A Series of Faces Draft A blinding lights shines in from the ceiling, a series of bright white lights in a row all

lined up, and all pointing in my direction. A buzz came through my body. It was like all the nerves were once a sleep but now decided to wake up and shake with its un-used energy. My face turns towards the large room filled with shaded ovals, all looking in my direction, all watching waiting to see what will happen next. One by one large thuds hit the inside of my chest while I stand trying to pantomime a normal conversation with the homeless drunkard lying on a black painted bench. A sudden and abrupt laughter explodes as a large dark figure appears on the lightly stained and very withered stage. I continue to stand there waiting, waiting to mess up, waiting to studder and mess up the only line that I had, two simple words. My mind however could not keep thinking about the execution, the delivery, Should I be super exaggerated with my facial expressions, or should I act like someone in this situation would actually act? I chose to step outside the little security box that I had previously set up and decided to use exaggeration. This idea become suddenly more real as soon as a large dark headless figure walked up on stage breaking the streak of silence with a roar of laughter coming from behind the figure. As the figure walk past the area I was positioned, the corners of my eyebrows curled into the middle of my face, my jaw dropped while I tucked my lips in my mouth. The two words that were waiting anxiously inside my mouth rushed out like a train yelling NO WAIT! as I threw my arm at the figure. The crowd of dark ovals broke out in chains of laughter. At this moment I had made a connection, exaggerated facial expressions and movement resulted in a comedic gesture.

That was my first ever performance on stage in front of a large crowd of people, and worst of all it was in front of all the students that attended the high school. I was however just a minor character, a small gear in the mechanism of the somewhat chaotic play. You see, these plays were not any normal high school play that usually happened at night and only parents attended. No, these plays were done in the middle of class and teachers would sign their classes to go to the plays that were performed during class (formally called in-class plays.) These were performed by the theatre classes and when a student would have taken higher theatre classes, they would get the opportunity to write their own plays and get a chance at it getting picked to be an in-class play. However I was only in theatre 1 at the time a to be quite honest, I had no clue what I was doing. That good bit of people that seemed like a loud crowd roaring with laughter, made me have at that moment a sense of control of the audience. I felt like I had power, the power to control peoples emotions with the expressions of my face. After that moment I could not stop observing peoples faces in different situations. When I watched movies I would pay close attention to what face would make certain emotions become very real and others really fake. I noticed the difference between comedic expressions and dramatic expressions and how if a face in a particular instance were altered just slightly, the whole interpretation of the persons emotions would change, or how the other persons emotions would change in reaction. Now is time for a story as an example of what Im trying to convey. The room is dark and the walls are decorated in wood paneling, which are layered in an abundant amount of Texas Cowboys emblems, flags and football helmets. A large flat-screened TV is centered in the middle of the room while large leather couches

surround it. A very entertaining movie was playing called Anchorman staring Will Feral who plays a very eccentric news anchor named Ron Burgundy. The movie was at a point where Ron was yelling in a telephone box on the phone with his best friend that also works for the news channel. While Ron was on the phone, he was yelling in remorse over his dog getting kicked of a bridge. Aside from the very humorous dialect, the amount of exaggeration and ridiculousness Will put his tone, his body gestures, and even more so in his facial expressions made me instantly laugh rather than feel any sort of remorse for the character. This is what I noticed with most in most situations, that if someone exaggerates their expressions in acting or in real situations a situation that would be very dramatic and serious instantly becomes funny. This also works inversely, if someone uses faint or realistic yet very emotional, their expressions would create a tone that was more serious and dramatic. More formally my theatre teacher Mrs. Moore showed us a power point on facial expressions and what kind of emotions they produce. Mrs. Moore a character in and of its self, was very obviously theatrical. She showed every emotion through the use of her face and she made us practice constantly, to be clear in the showing of our emotions through moving an eyebrow, puckering your lips, and so on. She would go around the room and put her hand on the students faces and contort them explaining it in the process of what emotions she was creating. She came up to me after visiting the other students faces, wrapped her white bony hands around my cheeks. As my eyebrows were being pushed up and my jaw dropped down she explained to me, Now this is what you would do if you wanted to act really

surprised in a comedy. She then moved my eyebrows down slightly, curving the ends down, and then bringing my jaw slightly upward. She turned to the class, and stepping to the side, And this is how you should look when you are surprised in a drama or any kind of performance that you wanted to be taken seriously. I practiced this over and over until I felt like I could completely understand the language of facial expressions on stage. By theatre 2 the next year and even more so in theatre 3 and 4, I felt like I had become literate in facial expressions. I had performed in many in-class plays and at the end of each one I would always get complemented on my facial expressions especially after comedic plays. People would say Wow I could not stop laughing at some of the expressions your face was making. More specifically, in the spring my school performed the musical, Les Miserables as an after school production my junior year. I tried my hardest to act very dramatically but serious at the same time (no big expressions) however when acting like a dirty drunkard in a Inn, and a sailor trying to find prostitutes I let myself go and I acted big. At the end of the play someone random couple came up to me and gave me a bouquet of flowers exclaiming, I really want you to have this, you where just so into it and youre face made me laugh my ass off while you were acting drunk, youre a good drunkard. After people would tell me things like I feel very rewarded and accomplished knowing that I communicated the situation how I wanted it. This brought me back to the control of the audience that I felt when I first performed on stage and how my face could control how the audience reacts in certain scenes. My previous interpretation of literacy was just reading and writing but I soon realized that acting was a literacy and more specific, facial expressions could be read and

interpreted like literature, and they could also be created (written) so that someone could communicate to another person what they are feeling.