Friday, January 30, 2009

Weather Rescheduling

Everybody has been writing such compelling and useful things about the plays, solo performance, and Viewpoints ... it's a shame that we got thrown off track by the ice storm (or at least I got thrown off track!)

I'm hoping that we can come back next week and regain the momentum that we started with last week's reading of Slaughter City. I have more writing to do about that, but am only able to get on the Internet sporadically of late.

Please note: the reading of Naomi Wallace's The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek that was scheduled for tomorrow, January 30 is postponed until next Saturday, February 7 at 2:00 pm. I'm sorry for any inconvenience for anyone who was planning to attend, but please do join us next Saturday and the following if you can.

More soon ...
It's exciting to be back in school these days
especially with a class studying such good plays
but I'm frustrated owing to no fault of mine
due to illness and weather far from fine.

I've been to my doctor and am taking his pill,
hoping soon to say I am no longer ill.
Now, snow removal from my drive and I'll be back to class,
that is assuming good fortune and I don't bust my ____.

Michael

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

mixing worlds

Mixing Realism and Fantasy…

I’ve been contemplating Naomi Wallace’s style in her plays that we are reading and wondering why I enjoy her style so much. I’ve always enjoyed reading fantasy. But I’ve grown to love in the last few years the mixing of fantasy and realism. Perhaps because there are things that happen in our own lives that are difficult to articulate in straight facts but are still truths about our lives. One of my favorite films is the French film Amelie. In the story there is this mixing of realism and fantasy – the realistic struggles of a shy woman intertwined with her own internal struggles spilling out into the everyday. Another favorite of mine is Pan’s Labyrinth – where a young girl’s struggles and fears during war are manifested in fantastical creatures. As an audience member you begin to question what is “real” and what is imagined in this film.

But life is like that – or at least it is for me. That we live in the material world that is around us but we still live in the things that make up the way we envision the world. We live with the presence of those who have died and impacted our lives; we imagine and create things into being in our lives. The non-material parts of our lives impact us deeply just as the material aspects do.

So I wonder if the worlds that Naomi Wallace creates that are mixing these two worlds that we so often seek to separate are more intertwined in our lives than we’d like to admit. Or perhaps I just see the world more through the poetical than statistical and so it makes sense some how for me.

Monday, January 26, 2009

playing with viewpoints

Viewpoints – a reminder of play.

Working with viewpoints in this class and on several other occasions I have been intrigued by the way viewpoints reminds me of children at play. There is a sense of focus and question that viewpoints provides for me that is similar to children imagining and playing together. Watching children play I often see them focusing and so involved in their world but with a willingness to integrate new things and try new threads to the story they are telling. And the simple pleasure of playing for children seems to be found in the sense of discovery through viewpoints. There is always the question of “what if?” what if I walk over here, what if I use this part of the room, what if move closer to this person etc.

Both through watching and participating in viewpoints exercise I feel that excitement of trying new things while being invested in telling a story with others who are invested in the story.

I have always been interested in the ways that teams are put together and how to help a group work well together and the focus and work that viewpoints allows seems to be a good path to help in creating a well working team.

But finally its simply fun. And the delight of story and movement that I recall from playing as a child can be revisited as we imagine the “what ifs? of the story we are telling.

slaughter city

Okay, I'm trying this again- my internet hasn't been working, and last night, i wrote my blog and then the internet went away, and my blog was erased-- so here goes.
The thing about Slaughter City that stood out to me was that it was so raw in the language and even the action of the characters. There were no worries about being p.c.-- everything was so un-inhibited, and that gave the play an edge that made it so interesting, if not comfortable at all times. I think it would easily keep the attention of an audience.

The issue that I think this play would address with society today is the economic struggle we are facing. The characters in the play are working at this place because they see no other way of making money to live off of. They are treated badly, but they have no hope for change, so they stay where they are to survive. With the economy being as bad as it is now, I can see this being similar to a lot of people's situations. Jobs are getting scarce, and so we have to take what we can get. Actually, my father was fired from his job a week before Christmas this past year because of cut backs. He worked at a factory that treated it's workers badly, and he really hated working there everyday, but it was his way of making a living, and now without that, even though he doesn't have to go back there, he deals with the stress of finding something else in a very small town with little opportunity.

