our town

[rlpniew]

Not bad but just a little shrill. You are emoting just abut too much. You have a pretty good stage presence and look the part. You're just a bit over the top. Emily is subdued and just a bit mystified in this scene, not argumentative. I agree with the other poster that you were very likely badly directed.

[TheMisfitMISSY]

i agree

[busterfunk001]

pretty good. no one's an amazing actor in high school if all they have is an acting class. well done.

[claudsoffury]

I am playing Emily in my school production and this was good besides the fact that you're yelling rather than talking. emily is supposed to be timid and very insightful...she's a girl who just died and wants to go back to life. But...the lines are down and that's great. Study your character more.

[meagansxfamous]

thanks! i've learned a lot since this play. =]

[twilightvampire3]

OH GOD. A PERSON IN A WHEEL CHAIR?? in my school production of this, i play Joe Crowell. AND I NEED TO LEARN " Blessed be the tie that binds " IN LIKE A WEEK FOR THE PERFORMENCE!!!

[ratsinthekitchen09]

sammme

[yankeemd]

In defense of the actress here, having played this role myself I can say it's a very hard role for anyone to play partly because you have to play the character at so many different ages (12, 14, 16, 17, and 26). This act is often the hardest for teen actresses who may not have the maturity to play a woman of 26, while many adult actresses do beautifully with this act but fail to capture Emily's youth in the first 2 acts. She may have done better if she had a better director.

[WolkeYume]

Your right. I also played Emily and we only played funny plays, so it was very difficlut for me to do such an dramatic and changing woman. But I think, you can learn a lot in this role, like the girl playing this version, said before :P

[bellaluce]

I would recommend looking at penelope ann miller's monologue of this. Its on youtube. The layers and realness she creates are so powerful. You could learn so much from just watching her.

In this you are ACTING. You want to be living the character.

[meagansxfamous]

i'll do that. thanks! =]

[bellaluce]

no problem. I would love to hear your comments on her performance contrasting your own and what you learned from it. :)

[meagansxfamous]

i just watched a clip and i totally know what you mean.

just her facial expressions were amazing. i'm really glad you told me about her. i've learned a lot from the recommendations people have given me, including this one. thanks again. =]

[makafeke]

EXACTLY what I was thinking.

[SpakeNative22]

haha, thatsthebeech stole my advice...

But I suppose if you want to pursue theatre, and you want to learn how to improve (as I did, and continue to - performance training is being in a constant state of improvement), then my advice would be this: Read "Acting: The First Six Lessons," by Richard Boleslavsky. This book changed not only the way I look at the world as an actor, but also the way I think about character development and performance. I think every aspiring actor should read this book.

[meagansxfamous]

i'll def do that. thanks so much! =]

[surfandsun94]

i have 2 read this 4 honors lit.... its extremely boring... but the actual play looks good tho

[koolkidkix3]

Last year i did that play at school and i was the dead dude who said "If it 'taint rain, its a 3 day blow"

[rusdot]

i just want to throw out that i played george well and i would have commented earlier except i forgot my password

[thatsthebeech]

one piece of advice i can give you is to stay out of patterns.

you're voice patterns were very similar. more variety with pitch will help.

and also, think about how you yourself would react in every situation your character is given.

i love acting too, and trust me, this is just constructive criticism, not hate.

[meagansxfamous]

thanks. =]

this is probably the best comment i've had so far. it actually helps me. haha

[saerchen91]

Megan, this is horrible. This play is about life. And about the sad fact that we don't realize it and that "it goes so fast". Do you think you woke anybody up with your performance? I doubt it. There is no body language at all and your voice is always on the same level... I am just glad Thornton Wilder will never see this. This is supposed to be such a beautiful and sweet play and you are just rushing through it just like it's not supposed to be...

[meagansxfamous]

i'd like to believe i woke a few people up, since audience members were crying, but thanks, i like the constructive criticism.

[copperlights]

I'm sorry, but that was kind of terrible. I mean, I can understand that you wanted to put emotion into it, but it was just.. fake. There was no truth in it, it was like you were just reciting lines. Like you didn't understand exactly what you were saying.

Especially the 'why would that be painful?' line. It did not refer to actual physical pain.

[meagansxfamous]

yeah thanks. with the whole "why would that be painful line".. i didnt want to make it seem physical but my director said i should. thanks though.

[Altamont02]

Yeah right, you totally took this comment off. I wonder what MG would say? Anyways, I agree with the original direction. She's a spirit, there is no physical pain. What they did have was emotional pain, which would manifest as something akin to physical pain.

[meagansxfamous]

haha of course i took the comment off, MG would murder me.

[emrihi]

She plays Emily WAY to emotional..... that monologue is supposed to beautiful.....

[meagansxfamous]

thanks for the tip, but when on stage its hard not to be a little over the top. thats just how theatre is. it's not a movie with mics everywhere and closeups on actors' faces. you need to show facial expressions so that the whole audience can see you and project so that people in the very back can hear you. yes, the monologue is supposed to be beautiful, but its hard to do that in a theatre that holds about 800 people. i like the constructive criticism though.

[couger666]

LO FUCKING L, you know its a highschool play when their is a kid in a wheel chair, we have one too lol and he is also black, ours does nothing at all

[LuceImaginary]

Why wouldn't there be a kid in a wheelchair in "Our Town"? So much of the play is about how anyone can fill in the slots of each character. Look how the Stage Manager jumps between being a narrator and minor character. Or how each character acts witha minimum of plot and scenery. Life is generic, that's part of the point.

[couger666]

ive never heard of people in wheel chairs on broadway, but in highschool at ours and this play

[GeniusTwig2]

i'm doing our town with my school right now. i play mrs. gibbs. i absolutely love act three. sit there and do nothing. XD just say my lines. but my butt always goes numb...haha.

[JillieUA]

I have to do a monologue by emily when she is telling mother gibbs about the farm and the cement drinking pool for the farm animals. Do you have that?

[marcusandbre]

when my high school did this, we had to sit on stools for all of act 3. it was really bad, after that act, i hated this play, but i still love it!

[yannis3108]

That was good. I liked it.

[wassim88]

lol man your too good to act with these ppl they suck! :P sry.

[CaptainHermes]

If you're trying to compare acting abilities in this scene, it's not right. All of the dead are not supposed to show emotion while Emily is the only one doing so. As far as I see, all of the characters have fit the roles quite well. And I would know, I performed in Our Town in high school.

[GeniusTwig2]

thanks for saying that. i'm playing mrs. gibbs in my school's production, and it would really stink if everyone thought the way that person did. :))

[CaptainHermes]

Yeah, my friend's Mrs. Gibbs :) I'm just Joe Stoddard :P

[Natemckenney]

i read that play a few months ago. your great! 5*s

[nirvanajunkie]

this is such a great play.

[jabazzy]

Ohhh I love the theater. You did really great :)

[MandaJanePunks]

Ahhh that was so good.