As a member of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, I feel lucky I worked with two entirely queer teams for On The Nose and All The Light. The spaces created in rehearsals felt safe; it was nice to be around people who had real world empathy for the characters’ emotions and experiences. Whether mustering the courage to come out to your parental figure, or feeling like you do not fit in where you always fit before, our characters were exploring themes that we, as actors and directors, had personal connections with. Queerness often feels heavy when it is shown on stage. The marginal amount of representation we get in the media often focuses on hardships that queer people go through, most frequently on the struggles around coming out. One of the main goals, if not the main thrust of the work that Jonah was striving for during his writing process centered around showcasing queer joy on stage. To have a fun, queer production filled with queer history easter eggs, clowning, and ‘orrible French accents that also showcased the joys of friendship and following dreams. I think the lightheartedness of the script contributed to the positive energy in the space. This lightheartedness and positive energy in turn contributed to our final product- an unabashed celebration of queer joy and how being different is cool.

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In character development, music has always been an important influence for me. I like to listen to music I think the character would like, atmospheric music that reminds me of the show, while doing character work or while warming up. I was thrilled for the prospect of storytelling through the piano, because I enjoy composing. This piece presented an intriguing challenge to see how connecting my character to an instrument would influence my embodiment and experience of creating a character. Previously, when creating a character and incorporating music, I would imagine the music they listen to and it might influence how I moved, or the way the character thought about romance. It usually stayed within the invisible work, the work kept in your back pocket for support during the performance. We also quickly made the decision that the piano would distinguish the multiple levels of reality within the piece, the distinction in music providing a clear change in realities. The piano’s ‘mood’ would represent the timbre of the story happening inside Leah’s head. Compositions with ethereal sounds and orchestrations were sweet memories and the clashing harsh, sharply discordant and tense motifs were her intrusive thoughts.

Silence was her reality - since her grandmother was dead and the music had left her life.

With Leah, the piano moved her through her deep connection with the instrument. It was immediately apparent to me, as the actor, that she felt this connection not just to the piano, but how the piano kept the memory of her grandmother close. Her grandmother, Vera, taught her to play and instilled a love for music that rooted deep within Leah. She communicates through the songs she writes, they act as words when she can’t speak. The piano also provides a sense of otherness, because the music is only in her head. The compositions entangled themselves in the world we built, creating atmosphere and manipulating tension- unspoken communication underneath movement sections where words were not enough. 

In total, I composed 14 pieces of music for All The Light That Passes Through. I am proud of myself; this was my composition of a musical score for a full length show. Of course, I must give proper credit to Arif Silverman, who added the atmospheric components of my compositions, layering ethereal sounds and beautiful orchestrations on top to help establish a musical language for our story. Allowing my character to say what she wanted through music, wordlessly contributing to most scenes by underscoring what was being said, emphasizing the emotional rise and fall with music, was exciting as a creative and as an actor. I felt composing added a completely new dynamic to crafting our story, which opened up new ways of thinking about Young Woman and how she moves through the world of our show. It loosened her up; I felt her become a more empathetic, understanding, and vulnerable character through her music.

“For Stanislavsky, the importance of collaborative creativity was so great that “anyone who marred the ensemble was committing a crime against the very art that he or she served." A strong ensemble can provide the most delicious of working environments.” (Merlin, 2001, p. 100) 

It was really important in two of the case studies (the last one being exempt because I was the only performer) to have a very strong ensemble in order to create a truthful sharing. The serendipitous thing about All The Light and On The Nose was that both projects were seeking to explore the process of collaborative creation that happened to culminate in performance, more so than creating with the goal of staging the perfect concept of “bringing the interior to the exterior” or a perfectly staged queer identity. So within these processes, as actors we were able to focus on having a healthy rehearsal environment. Throughout both projects, we did daily check-ins and check outs, individual warm-ups, and physical warm-ups together to lead us into whatever we were working that day. 

Included below are some direct quotes I read about ensemble building that influenced my attitude towards building an ensemble and creating as an ensemble within these two cases, along with some notes with thoughts I had while reading. 

