GAH

ok so i didn't forget last night to blog, i just didn't remember.

John and I forgot a full song in our musical (dammit) so that's what we're gonna be working on today.
We finished all of the other songs- we have recordings and lyrics all set to be distributed and hopefully tomorrow starts script work. In all honesty the script shouldn't take very long to write, we were writing it verbally as we went along. All the gags are in place and we know where we want them. The hardest part will be actually taking the time to write it down.

Oh my god, are we done with songs?

Oh my God, we're done with songs. Shit. That's 9 songs in 2 weeks. Oh.Hot.Damn. So all we need to do now is ....write...the...entire....script...oh. But we carry on. The story is clear in our heads and the only thing left to really decide upon is if everything will make sense or not. Im fairly confident this work will get done. It's alot of fun to make, and i think it'll be even better to perform. Especially if we somehow get to incorporate the "parakeet song"

shit i forgot to blog

Captain Canada is taking shape finally.... It's fun to steal musical influences from shows.

So far we've stolen rhythms from Jeckyl and Hyde, plot points and song ideas from Dr.Horrible, characters from Batman, amongst other things that at the moment elude me.

I'm not sure what to write, i don't want to give everything away, and the process of coming up with songs is literally "he john what rhymes with cat" "uhhh, lets go to the rhyming book" "YAY" "Oh bat rhymes with cat" "genius"

It's strange really that the best songs we come up with are the ones we dont think about writing. When we sit down and go, ok lets write a song we can't. It's only when we start to muck about that we make anything worth doing. We work better loosely, without a general plan of action (*salutes*). Ironically, the hardest song to write is the goddamn commissioner's song which is supposed to be a "showtune". We can't write a goddamn showtune for a campy-ass musical. It's just sad.

'Where We Are

Well ok so first time i've written lyrics and had them put to music. Strange hearing something in your head be played out of it. Without giving too much away, the lyrics were for the antagonist's song introducing him(her?) self and his/her motives. (No it's not supposed to be a transvestite, we just haven't cast it yet.) This song turned into an offbeat, malicious, polka and it's so telling of the character that we are trying to mold. A crazed, theatrical, over the top villain. It's going well.

How to turn a plotless gag into....

Captain Canada the musical huh, strange thought, but at the same time it isnt. The idea is simple, easy to work with, and John and I haven't already been bogged down with the "oh gosh what if this happened also" syndrome. So far so good. What the plan is:

6/6.5/7 scenes- not sure the breakup yet

7 Cast members
The Captain(yours truly)
The Commissioner
The "Villian" (no spoilers, but Kevin Bacon is up for the role)
4 ensamble members to play a variety of roles,
Band members- but these people might sub in for ensemble at any given time....


The plot is reminiscent of a 90's style Batman episode, except without the whole brooding superhero thing. Canada is headstrong, cocky, and altogether ridiculous....think Captain Hammer meets Batman.

Im excited to get something done. It's funny, i've recently been on youtube researching plays and musicals and every production i've seen has sort of had the whole "why didn't i think of that?" mentality to it. There are so many things people are doing, and here i sit on my butt drinking tea and ranting behind the safety of my computer. It feels good to be creating something. The more I create the more i want to do. I refuse to be "just" an actor. I want to write dammit, i want to direct dammit! Why "just" be something when you can do it all! In all honesty, I would be happiest if i wrote directed and starred in my own musical and here is the first stepping stone to that....dammit.

Tablework Means Shit.

Hello everybody,

Today I learned an important lesson about the necessity of tablework and how it all unfailingly falls to shit. Always.

Lets start from the top. Table work is necessary. It's your building block for you character and for the scene in general. To go on stage, or generally perform without it is (as i now see it) ridiculous. Scene and Primary objectives are the motivation for your characters behaviors and can explain every line the character says. On top of this, dividing the scene into beats gives the actor a clear sense of the general flow of the scene and how the characters eventually resolve their objectives.

This being said, ultimately tablework means jackshit. Going into your scene you can have this grand idea of how your character says a line and then reacts to how your partner responds and when you finally get to the scene, all of a sudden your partner does something totally different then you expected. For example, Andrew and I had originally slated our scene as him being elated and me being confused the whole time and a little put off by his advances. This, needless to say, all fell to shit. He acted manic and a little off and that messed with me a bit. I was thrown off. The worst thing is that i didn't act off of it. That would have been perfect had i been like "DUDE WHAT THE HELL" but i let myself be caught in my head. With Danny it was totally different. I had no idea what he was going to do so i reacted more naturally, like it was just a normal conversation. In real life, one doesn't know what the other person is going to say, or how they will react, and the same goes for a scene. No matter how much table work you do about emotions and strategies and objectives, it all comes down to impulse and being in the moment. Your parter may cry, you may laugh, your nose may bleed, who the hell knows but you just have to take what you got and use it to the best of your ability.

acting stuff

MEISNER:

"Meisner's unusual techniques were considered both unorthodox and effective.

