Two Comedies in Rep

more reading of the play, lots of questions for clarification, more research. Sari's great and patient. We've introduced the presence of this plastic baby doll that we found in room 20. thats a side note. lol. we talked about the cat in our play. her name's zoe. zoe means life. and none of the family members knows where she is and no one even asks about her besides David. i think thats pretty interesting. seems like David's the only character who knows he's in the play with other people. we've been really dealing with the different definitions of words, playing with the idea that these people go about saying words that have double meanings and many of them are smart enough to know exactly what they're doing. Ashley also gave an interesting idea of looking upwards you THINK you have a general idea of. Martha's awake.

Favorite moments of the night:
Zach's impression of a shrimping net- for a heartier laugh look up what a shrimping-net is and consider that the word is used to describe a woman's use of her sexuality. lol.naughtynaughty.

also....this dialogue gave me a slight chuckle
Max: "Sandy's this wide eyed.....(extended pause)
Mike:...Bambi?!....

Signing Off
~Iman

Posted by miln0035 at 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Though this entry is entitled Dramaturgy Day with Ashley it is also my, Iman Milner, first entry since starting this process...working on one of the two Cowards, Hay Fever. This entry will be a little more formal I guess than the other ones that I will post because I am big fan of streams of consciousness. So here is my formal hello.

Today was an interesting day because we went through a lot of the dirty work that goes along with starting a new project: the research...well the breaking down of the research. There were tons of interesting issues discussed (i.e. the roles of women, the importance of race and class, the fact that cars were a BIG deal...lol). I found his Ashley's opening statement extremely helpful. What did he say, you may ask? He stressed the importance of making sure to really seek out the harder to identify differences between 1925 Britain and 2008 America. This arose out of all the excitement that entered the room while we all sat and discussed how easy it will be to see how this play interprets right into current times...

One thing I thought both casts would benefit from is the idea that class was not just about money but about culture.

Favorite Quote of the night:
"there is no need for a thesis statement for a play."
~Ashley

Posted by miln0035 at 7:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I figured I'd just take this short break I have between class and rehearsal to introduce myself to this blog. My name is Alli Schaffer, and I am a senior in the UMN/Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program. I'm originally from Middleton, WI, a suburb just outside Madison. I started doing theater in the 6th grade, made the decision to continue with it while applying for colleges, and now I'm about to graduate from an acting program. As of right now, I'm planning on making a career in acting. I'm thinking about moving to New York soon and just figuring it out from there. So we'll see how that goes, eh?

I'm your blogger for Present Laughter, a comedy by Noel Coward and directed by Suzy Messerole this fall at the U. Our cast consists of half of my BFA class (8 of us) and two BA students. We've had a week of rehearsal so far and we've spent all of it sitting at the table going through the play. We did a preliminary read, and then for the rest of the week, we worked our way through the script slowly, talking about relationships between characters, the world of the play, etc. We got a fantastic session with Ashley, our dramaturg, who's job it is to tell us about the world of the play and the historical context, etc. We also did a character exercise where we cut out images from magazines to represent our characters, and put the images that the world sees on the outside of a bag, and representations of our inner lives on the inside of the bag. That was really helpful in exploring our characters on a preliminary level.

And now, I have to get some food and head out to our first rehearsal of the week. We're starting blocking, which means we're going to get on our feet and feel out the text and discover the movement for it. I'll let you know how it goes!

Alli Schaffer

Posted by schaf191 at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)