Start of Second Year

September 6, 2007 by Dennis Baker 

The first week is almost over and things are beginning to shape up. I am excited with our new acting class taught by Billy Carden. We are going through A Challenge for the Actor by Uta Hagen. It will be a fresh change from the Meisner focus we had the first year. It is very useful to have a book that goes along with the class. We are currently treating it as a workbook and will be going through the exercises.

We also continue in one more year of Meisner. We will be working on impediments and opposite point of view. I am not looking forward to it all that much. It will be stretching, but I am concerned at the moment that the impediment work will get me in my head.
We are also working with the Michael Checkov technique. I do not know much about it so I will update as we get more into it. We also continue with dance as well as voice and speech. The last class we have is a dramatic literature course with the famous and talented playwright Lee Blessing. He seems like a down to earth guy and the class should be fun. I have been focusing more on being conscious of my speech work. We had general auditions last night and later in the evening I was called by a director telling me that my speech was clear and it was noted by people in the room. That felt good.

I was cast in Diary of Anne Frank. I was hoping not to do that show as I have already done it in the past. The role is only in two scenes (it will be a continuation of The Country Wife were I spent nearly a whole act sleeping backstage). I knew it was coming as I had a feeling the director was going to cast me in the role and when I did not get cast in the first show of the season, that was what made it a for sure thing in my mind. As always I will try to do my best with what is given to me and keep telling myself I am not at graduate school to be cast in plays but to do the work and learn from the training.

Filed under: Acting, Graduate School, Rutgers
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