Actorly Things
Added 2022-03-12 18:22:05 +0000 UTCThis week has been such an actor-filled week. My daytime hustle as a copywriter is for an agency, and sometimes talent is needed for product shoots. I was in two product videos this week. The above photo is from a location shoot.
Tonight is L'Heure Verte at Viva's Lounge. I have lines in a couple of scenes. (I guess the third-most lines in the show.) I'll be mic'ed up and wearing heavy skirts. I got a haircut a couple of weeks ago so I have to use some fake hair to suit the show. I'm excited that I don't have to wear fake eyelashes. (That glue is sometimes tricky to completely remove.)
I've been at home on the stage since I was five, and I learned some tricks for handling scripts when I was 15. For chunks of lines, I sometimes beat my script. It's not as intense as required in college. The beats (drawn lines) are for transitions in a scene. When motivations or topics change, the beats help. The phrasing of my lines isn't like my everyday speech.
With script beats, it's normal to give infinitive verbs to define the intended motivation or action for that beat: to comfort, to reassure, to enlighten, to advise. In college, we would always joke "my action here is to seduce," especially in the least appropriate scenes.
Another little actor-director trick is the speed-thru. The cast goes through all of the lines and blocking but at twice or thrice the speed. It's a great refresher when time has passed between rehearsals or shows. Mr. Snapper and I have two scenes together, so we've been speeding through at home.
I'm back to the burlesque focus after I sleep in tomorrow, but it's been fun revisiting the actor life for a minute.
