Propless

Jamaal B Waters
Ib Lit & Performance

                                             Propless Improv Review
The Improv show “Propless” at Cheshire academy was performed in the black box upstairs in the field house on May 18th and 19th. This show Included skits where actors were put in a situation to make up lines on the spot. I liked the way they put the show together the way how they did it was creative. Improvisation is a form of acting where the actors coming up with things on the go, acting them out without breaking character. I’ve did some improv acting myself at past school events and classes, but what I found interesting and liked about Cheshire’s Is how the actors interacted with the crowd using games. This was a great idea which gave the show life and made it more interesting. The show was fun, there was many jokes, people was laugh hysterically and the skits were well put together. For the most part the cast was talented and pretty good with the improv. One of the only things the cast could possibly work on not getting stuck when they were performing, some people got stuck at times and didn’t know what to say. Besides that overall the sketches were great my friend Ivan participated in one of the activities too. It’s the activity when they put the alphabet on the board and the participants had to pick a one word and make a sentence including that word. It was great and the audience enjoyed it. Parents seem to have a good time watching their kids perform. Good job to everyone that help put this together expectually my peers and the actors: Julia Rafferty, Helen Zhang, Ray Dong, Mao Inoue, Krystal Charter, Sunny Niu, Aaron Leo,Nan Zhou, Julia Zhou, Jerry Yu, Olivia Williamson, Bob Wang.

Blog post due by Thursday-- what do you think you need to do to revise your WC essay? 400 words due by midnight. You will have some time to work on this in class as well -- we will begin it on Tuesday during class

To revise my essay I will correct all the grammar mistakes I had throughout my paper. I’ll go to the writing lab to have a teacher to proofread it. I know that some of my paragraphs was unclear and need revising to make sure the reader knows what’s going on in the paper and not get confused. I’ll add to my literary analysis describe more in detail about the book,  characters, their live style, likes and dislikes. Most importantly add more to the setting of the story, give good background information. Tone and Mood is also important because if you don’t know what the characters are feeling how could you relate and understand where their coming from. All well written papers are entertaining. That meaning I’ll include more context to It making It more interesting so people won’t get bored while they are reading the paper. After I finish my rewriting my literary analysis I will continue to work on where I talk about the performance. Not only speak of my point of view of the project but my partner‘s points and see how they felt about the project seeing what they had found difficult what they liked what they dislike and compare it to myself while stating more stuff that we did while we were performing such as light, the way we set up our prop and what’s costumes we wore and why. How It portray the character because there was 3 boys including me in my group and in the play there 2 girls and 1 boy s we had to show that using costumes.

What brings a poem to life

To bring a poem to life you need to have a loud voice. If the audience can’t hear the person presenting then they completely become uninterested because they can hear what’s going on. Also props should be used, they bring life to the poem and make It more realistic. Music can be added too but not necessary. Just don’t go out there with no music or props because those help set the tone and if you don’t have them it’ll get boring fast. Don’t be stationary, move around don’t just stand in one spot walk around the stage, use hand movements, express yourself. If you do all of these then your presentation will go well only thing you is remember  your lines.

Video preformace

https://youtu.be/SslJISxjF0M

Poem to preform

1Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Author: Robert Frost

The section of the poem in “seize the day“ that stood out to me was where it says “concentrate on living your life hour by hour as if you were feeding coins into a meter measuring your life, here’s this hour, you already paid for it”. In my opinion this is the best stanza in the whole poem because it’s the truth and I can relate to this. I find myself, friends, and family doing this, worrying about what happened before and not concentrate on what’s going on now . This it isn't good for you and your well-being , basically you're stuck on the pass and being miserable over things you can change or control. Why put yourself though all that presser and disappoint. People need to learn how to move on and forget things. The only thing that I’ll  say is not to forgive is if someone did something wrong to you. The reason why  I connect to ”concentrate on living your life hour by hour as if you were feeding coins into a meter” is because I tend to think about the past and the future when I should be thinking about what’s going on in the present; example like in basketball when I make a bad play or have a bad game sometimes I take this attitude in the next game and gain a bad mindset. which makes me end up playing bad or worst then I did before. Another reason why I think thinking about the past could be bad for you  is because let’s say if something bad had happened in the past. Your main focus is on that and It can have you stressing yourself out. Thinking about what if I did this or that would the result change or not. You’ll end up sad and depressed thinking about It but If you forget  and move on you'll be happier and be at peace with yourself.

