Carry on

Decided to continue on in the class, and then will have to take a break when this session is over.  I wonder how much more I would've gotten out of my previous acting classes had we ever talked about beat work?  I think it was always assumed people knew what it was from some past experience.  I did the whole sequence starting from knowing nothing, and we never covered it...still, better late, than never.  It makes a huge difference.

Continuing the work on the Chekhov scene, just for fun; my scene partner is no longer in the class, but also wants to continue to work on it.  Re-visiting "A Doll's House," and "Oleanna," and also a Christopher Durang piece for monologues.  Not sure where we are with scene work, there were only five of us last night, and we all worked monologues; I think the goal is to to have 6-8 working monologues at any given time.  Still trying to get in touch with my inner five-year old.

I want to continue working on scene work for what to do when you don't have dialogue, and let's face it, if you're a woman, in most plays, you have large chunks of time when the male characters are talking, and you get one word answers, to their monologues.

Have a goal of dedicating an hour a day toward acting, whether that be reading plays, preparing for auditions, looking for auditions, working on scenes, writing, going to class, etc..., I just need to make the commitment, there is nothing to lose.  Also need to get on the long-range goal setting with the belief that if you don't know where you want to go, you won't get there.  You will always be thrown off course by every crisis that presents itself.  That'll still happen, but if you know where you want to be, you can at least right yourself.

Stayed up late and watched "White God," a Hungarian film about a mixed-breed dog, the mistreatment it endures, and it's eventual revenge.  Very hard to watch, but forced myself to see the full two hours of it.  Wasn't sure of the genre, could be considered a horror film, the way the unwanted dogs form an intelligent army, hunting down those that had mistreated them.  Some call it an allegory (and those two things can live simultaneously.)  There is this fight within the main dog between the good it had been, and the evil it had been turned into (through abuse), and in the end, when he faces off with the girl who had loved him (and to whom he had been her only real friend), it remains unclear which side wins out.

And then because I stayed up late to watch that, and the darkness of the mornings now, I woke up at 7:23...will be glad for the clock change this weekend.

Day 12 or something

(Moved the show review to a separate post.)

Got a little sunburned yesterday, and the residual food-poisoning lingers on.  Day 12 or something (of the allergy testing thing, not being sick), cheated (a lot) between the benefit event on Friday night and being out all day yesterday, the not being organized and bringing my own food, been busy, but that's still an excuse.

Worked as an extra on a film yesterday.  We were shooting out on this playground pretty much all day.  It's a good learning experience for how filming works (a lot of waiting, repetitive actions, continuity, etc...) and you meet people (turned out I'd met several of the people before), and we all got our make-up done (the make-up artists did some awesome scars and bruises on the main characters, I was looking at them thinking, "Crap, I want to learn how to do that!")  It ran late and I was thinking I was gonna miss my rehearsal time, I got offered a ride there, but I had been rubbing dirt on my clothes and hands (it was a post-apocalyptic world) and was going to a show after that, so wanted to change.)  We got stuck in traffic coming back into town, metal and glass gleaming in the sun as far as the eye could see.  An occasional puff of blue smoke rising up suddenly in the distance and then dissipating just as suddenly so you almost thought it was imagined.  Miles of this, the sun baking down (felt like summer), and then suddenly, no traffic at all.  I was only 15 minutes late, the bus from home to the studio space is pretty fast on the weekends.

Rehearsal was rough, couldn't hit the physical nor find a key to sing in.  The other group must've left early, it was empty and dark when I got there.  Allowed for me to shout and sing really loud (and sound really bad), and hopefully work through whatever blocks are there.  There were many yesterday.  It happens, better in rehearsal than on the stage (that happens, too.)

Have a gig soon.  Need to go buy some food I said I'd bring.  Cheers.