My internet is acting weird-- i think it's about to cut me off.. again, so i'll finish up. --

The confusion about the play that I had is pretty much gone now. I think that I just needed to process the entire thing, and sleep on it, and now I do not have as many questions about the whole thing.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

It's All New (to me, at least)

The past couple of weeks with this class have been very interesting, to say the least. It has caused me great frustration and greater optimism. This class takes such a different approach from all others, in one way or another. I hate to say this, and I mean no offense to anyone, but the whole thing has thrown me somewhat off of my academic axis. Make no mistake, I have enjoyed every minute of it and I have even yet to been able to process all of the newly aquired information...I am not disappointed or angered. I had two hopes for this class which I stated on the first day. I wanted to learn a lot and I wanted to have a good time doing it. It seems that my wishes were granted.

Viewpoints are brand new to me. I had heard of the approach, but never much about it. It operates very differently from the way that I often do, but I am growing to absolutely love it. In Amelia's post, she mentioned having problems with 'staying in' her head too much and I know exactly how shes feels. Especially as of late, I have been incredibly analytical about everything. I got caught up in reading material from the Practical Aesthetics method, and far too focused on the analytical aspects. I have come to find myself spending too much time worried about words and precision, while giving very little time to experimentation and creativity. I have what I am calling 'Actor's block.' I'm trying to find the balance. The Viewpoints material and exercises have been doing a nice job of helping me find that balance. While I still have a long way to go, the Viewpoints exercises have begun breaking down that big wall of tedious analysis. I could go on for days about each particular element and how it has helped me, but I'll keep it short. The Viewpoints technique has been a wonderful new tool for tapping into creativity without asking me to mystically feel the words in my body. I am a happy, learning camper.

I am both excited and terrified about the solo performances. I feel like it has great potential, but I am stumped on a story. I am probably thinking about it too much (oh yes, that is an ever-recurring theme in my life...still looking for solutions.) I cannot think of a story, I don't have anything nearly as interesting as the stories we've seen and read. The creative river seems to have a problem with beavers.

Thoughts on Slaughter City still to come...I'm not done processing.

Slaughter City, KY

Slaughter City.

I've been thinking about it a lot and was trying to explain it to a few people and just got blank stares when I went into the idea of the Sausage Man and his sausage grinder. I kept telling them all about the magic he SEEMED to possess and how his arrival in places SEEMED to be consistent of "checks and balances" within the labor unions and proceedings. I would also get lost in reciting how a man who favors a cow with his voice and a pig with his name was in charge of the slaughter of these animals. I mean, how ridiculously funny is that? Ridiculously is the answer.

So then, I tried a new approach with telling the last person of the night the story of Slaughter City. I told it straight forward and then at the end through in the other-worldliness of the Sausage Man and it just seemed to work. Perhaps that's why we don't really know what's going on with him in the beginning - because it would make us think too much about his presence instead of just accepting it for what it is. It's like what Sarah said yesterday, we'll never be able to make it all make sense; and that's great! It's also extremely appealing.

On a personal level, I think this play gives me great sympathy, or at least I feel very sympathetic to the characters. I regret not being able to feel an overwhelming empathy for them, but regret the one character I can empathize with the most. Reading this play, made me feel more disconnected to my own city than I already did before. I feel like it isn't fair the hardships these people went through, especially if it took place in such a modern time. Perhaps it strikes the chords of the activist inside me, but it really makes me want to jump in and clean up the working environment for anyone who has ever had to go through this. I guess it makes sense that that is how I should feel, is that not one of the main goals of a piece like this? To unite a community or outsiders to notice the bad and help CHANGE it?

I don't really know a lot about these working environments or union rules but one other note that it struck with me was the mutilation of meat comes off very abrasive in this play. I'm a full blown carnivore, no doubt, but this show really made me detest all things having to do with processed meat or even the idea of carcasses. I'm well over it now, of course, as I don't think I can go a meal without meat. However, it did make me think about it more. I think that is the most important part any play or written work can do.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Trepidation

So it is 12:28pm, and I am sitting in the theatre building with time to kill until 2, since my morning rhr ended early. And it's this time, with 1 1/2 hrs to kill until our stage reading of Naomi Wallace's Slaughter City, that I start to fret about sitting on a stage, with more of my classmates than i can count on one hand, and and X-factor of a Y-quantity of unknowns for the audience. Given that I, 1) OUT of accordance with my *plan* I was sick and did not get the script read yesterday, and 2) am by no means an actor (outside of the roles I play in everyday life), I am somewhat nervous. Go figure.