        Our project was fun. My group and I turned a poem into a hip hop/ R&B Hit!
Nan singing was amazing, it matched with the beat perfectly.  Ivan and Purdy’s recitement of the poem was done very well. Put this together with my lyrics equals gold. At first we had to look through a lot of beats because we had to make it able to match up with the lyrics otherwise it wouldn’t sound as good. To prefect the song we could’ve made a beat. We dicided not to do that because it  would’ve took to long and we probably would’ve run out of time. Making a rap from the poem made me understand it more because I had to dissect it to  find the worlds and phrases I wanted to use

We Real Cool  Launch Audio in a New Window
BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS
               The Pool Players.
        Seven at the Golden Shovel.

            We real cool. We
            Left school. We

            Lurk late. We
            Strike straight. We

            Sing sin. We
            Thin gin. We

            Jazz June. We
            Die soon.



We real cool is the poem I choose to analyze. This poem repeats the word we a lot, and that got me thinking who is we? Is we meaning us, or is we mean the authors friends or something. I also see that in the poem the lines in the stanzas have rhyming words such as cool, school, late, straight, sin, gin, june, soon. I found that interesting and all the lines end with “we” expect the final line “Die soon” so the pattern would be A,A,A,A,A,A,A,B. Personally I believe that was place there for a reason, it showed that this story basically just got real and sad because once you say die soon that’s pure negativity nothing good is coming from that. So this drove me to believe that the Overall the meaning of this poem is about life. How everyone wants to be cool, then graduate school having fun party at night, doing bad stuff like probably singing bad lyrics to a song out loud, I say this because in the poem there was a part where it said that “ We sing sin” when I heard that this just popped into my head. But the meaning could be that we all are going to do this at some points in our life then we are eventually we all going to have to die. Life is short so do the crazy things now because next thing you know your gonna be laying on your death bed , regret not taking risk and saying to yourself what if I had done this or that, what would had happen. Also there’s some words I couldn’t quite make out like “Jazz June” and “ Thin gin”. I have no idea what those word meant and what was there meaning. Another thing that confused me was “ The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel”. I saw this at the beginning and at first thought it was a title but then I looked up more and realized that it wasn’t the case because I saw the actual title “We real cool” so I don’t know if the author wanted the reader to read this as a title or is it simply just apart of the poem.

poem

CA library is a place where you want to be
Sitting in a spot where your at peace.
I can get away from all that drama
Get good grades and support my mama.
I can think to myself it’s all about me.

Notes

-Poem divided into feet and each feet is stresses this process is called scansion

Metrical lines

Mono-meter

Di

Tri

Tetra

Penta

Hexa 

-Rhythms underline everything

-Variations wakes up the reader with different types of beats

-Have constancy, variations 

-Rhythm patters can be pure or impure, impure being a anapestic and dactylic.

Caesura- structural And logic pause with then and only within the lawn and usually but not always within metrical foot instead.

-The most important point in the line is the ending of if. The second is the beginning of it.

-Off rhyme for slant rhyme is a rhyme that almost rhymes but not the Exactly.

-There is feminie endings and masculine endings

-No two poems will never be alike even if both is in iambic tetra meter 

-A stanza is a term where we designate a group of lines

-A sonnet is a poem of 14 lines

-There’s a poem called a free verse  you can have it anything you want to be.

Nice poems

Start spirit; behold
the skull. A living head loved
earth. My bones resign

the worm, lips to hold
sparkling grape’s slimy circle,
shape of reptile’s food.

Where wit shone of shine,
when our brains are substitute,
like me, with the dead,

life’s little, our heads
sad. Redeemed and wasting clay
this chance. Be of use.


I like this poem because it’s showing how the after life of our body’s are their just bones laying in dirt and no one really thinks about that so it’s different.

