- So the last two weeks, it's been kind of tough because I've had both rehearsal for The Gathering (a devised show that I'm performing in, basically a movement piece about ghosts and scary things that's being performed on a dark Vassar field late at night this week) and Taming of the Shrew, which I'm assistant directing. I like being able to do both things (although now I can't work with Tommy Kail, the director of In the Heights, but I met him and had a conversation with him and he's really cool). Unfortunately, like I usually do, I have overbooked myself and I have to miss rehearsals a lot. We did our first full runthrough of Taming today, and it kind of bombed. It's opening on Friday and the cast still isn't fully offbook. I mean, to give them some slack, this program is freakin brutal on the actors and they have to memorize a lot and play multiple roles in multiple shows (on top of the four hours of class they have every day), but still - the show can't go any farther if they don't learn their lines.
- The director of Taming of the Shrew is also my acting teacher, also named Brian. He's really funny, in a very nontraditional way - he's like an ADD kid, actually. He bounces around the room in rehearsal and sometimes picks up things and starts playing with them to help him think. Or he'll be like, "Petruchio, I need you to move stage right," and then he'll do a cartwheel in the middle of the stage. It's a lot of fun, actually. And we're really close - he told me at the beginning of rehearsals that I was going to be Boy Brian and he was going to be Man Brian, and I was like, OK, whatever - that's not that bad. But then in the third rehearsal he pulled out Baby Brian, and I was like, great, now I'm screwed. So now I sign my emails to him "Baby B." Oh, and on the official Rehearsal Reports that get sent to the directors of the program, it says, "Present for rehearsal: Boy Brian." Anyways.
- Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I got a whiny email from one of my sisters (you guys can figure out which one, muahaha) so I decided I should like update you guys about what I'm doing and all that. I'm still having an extraordinary time, and I'm still making friends (I say this because Mom pulled a Sandlot in one of our conversations a couple weeks ago), and I still have absolutely no time to do write on this. But I have a 2-hour break now from Taming rehearsal to The Gathering rehearsal, so I decided to use some of it with you guys.
- Speaking of The Gathering, I guess I should tell you what that is. It's based on this art form created in the 1970's called Soundpainting. Soundpainting started when this guy Walter was conducting a jazz orchestra and he wanted them to improvise, and then during the improvisation he heard some stuff he liked that he wanted those musicians to continue but he couldn't figure out how to get everyone to do what he wanted without stopping the music and telling them, so he used hand gestures. And out of that, Walter created this whole sign language based on getting performers to do stuff without sound. So like, Tomi, my composition teacher and the director of The Gathering could tell me to fall down, crawl on the ground with murderous intent like a zombie and grab another person in like 10 signs. Pretty cool. So now we've found or created all these ghost stories that we're going to perform with Soundpainting (some of it rehearsed, some of it improvised) really late at night when it's dark and on this field where there are no lights nearby. It's going to scare the shit out of everyone who comes, trust me. As an example, one of my characters is this Light Monster who is tied to two other actors, and when the light is on, I act like a lifeless doll and just let the other two actors move my arms and legs, but when the light goes off, I "wake up" and make all these maniacal laughs and attack the other two actors. It is SOOO much fun but it shot my voice for like an entire weekend so I had to cut back on the laughing haha. But I'll teach some of it to you guys when I get home, you'll love it! One of my friends says it's the most beautiful art form she's ever seen, because I think she's best friends with a deaf girl, and I might have to agree with her - when it's done right, it's truly awesome.
- This professional photographer has been taking pictures of the whole program, and he put his pictures on Flickr. I'm hoping we can get copies of all the pictures at the end of the program, because Flickr has copyright protection, but in short of that, just enjoy looking at them!
www.flickr.com/thephotoholic
Most of these are pictures of the actors, but the very first one on that website right now has me in it - we were helping young playwrights create a Pirate show that was performed in an art gallery (5619). "Dances at an Exhibition" is a Soundpainted show that my Taming of the Shrew cast performed (all the actors are split up into three ensembles that they do all their projects with, and my did Taming and "Dances"). "Missing Pieces" (when you get to page 4) was a show that was performed last weekend, and it was really cool - kind of experimental but really well done, I liked it a lot.
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