Andrew's 7-12 Saturday Morning Class Week 4
Great class this week. The focus on this week's class was prior circumstances. Prior circumstances are events/experiences a character goes through directly before entering the stage. This can be tremendously helpful for an actor to have a greater idea of where the character is coming from in re: to what they say/do in their scene/monologue. One of the exercises we did was have the students think back on a rough day they've had and then do a physical activity of being at the beach, and later finding something exciting and then something worrisome. The class did wonderful with this exercise! Lots of emotionally full work, and tremendous focus. This exercise also incorporated imagination work as we went from a real-life thing the students have experienced to an imaginary scenario when they're at a beach discovering something really valuable, and then something else. The next exercise we did was based on an Uta Hagen exercise "Lost Key"- a student has an extremely important audition, cannot find their paper, and has to look for it (without knowing where it is). They do it a second time- only this time they know where the paper is- but still have to go through the process of believably trying to look for it and seeing if they can replicate that moment of discovery. We also did some fun vocal and physical warm-ups, as well as the elevator exercise which incorporated place work and imagination work.
Scenes and monologues are progressing fairy well. Students need to get particularly focused on memorizing their pieces as this will free them up in re: to movement and connecting to their scene partner. We primarily focused on finishing the blocking of the pieces, and then going a little bit deeper into what the characters are experiencing (e.g. the loss that the characters in "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "Day My Father Died" experience- as well as the nervousness in "Yearbook"- or the physical reality of "Junk Food"). I look forward to next week delving further into the place work and prior circumstances as it relates to the student's scenes/monologues.