The Infamous Week Three

This week has flown by! At the beginning of the intensive we were warned by the faculty about "week three". We were told that by week three we'd hate them all and each other. That being said, I have had many moments of frustration this week, but never hate. I've never felt like I wanted to leave the intensive and go home. It's been a work heavy and emotionally heavy week for us, but it's been that way from the start. I've also had amazing moments of growth and successes this week too. It's crazy how fast it's gone by. Tomorrow, Tuesday, marks a week until our final performances and last full day together. I love everyone here so much. We've become family here at Shakespeare Camp. 

My growth this week has been mainly in how I express the text with my body. I've been focusing on staying grounded and living each word in the text. My scene is so high energy and my body needs to be fully engaged. In the past weeks, I've found my voice, so pairing my voice and truly experiencing the text with my entire body has been so exhilarating. We rehearse our scene with different teachers each day and each teacher has a new perspective on the scene. We go into the sessions and we just play. It's fun to just let your impulses do all the work and see what new and exciting things spring up. 

We did a ton of sonnet work this week. We learned about the form of sonnets and the importance of breath work while performing a sonnet. We all failed at our sonnets and they've shown us how to put our emotions and experiences into the words and to bring them to life. After our initial performances of our sonnets, we worked on the sonnets as if our character was saying it. It was so much fun! Playing Lady M is so thrilling because she has so much depth to her. I found so many new elements in my sonnet by going crazy as Lady M. For sonnets we were split into two groups so we only got to see half of them, but tonight we had a sonnet fest. We only had 1 hour to get through 51 sonnets with full energy and clarity of thought. As soon as we were all done, we would be done for the day, so everyone had full energy and we all had crazy fun. We were cheering and encouraging each other, even shouting out the words to each others sonnets when we forgot them. This is the best cult ever! 

What has me really thinking right now is, what's going to happen when I come home? I've been broken down and have been building myself up again as a human and as an actor. I'm an open vessel. Coming back into the real world with all of my new-found emotional availability is going to be rough I am excited to integrate this type of work and rehearsal into my daily practices. I plan to work on my craft in some way every single day. It's going to be daily actor workouts. 

 

Fun fact- I haven't driven a car in 4 weeks. The last time I drove was on Christmas Eve (that's insane!)

Thank you for your love and support!

Shakespeare didn't know he was Shakespeare

Week two has been yet another week of break throughs! This week we've hit the ground running with our scene work and movement work. We have been doing text classes everyday for the past three days, which are basically coaching sessions of different ways to rehearse our scenes. We also never hold our scripts in our hands, which is awesome! We've been learning our lines by having them given to us as we are up and moving through the space and exploring our characters. Outside of classes, we are only to rehearse our lines out loud with our partners, not silently in our heads, as to get a more emotional and aural connection with our scene partners from the very beginning. It's a really fun way to learn the text and have it move into our bodies.

 Fun fact- Elizabethans wouldn't read silently to themselves. They had reading rooms where they would go to read books or letters out loud in order to understand them. Silent reading is a fairly modern practice.

This week we've also started fight classes. It's the most fun part of my day! I love the very physical aspect of it. I'm engaging my entire body and mind while releasing tension (and maybe some anger) in physical activity. We've learned how to do punches like the roundhouse, uppercut, jab, hammer, stomach punch, back break and a kick also. My favorite part of it is the Nap, which is sound of the punch. It's also super fun to scream in "pain" when getting punched. Actually, more fun is making the groans of madness when fake punching someone. It's such a high and a release. A sign I should start kickboxing classes? I think, yes! We've also done hair pulling and head slams. I'm excited to teach these to Stuart once I get back so we can make an awesome compilation video of us stage fighting each other.

