In the Classroom: 3rd Year Acting Exam/Экзамен по мастерству III-ого курса

Today the third year acting course (Козак/Брусникин) held their final acting exam of the year.  By the end of the third year of study, the acting exam consists of scenes from pieces that are meant to be expanded into a full-scale diploma project; a proposal for a project that can rejected or accepted by the faculty body in discussion afterwards.  In Russian, it's called a заявка на спетакль.  This acting exam was centered on the piece Материнское Поле (Our Mother, The Fields) by Чингиз Айматов (Chingis Aimatov).  Aitmatov was a soviet poet and writer from Kyrgyzstan, and this particular narrative tells the powerful story of the women of small village, their lives, loves, and incredible losses as they come face to face with the horrors of World War II.  The work was directed by Maria Zorina.

In The Classroom: The Graduating Class of 2010/Выпуск 2010 года

Today the senior course of 2010 (Золотовитский/Земцов) graduated from the Moscow Art Theater School in the Hall of Portraits in the Moscow Art Theater. 

The ceremony in the Hall of Portraits is always an emotional one, as the joy of the completion of a journey blends with the tears of saying farewell.  I also feel older with every one of these ceremonies I go to, as memories of my graduation come flooding back as if it were yesterday, and yet five years have already passed.  As I recall, the American Course of 2005 was the first course ever to have its graduation ceremony in the Hall of Portraits, a tradition that has stuck ever since.  It's nice to think that after the huge struggle and experiment that was our course, we were able to leave the school with at least one beautiful tradition for posterity, however small. 

Congratulations to the graduating class of 2010!  Успех, творчество, и везение!  Поздравляем!

-A

In the Classroom: Константин Райкин, I-ый курс, и Достоевский/Konstantin Raikin, the first year course, and Dostoevsky

Tonight Konstantin Arkadyevich held his final meeting with his first year students, giving them their homework assignments for the summer, and preparing them for next year.  The students will continue their curriculum of etude work, but instead of etudes based on observations, objects, paintings, animals and the like, the students will delve into what is called этюды к образу.  In english, the best way to identify this concept of work is 'etudes as a step towards a character/image'.  It's not quite pedagogical scene work, but it is a step towards creating a sharpened representation of a character, one that is truly 'far from oneself'.  The literature to be used for the purposes of these etudes will be Dostoevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov'. 

I've mentioned this before, but I love sitting in on Raikin's classes.  The man has a plan, and it seems he has a very good idea of where he wants his students to end up at the end of four years...and it's only the end of year one.  And he's already hinting at it.  Of course there will be changes along the way, but the amount of thought and foresight used to structure the entire four year course of study is inspiring.