kennyg

Hey everybody.

I just posted an intro here: http://www.actorsforum.com/t448-the-...alentquot.html

Anyway, here goes.

I was cast as Bert Cates in "Inherit the Wind" at a Charlotte community college. I have little acting experience (i did 2 high school musicals) but I want to do the best I possibly can.

The other actors are astounding and I hate to let them down. At the moment, the director says I lack the amount of energy, posture, and I punctuate too often.

I still have month left before the play; but I feel I need to find something outside of rehearsal to really nail the part. Energy is the thing I worry most about. Posture is something I can fix, and hopefully punctuation too. But energy...

I have a very laid-back personality. How do I overcome this? The director has told me of a few different exercises; namely pushing against a wall, or pulling a towel against another person while yelling for adernaline. I guess this isn't working enough though.

I can tell I'm not as good as my fellow actors and actresses. I don't want to let them down. Tommorow I plan on buying some books at B&N reguarding acting and reading them over the weekend.

Other then that and building adernaline, I'm unsure how to approach this. Remember, you're talking to someone who has basically no experience. I love acting and theatre... what do I do now?

SWK78

hello, kennyg

I am in a community play "Much Ado About Nothing" by William Shakespeare, and I have the most lines, bout a hundred or so. I find energy is the hardest part of staying alive on stage. Anyhoo, I have a remedy that works for me. Before I go on stage, I tell myself who I am, what I'm doing, and what I have to accomplish. And when I get out there, I'm on the top of my game. The key that works for me, is that you just need to stay in character, and keep telling yourself you're this character, and not who you are, because if you dont believe it, the audience wont believe a lick of what you're doing up there on stage. If you need something extra to liven yourself up then here you go:

Take a portable CD player with you on performance day, and before the show, listen to your favorite music or music that will juicey up your mobility and snap some pazazz into your step, but dont get out of character. This is just a way to loosen up and highten up before the lights even go up. Once the show begins, toss the player to the side (not literally of course) and just focus. Dont focus on the audience, focus on the players on stage. Then when you go out, give it your all. Be your character. That's all you gotta remember. Be the character. Even when you're off-stage. It's important.

Some of my credits for the West Virginia Theatre East community theatre group include:

*ANGIE in "I'll be Home for Christmas"
*LYDIA in "Dreams of Broadway" (our director wrote it)
-inside that play, I played *QUEEN TITANIA in a sequence from William Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream"
Played character *GOODY KNIGHT in a dinner theatre
NOW::: *DON PEDRO in "Much Ado About Nothing"

have you done anything else besides this play? tell me how it goes, OK?
our shows are this weekend...on 31st, 1st, and 2nd....
Luck to you, kennyg!!!!

SWK78

Thranduil

Hm .. if you need Energy and a good Push .. i would suggest you Jogging .. or Weight Lifting .. or maybe both in Combination .. before rehearsing a Scene ..

Running makes good Hormones shoot up to the Top .. makes you agile and enthusiastic ..

I would give it a try .. Doing Sports is good for Actors as well.

Wish you the best.

Annajane

I second jogging, or any kind of exercise...that gets the oxygen flowing.

Ziyad

Unless he's an expert director, I'm going to guess for a second that him suggesting you are low energy, while it might be true, is not going to be solved by being more energetic. You are you and you wouldn't be cast if you weren't fit for the role.

I think the underlying cause might be that you're not making the choices of high necessity in the play.

One time I was asked to play a boyfriend who would pick up his girlfriend from the airport, then ask her some questions about her trip, accuse her of never having been on a trip, then when she admits this, he becomes infuriated because he was making a wild guess. He breaks up, she leaves.

The actress decided that in her role, she didn't really love me, that she cheated because she was bored with me. This did not help the scene. Because she had no strong need in this scene, her acting was more laid back, more like a everyday conversation. Low energy. The director gave her a tip and afterwards it was much better, high energy.

What the director asked was: maybe she could try it again, this time really in love with me and sorry about cheating, which is why she lied, because she didn't want to lose me.