Here Comes a New Drama Queen

What a chance for me to pursue my dream, albeit late in life! I am a fifty niner, once a forty niner; now all have to do is “act” on it! There is really no punch line here; I signed up for beginning acting techniques at North Seattle Community College. Yes, I already have myself a Bachelor of English, so why do I want more? Actually, I took a class in playwriting at my alma mater, Seattle University, and got to have one of my plays dramatized. I found it so fascinating, being able to mold the actors to my play that the teacher asked me if I was interested in becoming a director! I think I told her no, at the time. Anyway, all

During high school, I would get to the final audition and then someone more seasoned would get the part. I did make the chorus of “Hello Dolly” and had a blast dancing and supporting the lead, the girl who played, Dolly Levy. I heard she ended up going to Julliard, one of the more famous schools of the arts in New York City.

Bellevue Community College Sees a New Dramatist

There I was at Bellevue Community College, 48-years-old, in a sea of 18-plus year olds! I was in Drama 101, and my first play assignment involved me being in a twosome with a young boy, who fed me my lines because I did not remember them, I was so scared performing in front of people!

Needless to say, I got a low grade upon my performance and I vowed to do better the next play around.

We learned dramatic technique in that class, everything from doing something your character does over and over; and being informed that the space in front of you was known as a wall. We learned to block out the audience, while we concentrated on the wall. Sometimes, the teacher would have each student look at certain landmarks on the wall, having two students at a time doing this. We would have to synchronize where we both looked to assure the teacher and ourselves that we had our “blocking” correct. And for those who wonder what blocking is, in drama terms it is how all the stage movements are choreographed to ensure a more dramatic effect.

I had my best performance as the mother of the blind boy in “Butterflies are Free.” To insure that I would not forget a line, the teacher had the boy who played the blind boy say, “What is it that you want, Mother?” I remembered all my lines during that play and got a respectable grade for my performance! After my performance, the teacher told me that she was so proud of me for how I remembered my lines!

I can tell you this, that when the dramatic technique is good, the players are more able to block out the audience. The same teacher also told us that a good actor creates a “suspension of disbelief.” This means that the actor’s portrayal of the character is so convincing that the audience gets “sucked” into the play. This is what defines a so so actor from a great actor, like one of my acting heroes, Dustin Hoffman. What makes Dustin Hoffman a great actor? He portrays his characters so believingly, that one could swear he was autistic like Raymond, the autistic savant, in” Rainman.”

Susan in Present Tense

Now that I’ve sketched a “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Lady,” I’ll let you all in on a secret as to why I’m taking drama lessons at age 59. As Gilbert and Sullivan would put it in one of their operettas, “There is beauty in the bellow of the blast!” Thank you all for listening to me. Now I must go block my first drama assignment in my new drama class. We have to prepare a monologue about two minutes in our life, and I must grab my Monkees lunch box, because it is my only prop, other than my Beatles coffee cup!