This entire intensive is getting to play and have fun. We start each morning with stretches and a mini dance party. This morning one of the teacher trainees was leading our opening physical awareness class and starting playing a disco playlist for us to dance to. Of course the first song on it was, "Stayin' Alive". Halfway through the first chorus the song cut out. So what do we all do? We all started singing the words and tune at the top of our lungs until it came back in. It was so funny and totally typical for a group of theatre nerds. It was like the talent show scene from "Mean Girls" when the stereo stops working so they get everyone to sing the rest of "Jingle Bell Rock". We have a crazy good time with each other. I'm going to miss every single one of these amazing people when I have to say goodbye.
It's hard to think that I'll never see most of these artists again. We have people here of all ages, states and countries. We have 3 Australians, a handful of Brits, someone from India, and ages from 22-70! It's such a melting pot of people and experiences. It's been so beautiful to get to know these people and getting to grow and learn with them. At least there 3 other people here from Oregon that I know I'll keep in close touch with! Also on Tuesdays we do karaoke and when I say we, I mean everyone. Everyone participates in everything and any stride, big or small, is a reason to celebrate.

When it comes to my scene and becoming Lady M, it's been a crazy ride. We've done a few text sessions so far where we have our eyes closed and go through the scene to see how the sounds and physical touches are heightened to bring the intensity of the situation to our constant attention. Our scene is the murder scene in act two, so it's very high energy and high stakes. It's also nice to have so much time to work on one scene, because we don't have to commit to any choices yet, we still have a ton of rehearsal time to play and explore many different ways to become the Macbeth's.

Also, it's been in the low teens (or colder) in regards to temperature, so I'm realizing what it feels like to have my nose and it's contents freeze on my walk to class. Gross, but real. I'll leave you with that.
Thanks for reading and wishing me well!
Love you all!

My first week at Shakespeare & Co.

Week 1

Thursday: The program is calling today 12/30/2016 Day 1. It was the first day of full classes and group work and a look into everything that these next 4 weeks are going to become. Today we had three hours in the morning working on our breathing, voice, vibrations in our bodies and how we use them to communicate. It was different. We are being told to breath with out mouths slightly open, to breathe and sigh, and to sigh out vibrations. It's a very grounding feeling. It's uncomfortable to breath with your mouth open. I've noticed how tense my jaw is and how I'm so controlling over my breathing and jaw. Our bodies need to be more natural and I could feel mine yearning to be more free and open. We did stretches to relax and open up our bodies. It made me yawned SO MUCH. It made me feel connected to my own body in a new way. It was mind and body working together to being open to the outside world and open to my thoughts and experiences.

It's amazing to eat three meals a day. I typically skip breakfast, but here due to the intensity and physical demands of the workshops, I've been eating breakfast. AND I've been trying new foods!

Once lunch was over we got to get into our BASICS groups. This is our home base for the next four weeks. This intensive has 52 participants and we need to have time in smaller groups to have in depth coaching and development on ourselves as artists and with our monologues. My group is amazing. They are so talented, supportive and my new best friends. I couldn't ask for a more open and accepting group. Our work in basics is to free our voice, our body and get our emotional block released to use and fuel our monologues. Let me tell you, I have ISSUES. I have terrible vocal habits that I am recognizing and changing quickly. I've also held an emotional block in my body that we are trying to release. WE, as in, every single actor here, is shedding emotional baggage in order to use it to empower their work. This stuff is amazing. I want to do it on all of your reading this. If you are interested in more, let me know. I'm just amazed at how fast they have helped my find and use my "natural voice" (term used here) and how aware I am of my body and being present inside my body. It's impossible to hide here and it's what I've needed for a long time and couldn't articulate it. As a woman especially, I feel so liberated. I reuse to hide in my own body and a huge goal of mine is to be seen and present always in my work.

Everyday we've been returning to more Basics class, movement and voice. It's this powerful combination of the three that is going to make us better actors. That is what the work here at Shakespeare and Co. is about. We are watching the people in our groups make such huge discoveries about their own humanity, that it is also teaching us. The role of theatre is to teach and to entertain, but the soul of it is to teach. Theatre is to teach and reveal life, humanity and truths that no one around us wants to say out loud. It's incredible already.

