Ed Sherin
Fall 2007 Evaluation
Wonderful student with an unbounded willingness to adventure. I have known Gary from my previous “master class” and find him an important member of the workshop serving as a role model for younger members. He is ready to take on the rigors of a professional career and grows in self esteem and belief in his talent with each passing week. I look forward, eagerly, to the Spring term.
Submitted on 1/11/2008
Spring 2008 Evaluation
Updated 05/2009
I wish we had a set script. That was my biggest frustration in the spring semester. I truly and wholly wish the script was locked so we could have spent more time on the text as actors than censors, intellectuals, or philosophers. If you are told to say something as an actor, you say it. The words are not your own. Let em rip.
Instead we spent hours and hours and hours editing and revising and going over the edits and discussing the merits of the language, etc. etc. etc. It was tiresome.
The end result was very Ed Sherin. With very few moments ‘blocked’ the show became what it wanted to become every night. It was an experiment which was received as a full production. The theatre program has approached class projects in a different way – as I experienced this past month – which has and will benefit the performer and the audience.
Expectations are now on par with the time that was available to create a show. Something looks and sounds very different after 6-7 weeks compared to 2-3 weeks.
I do not know if/when I will have a chance to work with Ed again but I hope the chance does happen.
Personal Evaluation
I can’t help but think of the Tears for Fears song ‘Shout’ when I talk about or reflect on my experiences in this class. Often the song is compared to “Primal Therapy” – a means in which an individual evokes “repressed pain and trauma”. Some of the lyrics of ‘Shout’ are:
“Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things I can do without”
“…when you’ve taken down your guard”
In fall 2006 I worked with Ed in a scene with Anne Beaumont, a fellow grad student, on a 5 minute scene from ‘The Seagull’. In this experience I appreciated and found a great deal of intensity in the warm-up circle. In hind sight, the scene was fun to explore but I see that I had some reservations in regard to the intuitive nature of the work.
Afterward I worked with a small group of grad students and further experienced the intuitive work. For some time it was helpful but not necessarily life altering. One day something changed and I knew how this type of work could benefit me. The situation was that of Achilles explaining why he could not do something. The lines spoke truth but the emotion that came through was that of a lie. I was caught completely by surprise.
Soon after finishing the work with the other grad students it was announced that Ed Sherin would return to SLC in the fall. I knew I would benefit from the class and per conversations with Dave McRee and John Dillon it was a class I needed to fit into my schedule.
A semester and a half later I have a myriad of reactions to the work and the class.
To begin – Meeting once a week for 4 hours, scratch that, 5 hours, does not allow for enough momentum to test and experiment with intuitive work. The number of students must be capped from the beginning of the class. I found myself very frustrated waiting to take the stage to work/play.
Upon taking the floor I relished in the opportunity to do… Anything. I knew there would be no concern for outcome from Ed. The feeling of freedom washed over me each time I worked. The trouble, again, was the lack of floor time. A few times I worked for 20 minutes and then wouldn’t work again for a class and a half. All the same I understand how this method of acting works – it’s very slow and very thorough. This kind of work is not anything I experienced during my 5 years at SLC – save the Master’s Class of course.
During rehearsals for Tallgrass Gothic in November 2007 I found myself letting the intuitive work into my body. Each performance felt unique, full – exactly what the class had been instilling in each participant. It was wonderful.
Scene work took place in the fall and rehearsals for The Trojan Women began in the spring.
A script! A script! My kingdom for a script!
After weeks months of (Friday) rehearsals we had ourselves a script! I found this process weighed down and unnecessarily time consuming. Edit after edit after edit after edit after ed… I’m happy the script was trimmed but the method in which we, as a class, as a company, accomplished the task was not enjoyable. Our process of impulse turned on a dime into the intellectual.
It was known to everyone that the script, in its original form, would be too long for the performance. Those that took the lead in ccrafting our language did a marvelous job providing the company with a great platform from which to leap, roll, crawl, etc. In the early stages, and then continuing through the process, members of the class were asked to reduce/change their text as they saw fit. This felt like an afront to the writers to me.
They had spent great lengths of time developing tone, pace, style, etc. and we, the actors and directors, were asked to slice and dice their work. I would have much preferred offering suggestions to the writers from which they could adapt the script. I may be disconnecting myself unnecessarily from the writing element for a number of reasons but beleive that a central voice could have aided and sped up the editing process.
With that said the rehearsal process had many highs and lows.
At times I felt like the energy in the room would blow the lid off the building. It was incredible. At some point though the curve turned southward. Almost as though a weight had been added to everyone’s creativity. Lethargy. This may have been a result of many things: rehearsals once per week did not create a flow, frequent script edits which put us into the mindset of ‘think’ versus ‘do’, confusion among the hierarchal structure in which no director wanted to step on another director’s efforts thereby creating hesitation to take charge.
Eventually we found our way despite a 20 day break in the rehearsal schedule due to spring break. Wow. Twenty days! I’m sort of realing from that number. For me it was even longer because I went to a conference for work the week after spring break. I did not rehearse for… (counts) 27 days. Holy… Moly!
There were a great number of things working against us. 20/27 days. Sheesh.
Something changed when Ed took the reigns as lead director. There was a re-focusing of concentration that we all needed for the last sprint. And it was a sprint! With an extremely limited amount of time we did our best to meet during the most difficult time of the year – the end of the spring semester. With other SLC shows, class shows, and non-SLC backed shows it wasn’t always possible to have the chorus together at all times – not good in so many ways.
Sure, stress was high and nerves were crackling but nobody snapped – at least not during our time together. I was tired and I know other people were scrapping by every day. I was impressed and in awe of how willing everyone was to give themselves over to the script/show during less than agreeable times. Graduating classmates were thinking about conference papers or portfolios and further reaching – future work and homesteads. Truly, everyone was amazing and put forth effort unseen in other classes I’ve been a part of at SLC.
The show went well and was received by most, I think, in a positive, albeit tumultuous, way. While I’d like to respond to the show now I need a little bit more time to reflect on what happened and what didn’t happen. I’ll post something to my portfolio but not yet. It’s still to raw.
But the class… I love working out of myself. It helped me to accomplish things I’d never thought imaginable. So much so that I’d never even imagined what I could do. It’s not only freeing it simply ‘is’ and continues to ‘be’ from start to finish. My first taste was during the reading of Lessen. Thank you Ed for visiting SLC in the fall of 2006.
How do I feel?
I feel sad, excited, relieved, inspired, exhausted, empowered, aware…
So how do I feel?
I. Feel. Good.
Now… T I. T O. o F O. Hoo-ha!