This week has flown by! At the beginning of the intensive we were warned by the faculty about "week three". We were told that by week three we'd hate them all and each other. That being said, I have had many moments of frustration this week, but never hate. I've never felt like I wanted to leave the intensive and go home. It's been a work heavy and emotionally heavy week for us, but it's been that way from the start. I've also had amazing moments of growth and successes this week too. It's crazy how fast it's gone by. Tomorrow, Tuesday, marks a week until our final performances and last full day together. I love everyone here so much. We've become family here at Shakespeare Camp.
My growth this week has been mainly in how I express the text with my body. I've been focusing on staying grounded and living each word in the text. My scene is so high energy and my body needs to be fully engaged. In the past weeks, I've found my voice, so pairing my voice and truly experiencing the text with my entire body has been so exhilarating. We rehearse our scene with different teachers each day and each teacher has a new perspective on the scene. We go into the sessions and we just play. It's fun to just let your impulses do all the work and see what new and exciting things spring up.
We did a ton of sonnet work this week. We learned about the form of sonnets and the importance of breath work while performing a sonnet. We all failed at our sonnets and they've shown us how to put our emotions and experiences into the words and to bring them to life. After our initial performances of our sonnets, we worked on the sonnets as if our character was saying it. It was so much fun! Playing Lady M is so thrilling because she has so much depth to her. I found so many new elements in my sonnet by going crazy as Lady M. For sonnets we were split into two groups so we only got to see half of them, but tonight we had a sonnet fest. We only had 1 hour to get through 51 sonnets with full energy and clarity of thought. As soon as we were all done, we would be done for the day, so everyone had full energy and we all had crazy fun. We were cheering and encouraging each other, even shouting out the words to each others sonnets when we forgot them. This is the best cult ever!
What has me really thinking right now is, what's going to happen when I come home? I've been broken down and have been building myself up again as a human and as an actor. I'm an open vessel. Coming back into the real world with all of my new-found emotional availability is going to be rough I am excited to integrate this type of work and rehearsal into my daily practices. I plan to work on my craft in some way every single day. It's going to be daily actor workouts.
Fun fact- I haven't driven a car in 4 weeks. The last time I drove was on Christmas Eve (that's insane!)
Thank you for your love and support!