Action
66h

Service
42h + 25 min

This time we practiced our play for the upcoming show for Christmas party. We got to work rather independently in our own groups. The teacher would go around and give us tips on how to act better and what sorts of improvisation bits we could include in different parts. For the latter half we improvised and played around. We also got to see each others' plays and comment on them.

First we came up with random lines that we had to write down on paper. They included lines such as "I am not really a woman." or "Are we in Turku?". Then we were divided into pairs, picked out four lines each and were given a scene. After that we had to improvise a play while the others watched. It was a lot of fun because integrating these random lines often gave the play a fun twist. Since about half of the random lines were still left after this exercise, we did it again with three people. It was definitely harder to handle and keep track whether the other two people had already used their lines. With my group I actually did not get a chance to use my last line since the other two thought I wanted to end the play when I asked them for coffee whereas I was going  to use my last line during the coffee session. After that we had the hitchhiker exercise. The idea of it is that there is always three people in a imagined car, one driving in the front and two at the back. The mood in the car changes according to the mood of the hitchhiker taken in and continues for as long as a new hitchhiker  comes. The driver is always the one leaving. The funniest ones this time were complaining grannies who were too blind to even drive the car succesfully and singing Christians (because most of us do not sing).

First we practiced with soft balls. It used to be fun but nowadays I do not like it as much because when we start practicing forehand and backhand with hard balls, I find it harder to get good hits. After practicing basic hits, we played two against one. The one who was alone had to hit the ball very high so that the other two could practice smashes. When ten points were gained for either side, we changed positions with each other. In the end of the lesson we played king game which is basically two against one game. A game was ten points and we had to start with service hits.

This time we showed our other teacher what we had done with our spring shows with the first teacher. I do not think the plays went as well as the first time since we did not really put our hearts in it, it was just showing her what we had done previously. Then we made some new parts into our plays, perfected old ones and decided that we would perform something improvised at the Christmas party for all the acting classes from that company. In the end we went through the plays again.

We had many different improvisation exercises since this is what we had asked for from the teacher the previous time. Most of them followed the same pattern, the setting and characters were given but not decided who would be who. Then we had to improvise a play according to something we had decided on earlier. The exercises could differ in such ways as the number of people acting, whether people could come in the middle of the play and leave, a certain letter was not allowed to be said, the mood of the play etc. We also practiced smaller exercises in a circle such as "gifts". The idea in gifts is that the person before you gives you a gift, any kind, any size, any weight but all s/he can say is "here is a gift for you, you're welcome" and then you have to answer "thank you for this gift, it is ...". So you have to come up with the gift and then you have to show what you can do with the gift or how it looks like. And the game continues like that. For example, I got a very small gift which I decided to be a small ladybug that I fed to my imaginary lizard.

We planned our plays for the spring show. Our theme is "My Finland", good and bad sides, the picture tourists have about Finland and how things are in reality. We got "Nightmare Finland", and in our play we depicted different people visiting the social service office looking for government aid. The ones who did not really deserve any help got it, of course, and the ones who really needed help did not get it. Our play had a drunk person who lied that he had been lookign for a job, thus he has tried to get out of his "situation" and got money. The second person visiting the office was a city mayor who needed aid for new plumbing for his summer villa. He of course received aid, and can get new aids every month because it is written in legislation that certain types of plumbing have to be renewed by a given date. The third person was a dad whose wife has just died and has two small children did not get money because he was not found needy enough. The other group had "Perfect Finland" where everything was of course perfect. It was alot of fun watching their play but planning our play was a little chaotic.

This time we played less, practised more. I can't remember the names of the exercises that we did but there was one that I found extremely difficult. Two people were on stage, and we had to decide who they were, what they were doing and where they were. Then they had to act but they weren't allowed to use words that have certain letters in them. If they said a word that had the forbidden letter in it, then they had to step out and the next one went to replace that person. I never succeeded in saying more than a few sentences, it's so difficult in Finnish if one chooses a consonant such as k or n because they are in almost every single word there is in the Finnish language! Well, better luck next time. We also improvised with a pair, then we had to act our improvisation for the rest of the group. It was fun but harder than I thought because it was just difficult to relate to the person you were acting, the situation and trying to imagine what would happen in a situation like this. Maybe I think too much and I should just try to go with the flow. We have a different teacher for our next class so I'll see how things go!

I started a new hobby: acting and improvisation! This was my first lesson, and it was extremely exciting since I've never done acting or improvisation before. We have two teachers who alternate in teaching us. So far me and another retired lady are the only ones who have no background in acting. Most of the people there are middle-aged, only one man, and they all have done acting for many years. One woman actually aims to be a professional, and I really don't think our group is her best bet since our group focuses on improvisation and "just for fun" type of things whereas she has already starred five movies in two months. Well, the first lesson took forever. I don't think I've realised before how long it takes because I got really hungry. I'll remember to bring snacks next time. First we played different games to get to know each other, and it made me feel like this was just a playgroup for adults but towards the end we started improvisation. It was so much fun! Though I wasn't very good at it since it purely based on unexpected things to happen, and when we actually started it I wasn't even aware that we were going to improvise. I just thought it was another game but I guess that's the point: the teacher tells you to do something but then the game changes in the course of the play. Improvisation requires quick witty remarks and vast vocabulary which is good because my Finnish is getting pretty rusty (the class is in Finnish). I'm really looking forward to the next lesson when I know a little bit better what to expect (and to bring snacks). We are also going to start working on either our winter or spring performance soon.