Dear Friend,

I was listening to you. Really I was.

You were talking about that thing you did last week at that…place – wherever it was.

See? I was listening. I was listening very intently and then you talked about how somebody wrote something stupid on a rock somewhere on the trail – ah! yes, you were at a local park. See? Listening. Continue reading →

Back when I was in college, I had a terrific acting professor.

Every so often in rehearsals, just to shake things up, he’d make us play a scene without the dialogue. It helped us more accurately get a handle on the emotional “beats” in the scene. For instance, a scene with dialogue might read something like this:

John: What are you holding there?

Mary: It’s a letter. From your mother.

John: Why is she writing me after all this time?

Mary: Your father’s dead. He’s being cremated, and the memorial service is Tuesday.

John:  I’m working on Tuesday. (Exits)

The actor in me realizes there are a lot of ways to play that scene. And sometimes, breaking it down to just the emotions and leaving out the words gives you a chance to take that character’s story in a different direction than the same-old, same-old. It can let you layer and build and tear down and explore.

You could take out the words, and have a scene like this:  Continue reading →