A Loose Theatrical Cannon

Our latest assignment in my acting class has been working on scenes where we play characters that are against our “types” or how we are typically cast. Overall, I have had a positive experience with this assignment, but somethings have bothered me. It all started with one day when this one guy in my class, who is not well liked, asked whose type is the big, powerful, and can be villainous. Without thinking about the fact that if I respond that I will most likely end up scene partners with him, I mentioned that is my type. Just like that, I became scene partners with this kid that I really didn’t want to. I was looking forward to the experience though because I thought that it would be a helpful experience to work with someone that I may not have a huge desire to work with. We started thinking of scenes that we wanted to work on. I very quickly thought of the play True West because the whole theme of the play is the differences of versions of masculinity. The two versions of masculin...

After these fantasies, we received a new assignment that was a continuation of these fantasies. Similarly to the prior assignment, we were to come up with the worst thing that could ever happen to us or the best thing that could ever happen to us. A couple of things were different about this new assignment. The first was that this fantasy needed to be based on real circumstances but still needed to be imaginary. While this may not have been that different from the other fantasy, it was something more specific that I think confused a few members of the class. The other thing that was different about this assignment was that we were then to act out going home and doing whatever we would have done after receiving the absolute best or absolute worst news that we could possibly receive. The point of going home to do something was for us to let the emotions of those imaginary circumstances to flow and let them happen. I had an interesting relationship with this assignment. First looking into...

After the members of the class finished our first scenes, we came to class and were asked to lay down on the ground and simply have a fantasy. This fantasy was to be something that was either the best thing that could happen to us or the worst thing that could ever happen to us. To me, what seemed the hardest was that we were instructed to let the fantasy take control and let it go where it wants. When Russ told us to do this, I immediately started thinking about what I would consider the best thing that could happen to me. This felt like cheating to some degree because it was not the fantasy guiding itself. Thinking about it now, I don’t know who else is supposed to decide what the best thing that could happen to me is other than me. Anyway, I had it in my mind where I wanted the fantasy to end. The ultimate success fantasy in my mind is to either be in a musical with Brendon Urie, the lead singer of Panic! At The Disco, or to star in a musical that he wrote. I found starting the fa...

After our first performance, I think Savannah and I were really able to take what was said by the class and apply it to our scene. Our teacher Russ, really made it a point to talk about with practically every scene the importance of listening to each other and reacting authentically. This was something that really helped Savannah and me. When we were able to listen to each other and react as opposed to reciting our lines as if we are acting we could feel the improvement. Working with Russ before we performed the second time was also very helpful. What I enjoyed about it was how he was able to give us some more specific moments to work on. He also helped us to add more detail in our scene and our characters. These are somethings that I look to improve upon as an actor in general, to notice more of the smaller specific things that can be so powerful in a performance and to be able to have them in my own performances. Russ was also able to help us find the moments where the reactions we...

I really enjoyed the first scenes that we did in our acting class. I didn’t really have any idea who I would be partnered up with and so I was very grateful when Savannah asked me to be her scene partner. She is a good friend and a good actress and I was very excited to work with her. Then we came to the dilemma of what we are going to perform and neither of us really had a good idea of what we should do. There was one day where I was lying down to go to bed when all of a sudden I remembered this play that I had read and done scenes from during high school. The problem was, I couldn’t remember the name of the play to save my life! I had no idea what I was going to do. I tried a Google search with the few pieces of information that I could remember about the play but couldn’t find anything. Luckily, I have a friend here at SUU that was in that drama class with me, so I texted him to see if he remembered. I loved his response, “Dude, I don’t know why I still know this… but it is most d...