RADA Week 2

RADA Week 2

Another phenomenally exhausting week training with wonderful teachers alongside inspiring and passionate classmates! Here's a recap of the class work we did in week number two:

Shakespeare Workshop

My favorite class changes every day, but Shakespeare Workshop, an intensive with each group's respective director of their final productions, very often comes out on top. We continued to explore various Shakespeare texts with Nick Hutchison in our second week. Nick takes the text apart, breaking it down and analyzing things I had never realized were of any particular importance. He then puts the speech or scene back together, allowing us to watch the piece transform after adding all of this new information - a most rewarding and illuminating experience. This is just one of so many things Nick has opened our eyes to thus far:

* Addressing the audience is used in specific moments and by specific characters. If/when a character speaks to the audience, they are creating a direct relationship with them, automatically winning their trust and approval. (E.g. Iago, constantly downstage chatting it up with the audience versus Othello, constantly upstage center near the throne, in a place of power and detachment from the audience. What does this mean in terms of their characters? Who are we meant to develop a relationship with and, therefore, who are we meant to root for?)

Movement Tutorials

I cannot stress enough how much I value these individual work sessions. In week two, we worked with Katya, the Alexander/Laban teacher, for fifteen minutes each. In these sessions, we simply lie on the floor, think about steam rising from the tops of our heads, among other similarly bizarre images, and we almost inevitably walk out of the studio completely different people, in terms of our physical bodies, at least. Though, as a side note, I do happen to believe that physical freedom and alignment transform one's spiritual/emotional life in terms of human transparency and openness. I always sort of felt that way, but this has been proven to me rather indisputably through Alexander work. 

Character in Text

As I go through my journal and my class schedule (charmingly pronounced shed-ule here in the UK), it becomes even clearer to me that I have so many "favorite classes." Character in Text, like Shakespeare Workshop, is frequently somewhere near the top of my favorite list. There is no doubt in my mind that our teacher Hilary knows absolutely every detail about every Shakespeare work in existence and, consequently, every character within these works. Our one and a half hour class consists of a ridiculously in-depth conversation about two or three characters of our choosing. We enter class having scoured the pages for as much information as possible on these characters and leave with mounds of detailed textual evidence and an entirely new perspective on who these people truly are. Hilary never fails to gently and insightfully illuminate our tendency to gloss over important details in the text, often found in Shakespeare's use of a single word in a seemingly off-hand remark. Week two brought a detailed description and analysis of the Elizabethan education system and what that meant for several of Shakespeare's characters. 

Alexander 1/2

As mentioned above, Alexander has been sort of life changing for me. The main concept that changed my world is the idea that I don't have to hold my body up myself. That may sound strange, but with many years of dance training comes this notion that good alignment is hard work and involves a great amount of muscle engagement. Certainly, you must find breath within this "hard work," but you're doing a whole lot. Alexander classes have opened my eyes to the fact that I don't actually have to do anything to be in good alignment in terms of the actor's body. My spine holds my body up on its own, and all of my bones and muscles hang down "long and heavy" from my spine, like a skeleton hanging from its stand. This has been huge for me. 

Stage Fighting

What a blast this class is! We worked on various hand-to-hand combat basics in our second week with Bret. I learned how to punch someone in the face (and stomach!), how to slap someone across the face, and how to strangle and be strangled, all without injuring, and in most cases, without even touching, my wonderful friends and classmates. We'll be incorporating these movements, among many others, into our choreographed fight scene to be presented several weeks from now. 

Singing

We started working on our very first madrigal song as a group in our second week of classes! We didn't get terribly far with it yet, as there is a mix of levels in terms of familiarity with reading music. However, we are all really looking forward to digging into these gorgeous songs. 

Sonnets

Another class I'm tempted to call my favorite! I'm sort of obsessed with Shakespeare's sonnets, I'm discovering. The romantic in me dies for these stunningly articulated poems, but honestly, it's the sonnets that reveal some deeper truth, often not concerning love at all, that really get me. 

Laban

In week two, we continued to explore the directives we found in week one (weight, time, space, and flow > strong/light, staccato/sustained, direct/indirect, and free flow/bound flow), combining them in various equations to create more specific actions. (E.g. strong + direct + sustained = press) We then went through various texts, exploring how these actions might affect us.

Acting Shakespeare

We have been breaking down Hamlet's many soliloquies with Nona, and we will continue to do so for quite a while, I believe. These speeches are the perfect microcosmic representations of the greater world of Shakespeare, and Nona is taking full advantage of that. From explorations of physicality to those of voice, situation, emotion, and the like, we're tearing these classic words apart and making sense of them in a refreshingly tangible and cohesive way. 


My second weekend in London brought a day of exploring the craziness that is Harrod's, a Saturday night at a most fabulous terrace party, and a Sunday of laundry, grocery shopping, and… you guessed it! SHAKESPEARE. Lots and lots of Shakespeare. 

