USC COMEDY YOUNG ALUM MIXER - An Opportunity Not To Be Missed

On Monday, April 1st, for the fourth year in a row, i will be hosting a panel of USC Comedy alumni who, though only having taken their degrees within the past six years, are gaining real traction in various aspects of our industry. These are your peers and - in their experience - they hold many answers to career questions you are pondering. After a short discussion, which I will moderate, we turn Stage 2 into a mixer where you are welcome to introduce yourselves to our guests and pursue your questions one on one. It is a great and fun event - don’t miss it!

Comedy YAM Flyer 2019.pdf

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STAGE DIRECTIONS and MEMORIZING LINES

STAGE DIRECTIONS

I want to continue trying to address the confusion surrounding stage directions. As I have said, there are several reasons we might find them untrustworthy. 1. Where do they come from? Sometimes they are important messages from the writer. Sometimes they find their way into a script as a notation made by the script supervisor describing the choices made by the actors or their director. Such an instance should be given less weight than author’s directions. Still, even in the case of directions given by the writer there are problems. Writers sometimes include the directions because they don’t trust the reader’s ability to understand a script (interns doing coverage, agents, studio executives, even directors and actors). This sort of defensive directions usually involve giving the obvious cliche choice e.g. “They sit.” Must they sit? Maybe yes, maybe no. Sometimes writers actually write in how the character feels e.g. “angry”, or indicate behavior like “sighing”, or “brightly”. I try to take these out so they don’t clog the actors’ imagination. 2. And then there is the problem of where on the two-dimensional piece of paper the stage direction appears. The writer can’t - and shouldn’t try - to achieve any exactitude with a direction like “Miles raises his hand.” In this instance the director must understand that the writer is telling us something something that must happen, but not exactly when and how it should happen.

So some directions are best eliminated or ignored, and others must be addressed. The answer to the question “which are which” comes through understanding which are necessary for the action and also which are necessary to motivate an actor’s saying a line. Adam must raise his hand for Dr. Ross to (eventually) say “Yes?”. Sometimes a line is mysterious and the answer may be found in the stage direction. Why at the end of a scene does Jack say to Miles, “ Do you read me?” and then “I’m warning you?” with nothing uttered in between? Immediately before the line “I’m warning you?” the stage direction indicates that Miles signals a waitress. Why does he do that? We don’t know…but what we do know is that he has not stated his agreement to Jack’s plan. By signaling the waitress he is showing that he is ignoring Jack. That’s why Jack says “I’m warning you.” How do we figure that out? By trial and error in rehearsal. We do the thing and then try to figure it out.

MEMORIZING LINES

Finally a word about lines in rehearsal. There is no necessity for an actor to work from memory in rehearsal. Actors work off the text all the time. They should be getting increasingly familiar and comfortable with their lines, but rehearsal are not a test of memorization. They are a process of exploring and excavating the action of a scene.

CONGRATULATIONS ON GROUP A’s FIRST REHEARSALS!

GREAT WORK!  Seriously! This week’s work included some of the very best first in-class rehearsal sessions I’ve ever had.

Most of you cast very well and made very good starts on realizing your scenes. Bravo!  This is a great place to build from.

I want to urge you not be discouraged by what may sound like a strong criticism of your first efforts. I was critiqued that way --- (rougher actually). I teach the way I was taught at Yale School of Drama, and it has served me in good stead.  Still, I realize it can take some getting used to.  I, of course, have no idea of the style of your other professors, so I don’t know what you are accustomed to.  To my mind you are seniors or graduate students and will soon be going out into the profession. The standards, at this point, should be high, or else SCA is cheating you.

 It is possible that when faced with realistic professional expectations some of you will decide that you don’t want to direct, or possibly don’t even want to pursue a film career.  If you reach that conclusion, your money will have been well spent and you will have saved yourselves years of pain and disappointment. 

But my hope is that you will be inspired by the standards to redouble your efforts to “beat the odds” in this business.  If so you will be armed with the knowledge of what it will take.

Whatever the outcome, I hope this class will be useful to you, and not a waste of your time.

I’m looking forward to Group B!

 

 

 

READ MORE CAREFULLY

Several of you have turned in First Reflections that did not follow the instructions in the assignment. A few have come to Scene Analysis meeting having prepared the wrong thing.

Please read the assignments carefully before doing them.

PLEASE HAVE PATIENCE  

PLEASE HAVE PATIENCE

Some of you are getting impatient – with yourselves or with me.  You are frustrated that you are not entirely “getting” some of the concepts that have been introduced so far.  

Remember please that I warned you this would happen. 

Things will become much clearer when we see these concepts applied in our in-class rehearsal which begin next week.  That’s the beauty of this course – you won’t be left with an abstract, intellectual construct  - you will have the opportunity to try to apply these principles, to see others wrestle with them, and to see me work with them with the actors you’ve brought in.

So please be patient a little while longer…the fun begins next week!