Monthly Archives: November 2016

As our school’s musical, Parade, came to the end of its very successful run this weekend, I realized how few of our school’s many musical theatre majors are known to me. I know most of them through the Plays and Playwrights literature class – but I am just not a part of their acting program. Of course, I am always plotting for ways that these musical theatre majors can add yet one MORE class to their overfilled schedule. I would love to have some of them in my Company – particularly in the second semester as we roll up our sleeves and tackle Meisner. Read more →

It is quite interesting and a little unsettling when students point out that one of their peers is “talking a bit like Higgins.” It unnerves me a bit and CERTAINLY un-nerved the student as he couldn’t figure out if he was to take this as an insult or not. This was brought up in Company today. It caused both the student in question and I to lock eyes together and figure out what just went down. Read more →

Today in Company we went back in time to their freshman year in acting classes. One of the most common games played in any freshman acting class is Machine. The game is simple. One person gets up in front of the group and creates a set, repeatable, abstract gesture. Once they get the gesture going, they add a matching abstract sound to accommodate the gesture. Once both the gesture and the sound are up and running for this one lead person – Read more →

Today in Theatre History we were talking about the difference between Realism and Naturalism. The class was confused how something could be more real on stage then realism. We then talked about all of the ways that realism is not real. How many of us speak as clearly as characters in realism?  How many of us only sit on three sides of the dining table? Read more →