Spending New Year's Eve here was tough. Luckily, we got to have a little party and the onsite bar here and enjoy the company of new friends. I feel disconnected to the rest of the world. I am using my cell phone much less, which is very freeing in itself. Time is nothing here, we have no perception of time and we are isolated. We stay on the property all day, everyday. Our day off is going to be on Wednesdays, so that is when we can go back into the real world and into town. Speaking of which, I'm definitely getting a massage Wednesday. My body is SORE!

Monday 1/2/2017
Today we started Actor/Audience, which is something I can't begin to process yet, so there will have to be a later blog devoted to just that. But we also started Play/Clown, we call it either, and it's so fun. We've been playing games and acting like children again. And we started dance classes, which I've always loved. Dancing makes me so happy and connected to my body and the music! I need to get back into regular classes once I get home.

I miss home so much. Actually, less than I thought I would, but it's still extremely hard. Thankfully, I have a great roommate that I've bonded with and I have a countdown until Stuart gets to come here to watch our final performances. I'm blessed to have such an amazing and supportive husband who is willing to support me in this time of development and devotion to my craft. I couldn't do this without the amazing family and friends I have at home being my biggest fans. Thank you!

Tuesday 1/3/2017
We finally got our scene assignments and I have the pleasure to play Lady Macbeth. It's going to be a huge challenge for me, but I know my Basics teacher, ABL, wanted to give me something I never thought I could do. I can't wait to get started. We aren't starting with the scripts in our hands at all, we are doing a technique called "dropping in". This technique is where someone give us the words from our scene first, then lines to say out loud to our scene partner while looking into their eyes the entire time. It's getting the words and lines into our bodies before doing any script analysis on the scene. I've never worked on a scene this way before so I am very excited to experience the text this way.

To some it all up, this experience has been amazing and exhausting. Today is my day off so I'm going to relax and prepare for the week ahead. Here's to three more weeks of this!

Day 1

DAY 1- The Rollercoaster
What an emotional whirlwind! Today has been stressful, agonizing, thought-provoking and enlightening. And here's why...
Today Stuart dropped me off at Shakespeare and Co. for breakfast and orientation for the intensive. IT WAS THE ABSOLUTE HARDEST THING I'VE EVER DONE. Saying goodbye to my husband for 25 days was gut-wrenching. The best thing about it is that he is the most supportive partner I could have ever asked for. This wouldn't be possible without him. -Thank you Stuart!-

I am a very self-conscious person. I had to tell myself over and over that today would be fun and that I'd enjoy myself. I will need to brainwash myself into positive thoughts to get through this intensive.

And it turns out that it's true. I need to take control of my mind and body to let myself make the most out of this workshop experience. "You are in control of your experience here and what you will take away from it." The premise of this workshop is to get ourselves away from the little voice inside ourselves that says, "you're not good enough." It my choice to let myself go and totally absorb everything offered here. Easy right? WRONG! THE MOST INTIMIDATING THING EVER! It is so hard to let go and just be. That is my biggest personal and professional goal for this intensive- To let myself be free from my own mind, to be in tune with my body and how the body is essential to my work,  and to be present in every moment here. It's a time to grow, a time to explore, and a time to use and connect my life experiences to my work with Shakespeare.

The staff and faculty here are amazing. They are encouraging and so insightful. The workshop process seems like it will be a very emotional, cathartic and yet, beautiful one. I'm scared and excited to see what is to come.
Also, I've met some of the nicest artists ever! My roommate is from the San Francisco Bay Area and we are getting along so well, THANK GOD!

Tomorrow is the first entire day of classes and workshops. We will be working on voice in the morning and our monologues in the afternoon before getting put into our small groups for more in depth study.

Please feel free to comment with questions or just words of love!
-Kelsea