I survived my MLA paper...

Barely.  But I survived!!  We (the three first year students in the class) were up until all hours of the morning writing, critiquing, and freaking out (well, at least I was) but my paper was finished and turned in on time!  The night before it was due, my roommate Amanda and I were at a breaking point and had started to turn loopy under the pressure, so we took a brief hiatus to go swing on the swings at a playground for our apartment complex.  I can't remember the last time I was on a swing, and it felt really good.  After that we buckled down, and wrapped up our papers around 3am.

I woke up a few VERY short hours later to a few suggestions and grammatical corrections from my friend Elise (an English teacher at RSHS), and rushed to the library to print before my second session classes began at 8am.  The margins wouldn't print correctly, and Amanda and I tried a few tricks to get them to that perfect "one inch all around," but exhaustion took over and we gave up.  Our papers were time stamped and turned in during out first break during Directing 1, and it was sweet, sweet freedom from MLAnal ridiculousness.

My classes this session are Grad Directing 1, and Settings and Properties.  I'm enjoying both so far--  my professors are really nice, really fun and personable, and very knowledgable.  The people in my classes are really awesome too, and we're getting along well so far.  It's only been two days in the class, but it feels like so much longer in ways.

Today (Day 2) I was a bit freaked out because we had to prepare an auto drama-- an individualized performance piece that tells the story of our life.  Working on 3 hours of sleep the night before, I was hard pressed to come up with an idea for how to present my life, and my brain was pretty fried.  I had settled on a metaphor of a tree, but didn't know how to present...  I ended up being up on and off until 4am trying to figure stuff out, and also complete the readings required for class today.

Autodrama was probably the most frightening thing I've ever done, performance wise.  Besides being such a personal experience, which I'm not really into performing, I was going on very little sleep, and not feeling confident in my ideas for presentation, and it was REALLY SCARY.  I jumped at the chance to go first to get it over with, almost in tears, hands shaking, stomach in knots.  And it went over very well. I was EXHILARATED.  Adrenaline boosted, and I felt so much better, and really proud that I had not only gotten through my presentation, but gotten positive feedback from my peers.

Other scary things I survived today were using a table saw, band saw, and sliding compound miter saw (aka chop saw) without losing any digits or limbs.

Now, my directing class is coming over to our apartment to work on an assignment for class tomorrow.

Today's been a very good day!  (Especially since I don't have a lot of reading tonight and will actually be able to get a fairly decent night of sleep!)

Trying to come up with a coherent thesis

...It is currently 12:43am, Washington time, and I am trying to come up with a coherent thesis statement for my Intro to Grad Studies research paper.  Actually, I am trying to come up with a few versions of what might eventually turn into a coherent thesis statement, because I'm pretty sure my professor isn't going to like whatever I throw his way in class tomorrow.

I've been researching and reading plays and articles for a REALLY long time this afternoon and tonight, and I'm not burned out on the reading.  I'm actually really engaged by the information I am discovering about Sarah Ruhl, who I am just loving more and more the more I read her plays and the articles I am finding that discuss her work.

I just don't know how to narrow it down and make my ideas make sense for my stupid paper.

I feel like a crazy person, and my attempts at mapping my ideas & brainstorming words to include in my thesis, and notes I've taken on the articles I've found so far online look like the mad ravings of a serial killer.  It's kind of funny.  But maybe that's only because it's almost 1am.

I have class in 7 hours.

I lack a complete thesis statement at this point in time.

Blargh.

Rasaboxes: Completed

I can't believe that I've already completed one of my graduate courses...  The week has absolutely flown by, and I'm exhausted and exhilarated all at the same time.

Intensive movement class for an entire day (literally) will really take it out of you, I guess.  At the beginning of the week, I was definitely worried about how much I would be able to do and how in-depth I would be able to get in the class, and I'm fairly pleased with how I progressed and "clicked" into the theories and practices that we were experimenting with throughout the week.  It was really difficult for me to let go of my insecurities and loose myself in the work, but I feel like yesterday and today I made improvements.

Yesterday's class, we took a "Rasawalk" and experienced the campus through the eyes of different Rasas.  I saw a family of Quails and quail babies (they're so adorable--  the male has a bobble thing on the top of his head, and it was really fun to watch him run in and out of the bushes guarding his babies), and we walked through this absolutely GORGEOUS Japanese Zen garden that they have on campus.  I will have to post pictures later--  it was so tranquil and beautiful, and the sun was shining so brightly it just FELT GREAT.

Today was like a Rasabox experiment "crash course".  We did a TON of different activities in short bursts and I'm really looking forward to implementing some of them in the classroom.  The great thing about Rasaboxes is that you are taking all of the "thinking" out of acting and having a physiological response in the rasa (emotion) or combination of rasas.  We did an activity today where we were vocally (using different sound resonators in the body) and physically interacting with a partner, allowing their breath and sound to move your body through the space in different ways.  I was working with Keith, who is one of the acting professors here, and it was the first time I really felt good about being able to really get into the activity, and instead of being so worried about whether or not I was doing it right, I was really able to enjoy myself, have fun, and play in the boxes.  It was a little intimidating at first (working with one of the professors) but I think in the end it went really well.

