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It was one of those days…I had office hours with three different teachers today.  That’s way too much emotional chaos for anyone to deal with in one afternoon.

In Voice/Verse today, we did good stuff with sonnets, but it was V/V, intense as always.  In Scene Study, Dan and I worked our scene, and Craig told me that it’s moving in the right direction but not there yet.  Then I went to office hours with Lizzie, and she gave me feedback on my work.  She said that she liked me in Web, which turns out to be a big compliment because she hated the show.  She said I was one of two actors she could hear, and that she liked my physical choices, but why weren’t they bigger?  And that lead into a conversation about my work in general, that I’m a great actor from the shoulders up but I have a total disconnect from the rest of my body.  I don’t remember exactly what she said that made me cry, maybe that there’s lots of great work around for dramaturgs.  I made it clear that I didn’t want to be a dramaturg, but rather, an actor, and she said, OK, then you have to get at the emotional guts of the work, and you do that through the breath.  And we worked on that for a while, and eventually I got it, I was breathing into my whole back and it was amazing and natural and beautiful, but I don’t know how I did it which means I don’t know how to reproduce it.  And she said, yes, it’s going to be like that.  You can’t do this work the way you do all your other work.  She actually called me a shirker, to shock me into emotion and make me breathe, which was successful as a tactic indeed.  I’m not sure exactly what I came away with, except that it’s OK to be the person I was when I was 12, the person who was sensitive and illogical and passionate and warm.  The person everyone told me it wasn’t safe to be.

Then I went to tap class, which was a lot of fun today.  I’m in Tap III, and I’m keeping up!  Hurrah for that!  Then I went to office hours with Marie (actually, I think that was before tap, but whatever) to check out a script from her and to ask her to recommend me for London.  She got really excited to hear that I was applying to London, which was great — I was worried that any teacher I asked to recommend me would say that they thought I shouldn’t go.  Because I’m behind because of evals…I’ve been over this before.  But she said that I need to go, I for me need to go.  And that I’m doing good work and moving in the right direction for evals, absolutely.  And then I felt better.

Then I had coffee with a senior named David who I hadn’t talked to for a while, and that was nice but no big deal.  Then I went to office hours with Craig.  Craig told me, first off, that he enjoyed Web very much and that he saw me very clearly doing all the work that he teaches.  He said I was sensitive, aware, connected with the other actors, living out moments, and doing all-around good work.  Which made me extremely happy.  He actually said I was doing the best work of anyone in the cast, with Dan K not far behind.  And then he said that in his class I’m not there yet.  We had a long talk about Ikke, Ikke, Nye, Nye, Nye.  He gave me the scene to make me find freedom in my body and sexuality.  And so far I’m still in the box, I’m still stuck in the same problems I had that failed my evals.  He gave me some very important tips about the scene that I’d completely missed, and I think I can fix it.  If I’m willing to.  He said he was sorry, he said he knew what it would cost me to make this shift, and that it would hurt.  He threw one of his regular sayings at me, what are you willing to give up in order to win?  What will it cost?  I nodded, to show I would think about it, and he said, your self-image.  That’s what you’ll have to give up.  And he’s right.  I cannot do this work and stay the calm, self-possessed, mature, wise, slightly intimidating, disciplined person I have worked so hard to become.  He said a lot of things.  Things designed to hit me where it hurts.  He said that, when Graham finally sleeps with Edith, she will cry and cry and cry because no one has ever told her that she’s sexy before.  He said that she doesn’t think she’s sexy either, and she needs the intimacy, she needs him.  I hadn’t thought of it that way before.  As Anna pointed out later, she’s me, just she picks the opposite strategy to deal with it.  Can I do this?  Yes.  Will I do this?  Well, I have to.

At this point, I believe it’s possible that I could pass my MT evals and still fail my acting.

I did not cry in front of Craig.  I haven’t since freshman year.  He did tell me that if I cry in this scene, it will be excellent.  It will be hilarious, because her pain is funny, but it will be good work.  I wonder if I can get there.  It means totally rethinking everything.  I can do it.  I have to do it.

After this summer, I can do anything.  I just have to keep reminding myself of that.

–Stephanie

PS Who has a crush on Robbie?  I have a crush on Robbie.