Final project

https://youtu.be/C9k7qajXX-Y

Move On!

Yes, this is going to be my last blog post for Ms.Guarino’s class. Well there so many things I have learned from this class over my years, but there is one thing that showed us as a class what is theater all about. I remember watching my very first monologue recording, and I was laughing so hard because I would not accept it to be my final draft as senior John Jiang, but freshman John Jiang was pretty happy I got all my lines right. However, the senior John Jiang cannot remember his lines as well as the freshman did!

Yes, I forgot a line on stage, and yes I thought I had the lines solid! While I was all emotional and sad about my last acting class, my head had a blackout, so I forgot a line in my song which I remembered the best “I will be tender, I will be gentle and awful sentimental!” See, I do remember this line, but I forgot it anyway. I was so lucky that I was playing a tin man, so I just stayed still as if I ran out of oil which gave me about solid 3 seconds to think about my line, but I could not anyway. I just sang the line I can remember with all the confidence I can find at the moment, so it looked like I knew what I was doing.
These are the moments represent theater and life. Sometimes, no matter how prepared you are, things could happen which can lead us into what we would never expect. However, we cannot stop and be so sad and let everyone know because the show needs to go on and our lives need to go on! I think now I am truly ready to move on from what I have now because I need to better myself like I did when I was a freshman. Now, I will start as a freshman again in college chasing my dream and passion!

Final Project Proposal

For a four people scene work acting project, I think we should do Wizard of Oz. First of all we know the story and characters which will be helpful when we work together on this piece. I think we can cast: Chrissy as Scarecrow, Livi as Dorothy, Michael as Cowardly Lion and me as Tin Man. This cast will give us a good fit to our range. We will start with our group scene work and then we will work on our individual songs.

What I say is not what I mean!

In our real life, a lot people say things which does not represent what they mean. For example, sometimes when Ms.Guarino say: “Maybe!?” She really means “No that's not a very good idea.” And when John Jiang says: “I don't really know!” He really means “I know but I just cannot tell you what it is exactly about!” Our last scene from English class is one the perfect example of these moments, and it is also the biggest challenge for us to accomplish! As I mentioned before, the hardest part to show from out acting in this scene is our emotion changes! It is hard because the writing of this play gives us the feeling that all of these lines are in the same tone. However, there are many mixed emotions behind the actual dialogue and we want people to sense that even they don't know anything about the actual story.

So how can we do that and how we did? After many changes and practice. We finally gave our final production last Thursday, and I think it's bad because we have shown the doubt in Tom, the sad and anger in Amanda and the confusing in Laura. From the beginning of yelling at each other to slowly building up the temper. It has been a different feeling for me. I used to just think about my character and how will I present; however, this time I spend more time on study how Laura thinks on her head and why she would say each line which helps me a lot when I react to it. I didn't have as many lines as Chrissy had, so I figured to do other things to make my character as effective and interesting as Amanda.

Overall I enjoyed working with Livi and Chrissy, and I am very happy to see all of us becoming better at acting and working with each other! At the end, I am looking forward to work on our final piece next week with four of us in it, and I hope we can make it a perfect ending mark for our last class together!

Character work

I personally can feel Tom this character pretty well, since I was raised in a culture where most moms are like Amanda who designs their children’s entire life for them instead of letting them do it on their own. Tom has been raising by his mother, and suffers everyone from his mother’s complaining and bossing. This is the reason why he wants to leave the house like what his father did 16 years ago. However, it is never that easy because he has a sister who unfortunately has been controlled by the mother even more. In this case Tom as an older brother cannot just let his sister to be torched more, so he decides to stay in the house and keep them from starving. However, The more mother pushes Tom the more he wants to leave.

In this specific scene, as Tom he is trying to avoid his mother’s endless talking as a normal day, he realizes that his mother is pushing harder and harder. Two scene before this scene, Tom already plans out to escape the house, but he still need a lighter to explode this off; a reason for him to eventually decide leaving the house! He cannot make his mind until the moment when Amanda uses her final and biggest push on Tom which gives him the power to finally leave at the end.

