Saturday, May 14, 2016

Listen ...

       In rehearsals, we are always doing something. If we’re not working on a scene, we’re in the workshop practicing dances and music, work-shopping scenes, or working on creating an efficient ensemble. In Wednesday’s rehearsal, while Ugly and the Ducklings were working a scene, the rest of the ensemble was doing an exercise to help with listening. We had to count as high as we could with one person saying a number at a time. No overlapping. We had our eyes closed so we couldn’t signal or look around to see who was going to say a number. This got me thinking. What would a show be if nobody listened?

In the rehearsal process it is crucial to listen during every step. If you ignore what the director says or what’s going on in the other scenes, then you won’t have any idea what to do. And if you’re confused, the performances of the other actors can be hindered. If you don’t listen during performances, you’ll miss your cues. From my experiences, this is one of the worst things that can happen during a show. When a person misses a cue it causes the other actors to improvise, until they come on. But possibly the most important time to listen is onstage. Listening while in scene helps keep your acting honest. What I mean by honesty is that by listening to the people in your scene with you and discovering it anew every time you can make your acting seem more realistic. Without this type of listening, acting would just be someone reading lines from a script with no emotion or meaning behind the words. And that would just be boring.

So, if no actors listened, then plays would just be confused people saying random words on a stage. But it only takes one. As I mentioned earlier, if you miss a cue or just don’t know what to do, the other actors onstage must make do and improvise, which is hard to do, but possible. But if you don’t listen in your scene, there isn’t anything that other actors can do about that. It’s like they say, a chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link.

When I thought of this I got worried. Is this how easily something that we worked on for months could come down? With just one person? Then I realized, no, it won’t all fall apart. Because every person here at STC is just as good as the next. No link is any weaker than another. I am constantly amazed when I see younger actors and actresses, new to theater, acting just as well, onstage and off, as my friends from STC that I’ve known for years. At Story Theater Company, everyone is a strong link, therefore we have a strong chain which is very hard to break.












Zander Reed
Greylag

Friday, May 13, 2016

Act One Take One

         I always reflect about the first run-through of a show because it is such an interesting time in the process of creating the show. We have finished the basic scene work, and we are about to begin a difficult process of tweaking and editing every scene to the best possible way of sharing that moment. We got to the initial run-through of Act 1 much quicker than we have for any other show I have been in. Though that creates the risk of creating moments hastily and not slowly building scenes to their full potential, I do not feel that this was the case. In fact, this was probably the most successful first run-through I have been a part of, and the fact that we are already to the staging of Act 2 will give us time to work each scene until we create the most beautiful retelling of The Ugly Duckling.

Now that I know how to do the dance moves in the opening number of the show, A Poultry Tale,  I began thinking about my character in the scene. Everybody is sharing with the audience and letting them know that their life is perfect in their “patch behind the farmhouse”. There are several moments in the song that demonstrate otherwise, such as the cat discussing her plan to eat the ducklings and the entire ensemble doing chores at the beginning of the show. I am still working towards mastery of the dances in the show, but I decided that I would focus on trying to actively pursue an objective as I did the choreography that was crafted for the song. I thought it was interesting that adding what seemed like it would be an extra burden (acting the song well) made doing the staging easier. I felt that it was easier to move with a purpose driven by my character, instead of moving because Elizabeth asked us to move. It also made me feel more confident with the choreography to be focusing on getting a point across, instead of making sure every move was precise.

Overall, I thought that there was very strong listening during the run-through. As Kivan said at the end of the rehearsal, the duckling ensemble is amazing, especially when it comes to listening. They are always playing off each other and it is evident in their performance. They impressed me a lot today because they all did the same thing together, but they all seemed to have an objective behind their action. Each individual duckling seemed to be driven to bully Ugly, but they also took ideas off of each other to improve their performance. I watched them stage “Look at Him” and they have already made significant improvements from a few days ago. One of the most amazing things about the run-through was that nobody seemed to have decided exactly how they were going to say their line before the run-through. Typically, most people fall into a routine and say their line the same way they always do, instead of listening really hard and responding to their partner in the most honest way. This is one of the biggest challenges I am facing as an actor, and I will continue to work on always being honest. This is also one of the biggest challenges for many shows, and I think that the risk of losing honesty becomes greater as we get farther into the show. Everybody was saying their line in a way that made sense because of what their partner did. I am going to do my best to maintain honesty all the way to the last curtain call, and I am sure the rest of the cast will too.

 I felt that there was some fascinating character development that was demonstrated and some places where the acting needed to be worked. We just staged the show and we were still trying to remember the blocking and timing of the things we did in the show. I think that character development will be demonstrated more in upcoming rehearsals when we have more time to talk about acting and I think that it will be very beneficial when we have a chance to go through everything and look at the specifics of the acting. Making sure that we dig to the roots of our characters is a challenge that we will face throughout the process of creating this story. I also felt that there were some moments where very clear choices were made and you could really see what was driving the character to make certain decisions. When Asher sings “Different”, he has very clear moments when his thoughts are directed at himself and when they are directed towards the ducklings.

I know that we are going to embrace the challenges that this show brings us and continue to make many discoveries as we stage Act 2.





Ben Siegel

(Jay Bird)

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Our Ugly Ducklings

               When I tell people that I’m in a musical called Honk, most wonder if it’s some concept musical about cars. “Nope. Not even close. I’m pretty sure cars are not the only thing that honk,” I tell them. I take my time and explain that it’s an adaptation of the notorious Ugly Duckling. Everyone knows the story of The Ugly Duckling. We’ve all read or heard about how the ugly duckling isn’t actually a duck at all, but a swan. The ugly duckling shows us how beautiful our differences are. Before entering the show, this is all I saw. It’s truly a heartwarming story. But after exploring the show with my fellow ensemble, I’ve been able to see the story in a way that I never had before.
               Ugly is just different. Along Ugly’s journey, he meets those who accept his differences, and those who don’t. We not only see this in The Ugly Duckling, but in the real world as well. Many are rejected by the popular and accepted by the few. People like having someone to look down on. I know I do. It gives us security. So the moral of the story is very clear to those who are rejected by society: differences are what make us who we are and differences are what make us beautiful. But what about people who aren’t really that different? Now you must understand that I am definitely not normal, but I’m not really discriminated against in any way. I, Josh Gartin, am a tall, white, teenage male. So what am I supposed to get from the story?
               In The Ugly Duckling, Ugly’s mom, the frog, and the family of swans are the only people who like Ugly at first. It takes everyone else some time to realize that Ugly’s not so bad. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the frog and the swans are some of the most outwardly different characters in the story. I also don’t think that Ugly is the only focus of the story. Honk is a hard script because most of us who are in the show are given such stereotypical characters -- the “ordinary” people. The only problem is that nobody is actually “ordinary.” So we have to develop our characters in our own way to make them un-ordinary.
   People who are considered ordinary are really just hiding their differences. Throughout the story, we see good and bad examples of how to treat people who are different. Because everyone is truly different, we are given a choice on how to treat the 10% of obviously different people as well as the other 90%.
   In The Ugly Duckling, we are shown two things. Our differences are what make us beautiful and we’re shown how to treat those around us because everyone is different and beautiful.
  I’ve been in many Story Theater Company shows. I know when a show is going to be good. This show will be spectacular!













Josh Gartin
(Barnacles)