Thinking aloud
Discover more from Thought bubbles
Photograph: Jeffrey Puukka. Market Color.
This morning with my coffee, as my scattered morning thoughts settled, I sat looking out onto the balcony. Blue sky, and just a little breeze. I noticed the way the periwinkle blossoms of the bluebells in the blue pot wiggle in front of that spring-green burst of tree across the street. And how the tree ushers in the crimson steeple base of the church just beyond, crowned by its copper dome. What a spectacular dance of color the world offers this time of year! For me—after the annual effortful trudge through wet, gray winter—this time of year is so energizing. Absolute magic.
Last week, registration opened for the next cycle of The Monday Night Acting Lab. So naturally, I have been thinking a great deal about The Lab. How it began, how it has evolved, and what the next ripples of evolution may look like.
Which way do you think the world is going? When do we begin working in person again, I wonder? There is so much to think about! This Summer I’ll be opening up more training resources for actors. There is so much for me to consider and daydream about in doing so...
The Monday Night Acting Lab has been operating on Zoom for over a year. To be honest, at first, I really hated it…
I didn’t understand, and did not trust, that I could still do my work virtually. It took a moment for me to realize I can collaborate with actors and be a coach successfully whether we are in the same room or not. After that moment of adaptation, I have come to appreciate this virtual platform for what it offers that working in a shared space does not… I love the bridge-building connectivity of virtual collaboration.
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Example…
Yesterday, on Instagram (follow me on Instagram @JeffreyPuukka) I had a fascinating conversation via messages with a Physical Theatre teacher in Lisbon, Portugal. How extraordinary. Lisbon is thousands of miles away.
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We have grown accustomed to the way we can befriend and communicate with people all over the world. But classrooms usually feel more contained. For its first four years, every participant in The Monday Night Acting Lab was working in the same market. But now, because of virtual learning platforms like Zoom, we can collaborate in real time with people from anywhere. That component makes it possible for us all to approach what legendary director Peter Brook pursued with starting his company CIRT
, in 1970.This is one of the silver linings of the closures that hit the world in 2020. People outside my little regional neighborhood can participate in work I do, like The Monday Night Acting Lab.
To collaborate with people who live far away, in a world elsewhere, beyond the familiar grid of my everyday life? That is a possibility which perhaps never would have entered my little world, had it not been for the way the Covid-19 Pandemic forced us to change what we do, and look beyond the face-to-face realm of connection…
An actor from Portland, an actor from Los Angeles, an actor from Seattle, from San Francisco, or Chicago, New York, or Montreal, Edinburgh, Berlin, Helsinki, or anywhere else could learn from one another…
What challenges do we face? What is the most exciting theatre happening where we live? And, let’s not ignore that there is so much we can learn from one another beyond the steady task at hand of studying and brainstorming about acting.
The next cycle of The Monday Night Acting Lab begins 7 June, 2021 and runs Mondays 7:30P – 9:30P (Pacific Time) through 5 July, 2021.
Who is The Monday Night Acting Lab for? Actors looking to practice work they’re passionate about outside of the time sensitive arena. Learn more and take part here.
Until next week,
-J.P.
© Jeffrey Puukka, 2021