ISTA reflection

What were the most memorable experiences you had and what did you learn?

The ISTA experience was great overall, disregarding that I had a devastating cold the last day which made me miss the last day's classes.  Other than the shows we saw I really loved to see what life will be like in college for me when I'm doing my BFA. I know that it probably won't be the same but it really brought back that mindset of acting every day which I will most certainly do in College. All the classes we took except for the masterclasses involved using a script, the purpose was to create our own versions of them in groups. This was very fun and we saw so many different ways a script can be interpreted depending on the different actors and directors. This really reminded me of how a script is just a guideline to your performance. Meaning that you create what you want with what you are given. The most memorable experience for me was the master class with tectonic. We learned about how a director looks for ways to capture an audience and how one gets the message they want to deliver across to the audience as well. Then he (the man from tectonic) talked about how we create magical moments in theatre. Those moments were your heart just fills up with warmth at the end of a play. And the answer to that was to really focus on the plotline. We have to focus on the goal of our characters, why do they need to do this or that. There has to be a clear sense of accomplishment and failure if you want to capture as many people as possible. Yes ending a play without closure is an artistic choice but it will leave many viewers mad, confused or disappointed. So we learned a lot about the meaningful aspects of theatre as an art form from tectonic. This was not the case with the regular classes, they focused only on the acting and performance aspects. We acted out the scripts we were given but never really broke down the meaning behind each one of them. Because there was no meaning, they were simply (to me) acting exercises. Stuff I've been doing for almost my whole life. That does not mean that it wasn't fun tho ;) What I would have wanted would to be thought and criticized on my acting abilities. I really want to grow as an actor and doing exercises is a way to stay in "acting shape" but it is hard to develop as an actor without being given directions on how to better my acting itself. But I did learn about how and why we do certain things at different times in different plays to capture an audience. And to sum it up, creating a good play is all about finding the right emotions at the right time and showing a clear goal/mission that the characters are striving for. Thanks for making this happen and letting us go on such a fun and cool trip, peace.

Progress in Solo project

In the past weeks, I have really begun to explore the character "Ed" for my solo piece. I have been experimenting a lot with the "magic if" method to build on the characters' emotions and trying to find what sets him off. During class I've been guided a lot by my "mentor" Olivia, she has helped me find the words, the emotions, and the stage directions for my performance. And with the magic if being implemented for my preparations it is all coming together nicely. In the beginning, I did not have a lot of ideas for my solo project. But over the past 2 weeks, I have had an overload of ideas. Now it is simply a process of elimination to get to where I want. I am swinging between staging the performance as an interrogation, a confession or a direct conversation between Ed and his son. If I did it as an interrogation I would have him sit center stage and start talking slowly about his wrongdoing. If done as a confession I want him to stand center stage and use the lights (Left, center, Right) as the truth he doesn't want to confess to. Then when he says the line " I killed Wellington" all the lights will light up the entire stage and he will have a moment of extreme realization of what he just said. If I do it as a conversation I will have him on stage with the light just turned blue and do the monologue.

In class writing

What do you intend to set as your intention(s)? What do you hope the impact(s) on the audience will be? How might you assess the efficacy of that in the talkback (what questions can you ask, etc.)?

9/2

My intention for the solo project will be to bring the audience/viewer into the mind of the character in a short period of time.  Succeeding with this task may be a bit of a stretch due to how little time 4-7 minutes is to develop a character. But it will be the main focus, after all, method acting is meant to make the character more believable, understandable & make the entire performance more truthful. I hope the audience feels compassion or sympathy for the character. I don't think they will feel any disgust as you might feel when you watch the whole play "The curious incident of the Dog in the Nighttime"  This is due to the fact that you haven't seen the character before this intense moment, the solo project will be Ed's monologue to Christopher on page 46.  This is Ed's most emotional moment in the play, we find out that all along it was he that killed the dog. So in the moment of the play, I hope that the audience feels shook at first and then slowly fall into sympathy or just hate him, that is up to the audience I think. But for the solo project there really is no build up in the words "I killed Wellington". The solo project could start with that and it would have no significant impact on the viewer.  So I will have to focus on the performance itself instead and make the most out of my abilities as an actor to bring the words from the book into the hearts of the viewer. 

