I am now taking my Company full steam into the world of Meisner. Although I have been a part of this style of acting class before, this is my first opportunity to actually teach it at an extended level. I have the perfect group of students, the right level of willingness, a space that’s rather set aside from the crazy of high school and as much time as I see fit! Altogether a rather perfect combination for both student and teacher.
Today I began with the confusion many in the “outside world” have as to what we do after school and most of the weekend. Is it to be called “rehearsals” or “play practice”? I join the students in finding the term “practice” offensive and holding rightly to defining what we do after school and for way to long of a time on the weekend as “rehearsal.” Practice sounds like something one did when one didn’t know what one was doing. Meisner switches things up. He takes us out of the focus of the play and actually MAKES us practice. I shared with my students that in the world of Meisner we need to stop playing songs – we need to play scales. We need to forget the product entirely and “drill the skills” This concept was quite new to them – as I had guessed it might be. Musicians understand there is a lot more then just playing songs and getting critiques – there is all that repetitive drilling of skills – that repetition upon repetition of skills – those years and years of repetitive skills!
We theatre folk certainly get the work, but we do tend to overlook the repetitive work on skills.
We start with owning the moment. We sit across from an acting partner and we sit. We sit until we can stop doing and “just be.” We “make NOTHING happen” but “ALLOW everything to happen” – – no agenda, no purpose, no goal – – just the pursuit of now. This went well for day one. We weren’t sure what it was going to look like tomorrow or how all of this drilling was going to pay off – if pay off it ever does. But I joined them in taking the leap. MY thinking and “planning” was also not asked to move too far in the future. What if something happens now, in front of me now with the students I have now? What if that is missed because I am not in the present? This is going to be work for me. I must be a guardian of “the now” if I am expecting them to be followers and investors in “the now.”
And truly, what have we got to loose? What’s art – if not a leap of faith?
2 comments on “Stop Rehearsing – Let’s Practice”
I too “leap” into meisiner. the whole idea of “being in the now” I start with a simple exercise called N.otice O.ur W.orld (N.O.W.) These are students who are together everyday, in this room, in these halls, on this campus. I start small, then expand their circles of awareness. Notice something you have never noticed before about: the room, about a classmate, about the hall, and sometimes we roam the campus as well. Then I launch into the “scales” of basic repetition.
I am LOVING this exercise and am likely going to start using it in the very near future. I would love to keep in dialogue on the addict blog about your experience with Meisner and other high school theatre issues. Thanks for joining – I really hope you come back to comment and join the dialogue.