Whitney is back, fall is here (officially at 11:09pm EST today) and I'm about to dive into to some new material!
Over the weekend, I decided that I want to move away from non-traditional monologues for a while. The impetus for this came from a list I found while cleaning out my file box.
In most college theatre programs, you are required to take some sort of theatre history. Both Whitney and I were fortunate to have the marvelous John Tammi as a professor for both Western and American theatre history. He gave us all sorts of resources for both of these classes, but the list I found was one we recieved in American theatre history. It is a list of great American plays (many of which won awards, many of which did not) from the early 1900s to the present. A good many of these plays were marked, "If you haven't read this, do it now!".
Well I did not read them them (I was a senior and college was busy!) but fret not, gentle blog readers. JT's advice did not go amiss. I'm doing it now! I've got a date with the Chicago Public Library tonight and I'll be traveling back to my homestate of Michigan tomorrow. Classic plays make for great commuter train/2 hour car trip reading.
Stay tuned because I also recieved KK's book (remember her?) yesterday and I'm already convinced that it's going to be an excellent resource. I'll be back with more about the book soon!
--Kristi
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Really?
I'm back-I made it through my husband's driving through the Appalachian Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains, I survived hiking to 3 different waterfalls, and I almost made it up Chimney Rock-but dang that "rock" is a freakin' CLIFF. A FREAKING HIGH CLIFF. After hiking all day, I don't do a 26-story cliff. Sorry nature, you're beautiful, but you also make me hyperventilate sometimes.
And through all the mountain driving, my hope to read the whole way was dashed by...well...the inability to read comfortably. We'll leave it at that.
But, BUT, dear readers, I watched some movies. And those movies had, what I'm hoping, are some excellent chunks of text. And I can't help but think: "Really?"
Ok, now I'm totally guilty of watching auditions or hearing about other's experiences and cringing uncomfortably about people performing monologues from a movie. I've seen good presentations, don't get me wrong, but I feel like movies are easy to imitate. Text, and text alone, really makes you *work* for your interpretation. Watch a movie too much, love a performance so much and you could be re-enacting...not performing. Well...at least that's what I'm afraid of.
Seriously-I'm an imitator. I have been since I was a child. My mother bought me a pair of tap shoes at a garage sale when I was 4 or 5, and she asked me if I wanted to take classes. My response: "No. I know how to do it," as I continued to make crazy clicks and watch my reflection in the dishwasher. Why? Because I watched the Lawrence Welk Show (come on, young people, thinking PBS, think variety show, too many sequins, and BIG hair), and I thought I knew how to tap. I don't think this imitation skill is always a bad thing (that's how I pick up on dialects easily), but...
In any case, the movie. My favorite: A Coen Brother's flick-"The Hudsucker Proxy" (1994) There's a GREAT female character (Amy Archer) played by Jennifer Jason Lee. She has a great speech, and luckily, she plays the role in a very stereotypical-1950s-I'm-Katherine-Hepburn kind of way that would be easy *not* to imitate-to make a bit more believable, more grounded. I'll be investigating. :)
On to a busy week-have a great one!
Whitney
And through all the mountain driving, my hope to read the whole way was dashed by...well...the inability to read comfortably. We'll leave it at that.
But, BUT, dear readers, I watched some movies. And those movies had, what I'm hoping, are some excellent chunks of text. And I can't help but think: "Really?"
Ok, now I'm totally guilty of watching auditions or hearing about other's experiences and cringing uncomfortably about people performing monologues from a movie. I've seen good presentations, don't get me wrong, but I feel like movies are easy to imitate. Text, and text alone, really makes you *work* for your interpretation. Watch a movie too much, love a performance so much and you could be re-enacting...not performing. Well...at least that's what I'm afraid of.
Seriously-I'm an imitator. I have been since I was a child. My mother bought me a pair of tap shoes at a garage sale when I was 4 or 5, and she asked me if I wanted to take classes. My response: "No. I know how to do it," as I continued to make crazy clicks and watch my reflection in the dishwasher. Why? Because I watched the Lawrence Welk Show (come on, young people, thinking PBS, think variety show, too many sequins, and BIG hair), and I thought I knew how to tap. I don't think this imitation skill is always a bad thing (that's how I pick up on dialects easily), but...
In any case, the movie. My favorite: A Coen Brother's flick-"The Hudsucker Proxy" (1994) There's a GREAT female character (Amy Archer) played by Jennifer Jason Lee. She has a great speech, and luckily, she plays the role in a very stereotypical-1950s-I'm-Katherine-Hepburn kind of way that would be easy *not* to imitate-to make a bit more believable, more grounded. I'll be investigating. :)
On to a busy week-have a great one!
Whitney
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