Over this scene, even though the lines seem have a similar tone, but there are actually tons of layers of emotion can go into. The last time we try to go over our lines, and it did not really work, since we didn't analysis line by line on the different emotions, we did not see a build up and how these two character changed their thoughts in their head. I will definitely make sure we as a group go through the lines and talking about not just our surface level acting, but deep thinking in our mind.

Float

Float this word was the most mentioned one during our performance in class, and seems everyone likes when there is a float. However, I think this is not success of our work but an accident! Please let me explain, first of all I truly enjoyed everyone’s work and I think the float did make the scene better. Second of all, I don't think creating a float is our main purpose in a scene because of two main reasons.

The first one is that lines and emotion of the passage is the most important element since our main goal is telling a story to a person who doesn't know it. Because of this, More than often we need fresh eyes to give us comments in order to make our work better, and this is why when we all know the story we start looking for something else to focus on, such as float! The reason why our group’s scene had a “float” is because 1. Michael and I know each other pretty well. 2. We didn't know our lines perfectly, so we had to pick something else up to cover our problem. This situation often happens when there is improv show because that is the place you want to keep everything in a nice float which will make actors to improv easier. In our case, it is easier for us to remember our lines or come up with a similar meaning lines.

The second reason I feel this is a failure rather than a success is because we didn't try to make our own character more authentic and realistic, instead we tried to make our scene look less awkward. Luckily we made it, but this also gives me a warning on what should I focus more on in the future. If I am working with some other people who I don’t know well, I don’t know how will I be able to create a float on stage by improving, so learning our lines and character are important! I will be more careful in my next project!

Escapism

Since I have been reading Hemingway in English class, I have a lot of different understandings and approaches on people who are suffering in the reality and they choose to escape from it. In the story, I have noticed that all these four characters are trying to get out of their life which they are having now.

For Tom, the problem he is facing is that he is stucked with his mother and sister which means that he is having a life he hates, but he cannot change easily. The situation is that he cannot find the perfect way to leave the broken home. He cannot leave his sister behind, but he also cannot bring his sister with him because his sister is such a weak person who is always depends on other people. This situation is the direct trigger which caused his leaving from home. I see this character as the person who is telling the story with a negative emotion which set him as an unreliable narrator. I would play this character as if he was going through the darkest memory in his past experience.

For Amanda, since I mentioned the Tom I would expect her to be the worst behaving character in the entire play. She is always living in her own self built world where she is still young and beautiful, so she can still pretend her pride and self respect. She is one of these kind people who always want the attention and control everything in her life since she made a wrong decision once.

For Laura, she is the glasses in the pay. She is this beautiful little thing, and she wants to escape from the plate the control, so she can start her own life. However, no matter how realistic these animals are, they can never be real. She will always be controlled by her mother.

The last is Jim. Who is similar to the mother, but what he missed is the feeling under spot light. He is always trying to tell Tom how “different” they are from other workers. It is just like how he once felt “different” from others in the school.

This is what I have so far on all these characters, and I will dig deeper as we practice more and perform more on stage. I think this is a great piece for us to work on as class unit, and we all have familiar character we used to play, but within new excitement and challenges.

Silent but colorful

I have been acting in a silent movie for a long time, so I was so happy and excited to be part of this silent movie project. Since the last time I did a silent movie, I have improved myself as an actor in many different ways, and our group had a great start on our story line. However, we can still make it better.

First thing I think we can do is getting our props ready because in a silent movie we cannot use any lines to tell the audience what we are doing. This is why we need to get all the props, such as bread, table set, glasses, background paper, posters and plates, then we can create a scene of Paris. The goal is to make audience know we are tourist in Paris and we go to a local restaurant.

The second thing I think we can improve is that we can use more body and hand movements to make our plot more clear. During our last performance, we improvised a lot of the stage blocking which went along with our plot, but it was not properly organized and rehearsed, so some part of the performance was not clear, and sometimes we were blocking each other.

The last but not the least, think that it would be better that we can practice more on the timing because it felt loose. Part of the reason was because we were trying to figure out some of our movements, and some other reason was because we didn’t practice enough, so we didn’t know the timing well enough to keep the plot tight and smooth.