Tomorrow, I start Intro to Grad Studies bright and early.  I have to write a 10-page MLA formatted research paper in three days, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared about the course.  I'm just feeling very ill-prepared right now, and I'm not quite sure how to get through the fear, re-discover what it's like to be a student again, and buckle down to settle on a thesis, do a ton of research, and write a perfectly formatted paper in such a short amount of time.

In fact, I'm going to stop waxing philosophical about my experiences thus far and my fears for tomorrow, and go read something that may (or may not?) be useful.

Pictures!!

Instead of writing tonight (I'm too wiped to think about much...) I'm going to post some pictures and captions of what I've seen here so far...

My arrival at the airport...  Greeted by cloudy skies, but a beautiful open airport!

Here is a cloudy view of the mountains from my bus en route to Ellensburg!

I loved seeing the mountaintops disappear into the fog!

I fell asleep somewhere in the cloudy-ness of Seattle, and woke up a short while later to clear blue skies and beautiful farmland.

...and lots of gorgeous scenery through the bus windows!

Here is our Rasaboxes grid, all decorated with chalk from today (Day 3 of class).  Each day, we tape out the grid, label each box with one of the different Rasas, and then draw pictures, words, or patterns in the box to help us express the different emotions associated with each.

When we enter the boxes, we focus on breathing to animate and creative a narrative to the Rasa we experience in the box, and move in all different ways to experience the Rasa and hopefully help those witnessing experience it as well.  We end up covered in chalk in a VERY short period of time, seeing as we are rolling, scraping the floor, treading barefoot, and tracing the box in so many different types of movement.

Here's the view from outside my apartment as we walked from lunch back to the theatre today.

I am IN LOVE with this gnarled, beautiful tree.  This little stream runs through campus, and there's a pretty brick/concrete footpath that passes over it!

 And another view of the little stream that runs through campus...

More pictures on my facebook page, if you're a friend...  or sent me a message and I can post a few more!

I spent this evening switching classes (from two of my electives with small enrollment likely to be cancelled) to other classes instead (Set and Properties, and Design Methodology).  Now I'm ordering more textbooks and hoping that I have the right delivery address for amazon to ship them to!  Free amazon student 2-day shipping rocks my world.

Amanda (my roommate) cooked a simple, delicious dinner for us tonight (a Mexican soup and tuna cheese melts) and I am pretty much in heaven.  Except now I have to go do dishes--  only fair since she did the cooking!  :)  Tomorrow night--  my turn to cook.  Should be interesting...  

Rasaboxes: Day Two

Part of me feels like I've been taking this class for much longer than two days.  Part of me is still feeling slightly jetlagged (but a zillion times better than I was feeling yesterday.)

Rasaboxes is really interesting.  I *love* coming home covered in chalk, and spent the better part of the afternoon rolling around and breathing in different Rasas.  I feel like I will be coming home with more and more chalk on my body.  It's challenging for me to work my way into some of the Rasas (like Vira, which is the hero rasa, and Bibhasa which is the disgust/sickness rasa), but I'm finding that the more we are able to connect with other people in the boxes the easier it is to embody and breathe each different emotion.

When you step into a Rasabox, you have to immediately take on some level of the rasa, and you can't let that emotion go until after you have exited the box.  By the end of the afternoon, we had 6 people in a box, all at the same time, interacting and envisioning the rasa at different points within ourselves and within the room.  It's really a spontaneous, natural "gut" reaction to what is going on around you, and how you are feeling that particular rasa at that particular time.

The process is fascinating, and I'm really thinking that a lot of the ideology behind this technique will be helpful to me as a performer, and hopefully useful in the classroom.  I'm definitely going to try at least some elements of this in my classes next year.

Some of the highlights of the day were not class related...  My roommate Amanda and I ate our lunch outside and walked around the campus, and I am continually amazed by the beauty of this area and of the campus.  The mountains (which Amanda, who is from Washington, informed me are actually only hills) are beautiful, the skies are blue, the sun is warm, there are trees everywhere...  It's very different terrain from what I'm used to in Maryland, and I'm loving the difference.  The campus is well kept, the buildings are expansive and really well maintained, and it seems to be a really pleasant campus to inhabit.

Best part of the evening was coming home from mopping up the chalk-covered floor, and being invited out to dinner with the other women in my class.  Five of us in total went to a local place, and stayed there for over two hours just talking about our experiences with acting and theatre, sharing our feelings about our experiences in class, and thankfully, getting some sage advice from people who have been in the program for a year or two ahead of Amanda and I.  I'm still a little anxious about the intensity of some of the courses, but they're very supportive and shared their experiences and thoughts with us about what we are about to go through as first years.  I'm feeling a lot better now (physically) than I have in a couple weeks, and think that I'm starting to get back to "normal" (whatever that is...)  These are really amazing women who are living truly inspiring lives, and I think I will be able to learn a lot from them.  It's been a really positive evening, and dinner was mostly filled with laughter, jokes, and support for what everyone is going through.

