Three days in...

Let's see, where did I leave off...

Tuesday I had acting class again from 9-11 and we continued to practice the Meisner repetition exercise. From 11-1, we had vocal production class with Mr. Baylin. This is basically a singing class. We all stood up and he was on the piano and we sang scales...okay so far. Then he made us go around and do the scale by ourselves! Eek. I don't know why exactly, but whenever I have to sing by myself in front of other people, my heart starts pounding out of my chest because I am so nervous. Then when I get to sing, my voice is shaky and cracks and then I get even more nervous! After that, we all sat down and talked about any acting/singing experience we had. Then he wanted everyone to stand up and tell the others their name, where they were from, and 2 other facts. Only...we had to SING it. So, one of my facts was that singing in front of other people makes me nervous, and people laughed...thank goodness! After that, he went around the room and assigned everyone a song. I got "The Party's Over" from the show Bells Are Ringing. He said it was a sad song (originally sung by Judy Holliday), which I was pleased with because all the other songs in my "repertoire" (if you can call it that) are mostly happy songs, and it's always good to have a range. Speaking of, I don't know if I am going to pursue any musical theatre at all. Aside from the getting nervous part (which is quite a problem), I was kind of burned out after doing The Producers. It's very different from "straight" plays (non-musicals)...in musicals it seems to be less about really acting and more about who can be the biggest and most animated. But of course, you rule out a bunch of shows that way...we'll see. Maybe this class will make me less nervous. Anyway we will be learning our songs over the course of the class.

After class we got our photos taken for our IDs and then about 10 of us (16 total in my class) went to lunch at a random deli we found. It was fun. There are a lot of international students in my class. They are from England, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France, Greece, Mexico. It's nice meeting people from other countries, it seems to widen my perspective somehow. The non-native English speakers actually speak pretty good English, but are constantly trying to improve their understanding of the language and American culture. It's almost flattering that so many people want to learn our language!

After lunch, I took the subway to Lincoln Center Station in a second attempt to find a working library...


Hooray! Success. I got my library card quickly and without hassle, and checked out 2 DVDs in case I get bored this weekend (Sweeney Todd with Angela Lansbury, and Shadow of the Vampire). When I got back home, I was going to go for another run but it started raining. I opened my window, laid down, and took a nap. It was such a good nap that I almost missed dinner! But I didn't.

Wednesday...acting class again. Repetition exercise again. It's nice to know what to expect. I very much like this class and feel like I'm learning something new. I love acting - you are never done getting better! Of course, we're not doing actual acting yet. He said he is going to cast us in scenes soon that we will work on for the remainder of the course. My teacher studied with William Esper who has his own studio in NYC. Esper was a student of Sanford Meisner who came up with the technique. Pretty cool. Then we had Voice & Speech again. We did a relaxation exercise that almost put everyone to sleep. Then we did vocal warm ups and our crazy tongue-twister and later we had to stand up one by one and recite a bunch of difficult word combinations. This class reminds me a lot of my Linguistics class in college...phonetics, where consonants are produced in your mouth, etc etc. I guess my college major had more in common with theatre than I realized.

After class we got our photo IDs and went out to lunch at a Thai restaurant. I spent $10 and got two meals out of it...not too bad! I think I will have the leftovers for lunch on Friday. When I got home, I applied for some jobs online and reserved a CD recording of "Bells are Ringing" at the New York Library for the Performing Arts (can't WAIT to visit this library). Then I went for a run/walk in Riverside Park. It was very nice, but it doesn't even compare to Central Park. It runs by the Hudson River with a view of...New Jersey I guess? I plan to take pictures to post but of course I don't have my camera with me when running. There are lots of dogs in New York, and more children than I expected. Tonight we had chicken sandwiches, french fries, salad, and chocolate cake...yum! Right now they are having a movie night and we are watching Pulp Fiction. Here is a picture of the main sitting room, where I am typing this from now:

And just for fun, here's a picture of the subway. I love it!

This is the station I get off at to go to class...

I am getting into a routine and really starting to like it up here. My nights are very relaxing, I get dinner served to me, I have nothing to cook or clean, and then I get to blog, read my book, talk on the phone, or do whatever I want!