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Acting:  Week 9 
(April 18-22, 2022)

Important topics/terms are in RED.

Google Classroom assignments are in BLUE.

If ABSENT you are REQUIRED to read / understand / do all activities posted for that day, even if it's not an "assignment".  Ms. Price provides ALL learning for absent students in a self-directed format below.

DAY 1:  

1.) Reviewed  the "world of the play" that we are reading in class (Yonkers, New York, 1942) and the character relationships established in the play's exposition.

2.) Learned about Freytag's Pyramid:  conflict & build 

  • Conflict = the first "significant event" in a story that "unlocks the plot"  (there will be MANY conflicts in most stories, but the first significant one typically is introduced as the main conflict that needs to be resolved before the story ends

  • Build = the "rising action" of the play (in theatre, this rising action in a scene or story is called "build")

3.) Read Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon together as a class.  If absent you MUST keep up with the reading of this play. (see below) 

Click the links below to read (in order) anything you've missed in class. 

DAY 2:  

1.) Reviewed:  Plot terms & definitions (inciting incident, exposition, conflict, build, crisis, climax, denouement)

2.) Read the play Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon.  If absent, you MUST read what we read in class.

Click the links below for each day's reading. 

DAY 3:  

1.) Discussed the question:  How does an actor know how to "play" a character from a script? 

  • There are 3 main ways we learn about our characters from a script:

    • What the playwright tells us about our character (Example:  ​"she's as warm and congenial as she is emotionally arrested")

    • What other characters say about our character (Example:  "She'd come out of that door with a limp and a cane and look like she was going to kill you.")

    • What a character says about him/herself (Example:  "Sometimes I get so confused I think I should carry an alarm clock")

2.) Read the play Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon.  If absent, you MUST read what we read in class.

Click the links below for each day's reading. 

DAY 4:

1.) Finished script (Lost in Yonkers)

2.) Ms. Price passed out monologues based on students' choices of character from Lost in Yonkers

3.) Chose a character to "work with" for a future monologue assignment/performance. 

  • Each student/actor must choose one of the following characters from Lost in Yonkers:  Bella, Grandma, Eddie, Louie, Jay 

  • You must choose your OWN gender (or your own gender identity) for this assignment, although girls are allowed to choose Jay if desired.

  • If absent, be sure to choose which character you'd like to work with, and Ms. Price will provide you with a monologue for that character next class (online).

4.) Completed a Google Form:  Monologue PRE-TEST Questions (if absent, complete this on your own; link to Google Form in Google Classroom)

5.) Prepared a monologue for your chosen character.  

  • Ms. Price passed out monologues based on students' chosen characters.

  • Ms. Price gave class time to prepare your monologue

  • Students recorded & uploaded 30 seconds of their prepared monologues (at the end of the hour).  

  • This activity is your PRE-TEST for our next project:  Monologue Performance  (We will work on characterization this unit to help grow your actor choices and performance techniques.)

6.)  Participated in an Observe/Infer activity (Google Classroom Reflection Journal - week 9) in which we observed the body positions and physical choices of various actors playing characters from Lost in Yonkers, then inferred what was being communicated to an audience about that character through the actors' choices.  (If absent or quarantined, you do NOT need to complete this activity.)

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