To begin I should tell you that the project we've decided to tackle during this residency is right up this teacher's personal alley. Over the course of eight weeks we are going to work with 16 students to develop an original performance, based on characters in their lives. I'm asking these teenagers to take on ALL of what it takes to make a piece of theatre, and so far they seem to be digging it.
We met for the first time last Wednesday afternoon and I was immediately impressed by the positive energy this group exudes. When presented with the often-frustrating task of batting a Koosh ball around in a circle for the first time, these guys and gals stayed calm, laughed off the failures and didn't waste any time assigning blame to one another. The speed with which they improved at playing the simple game was astonishing, as was the seeming ease with which they silently transformed the gymnasium into a recognizable pirate ship in under a minute.
Today, a current Rutgers MFA playwright graced us with his presence and his expertise. Josh Levine loaded us all up with tools for combatting writer's block, a condition which he swears does not exist. Warm, fuzzy feelings washed over me as Josh described to the class one of my very favorite things: a well-made play.
Today, for the first time, I considered the merits of introducing a class to dramatic structure before attempting to teach them anything about acting. While Josh asked the students to consider what Dorothy's objective in The Wizard of Oz might have been, it occurred to me that there might be enormous value in being able to refer to things like inciting-incidents, objectives and obstacles. After all, these are the things that determine actions and tactics and all those other words by which actors eventually come to live.
The more I think about it, the more I like the lesson we all attended this afternoon. Most of these students took this class because they want to be actors. As an actor, I think it can be easy to forget that making a play takes skill and developing a skill requires practice. Heck, it can be easy to forget what it's like to be in a play (tv show/movie etc) with jobs so hard to come by. So many factors go into the casting process and we get caught up in crediting/blaming our looks and our luck for the roles we land and the opportunities that come our way. There's a lot we can't control, but what we can do is make plays of our own and make them as well as we can... and learn.
The students are writing their first short scenes and bringing them in to start to read through as actors this Wednesday. We shall see.
Happy Tuesday.
-Jen Ring
Director of Education