A piece of green pepper 
   fell
off the wooden salad bowl:
   so what

 This  haiku I was short and your probably thinking what. But I like how it’s straight to the point and it’s has that I don’t care attitude. Like the pepper fell off, so what! Who care I’m still gonna live my life.

David haiku

David’s



we clap in our class
The clap rhythm just like a rap
It’s not like a snap

Clapping hands is hard
It’s not like look at a map
Finally finished

Poem

 Im stuck in a trap
We come to one like a clap
If you’re down just frown.

Why do I love you
You snap my small heart in two
Clap to love of you

Grading

The student Samantha weed uses the evidence from text and shows her understanding on what's going on in the play.  Talks about the irony, symbol and mood of the play and gave me a feel for what it was about. She also included the lighting cue in the stage directions. It was very well written and had equal amounts of lit analysis and preformace. I giver her a 5-9-4.

In Julia's paper she was well spoken she used expression in her person to talk about Romeo and Juliet. It wasn't dry I felt entertained throughout the whole essay. I also liked how she put the quote in the middle it added a nice effect to it. I think she deserves a 4-10-4

I like how samantha structured her paper putting the background of the play first them coming in and describing what she did. I like the format of the paper how she made her title page first then everything else. They both had well written papers and I saw what it looks like to have a good piece.

3rd draft

performance                                  literary analysis


Info About The Play

In the play The Glass Menagerie, Laura is Tom’s older sister and Amanda is Tom's mom, they both are unemployed and the father of the house is not in the picture. So Tom being the only man in the house and only one with a job. He is the breadwinner he pays all the bills in the house. But Tom doesn't like this responsibility he wants to be free and discover the world and take risks, but he can't because his family is holding him back.   On top of that Amanda is a mother who constantly nags him on what he's doing wrong and never compliments him on what he's doing right, this makes her look like a negative person, and she kinda is. She has this negative energy  that happens to spread to Tom. He said “What do you think I'm at? Aren't I supposed to have any patience to reach the end of, Mother?” ( William scene 3). This shows that Tom is fed up with his mother and her telling him what to do. Me playing the role as Tom I had to show this Mood of depression and negative towards his mom. Ex she tells Tom to “ straighten up his back” and “slow down when your eating, put cream in your coffee to cool it because hot coffee isn't good for you” ( Williams scene 3) even though he likes it how it is. She even tries to tell him what books to read. In my opinion it's ok to be that controlling if your child is 10 years old but if he's 20+ that's outrageous. I understand that she cares but she needs to learn how to let him go.

Reflect on my performance
  Being an actor is not a easy task. It's not as easy as people make it look and sound in the movies. It's a lot of preparation and hard work. There's countless of details that you have to pay attention to,  like your reactions toward an event that has happen, hand movements to express yourself, and facial expressions because if something happens for example smells you don't wanna sit there with a regular face. You have to make a stink face. This plays a big key in performing because if you don't have them, you'll look like your going through the motions. When I was playing Tom those were the three rules I had to work on, when my group and I practice I found myself being very dry. I knew I had to fix it, so when I got more comfortable with my lines. Making expression became easy. I felt as if I was actually In the character's shoes and I've been in arguments before, so I just reacted like how I would if it was my personal argument . This helped me a lot, actually I learned this from Lee Strasberg and his lesson on method acting. He taught to use pass events in your life to help act out your character. Example like if you have to perform a sad scene you can use a sad experience in your life to remember to get you sad and maybe even cry, I know this may sound weird and upsetting but a lot of amazing actors uses this method.


Setting up the performance

 When my partners and I was Setting up the stage for our performance we needed to include props. Some props that are mandatory in my opinion was a little Toy that would take place of the glass menagerie, a couch/bed for Tom to sleep on, and a table so the family can sit and eat breakfast together. To get into character you have to have costumes. The costumes that we needed where 2 robes for Amanda and Laura to wear, 1 coat for Tom so when he goes to get it he accidentally knocks over the glass, 2 wigs for Amanda and Laura because the people playing them are boys so the wigs make them appear as females. Lighting also was a major factor, we started the play with the lights off, then had them turn on to show that's it's a new day. We had them turn off one more time when Tom left to show that the scene ended. We had some music to set the. Mood. A song played in the beginning and the end

