The Afterhours Actors Workshop

I had no sooner sat down at the small circular table in the bar with my gin and tonic when Rose arrived followed immediately by Shannon. There was talk of having a glass of wine and the next thing I knew we, including my gin and tonic, were all headed out to the patio. The next thing I knew Rose said "Jace wants us to be at her house by 5.30" and what time was it? 5.20. So I quickly downed my gin and tonic, dashed back to the bar and paid my bill. Then we all dashed to Shannon's car in the parking lot and from the restaurant we dashed away to Jace's house.

We started up with some breathing and muscle relaxation excercises, all of which are quite useful. Then we progressed to some pronunciation excercises, correctly pronouncing the words wheel and witch and think and that. From there we each read a short monologue which contained a lot of tongue-twisting phrases. The ladies were to praise a sock in a kind of Doctor Seussian way and mine was a nifty rant about murders (Jace said it was from The Lady's Not For Burning). That was all quite fun. Jace has spent her entire life in the theatre and she's very professional and serious but at the same time she's not intimidating or demanding. I could see she was assessing our talents and where our strengths and weaknesses lie.

After that we worked on some scenes. I read a scene from Hapgood with Rose anda scene from Arcadia with Shannon, both plays by Tom Stoppard. Jace said we all did very well and it was rather fun. Aside frm the benefit of a new experience, exactly where is all this going? I'm getting the impression that we're to actually perform this ... or something.