They were given a single line of dialogue, told to turn away, and instructed not to do or say anything until something happened to make them say the words (one of the fundamental principles of the Meisner technique). The first student’s line came when Meisner approached him from behind and gave him a strong pinch on the back, inspiring him to jump away and yelp his line in pain. The other student’s line came when Meisner reached around and slipped his hand into her blouse. Her line came out as a giggle as she moved away from his touch.[

He taught to "live truthfully under imaginary circumstances."

In order to carry out an action truthfully on stage, it is necessary to let emotion and subtext build based on the truth of the action and on the other characters around them, rather than simply playing the action or playing the emotion. One of the best known exercises of the Meisner technique is called the Repetition exercise, where one person spontaneously makes a comment based on his or her partner, and the comment is repeated back and forth between the two actors in the same manner, until it changes on its own. The object is always to react truthfully, allowing the repetition to change naturally rather than by manipulation.

In 1983, Sanford Meisner and his life partner James Carville founded the Meisner/Carville School of Acting on the Caribbean island of Bequia. beginning in 1985, also in North Hollywood, California. Meisner split his time between the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and the two school locations.

Notable followers:

Sandra Bullock, Dylan McDermott, James Caan, Steve McQueen, Robert Duvall, Gregory Peck, Jack Lord, Bob Fosse, Diane Keaton, Peter Falk, Jon Voight, Jeff Goldblum, Grace Kelly, James Doohan, Manu Tupou, Tony Randall and Sydney Pollack. Pollack together with Charles E. Conrad served as Meisner's senior assistants. The technique is helpful not just for actors, but also for directors, writers, and teachers. A number of directors also studied with him, among them Sidney Lumet and John Frankenheimer, and writers such as Arthur Miller and David Mamet.

STANISLAVSKI:

"Increasingly interested in "living the part," Stanislavski experimented with the ability to maintain a characterization in real life, disguising himself as a tramp or drunk and visiting the railway station, or disguising himself as a fortune-telling gypsy; he extended the experiment to the rest of the cast of a short comedy in which he performed in 1883, and as late as 1900 he amused holiday-makers in Yalta by taking a walk each morning "in character"."

"Stanislavski's 'system' focused on the development of artistic truth onstage by teaching actors to "experience the part" during performance. Stanislavski hoped that the 'system' could be applied to all forms of drama, including melodrama, vaudeville, and opera. He organised a series of theatre studios in which young actors were trained in his 'system.' At the First Studio, actors were instructed to use their own memories in order to express emotion."

Stanislavski soon observed that some of the actors using or abusing this technique were given to hysteria. He began to search for more reliable means to access emotion, eventually emphasizing the actor's use of imagination and belief in the given circumstances of the text rather than her/his private and often painful memories.

"In the beginning, Stanislavski proposed that actors study and experience subjective emotions and feelings and manifest them to audiences by physical and vocal means. While in its very earliest stages his 'system' focused on creating truthful emotions and embodying them, he later worked on the Method of Physical Actions. This was developed at the Opera Dramatic Studio from the early 1930s. Its focus was on physical actions as a means to access truthful emotion, and involved improvisation. The focus remained on reaching the subconscious through the conscious."

Notable Students:

▪ Vsevolod Meyerhold ▪ Yevgeny Vakhtangov ▪ Michael Chekhov ▪ Richard Boleslavsky ▪ Maria Ouspenskaya ▪ Joshua Logan

▪ Andrius Jilinsky

▪ Leo Bulgakov

▪ Varvara Bulgakov

▪ Vera Solovyova

▪ Tamara Daykarhanova

Olga Knipper

STELLA ADLER:

Adler founded the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City (1949) and the The Stella Adler Academy of Acting in Los Angeles

"Stella Adler's technique, based on a balanced and pragmatic combination of imagination as well as memory, is hugely credited with introducing the subtle and insightful details and a deep physical embodiment of a character.[17] Elaine Stritch once said: "What an extraordinary combination was Stella Adler - a goddess of full of magic and mystery, a child full of innocence and vulnerability."[17] In the book Acting: Onstage and Off, Robert Barton wrote: "[Adler] established the value of the actor putting himself in the place of the character rather than vice versa ... More than anyone else, Stella Adler brought into public awareness all the close careful attention to text and analysis Stanislavski endorsed."