Overall, I am looking forward to work on this project more with my classmates, and I hope that we can put on a successful silent movie this time since it will be my last silent movie project at CA. I am also excited about where our story is going because so far we have established a great plot and starting. We just need to finish it up. At the end, I hope everyone had a great break, and ready to work hard for last marking period.

Ideas

1. Since Liv hasn't done a silent movie project, and I cannot remember the last time I was in a silent movie. Also, Chrissy and Liv had some struggles with their body movements I feel a silent movie would be good for us to do.

2. Improv will also be a good choice since they did not have much experience before, so we can have classes and come up different themes to do.

3. I kind like the idea to do a riff off short musical which we can do on a certain topic about CA, and we can be creative and I personally didn't have much experience with musical in this class.

4. I also think we can have our own unique adaptation on a famous story such as Hamlet.

5. The last idea I have is that we may can take a three person play to put on stage.

Stick It To The Man!

School of rock is definitely the best production I have seen or participated at Cheshire Academy. This is also the first time I play a weak small character, and honestly to say that I had so much fun! I still remember the first day when I was so scared how we would work with such a massive cast till we rock the whole show. I have to say that hardworking pays off at the end.

This is the second musical I have ever done, and I am super thankful for everyone who supported and trusted me and most importantly giving me such an amazing experience. Ever since after Once On This Island I found musical has a magical power which can glue the entire Cast together with a extremely strong bond which straight play cannot always do. In the past few days I have heard multiple people told me that I have improved my acting skills which I am so happy and grateful because this cast has trained and taught me so much. I remember how I took advice from all different people who had watched School of Rock movie before, and how I practice my songs over and over with Ms.DiGiacomo and Mr.Trier. Of cause I had a struggle to sing with an crazily good voice --- Lexi. She has helped me to build a confidence to sing, and we have talked with each other a lot on our understanding of character. Without Lexi I could not rock as the way I did.

Even though I had to go back to VdP searching countless times for missing people; even though some people had shown some negative energy to the cast; even though everyone was constantly too tired; even though Ms.Guarino sent 2000 emails everyday, we have truly accomplish an amazing job to put on a high energy, rocking, hilarious and touching show three days in a row! I will never forget this adorable cast and the “goddamn” couch!

A place everyone will be a better person

Along with my senior year reaching to the end, senior speech has come to my doorway. For my last acting class’ first monologue assignment I decided to write my “I believe” speech, and it turned out to be a great speech. Before, I wrote this speech I was wondering what should I write about? I was doubting between writing my home --- VdP or what makes who I am today.

Of cause I choose the second one not because the first one was not important or special but because the second one can make more benefit for this community. I was a kid who was shy and self doubting, and I could never imagine that I am going to be the person who I am 4 years ago, but my experience on this 4 year journey has taught me that people need to know how important it is to help and take care each other. And this was one of the most important reason I wrote my speech about how I was helped by a stranger at Hong Kong air port. I choose this topic also because it was the moment that truly teachers me about the most beautiful part about human being! You are doing anything for any benefits, and you never expect to earn anything. It is just a human being nice to another!

I want to tell everyone about it because I want to remind them there is something wonderful we can always do, and it could be one of the most simple things like holding a bag or a cup of coffee. I am so glad that I came in this community because I have seen things like those happen everyday, but I am also seeing people choose to not care at all, so I want to tell these people that it takes everyone’s effort to make a good community, but it only needs one person to stop it!

senior speech

I believe that helping other people is helping yourself!

I am from Akesu, a city in the middle of the Taklamakan desert. When I was 15 years old, I decided to go to the United States which I knew nothing about  except what I saw on Hollywood movies and some TV shows. I didn’t know why or how my parents trusted me so much, so my dad said goodbye in the living room and my mom said good luck before I went through the security check at the city airport.

          

        Then my long journey began. It was the longest one in my life for my body and soul. My mom booked the flight which went from Akesu to Beijing then to Hong Kong and finally to JFK. However, things do not always go as you expected; I had to wait 6 hours in Hong Kong for my flight. When I tried to call my mom, my phone was not working at all, so I was standing in the middle of the airport with whole bunch of strangers from all over the world.