Solo project revision

My solo project last year was very rushed and not very well thought trough. For instance I choose to do a phone call... Not the best choice for a solo piece. I would like to do a real monologue this year from a play that I actually like. Something that shows off my good abilities as an actor but also something that is relatable too the audience sense I really like method acting. This year is going to have to be all theatre for me due to my injured knee, soo there won't be any excuses this year for not going all in and doing my best job with every performance I do. I really hope to become a better actor this year, now when I have the time and have chosen to commit to theatre I really have no choice but to become better. This is what I wanna do for the rest of my life. Be that movies or theatre, I really just love acting.  The solo piece was in no other words a disgrace by my own standards of myself. It was bad due to how I didn't put my hear and soul into it, it wasn't "important" to me.

This year I will focus more on character development for my performance. Show of the characters strengths and weaknesses. Focus on emotion and delivery of words.

final project performance

https://youtu.be/GXMky9EmLEA

Final report

For my solo project i decided to focus on realism. The text i chose for the project was from the play ‘lose ends’ its from page 26 when Paul and Ben are arguing over Pauls style of life. I decided to have the text as inspiration to my performance. For my performance i wanted to do a phone call, just a simple phone call. This due to how the simple stuff is usually where most people don’t focus as much or pay as much attention. However i did not live up to my own expectations, I didn’t prepare as much as i should have. I should have spent more time on the actual performance instead of spending most of my time looking for a text to work with. Overall it didn’t go as well as i hoped, peace.

Theorist background info, context and discussion.

Konstantin Stanislavskij, born in Russia 1863. He is considered to be the man who “created” method acting. He is also the co-founder of the Moscow art theatre (MAT) His system, methods and techniques are still used today to train actors. He grew up in a wealthy family and was introduced to theatre at an early age. His family even had their own little theatre were Konstantin grew up acting, writing and performing. He wanted to be a great actor himself but ended up being one the greatest directors ever. What fascinates me the most is the fact that one man changed the standard of theatre in itself. He gave the world what is today know as just “acting” to many. All the big movie actors use his methods to portray a believable character.  
Two of my favorite examples of this is Heath Ledger’s “Joker” in Batman: The dark knight (2008) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWgyKDfFC_U  and John Bernthal's Punisher (Frank Castle) in Netflix’s “The Punisher” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWh6A6ZIpfo  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czxlWXqaIzo

The Scene from Batman: The dark knight with the joker (The interrogation scene) is considered to be one of the best scenes in movie history. What is displayed in the scene is the many months that Heath Ledger put into his character. Heath locked himself in a hotel room for weeks on end and perfected the insanity of the Joker. His character and his work with it is considered to be one of the best examples ever of pure and perfect method acting. John Bernthal’s Punisher is also a great one but not equally as critically acclaimed as Heath Ledger’s Joker. Yet his job as The Punisher is one of my favorites and is a great job of method acting. The first scene is The Punisher (real name: Frank Castle) showing Daredevil his place in this world. We see and hear the pain in his voice as he explains why all these bad people have to die. In the second scene we see The Punisher in court, explaining the same thing to the courthouse. And just like Ledger, Bernthal perfected his character using the same methods.

The realism within the characters is what Stanislavkij’s directing style, method, theory and artistic beliefs is all about. He always wanted to show the most believable characters to the audience. He wanted us to feel what the character was feeling and wanted us to be able to relate to him/her,

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wDcYxpxjFS9NAmMVoRB04OSb5aDh7fLp7tHoLyxrsP8/edit?usp=sharing