Impressions

Some of the adverts on TV here are genius. They make the viewer feel insecure in their safety, and play on the fact that the US got attacked on the 9th of September. The amount of adverts that base themselves around protecting ones self and their family from attackers is just silly. Not to mention the amount of adverts designed at selling you a service where you can check who is searching for you on the Internet, or check someones entire back-history to make sure they aren't going to steal your children when they come in to fix your shower. One advert even claims it has information on anyone in the world... Whoever pays them for that service deserves to loose their money. There was one advert about an anti smoking drug called Cintax that really caught my eye. It wasn't the catchy theme tune, or the ridiculous propositions of what it could do (it clearly stated itself as an aid to quitting, which isn't unheard of), the thing that caught me was the end of the advertising part of the advert. A normal advert hits 30 seconds at most, well this advert advertised its product for a good 45 seconds to a minute, with user by user accounts of how amazing it was, then one that was done it was followed by a 3 minute spiel about the side effects that could happen from taking it, and that they were all known and frequent side effects. These weren't small ones either! Things from rashes, swelling and nausea all the way to depression, suicidal thoughts and nightmares. Once again, anyone who buys this after all that deserves to want to jump off a bridge.

Now, onto more... performing arts based topics. Here they have a newspaper that circulates once a week, called Backstage. The Stella Alder school gives them away free (they cost $2.99US otherwise) to the students and they contain all the information you could ever want as an actor in America. Everything from auditions in each of the main cities that are coming up over the next month, to show reviews, whats on currently, interviews, editorials and much more. And they come out weekly. I'm collecting them up so I'm sure I can show some when I get back to NZ, because I really think something like this would be useful there, even if it was just monthly.

I'm going to now list the names of the tutors I'm working with, as I do realise in my first few blogs I didn't post the teachers names. This was due to the fact I didn't actually know them very well, and definitely not their surnames. Well.. luck has it I've been given a copy of the full school class schedule if it were, with all the teachers names on it! I feel I need to list their names, for their sakes at least, and so you guys can see who I am working with. You also may be surprised to hear I'm only working alongside 3 teachers in total, but that would be due to me taking mainly technique classes based in performance and acting method, alongside rehearsal method and Alexander Technique. Ok, so the main teach I'm working alongside is Milton Justice, he is teaching most of the acting technique classes I'm attending, May Quigley Goodman, who I am only taking for rehearsal technique classes, and Sharon Jakubecy, who teaches Alexander Technique. Sharon and Milton studied under Stella's tutoring themselves back in the 70's in New York, and are the only 2 teachers left at the school that have.

I'm going to finish this blog with an idea that they run here along the area of creating and being the character. They firmly teach that every character has some of you inside it, regardless of who you are playing. As it is impossible to be removed from yourself so much as to make yourself someone else, I'm sorry if you disagree, but it is impossible. A word I've picked up that I'm enjoying a lot (by enjoy, I mean working well with) is the idea of impressions for character development. The fact that impressions from things you can relate to mixed with who you are, gives you the character and the performance you give. You still run with a normal "inner-monologue" as such and all your other techniques that work for you in performance, but during rehearsal you aim to find things in the real world that you can relate to the character you want, and after studying them, consciously letting them leave an impression on you, to aid you in formulating a 3 dimensional character. It is just another technique among the many, but one that stood out for me. I'm sure it can be summed up in other words, but the idea of impressions just hits home quite nicely for me.

There's been a lot of paraphrasing monologues so far, mainly Shaw ones (which isn't easy, by the way) to glean better understanding and connection to the pieces. This is extremely useful with pieces that are very strong when it comes to the language (take Shakespeare for example), but it also has a dangerous tendency to backfire unless the tutorship you're under can control what you've come up with, to work with you to really bring out the connection to the piece.

Even said, putting something like Shaw or Shakespeare into your own words to gain a better understanding is great, but it can kinda fell like committing literary murder. Kinda.