Suddenly , a pay phone appeared in my sight. I picked it up trying to put my quarter in it, but I forgot I was in Hong Kong. I couldn’t use a Chinese quarter. My hands started shaking, and I dropped my wallet. Then I saw 50 dollars in my wallet, and I realized that I could use US dollars here to make change. I went up to a Starbucks and tried to order a cup of ice coffee. However, my body was too shaky to speak clearly. I saw the change in my hand, my heart stopped for a second because they were US coins which I could not use to make a phone call.

        

At that moment I felt as if I had been thrown into a freezing lake, and all I could hear was my accelerated heartbeat. In my head I told myself:“ John, you have to calm down and try to figure this out! Don’t forget, there are a lot of people here who speak Mandarin and English, and you can ask them for help!” However, my body wasn’t in my control, and I still could not speak a complete sentence in either English or Chinese. Even worse, all the Chinese people I asked wouldn’t help me because they didn’t trust a strange kid in the middle of the Hong Kong airport. When I was so lost, suddenly there was this Japanese girl who gave a look that said, “Do you need help?” I walked up to her, and we could not understand each other at all because she didn’t speak English or Mandarin, so we I  communicated with me by holding a dollar in my hand and with using the weirdest movement trying to tell her that I needed some Hong Kong quarters to make a phone call. In the end she gave me 4 quarters, and she didn’t even take my dollar.

I used 2 quarters and made a 30-seconds call with my mom, and I kept other two with me until today. It reminds me of what felt like when you were hopeless, and what it feels like when you can help someone or be helped. Today, I cannot remember what exactly we talked in that phone call except “ Mom I only have 30 seconds, and I am safe.” However, the message which the quarter carries will never fade out of my memory. Today, I still have Two Hong Kong quarters in my wallet just like all the other ones, but only I know the story they carry, and the belief I carry.

When I got here at Cheshire Academy, this place taught me more than helping. This place taught me carrying! I remember the day I first time arrived here I didn’t have pillow or sheets and Mr. Shen lend me his; I remember the day I get lost about my grades Ms. Anderson and Ms. Guarino helped me to improve myself. I remember the day I didn't know what should I do with my college Mr and Mrs. Monahan was there for me. I remember the day I was sick alone in my dorm, and Mr. Marshall made my tomato chicken soup and a begal. I remember the young, naive, lost, lonely and shy boy 4 years ago, and how he turned into the mature, carrying, hopeful and positive young man John Jiang today! In this I believe in that if we can help others whenever we have the ability to do so, we can create a community such as Cheshire Academy which can make everyone one of us a better person!

Stand Up Comedy

This struggle is real! (don’t get me wrong! I love everyone I will mention in this)

Today is new year! → Red Bags. Family members ask me “Are you coming back for New Year?” Every year it happens and they know I have school. Thank god there is Wechat

Family → Distance family can make small stuff be the real “S”

Weather goes crazy Dragon Buffet and Chill in VdP

Terrorists attack in California and Gun Shot in LA, dad calls me 3 am in China, Think about Traffic in NYC(Flight) and CA is middle of nowhere.

Traffic → First time come to US. 15 alone.

Old Guy asks you “Do you want to use Bathroom?(Which I though was the place to take a bath)

Then we drive to the middle of nowhere ( Scared)

VdP → “What the hell did I get myself into” I thought it was Academy now It looked like Survival Camp.

Something I wish I know before I came

Math is real, This is some serious “S” → JJW lots of Asian → Racist

Participation and etc.

How to say Hello→ All different kinds of ways and Jacky’s slap “A”

Talking about say Hello (I love all my roommates don’t get me wrong!)→ First time meet my roommate

Don’t make me laugh! This is real! Good First impression → Kick out Speech

“Damn I am all messed up”

Your Roommate is dating or not will directly effect your life(How do I know that? From real experience).

Calling so long and freaking late

But There’s a point I get it because I did the same (So Glad I am from XinJiang)

Calling in the dinning hall → “Oh John Who is this girl? …..Etc.”

“S” Man! Are you trying to get me killed?

Next morning Phone droping on my Face

Told you Distance can makes small stuff be the real “S”

That my Struggle and it’s real!

