Let's Be Honest

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

The Complexity of Love

Love: noun | \ˈləv\: a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person.

 

I don't know about you, but that simple definition doesn't really help my knowledge about what love is. It does not explain what many people experience. However, being only 14, I could not tell you the first thing about romantic love. Because of this, discussing love at rehearsals has been one of the hardest things we have done so far, as well as personally as an actor. I could describe what love is in a family or friend way, but this description would be very personalized, and may not be how anyone else feels regarding love. But this platonic love is not what is discovered in this play, and that makes these discoveries in scenes so magical, as well as complex.

Without this romantic experience as a source for what this may feel or look like, I go to the next best thing; my family. From what we have discussed, love does not always show itself in the way that movies portray it. Love creates a rollercoaster of feelings between two people, and as they go on this ride together, things aren't always happy. They must put a lot of work into the relationship because they value it, and want it to last. However, this emotional “roller coaster” creates many other emotions, such as fear, sadness, and joy. But this is what makes it love in the end. The fact that these people are willing to work so hard to make their relationship work, continue to grow, and to stay together.

Love isn't about two perfect people. It's about two imperfect people working together for the same end result. There's a lot of times you'll disagree with the person you're with, but instead of getting angry and fighting over it, you respect the other person and do your best to understand why they think that way. But love isn't just what you say, it's also about your actions and how you show your love. Love is a feeling brought on by a multitude of actions. There are the obvious actions like kissing and holding hands, but there are many other ways you can show love.

Discussing love in rehearsals has really helped me become a more honest actor in my scene, and because we’re so open about this idea of love, I feel that everyone in the production has come to a better understanding of this. This has been a really interesting and amazing process, and I’m looking forward to the end result.

Morgan Reetz

Hope