Voice for the Actor

From last Monday, I started to take a class at Purdue University. Correction: VISITED a class. I did not register for the class, but I asked an instructor to accept me as an auditor. Neither my hubby nor I is a student at Purdue. So I have to pay from $700-$1,800 (depending on how many credits the class has) for one class there. That is expensive for me. Therefore, I found the way to learn from this class without paying. Which class? "Voice for the Actor!!"

This class was limited 17 students. It's a small class! The class has been held at this building in the photo. The building is for art activities. The name is Pao Hall for Visual and Performing Arts. So, there are some studios and theaters in the building. The instructor of this class is a graduate student at Pudue. Her name is Stacie. She is a young, cute girl!! Fortunately, she accepted me! Thank you sooo much, Stacie!! The Voice for the Actor class is bacically for sophomores whose majors are theater. The ratio of the boys and girls? 6:4, I guess.

In the class, we introduced ourselves first. Second, Stacie explained about the syllabus. I was surprised how plentiful the requirements are for the students:
writing several assignments about voice, reading some parts of a THICK textbook every time, going to the theaters to watch some plays which the instructor recommended, writing impressions about those plays, working on a performance...and so on.
I'm fine because I don't have to PASS it or GET an A in this class... But other students have to pass it, and of course they have other classes!!
"Being a student" is not an EASY job in the U.S...

After the orientation, we moved chairs to the back of the room and made a circle.
Stacie said, "Let's play a game which is very helpful to remember everybody's name!" Can you imagine what we did? I'll explain:
One says his name, and made an action which represents himself. Everyone repeats the name & the action. The next one does the same things. Then, everyone repeats the first one's & second one's names & actions! Continue to the last person in the circle! The game makes you repeat everyone's name and action continuously.
What is "an action which represents you"? For instance, I jumped and raised my hands. One girl covered her face with her hands as if she was crying. One boy pretended to play a guitar. Another boy saluted.
This class is not "a lecture type one" at all... I JUMPED in the class!!
It is the first time for me to have a class at an American university, but I chose the one which requires me to communicate MORE than other classes!! However, this is a great game! Almost all the students figured out everybody's name. Me!? I'm not sure...

I was an instructor of (a kind of ) speech class in Japan. So,"making proper & strong voice" is definitely one of my interests! I'm looking forward to seeing how I will learn from Stacie♪