This summer, I took acting lessons with Gabriel “Gabe” Levey. Gabe is a very accomplished actor, teacher, and coach based in Western Massachusetts. Most of our lessons were in person at Northampton Karate, though we also worked online when necessary.
Learning In Person and Online
Northampton Karate was a pretty interesting place to study acting. The studio is large and open, with wall-length mirrors on one side, so we had plenty of room to move around. We could work on entrances, exits, body language, and the distance between characters without feeling limited by the space.
Our online lessons felt quite different. The camera put more focus on my face, voice, and smaller reactions. I had to consciously think about what the camera could see while also trying not to be too aware of it, because then I would start letting the camera make my acting stiff. Working both in person and online was actually pretty useful because I got to see how the same kind of scene can adapt depending on the physical space you’re working in.
Acting Fundamentals
We started with acting fundamentals and talked about different acting techniques and how actors build the characters they have to inhabit.
One of the biggest things we worked on was listening and reacting. It is really easy to just wait for the other actor to finish speaking so you can say your next line and to focus just on what you’re doing. Oh, how should I say this, maybe I should grab their hand next. Things like that. It’s okay to think about those things but if that’s all you’re doing then you’re not actually taking in what your partner is giving you. Gabe wanted me to actually let the other character’s words and actions affect me (whether he was acting with me or I was imagining up a partner). When I did this, my response felt much more natural because it was coming from what had just happened in the scene instead of me just waiting for my cue.
Gabe also encouraged me to notice my own habits and avoid forcing things. One thing he said that stuck with me was to be comfortable with not knowing. Your character doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, so you have to portray that too. A character’s feelings should come through the whole performance – the voice, body, breathing, movement, and especially the response to the other actor!!
He compared it to tossing a ball. Your partner throws a ball at you, and you have to catch it and take it in. Then you throw it back, and they do the same. You’re not just waiting for them to finish so you can throw your ball. You actually have to catch theirs first.
Character Goals and the “Big Dream”
We did a lot of different exercises and talked about what each one could teach me. For the most part, we really delved into the characters’ and plays’ backgrounds before even beginning scenes, using a general guide that Gabe had put together.
One exercise that I really liked was figuring out a character’s goal through their “big dream.” It doesn’t have to be realistic at all. Basically: how good could this situation possibly get? Either in the scene itself or in the entire play. And then, on the opposite end, what is the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen?
Tapping into that giant dream actually helps a lot with establishing how you play a character in a moment. What a character wants most is going to influence the decisions they make and the way they present themselves. It also helped me become less tense and make stronger physical choices.
Humor and Recommended Reading
Gabe also used a lot of humor during our lessons, which made it much easier to experiment without feeling like I had to get everything right on the first try. There is a very welcome freedom in that.
He also recommended some acting books that he considers noteworthy and generously lent them to me. His were all autographed copies, and since I have a penchant for writing in my books, I ordered my own copies so I could mutilate them at will.
Sonia: Finding Hope in Vanya
We started with a monologue I had already done as Helena from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and applied the guide Gabe had given me to it. Then we focused heavily on Sonia’s final monologue from an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, simply titled “Vanya.” We spent a number of weeks really digging into this character.
Sonia is responsible and hardworking, but she is also dealing with a lot of disappointment. She loves someone who does not love her in the same way, while also trying to care for her family and manage all of the work around her.
Originally, because Sonia is naturally quite distraught over everything that has happened throughout the show, I played her as very sad in this moment. Sadness is kind of a safe emotion for me. It’s easy for me to tap into, so I think I was putting myself into my little comfort box.
But with Gabe’s guidance, I discovered that keeping the hope was actually much more emotional. Instead of just thinking, I’m so sad, everything is terrible, I could tap into that giant dream and think, oh, but maybe this could happen. Maybe things will actually be okay.
That gave me a much bigger emotional range and made the experience feel much more connected and real. We also focused a lot on what I wanted my partner to feel, both positively and negatively, instead of just focusing on what I was feeling.
We worked on this monologue both online and in person. First, we read through the show to find every fact we possibly could about Sonia, and then we tried a bunch of different exercises to open up the character.
Discovering Sonia’s “Big Dream”
I remember one Zoom lesson where I was standing in front of my couch with my computer sitting on it. I tried to push my coffee table out of the way so I could have more room, and instead I ended up knocking over basically everything on it. Anyway!
During that lesson, we did an exercise we’d done before where I put my arms out and pretended that I had accomplished everything I’d ever wanted – as Sonia, obviously. After establishing that giant dream, I was told to close my eyes and take in that warmth of maybe being on a stage and hearing people just… completely in love with me, y’know? It was definitely awkward, but that warmth really did help.
Sometimes Gabe would play Vanya for me and change his tone, timing, or physical position. The scene would immediately feel different. If his Vanya seemed angry or tired, or maybe he was finally starting to hear Sonia out, my Sonia had to respond differently. I couldn’t just repeat the scene exactly the way we’d practiced it before. I had to actually pay attention to him.
Again, the focus was on my partner rather than myself, and that made my reactions feel much more natural.