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The last thing I feel compelled to include is the rhythm of London I feel I'm becoming a part of, in some very small way. I see the same people as I walk to the tube station every morning - like the shaggy blonde-haired man wearing a suit that seems not to match his laid-back personality at all and a pair of brand new red sneakers that don't match his personality either, but in a different way than that of the gray suit - and I've started to feel like I'm a part of something really cool. Yes, RADA. And yes, the Acting Shakespeare Course. But also, London. And that's pretty amazing. I find myself counting my blessings at the end of every day and feeling consistently overwhelmed by the number I come up with. That's a truly phenomenal feeling to fall asleep with. And it makes for some very sweet dreams. 

RADA Week 1

RADA Week 1

Well... week one of eight is complete, and I couldn't be more excited for what's to come. This course is incredibly intense and we certainly don't waste any time. After all, they've fit the entire year of classical training from their BA program into just eight weeks. 

Every day, I feel more and more fortunate to be among such inspiring actors, working with such brilliant faculty. Here's a little recap of the classes we took this week:

Monologues for the RADA Faculty on Day 1

This was quite the experience to start the eight weeks with, but was far less terrifying than I had envisioned it would be. We began the morning with a warm up and welcome from Nona Shepphard, the main course director, who prepared us physically and vocally to begin exploring the characters we were about to step into the shoes of. She then had us explore our characters through the body of an animal, moving from that exercise into an exploration of the physical relationship we had to our objective, placing what we wanted on one side of the room and what we feared on the other. Lastly, Nona asked us all to line up and come to the center of the room one by one. She wanted us to introduce our characters, state what we wanted and what we feared, and then to allow that introduction to propel us into the first line of the speech. We all went through this exercise, Nona giving us small adjustments and suggestions as we went along. And then it was time for the faculty to watch. A long line of primarily older, dauntingly Shakespearean men and women trailed into the room, taking their places to begin taking notes on our habits, vocal issues, alignment problems, and the like. This was terrifying at first, but turned out to be so much less so because of Nona's exploration-based, "let go of your inhibitions" warm up.

Laban

Laban is taught by Katya Benjamin, a soft-spoken, heart-centered, self-professed non-expert when it comes to Laban. Katya's focus is Alexander, but she has been teaching Laban for somewhere around eight years. In this class, we explored our physical bodies in terms of weight (strong/light), time (staccato/sustained), space (direct/indirect), and flow (free flow/bound flow), and applied these movement qualities to the speeches we had done for the faculty earlier in the day.


Monologues

We had our first monologue class, an introduction to the work we will begin later on in the course. We are separated into four groups for this class, rather than the usual two, giving us more of an opportunity to work one-on-one. My group has Lois Baxter, the utter picture of a strong Shakespearean female. We were each given two pieces that day from which to choose, exploring them through punctuation. I received Isabella from Measure for Measure (To whom should I complain...) and Joan La Pucelle from King Henry VI Part 1 (Dauphin, I am by birth a shepherd's daughter...) I have always wanted to work on Isabella, but La Pucelle is sort of terrifying to me, in the best possible way, so I think I'm leaning towards that one at this point. 


Character in Text

This class is going to be an incredible ride. Taught by Hilary Wood, Character in Text is an in depth exploration of Shakespearean characters, getting all of the information about said characters solely from the text. For any WebCo friends who may be reading this, this class is the closest thing we have to text analysis. Hilary suggests we begin by looking at how the character responds to things and what specific things the character responds to. She then wants us to delve into the facts presented in the play regarding our character and their life, and finally, says that the character's manner of speaking, tells you almost everything you need to know. The similes, metaphors, adjectives, adverbs, and rhythm, among other language characteristics, were chosen by Shakespeare with great care and give the actor a map of exactly who this human being is. She asked us to choose a character to analyze in as in depth a way as possible, hoping that by focusing our attention on one character and learning as much as we can about them, we will have a sort of blueprint for the analysis of characters we may play in the future. I have chosen Isabella from Measure for Measure. 


Alexander 1/2

We actually have two separate Alexander classes in the curriculum, taught by two different teachers. Katya, who also teaches Laban, teaches Alexander 1, which encompasses a lot of movement exploration, including some truly wonderful free dancing to The Andrews Sisters, which she swears is the best exercise for the body and spirit. Dewi Matthews teaches our Alexander 2 class, which is more focused, at least right now, on building a solid knowledge of the anatomy, which we can then apply to the very specific alignment adjustments Alexander Technique exercises are sure to bring.

Stage Fighting

Brett Yount, our only teacher from America, teaches our combat class which, because of the space we have available, will focus on hand-to-hand rather than rapier/sword work. We spent the entire first class with him, the only one we had in the first week, planning out the combat scene we'll be working on for showings at the end of week six. Every group is doing the opening scene from Romeo and Juliet, but we were each asked to come up with a different setting and situation that allows for some serious combat creativity. My group chose airplane passengers vs. stewardesses, with the first class passengers intervening in the first attempt to end the fight, and the pilots intervening in the second and final attempt to end the fight. This should be a blast.

