Working on Almost, Maine has been such an amazing and different experience. I have never participated in anything like it before. With this being my first teen play, I’ve had almost nothing but new experiences in this production.
Because it’s a show made almost entirely by teens, we get little direction. Yes, adults are there to help with anything we need and to “polish” things up a bit, but, we definitely have more freedom in how we want to play our character and how we want the scene to look. In a way, this can make our scenes more honest. If we truly put ourselves in the place of that character, and ask ourselves, “What would they do?” it helps us to make our scenes so much better.
In my scene, The Story of Hope, it’s been extremely difficult to stay completely honest throughout the whole scene. Because my character has so much to say, it’s hard not to rush through it. Through this whole process, Kivan has really helped me become more and more honest with every line and to really search and discover everything that I say.
I’ve learned, more in this show than any other, that your lines can’t just be yourself reading them. It must be your character that reads them. Don’t get in the mindset of, “How would I say this in this situation?” think more, “How would my character say this in this situation?” “What’s going through this character’s mind?”
Being completely honest is such a huge part of this show because these are all normal people, with (mostly) relatable problems. These aren’t silly characters with crazy situations that would most likely never happen in real life.
Though I have so much more to learn and so much more room to improve on my honesty in acting, I’ve improved so much with being honest during Almost, Maine.
Morgan Reetz
Hope
