Meisner learnings ...

Been a good couple of weeks on the Meisner training front.

By "good", I mean "growing"; not "pleasant".

First, through practices I learned the importance of being comprehensive in the reasons for my "activities" and their urgency. One week, I was doing storyboarding, and had a great moment of panic where I had to throw my partner out of my life. After I threw her out, I realized I was going to fail my task. But the consequences lost weight as I started intellectualizing why I was writing out dialog (as opposed to cutting and pasting it from the scripts before I printed the blank storyboard panels). There are scenarios where that would have worked, but I hadn't prepped them before doing the exercise, and it killed the scene.

Secondly, when I come to the door, I'm supposed to be coming from something huge, and coming to that person for a reason. So I've been working hard on finding a simple hook at that moment when I find out who my partner is -- and I'm getting decently good at it, which has improved my door work.

Along those same lines, I was struck with an in-practice conversation about what's "easier" -- door or activity. I came to the conclusion if either is easier than the other, it's because I'm not putting the appropriate thought, work, and preparation into it.

So, in class this week where I was doing door work, I went deeper.

She left me.

Which was brutally hard and emotionally debilitating and stirred up new things for me.

It also got me lost, because I wasn't focusing on my partner -- loving her and believing everything she said.

So, cool, I've experienced another area (about which I already knew intellectually) in which I need work -- staying connected and doing something while the emotion lives in me.

Good, growing couple of weeks.