Ten Lost Years, 90 found minutes...

I went to Seacoast Studio's "10 Lost Years" last night with my friend AM. She studied at that studio when she did a year in Vancouver. Years ago I had taken a monologue workshop with Scott Swann at Dramaworks and it was AMAZING (I highly recommend it if he is ever back again - best weekend session ever). I had told her and she did the workshop and then signed on for the week long Shakespeare workshop with him and then a few years later she went and studied with him for a year. The Scott Swann method of learning and doing monologues is a very distinctive one. I really like it as a method of learning the stories and it is great at keeping the actors "present" on stage. There are some draw-backs though. Some of the actors were a little under-prepared. I think they relied on the method and didn't do as much work as they should have. The result was that two or three of the monologues lacked a narrative arc. The story was there and was told, and in character, but the monologue didn't necessarily feel dramatic. Overall the show was really good. The music was wonderful. Such great harmony and voices with character and emotion. I just think that there were a couple of rough spots that needed refinement.

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