The Zen Baby

Almost Olive Juice. - I'm acting!

2010-03-02T21:24:00.000-08:00

Come see Almost Olive Juice, I'M acting this time!

Subject: "Almost Olive Juice" less than a week away!

You've RSVP'd on Facebook but have you reserved your seat for the show?

Seats are limited and tickets are moving fast for ArtEffects Theatre Company's presentation of "Almost Olive Juice", 6 short plays by Nora Vetter!

This ONE NIGHT ONLY show is on Monday March 8th with shows at 6pm & 8pm. Please reserve your tickets today to assure yourself a seat. Call: 347-223-4151 or email Arteffectstheatre@gmail.com with your name, time you want to attend, number in party and email or phone contact. Tickets are only $10 bucks! You don't want to miss it!

XO -

Lauren

Teaching philosophy essay

2010-03-02T21:04:00.003-08:00

My main teaching philosophy is to combine several different techniques to make my own technique of acting. With that said, my style of acting is very heavily Physical Theater based. I have studied under Nan Smithner, within Steinharct School’s Educational Theater program. Through her training, I discovered another side to my physicality that was unknown to me prior to the course. I realized that acting takes a great deal of physical energy to sustain the emotional and psychological impulses of a character. Additionally, a performer can tell a full and emotional story entirely through movement and body. One assignment required mask, and I found that through masking my face, and removing spoken word from my performance, my body was unlimited. I opened up to explore hidden aspects of my characterization. Now, as an instructor, I always state that in order to get to the spoken word, one must fully understand the actor’s body, and the necessity of clearly decided movement onstage. However, it is not necessary to move at all to emote. It is necessary to chose your movement with decisiveness. Though the ultimate objective is to get the student to perform using text, I think that they must understand their body’s natural reactions so that when it comes time to read, they already know who their character is, from head to toe.

In addition, through my work in the theatrical community, with my theater company, and with the many professional performances I have done, I have learned that improvisation is the core element of acting. The concept of ‘making it up as we go’ encourages creativity and playful choices that can help inform the actor, and help them build stronger characters. It also develops a performer’s confidence, because there is no script to use as a guideline. Being without the safety net of a script can be a difficult but motivating challenge to overcome if an actor is any way hesitant about their performance or their character choices. It removes any vagueness in character because once an actor makes a choice, and states who their character is, they must go with the choice, even if it is not the most obvious choice, or even if it is not the best choice. It forces the actor out of their comfort zone. Improvisation breaks actors of habits that may occur when reading a script, because it helps them find their own voice, and they can utilize their voice to then enhance their understanding of a script once they get to the level of using text.

Write Lauren Write.

2010-01-20T16:41:00.000-08:00

In my effort to force myself to write, I picked writing about my current work situation. I work as a long term sub at a local charter school. I teach/tutor K-1 grade in Literacy, such as teaching K their alphabet, and their numbers along with sight words. With first grade, I teach sight words too, but many times I tutor them in sounding or stretching their words out so they can improve their reading and writing.

It sounds all very dry, but in fact it's very rewarding. Well, rewarding, tedious, nerve wrecking (yes I did say wrecking on purpose), and intriguing all at the same time. It takes a lot of patience. Some times I have a lot of patience in the morning, but it runs out by about 3:15 when I know I am leaving at 3:30 pm. However there are little special moments that happen every day. I don't know how much I am teaching them in writing, but I do know that they are watching, and following my modeling every moment. They also surprise me with how much they know or are picking up from the world around them.

I seem to work mostly with special needs students. One example of the kids I encounter have some trouble with socialization with other peers and adults but are extremely bright. The other category of children seem to be developing very slowly in their learning, but they are socially well adjusted. Of course, I don't have an expertise in early ed, I am just making observations. I have only found one or two cases where the child is low-scoring academically, and also very difficult in the classroom because of abnormal behavior.

It's most fascinating to me to find that those children who behave the worst in the classroom, the same who I sometimes wonder if they are even hearing my voice telling them to "Please sit down" for the millionth time, or decide to lay down and have a screaming temper tantrum in the middle of a lesson - happen to be the children who test in ELA and Math the highest out of their class!

