I sure hope Shakespeare was right on this one, because I know I'm an actress, but right now I don't know what else I might become during my study at LAMDA. Yesterday, the 32 students of the single semester course were introduced to three other LAMDA faculty members who will facilitate our growth in other disciplines that are just as important as pure acting training in a successful career.
1. Singing. Our first warning came as I bit of a surprise to my ears, "'Ello everyone! I'm Scottish, so sometime during the course you will have trouble understanding my accent." I hate to admit it, but he was kind of right. I felt as though I had to physically perk up my ears to grab everyone word his accent flung at us, but by the end of his personal background introduction, I was up to 95% hearing clarity. This urban-fashioned, casually mannered man was going to be at the front of our singing instruction for the duration of the course, with our personal lessons being conducted by two other singing teachers. As we went around the room explaining our various degrees of experience and training, it became apparent how even the most seemingly confident of people were terrified about opening their mouth and croaking out a note and how many others claimed to be tone deaf. When he was 13, his mother told him he should never sing because he sounded awful. Our teacher has been in several West End musicals and is a professionally and classically trained voice instructor. Now, there's a man who overcame!
2. Movement. Before we realized, she was ordering someone into the center of the circle to do 10 push-ups. Stage directions: Enter movement teacher and fitness fanatic. Handed the task to teach 32 actors stage combat, clowning, dancing (tap, modern, jazz, historical) and how to connect their minds and voices with their physical being, our movement teacher wasn't wasting a second. We played a fast paced game that engaged all of us into a big circle, and included different hand signals that went with vocal cues, and the goal was...to not mess up. If you should pair up a vocal cue with the wrong hand signal--10 PUSH UPS!!! If you should hesitate even the slightest---10 SIT UPS. If you made a funny face--10 MORE PUSH UPS! (Just kidding, it wasn't that intense.) Needless to say, I shall be moving quite a bit in her class.
3. Voice. Stage directions: Enter classiest British man known to human kind. But really, if Britain had a version of What Not To Wear, he'd be the host. He peered at us through his tortoise-shell rimmed glasses and adjusted the neck of his cashmere sweater a little to the left. This man, so poignantly dressed, was also going to make sure we talked and articulated ourselves with the same degree of perfection as his attire. First he would work with us on RP, or Received Pronunciation, the high-class pronunciation of old time BBC newscasters, politicians, and modern Shakespearean actors. As a Southerner, I'll definitely be getting some extra help with the accent, since out of all the Americans, my basic accent was the farthest away from RP. He'll also assist us with breathing, getting rid of tension (that gets in the way of producing a pure vocal sound), speed, and enunciation.
Below, an example (from a feisty comedian type) of Received Pronunciation:
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