Voice Tutorials

Each week, we have individual sessions with different members of the RADA faculty to get feedback on our work so far and to hear a few things to start thinking about in the weeks to come. Our tutorials this week were with Adrienne Thomas, voice teacher and Linklater specialist. She gave me some incredibly helpful exercises in hopes of alleviating some of my tongue and jaw tension, and worked with me on my breathing in relation to the audition piece I did at the beginning of the week.

Shakespeare Workshop

In the first week, we were introduced to our directors for the final performances at the end of the eight weeks. In our two separate groups, we will each rehearse and perform a Shakespeare play in roughly 10 days. My group will be working with the incredible Nick Hutchison, and I couldn't be more excited to find out what piece we'll be exploring.

Acting Shakespeare

This class, taught by Nona, the director of the course I mentioned earlier on, is sort of a mixture of many different techniques, as Nona sees a need for them. We spent the entire first class with her playing focus games and working on an epic tongue-twister. I'm ecstatic to see what she throws at us next.

Singing

A short and sweet introduction to singing was led by Andrew Charity in our first week. We will be working on various madrigal  songs throughout our time here, preparing us for the possibility of a musical component in our final productions.

Voice into Text

Andrew Cuthbert teaches a class focused on finding our vocal tensions and making it a habit to check in with these tensions "with our third eye" as much as is necessary. We did lots of vocal and physical explorations in the first class as a sort of introduction to his style. We will then build on that foundation, transferring what we learn about our voices in explorative exercises into our texts (sonnets, monologues, scenes, and eventually, the text we speak in our final productions). 

Sonnets

This is one of the most simultaneously exciting and daunting classes we have, in my opinion. I have Bruce Alexander, a lively and incredibly knowledgable man, who took us through the basics of sonnets on day one, using Sonnet 27 as an example (Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed...). In the very last moments of class, Bruce assigned each of us a sonnet pretty randomly and asked us to memorize it for our next class. I received Sonnet 55, and am beyond thrilled to begin working on it! 

Period Dance

We spent most of our time in the first week finding "The Elizabethan Body" through Period Dance with the truly delightful Darren Royston. We moved quickly, going through about a century each day for one week, learning the history of the dances and then working on them ourselves. Darren had this magnificent way of engaging the class, inviting us to draw on any and all previous knowledge we might have had, and bringing it all together into a vivid snapshot of Shakespeare's England, and what seemed like everything that proceeded it. We finished the week with a one-hour Period Dance showing for the RADA faculty, followed by feedback and a quick discussion of all that we learned with Darren.
The weekend was full of good rest, good friends, good theatre, and some much needed wandering around London for the sake of getting my bearings. On Friday night, I saw She Stoops to Conquer, a brilliant RADA Third Year production. On Saturday, my good friend Ben and I decided we needed to do some good old-fashioned London sight-seeing. In the midst of it all, we happened upon a less old-fashioned sight to see: The World Naked Bike Ride, which is EXACTLY what it sounds like. That night, we saw Let The Right One In on the West End, a sort of thriller vampire play with lots of crazy special effects and a plot that brought a whole lot of things I wasn't expecting. After the show, we went to a pub over by RADA to watch the England vs. Italy game. And finally, Sunday was all about reading Shakespeare in Kensington Gardens with some friends from the course, as well as meeting my friends Matt and Jay, who are studying abroad in London this summer, for brunch and Portobello Market browsing. 


Week two is already underway, and it is just as exhausting as last week was. We cram so much into these days, but it's such a blessing to be here with such passionate humans, learning and exploring an art form we all so dearly love. 

And so it begins...

Dear friends!

Tonight I begin my journey to London. I'm still pinching myself, unsure of the reality of this incredible opportunity. I've truly been dreaming about studying at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art since I was twelve years old, and in a few short days, that dream will no longer be a distant imagining. I'm not sure how much time I'll have to update this blog, but I'm certainly going to do my best. While teaching in India, I found that blogging was a wonderful way to document my adventures for my own purposes of reflection, while also keeping my loved ones in the loop.

I'm overwhelmed with excitement as I finish packing my (rather heavy!) bags. However, that inevitable buzz one feels as they prepare to start something new seems minuscule in comparison to the gratitude I am also overwhelmed by. I feel so fortunate to have so many incredible human beings in my life who have made this journey possible. Be it a financial investment, time spent working on audition pieces, or simple words of support and encouragement, I cannot tell you how much all of your contributions mean to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you for every ounce of yourselves you have given to help me get to this point. I'm truly a lucky girl. 

So... here we go! I vow to be as sponge-like as one can possibly be during the next 8 weeks, making every experience, whether on the streets of London or in the studios at RADA, shape me into a smarter, stronger, more transparent human. 

So much love to you all!