In an attempt to talk myself out of being nervous and back into looking forward to this, I looked around online for anything I could find to help put myself back in the right mindset -- reviews of performances of this show, videos, etc. So, just to share, like a nice kid, here is a blip on youtube, a page on the production of Slaughter City done at Univ. of Texas, Austin, a review of a production of it, and if I can figure out a way to put it on here, a song from "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" called "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues," performed Chris Thomas King, which I seem to find appropriate mood music for a lot of things.

youtube clip

UTA production

Premiere production review

Scratch posting the song -- I always forget this blog doesn't allow uploads of music. But if you are even the least bit curious about it, check it on youtube.

So there's that, and I'm sure I'll have an actual post after the reading, instead of this little blurb. Until them, I think I'd better skim the script a few times.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Thoughts on Viewpoints

I actually typed this up Tuesday, but I'm only now getting a chance to post it. At any rate, I'm interested in what people are finding easiest and what people are finding most difficult about the Viewpoints training.

I’ve really been enjoying doing viewpoints exercises. For me, the easiest part of viewpoints is simply getting into the rhythm of it- getting on my feet and getting into the rhythm of things. The most difficult part is moving with real purpose- most of the time my reason for changing what I’m doing is something along the lines of “that looks fun” or “that person walked past me, that’s a good excuse to change things up.” I suppose that in the context of a composition, these things do usually present themselves a little more readily.

It’s also difficult sometimes to get out of my head and into my body, as it is the opposite of what it required of us the rest of every school day. I try to warm up on my own before class, so I can be deeper and more present in the work once I get there.

I really enjoyed working with the vocal viewpoints, which were new to me. I especially was drawn to kinesthetic response as it pertains to voice. I thought immediately of how long some people take to respond when they are angry with someone- either interrupting and coming right down on the end of someone else's speech, or pausing, seething and trying to choose words carefully. My other favorite vocal viewpoint is probably timbre, I feel like it tells you so much about the character’s history. I have begun to identify vocal viewpoints every time I listen to the radio (which is almost constantly).

The last thing I want to say about viewpoints is something a friend of mine told me when she was helping me prepare for a callback this summer. She told me: “soften your focus and let the information come to you.” That, I have found, is not only the key to working well in viewpoints, but working on stage in general, and is also very helpful for me to keep in mind when practicing effective active listening. Really, it can be applied in many aspects of life... Just something to think about.

Whether you like it or not

This is part of the documentary "Whether You Like It or Not: The Story of Hedwig" and it doesn't show the absolute roots but I think it deals a lot with public reaction, provocation and some of the other ideas of "solo performance." If you like it, you can watch the whole documentary of it on the Hedwig DVD. I can't find any more clips of this on YOUTUBE and I don't know how to rip it from my own copy! So, enjoy and if it doesn't make sense to you how it relates to our class then at least John Cameron Mitchell is a dreamboat.


Solo Performance

We're moving on this week to talking about solo performance as a form with its own history and cultural significance. It occurred to me as we were discussing this that I wanted to include it for a lot of reasons. In addition to giving students some practice using Viewpoints vocabulary to build a performance, I wanted to give them the opportunity to tell their own stories before they moved on to listening to, talking about and performing other people and characters.

I was thinking about the fact that it may seem strange to begin a semester about performance and community with such a self-oriented assignment as an autobiographical solo performance. But the history of the form clarifies why it seems appropriate. We read Jo Bonney's introduction to the anthology of solo performance she edited, which is entitled Extreme Exposure. Bonney points out a lot of important things about solo performance as it was practiced in New York in the 1990s that show how it relates to community based arts.

  • it was often focused on the process of discovery and development rather than on creating a sellable product;
  • as such, it was non-commercial, and in fact often served as a critique to more profit-oriented theatre, television, film, etc.;
  • it was a form used by people who seem to have been left out of representation in mainstream culture for whatever reason, or it gave people the opportunity to represent themselves in the face of a long history of inaccurate or even offensive representations in American culture;
  • it was frequently performed by the artists for an audience made up of people in their own communities, however they defined that;
  • it often involved direct, active contact with audience members;
  • it was used as a way of provoking questions rather than providing easy answers;
  • it was used by people who had limited financial resources, and could be done in small spaces. In other words, it was developed in the spirit of independent "do-it-yourself" art that also inspired independent film and home recording of music.
I reminded students that this kind of work hasn't always been well received and is often subject to censorship. In the early 1990s, controversy over the NEA Four (Karen Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes and Tim Miller) was at the heart of the so-called "culture wars" that centered around questions of who should determine decency and morality when considering public funding for individual artists.

So, as we begin to choose the play we'll all focus on over the course of the semester, we're also starting to explore how we can begin to produce performance of our own that uses the stories and resources we have on hand. And we'll discuss some of the importance of being able to tell our own stories publicly.