The Acting schools Adler founded still operate today in New York City and Los Angeles. Her method, based on use of the actor's imagination, has been studied by many renowned actors, such as Robert De Niro, Elaine Stritch, Martin Sheen, Roy Scheider, Vincent D'Onofrio, Mark Ruffalo, Warren Beatty, Michael Imperioli, Salma Hayek, Sean Astin, Barbara Stuart, Joyce Meadows, Stephen Bauer and Benicio del Toro, in addition to Marlon Brando, who served as the New York studio's Honorary Chairman until his death, and was replaced by another pupil, Warren Beatty.

Stella Adler's technique, based on a balanced and pragmatic combination of imagination as well as memory, is hugely credited with introducing the subtle and insightful details and a deep physical embodiment of a character.

Adler was the only American actor to study with Constantin Stanislavski. She was a prominent member of the Group Theatre, but differences with Lee Strasberg over the Stanislavski System (later developed by Strasberg into Method acting) made her leave the Group."

STRASSBURG

"He is considered the "father of method acting in America," according to author Mel Gussow, and from the 1920s until his death in 1982 "he revolutionized the art of acting by having a profound influence on performance in American theater and movies".[4] From his base in New York, he trained several generations of theatre and film's most illustrious talents, including Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Julie Harris, Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and director Elia Kazan.[4]

Strasberg demanded great discipline of his actors as well as great depths of psychological truthfulness. He once explained his approach in this way:

The human being who acts is the human being who lives. That is a terrifying circumstance. Essentially the actor acts a fiction, a dream; in life the stimuli to which we respond are always real. The actor must constantly respond to stimuli that are imaginary. And yet this must happen not only just as it happens in life, but actually more fully and more expressively. Although the actor can do things in life quite easily, when he has to do the same thing on the stage under fictitious conditions he has difficulty because he is not equipped as a human being merely to playact at imitating life. He must somehow believe. He must somehow be able to convince himself of the rightness of what he is doing in order to do things fully on the stage.

In 1966, Strasberg established Actors Studio West in Los Angeles. In 1969, he founded the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York and Los Angeles."

CHEKHOV:

"His acting technique has been used by actors such as Clint Eastwood, Marilyn Monroe, Yul Brynner, and Robert Stack. Constantin Stanislavski referred to him as his most brilliant student. He was a nephew of the playwright Anton Chekhov.

Chekhov was considered by the Russian theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavski to be one of his brightest students. He studied under Stanislavski at the First Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre, where he acted, directed, and studied Stanislavski's 'system'. When Chekhov experimented with affective memory and had a nervous breakdown, this aided Stanislavski in seeing the limitations of his early concepts of emotional memory.^{[citation needed]} He later led the company of the studio under the name the Second Moscow Art Theatre. Stanislavski came to regard Chekhov's work as a betrayal of his principles.

He thought that Stanislavski’s techniques led too readily to anaturalistic style of performance.

Between 1936 and 1939 Chekhov established The Chekhov Theatre School at Dartington Hall, in Devon, England. "

LEWIS:

"Lewis held that Strasberg's Method, while valid in its particulars, was a misrepresentation of Stanislavski because it emphasized only some parts of Stanislavski's theory.

While in London, Lewis studied with Michael Chekov, an actor whose work he admired and whom Stanislavski considered one of the foremost interpreters of his theories. At Chekov's studio in Devonshire at Dartington Hall, Lewis further shaped his understanding of Stanislavski's techniques, or "method", as it was informally known in America.

In 1947, Lewis co-founded The Actors Studio

In the first year alone, Robert Lewis' group, meeting three times a week, consisted of Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Mildred Dunnock, Jerome Robbins, Herbert Berghof, Tom Ewell, John Forsythe, Kevin McCarthy, Karl Malden, E. G. Marshall, Patricia Neal, Beatrice Straight and David Wayne, to name a few.

one of Lewis' points revolved around the idea that there are many facets of an actor's preparation and Stanislavski intended that the actor prepare internallyand externally, rather than relying exclusively, or too heavily, upon internal techniques such as affective memory. Opponents of Method acting complained of a "generation of mumblers", whose acting conveyed the truth of the actor but not necessarily the truth of the character on the stage. Lewis felt that such performances were the result of an unfortunate misinterpretation of Stanislavski's ideas.

Mr. Lewis declared throughout his career, in fact, that Method actors, who simply spoke stage dialogue truthfully, exactly as they would in life, were discouraged from playing Shakespeare or other classical writers because these author's plays required a stylized method of speaking. In his lectures, Lewis maintained that an actor must learn to use his voice properly and master formal ways of speaking, such as blank verse, if he/she is to succeed in Shakespeare., "