The proposal
  In our scene Amanda tells Tom to sit up straight multiple times and he gets upset  and starts the argument between them. I can't blame him for getting so mad. Amanda treats like a baby. Tom is old enough to make his own decisions. He said ”Look !- I've got no thing, no single thing!,  In my life here that I can call my OWN ! Yesterday you confiscated my books ! “  ( Williams scene 3) That proves that Tom is at the end of his patience with his mom because all the things she did. She even took all the books and brought them back to the library . That's his personal stuff she shouldn't interfere with his personal life. can you relate to Tom how would you feel if your mom took your books that you liked, and brought them back to the library. I would be upset. But Towards the end of the argument between Tom and Amanda . Tom leaves knocking over the glass menagerie breaking it. This scene is very  important because it shows how corrupt the family is. The audience can see Tom’s depress  life, Amanda's annoying behavior, and Laura's awkward shy personality because she just sits there and does nothing when her family is arguing.

Literary analysis
In our performance, we tried to bring The Glass Menagerie to life. In the play I feel like Amanda and Tom have a hard time accepting reality and basically growing up. They believe that  everything should always go their way, and when it doesn't go their way they end up throw a fit. Mainly it's Amanda because of how she complaints about her wants and needs. This also affected Tom because he's stresses himself  out trying to fulfill them. So he finally made him express himself and say hey I have wants too then he starts to see all his hopes and dream and ending up wanting to chase them. Laura on the other hand is handicap, she can't think for herself, so she doesn't have any dreams to follow. She drop out of college, stays home all day, and is very socially awkward. Example when the gentleman caller showed up at her house, she stood behind the door trying to hide from him she's a grown woman hiding from a boy she had a crush on in high school . When we performed we tried to show their personalities traits in the characters during the play. For Laura she sat quietly on the bed when Tom and Amanda was going through their dispute. She didn't move a muscle and when she tried to have a input in the conversation she gets shut down because she can't physically express her opinion with confidence and stand up for herself. Amanda is hyperactive she tries to tell everyone what to do, say, eat she ask her grown son where he's going at night. Being an adult and having your mother constantly telling you how to live your everyday life can be annoying, so Tom is like a dandle in distress. Who's at the point to blow up. He snaps at his mother easily In the play he starts the argument with no hesitation because of all the past experiences he has of her annoying him. If you watch the video of us it may look like Tom just gets angry out of nowhere, but you have to take in consideration that our scene took place towards the middle-end of the story. So you wouldn't be able to see all the past event/conflicts between Tom and Amanda.

Conclusion
Overall I had a great time practicing and performing this play. There was some things that's I wish went differently but This was a great experience that helped me test out my acting skills and put them into work. It was cool working on this project for several weeks, practice in the black box and now getting a chance to look back at our video.  That we took in class of the final product  to see what things we did wrong as a group and as individuals . Now I can learn from my them and fix my mistakes. With this opportunity it gave me a chance to put my brain to work and work together with my partners together all the things we needed to set up our scene. We ended  up trying different thing out and putting our own twist to it see what works and what doesn't. In all honesty I was really happy with our results. I felt that there was stuff that  we could've done better, like cutting Amanda and Tom off in the scene when they was talking.  At least we gave it a shot and now we know that if we was to do this activity again, we should probably practice a little more or try different tactics and techniques to make the scene go the way it should .


 

Self evaluation

When I grade myself for literary analysis I give myself a 4, the reason why I chose 4 was because I tried my best to describe the play and create a vivid image in my writing. I gave background information about every character and got their actions, feelings and expressed them on paper. I even brought up some significance of minor details that could've made a big impact in the rest of the story. On the performance part of my essay I'm shooting for a 8.5 or 9. I wrote about what worked for me and how it affected my acting. What types of acting methods I used. How we staged our performance, what consumes we wear and why we needed those consumes. I also stated what we would do to get into our scene to character to get their personalities right. language I should get 3.5/4 because the paper makes sense to me, I've reread it multiple times, change some sentences around, fix some grammar and fix the mispronounce words. But it sounds sound good to me but different toward Simone else so that's why I said 3.5/4.