Be Ready

It’s very sad and hard for me to say that it is going to be my last acting class at Cheshire Academy(and the best!), and I am more than thankful for how much I have learned from this class and all the other theater experience on this campus. Through past two years I have improved so much not only on my theater skills but also as a person. Here I am now as a senior at the beginning of my second semester, and as I promised to Ms.Guarino two years ago when I was a sophomore; I will put my maximum effort in this class, set a good example for younger students and most importantly keep challenging myself to achieve the better.

There is one thing which has been bothering me for a long time, but I attended to ignore it. This time instead of ignoring I decided that I want to fix it which is my accent. Yeah, that’s right! My accent is getting better, but the more performances and speeches I give the more serious I feel about my accent because it is not only affecting my performance but also killing my confidence. For example, I couldn’t get many words in The Children Of Rock song, so I couldn’t sing with my full confidence. I also want to work on different types of characters more because I realized that I have played to many big, in charge and funny characters. I am so glad that in this year’s winter musical I can play a shy, quiet and weak type character. The last and the most important thing I want to work on is prepare myself more to be ready for college.

After all, I still need to keep working and learning hard, so I can keep improving myself. I used to think that at this point I can take a break and waiting for college. However, now I know that if I stop now I would lose so many great things I have learned, and I wouldn’t be able to pick it back up again. College is not a stop sign, it is now a speed up sign, and I need to put all my horsepower in to get through. I am ready for my last and best acting class, and hope after this class I will be truly ready for my journey in the future!

Start from the Bottom and now I am here!

https://youtu.be/oJ8KtYNE-jU

https://youtu.be/v3X_SvLRHOc

Senior year has been a bowl of spaghetti with well mixed feelings sauce plus complex experience ball on the top, and so far I have been enjoying to eat! You must wonder why would I call senior year spaghetti? The answer is that I cannot find the beginning and end, and I know is that I will finish it before I even realize.

At the beginning of the year, I started my full leadership job and my fall play lead, so sometimes I could barely find a time to eat dinner. To be honest, I love those days even it gave me headache and tons of pressure everyday, but I felt everyday was full with things and it kept my attention on my work, so I didn’t get much time on worrying and wondering. Through that time along with my acting class I could truly mature as an actor in all different kinds way. The most important one I have improved is memorization, and I am too happy about this because this has been my problem since my first play Peter Pan. However, now I just did Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” monologue which I could never done when I was a sophomore or even junior. I still remember how much struggle it was to read Romeo & Juliet and perform one of Romeo’s monologue.

Not only acting but also singing has been improved so much since last year. I can still feel the air when I was the only one in the cast who does not even know what note means till today I can sing solo songs without struggle a lot. Yesterday Ms. DiGiacomo was so surprised by my singing because she knew all about me making mistakes when the whole bass group is on the same pitch. Theater has becoming more and more things to me along the way of my studying and performing! This year’s acting class also helped me with my body movements a lot since I never really paid any attention before. I am so happy to join the winter musical this year again and I am so ready to use all I have learned to do my best and learn even more from it!

I set the goal for myself to create better characters, and I have done well with Gabriel. However, I will need more time and effort to create Ned in School Of Rock, and this will be my second semester’s goal. Ned is the kind of weak and extremely passive character which I never played before and it is so different from John Jiang’s characteristic, and I am excited to do so because it will help me to extent more on my acting skills and character pool. At the end I want to thank everyone in this class who have been supportive and caring to each other, and as a group we have grown so much, and I am looking forward to work more with them in the winter musical! Merry Christmas everyone and I will see you next year!

Take home quiz

Answer the following questions for each of the terms listed below:

a) What do the terms mean?

b) Why are they important to a successful theater production?

c) Can you give an example of how/when they were used in performance by you or someone else?

1. Articulation

Say every word correctly and clearly. It directly affects the passage delivery to the audience. I spend tons of time to make sure I know how to say every word in my Fall play’s monologue.

2. Projection

Volume. It is very important because audience in the back seat can have a really hard time if actors are not loud enough. One of the person who has a big voice is me.

3. Pace

The speed. It is necessary to control the seed delivering lines because audience needs time to keep up with the plot and details. I spend a lot of the time to slow down for The Dead.

4. Pantomime

Skits without lines. It can be so funny for some acting to just have background music, such as silent movie. I like the silent movie we made this year in class.

