Third Class – September 27, 2011

            I don’t speak French.  Sometimes it’s even hard for me to speak English.  If you were in Drama on Tuesday, this will be hilarious to you.

            It was the usual routine in Drama, but apparently there was a lack of energy and some cruel remarks?  I don’t remember this.  I guess this means I should pay better attention to my surroundings.  My dreams of being like Patrick Jane off of the Mentalist are shattered.   I guess it’s easy to see why there may be some snide remarks or whatever happened because it’s a drama class.  It’s a combination of being completely out of your comfort zone and excessive emotions; it’s hard to not say something.  Oh well, maybe we need to do more stretches?  Make us forget all the bad things outside by 100x. 

            For stretches we did Over the Mountain, which makes us all act like dorks, so it’s a pretty easy stretch for me to do!  We also did the Olympic Dive, which was where we laid on our backs and then proceeded to climb the ladder, walk to the end of the board and then DIVE.  We didn’t do any vocal exercises.  For the warm-up games we did a mixture of ABC’s 123’s and Captain on Deck.  We also learned about stage directions, which was just a refresher for me.  One thing that was funny about the stage directions was that the reason that the actors use THEIR left and right for the directions is because of the three rules of drama.

#1. LOOK AT ME

#2. LOOK AT ME

#3. LOOK AT ME

            We then played some name games to get us better familiarized with each other.  We stood in a circle and went around saying our names.  After we would say our name, everyone else would say, “We love you, Cynthia.”  I’m so used to negative comments in my general life that positive comments just don’t sit well with me.  Yeah, yeah.  Boo hoo, right?  With that awkward moment out of the way, the next game we played was good old BANG.  It’s weird how every time I get to go in the middle, I have to spin twice because I either mess up and don’t point at a person directly or people say the names exactly and there’s no clear winner! 

            Oh, power point time!  Before that though, we talked a bit about our blogs again and then about the quiz on next Tuesday.  The power point was pretty short since it was just a continuation of the previous Theatre History lecture.  Here’s my picture of whatever I gathered.  I think it’s a step up from last week. 

            When we were back in the black box we played some games that helped us with our communication.  We all stood in circle and got a number, then we had to walk around the room and catch a ball.  The person with the number below had to pass to you and then you passed to the number above.  It was pretty easy until he added four more balls.  We finally did get all of the balls going though, so that game was a success.  Another one of the games we played was “Pass the Number”, which was where we had to stare at a person in the circle and then they would say a number.  It was incredibly difficult for me to not laugh and that in turn caused people to laugh at me.  Honestly, it was pretty funny.

            The last and possible the funniest game I have ever played was called, “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”  It was based, obviously, off the movie, which I haven’t seen, but now I kind of want to.  Wow, that was a long, awkward sentence.  Did I even phrase it right?  Anyway, Jeremy had us lie down on our stomachs while he explained what kind of emotion we needed to portray.  He also picked a “human” during this time.  The rest of us were “replicas” and we all had to act like whichever emotion we were given, like lost, hot or in love.  We had to shake hands to make sure we were all replicas and the “human” had to go around and squeeze someone’s hand to make them human as well.  If a “human” was caught either squeezing someone’s hand or acting out of character, then all the replicas would point at them and make an awesome screeching noise.  The game was really fun to play and I hope we get to try it again sometime.

            That’s all for this weeks Drama class.  Hopefully next week I’ll be more awake.

                                                                                                            Peace,

                                                                                                                  Cynthia