Yowza! Falling Behind Pt. 2!

The train car exercise is like...the coolest thing I've ever seen. What a wonderful construction! It's the most relatable thing I think I've ever seen. Being theatre majors, we probably all had some Dutchman discomfort going into it, but it was wonderful.

I found it uncomfortable when the characters were silenced because I personally find it more difficult to negotiate physically than verbally. This seems like it would be a very valuable exercise for groups of young people. Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops. It seemed like an excellent model of the three-prong structure of writing a Forum piece. Although we didn't get to that point, I can see the initial performance of a piece like this resulting in violence or verbal abuse.

With that knowledge and that experience, we moved into developing our own images for our topic. I thought that our group worked really well together. There's a bit of awkwardness and stiltedness that I think comes from existing in the world of academia--we're scared to step on each other's toes or to do anything that would lead one of our group members to feel discounted or discredited. The fact is, though, I think we're all at ease with expressing ourselves and are all VERY receptive to one another's ideas. Maybe I'll ask that we discuss it on Tuesday. "Assume good will". I think we came quite far in our images, though. I was surprised by how many ideas we had and how fluidly we moved for a few moments at a time. It was lovely--I adore my group.

Shannon joined our group specifically because she sought out the people that she knew she would not fight with. I think we work together well, and we were surprisingly efficient! I'm not usually a cog in the efficiency machine--I'm more of an idea person.

Overall, I think the challenge with our piece will be creating a long enough moment of Chinese crisis that we can entice a spect-actor to participate--they need time to think, Yes! I want to participate--I should go in there and stop this, but...but I'm nervous and maybe I talk too much and maybe someone else needs a chance to talk............no? Well, maybe I'm the only one. OKAY! Long story short, we need to buy ourselves some time in those early moments of Chinese crisis. This will be an interesting writing challenge, although I'm not sure entirely how the writing of the piece will come together. Through images, I imagine. And I'm guessing we'll probably have lots of non-negotiable trait discussions for each of the characters.

Shannon's going to be our joker, which is probably a good thing. She's adept at handling a room of people. Mostly, the writing part is what worries me. If we can get through that without making anything a cliche or making anything too obvious, I think we'll be fine. Here's hoping.