Week 12: Commedia dell'Arte here we come!

Monday: Halley Rose presented her Acid Test. I really liked how she used the birdcage to show how the BIG questions surround and capture us. The way that we answer them or think about them affects how we see the world and anyone on the other side of the question. We were assigned to come up with an idea or inspirational starting point for our devised commedia piece. This is really cool because I like coming up with stories.=)

Wednesday: Today we started planning our Commedia dell'arte piece. We started by writing an action plan (making a plan) and deciding what we would need to do to make this work as well as setting dates. Then we experimented with making people laugh. Mr. Fearnehough had us all sit in a line in the studio and each person was given a turn to make everyone else laugh. Then Mr. Fearnehough asked us to describe our performance in one word. My word reflected how my plan did not work, since I went out of the door and then went to the other door but it was locked so it did not work very well. It was difficult to just get up in front of everyone and be funny (like stand-up comedians). It would have been easier if there was a script or another person to work with. Then Mr. Fearnehough told us about "the cop in the head". How every person has something inside them tells them to hold back in their performance because they might embarrass themselves by being horrible or dumb. This innate fear is  part of the reason I do not do well with the acting parts of the class or any other thing that has to do with speaking in front of a lot of people.

Thursday: Today we worked on finalizing our action plan for the commedia piece. We did not really "finalize" it because we do not really know what we are going to do in the play and what we need to work on but at least we have a plan. We discussed  when  we should do aspects, what aspects we  even needed to do and how to  schedule them. After that we shared our ideas for the scenario. Mr. Fearnehough stole Halley and Lydia's idea to  make it a romantic piece, he said that we should use a lot of audience participation which I like.I was really excited about my idea about a spy comedy based on Pink Panther and Get Smart. Axel proposed a very simple plot about a guy who is in love with his bosses daughter. Lydia's was about  High School Musical and an exaggerated form of high school. Halley said that she liked the ideas about romance. We all thought that Mary's idea about an ugly girl who became beautiful was funny. Mary is really good at making us laugh! Good going! We are going to write up our ideas and decide on Monday which one we are going to do.

Reflection: This week was pretty exciting because we started our first big group project. This will be my first production on such a small scale with so much responsibility, but I am a little worried that we may not have enough time to get it quite right. I hope that I will be able to act well enough to make this a success and be able to shut up the "cop in my head" so I can do even better.