Begin any theater session with at least twenty minutes of warm ups, thirty is recommended. (in theory)
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THR221 Intermediate Acting
KEY TERMS: Glossary DVD: Drama & Art House, Studio Specials & Classics, New & Future Releases, Cult Movies
Spring 2003: Don Juan CALL: If you like my sites, there are several things you can do to help me to keep the webpages free. Do you see "pass-it-on" above? Let your friends know about vTheatre, or let me know what you like and don't like. Leave your comments in guestbooks, or "htmlgears" (select the right one). And the guestbooks, of course. Thanks and click on! Anatoly 2002 ![]() film books ![]() virtual theatre ![]() webbing ![]() write More and more I use film terminology in BM class; simple as CU and MS frame -- or more complex, like line of action, axis of tention. ![]() virtual theatre ![]() webbing ![]() write Actors on Acting 051788478XSubscribe to my Open Class @ 12night Textbook and Homework (Journals) Next class: collect resumes, test from THR121, post your expectations to forum/group! ![]() Part I: Lesson 1 - 4 2007 google.com/group/acting2 ...
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Assignments: Monologues: "self-introduction"My LA workshop: 2004Scenes (breakscript analysis) assigned [ week three ]
[ Type & Casting -- in part 4 ]
Read webpages; sign for Class Group!Monologue samples:
Chekhov (Tragedian)
TOLKACHOV. What's wrong? You ask me what's wrong? Very well, I'll tell you! Very well! I'll tell you everything, and then perhaps my soul will be lighter. Let's sit down. Now listen ... Oh, little mothers, I am out of breath! . . . Just let's take to-day as an instance. Let's take to-day. As you know, I've got to work at the Treasury from ten to four. It's hot, it's stuffy, there are flies, and, my dear fellow, the very dickens of a chaos. The Secretary is on leave, Khrapov has gone to get married, and the smaller fry is mostly in the country, making love or occupied with amateur theatricals. Everybody is so sleepy, tired, and done up that you can't get any sense out of them. The Secretary's duties are in the hands of an individual who is deaf in the left ear and in love; the public has lost its memory; everybody is running about angry and raging, and there is such a hullabaloo that you can't hear yourself speak. Confusion and smoke everywhere. And my work is deathly: always the same, always the same--first a correction, then a reference back, another correction, another reference back; it's all as monotonous as the waves of the sea. One's eyes, you understand, simply crawl out of one's head. Give me some water.... You come out a broken, exhausted man. You would like to dine and fall asleep, but you don't!--You remember that you live in the country--that is, you are a slave, a rag, a bit of string, a bit of limp flesh, and you've got to run round and do errands. Where we live a pleasant custom has grown up: when a man goes to town every wretched female inhabitant, not to mention one's own wife, has the power and the right to give him a crowd of commissions. The wife orders you to run into the modiste's and curse her for making a bodice too wide across the chest and too narrow across the shoulders; little Sonya wants a new pair of shoes; your sister-in-law wants some scarlet silk like the pattern at twenty copecks and three arshins long. . . . Just wait; I'll read you. [Takes a note out of his pocket and reads] A globe for the lamp; one pound of pork sausages; five copecks' worth of cloves and cinnamon; castor-oil for Misha; ten pounds of granulated sugar. To bring with you from home: a copper jar for the sugar; carbolic acid; insect powder, ten copecks' worth; twenty bottles of beer; vinegar; and corsets for Mlle. Shanceau at No. 82. . . . Ouf! And to bring home Misha's winter coat and goloshes. That is the order of my wife and family. Then there are the commissions of our dear friends and neighbours--devil take them! To-morrow is the name-day of Volodia Vlasin; I have to buy a bicycle for him. The wife of Lieutenant-Colonel Virkhin is in an interesting condition, and I am therefore bound to call in at the midwife's every day and invite her to come. And so on, and so on. There are five notes in my pocket and my handkerchief is all knots. And so, my dear fellow, you spend the time between your office and your train, running about the town like a dog with your tongue hanging out, running and running and cursing life. From the clothier's to the chemist's, from the chemist's to the modiste's, from the modiste's to the pork butcher's, and then back again to the chemist's. In one place you stumble, in a second you lose your money, in a third you forget to pay and they raise a hue and cry after you, in a fourth you tread on the train of a lady's dress. . . . Tfoo! You get so shaken up from all this that your bones ache all night and you dream of crocodiles. Well, you've made all your purchases, but how are you to pack all these things? For instance, how are you to put a heavy copper jar together with the lamp-globe or the carbolic acid with the tea? How are you to make a combination of beer-bottles and this bicycle? It's the labours of Hercules, a puzzle, a rebus! Whatever tricks you think of, in the long run you're bound to smash or scatter something, and at the station and in the train you have to stand with your arms apart, holding up some parcel or other under your chin, with parcels, cardboard boxes, and such-like rubbish all over you. The train starts, the passengers begin to throw your luggage about on all sides: you've got your things on somebody else's seat. They yell, they call for the conductor, they threaten to have you put out, but what can I do? I just stand and blink my eyes like a whacked donkey. Now listen to this. I get home. You think I'd like to have a nice little drink after my righteous labours and a good square meal--isn't that so?