Full 2nd draft edites are on google docs

Info About The Play

In the play The Glass Menagerie, Laura is Tom’s older sister and Amanda is Tom's mom, they both are unemployed and the father of the house is not in the picture. So Tom being the only man in the house and only one with a job. He is the breadwinner he pays all the bills in the house. But Tom doesn't like this responsibility he wants to be free and discover the world and take risks, but he can't because his family is holding him back. On top of that Amanda is a mother who constantly nags him on what he's doing wrong and never compliments him on what he's doing right, this makes her look like a negative person, and she kinda is. She has this negative energy  that happens to spread to Tom. Me playing the role as Tom I had to show this Mood of depression and negative towards his mom. Ex she tells Tom to “ straighten up his back” and “slow down when your eating, put cream in your coffee to cool it because hot coffee isn't good for you” even though he likes it how it is. She even tries to tell him what books to read. In my opinion it's ok to be that controlling if your child is 10 years old but if he's 20+ that's outrageous. I understand that she cares but she needs to learn how to let him go.

Reflect on my performance
  Being an actor is not a easy task. It's not as easy as people make it look and sound in the movies. It's a lot of preparation and hard work. There's countless of details that you have to pay attention to,  like your reactions toward an event that has happen, hand movements to express yourself, and facial expressions example if something smells you don't wanna sit there with a regular face. You have to make a stink face. This plays a big key in performing because if you don't have them, you'll look like your going through the motions. When I was playing Tom those were the three rules I had to work on, when my group and I practice I found myself being very dry. I knew I had to fix it, so when I got more comfortable with my lines. Making expression became easy. I felt as if I was actually In the character's shoes and I've been in arguments before, so I just reacted like how I would if it was my personal argument . This helped me a lot, actually I learned this from Lee Strasberg and his lesson on method acting. He taught to use pass events in your life to help act out your character. Example like if you have to perform a sad scene you can use a sad experience in your life to remember to get you sad and maybe even cry, I know this may sound weird and upsetting but a lot of amazing actors uses this method.

Set up the performance

When my partners and I was Setting up the stage for our performance we needed to include props. Some props that are mandatory in my opinion was a little Toy that would take place of the glass menagerie, a couch/bed for Tom to sleep on, and a table so the family can sit and eat breakfast together. To get into character you have to have costumes. The costumes that we needed where 2 robes for Amanda and Laura to wear, 1 coat for Tom so when he goes to get it he accidentally knocks over the glass, 2 wigs for Amanda and Laura because the people playing them are boys so the wigs make them appear as females. Lighting also was a major factor, we started the play with the lights off, then had them turn on to show that's it's a new day. We had them turn off one more time when Tom left to show that the scene ended. We had some music to set the. Mood. A song played in the beginning and the end
The proposal

In our scene Amanda tells Tom to sit up straight multiple times and he gets upset  and starts the argument between them. I can't blame him for getting so mad. Amanda treats like a baby. Tom is old enough to make his own decisions. He said ”Look !- I've got no thing, no single thing!,  In my life here that I can call my OWN ! Yesterday you confiscated my books ! “ That proves that Tom is at the end of his patience with his mom because all the things she did like taking all the books and bringing them back to the store. That's his personal stuff she shouldn't interfere with his personal life. I could relate to Tom too because if my mom had took my things that I bought with my own money, and brought them back to the store I would be upset also expectually if it's something not serious, like books. But Towards the end of the argument. Tom leaves knocking over the glass menagerie breaking it. This scene is very  important because it shows how corrupt the family is. The audience can see Tom’s depress  life, Amanda's annoying behavior, and Laura's awkward shy personality because she just sits there and does nothing when her family is arguing.

