Anticipation…and a back-up plan.

So, I’m supposed to hear back this week from at least one of the graduate schools to which I applied and interviewed.  I hope I get accepted into one.  If not, then I’ll have to work at finding another career option that can sustain me until I can get my MFA.

For now, I’m focusing on web design, because I enjoy it and I think I’m decent at it.  I’ve put together a portfolio that showcases my work up to this point, and sometime today or tomorrow I’ll be redesigning this site and updating it to look more professional than it does.

So, if any of you readers need a web designer for your company, leave a comment and I’ll link you to my portfolio and, if you’re still interested, we can work out some details.

In which Scott lays the Smackdown on McPsycho

In response to my previous post, Good Things Come To Those Who Wait, Scott Walters provides commentary on the state of theatre education at the college level. I especially like the following quote:

“In fact, it is abuse, and deserves to be called what it is: bullshit. There is absolutely no value in making your “homework assignment” so obscure that the students don’t even know it is an assignment. In addition, this teacher better have had a damn good reason to have asked students to learn how to “wait,” because if that was the sole purpose of the “exercise” it is empty nonsense, which is what all too much acting “training” amounts to.” — Scott Walters

Exactly. Thank you! It’s complete, utter bullshit. For everyone who agrees with Scott and myself, I encourage you to check out Scott’s blog, Theatre Ideas, and join the discussion on how the theatre blogosphere believes change is coming. Subscribe to it, bookmark it - I don’t care. Just read it!

Good things come to those who wait

“Okay, class,” Professor McPsycho chimes. She puts her fingers to her temples and rubs them, as if she has a migraine. Her eyes are closed. “On Monday, I want you to come in here, and…” She flings her right hand out, pointing towards the back of the room. Her eyes are still closed. She finishes, “…and wait.” She turns around and strolls out of the room.

I look at my neighbor. He looks back at me with the most puzzled expression I’ve ever seen. I glance at the rest of my classmates, and they’re equally dumbfounded. After several moments of silence, the class finally begins to start the process of leaving the studio theatre and moving on to our next class or whatever it is that we have to do. In my case, lunch.

The weekend flies by, as weekends tend to do in my town. Monday morning quickly arrives, and I stroll off to class. I sit down off to the side, so I can watch my classmates’ reactions to the lesson. I like to watch people, to see if they understand as well (or as poorly) as I do what is being taught. McPsycho strolls into the room, her presence dominating everyone’s mind. She spins around, looks at the class, and smiles.

“Good morning, everyone,” she chimes. She looks around. “Who would like to perform their homework assignment first?”

I had a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling. Nobody moves. Nobody knows what the homework assignment actually is. A very bad feeling.

“How about you?” McPsycho is staring at me.

Shit.

I shake my head and shrug as if to say, “Sorry, didn’t do it.” She shakes her head at me and makes a mark in her book.

“Should’ve been prepared. Tsk tsk.” She looks around.

“Fluffy!” McPsycho calls out to a short guy with curly red hair. He awkwardly walks up to the front of the room. He clearly has no clue what he’s supposed to be doing. McPsycho smiles broadly and sits down and watches. Fluffy just sits there, doing nothing.

“Bravo!” McPsycho exclaims.

The entire class looks bewildered, Fluffy included.

“Now, class,” she says in her sing-song voice. “Who wants to wait next?”

I nearly fall out of my chair. She had wanted us to act like we were waiting for something. The rest of the class went up there, one by one, and pretended to wait for a bus or for a friend or for whatever. I sat off to the side, frustrated and flustered. I got a zero for the assignment.

Go figure.

That I can tell you in a word… Tradition!

Should I feel bad that I have a hard time coming up with, quote, original, unquote, ideas?  Sometimes I like to write short stories or plays or whatnot.  Sometimes I succeed.  Most times I don’t.  Even when I succeed, they’re heavily based on something that happened in real life, or I’m adapting source material to fit my vision.  But even then my vision seems to be based on something else.

When I’m asked how I would go about designing concepts for, say, A Doll’s House, I have no idea.  Half the time the vision in my mind is kind of what I would expect the traditional director to do.  I wouldn’t really change the time period or the setting much.  I don’t really want to change things for the sake of changing things, or just because I think “hey, that would be neat to try.”  I’d like for them to have reasons.

Is that such a bad thing?  Whenever I’ve interviewed for directing, I’ve tried to come up with different ways to approach traditional plays, cause I figure that’s what they want.  They want someone who stands out from the crowd.  Someone who just wants to do A Doll’s House in a traditional way?  Why bother? That’s boring.  Do it from a fresh standpoint.

The biggest thing I’ve learned about directing in the past two years is that I don’t know much at all.  Every time I learn something it opens up more questions than it answers.  Questions I don’t know how to answer myself.  That’s one of the biggest reasons as to why I want to pursue an MFA program.