Here are some Youtube videos we watched in class yesterday. These are examples of solo work that made its way to more mainstream venues and media:

John Leguizamo's Freak



Margaret Cho's I'm the One that I Want



and Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

viewpoints-- 1st exercises

From these first exercises that we have done, I have learned more about the importance of blocking in a performance, and more about performance itself. Without using text, movement and position becomes so much more important to the performer, and I am hoping that it will carry over to when I do perform again, with text, and I will be more connected with my body movement and blocking and find more reason for it.
It's really convenient for me to be studying viewpoints right now because I am also in a introductory directing class and right now we are directing short, silent scenes. So, working on image and spatial relationship goes hand in hand with these silent scenes. Of course, it still isn't easy, but I can go back to what we are learning about view points and apply it to these scenes and it helps me to be more creative and to actually say what I want to with the scene through movement and space.

Mother Superior's Slideshow

So the Viewpoints exercise we did in class Friday reminded of this clip (which I have the misfortune of being in, since I didn't know the cardinal NTX rule: You raise somebody else's hand, and you've just volunteered yourself.) Anyway, it was an improv with zero time to think, so in addition to be all about the spatial relations, shape, line and gesture, kinesthstic response was A#1 super-star Viewpoint for this game. Check it out. Enjoy.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyYPvHSDSFA

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Viewpoints...how fabulous

Well, I just have to say that I'm really attracted to these viewpoint exercises. I've always been one to clam up in acting classes when we needed to do exercises involving an improv or something like that, but with breaking all the pieces down and focusing on them I feel much more confident. I feel that I now have the ability to really allow myself to shape my involvement in a scene or allow myself to confidently shape other people in a scene. I think about projects I've worked on in the past and choices I've made regarding composition and I think that maybe they were pure luck (good and bad). However, I feel, now that I am somewhat in touch with a certain type of perception, that I can move on as making something kinesthetically pleasing and enjoyable and REAL.

What I found most interesting out of these exercises was the ability to really let yourself get lost and let the control be dictated by your body and not your brain. I'm not sure if everyone felt that way but I certainly did. I felt I was able to let myself stop thinking about moving and just MOVE based on feeling and gut reaction due to whatever was going on around. This is definitely something that will help me grow (which is clearly why these steps are studied, ha) as a performer but more importantly ... as a designer. I think that is what sets me aside from everyone else in the class. I have a different filter for what we're learning. I imagine constantly how to take our lessons and shape them into light and movement through color and orientation. That sounds a bit out there, but it's definitely true.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Schedule for Readings of Plays by Naomi Wallace

The schedule for the free readings of three plays by Naomi Wallace is as follows (I've chosen plays that have specific connections to Kentucky, by the way ... )

Saturday, January 24 at 2:00 pm -- Slaughter City
Saturday, February 7 at 2:00 pm -- The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek
Saturday, February 14 at 2:00 pm -- In the Heart of America


All readings will take place in the Thrust Theatre at the University of Louisville, and are free of charge and open to the public. On Saturdays, free parking is available in the lot next door to the building. The Thrust Theatre is at the corner of Floyd and Warnock (across the street from the Natatorium and McDonalds, directly next door to Papa John's). Here's a map -
View Larger Map

And here is a link where you can plug in your address and get information on TARC routes that stop near the building.

I realize that everyone is very busy and your time is valuable, so I appreciate any few minutes you have to give to this project. If you can't attend all three readings, please feel free to come to just one or two. And if you need to come and go as the reading is happening, that's fine too. One of the main goals, in addition to bringing to light the vital issues raised by these wonderful plays, is to build new communities by encouraging student artists and other members of the Louisville community to begin talking and listening to each other more directly. This is a new course and a new process here at UofL that I hope will be well received and will grow and change in future years, and any time you can spend helping us develop it is very much appreciated.
I lived in California for 10 years and Florida for 5 years but I have always considered myself a Kentuckian. I was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, the same city as fellow actor Johnny Depp.
Naomi Wallace's works are especially interesting to me because I see the Pope Lick Bridge every day and I am fascinated with Kentucky history. I hope she is able to attend our public play readings this Saturday afternoon and have a question and answer time after the readings. I would love to understand how she got started and the reason for her ties to Kentucky.
My name is Michael Lee Jones, Jr, and I am a Theatre Arts major, here at U of L, graduating this summer. I went to the Youth Performing Arts High School and received an acting scholarship to the University of Louisville several years ago when the theatre department was a BFA program. I attended U of L for three years but I felt Hollywood calling and moved to California where I lived for the past ten years. I have done quite a bit of theatre, live TV, cable, industrial films as well as feature films.

