First Week in Actor School

Well, I have survived four whole days of graduate school relatively unscathed. Although my muscles are feeling a little worse for wear after the two three hour movement classes I attended this week. I guess somewhere between the spacial awareness viewpoints and the yoga I worked some spots that usually stay lazy.
My other classes include a voice/speech class where we are currently working on Linklater techniques and freeing our breath through a number of very relaxing breath focused exercises. I have a grad prep class with the entire twenty-five or so new graduate students in the school of theatre (playwrights, actors, directors, lighting designers, costume designers, set designers, technical directors, etc.) where we will be reading and discussing a number of books and essays about theatre in addition to doing projects and having guest lecturers. Then, of course there is acting class. Two classes, three hours each, every week. This is a Meisner school (for all of you non theatre practitioners, Sanford Meisner was an American actor and acting coach who developed his methodology, the Meisner technique, during and following his years in the Group Theatre during the 30's. Other famous acting teachers who came from the Group Theatre include Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg. A fabulous book to help understand the Group Theatre and those who arose from it is The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre & the 30's by Harold Clurman.) So right now my Meisner training is all about repetition execises:
Actor A: I like your blue shirt.
Actor B: You like my blue shirt.
A: I like your blue shirt.
B: You like my blue shirt.
A: I like your blue shirt.
...and so on and so forth constantly attempting to be in the moment having an honest response even though the piece of text you are repeating means virtually nothing and becomes rather irritating after a short while. Fun.
What happened late last night, though, was super cool. Every week all the graduate playwrights are expected to write, cast and produce a short play. They're all put on at Midnight Madness beginning at 11:00pm every Friday night. I was asked to be in Garret Schneider's, and while the whole process was rather slap-dash, it was exhilarating. Sometimes you get three rehearsals, sometimes none. Sometimes you get the script two days in advance and other times, like me last night, you're handed the piece an hour before you take the stage. Midnight Madness is wildly popular, and if you're not participating, there's room for fifty people or so to cram into the studio theatre and watch. I love working with our playwrights. They're a talented and passionate group, and I'm already planning to be a Madness addict, so I'll hopefully be in a short piece every Friday late at night.