We Tell The Story

“Two different worlds, never meant to meet!” I still cannot believe that this show is over. “Once On This Island” is the first musical play I ever did, and I still don't believe I did. Since I have memories about my singing, my mom has been telling how bad I am at singing because I always get the wrong note. However, I truly enjoyed every singing and dancing rehearsals, and I love all the people in this play. I learned so many things on singing and got to know so many people after we tell the story! Anyway, I'm so glad that I improved a lot through this play and I will keep working hard in the future. Now let me tell the story!

Once there is a boy called John, and he is really scared to sing, so he decided to do wrestling for his winter afternoon activity. However, there was some God’s power guided this boy into the theater by cancling the wrestling program in the winter. The story began in the music room. This was the first time this boy went to the music room, and he did terrible on his first singing rehearsal, but he didn't felt bad and he laughed because it was too funny that seeing James’s suffered face. His long journey began, his singing improved a lot because Ms. DiGiacomo and Mr. Trier asked him to go to CATS, then James’s “torture” began. However, after two weeks this James, Ryan and this boy started to have their own karaoke in VdP. Later and later he was getting better. 

Except the singing rehearsal, the dancing rehearsal is also very interesting because I never danced before, so when the first time we ran the whole “We Dance” I felt so happy because I could actually dance while I'm singing on stage. And I feel much easier when I memorize the lines in the musical play than straight play even though it seemed hard to memorize all the dance movements and songs, but it actually helps you do better because it makes a string connection between songs and dances. However, there is another problem I relarized in the play that it is so hard to put our emotion in the musical play than the straight play because when we focusing on the rhythm, lyrics and movements it feels extremely hard to show our emotion to the audience. For example, I always sing “Pray” in a very nice way in the rehearsal, but I should do it with a very intense emotion. I am glad I didn't have to do it in the actual play because until now I still sing “Now the sky is turing dark” as it is a beautiful scene. 

After all, I want to say that musical play is such a new and special experience and feeling for me, and I like it because now I cannot stop singing now! I am looking forward to work on more next year. At the end I want to thank all the cast and crew members who gave this great show, and I also want to thank teachers who didn't give up on me even I was doing wrong in almost every single rehearsal. Of cause, I want to thank Ms. Guarino who guided me in this world I enjoy. We Tell The Story!!!

Script

http://hollywoodactingworkshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Taking_Advantage_-_2_men_1_woman_70s.pdf

It must be three

We finally get this monologue project done after we had a super long weekend. To be honest, being a director is a old and new experience to me in this class. I am very happy and excited because we have so many talented and creative students in this semester. By coaching and watching all of their great performances, I have seen things which I ignored or could not completely understand. The first thing I learned is about the line which is the most basic and important thing in a monologue. Another thing I noticed is the pacing and the pauses which make the performance even better.

It must be confusing that I learned about lines because I didn't even do any monologue. However, when I  am watching and coaching others I found out that most of them have problems on transition from one line to another. For example, Cade always forget the line when the hands line is coming. I feel like that he is always worried about the hands line, so he couldn't remember the order of lines. So I suggest that we can memorize important lines with the line before or after. It can help actors to remember the order, and they will be more relax when they're performing. Another example is when Josh messes his pop corn line, and it happened multiple times. I don't think that he doesn't remember the line because he goes smoothly with that line, then I found out that he does that because it is easier for him to say, and it gives the exact meaning. I used to focus on the exact words in script, but I find out that it works better if you can add some personal speaking habits which can make the monologue yours. I am very glad that I watched all of their works, so I can learn the lines. 

Second thing I noticed is that they always go too fast, and they all triedto go slower and slower overtimes. For example, Angel went super fast in her first draft, but I showed her the video of I Have A Dream and Jayden found a music for her. I told Angel how to pause in at some strong line or words to make it even stronger. Another thing I like so much is the dramatic pause; for example, Ryan paused a long time in his first video take. Even though plaguing long time is not good, but when he put a back ground music and emotion changed from one line to another line it was too good to believe that he accidently forgot the line. I'm impressed that Jayden and Ryan came up with perfect musics for their monologue which I have never done before in my past monologues. I have to confess that musics do make the scene looks better and easier to understand the emotion and meaning.

At the last, I want to congrat everyone who has shown us all these great performances, and I hope they all learned, and use them to make next project even better. I will always see my future works from three perspectives which are actors’, directors’ and audiences’. I believe a great performance must be correct by these three different people because a show can not go on without anyone of them. 