“The paradox of this simplicity is that it illustrates the degree of complexity involved in truthful on-stage dialogue. What quickly becomes apparent - if you work attentively in developing an ensemble - is that it's not just your partner who affects your psycho-physicality: the acting space itself gives you a huge amount of information.” (Merlin, 2001, p. 120)

“It was a matter of being attentive to the way in which the space expanded and contracted as they approached and retreated from each other, and how that changing distance informed the communication between them. Through paying limitless attention to each other, they were to determine their relative status and dynamics, and to move anywhere in the space according to their inner impulses. It might well be that neither person would feel the desire or the need to move at all, in which case they could simply stand still. Nonetheless, this stillness should be active and receptive, alert to any changing energy which might then inspire either party to move.” (Merlin, 2001, p. 121)

By working with what you’re bringing into the space and what the space is offering your mood, your performance will be more truthful. Yes, your partner is important and you have to pay attention to them, but you can’t expect them to be able to feed you everything you need in a scene. You must take in all the other influences within the space- which will affect your mental and physical state of being as a character. Read the space that exists between you and your partner- acting is enactment, acting is doing something to someone else, acting is the exchange of energy between two people. 

“All they were doing was giving out and receiving psycho-physical information through their eyes, their bodies and their energy centres. The actor had to be so simple. It's back to Grotowski's idea of the via negativa - the elimination of blocks. It's a question of the actors surrendering their desire to demonstrate or act the externals and, instead, releasing themselves to what's really going on inside the relationship.” (Merlin, 2001, p. 122) 

By eliminating blocks, or finding a headspace where the actor is refraining from doing things rather than trying to do them, an ensemble can come to life and become vibrant in front of an audience. Simplicity in building relationships is the best route. Don’t be afraid to not act the external, but to trust that the inner world and character work that you’ve done with support and guide you through your choices in the scene. Allow yourself to be open to new interpretations of lines in scenes and surprise yourself with the choices you make. Release yourself to your instincts. 

It’s important to define the terms Actor versus Artist in the way they will be used throughout this thesis. I think Artist can be defined as many things, a multi-hyphenate, a singer-dancer-choreographer, a director-writer-producer, an actor-composer-puppeteer, someone with distinct, and many labels. Artist can also mean a creative, someone who explores many forms of art, but who floats between all and doesn’t like labels or someone like me who would say they are an actor first and an artist second. Above, when I wrote, “I began grad school with the goal of improving as an actor, as an artist,” I meant it in such a way of extending my labels, making myself a multi-hyphenate through furthering my education in many disciplines. For the purposes of this reflection, while actor does mean artist as well, to me the terms can go hand in hand or artist can be used as an umbrella term. 

In the past two years as a member of this graduate program, I was given an abundance of information and tools to use that my actor’s process could not fit it all. When I thought of my process and practice as an actor, I felt jumbled and disorganized. Imagine the actor’s toolbox, but completely stuffed to the brim, unable to close, with different methods hanging out the top or falling onto the floor. I thought there needed to be or was a single right answer to creating an actor’s process even if the process might vary from individual to individual or from project to project. I believed that most actors had a set process, and it was up to me to do some detective work and find my own right way, my own set process.escription

For me, it was essential to differentiate between process and practice very early on: practice is the routine/ritual/methodology you take part in prior to coming into the collaborative space like background research, reading the script three times, Stanislavsky seven questions, writing down what is said about your character, etc., while process is less definitive, more fluid. In a way, process could be defined as discovering the character through movement work or viewpoints exercises, or also as constant and relentless personal reflection, analysis, and expansion. I then had the question of my research approach: how would I investigate and explore my questions? What’s the best way to see how an actor’s process and practice changes within the framework of this project? I began researching different methodologies to inform my practice and review, and thinking about the different ways I could actively research these questions.

I read Bella Merlin’s Beyond Stanislavskyto better understand the actor’s process through reading about an extension of Stanislavsky training and how it affected characters Merlin created, and the work she did going forward. I was able to connect several of the exercises we did (such as guided memory exercises, contact improvisation, and deep investigation of character) to teachings from Merlin’s book. As I began working on practical implementation and reflection, I continued to read and research material from authors such as Phillip Zarilli, Jerri Daboo, and Rebecca Loukes of whom wrote about the psychophysical phenomenon which “marks the dialectical engagement of the actor’s bodymind in the inner and outer processes that constitute specific approaches to acting.” (Zarrilli, 2013, p. 9) This helped me expand my knowledge on creating a fully embodied and holistic practice as an actor.