Blog #24

1) What is your essential question? What is the best answer to your question and why?

My essential question is “How Does An Actor Best Prepare For A Role?”. I found that out of all my answers to the essential question, my best answer was “Using A Community Of Actors To Have A Wide Variety Of Inspiration”.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

I came to this answer by studying all of the elements in my presentation projects. I know that many actors have inspirations, (I do as well) but I really believed it after completing my First and Second Independant Components. In my First Independant Component, I saw all of my fellow actors preparing for their roles in any way they could. The constant barrage of rehearsing and using their character's personality in real life also applied to my Second Independant Component as well. In both “Lady Of The House” and the “Fullerton Theatre Festival”, I was given aid by my fellow actors. They counseled my judgement that the character should go. Using the community of actors and having inspiration from their own preparations, I was able to create my character in the best possible way.

(3) What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?

I'll start from the beginning. The biggest problem I faced was securing a mentor for my project. I attempted to find actors I know, or knew, that could be qualified to be my mentor. It didn't go well as people I contacted never replied. There was even a point that I asked a former mentor face-to-face to help me, in which I never saw her again. I resolved this problem by asking the IPoly Drama teacher, Mr. Hogan, if he could help me in my quest to find a mentor. He helped me find a good mentor, Gregory Cohen, who gave me the best mentorship I could ever ask for. He allowed me to look into his new play, “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum”, and help in it. I read parts for him, filled in for absent actors, and more. All while seeing real proffessional actors up close for myself.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

The two most significant sources I used to answer my essential question were my mentorship and independent components. They helped me come up with my last two answers. Other then “Method Acting”, I had no other real answers to go on and research wouldn't change that. Only through experience could I learn this answers myself. Mentorship and the Independant Components gave me this chance. I felt like I was really working towards my project when I was completing all of these assignments. I can now say I really know what my presentation is all about – compared to how the presentation was suffering for most of the first semester.

(5) What is your product and why?

I will never forget my product. In all of my life, I was never able to see such a grand correlation of actors that I discovered in my research. I learned things I never learned before in seeing these amazing people work. Seeing others helped me prepare for my own performance, and in a way, for my life. Life needs inspiration to work in a grand way. My life is my peformance. I have prepared for my performances with research and community, and I have also prepared for my own life with the same attributes. The research that I was able to discover at IPoly High School that will prepare me for my life, and the friends I have made to help me start off correctly.