DAY 19

This morning we had a double Audition class with Joanne talking about the difference between film and television auditions versus theatre auditions. Personally, I still think that the film and TV audition process sounds much more nerve-wracking, probably because I've never done it before. When you think about it, it can either be awful or wonderful that your talent doesn't (really) matter and it's all about your look- on the one hand, not getting the job doesn't mean you didn't do well and so it's not personal, on the other hand, you can't really control your look, you just have to hope that you match the image in the casting associate's head. We also talked about how important cold reading skills are, especially in the film medium where you often have to cold read without knowing anything about the story or character. We practiced a bit with Luna Park, a book of unrelated monologues and scenes by Donald Margulies. (Note: Although it's usually not ideal to do monologues that aren't from plays for auditions, Joanne suggested that anything from this book would be alright because it is by such a well-respected playwright, not just an Acting 101 monologue book.)

After lunch we had Acting for the Camera with Scott, and we got to shoot most of the close-ups for Girl, Interrupted. It's an interesting experience being the out-of-shot actor, because (for me and some of my classmates, at least) there's less of that self-conscious feeling when you know you're not being recorded. It's also an interesting transition when, in all of your theatre training, you've been told to be "bigger" and then on film you need to "tone it down" or else you look like the world's biggest over-actor.

Lastly we had a Three Sisters Rehearsal class with Karen. She had given us the option of preparing a scene as a character other than the role we had been cast in for today's class. It was really fun to see people find characters entirely against their type and still play them wonderfully. My favorite was a transformation from Vershinin (leading man) to the Doctor (drunken old man). Karen even surprised one classmate who had not prepared an opposite character by asking her to go from Natasha (evil shrew) to Masha (heart-broken mess).