As life changes, so do our dreams and desires. I am looking forward to receiving my BA in Theatre Arts this summer. I will then pursue a secondary bachelors degree in history. I also will pursue an MFA in Theatre Arts at U of L or an MA in education. My goal is to teach at high school or college level and make documentarty and feature films as I am able. It would be wonderful that one day I could earn a living with my own production company.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Week 1: Viewpoints Training and Learning to Listen

Thanks to all of the students for introducing themselves. This is a small group (eight people), but everyone is so enthusiastic and open to new ideas, and I'm very excited to work with all of you.

This week we've been working on a couple of things. First, we are trying to arrange the public readings of the plays on which we'll be working so that they're at a time when all students and as many interested people in the community as possible can attend. For anyone reading this who doesn't know, theatre students (and everyone in the class this time is a theatre major: one graduate student and seven undergrads) are notoriously busy people. All students are busy, but because theatre involves a lot of group rehearsal and preparation in the evenings, free time is hard to come by.

Right now, we're planning on moving the times and dates of the readings to Saturday afternoons. I'll send out an email to people who are interested when we've solidified the time, and will also post that here. We should figure it out in the next day or so.

Also this week, we've been working on Viewpoints training. Again, for readers who are unfamiliar with this method of training performers, the Viewpoints came out of Postmodern dance, and were articulated specifically by Mary Overlie. Overlie's original six Viewpoints (Space, Shape, Time, Emotion, Movement and Story) were later adapted by the SITI Company and director Anne Bogart to be used as tools for training actors and creating work for the stage. I have participated in an intensive training with the SITI Company and attended many shorter workshops, and also had the opportunity to work with Mary Overlie when she was briefly in residence at Texas A&M University, where I taught before this.

Essentially, the Viewpoints give actors and directors a common vocabulary from which to work when creating performance--actors engage in improvisations that allow them to have a greater awareness of different aspects of space and time. We have been using the SITI Company's list, which is as follows:

SPACE: spatial relationship, shape, gesture, architecture and topography

and

TIME: kinesthetic response, tempo, duration and repetition.

Part of the reason we are learning the vocabulary in this class is because it allows actors a great deal of agency in staging plays and performances: rather than the director saying, "I want you to go here or do this," the actors are training themselves to have a greater sensitivity to each other and to how they can use different elements of space and time to create meaning.

Both Mary Overlie and the SITI Company emphasize the idea that this is a profoundly democratic tool that is intended to reach for a non-hierarchical relationship. This is one of the reasons it seems useful as a way of building community based performance. In a discussion of how Viewpoints can help directors and actors resist the tendency in American theatre of trying to correctly stage or restage what one person (usually a director) wants to see or hear, Anne Bogart and Tina Landau write

Can the artistic process be collaborative? Can a group of strong-minded individuals together ask what the play or project wants, rather than depending upon the hierarchical domination of one person? Of course a project needs structure, and a sense of direction, but can the leader aim for discovery rather than staging a replica of what s/he has decided beforehand? Can we resist proclaiming "what it is" long enough to authentically ask "what is it?" (The Viewpoints Book 18)


In her essay "The Six Viewpoints" in the collection Training of the American Actor, Mary Overlie extends this collaborative vision to include the audience. She writes that the artistic experimentations of the 1960s and 70s out of which the Viewpoints grew used as their source of information people and things encountered in the everyday world. This shifted the role of the artist from a mystically talented "creator" to a sensitive "observer/participant." She writes,

This creative process, and the art it produced, centered on witnessing and interacting, and, in turn, redefined the role or activity of the audience. The audience, no longer presented with a finite vision from the artist, instead joined the artist as observer/participants. The redefinition of the role of the artist and the relationship of artist to audience created an environment of heightened equality or extreme democracy. (189)



My feeling is that this training is not only good for making us stronger, more focused and creative actors, it also makes us better citizens. I mentioned in class more than once that, in my experience, one of the most important skills Viewpoints training exercises is the ability to actively listen with one's whole body. I've told the students that if they learn nothing else from the class all semester, I hope that they will exercise their ability to really and truly listen, and listen well; conversely, I hope the audience (whose job in this culture is traditionally only to listen) will find ways to be co-creators and participants. Through all of this, I'm hoping that we might all begin to be a stronger, more active community of people.

(I've also added a link at the right to the Theatre of the Oppressed website, since Augusto Boal's work has been another inspiration for the development of this class.)

