After a rather dull staff meeting at the restaurant Wednesday (note: there are no other kinds of staff meetings), I started to get them butterflies in my tummy…yes, it was acting class day again.  I tried to chill out with a coffee at Bridgehead, but that didn’t work.  First of all, coffee does NOT chill one out, as it happens, and then I got blindsided by an unexpected Nancy Kenny ninja flyby.  Seriously, she comes out of NOWHERE.  I think I only half came off as a stuttering idjit…I don’t think the comic book I was reading helped.

Now in a suitably dazed frame of mind, I booted out to Westboro for the OSSD and my second official entry level acting class.  Outside I met up with Simon, one of my classmates, on his bike…I’m starting to know people!  And once in, we all met our instructor, Barry Carp…he missed the first class for some personal affairs, but is now here to guide us along, and he’s already one of my fav’rit people ever.  The dude just exudes him some charm, and i think we all felt pretty comfortable in his hands.  Well, most of us. Because class got a LOT more physical this time out.

We started out doing some quick loosening up moves, before getting into exactly what I’d been hoping we’d get into…some mimework. I think I did pretty well making the little invisible stick go around in circles, and I nailed the flat surface thing…still have to work on my weightlifter (and I will).  Then he ran us through a few quick individual exercizes, mimicking this and that (a samurai, Stephen Harper, etc…), before evolving to groups works of the same thing…a two-person water fountain, five-person cow, and the entire class as a dragon.  It was pretty fun, and a nice way to start helping us get rid of those ‘personal space’ hangups that will necessarily have to be chucked out the window if we’re going anywhere at all.  Fun, and a little scary.  Awesome.

Next we formed groups of five, and Barry shouted out a movie title, and we had to form a live poster for that title.  And here a funny thing started to happen, that I had not expected.  More often than not, I found myself…taking the lead?  Being the, I don’t know…center of attention, even.  And loving the Hell out of it.  And as I was doing it, I realized that I had never really actually DONE that before.  I mean, I’ve been in school before, sure…but I’ve never LEARNED stuff about myself before.  And it’s only the second week!

After a short break, we got into the big finale for today.  Barry split the class into two teams, and we each got to put together a quick play/scene based around a few lines he fed us, and the title ‘Terrible Dan McGraw’.  We workshopped shit around for a few minutes, adding our own touches.  I got to be the sheriff, and Surprised Sass (still working on some of those real names, obviously) was the titular Dan McGraw.  She and I had a pretty wicked cool scowl-off during our showdown…before she stole my gun and blew me and my admiring waitress to kingdom come.  I got to fall down a lot between rehearsal and performance, which was great fun.  And the other team’s show was dandy too….a great bit with the piano player (they had the side of the room with the piano, lucky bastiches) was the highlight for me.

We wound down with a quick game of tail-catching, at which I was spectacularly poor, before class broke and we headed our separate ways.  I left that place on such a high I could hardly believe it.  I’m already wondering if it’s too soon to sign up for the 2nd level class, but you better believe I’ll be there.

Oh, and the bit about McGraw stealing my gun and shooting me with it..?  My idea.  Just sayin’.  See you next class,

The Visitor