Literary analysis
In our performance, we tried to bring The Glass Menagerie to life. In the play I feel like Amanda and Tom have a hard time accepting reality. They believe that  everything should always go their way, and when they doesn't they throw a fit. Mainly it's Amanda but her complaints and wants affected Tom. This made him express himself and say “hey I have wants too” then he starts to see all his hopes and dream and ending up wanting to chase them. Laura on the other hand is handicap, she can't think for herself, so she doesn't have any dreams to follow. She drop out of college, stays home all day, and is very socially awkward. Example when the gentleman caller showed up at her house, she stood behind the door trying to hide from him. When we performed we tried to show their personalities traits in the characters during the play. For Laura she sat quietly on the bed when Tom and Amanda was going through their dispute. She didn't move a muscle and when she tried to have a input in the conversation she gets shut down because she can't physically express her opinion with confidence and stand up for herself. Amanda is hyperactive she tries to tell everyone what to do, say, eat she ask her grown son where he's going at night. Being an adult and having your mother constantly telling you how to live your everyday life can be annoying, so Tom is like a dandle in distress. Who's at the point to blow up. He snaps at his mother easily In the play he starts the argument with no hesitation because of all the past experiences he has of her annoying him. If you watch the video of us it may look like Tom just gets angry out of nowhere, but you have to take in consideration that our scene took place towards the middle-end of the story. So you wouldn't be able to see all the past event/conflicts between Tom and Amanda.



 

Paper

Info About The Play

In the play The Glass Menagerie, Laura is Tom’s older sister and Amanda is Tom's mom, they both are unemployed and the father of the house is not in the picture. So Tom being the only man in the house and only one with a job, is the breadwinner he pays all the bills in the house. But Tom doesn't like this responsibility he wants to be free and discover the world and take risks, but he can't because his mom and family is holding him back. On top of that Amanda is a mother who constantly nags him on what he's doing wrong and never compliments him on what he's doing right, this making her look like a negative person, and she kinda is. She has this negative energy that happens to spread to Tom. Me playing the role as Tom I had to show this Mood of depression and negative towards his mom. Ex she tells Tom to “ straighten up his back” and “slow down when your eating, put cream in his coffee to cool it because hot coffee isn't good for you” even though he likes it how it is. She even tries to tell him what books to read. In my opinion it's ok to be that controlling if your child is 10 years old but if he's 20+ that's outrageous. I understand that she cares but she needs to learn how to let go.

Reflect on my performance

  Being an actor is not a easy task. It's not as easy as people make it look and sound in the movies. It's a lot of preparation and hard work. There's countless of details that you have to pay attention to,  like your reactions toward an event that has happen, hand movements to express yourself, and facial expressions example if something smells you don't wanna sit there with a regular face. You have to make a stink face. This plays a big key in performing because if you don't have them, you'll look like your going through the motions. When I was playing Tom those were the three rules I had to work on, when my group and I practice I found myself being very dry. I knew I had to fix it, so when I got more comfortable with my lines. Making expression became easy. I felt as if I was actually In the character's shoes and I've been in arguments before, so I just reacted like how I would if it was my personal argument . This helped me a lot, actually I learned this from Lee Strasberg and his lesson on method acting. He taught to use pass events in your life to help act out your character. Example like if you have to perform a sad scene you can use a sad experience in your life to remember to get you sad and maybe even cry, I know this may sound weird and upsetting but a lot of amazing actors uses this method.

The proposal

In our scene Amanda tells Tom to sit up straight multiple times and he gets upset  and starts the argument between them. I can't blame him for getting so mad. Amanda treats like a baby. Tom is old enough to make his own decisions. He said ”Look !- I've got no thing, no single thing!,  In my life here that I can call my OWN ! Yesterday you confiscated my books ! “ That proves that Tom is at the end of his patience with his mom because all the things she did like taking all the books and bringing them back to the store. That's his personal stuff she shouldn't interfere with his personal life. I could relate to Tom too because if my mom had took my things that I bought with my own money, and brought them back to the store I would be upset also expectually if it's something not serious, like books. But Towards the end of the argument. Tom leaves knocking over the glass menagerie breaking it. This scene is very  important because it shows how corrupt the family is. The audience can see Tom’s depress  life, Amanda's annoying behavior, and Laura's awkward shy personality because she just sits there and does nothing when her family is arguing.