Monday, January 12, 2009

Name: Will Gantt
Where: I have lived in the Louisville area for about ten years now, but I still call Alabama home.

My interest in threatre is simple. First and foremost, it is fun. I took a theatre class in my sophomore year of high school and, as they say, "that's all she wrote." Not only do you get to play onstage and have all eyes on you (which was a surprise joy for a shy guy like myself), you learn something about some other people, lifestyles and situations, even if you had no intention of such. Second, I feel that theatre can be a very useful tool of teaching and learning. Whether the lesson is historical or moral, among others, you can use this medium to express ideas in an interesting and exciting form. I am more than sure that I am leaving plenty out, but this will have to do for now.

I was interested in this class because it really sounds like it will capitalize on those positives which I listed above. We will not only be learning about something contained in a play, we will be taking it a step further and talking to people in our own community who have somewhat shared experiences with the material contained in the play we choose. Ever since I started getting into the acting process, I have wanted to really research a role and have one-on-one conversations with someone who has a closer relation to a character or situation from the play of my focus. Through this, I expect that we will learn a great deal about the world outside our own, we will have a passion and commitment for the play and work that we may not have had simply due to a lack of awareness. As lame or corny as it may sound, I really expect us to grow, not only as performers, but as people this semester. I'm pretty stoked about it.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Who-- My name is Cassie (Cassandra) Perkins. I am a senior now at u of l, so this is my last semester (hopefully,) and i am a theatre major, which is freaking me out more and more every day because I have NO idea what I'm going to do with it. When i really think about it, I could do a lot of things, I just don't know where to start, or what I want to do first. Really when it comes down to it, I want to perform for a living, but, that is very difficult to pull off, so we'll see. Actually my dad just told me over the phone that I should be an airline stuartist, so.. i've got options.

Where-- I am originally from Campbellsville, KY. Everybody who knows me very well knows at least this about me because you can't help but ask where I'm from after hearing my country accent. A lot of people haven't heard of this town because it's pretty small, but growing, and it's in south central KY. My family has a 200 acre farm there, and I know almost everyone says this about their home town but it is honestly the most beautiful place in the world. To go walking down to the river and woods and just take it all in is such a release and also a humbling experience at the same time. I could go on and on forever about it, but i won't. I'm just really thankful for that place where I have great experiences to learn from and also a place I can go back to that helps me to relax and put everything into perspective.

Why-- I am interested in theatre really because it's always been the one thing that I knew i wanted to do. I am so indecisive when it comes to my life plans, but theatre has always been consistent whenever I think about the future. I want to take this class because the experimentation of it alone is very exciting to me. I feel like through this class we are going to discover a lot of things about people in general, and ourselves that we didn't know already. I'm just excited to be a part of something new and original, and to work with a small group of people who feel the same excitement and determination to discover new things.

Amelia, introducing herself

I'm Amelia. I'm a junior here at u of L, and I'm beginning my final year of study at the Louisville School of Massage Therapy as well. I live near campus in a studio apartment with my cat, procrastinate diligently, and listen to a lot of public radio.

I lived in Salt Lake City until I was 12, and moved to Louisville in July of 2000. (I also went to school at the University of Indianapolis for a year, ten weeks of which was spent in Greece). Although I lived in Salt Lake longer, I really feel like I "grew up," intellectually at least, in Louisville. I love to travel, but it always nice to come home to what is familiar, which in this case, is this city and its people.

My interest in theatre is primarily directing, although I currently do a lot of stage managing- my theory is that stage managing is a way to let me watch many different directors work, and pick and choose what I think does and doesn't work. I have been known to act and sing as well.

In this class, I am interested in learning effective methods of bringing voices to community issues, in order to present those issues to a larger, and probably unaware, audience. I really enjoy movement work, and the role it can play in effective story telling. I am interested in some day composing an interview-based piece on the effects of mountain top removal coal mining on Appalachian communities. I would also like to play with the idea of doing an interview-based piece on my family history.

I am excited to see what this course brings!

