CSC Apprenticeship---Week Ten!

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Closing out the 10-week saga of the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company Apprenticeship was both a relief and a little sad. A relief it was, purely in the physical sense because we had been working so hard for so long. Sad, in the sense that this wonderful creative environment that we learned so much for was ending.

For our final classes together, we had the pleasure of working one on one with Steve Mahler in a Master Class on monologues. It was a perfect way to close the program: we were able to implement the techniques and exercises we had learned throughout our program in one final monologue to show Steve. He really took the time with each of us (all 21!) to work as if we were the only person in the class. Really specific to us, really specific to who we are as actors. And he helped us move forward with the pieces.

I chose Lady Macbeth for my final piece. I don't know, maybe I was on a power trip from playing Lady Percy all summer, but I wanted to go powerful, and to delve into the fear, and darkness of the piece.


The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of DuncanUnder my battlements. 
Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here 
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty! 
Make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature 
Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between 
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, 
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, 
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, 
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, 
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
 To cry, “Hold, hold!” Great Glamis! Worthy Cawdor! Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter! Thy letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant.
Steve really helped me make very specific choices and helped me to find the fear and real black desire that Lady M is facing---and welcoming in. It was a trans formative experience.
Speaking of trans formative, the ending of the program allowed me to step back and truly appreciate what I had gone through that summer, what everyone I worked with would effect on me and just how much I would gain from it. Not only as an actor, although I can feel now that I have changed (in my opinion) for the better, but as an aspiring professional in this business. It was hard to go, but it was such a great experience that I will carry with me as I move forward into my career. 







Truly a summer I will never forget.
P.S. Something absolutely wonderful and exciting that I took from the program is that four of us began our own theater company! (Don't worry, there will be an entire post on this, I think it deserves an entire post) We are the FULL CONTACT THEATER COMPANY and we are already hard at work at our first production! But I will save that reveal for the next post!!! Keep reading!
Best,
Micah