Literary analysis 

In our performance, we tried to bring The Glass Menagerie to life. In the play I feel like Amanda and Tom have a hard time accepting reality. The believe that life should always go their way, and when they don't get there way they throw a fit. Mainly it's Amanda but her complaints and wants affected Tom. This made him express himself and say “hey I have wants too” then he starts to see all his hopes and dream and ending up wanting to chase them. Laura on the other hand is handicap, she can't think for herself, so she doesn't have any dreams to follow. She drop out of college, stays home all day, and is very socially awkward. Example when the gentleman caller showed up at her house, she stood behind the door trying to hide from him. When we performed we tried to show their personalities traits in the characters during the play. For Laura she sat quietly on the bed when Tom and Amanda was going through their dispute. She didn't move a muscle and when she tried to have a input in the conversation she gets shut down because she can't physically express her opinion with confidence and stand up for herself. Amanda is hyperactive she tries to tell everyone what to do, say, eat she ask her grown son where he's going at night. Being an adult and having your mother constantly telling you how to live your everyday life can be annoying, so Tom is like a dandle in distress. Who's at the point to blow up. He snaps at his mother easily In the play he starts the argument with no hesitation because of all the past experiences he has of her annoying him. If you watch the video of us it may look like Tom just gets angry out of nowhere, but you have to take in consideration that our scene took place towards the middle-end of the story. So you wouldn't be able to see all the past event/conflicts between Tom and Amanda.

 

  

final preformance

I was unsure of how good of an actor I was, I didn't know if I was very bad or very good. There was a lot of things I had to work on like my reactions, hand movements, and facial expressions. I found myself focusing on the little things like when I’m saying this line should I be angry or when I’m saying that line so I be more relaxed but then I realize I need to just go with the flow and not be a robot. There's countless details that you have to pay attention to, example props. When Tom knocks over the glass menagerie, it's supposed to fall off the table but it didn't fall off the table, it just fell over on the table. That little detail changed the play because Laura is supposed to be on the floor over her glass now she has to get it off the table and act like it fell when it didn't and that made it look kinda fake . One rule I follow was to try and put myself in the character's shoes. This how I began to improve as an actor, and was able to understand my character better. This was a learning experience for me. Overall I think my group could've done better. When we presented our scene from “The Glass Menagerie”. We didn't do so well. I remembered all my lines and practiced over and over again before the final performance I got through them perfectly and was ready to go . Then it was time for the real deal we messed up.  Acting is not as easy how people make it look on movies and films. It's a lot of hard work and practicing. My partner told me he was nervous before our performance. I wasn't, maybe because I was performing in front of my classmates and I know all of them and I've been acting in front of them since the beginning of the year. I got all my nerves out. But I understand where he was coming from and couldn't be upset because everyone is not the same and for some people it's not easy to get up in front of your pairs and perform but he had forgot some of his lines. So then he made a mistake and said the wrong thing, which screwed me up. So then we was sitting there for a long period of awkward silence I didn't know how to respond to what he said and he didn't correct himself. Not all the blame is on him though, actors should know when someone messes up they should recover so the audience doesn't think anything is wrong because they don't have the script they don't know what's supposed to be send and what's not.

First draft

        For my final draft based on my feedback, I need to work on talking slower. It's because the audience needs to hear and understand me clearly. When my group performed the first draft. We read off the script, so I mistakenly read off the paper like as if I was reading a book, which I should of extended my words loud and clearly like I was acting. I believe that when I act, I know my lines so I tend to push through mistakenly without taking my time to pause and pronounce my words. This is what I got from my feedback,  and i when I related the video I actually started to notice it .  Another thing that I noticed is when I start to speak fast it would sound like I was mumbling, I couldn't even make up most of the words I was saying and I'm the one who was saying it. If my partner also speaks slower, this would help with our time. Our performance was quick and dull, Right now it's at 4 minutes and needs to be at 10 minutes, we were mostly standing around and talking, so slowing that  down will help with the time. Blocking is also a key with timing because instead of Tom and Amanda arguing back and forth, standing around. We can include a scene where Tom walks around the house  trying to avoid Amanda. This also show more emotion on how annoyed Tom is with him mother. Or we can do scene in the beginning where Tom wakes up, gets off the bed and goes into the kitchen to work, have his mom makes coffee, than have her asked him to straighten his back and complaining how he never does that and it's so bad for him. Lastly out of nowhere he snaps at her and start the big argument causing the glass menagerie to break.

