The Half-Blood Prince
Tonight was Writing Five rehearsal week 3. I was surprised to see a couple of the people off-book already. If by "surprised" I meant "made to feel guilty" then I was right. It's weird, while I understand wanting to get off-book as soon as possible, I think it's a stupid idea to get off-book this early. Reason 1) As we're trying to learn blocking, you're going to try to be off book? I think that's a little too much for one person's mind to take. Besides, there were a couple times, in one scene, when I didn't get my cue to fall because Jen was trying to be off-book already. Reason 2) The writers aren't done with re-writes. I'm not averse to adding or taking out a line or two... but we're talking, in some cases, about whole half-pages changing--dialog added or subtracted or changed--and it's just not worth it to me to invest that much mental energy to memorize when I might have to re-learn it in another week or two. I think, after this next rehearsal when all (or most) of the scenes are blocked is when I'll start memorizing. But I hate trying to memorize before I can see the blocking in my head. I just can't do it. Additionally, this week begins a few weeks of long periods of sitting and waiting while other scenes are being blocked. So there were a few times during the rehearsal where I sat and watched for a while. Add to all this my realization that I've skipped the "trying to be nice so Kim will like me" phase, and gone straight into the "I'm going to be playfully mean to you because I know we won't ever date" phase. There were a few times tonight when I found myself thinking "what am I SAYING? That's not very nice! Lay off, ass!" In addition to the addition, Jen, one of the actors in the show, is psychotic. She paces back and forth before rehearsal and then stretches... she doesn't talk to anyone, but rather, spends her time saying her lines out loud in a mumbling fashion like a real psychopath. This, in my opinion, wouldn't be so bad if she was a good, solid method actress. But she's not. She's one of those "look at me I'm ACTING!" actresses. I've had this conversation multiple times, and I know it's a "style" of dramatic acting but it's an easy style and something I'm not all that interested in seeing on stage... um... ever. So it'll be really interesting to see how (or if) I work well with her on stage. My guess is that it's going to be a challenge. And it'll also be a challenge for me to act as though I'm receiving fellatio on stage. Um... yeah. Challenging and embarrassing. Right.

While on Amazon.com today, I found something interesting: Book 6! The Half-Blood Prince is scheduled to be released in mid-July of this year... which seems quick to me, since book 5 took Rowling like eight years to write. And I don't care if this sounds lame or not, but I can't wait for book 6 to come out. I will, most probably, have to reread book 5 again before six come out. And, hell, we might even see book 4, The Goblet of Fire, on the silver screen before the next book comes out. I love Harry Potter books and I don't care who knows it!

#5 Post of 2004 - Laura's Villanelle Speaking of Laura (what? Oh, Harry Potter... I get it now), the fifth best post of 2004 is without-a-doubt the villanelle I blogged on July 4th. Yes, I know that I didn't initially write it just for this blog, but I definitely finished it just for this blog. And the villanelle form is a difficult one, even if it didn't look like it was all that hard to do. Or even if it didn't look good. Or even if it was a shitty poem. Regardless of all this, it was hard, but I did it, and I like it. *wipes brow* Celebrate small victories!