Real & Funny

It has been a while since the first time I wrote a skit, and I am so happy that the skit I wrote this time is pretty funny. At the beginning I was thinking use the original Obama’s anger translator skit; however, I thought that it would be funnier if the material was from real life, so my audience at Cheshire Academy can enjoy the fun. Since I am the senior class president I decided to write something funny about myself and current events at school.

There was one thing I learned from last year’s spring production: Comedy Tonight which the funniest thing from the events that happen around us everyday. When we see some similar silly or interesting things happen on stage that happened in our life experience before we often feel it much funnier than the comedies which we never see before. However, this also give us a hard time to create the skirt because it is also harder to make something that happens in our life than something which we make up. Not only the writing was hard, but also the acting was so difficult.

During our first run through, I tried so hard to not laugh because Mr. Davis was so funny. Also, we didn’t figure out our path and blocking, so it looked a bit awkward. Then we started discover the connection and contract between our lines and certain movements which can help us to build our characters more.

After all this skit is one of my favorite skit, and I hope that we can perform this skit on one of our morning meeting or other school events. I am looking forward to write more interesting skits for next semester's class, and I hope that I can also find more ideas for my creative writing class which I believe will combine super well with my acting class.

Upon the living and the dead

James Joyce's —"The Dead" The last stage light had put down the perfect ending mark for my last fall at Cheshire Academy! I have been racing with time and energy during this entire fall season, and tonight I finally got my break to stop and watch people and things around me! I want to thank everyone who forgave me when I made mistakes; encouraged me when I failed; comfort me when I got hurt; applaud when I finally succeed! Now all I want is the time to be slower and slower. Slow enough so I can experience my past three years again to watch each face; to listen to each word; to review every scene that are fading out of my memories! 

After performing and rehearsal over and over again, I have been learning the character Gabriel and the story of The Dead better and deeper. Today as I write this blog, I can still feel the heaviness in my heart from this play because we are walking on the surface of a frozen lake. Along with my college applications and other school works, this play had taken a big amount of time on my schedule, and it has been an amazing journey. It was a comedic, musical, sad and dramatic play, and I am so glad that I had everyone’s support to help me building the entire play. 

I feel more strongly with each play that I learn something new from every single one of them. This play I specifically learned how to slow down! That’s true “slow down” is one of the most common and important note to every actor, and this problem has been my main issue since my first performance. This time I find out that if I pronounce every last sound of a work I will be able to make audience to hear all my lines clearly. I also want to thank Mr. Arson and Ms. Guarino because of them I found the mixed and complex emotions and goals of my character. 

I hope all the seniors can get the best result this year. And I hope all the juniors and underclassmen can enjoy all the days they have on this amazing campus!

Monologue is not Mono

Monologues often sounds mono because there is only one person performing, so it is really easy to get lost on expressing the passage under the context. Along with my fall production going and my lead role growing, I have been feeling more strongly with each day’s rehearsal that monologue is so hard because you have only yourself to remind and remember all different passages and emotions which you want to present. I choose one comedic online and one serious monologue in my fall play in my last acting class project. However, it wasn't as easy as I thought it could be because I had to perform so much more meanings and emotions on the monologue from the play.

I have been practicing my monologue since I got my script in september, but until now I still do not know the best way to deliver it. Picking a monologue in your play is so different from just a monologue standing by itself because when I was giving the monologue speech, I had to consider what happened before and what will happen after. The layer and state of a stage is very important. Based on all of the information from this play I can finally gave the best performance I had. Another struggle I had was dividing my long monologues into small sections and each one of them will be representing a different purpose. All of these small sections get together will direct all the audience to the picture I want them to see which is the building up sadness through the party.

However, when I was on the stage and speaking all by myself, I often get lost the task which I had to stick with. My final production is next week, and I wish before that and then on I can figure out all my layers of emotions and the process which I can bring all the audience to an extremely sad point at the end. Also, I can be more creative with my future monologues and make it not so mono.

Monologues

https://youtu.be/SlS6DQIRO_M

https://youtu.be/Ko5pNYtoP0c

Monologue

Silent "Lines"

Even though we didn’t have a lot of time, but our final production was actually much better than I thought. I have to confess that this is the most educational silent movie I have done so far because following after the movement project, this silent movie gave me a strong sense of feeling about the silent lines that we have in the silent move with our body languages and blockings. For a long time I have been focusing on lines on the script, but I just realised that it was wrong because lines make the character work, but movements make the character alive.

There are two most important things in a production; the first is lines, and the second is movements. These two come together can make the best performance, and I have been losing movement side since my first monologue. I checked three monologues I did when I was uploading the silent movie last night. I found that many of my body movements have no purpose which makes it a huge distraction for audiences. Starting now, I will have to plan out not only my way to say lines, but also the movements and body languages that work for the character.

Another thing I noticed when I was watching Linda, Chris and Michael performing, I realised that the stage movements and body languages need to be big enough, so the audience can receive the emotion and passage. For example, in the really life we wouldn’t use our hands a lot in a argument, but if we are on stage we have to make it big and obvious. Same with the lines, we have to project and enunciate more. With this silent movie, I have once again seen the magic of silent lines can do. I will use this more in the fall production and future performance.

Move With A Mind

Our movement project has been going on for almost two weeks, and I have to say that this time it got my attention the most. In the school fall play I am taking lead role, and we are going to perform in a round theater setting which will be the very first time to me. In order to make this play a amazing production, I have been working on this since the day I got my script. However, there is one single part which I am so worried about, and it is blocking or you can call it movements in general. It turned out that this movement project has been helping me to understand and prepare better with what my final production will  be.

Other things like memorizing lines, singing and emotions delivery are pretty similar to what I have done before, but this time movements became my biggest problem. When I was trying to act a middle aged university professor, the hardest thing is the physical present. For example, you can read like a middle aged professor, but it is extremely hard to stand, walk, sit and even raise hands like a middle aged man. Even worse, the stage will be a round setting which means I have to figure out when I will be where on stage, so all the audience will be able to see me a front angle. This movement project starts with very basic to high which helps me to re-discover a character and him on the specific scene set. For instance, I could image what problems I have on my body, such as knee problem, back problem and deeper and slower speaking voice. All of these movements ideas were from the emotion building and focusing on just body moves.

Overall this project has been helping me at the perfect time with perfect focus. I a, looking forward to direct the silent movie because I want to experience more what movements itself can bring to the audience, and what are the most important points to make a specific movement valuable and meaningful.