Building Sonia’s World
The last time we worked on Sonia in person, we used items in the room to establish a dining room. I had to design it using details mentioned in the story – for example, Sonia’s mother’s piano – but I could also make up my own details. I think Sonia is an artist, so I imagined maybe some of her artwork was hanging on the wall. There were a bunch of little details like that.
I acted as though Vanya was sitting in one of the chairs we’d placed around our makeshift table while Gabe watched me. Although I definitely phased through the imaginary table at one point and probably knocked over several imaginary plants, I think I did the best performance of the monologue that day. It was vastly different from how I had originally performed it.
Lungs and Everybody
We also briefly worked on two other monologues: one from Lungs by Duncan Macmillan and the other, Friendship’s monologue from Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. These were two very different characters, and both were pretty difficult monologues.
The Woman’s monologue from Lungs is written almost like someone is actually talking. There are incomplete sentences, a lack of punctuation, and thoughts constantly overriding each other. Friendship, meanwhile, is much more structured, but it’s basically question after question after question. If you ask every question in the exact same way, it gets boring really quickly.
When we worked on these online, we did an eye-contact exercise. I could only say my lines while looking directly at Gabe, and I couldn’t look away unless I needed to read the next couple of words on the page. We also did both of these as cold reads.
That exercise was helpful because it brought back the whole idea that the character doesn’t know what they’re going to say next. Except now, I literally didn’t know either. And because I couldn’t just keep talking without looking at the page, there might be pauses where I didn’t think the character would normally pause, and I then had to figure out how to make those pauses make sense.
The Woman in Lungs: Switching Emotions
The Woman was especially fun because there are so many emotions happening in that scene. She wants a baby, but she’s also scared to have one, but it’s also been her dream, and they’re so cute, but oh my gosh this is terrifying. There is such a huge range of emotions to play with.
To work on that, we did an exercise using a bench and four towels, I think? Each towel represented a different emotion: fear, anger, grief, and love. We marked up the script with a bunch of little dashes – to the point where there were sometimes only a single word between one dash and the next. At each dash, as well as using my own intuition, I had to change the emotion I was conveying.
I would physically get up and switch between the towels while also changing my vocal tone and body expression. That was really hard!! But it was incredibly helpful when I went back to the monologue.
Friendship in Everybody: Changing the Intention
With Friendship, we tapped into the “big dream” idea again. Friendship wants Everybody to like them! They want Everybody to reciprocate the feelings they’re showing and become their besties forever and ever.
Originally, I played negative-sounding questions as negative. For example, when Friendship asks, “You seem depressed. Is it your relationship and/or lack of a relationship? Is it our relationship?” I naturally made those questions sound concerned in a negative way.
But what if those aren’t negative things to Friendship? What if Friendship is asking because they genuinely want to impress and encourage Everybody so they can become best friends?
That change in the goal drastically shifted how I portrayed the character. Suddenly, the exact same words had a completely different intention behind them.
We also played with breath. Before each question, or sometimes with every punctuation mark, I had to take some kind of gasp of air. Sometimes this paired with rising up onto my tippy toes.
After all of those exercises, I performed the monologues without any guide. I just used what I’d learned and performed them, and the exercises really did do wonders.
Juliet: Understanding Shakespeare Through Movement
For our last piece of the summer, we’re working on Juliet from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
Juliet is young, intelligent, and full of strong feelings. Her life changes very quickly after she meets Romeo. The first thing Gabe taught me was about the structure of verse in the monologue we were looking at and how that can reveal more about Juliet’s character than you might initially notice.
We also translated the monologue into our own modern interpretation to understand what the heck I was actually saying.
Shakespeare’s language can be difficult because people do not talk that way in everyday life. At first, it can be really tempting to focus on making the words sound poetic just because they’re Shakespeare. Gabe helped me look past that and focus on what Juliet actually means and why she chooses those particular words.
The Grid and Breath Work
With Everybody, we also introduced an exercise that I’ve done similarly in my theatre department at school: a grid. Basically, I just… walk on a grid, lol, with certain instructions. For Juliet, we did this again, and I might turn only on punctuation, only at the end of a line, etc.
I found that I was really tempted to turn and immediately keep walking, so I had to kind of force myself to come to a full stop and then keep moving. It made me much more aware of my physical choices and how even something as simple as taking a pause impacts how you say what you say next. It also makes you more aware of what you’re actually saying instead of just rushing through it.
We also played with breath again by walking back and forth and not being allowed to take a breath until I had finished a full line.
Romeo as a Punching Bag
The last exercise we did with Juliet, (before our last class), involved pretending Romeo was the punching bag that we had in the room. He was too hot – literally – to touch, but I really did want to. If I touched him, he’d burn me.
This was quite fun and brought out more of Juliet’s character. I got to experiment with boundaries and proximity in this way. It made the relationship feel much more physical and funnier, even though Romeo was, obviously, a punching bag. Gotta use that imagination.
What I Learned
And that’s basically what my acting lessons this summer have looked like! We’ve done a lot of interesting exercises, but the ones that seem the strangest ones have often been the ones that helped me the most. A lot of what we’ve worked on comes back to the same foundational ideas: ACTUALLY listen to your partner, know what your character wants, and – probably most importantly – be okay with not knowing exactly what’s going to happen next.
