Week 1: Day 3

So my knee’s better. But my back and neck have been aching all day. Thankfully I’m not the only one!

This morning started with a Singing class. After some more work on our posture we were quickly into learning a jazzy a cappella song in 6-part harmony. Next time we need to take along some ideas for songs we can make ‘a cappella’, so any suggestions, bung ’em in a comment below.

After a break it was our Sightreading class which involved working on lifting a text off the page (as if for a read-through) by exploring the punctuation, layout, language etc to work out what the writer wants. It’s harder than you’d think!

The afternoon began with a Character class. The highlight was undoubtedly having to introduce an object to the class provided by someone else (keys, wallet etc) as if it was ours with some very special memories attached to it. The reasoning behind this was to help us explore how creating a character should include their attitudes towards other characters, props, the room they’re in and so on. Wasn’t something I’d thought about before, but it makes sense! There were a mix of serious and more humorous approaches. I had a pencil case so recounted the tale of when I used it as my hamster’s sleeping bag on a camping trip and how I used the post-it notes inside to cover the car of a very rude lady with the message:

“You’re a very rude lady”

None of it was true.

The final class of the day was Combat. We warmed up with what should have been a simple catching exercise but with the threat of press-ups and crunches hovering over anyone who dropped the ball, it became a matter of life and death! This week we began our combat training with throwing using the ‘victim’s’ shoulder, hair and/or ear and how to do it completely safely. It was going well until I got ‘thrown’ into our tutor… Luckily no press-ups this time!

Making good progress on learning my monologue for Friday but before then, tomorrow’s classes include TV and yoga. Separately, obviously.

Cheers then.