Auditioning

Auditioning to me is a two headed beast. On the one hand, it is very much like a marketing campaign for yourself. Talent is indeed part of this selling process but so is every detail surrounding the audition. The ability to show that you are professional, that you understand the business, and that you would be a pleasant and understanding person to work with is essential. The more you can present yourself not just as an actor but as a sought after co-worker, the more desirable you will be to those casting you. This is new element to the audition process to me and I have learned much from the information gained in class. In fact, I have learned enough to realize how silly, slightly unprofessional, and mildly embarrassing I may have been in the past. I plan on changing all that. The other head of this beast is that of the creative expression. This is the part that makes me the most nervous but is also the part I enjoy the most. The chance to display your art and talent o be judged by other is daunting but can also be tremendously rewarding. Your audition piece should reflect a portion of who you are. If that is indeed the case, then you also get to show off a bit of who you are as a person and what it is that you believe. All in all, the audition process is one hell of an adrenaline rush!

an audition

I have noticed that whenever I go through the audition process, I usually become nervous. I have realized that this does not seem to be the same for an interview, and I believe that this is due to the audience that sits during the audition. Every single audition that I have been apart of, everybody else auditioning would sit in the room as well. This added group of people seems to make me more nervous. The final for this class will be the first time of audition where I had to prepare something prior to going. I believe that this puts something new on the line because these are pieces that we have chosen compared to the pieces that I have normally read were just cold readings of the play.

Bringing it all together

Comedia was fun, and proved to be very challenging, physically. To actually become the character you wished to portray took more then just rehearsing lines. You actually had to practice the exaggerated ways of the individual. It was fun however, because you could take the character over the top, and it would only add the comedy.

Realism proved to be the most difficult of the three sections. Although physical actions were part of the scene work, most of the characterization relied on the depth by which you knew your character. You really had to “dig deep” and find out who your character was. If you did not know every little aspect of the character, it proved to be a difficult task performing the scene.

Clowning was awesome! It was a combination of physical and character comedy all rolled into one scene . . . except in silence. The most difficult part of this was memorizing the order of you “gigs”. But once you had that down, you were able to take off with the ideas set before you, and

Physicality and Psychology

Well these two components of acting really are like two peas in a pod. The psycho-physical continuum really is a powerful level of understanding. I had read about their connectivity last semester while I was studying Stanislavsky and believed it as truth, but it was not nearly so clear as it is at the present. This class has stressed the paring in each assignment we've been given. The fist assignment of comedia really forced us to understand the psyche of the character. If we didn't, the incredibly difficult and unique physical component of each character looked either half-assed or, in the very least, forced. This was nice because it was a beginner's insight into the necessary connection. It was also good to have it understood that early so that the more subtle realism could utilize the idea. Within realism, the drive to understand the psyche of the character led to breakthroughs in the motivations for the character. Any physical action in realism without a motivation looks, well, unreal. Which is the opposite of what we wanted. The next assignment, clowning, was wonderful blending of the previous two. It was still a comedic physical piece but not so cartoony and haphazard as comedia becasue of its incredibly detailed set of actions which pulls in the importance of motivations we encountered in realism. In the end, the hammering in of the connection has produced a reliable and stable method for characterization. To understand the physical side of your character you must know where thier head is at and in order to discover the psyche of the character one must pulls clues from the physical actions of the character throughout the piece. One feeds the other in a escelating spiral of creativity. It's pretty neat. When understanding this principle, the task of characterization does not seem so monumental. I have learned and enjoyed.

bringing everything together

Prior to the lessons that we had learned in this class, I thought I understood bringing the aspects of a character together. I may have spent a little time on character but that was it. I felt awkward trying to find the movements and completely creating another persona. After each section, I felt more confident and comfortable with the different aspects of the character. Looking at a character now, I know that I cannot skip on one aspect of characterization because they are all very important. In the past, I would usually just work on the psychological aspects of my character, and to be completely honest, I did not even work on that as much as I should have. This has changed though. I need to understand it all (how he walks, talks, and thinks).

final attempt at buster

I was really appreciative that Professor Phillips allowed me to redo the physical piece on Monday. I did not feel confident at all on Thursday; however, that changed Monday. Yesterday, I felt more in the character and had the movements down the best I have yet so far.