Video

Blog post --- What did you learn from this week's presentations that might be useful to you in preparing and rehearsing your scenes? Be specific and use your notes to write this post. 500 words

An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. An actor can perform in events like films and tv shows. To be a actor is not easy there's lot of preparation and dedication it's not for everyone or everyone would be one. Recently my classmates and I had to pick some great actors, director, and people that were looked up upon by the acting community. I chosen to talk about Lee Strasberg and his acting method which was that he wanted to encourages actors to “magnify” and “intensify” their connection to the material by creating their characters' emotional experiences in their own lives. He said that this method acting is what all actors have done when they have acted well. I learned many techniques about acting that I can use for my first class scene, I am very excited to be doing this. I am stepping out of my comfort zone and trying new things. There's certain techniques that stood out to me. One that was very interesting was a technique that i had learn from my classmate that I should put myself in the character's shoes and try to actually physically be that person and use past events to help with my emotions like if the character is sad, I can imagine something that happen to me that was sad, this can probably even make the actor cry if they like think of a death of a loved one. Or if they want to be happy and energetic they could imagine a party they went to and they had fun there. This technique would make me purseway the character well. Another one I found interesting was that I saw that I should also put my own twist on the character and make it my description to make it more real like. All of my classmates presentation were good. I learned a lot about acting and it's leaders/creators, I never thought that acting was so complex.  Before I thought that people just went up and speak. I didn't know that there was practices, warmups, and exercises, but not it's good that I know so I can use them in my presentation. I really want to rehearse in front of a audience though just to get my nerves out and get used to a crowd. That also would be good so when it actually becomes time for the final I would already be used to seeing people and I won't get nervous and start to mess up.

Proposal TGM

Amanda was on the phone when someone ended up hanging up on her. After she got hanged up on she started to nag tom while he was minding his business writing his poems. She tells him to sit up straight. Tom gets fed up with his moms annoying ways. This starts a argument between them. Tom gets mad  with his mom. I can't blame him, she treats him like a little child when he's a grown man. Tom is old enough to make his own decisions. That's why Tom says “he doesn't have anything to call his own” because  his mom Amanda took away all his books and brought them back to the store. That's Tom’s personal things she shouldn't interfere with his personal life. I think that Amanda is trying to live her life through her kids because her life didn't work out. But towards the end of the argument. Tom get upset and leaves but when he went to put his jacket on, he knocks over Laura's glass menagerie and breaks it. This scene is very  important because it shows how corrupt the family is. The audicene can see how Tom’s upset with his life, Amanda's annoying behavior, and Laura's awkward shy personality. Tom leaving at this point also foreshadow him leaving at the end of the book in my opinion because him leaving after one argument starts a trend, so why wouldn't he leave after another argument. It's interesting to recreate this scene and try to match the intensity of the fight with my pairs. It would be challenging and fun to try and do so. I would play Tom in this scene because of my tall height and it fits the description of him, and I think I can pull off his role. I also believe that I can act well, but it would be difficult to yell at my classmates like in the argument but i have to get out of my comfort zone and try new things.

-One scene that I would like to be in Is after the ending dinner scene where Laura and the male caller are having a conversation talking about high school and life. I would like to play the caller in this scene and try to comfort her.
-another scene I found interesting was when tom got into an aurgement with his mom and he spill everything out to his mom about his feelings living in that household the scene where she said don't talk to her after he apologizes. I like how tom showed his emotions and not let his mom walk all over him.
-When the Male caller had a conversation with Laura he was being optimistic. He was speaking loud expressing himself. Jumping around talking about the world. Saying statements about life like as if he was ghandi or something. Doing this scene would be interesting to see if the actor can get out of his comfort zone and try to express what happens like the caller.
-the opening of the play, the first dinner scene is what  set the tone of the play. I think it would also be very important to include this to show how the play is gonna be because it's important.
-one of my personal favorite scenes is when Laura and Amanda was getting dress for the caller and they where not dressed well for the occasion, the looked rediculous and I found it kind of funny how they over did the dressing up thing