Rehearsal -- Monologues/Scenes/Cold Readings

OK -- The goal here is to keep track of 1) how I'm rehearsing for various things and 2) to note what's working and what's not

Monologue: Gabe -- Dinner With Friends. This, I think, will be a tough monologue to nail, but if I can nail it, it will great.

      I'm going to try to outline a general procedure for myself:

     Since I'm just starting out, the first step is grasp the content, the ideas, the intent of Gabe. Tonight it was just "pictures and words" (from Jack Poggi's The Monologue Workshop, chapter 7). Basically, I'm just alternating between taking-it-off-page (Guskin's approach), with the goal of personally connecting and grounding the text in my own real/imaginative experience, and improv. Taking-it-off the page helps with making things specific and real. Improving helps me to grasp the content/ideas before I find the exact words to express myself. Not sure how long I'll do this -- probably 2-3 more times.

    Idea -- for Gabe, things have been building (through most of the play) until the scene with his monologue, and Tom starts pushing buttons in this scene. I need to write out exactly what Gabe thinks of Tom, what he's done, how he feels about it. It doesn't say all this to Tom, but -- it comes though in the monologue: the end of a friendship.

   It's a sad, beautiful monologue -- or it will be beautiful if I can infuse it with hope near the end (my take on it all).

Sight-reading: Spent about 10-15min tonight. Do this every night. It's breathing, taking the phases off the page, and throwing them out, directing them to the listener. Hold the page up, no head bobbing. Keep practicing this until it's automatically nice and easy. It's not cold reading but it's handing the mechanics of it.