Free entry week 1

All cast members are in their perspective groupings. Each cast member is doing something their character would do at a sleep over (note) there will not be enough time for the guys to be in pajamas girls can elect to start this in pj’s if they provide their own and they are appropriate for the time period.
Guys are doing things: playing video games, eating, watching TV paper football etc
Girls are doing things, talking on the phone, writing love notes poetry, listening to a walkman (must be the tape walkmans) or jam box (no sound0 fixing their hair, playing with dolls (particularly cabbage patch) painting nails for each other etc
During the conversation about Danielle we see Richard leave in frustration, once the conversation ends the boy and girls exit quickly with everything stage right and left. This should all happened in under a min that means all actors must get onstage into position go through the dialogue sequence make themselves noticeable and exit all within about a min (seriously consider the need for extraneous props and costume pieces here as they will get in the way of moving, anything you cannot carry with you is too much)
Lights go dark and center in on Daniel who swoops down from his Crucifixion/flying frozen position to the blocks,
It is the next day and both boys have come to the school yard from different places to meet up they have been having a conversation for a short while, but before that each actor has preparations. Danielle wants to fly so badly to save his mother’s pain, Danielle’s father died, he was an airplane pilot in the war and Danielle believe that if he can fly he can become famous and take away the pain that his mother has suffered all these years. The actor must find his own personal reason for wanting so badly to convince someone that he can and will fly, he has wanted to do it his whole life, he believes deep down inside where he lives that if he can fly it will erase the pain he and his mother have lived under. When he talks about flying his is frantic and consumed like it is the greatest thing in the world. The actor must replace flying with whatever they want most in the world to do and they give themselves a supercharged reason with their imagination for wanting to do it and talk about it even more.

As Daniel move Richard takes one of the blocks and moves it stage left quickly
Richard sits and begins frantically to try and solve a rubrics cube, we see the frustration mount. He must have a very personal reason to solve the puzzle something that will take his mind off of anything Daniel says at first (ex father calls him stupid all the time YOUR SO STUPID HE SAYS) to prove how stupid he is
The father buys him this cube and he says to Richard you will never solve this not in a million years that is how stupid you are, the actor must imagine a situation in which the person they love the most and want most to impress in the world causes them immense pain by calling them stupid over and over again and the only way to stop this to prove that person is wrong is to solve the rubrics cube, the obstacle is Richard cannot solve the cube, only Daniele can and Danielle can solve it in seconds which makes it all the more infuriating.

Blocking notes: Daniel begins the scene by flying around on the cubes center stage with his arms spread wide, Daniel plops down on the words “think of a bird Richard” at this point the actor is chasing Richard to make him believe him. Remember every scene is a chase each actor has to pursue a partner for something, Danielle moves stage right in a chase to make Richard believe him but Richards is totally engrossed in the solving of his own problem the rubrics cube, the dramatic tension of the scene builds as Danielle does everything he can to make Richard listen to him and believe him and Richard does everything he can to solve the cube while still being available to his scene partner Danielle.
The first time Richard looks at Danielle in the scene is on the line your bird snood Charles Lindbergh, this is an important first moment because Danielle must make Richard look at him it is not Richards inclination to do so and the look must show a deep long standing friendship. This will last a second and then Richard will be back looking at the cube focusing all energy on solving it.
Daniel’s line when Charles linbe3rg flies allow Richard to do this because Danielle stops for a while and focus on his own desires to fly facing directly towards the audience we see him lost in another place thinking about his father and flying and all the wonderful feelings that will generate. Danielle separates his own arms on the line “Separate’ and begins his imagined flight without moving\
On his line that’s amazing Richard crosses center stage to get away from Danielle and continue to concentrate on his problem. (Ryan you will understand from the Meisner exercises you have done. how this works, you must allow something about what Danielle is doing to distract you enough to move for a reason and not just because it is blocked, it should be somewhere around this line but it must come from your instinct to move) this is important for every actor to remember that when you do something like move on stage you must do so for a reason and it must be difficult and important to you, it should stem from a deep personal reason, otherwise the movement is just something the director told you to do and it will show. So again for those of you who are new I want to restate this and everyone listen, when you do something good acting demands that you do it for a reason and that it is difficult and important.