Journal Entry 5

This week, in addition to reading a few more short plays and reading the first fifty or so pages of the book “Great Acting Teachers and Their Methods,” I began to block one of my two scenes. I have picked the two scenes—one from The Diary of Anne Frank, and the other from Little Women—and have casted all the characters. On Thursday, I met with Georgia, Helen, and Emily, who are in the Little Women scene, as well as Courtney who agreed to be a body on stage for me to use because Ari was unable to attend the meeting due to another meeting she was to be holding. This was the first challenge. I had to begin blocking a scene without the actor’s presence. The use of a stand-in, however, quickly combated this challenge, and I we were able to move on and get some work done.
I began to realize that while I do have to concentrate to some degree on the picture formed by the actors on the stage, I also have to give or help actors find a reason for all movement—otherwise it just looked like the actors were following orders, and not moving naturally.
Another thing I began to notice was how the actor’s instinct is an important thing to listen to, but not always the thing to go with. If an actor’s instinct to move at a certain time to a certain place can be justified by the character and the action, it is usually a good choice, as long as it does not upstage other actors, block other actors, or just look bad or distracting. If the blocking distracts the audience from the play, it’s not very well done. It all needs to seamlessly work together—a much harder task than I anticipated.
I was very excited to work in the new black box as well. It is going to be a great space for smaller performances, and gives me a chance to play with the way the audience will be seated. Because nothing is set, I could put the audience anywhere in the room, and it could become a chance to try new techniques.
The first rehearsal went very well. We managed to block the first three or four pages of the scene, and we spoke about all of the characters and some important lines (and the inflection, pronunciation, and emotion behind them all). It was really fun, and very enjoyable!