5. Body Language

Body moments on stage, such as hands. It is important for certain character to express the feeling. In the fall play the scene between me and Sam was a good example for body language because we try get close to each other and avoid the same time.

6. Facial Expressions

Facial acting, such as smile or cry. It is very important to build the emotion and character. Wiebke has great facial expression.

7. Monologue

One person perform. It is the moment which audience can focus on one person which is better to express character’s thought and feeling. I have done so many monologues.

8. Dialogue

Two or more actors having conversation. It is the basic way to perform for straight play. I like the dialogue between me and Maddie in the fall play which was so funny.

9. Ad-Lib

Add lines on actor him or herself. It is important when someone forget a line or get the wrong line. I was so impressed by Peter Pan cast in my first play.

10. Improvisation

Acting without a written play. It is very interesting because you can never see what direction it is going. I like the improve group from Yale a lot.

11. Motivation

Reason why characters do things or the goal. It is important to actor when they are studying the character so they can do better job to deliver the most important messages.

12. Backstory

Background information, It can help actors to understand the Character better which can build the Chemistry between characters. I like the story when Mr. Aronson helped me and Sam to understand the situation

13. Cheat/Fan Out

Show your front to audience. Audience cannot just look at your back or side the whole play. I learned how to cheat in order to take care 4 different angles audience.

14. Blocking

Positioning on the stage. It is important especially when there is a big cast on stage the same time because you have to know where to go and when to go. For example, in the fall play Tracy needed to learn tons of the blocking because she needed to move a lot.

15. Props

Items which Characters need on stage, such as cane or hat. It is part of the character building which can help to tell the time, weather, age and gender of a character. I changed my cane in Peter Pan to show the difference.

16. Scripts

Written lines and directions for all the people. You need script otherwise the whole play will not be organized. Jena is super good at remember script.

17. Cue

Line before your line. It is important to know so you know when you need to say your own line. Last year I messed up one of the cue for Charlotte which she helped me on stage.

18. Stage Left

When you standing on stage facing the audience your Left. You need to know this in order to get the position from director

19. Stage Right

When you standing on stage facing the audience you're right. You need to know this in order to get the position from director

20. Upstage

Away from the audience

21. Downstage

Closer to the audience

22. Musical Theater

Most music based play.

23. Straight Play

Most dialogues and monologues play.

24. Director

The person who is charge of everything.

25. Costumes

Clothes for characters.

26. Choreographed Movement

Dances or some arranged movements on stage. Linda did a pretty good job on her Final

27. Diction

How to say each words so audience can understand. It is very important to know in order to let audience know. Sam is good at this.

28. Objective and Obstacles

What character wants to accomplish and what is the problem he or she has which keep him or her away from it. It is very important for actor to know in order to convince audience the character is real.

29. Given Circumstances

A situation which is already setted. It is very important to know it and perform it and even bring audience into it. Sam is good at creating these.

30. Connecting with an Audience

Breaking the fourth wall or some line directly to an audience. It is very helpful to do it when you need to deliver some heavy emotions. I did it in the fall play.

Read Out Loud

As I mentioned before after reading Romeo & Juliet I feel more strongly that we should always read out loud in order to understand the passage. “To Be or not to be” as one of the most famous Shakespeare's monologue, and it is one of the hardest one because Hamlet’s conflict and complex emotions and feelings are so hard to understand and even perform. However, I found out that if I read over and over again I do get the sense of the feeling and character’s exception.

Along with my analysis on character I am also working on the the memorization which turned out to be a much easier process to me than I thought it would be, and it is all because I trained myself a lot through the fall play. However, I am still facing a lot of troubles, such as sentences. Because of the way I remember the monologue I attempt to stop when I should not which cause a big confusion for audience. I will keep working on that more to make sure it gets fixed.

My music piece I decided to do it acapella because I feel better to control the beat on my own which to me is a easier way. However this does influence my notes and pitch, so I will have to keep in mind what I need to go high, and what part I need to back low. I have a lot troubles to fellow the instrument and beats because I am sing all I think is emotions and the song, so I don’t pay close attention for all these three beats notes or two and half beats notes, so I will need to put more work in the future. By the way, I cannot wait to perform for my mom and the whole class. And Merry Christmas everyone!