There it is for everyone to see on the side of the theatre building. Mmm … it’s real then!
Improvisational Magic: a TED Inspiration
I often use improvisation with my students in acting classes. It is never entirely ‘free-form’ as is often thought. Improvisation bears fruit when allowed free rein within a ‘cage’ of understood rules … what we tend to call in acting the given circumstances or GCs … the who, where, when and what of a scenario. Add an understanding of the character to these GCs and with improv as the tool you have the opportunity for an artist or a group of actors to let rip imaginatively.
Now I know next to nothing about musical improvisation, though I do get jazz. Here though is one musical improvisor who will make your jaw drop. Jennifer Lin was a 14 year old pianist and composer invited to present at the TED (Technology Education Design) Conference in February 2004. I’d strongly recommend that you get to know more about TED and the treasure trove that is the series of TED Talks. You won’t be disappointed.
Anyhow, Jennifer Lin performs, discusses how she composes and then gets into the business of demonstrating improvisation about 16 minutes into the 24 minute video. She produces 7 cards with the 7 notes of the scale (ABCDEFG) and asks an audience member to select 5. Goldie Hawn obliges … TED attracts lots of interesting people … and Ms Lin then proceeds to improvise on the spot a quite lovely piece from Goldie’s selection of 5 notes (her improv ‘cage’). It’s riveting stuff. There’s more on the site about this talented young woman and the selection of pieces in the talk.
I hope she is still working at her music. She must be all of 18 by now!
Clayton’s Won’t Do!
OK, the rehearsal you’re having when you’re not having a rehearsal … more than a week away from the last rehearsals and I’m getting twitchy. Damn this bug! It gets in your system, you have to keep working away at it. So, yesterday trying to keep in the groove by reading the script, imaging the sequences … all by myself. Didn’t think I’d be wishing away a lovely Easter break, but come on, come on … let’s get back to it!
PS Less than a month till opening night.
Another Night in the Theatre … but O, what a night!
Those of us who spend our lives working in theatre are used to the disappointments that come all too often it can seem. One production somewhere is OK, or doesn’t work … quite, despite the best efforts of all concerned; we forgive and perhaps forget. Another somewhere else can be plain awful … and at times like that you sit in the darkened theatre thinking murderous thoughts about ticket prices and wasted time, and whether leaving at interval is the right move. Every so often though a pearl of a production comes along … a joy of an experience that makes the ho-hum, the ordinary, the disappointments fade away. Hell, they can’t all be fabulous after all, you say … and yes, this is why one works in and for the theatre. Continue reading “Another Night in the Theatre … but O, what a night!”
Getting up close and personal
There comes a time in rehearsals when the director wants to go in close to a piece of text and refine things with the actors. Sometimes it’s because moments or a whole scene are not working as well as they might. Characters may have become becalmed and need a fresh injection of energy. Tonight was that night for my principal scene partner and I. It was a probing, analytical session, one that posed ‘what ifs’ about relationships and actions. It came at a good time, before the lines have solidified around these things, but after the preliminary outline or sketch has been made.
I’ve often thought of role development during rehearsals being like the creation of an oil painting. Firstly, the script determines the kind and scope of painting that might emerge. Early rehearsals for me are about sketching in the outlines of a broad composition, then about adding colour, light and shade … layering, defining some areas over others, and as the composition begins to emerge, even scraping away an unsatisfactory element or two, and replacing it with something that has emerged during the process. This is how we create during rehearsals.
And so tonight we were challenged. We scraped and redefined, layered and changed some of the tonal palette in several scenes. Paraphrasing was cleaned up … being dead letter perfect matters. What emerged after a couple of hours was a clearer sense of the arc of the characters’ roles within the story, and of course, a developing and refining of their relationship. For me it was one big step along the road.
PS. The night began with a publicity photo call in costume. It was great to get a first view of my character wigged and costumed with period spectacles … all grist to the creative mill. We stood on stage in 1930s costume inside a 1930s art-deco theatre. Thought for a bit about being the theatre ‘ghosts.’