November 13

We did a space balancing exercise that I didn’t completely understand. I mean, I understood the rules and what we were supposed to do, but the ideas I was supposed to take away were unclear to me. Hopefully I absorbed some of the purpose despite not completely understanding it, I guess. I’ve got a great group for our project, a bunch of people I respect as actors, and I’m super pumped to work with them. We did a couple of different things regarding our final pieces (notably learning about expectations) and it’s helping us find things we can use when we actually start putting together a final product. I want this performance to be really good, so I hope our group pulls everything together.

            I did really love talking about expectations—I love learning about the rules behind storytelling at the way things work. The most important part of theatre to me is story, and I love to learn about it in different ways.

November 8

Oh my gosh, I am so excited for this project, oh my gosh. I have so many ideas they are bursting from my brain. Watching Robin Hood really cemented what we can do to make this performance awesome, and I’m really pumped to see what everyone pulls together. I’m interested to see how this can be used in a serious way, though—I’m going to try to convince our group to take a non-comedic approach just to see if it’s possible, because that would be awesome. Theseus and the Minotaur is one of my favorite myths, and it’s definitely a tragedy from anyone’s perspective but Theseus’s. Let’s see what we can do!

            Augghh I’m so excited.

November 6

I did not connect with the film character assignment at all. Maybe it was who I picked, but working from real people was not nearly as helpful. Michael Cera was the guy I picked because I think he gets similar roles to what I would play, but I don’t know. Imitating him was not exciting or easy for me. I’m bad at impersonating other humans, which sucks, but it’s definitely something I need to work on. Right now it’s just frustrating. I didn’t really like doing it as him and I didn’t feel like I got much out of it (except maybe how I don’t want to do my piece.) Being him took all of my energy out of the equation and I hated that.

November 1

Watched some other pieces today. It was actually really interesting to see the work everyone did for this project, because all of our performances turned out so different. I am pleased with the results, though, and think everyone found cool ways of expressing their monologue without using words. The most interesting thing for me was when you could see the words reflected in what they did—like, you could always tell when people had gone line by line with their physical pieces, and who had used general beats and ideas, like I had. Neither was particularly better than the other, it was just an interesting dichotomy. I love the word “dichotomy.”

October 30

Movement pieces with our monologues started today. I did mine, and I enjoyed it—I incorporated some mime stuff, some Commedia ideas, and quite a bit of my own personality into something that I think shows a journey. This was actually a much more fun way for me to approach a monologue than writing out beats, which I hate more than anything else in the world, oh my gosh. Having to make a movement piece forces you to see what the ideas behind sections are, even if you find a movement that works before you know what it is, and that’s awesome for me.

            I’m using this in the future, and no one can stop me.

October 25

Type casting! This was fun, but most of what I got back I expected. Things like “nice guy” and “sweet kid.” “Awkward best friend/love interest” etc. These are things that I figured I’d play, so it’s nice to know I imagine my type to be what others see, too. Lots of people said I made them feel welcome/safe and that I was easy to listen to as myself, so that was sweet. It was basically split down the middle on whether I’m personality or character actor, in their opinion, and that’s kind of awesome because it implies flexibility, in my opinion. I do enjoy using myself as a character model, but I also love playing strange people who are completely different.

I also think it had something to do with wearing Connor’s clothes. Plaid makes me look lovable.

October 23

I’m a dad in the Fantasticks. I mean, that’s cool, but I’m not sure how I feel about playing age. And by that I mean, I know that I’m terrible at it. I don’t have a lot to say about today, but I’m also really exhausted and worn out from auditions, so I’ll be back with a vengeance in my Thursday journal.