Monologue

So far I have seen Jack and Cade's first monologue and both of them are great monologue. For Cade's monologue he can do either angry and aggressive or comedic, so I will aks him to try both ways and see which one he likes better. For Jack I think the monologue will be focusing on pacing, so the audience will truly believe that he is talking to someone on the phone. I read Jack's blog about the background and character, and I want to see how he shows us the awkwardness. And I am looking forward working with them. 

Different Perspective!

This is the third time I take this class, so I have done so many works about silent movie. However, this time is so different than others because I am a director instead of an actor. To be honest, director is much harder than I thought, and it is also much more interesting than I except it would be.  I especially enjoyed three parts of this group project, and they are staging, costuming and video editing. As a director, I could see the show in the audience position, so I can make the change to make it better as soon as I find out there is a problem. And I couldn't do it before as an actor which is helping me more with my staging skills. I also need to find the costume for all the actors which is a pretty fun process because as an actor I might feel uncomfortable or shy to try costumes that I never tried before, but as a director I always have some crazy costumes for them because I know better how they looks when I see them for the audience’s perspective. The last thing is video editing, and I am trying to make it better and better than before.

I used to work as an actor with other classmates, so when we are working together we normally stage it naturally with our own understanding of our characters, so sometimes it looks not so good from audience side. And this is also why we need to video our work and watch it, or we will not know what we do wrong and what we need to work on more. However, I can now see the staging all the time, so I can make all the change i need immediately. For example, in this silent movie, Jaden and Jack kept blocking each other, but they didn't realize because they were focusing on the fighting scene with William. If I was not watching this scene, I would not notice this problem which can cause confusion. I am very happy that I can be a director because I will be more careful in the future acting.

The other thing I really enjoy is costuming, and this is the greatest part of this silent movie project. At the beginning, everyone in my group wants a girl character in the movie, so it wil make it more funny. Then I had the idea of dressing a boy up as a girl, and I was impressed that Cade is a such talented actor who is so brave to try a girl’s dress and make it even more hilarious than my expectation. To be honest, I was not thinking that Cade would wear that pink dress, but as an actor he showed his great ability to handle things that people cannot handle in daily life. Other actors also showed their abilities to make a amazing ninja silent movie.For example, I enjoyed the chemistry between students and master, and they made their props which are swords and cane be one of their best tool  to make the scene such a pleasure.

The last thing and the most important thing is the production which is the video. I used to use only one music for my first silent movie and then I used four different music for my my second silent movie. But this time I used not only musics but also so many sound effects in the movie. For example, I put cheering sound when the master catch the paper flight. I honestly enjoyed the process of editing videos because every time I see people love my videos I feel so happy. And thought this processes I learned more and more so I can make my videos better and better and make audiences enjoy more.

I want to thank everyone who helps me to make this super successful silent movie, and I am looking forward to work more with all of my classmates. Different perspective gives me all new ideas of staging, costuming and video editing, and these ideas are helping me to improve all my skills. So far I'm enjoying all the directing work and I hop it can help me to improve myself and make me a better actor. Hope we will all enjoy this class even more.

Silent movie Kill Sam

http://youtu.be/dNgmxl0wVgI

It's John Again?!!!

Hi this is John again, and this is the third time I take Acting class! Since the first time I took this class, I started loving acting because I never get tired with it. It started at the first play I saw last year which was Galileo, and I was surprised by the play because I didn't expect that they did such a great job. After I saw the play I decided to start doing acting things, so I took my first acting class. When I was in China I used to do a lot of different performance, but I had never done any English performance, so I started my English acting life here.

In my first acting class I learned a new thing called theater and play which is so different from a movie, and the play is more interesting than movie because you can never find two exact same play even with exact same crew and cast, but a movie is always the same. After my first acting class, I made my mind to join in the theater for the afternoon activity, and I did. The first English play I did in the spring was Peter Pan, and I have to say this play changed my life. Through the process of the play, I had made so many good friends from different place and they are all talented. Before I joined this play, I was blocking myself in the Chinese circle which was my comfort zone. However, Peter Pan brought my out of my little circle, and now I am in a huge globe. It also changed my goals and plans for my future. I was thinking to major in business, so I can help with my family, but I realized that my heart is set for acting and theater. So, now I will major in theater in college, and I will keep doing it in the future.

Because of my decisions, I have to learn more and more about theater not just acting, and that is why I am here in this class again. I want to learn more about directing, stage settingh and costuming. The more I learn the more harder I find theater is because I know that a play includes so many details, and some of them the audience may not even notice, but we have to have them because the play has to be realistic. For example, I changed my cane twice to represent the difference and connection between Mr. Darling and Curly. However, only one person noticed this small change. Even though, I know only one person will see that, I still do it because this one small change is a part of characters. I am looking forward to work and learn more deeply, and I wish we can all improved ourselves at the end of the semester!