Week 8 - The Rehearsal

In this blog, reflect on your rehearsal process. Figure our what you and your partner do to establish a scene. Do you both agree that there is a "mirror" in the corner, or are you living in two different rooms? As Hagen states, work together to "build your space for your game of make-believe"(194). You don't need to discuss your objectives and intensions with your partner. You must use your actions to tell the other character who you are. Remember, just because you have the whole script does not mean that the chracters you play do...they may have no idea what they might say in a given moment, or precisly the opposite, they might know exactly what they will say. The goal is to erase the visibility of the lien between "you" as the "actor" and "you" as the character on stage.

By now, you should have established a relationship with your scene partner and begun the process of rehearsing your scene. Ask yourself how much you rely on your scene partner to complete the tasks in front of you. Do you show up on time when you are supposed to meet? Do you notify your partner if you cannot make a rehearsal time? Are you prepared to work when you meet? Have you done any more work on your scene from the last meeting time? If you answered yes to all of these questions, then you are well on the way to crafting a professional work ethic that will open many opportunities for you as a professional artist.

If you have not done this work, you enter into the rehearsal process at a disadvantage because you have not made the appropriate steps to secure your own success. If you are constantly directing your scene partner, then you are not being professional. In fact, you are asking your partner to play his/her part and yours. As Hagen states, you don't have time to be both actor and director.

Our job is not to guide or direct our partner, but to present our best choices and to repond to the choices that are presented to us. Acting is doing.

Week 7 -Improvisation and Endowment

This week we begin the process of using improvisation exercises to help us find breakthroughs in our work. By improvising based on what we know of our characters, we find the liberty to explore possibilities that are both in and outside the given circumstances. As you write about your experiences this week in class, ask yourself, "What do I do in a scene to tell the audience about my experiences?" What do you use? What do you do to "endow" yourself with particular traits, characteristics, etc. that reveal something to your scene partner? to the audience? to yourself? What objects are used in your scene that help your character tell the audience who they are?
Hagen asks us to link the emotional and sensory relationships ro each object in our scenes that serve us for each character we play (140). Remember--emotion memory tells is the psychological (or emotional) responses to an even while sense memory helps us identify the physiological responses to an event. Do you know what your responses are in a scene from moment to moment?

If we examine all of our scenes, there are objects in them that tell us about the character's lives...what we do with those objects are important in helping us obtain our objectives in our performances.

Week 6- Playing the Character

This week, we will begin to break down our scripts to prepare for scene presentations at mid-term. As you blog this week about your relationship to the practices of substitution, sense memory and emotion memory, think about how your knowledge of the given circumstances help you identify your character's objectives. How do you use these aforementioned strategies to help you identify and obtain your objectives in a scene? What do you do if you do not have a sense/emotion memory that you can use effectively? As you begin to create a score for your work on the scene, think through the varied ways that particular emotions are presented using your bodies and voices. How many variations of a particular "doing" do you play with before you make a decision about your actions and tactics in a scene. Play with your ideas when we do improv work in class. Keep them in your character history file. You never know what will go into the final score.

Week 5- The Actor's Process: Obstacles, Action and Rehearsal

This week, we are working on defining our objectives and the appropriate actions that allow us to achieve them in a scene. Hagen states "If I know what I want and can achieve my wishes readily without a problem, there is no drama" (180). When you begin to prepare your new scenes, ask yourself, "What is in the way of what I want?" "What stops me from getting to my objective?" Start to ask yourself these questions in relationship to your objective. What tactics do you use to overcome these barriers?
Elaborating on how we identify the actions of our character, Hagen argues "The sum toal of the actions reveals your character..."(185). What does this mean to you? use Hagen's questions and see if you can honestly answer them without descriptive adjectives. "What do I do to get what I want?" (187) How do I get what I want ( by doing what?)(187). Acting is doing...so what you do in a scene tells the audience who you are.

As you begin to rehearse and prepare your scenes for midterm, think about the given circumstances of the play and really ask yourself when you are ready to rehearse. What type of work do you think you would need to prepare in order to answer the above questions about your role honestly?

Piecing it Together: Character, Relationship, Objective

As we write this week about bringing the various elements of our practice together to perform scenes, how do you begin your process? When we talk about "characters" we are "playing," at what point do you begin to examine these characters as people who are in relationships? In everyday life, we have things we want--that which we are trying to obtain. For example, think about your relationship with people in your community that serve you, such as a worker at Starbucks. You enter into the cafe, you with the objective (also referred to as intention) of getting a latte. What actions do you take to achieve this goal? What obstacles get in yoru way that can change your behavior? What behaviors do you avoid so that you will not be refused service? Do you know the barrista making your coffee? Is this your first time getting the drink you want or do you do this everyday? As you blog this week about your process, think about details. Look for the small things you do that establish the formality or familiarity of the relationships in your life. What can you draw from these that help you to become a better actor?

"Introduction to Object Exercises"/"First Contact with the Play"

This week we are exploring the given circumstances of our practice and how we approach the play for the first time. In "First Contact with the Play",( in our case scenes from a play) Hagen asks us to think about the possible themes for the play. When you read your scenes, what general themes come to mind? What is the scene about? What human relationships does the playwright explore? What if you just read the scene for the given circumstances alone without making decisions about your part and what you will "play"? Ask yourself, how can I plan a score for a play/scene I do not completely understand?

When you blog this week think about the given circumstances of your scene and how they work together or in opposition. What skills have you developed thus far in your technique that enable you to answer the question "Who am I in this play?" Can you work without the knowledge you as the actor possess through interpreting the entire scene? Before you play particular ACTIONS, do you think you have to know why?

'Identity" and "The Basic Object Exercise" - Hagen Week 2

This week we are focusing on exploring who we are and idetifying tactics that we can use to explore the multiple "selves" that we inhabit on a day to day basis. Uta Hagen argues that the more we know about ourselves, the more we can bring to our work. Think about the two quotes below and ask yourself how much you rely on one particular facet of your idenity while others are rarely used? What might you do to make yourself available to the multiple possibilities of yourself, the good and the bad, that can be used in your work as an actor?
"Your own identity and self-knowledge are the main sources for any chracter you might play."(Hagen 1973,"Identity" pp.29)
"We must overcome the notion that we need to be regular."(Hagen,1973, pp.31)