--but there is no chance of that. My spouse has been on the look-out for me for some time. You've hardly started on your soup when she has her claws into you, wretched slave that you are--and wouldn't you like to go to some amateur theatricals or to a dance? You can't protest. You are a husband, and the word husband when translated into the language of summer residents in the country means a dumb beast which you can load to any extent without fear of the interference of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. So you go and blink at "A Family Scandal" or something, you applaud when your wife tells you to, and you feel worse and worse and worse until you expect an apoplectic fit to happen any moment. If you go to a dance you have to find partners for your wife, and if there is a shortage of them then you dance the quadrilles yourself. You get back from the theatre or the dance after midnight, when you are no longer a man but a useless, limp rag. Well, at last you've got what you want; you unrobe and get into bed. It's excellent--you can close your eyes and sleep. . . . Everything is so nice, poetic, and warm, you understand; there are no children squealing behind the wall, and you've got rid of your wife, and your conscience is clear--what more can you want? You fall asleep--and suddenly . . . you hear a buzz! . . . Gnats! [Jumps up] Gnats! Be they triply accursed Gnats! [Shakes his fist] Gnats! It's one of the plagues of Egypt, one of the tortures of the Inquisition! Buzz! It sounds so pitiful, so pathetic, as if it's begging your pardon, but the villain stings so that you have to scratch yourself for an hour after. You smoke, and go for them, and cover yourself from head to foot, but it is no good! At last you have to sacrifice yourself and let the cursed things devour you. You've no sooner got used to the gnats when another plague begins: downstairs your wife begins practising sentimental songs with her two friends. They sleep by day and rehearse for amateur concerts by night. Oh, my God! Those tenors are a torture with which no gnats on earth can compare. [He sings] "Oh, tell me not my youth has ruined you." "Before thee do I stand enchanted." Oh, the beastly things! They've about killed me! So as to deafen myself a little I do this: I drum on my ears. This goes on till four o'clock. Oh, give me some more water, brother! . . . I can't . . . Well, not having slept, you get up at six o'clock in the morning and off you go to the station. You run so as not to be late, and it's muddy, foggy, cold--brr! Then you get to town and start all over again. So there, brother. It's a horrible life; I wouldn't wish one like it for my enemy. You understand--I'm ill! Got asthma, heartburn--I'm always afraid of something. I've got indigestion, everything is thick before me . . . I've become a regular psychopath. . . . [Looking round] Only, between ourselves, I want to go down to see Chechotte or Merzheyevsky. There's some devil in me, brother. In moments of despair and suffering, when the gnats are stinging or the tenors sing, everything suddenly grows dim; you jump up and race round the whole house like a lunatic and shout, "I want blood! Blood!" And really all the time you do want to let a knife into somebody or hit him over the head with a chair. That's what life in a summer villa leads to! And nobody has any sympathy for me, and everybody seems to think it's all as it should be. People even laugh. But understand, I am a living being and I want to live! This isn't farce, it's tragedy! I say, if you don't give me your revolver, you might at any rate sympathize.
[ bring your "Actor's Text" extra copy to class ]
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How to use shows.vtheatre.net page for classes (last part #5 -- showcases):
Monologues, scenes, character study
From required (definitions) to recommended
Notes and comments
[ web companion to THR331 Fundamentals of Direction Theatre UAF course ]
From:Bonfire of the Vanities Where? New York City 1980's Who? Reverend Bacon Confronted by two white Episcopal Church representatives, Reverend Bacon explains what has happened to the large sum of money they donated to him for a child care center. (Begin the monolouge by starting behind the podium. I will pick two people from the audience that i will deliberatly single out, they will be the white Episcopalians. I am trying not to get into a very heated arguement/fight. I am a reverend, a positive role model for my black community. I want to remain calm and collective, but it is really hard. Must build up the intensity to the CLIMACTIC point and then kinda go down a bit in energy. Like the steam i am actually refering to in the text. Maintain Control, kind of lose control for a little while. like a sea saw back and for i maintain control then it slips then maintain then slips again. An inner conflict a battle if you will.) (in a mellow tone knowing what i have to saw will be very unpopular)(At podium looking around (really in deep concentration about what is going on and what i am about to say) and then at the two audience members when i speak) If you(point at two whites,really use reverend gestures/larger than life) people were that worried about the children, you would build the day care center yourself and hire the best professional people to work in it, people with experience.(begin to move from podium to down stage left hands together infront in reverend fashion or behind back? arms in the air not too big in frustration) What do people of the streets know about running a day-care-center? (pace back to center stage, right infront of both whites, and say next line pointing at them, not too accusingly) No, my friend,you're investing in something else. (slight pause, move lower stage right) You're investing in steam control. And your getting value for money.(to God arms up, not loudly spoken just said with much feeling and emotion. like how can they believe this to be right?)Value for money...... (begin to pace upper right, wait to say next line) Steam(sssteam,like i just got steamed about the previous sentence, almost sound like a steam engine when i say it. in a way i am a steam engine(symbolically))control. It's capital investment. (slowly walk towards the white peoples to center stage infront of the podium)
[ other "mono" webpages ]