Week 3

Exciting developments happened in week 3. I began working with small groups of the 5th grade students in a more personal setting to help them along their characterization process. They are incredibly creative, imaginative, and fun. I asked them to give me ideas about how they viewed their characters' personalities and what methods they could use to portray those personalities to an audience. They started engaging with their characters more even in the short session I spent with them. I look forward to continued work with the 5th graders as a more coherent impression of the age group starts to form.

A director at GCU also sent word this week that he would be willing to let me observe some rehearsals for his upcoming performance of the show "West Side Story." The opportunity will fill in the gap at the older end of the age spectrum for the project by allowing me an insight into the acting habits of college students.

I'm nearing the end of Chekhov's marvelous book on acting (more to come on that) and beginning to read a fascinating series of scientific articles on the relationship between acting and empathy. My hope is to tie in developmental psychology with my examination of age-related characterization differences to lend the project a more robust perspective.

Thanks for reading.