My Nina

First of all, I think this project came at the perfect time in my life, and I am very grateful to have worked on it with such a focused and wonderful group of people. I was constantly trying to find new ways of pushing myself to be better every time I entered the space. All across the board, what I am working on most now is just letting down defenses and not presenting the emotion, or working myself up into it, but breathing it in and just being it, and being active on top of it. I think Nina definately was a character that helped me to do that, and it was easier at certain times than others.She was so layered, with her abandonment and abuse issues, to her love and infatuation with Trigorin, her adoration of Arkadina, her intense friendship with Konstantin...I really grew to have very strong opinions on each character, and that felt most evident to me in my playing of the 'performance' on stage. The most difficult part of the process for me was playing the more youthful side!
of myself and making it believable. It's not that I'm not youthful, obviously I am, but I think Nina just comes from a much different point of view physically and vocally, which forced me to really change how I moved in the space. This was a great exercise in Laban and Effort Actions, did Nina poke? glide? flick? I used that to help me-and the Clown exercise was an aha moment for me too, where I really paid attention to my habits/natural tendencies. I love Clown work because it allows you to make a big choice and play it and practice sustaining it-so this helped me in developing my character. On the day of the show, I thought technically I might have been looking at the ground a lot-I took Matt's note of playing more of the nervous side, but I think I could find more thoughts up in the air at times also. I still think I was on my way of finding the 'hippiness', but granted more time and exercises I know I could have gone even further. I think I need to just think LIGHTER o!
verall...Matt, your note you gave me right before to just focus on her
hunger really helped me...thanks. The actual 'performance' of Konstantin's play felt awkward-in a good way that helped me as the actor. I felt a nice balance between being grand and truthfulness. So really feeling the play through moment by moment helped set me up for the coming back out and them clapping, etc...Sometimes, as Daisy, the audience can have a tendency to make me "pony it up" for them and lose character, but that did not happen here. I am learning how to stay in it no matter what, and stay true to the work. I of course, was still aware of their presence, but it did not make me stray off course or lose my need or forget who I was talking to or why. My concentration was on telling this story.Knowing people had seen this show on Broadway recently and had the amazing Nina there stuck in their minds, I didnt care. I was not trying to emulate anybody's performance, or try and be like they were. I was my Nina and that's all I could be.