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Melanie's Introduction

Hey everyone! My name is Melanie Henry and I am in my last undergraduate semester here at UofL. Whoo Hoo!
I was born in Eastern Kentucky, but moved to Louisville at a very young age. This is definitely the town I call home.
My enrollment in this class has a lot to do with the requirement if fulfills for spring graduation. However, I have always had an interest in storytelling and what it can achieve. My mother is a novelist, and essayist, and a storyteller. She always taught me to listen to people's stories in order to be able to fully tell my own. I think I'll be in the listening stage for most of my life, though. This is where this class comes in, I guess. I want to hear as many stories as possible, as well as try out a different and innovative form of theatre.
I've had a complete hodgepodge of theatrical training. I started in acting and directing, stage managed way too many plays, coordinated Studio Theatre for a couple of years and have spent the majority of my career at the university buried deep in the costume shop. My experiences have led me down many different paths, and frankly I'm not sure if I will choose theatrical practice as a career; however, I will always enjoy the study and practice of the theatre.

Introduction

My name is Zac Gilbert and I am a Junior Theatre Arts Major - ready to get out of here!

I am from Louisville, KY (born and raised) and am also ready to get out of here!

I am taking this class because it seems very interesting to me. At first I was just trying to graduate and this fulfilled the Theatre CD credit, but over the break I spoke to someone about what Community Based Theatre meant to them and it really got me excited about this class. He mentioned things about groups all over the country doing so many interesting things in their communities FROM their communities.
I am also pigeon holed to be a Tech person and I'm trying to break that pattern. Granted, I love tech and will most likely choose that route for a profession, but I crave so much knowledge about every aspect of the Theatre world that I am very excited that this course will be amazing in that regard.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Sarah Carleton

Who:

Sarah Carleton 3rd year MFA acting student

From:
Darlington, PA

Why:
I"ve always been interested in stories, movement, and acting. Though I have a wide variety of interests in theatre specifically I'm drawn to classical pieces, movement based work, and dance.

But I'm also interested in telling the stories that don't often get told. And how to share those stories with others. I've done some work in PA with community based theatre with high school students and was amazed by the challanges and how much I grew and learned from the experience.

And I think that as people we need to learn to listen to one another - and that this is one great way of going about that.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Introduction...and stuff


Mostly introduction (I just say "and stuff" when I don't know what else to put somewhere). So, I think we were to answer three of the five Ws. Guess I'll start with the obvious.
WHO: My name is Rocky. I'm an umpteenth year senior (I got tired of being the perennial freshman; so I went 'sophomore-ish' and then I finally made it through 'junior-esque'), hopefully at my last undergrad program. I'm shooting for graduating [finally] next December, so I can take some time off before grad school and [this is the really trite bit] 'work on my writing.'

WHERE: I'm from, mostly, Louisville. I was born in South America, and I've lived in a few other places, but mostly I've lived in Louisville.

WHY: I'm taking this class because, 1) the fliers for it caught my eye. They were colorful. Oh, and the description of the course was intriguing, too. B) I'm taking this class because I prefer a more hands-on course to a theory class any day -- I'm a very kinesthetic person -- so this seemed preferable to a class based on books and papers and sitting at a table for 50 minutes. That's the honest answer. {Slightly downplaying how psyched I was when I figured out that I could work it into my schedule, after all.}

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Hello and Welcome!

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the blog for a course called "Community Based Acting and Performance" at the University of Louisville. My name is Amy Steiger and I am the instructor of the course. Any time you see a post or comment by "Community Based Acting," that's me.

Students in the course are required to post on this blog several times over the course of the semester, but anyone else should feel free to comment on the ideas presented here. Part of the idea is to help student actors connect the work they are doing in rehearsal with members of the various communities in which they live, and to find ways in which theatrical processes of all kinds can inspire important conversations, so I hope participants from the community will actively engage with what we are trying to do here.

Below is the long description of the course I put at the beginning of the syllabus. If you are interested in seeing the full syllabus, please send me an email and I will be happy to send you a copy as an attachment.

Also, the links and videos to the right, here, relate in one way or another to the topics of the class and the artists whose work we will be studying. Please take a look at these to get an idea of the people, ideas and processes that have inspired this syllabus. I will be updating this list all semester, adding relevant links as I find them, so please make suggestions if you have them.

And please feel free to contact me with any questions, thoughts or ideas. I'm really looking forward to this semester's work!
Acting is largely based on the difference between characters. An Italian designer, a Russian peasant, a Chinese diplomat, all behave in specific ways. They hold themselves differently, walk, talk, think, smoke cigarettes and laugh differently. Their backgrounds, education, physical manner, moralities and conditioning are wholly dissimilar.
- Stella Adler, from The Technique of Acting

Even as the actor has the potential to be the other, all others, the tension between the self and other is real. In House Arrest, the actors should play across gender and race. Yet, this does not mean that their evident race and gender is nonexistent or insignificant. The contrary is the case. Their evident race and gender is on one side of the bridge, and the other they pursue is across the bridge. The effort to cross that bridge is the drama, and it should not be denied.
- Anna Deavere Smith, from the Introduction to House Arrest

