The meaning of "diving in head first" into work has most certainly changed for me in the first week, which has been one of the most enlivening I've had in theatre in my life! Strangely, I had been apprehensive of the first day in the week that lead up to the 14th of June, first day of class. But with our 'Welcome Speech' uttered by Antonio Ocampo-Guzman, Program Director, and formalities taken care of, we set off to begin PLAY.
One really amazing thing that Antonio brought to our attention this week was the importance of PLAY in theatre. The entire reason why we act is to have fun, explore and "hold the mirror up to nature" as it were. To reflect on the human condition. With this in mind, we began the first week aligning our bodies and voices to be open to PLAY.
We begin with a warm up that involves moving about the space and creating connections with the space and (more importantly) with each other. This is something I was sure I would have some trouble with (I am always a little awkward and quiet when I first meet people). Maybe it's the sheer adrenaline of starting something new that I love, maybe it's being surrounded by people as passionate as I feel, but I was completely able to allow myself to feel vulnerable and through that I made connections. This is one of the best parts of the warm up, establishing that raw eye contact. Just through that, our group grows closer together with each day. For me, and as it seems most actors, acting is about establishing connections to communicate.
Each teacher: Antonio, Christine Hammel (our voice instructor) and Yo-El Cassell (our dance instructor) works closely together to tie everything we are practicing together and create lessons and rehearsal activities that benefit us and allow for our creative forces to work in a supportive environment.
This week, we discussed the BIG questions like "Why do we even DO theatre nowadays?" (See Hamlet's speech to the players, coming soon!) and paid special attention to our own Self Awareness. (Another thing Antonio brought to our attention is having "Self Awareness," but not allowing yourself to give into "Self-Consciousness" in acting and in life). This self awareness was the focus of our warm ups for the six days of the first week. Being aware of your breathing to be able to speak the line, being aware of your spine to allow a full range of motion, etc. In Christine's Voice and Yo-El's Movement classes we explored and furthered the warm up to connect our breath and to release it to ground us.
The second part of each day is all rehearsal for our piece "Shakespeare on Love," which we will be performing next week! However, this first week, we work on iambic pentameter and then on building our Sonnet repertoire. (Of course I chose my favorite sonnet). We did several exercises to pull, tweak and shape our sonnets and then presented them, in workshop to the class. The are as dramatically fulfilling as any monologue and are infinitely able to be explored. We were assigned our scenes (mine's Kate and Hotspur from Henry IV, part 1) and told to read the play out loud with our partners before we were to begin work on the scene. (Shakespeare is meant to be heard not read, which is why we need to take it back to the theatre, but that's a
One last bit of exciting news, I will be in the main stage production of All's Well That Ends Well with Commonwealth Shakespeare Company!
Great first week, here's to another!
Best,
Micah
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