I think (and hope) that I'm very much going to enjoy my experience here this summer, and even when things get tough or "stress-y" it's nice to know right off the bat that I have a strong support group who's willing to help me through the tougher times.

Surviving Day One

Despite jet lag, insane blood sugar craziness, and feeling a little bit ill, I survived my first day of classes at CWU.

I just arrived home from my first Advanced Movement class (Rasaboxes) covered in chalk.  I think the technique holds lots of promise.  The morning was spent meeting classmates, talking about the course, and doing breathing exercises and yoga.  I left for our lunch break feeling a little bit nervous about surviving the second part of the day (the class goes from 9am-5:30pm), due to exhaustion and not having been able to eat a whole lot the past few days.

After lunch: pretty freaking cool, and I came out of it feeling a lot better than when I started this morning.  Basically, from what I gather from Day 1 (and this could all very well be wrong and change tomorrow) Rasaboxes is all about using breathing, body, facial expressions to make the audience experience a different emotion (Rasa).

The teacher likened a Rasa to the juice/essence of an orange.  People experience oranges differently, they pick up on different subtleties of the flavor, smell, textures, but it's still the same orange.  In rasaboxes, you map out a grid on the floor, and each box represents a different Rasa.  We labelled the boxes with chalk.  Each box "contains" varying levels of different emotions or universal feelings.  There's a box for anger, pleasure, the Hero, fear, sadness, the Clown (laughing, joy, humor), discovery, disgust/sickness, and one more that we haven't really delved into yet that represents something I think is akin to clarity, or a spiritual box.  We drew words, pictures, and symbols in each of the boxes that helped us identify what each Rasa represented.  When actors step into the box, they take on movement and breathing that embody the Rasa that is inhabiting that box.

As actors, I think we try to focus on physically and vocally embodying a character, but what was so cool about today was noticing, both as an actor and as a witness, what a strong connection BREATH can give you to an emotion or a character.

By the end of the session, I could step into a Rasabox,  physicalize that Rasa, and just by breathing differently slip into an emotion so quickly, and transition between emotions so quickly I was amazed.  It was a really cool experience, and I think tomorrow is going to be another really good day.  

 This probably will only make a whole lot of sense to the actors out there...  or maybe to other people as well.  ...And if it doesn't make sense to anyone, I'll just go ahead and blame it on the jetlag.

What I love about theatre

There are a million reasons why I love theatre. Two of the big ones that really stood out to me tonight are the collaboration and community that forms on a production, and the never-ending learning that theatre people go through. Thosse are two of my favorite things about people.

The community is so important, and I think that it's really hard to find in other professions. You're placed in a show with a lot of people who, for the most part, are strangers, at least in the beginning. Over the rehearsal period, you need to learn how to work together, and through that time learn to trust and rely on everyone involved in the production to make it happen successfully. You learn to work with different types of people in different capacities, and that's a skill I think everyone should have.

Learning is something I never want to stop doing. Actors, especially, are lifelong learners. So many different character types, so many different plays and time periods and situations that you have to discover and learn about in order to portray your characters believably. Tonight, I was out to dinner with some of my theatre friends, and my friend Russell listed off a slew of things he needed to learn for the shows he had been cast in this summer. Juggling, using a firearm, playing guitar, how to play a Navy whistle, cracking a bullwhip... These were just a few of the things on his list. How awesome is it, that in your profession you get to experience and learn how to do such a wide variety of things?

I think that theatre people are some of the smartest people I know. Not only do they know such a wide array of information and skills, but it's part of their job to continually go out and expand on that knowledge in order to be able to continue doing their job. Theatre people are ALWAYS learning, always curious, and always finding ways to share those experiences with others.

I have no idea what I'm doing...

...in pretty much every respect right now.

So I'm starting a blog.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with it.  It's an adventure, we'll see...  but now seems like a really great time to be doing this.

I leave to start my summer graduate program at Central Washington University in a week.  I'll be earning a MA in Theatre Production.  And I have no idea what I'm doing.  I haven't written a paper since college, and honestly, I'm not too sure what's expected of me when I get out there.  I usually have an issue with uncertainty, but this time (even though I'm kind of scared out of my wits!) I'm really excited to go to a new place, meet new people and be totally immersed in all kinds of theatre classes for 5 weeks.  And when I say totally immersed, I'm talking 6 or 7 days a week, 8:30-5:30 in-class awesomeness.

I'm wrapping up my 8th year in the same school I've been teaching at since I graduated from college.    I've just this year come to the conclusion that I enjoy what I'm doing.  With all the stresses, frustrations, irritations, and craziness that sometimes distract me from what I do, when it comes down to it, I love teaching theatre.  I wasn't so sure of that in years past, but now, I think this is what I want to do.  Something this year just "clicked," and I've finally settled into what I think is a really good thing.  We'll see if grading exams next week has any effect on that...  ;)

Here's to the start of a new adventure!