Enrolling in Annette Toutonghi’s Step III: Scene Study Text Intensive class
was probably the best decision I’ve made towards broadening my acting skills.
I’ve never been in a classroom environment that was so enlightening,
gratifying, and restorative as the one she created for us at Freehold twice a
week. Having just completed Sarah Harlett’s Accelerated Intro to Acting, I
looked towards Annette’s class as being the next step in the development of my
craft. What I received was probably double that. Her knowledge, passion,
professionalism, and care were transformative. I would not only highly
recommend the class to any pursuant actor – but to anyone wishing to explore
storytelling and the human condition.
I never felt self-conscious or afraid to perform in front of
her, my classmates, or the lovely Christine Marie Brown who shadowed her that
quarter. That’s how safe and inviting her classroom was, and it was certainly
necessary. Annette demanded a lot of personal introspection and vulnerability
from each participant. We were always mining deeper and deeper into our own
histories and emotions to bring our characters to life. It was an incredible
experience that brought the entire class close to one another.
The framework we worked under was very much the idea of
living truthfully in imaginary circumstances. In order to do this, not only did
we spend the quarter working on scenes from famous American plays, we also did
a variety of exercises and assignments that asked us to delve into and examine
our own lives. I’ll admit, despite the excitement, it was a tall order. Annette
posed hard scenarios in which we would have to find our own justifications for
extreme events. For instance, one required me to justify why I would estrange
my father. What circumstances would lead me to perform such an act? How, when,
and why did I come to that hard decision? And how did I justify it as right?
All these supplementary exercises were about making the circumstances real for
you, to engage actively with your imagination, so that when it came to your
scene work you already had a well of emotions at your disposal. I found that
these emotions came as real to me in my scene as they did in my personal
assignments, and this was really exciting for me.
Of all the acting instructors I’ve had to date, I don’t
think anyone was so attuned to my acting as Annette and Christine were. Nothing
was overlooked or skimmed over. I still remember when my partner and I were
working on our scene from Proof by David Auburn; Annette began a crusade to
make me act on my impulses (needless to say I had been squelching them without
knowledge). She condensed the scene down to a single beat where my character’s
impulse to reprimand her sister was being lost. On the third or fourth revisit
she could tell I was getting frustrated (she was a dog with a bone that woman!)
and she finally told me “Eliza, I’m going hard on you because you’re a very
smart actor and I know you can do this. Keep pushing yourself to act on
intuition.” In that moment I knew that’s what I would always remember her for.
When I finally jumped on that impulse my fifth time round, it was one of the
most gratifying experiences I’ve ever had in acting. All because Annette held
me accountable to my instincts.
The exact same could be said for Christine. Christine is
just one of those people who is so knowledgeable in her craft, so dedicated to
the development of others’ acting abilities, and so warm and loving to the
people she interacts with that one couldn’t help but feel a sense of
connection. If there’s one thing I’ll remember most from my work with her it’s
the absolute importance of organic emotion over preconceived (or superficial)
thoughts. Always she was digging deeper, asking questions, making sure that
what our character was experiencing was, in fact, true human emotion.
I can say, without hesitation, that Annette and Christine
were two of the best and most inspirational instructors I’ve had the pleasure
to work with. It certainly was a lot of work, but they brought me a new depth
and understanding for acting which I could not have reached without them. I
only hope that I might have the privilege of working with them again someday.
Truly, the class was such a wonderful and changing experience that I would hope
anyone interested would act on their own impulse, enroll in the class, and
experience it for themselves.
Photo above: Elizabeth Wu
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Freehold is offering Step III: Scene Study Text Intensive with Christine Marie Brown this coming Winter Quarter. For more information: Step III: Scene Study Text Intensive.
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