There was recently a test given to all of the students to see where they stood in their academic development. It covered subjects like Math, Science and Reading. I was one of the teachers giving the test. At one point I had to test a child that I knew was unable to be testing in a room with other children because of he was prone to having angry fits that weren't really prompted by much, except for maybe a teacher telling him to follow the rules. I knew that I would have to isolate this child to test him.

I will call this student Mico (name changed, obviously, to protect the child).

I took Mico to test him on his math skills. Being a novice to this kind of assessment, I assumed this child would have a lot of trouble figuring out the problems and also how to take a test. I especially thought he would have trouble with the way he was tested, which was through using an online computer program. I thought I was going to have to do a lot of hand holding. BOY was I wrong!

Instead, the boy patiently waited for me to finish the directions of each section, listened to me while I helped him read each question, and was able to figure out the process of testing using the computer mostly on his own. Not only that, he answered 9 out of 10 questions right without any prompt from me! When I read he got a 90 out of 100, I really couldn't believe it, because many times I feel like he's not even listening. Maybe he's not listening because he already knows the answer. Honestly, because Mico spent most of his time in class misbehaving or seemingly daydreaming, I thought he was a "low scoring" (as they call it) student academically.

But Mico wasn't alone in this phenomenon. There was another child who always needs special attention because of really difficult social behavior in the class. We can call him Chad. Chad often needs to be taken out of the class because of hitting, runnung around, shouting, and sometimes biting. I did not have the opportunity to test him, but I did see his scores on Math and ELA, and he also got 9 out of 10 questions right in Math, and Literacy. I have gotten the chance to sit with him on an occasion when he had one of his time outs. We read together, did math problems, and even drew picutres together of whole forests. In that moment I realized how bright Chad was, though at times he seems to daydream too, or go to a faraway imaginary place.

These two little boys have definitely changed the way I think about children who have certain behavioral problems. Maybe I was underestimating their ability, and I am wondering how many other cases there are like these two. It makes me want to know more about these two little guys, and also try to find other cases who are like them.

So fascinating!

The Zen Baby: A Theatre Newsletter

2009-12-29T09:56:00.000-08:00

The Zen Baby is a theatre newsletter set up as a sister website to www.zenbabytheatre.org!

I am so excited to start blogging ABOUT ZENBABY THEATRE COMPANY MEMBERS and the projects they are working on. They are encouraged to write in about upcoming plays, projects, essays, films, interesting subjects that relate to their theater activities. As for me, Lauren Cavanaugh, the Artistic Director of ZBT, this newsletter will get me journaling about my activities in the creative arts, and also serve as a place for me to post ideas about upcoming shows. I have taken a short hiatus from the theatre world, so I know that this newsletter will help me get my gears going again! (Its like starting an old fashioned automobile - a lot of cranking gears and waiting for the motor to start.)

SO Here goes nothing.

This is how I got the idea for this blog: I went home for Christmas this holiday vacation, and went to an informal high school reunion. They were all artistic people, because we all went to the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts back in 1994-1998. It was the only magnet school of its kind at the time! Anyhoo - they asked me what I was up to recently, since last year around this time I had about three productions under my belt and was going to start my fourth. Those shows included Nunchuck Ninja Nuns at the 13th Street Rep, A short play called Head Games which I directed, and the first two showcases for ZBT, including my favorite, Naughty & Nice Cabaret. I also spearheaded with the help of Phil Newsom "Land of the Babydolls" and later in the year we did a Sock Hop showcase, and Lovers & Thieves by Sem Megson. A lot got accomplished in 2008-2009.

So when my classmates asked me what I was doing lately, and I didn't have much to say.... because I was on a mental vacation.... I felt (how do I put this) still unaccomplished even though I had done a lot, just because I hadn't been doing anything theatre related in December 2009! Silly, I know, but it felt true!

So now, after watching the brilliant film, Julie & Julia, I decided to start a theatre blog to help me get my creative juices flowing again, and to also promote what my company members are doing - because those brilliant people are always doing something good! Please feel free to comment, leave funny notes, or share! Wish me luck! XOXOXO
~LAUREN CAVANAUGH