The Young Actor's Studio

In class this week we began with place work. Students worked on trying to get a sense of the place in their scene or monologue by exploring all of the details (temperature, colors, time of day, etc.) Students did a really good job with this, and it'll hopefully add to their level of comfort when they perform. After all, when an actor has a sense of place- especially where the "fourth wall" (audience) is- then the audience will not seem as intimidating.

We then went into blocking of scenes and monologues. Students have two more weeks to fully memorize their scenes and monologues. We were able to run just about every scene/monologue- and a few of the scenes/monologues are completely blocked. The technique portion consisted of further delving into character work, and also some more place work. We did an imagination exercise called Coyote- which had the students go further into exploring sensory details to get the real sense that they were out camping, and a possible coyote in the distance.

We also did character work. The primary exercise here was seeing how actual images can help inspire our imagination to develop characters. Each student was given a photo image, and then they had to create a character around them- expressing it through voice, movement, and overall demeanor. This was followed with a storytelling exercise which encouraged students spontaneity (each student had to work together toward building a cohesive narrative). Good class, and I look forward to the work we do on scenes/monologues next week.