me the highlight was getting that woman to laugh.

Smashing good fun I say!

Jan 15 - Like a rolling stone.

This weekend was the first of the second part of the three part Stage Combat class that I am taking at Freehold. A few people didn’t continue on with us so we are now a small group of 6. It is unfortunate that they had to drop out mostly for financial reasons, but we will benefit from the smaller class size.

I had missed the last class of part one, so it was review for the others, but not for me. We worked on some rapier and dagger, which I like a lot. It was hard having the month off, I was fuzzy on the numbering system that we use for targets. OK, is Number 4 a thrust to the sword hand side of the chest, or the non-sword hand side of the chest?

We mostly did the rapier and dagger, but the last 40 minutes or so of class we did some unarmed stuff, which mostly consisted of reviewing forward rolls and learning backward rolls. Now I missed the last class, so I didn’t realize they had moved onto rolling, and it made me very glad that I already knew how to roll.

It is funny, but in Aikido (at least at our school) we take a long time to train people how to roll. We break it down into phases starting from the ground up. We have some pre-rolling exercises that we do to get people comfortable. Some people pick up rolling right away, and some people (and this was me) take a very long time to get it. For a lot of people rolling is scary (as it was and sometimes still is for me).

But I have gone to other martial arts schools, and now in Stage Combat, and when the time to roll comes up, it is about a half a minute speech of put your arms like this in a wheel, and then…roll. A few demo rolls follow, and then people just throw themselves into it. A literal crash course in rolling.

I remember the first time this happened to me. I was so glad that I could roll. Some people got it, but some were crashing pretty hard. I have done quite a bit of crashing myself, and I know that it hurts. If not right then, then the next day. And for those people like myself who find it scary, it might be such a turn off that they don’t come back. I think we lose a fair number of people in the first three weeks of Aikido class, because of this.

So now in Stage Combat, I found myself once again saying, boy am I glad I already know how to roll. My problem stemmed from the fact that I roll too smoothly. In Aikido you want to get down and up off the floor in as smooth and continuous a motion. However in Stage Combat you want to hit the floor and make it look like it hurts.

Of course you learn how to do this safely, but I kept finding myself rolling and then starting to come up. I had to really concentrate to learn how to flop on the ground. Still I prefer that problem to the problem the others had of cranking their necks by going over the wrong way.

We incorporated the rolling into a little scenario where we karate chopped someone on the back of the neck, and then “flipped” them by the arm. Classic Avengers stuff. The people being “thrown” actually throw themselves. You are just doing the arm movement, they put in the momentum, thereby controlling the move and making it safe for them.

Now I throw people pretty regularly for real, so when it was my turn, I walked up, did my chop, grabbed the arm and “threw”. There was some laughter behind me, and one person said, wow, your so matter of fact about it. Well, what can I say, I’ve had a lot of practice.

Just a note to those people who read my blog. I have started another blog with some other friends tracking our attempts to lose that flabby midsection that we all have. There are three of us blogging on there. If you are interested in that sort of thing, you can check it out at:

http://fattybobatties.wordpress.com/

I have to warn you though. There are “before” pictures of us in bathing suits, and it ain’t pretty.

Jan 11 - You gotta speaka my language.

I had my first Accent Study class last night. I really didn’t know what to expect. I was wondering what we were going to do for three hours at a time, two nights a week. I mean I figured we were going to be learning accents, but how were we going to do it, what sort of exercises were we going to have to do? What sort of assignments? Would we have to do a monologue? What accents were we going to do? So many unanswered questions.

I get there really early despite the hellish traffic and the need to get dinner beforehand. I only work a mile and a half from the school, and I had a hour and a half to get there. I eat my chicken taco and wait for my classmates to arrive.

The first is a guy who seems very exuberant. Definitely seems like a person who would be in the performing arts. Then another woman comes in. She seems a little exotic and yoga-ish. We start chatting and getting names. A guy comes in with two red playground balls and a portable CD player sets them down and he leaves. I assume he is the teacher, because who else would run around with red playground balls.

More people arrive, and one of them is a guy who I have had in a couple of classes, so that’s nice. I am not totally among strangers. We start class of course by the hated ritual of telling a little bit about ourselves and our experience. My experience, other than watching Dr. Who as a kid, and a lot of other British TV, and talking with a bad British accent for fun, I have had no formal training.

We start to warm up our bodies and voices. Pretty tame stuff after Clown. Then we start talking about the differences between Standard British or RP (Received Pronunciation) and Generalized American. The teacher says some words, we repeat. We talk about vowels, and diphthongs, and consonants.

We move on to saying short sentences constructed more for their ability to emphasize a particular sound than to make sense. An example: Barbara was very barbaric, very very barbaric indeed. And my favorite phrase of the night: Secretary for the Home Department. Secretary is said in only three syllables (actually more like 2 1/2) and you can make yourself sound like a very snooty BBC commentator pretty easily with that one.

It was like being in a foreign language class, but one where you actually understood the meaning, but couldn’t speak. The subtle vowel and consonant shifts confounded most of us, especially when reading, because our brain reads, and then our mouth want to say it the way we’ve always said it, not the way those crazy Brits do.

For instance they like to drop the “R” in words or minimize it. The phrase:

The firemen at work saw the fire first by the far door, sounds like:
The fiah-mun et wehk sawr the fi-uh fust by the fah doh.

We Americans like to say “er” Figh-er (Fire). The Brits speaking RP say, Fi-uh.

This is how we spent most of the time, going over these sentences and individual words and practicing saying them. Later we will end up doing a monologue and a some scenes together. We are supposed to learn Standard Britsh, and Cockney, and then hopefully a third accent probably Irish, but I wouldn’t mine American Southern. Just because it is in this country doesn’t mean I know how to talk like that.