Week 5?

I can't believe it's already October 2nd! Time is flying so fast and I have already been in school for 5 weeks! I think? Has it been 6? I'm losing track of time aaaaaand my mind!

This week my butt got kicked in many many many different ways.

We had this acting exercise called the Physical Score. We got this sheet that said Beginning Middle and End. In each of the sections we had a list. In the beginning sections we had to pick one way of entering/beginning the piece. So our choices were as follows: 1) Enter as if you're coming in from the snow or heavy rain. 2)Enter as if you just ran 6 flights of stairs or just ran a mile. 3)Enter as if you cut yourself...etc. Then in the middle section we had to pick six of the actions on the list like: you have a runny nose, yawn, there is a mosquito that just bit you etc. Then at the end we had to pick one action to end the piece ie: you absolutely don't want to leave or you're late for an audition. The point is to basically present natural human behavior. We had to write out every little detail and nuance of what we did. Then we gave it to our acting teacher and presented the piece in the exact same order we wrote it down. DO YOU KNOW HOW FREAKING HARD THAT IS?!?!?!?!? Get up in front of your class for three minutes and do nothing exactly the same way....reeeeeeeaaaady go! By doing nothing I mean do the stuff that everyone does naturally without thinking about it, but don't present or show or perform these natural mundane actions. DO IT. You know what I mean? Don't show the class that you're smelling something completely rank... smell something completely rank. It sounds so easy, but it's really not. It's really hard. Do you get dressed to leave your house in the morning THE EXACT SAME WAY every day? To ever last minute detail like - I go to leave I pick up my keys first, then my ipod, and then my wallet. Now do it again in the same order over and over and over. I hadn't even really thought about how I get dressed in the morning - I just know I have to leave the house and I can't be naked. The end. Thought over. Being a good actor is so much harder than people think.

Anyway, doing these "nothing" types of exercises makes me crazy. Even in my normal state I'm not normal. Yes, I am the type of person that screams Eminem lyrics as loud as I possibly can as I'm entering my apartment building and apartment. If I did that in my presentation, I would be showing... Ugh. Then I have aaaaaaalllllll this undergrad crap that just pours into me and all of my old insecure feelings paralyze me with fear! I had this awful relationship with the head of my undergrad program because basically I'm physco. I don't blame the head of my department for our awful relationship because I couldn't take in what I was supposed to be learning. I am a neurotic perfectionist that was always looking for the mathematical way of being a perfect actor. I wouldn't make an artistic decision because I was always afraid of being wrong. So, every question he'd ask me was answered by another question I asked. Right? I'm irritating. So, him and I created a very detrimental learning environment for me in my undergrad years. I constantly was feeling bad about myself and trying to please him instead of trying to be a good actor. All these crappy old feelings come back and I'm scared to get up there. Again, it's another fine/grey line about studying acting. You definitely want to show that you have put work and rehearsal into whatever you're presenting, and while a bad choice is better than no choice, you still don't want to make the wrong choice!

A break through for me: I had a very successful Physical Score. :) I actually did nothing pretty well. What an awesome feeling... and a large deep sigh of relief.... I felt a little awkward and bad for my classmates who felt like they were not as successful. ( I argued and thought that everyone did a great job.) I also felt a little awkward and the need to explain why I get so uncomfortably nervous. I'm not trying to hussle my class or set the expectation low and then exceed the low expectation I set... I really have these crappy crappy feelings from undergrad that I'm trying to work through. After all, it's been 10 freaking years since I started college. I better be a better actor than I used to be. You would think I would be over that crap by now right?