Monday, December 18, 2006
Where I'm in Stephen Fry's acting class
I dreamed I signed up for intermediate acting at the college, and it turned out it was being taught by Stephen Fry. I looked him up online because I thought he was still doing his TV show QI in England, and Wikipedia said, yes, he was, but when he wasn't over there he was teaching college in the States. So I figured, hey, cool, that works, and went to the class. (A few times Hugh Laurie wandered by to visit and sit in on the classes. One of those times he was wandering around the cafeteria looking lost and I asked him if he was looking for the acting class. He said yes, and followed me down to where the class was.)
Our first assignment was really more like the performance of lit assignment - we had a book of poems and we had to choose one of them and recite it. I chose one that, turns out, was written by Stephen himself. I told Dad, "That way he'll tell me what it means and I won't have to come up with my own interpretation!" The poem started off with a line about little yellow hard hats bobbing in the darkness, and there was a verse later on about little ducks. I asked him what it meant and he went on a long rampage about nuclear war. Then he told me that this poem would be more effective if I dressed in a cowboy outfit and recited it in a southern accent, so I said okay.
Then it was the day of the performance. I was sitting with my mom and dad watching the other performances (and, actually, so were a LOT of people, despite the fact that it was just supposed to be a small assignment). Suddenly I realized that we hadn't had ANY practice days between my assignment and the performance, and I hadn't memorized any of my poem. I wondered if I could go and memorize it really fast, or maybe print it out and read it instead of reciting it.
I ran off to a computer lab to print it, but when I came back, everyone was walking out of the theater. Turns out PJ was there, too, and for some reason was being *really* loud and disruptive and yelling greetings to people in the front row during the performances, and the police came and shut us all down. Stephen was very, very miffed about it but I thought, "Cool! Now I won't have to actually recite my poem!"
Our first assignment was really more like the performance of lit assignment - we had a book of poems and we had to choose one of them and recite it. I chose one that, turns out, was written by Stephen himself. I told Dad, "That way he'll tell me what it means and I won't have to come up with my own interpretation!" The poem started off with a line about little yellow hard hats bobbing in the darkness, and there was a verse later on about little ducks. I asked him what it meant and he went on a long rampage about nuclear war. Then he told me that this poem would be more effective if I dressed in a cowboy outfit and recited it in a southern accent, so I said okay.
Then it was the day of the performance. I was sitting with my mom and dad watching the other performances (and, actually, so were a LOT of people, despite the fact that it was just supposed to be a small assignment). Suddenly I realized that we hadn't had ANY practice days between my assignment and the performance, and I hadn't memorized any of my poem. I wondered if I could go and memorize it really fast, or maybe print it out and read it instead of reciting it.
I ran off to a computer lab to print it, but when I came back, everyone was walking out of the theater. Turns out PJ was there, too, and for some reason was being *really* loud and disruptive and yelling greetings to people in the front row during the performances, and the police came and shut us all down. Stephen was very, very miffed about it but I thought, "Cool! Now I won't have to actually recite my poem!"
Labels: dad, PJ, stephen fry
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