Today, I had my second meeting with Kym to discuss my project proposal. Before I can go any further with the research, I need to have it approved by Jesus Leyva. When we met, Kym informed me that my proposal needs to be one and a half pages long. I need to clarify what I intend to do for my senior project and how I will go about accomplishing that. I need to make it sound all academic in order for it to get approved. I will write a rough draft of my project proposal and email it to Kym. She will look it over and determine if anything needs to be changed or improved before I can submit it via Canvas.
In the meantime, there are two more acting methods that I've discovered. One is by Stella Adler, who insists that you can use imagination to build your character's background. I get the feeling that this is a little bit like when I played pretend back in kindergarten. I would have a toy in my hand, but through my imagination it could do things it normally wouldn't, like fly or know a different language. Can I also do that here? How can I use my imagination to develop my character? Maybe I can envision what my character looks like in my mind's eye, to get a better idea. Or maybe when I'm reading my lines, I can imagine the place that the scene is taking place, to increase my knowledge of not just the character, but the world of the play as well.
Another influential theatre practitioner is Sanford Meisner. According to this man, his method involves doing things instinctively, to interact with the environment without thinking about it. I get a sense of what this technique is, as I have already been using it in and out of the theatre. A main part of it has to do with repetition, and in fact, this is how I memorize my lines for a show. Just drill them over and over until it becomes second nature to me and I don't have to think about them anymore.
Back at Century College, I saw a video in one of my theatre classes that documented this method. The show was about Albert Einstein and consisted entirely of repeated movement and dialogue. For the actors to perform the roles within the show, they would've had to drill their lines and movements many times over in order for it to become instinctual. It's the same with me at work. Every Thursday, I get a shipment of string cheese from U.S. Foods Company. I have to put them in bags of 9, 10 and 11 pieces. I've done this task for more than five years now, so I rarely have to think about what I'm doing. I suppose, in a way, this is the Meisner method.
Both of these methods can be added to my developmental method. I need to rely on my imagination to build my character and to convince myself that I am my character and that I am in the location that the play is set in, not on the stage in front of an audience. This will help me get into the mindset of my character. I will have transitioned from Aaron Holt to whatever character I'm playing and therefore give a real, genuine performance. As for the Meisner method, however, I'm unsure of how it can be used to develop my character. Certainly I can use it to learn my lines fast and get off book, but that's about it, at least as far as I know. I don't want things to become so instinctual that I start anticipating my lines and give a performance that looks like I'm reciting from a manual. As Stanislavski put it, I need to make each and every performance fresh; every audience, no matter who they are, deserves that much.
YOU ARE READING
The Senior Capstone Project Journal of Aaron J. Holt
Non-FictionUpon completing his senior year at the University of Minnesota, Aaron J. Holt put his theatrical skills to the test. Tasked with creating his own character development method, Aaron drew from various methods. Then, to prove that it worked, he had to...