The common we share, in fact, is not so much discovered as it is produced. … Our communication, collaboration and cooperation are not only based on the common, but they in turn produce the common in an expanding spiral relationship.
- Antonio Hardt and Michael Negri, from Multitude

Course Description and Objectives:

Imagine this: you are Brad Pitt. You are a handsome and powerful Hollywood actor, and you have recently been cast in Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu’s film Babel. But instead of playing the role of Richard, the attractive white upper-middle-class American man, you are cast in the part actually played in that film by Adriana Barraza: Amelia, the Mexican woman who is caretaker for the American couple’s young children and is forced to risk losing the life she has made for herself to attend her son’s wedding in Mexico. And in preparation for that role, your job is to gather and perform interviews with women who are immigrant workers in the U.S., or with many different people worldwide about the issue of immigration in a global economy. And you are nominated for awards not because of how much revenue you generate for the studio, nor how good-looking you are, nor with how much emotional intensity and authenticity you portray a role you fit quite well. Your work as an actor is judged according to how deeply you learn to empathize with the situation of a character whose body, culture and experiences are almost completely different from your own, how much public conversation you generate about important issues, and how much the people that made connections with you and with each other through collective work on this role learn from participation in this new community

This class, which is based on the possibility that this theory of acting can be practiced, combines the history, theory and practical skills of acting, solo performance, and community-based theatre in order to for actors to use their presence and skills to connect with, build and develop communities outside of the classroom. We will begin the semester with three public readings of plays by Naomi Wallace, and, together with a group of people from the community, will choose which play will serve as the foundation for this semester’s work. In addition to working on a scene from one of Ms. Wallace’s plays, you will also be asked to perform a “character study” that will be developed through research and interviews with people outside of this class. The goal is to examine how, through your work as actors, you can engage more actively with the people and world around you in order to make your representations more responsible and relevant to your community, but also to encourage public discussion about the important historical, intellectual and emotional issues raised by the plays and characters on which you will be working.

The class will be divided into several sections. Because you will be composing your own performances, we begin by learning how to build a performance using Viewpoints vocabulary as a staging tool. As practice, you will study some of the history and theory behind solo performance, and create a short autobiographical piece based on the roles you play in your everyday life. The focus then shifts from yourself to others: we will discuss some community-based artists whose work is based on the experiences of existing communities, and examine how some artists incorporate interviewing and ethnographic work into public performances. You’ll be studying the principles involved in creating what is known as “community-based” art, and also practicing the skills involved in doing this kind of work.

Several weeks into the course, you will choose a scene partner and a character from whichever play we have chosen. Ideally, the character should be one who is very different from the person you imagine yourself to be (you don’t have to stick to your own gender, race, or age if you choose not to, for example). Then, after we complete our initial exploration of solo and community-based performance techniques, we will begin working toward a production of your scenes using community-based techniques in rehearsal. We will begin with dramaturgical research and table work on the play, and the rest of the semester will be devoted to creating and rehearsing two overlapping performances. One will be a solo performance in which you build your character through interviewing two or three people from the outside community, performing their responses to your interviews, engaging in ongoing conversations with those people, and doing other outside research. The other will be the performance with your partner of a short scene from the play, incorporating the character you’ve created through your research.

Throughout the process, you will invite your interviewees to have conversations about the meaning of your work. Most of the work on your characters will be documented on a class blog and on Myspace so that the public can be part of your whole process, and they will be invited to at least one rehearsal and to your final performance. The important thing to remember is that, in this course, you aren’t being evaluated on your ability to seamlessly re-create elements of a person’s mannerisms on stage (although you will try your best to do so, and will probably end up being quite accurate). The idea is for you to focus on what you, your interviewees, and your classmates can learn about each other, identity, experience and the world through conversations you have while creating characters and pieces of theatre.

So, by the end of the semester you will have some knowledge of and experience with:
- the plays of Naomi Wallace
- the history, theory and practice of solo performance
- the history, theory and practice of community-based theatre
- the history, theory and practice of ethnographic performance
- using Viewpoints and composition in the development of character
- interviewing community members and involving them in the process of performance
- using the Internet (blogging and social networking sites) to engage in public conversations about the issues raised in the process of creating work for the stage
- doing historical and dramaturgical research on a play and applying that work in rehearsal
- thinking critically about your training and rehearsal practices
- examining how involving an audience in training and rehearsal influences your acting process