Play Day with Real Players

Working with actual actors on our plays was very interesting. The two women helping my group seemed to think that we are on a good track. My general concepts for movement were reinforced, however my interaction with other characters needs a lot of work. I never realized how hard it is to have a stage conversation: not looking completely at the person you are talking to so that the audience can still see your facial expressions.
I didn't consciously think too much about what other actors have done with the role of Romeo until I got to the balcony scene. I think it is nearly impossible to not compare what I am doing to what others have done with that part. I feel very awkward during that scene because Juliet (Emily) is above me and I don't know if I should be just looking up at her or out to the audience or something completely different. The balcony scene is also giving me a better sense of props and scenery and how they make actors feel more comfortable on stage. I think that I should be behind bushes or something while listening to Juliet on the balcony, but we haven't factored anything that elaborate into our prop list.
Blocking our play for the first time also helped us come up with creative ideas for some touchy parts of the play. We have decided that Emily and I will be dancing and my back will be to the audience when it is time to have the "kisses" so that it will look like I am leaning in to kiss her, but this way I won't really have to and we can keep the lines the way that they are in the script (i.e. "You kiss by the book").
Working with the real actors also made us more assertive of what we wanted to do. I know that I felt a lot more comfortable making suggestions and receiving them when someone was there who could say whether or not something would actually look good on a stage. Now the scary part will be expanding what we did in a small space to fit on the actual stage we are performing on.

P.S. I read the handouts for next Monday and I think I am going to be very lost with matching up King Lear and Ran. Maybe it will be a lot easier once I have read the play and watched the movie. I do have to say that it was interesting reading that influence was taken from a "classic" play to make a more "modern" movie. This fact seems to support my idea that there are only so many original stories until people are just piecing together different parts of different stories and mixing up their orders. It also supports the idea that it is okay to "steal" ideas. Shakespeare may have done it so why not everyone else...