Also, I don't know if this information will ever come in handy to anyone, but I do not suggest doing a scene that involves hinging bread. The hinges will not last long.

bread

I also just wanted to let you guys know that if you are ever in the mood for bread... the prop bread that I bought is delicious and was only 98 cents. I recommend it.

When I was performing this piece on Tuesday, I felt as though there was a lot that I personally needed to work on. One specific piece is bringing the other characters to life in my head. I could tell that since I did not truly believe them to be alive, nobody else did. I have worked on this some already, and I plan on working on it some more. I have began to imagine people standing in these places. This seems to help bring out truer reactions in the piece as well. Then there was the fact that I needed to separate the each of the beats more. A couple of people mentioned how the pieces meshed together, and it was hard to determine where one ended and another began. I think the best way for me to approach this is to slow down certain aspects of the piece and make my motions more distinct. The final part I have looked at is the true emotions that are supposed to be evoked when put into this situation to create more of the character. This has been difficult, but I believe that I am doing better than I was on Tuesday.

A Work in Progress

With my performance Tuesday, the two main thing I feel like I need to work on are 1. Taking a moment at each beat, to allow time for the joke to settle. This will give the audience time to react and hopefully laugh. 2. Opening up myself to the audience a little more, as Spencer suggested. I feel as though I was keeping my gigs to myself a little too much. I think a simple solution to this would be not hunching over. I need to keep my shoulders back, and have a little more movement from my hips. I think if I were to focus on these two small aspects, my performance, It will be significantly funnier.

Self Clown Critique

I am excited about my piece for the clown bit. I feel that i am close but still need a bit of polishing. Two specific things that i am going to be concentrating on for Thursday are giving my beats a moment after they happen and making myself look as if I am working harder. The moment after my beats allows for the joke to settle in for my audience. This works specifically well in between such steps as the three matches as well as finding my pockets. Making it look as if i am working harder is simply funnier and easier to see when i do things such as pick up trash or sweep the floor. I need to pull the trash all the way up to my body and movve the broom in an exagerated manner. Accomplishing this without looking contrived will be difficult but it is a challenge i think i can tackle. I want my mvents bigger but i don't want to distract from the rest of the piece.

hey, I was just wondering how this section was going for everybody. How different do you find it from the other pieces that we have done? Have you had any troubles?

Funny To-Do List

Enter to clean up stage

Take a break to smoke

Knock cigarette to ground
-pick up cig and drop the others about 5 times
-drop broom
-take one cig
-throw down cigs and sweep others aside

Search for match box
-find it and open upside down
-reach down to pick up matches and get broom handle stuck in sweater
-break first match
-knock out match box with second match

Go for box and kick it away

Stick cigarette in ear

Stomp on box and pick it up
-light match
-search for cig and eventually find it in my ear
-burn my hand on match

Broom head comes off trying to sweep it all away
-pick up broom head and drop hat
-pick up hat and drop broom head

Try to put hat on and put it on broom handle
-search for it and eventually find it
-chase hat

Hat trick

Broom stick down throat

Attempt to reattach broom head
-miss twice
-examine it and spin it on

Sweep cigs and matches offstage

Go back and pick up pieces of paper
-drop pieces around four times

Wave and walk off stage

jail break

rain piece
-umbrella away
-pull back out
-puddle piece
-fall

jail piece
-trip
-reveal bread
-stall
-attempt song
-hint at tools in bread with hand motions
-put rock in place
-break window
-reveal tools
-pretend to leave
-take bread to the cell
-tools fall out of bread
-say goodbye