23/02/2002 - 11:50 p.m.

The Actor's Nightmare

Urgh... It's 10:59 and little brother is still off show choir competitioning in Council Bluffs. This means that we have to wait for him to call, so I can't be on the Internet. Hello Notepad.

It was IHSSA Individual Distrcits today. I'm not going to State. The Prose judge (aka Evil Hessian Bitch Lady Judge) completely missed the point of my piece. You know those stories with "surprise endings", like O. Henry stories, Springtime a la Carte, and such? Mine was like that- you're not supposed to see the end coming. Well, Evil Hessian Bitch Lady Judge told me to change a lot of my interpretation so that "we could see the build up of his change in feeling for her". Are you so uneducated that you don't understand the use of surprise ending? Then she went off on how I should've done more acting with my piece, which, with some judges the little movement and facials I did would've left me with comments like "this is not an acting category". The rules don't make any specifications, they say that spontaneous movement is all right, but nothing about prepared "blocking" type things. She wanted me to have a whole bunch of prepared movement.

I admit, I might've read a little bit fast, but that's because I saw the one minute page flip over with three paragraphs left to go. I felt that finishing the piece (as justification of a lot of my performance choices) was more important than pausing between paragraphs. (Some judges prefer that we stop, in the middle, of sentences, so that they, can catch every, single, word, that we might happen, to say. This is called "phrasing".) But, since she didn't understand it anyway, that doesn't matter so much, and she told me that she was absolutely certain that I had definately more than a minute (Oh yeah, Evil Hessian Bitch Lady Judge?, well, I saw the timer guy flip the cards. I probably had 40 seconds.) and so I could slow down so that the audience could catch what I was saying, because apparently, I also have terrible articulation. No one who knows me understands where this comes from. This is the second judge this year to make this claim. Up until now, I have had a lovely speaking voice, pleasant to listen to, conversational. The ruddy Reviewing judge (who also gave me a two, but wasn't an Evil Hessian Bitch) said I had a wonderful speaking voice at 8:30- how did it change from 8:30 to 12:30 into needing a lot of work with articulation? Especially how do I get less articulate as the day wears on?

Evil Hessian Bitch Lady Judge was harsher on Phoebe, a lot worse. (It was pretty obvious from the scores that Evil Hessian Bitch lady Judge didn't know how to judge acting.) Anyway, Phoebs did a fabulous monolouge, I mean, it was good. Eryn had done it a couple years ago, and I usually think that after I've seen it done once, it'll never be good subsequent times: Phoebe rocked. One memorisation lapse, but Phoebe rocked. And the judge went on at her about bad facial expressions, and no character, had absolutely nothing nice to say. For her intro, Phoebe just did a slight groan-y scream and then gave author and title. I would swear that Evil Hessian Bitch Lady Judge told her first thing that she liked the scream, but nothing else after that.

I understand how to deal with subjectiveness, but when the subjectiveness depends totally on which judge you got... I mean, football games aren't determined by how well they crossed the touchdown line: you cross the line enough times you win the game. If I went in and did precisely the same prose for a different judge, my rating might be entirely different. It could even be worse (too much moving). The rules need to address the things the judges end up judging, or specifically say "you are not judging them on that, you are judging them on this".

Don't get me wrong, I love IHSSA with a passion. It's a lot better than National Forensics League, which is intensely competitive. We don't see things that way, winning rocks and everything, but it's not our goal to go out and have everybody advance to All State (first of all, it's primarily student prepared, more to give us experience being judged on work than for Glawe to say "no, do it this way"). We go in to do our best and see a score that reflects our best work. When I'm getting I's my freshman and sophomore year and II's now, what am I supposed to assume? Coaching and practice have only killed those skills I have? Or, that the judges are getting more biased?

I realise that judging is a difficult thing to do. But, I know that I can tell the difference between a painful performance, a pretty good performance, and a spectacular one, which, when that's really all the rules ask for, it shouldn't be that difficult. The judge's comments aren't supposed to work like certain Diaryland review sites: "oh my god, you have a template, I hate you!", or in this case, "you moved too much, III!" It's supposed to be "I liked this, but maybe you would consider, or I think you could improve this," then you advance the kid and hope maybe they take your advice, unless you think that there's no way they should advance. Really, I wonder if II's should be given at Districts. If they abolished a three rating scoring, it's just people who are standing up there calling for lines and doing bad Spontaneous Speakings (ask me about that guy later) who don't advance, people who are clearly unprepared. (Or those people who get Disqualified, which are generally intelligently made decisions.) They can include a third rating to weed out the mediocre people at State.

All I'm saying is, it's not the judge's job to tell us what they wanted to see. We shouldn't be judged on whether or not we managed to fulfill the judge's list of things they want to see. (or like Emily's mom said "so, they made the judge cry, but she felt it was forced and unrealistic? Then, why was she moved to tears?")

So, Evil Hessian Bitch Lady Judge, we're out to get you. At least, I am. I am against you and your kind, and if you continue to spawn from math classes (you wouldn't believe how many judges are really math teachers or businessmen or secretaries or something, and you catch them saying things like "now, I know absolutely nothing about theatre..."), I will find you and I will cut you down and humiliate your judging because I really felt that you really didn't have any idea what you were talking about.

To anybody who has followed this all the way and understands what I was on about, good for you! This was something I really needed to just get out of the way and done with because nobody's really listening here at home (surprise surprise). I realise it's complicated and random, thanks for putting up with it.

Oh, one good thing, they're using my publicity design for Charlie Brown! Yea!