2002-04-04 - 10:06 a.m.

acting and sleep

Last night I had my second acting workshop thing. I did some scene work for the first time. I hadn't even met my scene partner before, and I was thinking that it was going to be a tough thing not knowing her before-hand.

Of course, that's exactly the sort of thinking I want to get rid of. See, it's acting, right? I shouldn't need to know the person. Even if we're friends, buds, amigos, I won't feel for the other actor what my character feels for her character. I have to get that emotion out and across to the audience regardless of what I think of the other actor.

ActingCoach said last night (to my scene partner), after our third restart "See, you did that part much better. You had it in you to begin with. You need to give yourself permission to get it right on the first try, and not have to be coaxed into it."

It's given me a lot to stew over. A lot of things to think about.

We didn't get very far into the scene. We started three times, and we never got more than a half a page in before he stopped us. I was too rehearsed. I had thought out the delivery of every line, and therefore I delivered every line as a discrete unit. There was little flow, and no sense of the moment. And worse, no connection between the characters.

Ye gods, I'm becoming one of those "acting types". How terrible is that? How pretentious do I sound right now? I mean, really. You'd let me know if I got to be too pretentious, wouldn't you?

*~*

Last night I went to bed around 1 am, and fell asleep almost immediately. I don't remember waking up during the night. I woke up just before 7, maybe five minutes before my alarm was set to go off. That's six hours of sleep, uninterrupted. That may not sound like much to some of you, but that's actually about the best night's sleep I've had in two weeks.

I woke up this morning feeling rested.

Feeling rested.

For the first time in two weeks.

I hardly knew what to do with myself.

So, of course, I took some cold meds because I can't kick this cold (or maybe allergy season has already started, which I don't want to think about) and that knocked me back towards drowsy. Alas. I guess just a bit more caffeine to get me moving again.