Acting in a play is about more than reading a script, and goes beyond basic acting where every detail counts such as: how you talk, how you stand, how you walk... (Apparently, I've been told I walk like a girl). Everything you do on the stage matters. In this last week we have been improving the nitty bitty things in the play.

The fist step in this process was to fix my so called girl walk. In the beginning, we we added a stomp at the end of the line 'to strike him dead' this adds more emphasis to the scene. Although I've been told I walk like a girl, I decided to walk normally, because the more I tried the worse it became. Whenever I tried walking like Tybalt it ended up looking like I was trying to be someone from a marching band. The easiest way to fix my walking was to limit my movement. Trying to fix my walk was like teaching a dog how to fly. With little success we moved on to the next issue.
Somehow, our heroic fight to the death would turn into a happy fight to the death... Happiness is like the black plague, as soon as one person breaks character it spreads to everyone. In moments the scene is ruined. This happened several times throughout the play and our emotions would bleed threw at the worst times. I took a very round about approach to this. It started with the question, what do I do when I'm angry?
I clench my fists, narrow my eyes, and have a serious look on my face. Thats when I realized that I need to flex. Although that may sound weird, its a natural instinct. When bears get scarred they get on there hind legs, look big and road. Similarly, I need to stand up straight, and flex every muscle in my body. Somehow, flexing stops me from smiling. It allows me to feel the anger rather than imagine it. Now that I can feel the anger I need to express it throughout my body. This raised an important question; what should I do with my arm's?
Tybalt is not a clown, he is a man. Arm movement simply takes away from the play. It makes it look like a joke. Tybalt is someone of class, he won't wave his arms around like a lunatic. Keeping my arms by my side is the easiest way to solve this problem. We will keep extraneous movements to a minimum in this play. After working on arm placement we worked on sword fighting.
It's easy, just to stab the other person, right? The only problem is, it isn't that easy. Sword fights are full of awkward moments that can lead to problems. They need to be planned out or there will be an awkward moment where someone doesn't know wether to swing or not. Strategically, we planned out when we would kill each other, by taking turns on the offensive and defensive. On the second defensive attack I would leave an opening for romeo to kill me, where my sword would pummel back and I would fall to the ground. Even fight scenes can be organized.
Organization is key. Everything in our play is planned out, and ready to be performed. Everything from expressing emotions, to how we walk is covered in this play. With luck we should be able to videotape the play successfully, monday. Throughout my time working with both Ethan and Veronica, everyone has improved dramatically, and will truly have an outstanding performance monday.