Week 5:
Fly Me To The Moon!

July 14, 2021

This week flew by! I had a wonderful 4th of July holiday weekend. My friend Zakki Ali from Cornell came to visit on Saturday and stayed through Monday, and Kinnedy, one of my best friends from high school, arrived in New York this weekend for a film program she is taking part in during July. Zakki and I had dinner together on my apartment’s rooftop and took a walk down to the Piers that evening. The next day we went to Queens to go thrift shopping at the Unique! I’ve now been to every borough in NY, which is exciting and feels like a big accomplishment! Later that evening, we went to Bushwick (Brooklyn) for a rooftop firework party for the 4th! It was so beautiful and surreal to be surrounded by fireworks on every side from all different distances! 

Classes are beginning to wrap up as we prepare for our final performances in week 6. We had our final Musical Theater History and Song Analysis and Business of Acting classes this week. I really enjoyed these two classes and will miss having them. Our final Tuesday Masterclass was with Broadway veteran and Tony award winner Lindsey Mendez! I am such a huge fan of hers, so it was really impactful to watch and hear her perspective on the industry and her experience.

In virtual Movement Techniques class, we talked about some habits that Joanne has observed from watching us in our in-person class and then went through our floor warm-up and workout. In Voice and Speech, Christa had a long discussion about resonance and its importance in our work as Musical Theater artists. We had fun in our Storytelling Through Dance class with Vanessa Butler, meditating and exploring what it feels like to lead with different parts of our bodies while walking (chin, forehead, shoulder, hips, etc.). Later in the week, during our in-person Movement class, Vanessa gave us exercises in which we explored negative space and puppet improvisation. I really enjoyed these two exercises and how they helped us explore relationships and dynamics between people interacting.

We have been working a lot on our showcase scenes and on audition techniques. In Interpretation and Performance class, we rehearsed our group scenes. My group went last, and I think it was our strongest rehearsal yet! Dev gave us some more outstanding and specific notes to tighten everything in our scene from The Full Monty and make it really intentional. My scene partner, Chloe, and I got some wonderful final feedback from Dev and our accompanist, Mark Fifer, on our Wicked scene, “For Good,” and feel like we are ready to perform it this coming week at the showcase! 

In  Acting a Song class, I sang  “Still Hurting” from The Last Five Years and got some really beneficial feedback from BD Wong and Mark Fifer on separating myself from the music being played. One of the most impactful lessons I’ve learned is how the music can be a trap for actors in Musical Theater because it is already playing the obvious emotion melodically. Our job as performers is to counteract that and almost fight against it before landing there. There has to be a journey to get to the most obvious emotion that the music is evoking. 

We were given a self-tape assignment in our Audition Skills and Strategies class this week.  I decided to record and submit a video of me singing Carole King’s “I Feel The Earth Move.” Before performing our song choices for feedback in class, we spent the first part discussing our self-taping assignment. It was fascinating to hear everyone’s different experiences and methods for self-taping, as that is becoming more and more a staple in this industry for submitting auditions. I feel like I learned a lot about what works with what I did and where I can grow in the future.

The weekend once again brought the opportunity to relax a bit and spend time with friends. I hung out with my friend Kinnedy in Brooklyn on Saturday. Then on Sunday, I had brunch and ran errands with some classmates. This is the home stretch of my program, and I am so thankful for the opportunity to be a student at Stella Adler. I am so excited to see where this week takes us!!