Drama, Monday, Period 4

[tequila_squared]

"Good afternoon!" Lito said to his students, once they were all assembled in the front row of the auditorium, because seriously, this was drama, what did they need a regular classroom for? "I am Mr. Rodriguez, and I will be your teacher. I'm afraid I am a bit new at this, so please bear with me. Now, drama is an art form, yes? It's about making people believe something is real that isn't. It's about...well, it's about lying. So that is what you're going to do this week. You're going to lie to me. It's an improvisation exercise. Introduce yourselves. Give me your real name, because I need to check you off on this roster, but anything else that comes out of your mouth should not be true, and it should be convincing. I, for example, am a pharmacist from Barcelona who was recently working in San Francisco, before I discovered my passion for the stage." He sounded very convincing, and stood one hundred percent prepared, with some assistance, to convince them this was true. Or they could Google him on their phones. "Now, you," he said, picking a student at random. "Who are you?"

Comments

Introduce Yourselves

[tequila_squared]

Untruthfully.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[smilestopscars]

"I'm Ezra Sagishi," Ezra said. "So named because of Ezra Pound. I hail from a highly academic family from Wisconsin, and in my spare time I like to tend to a little bonsai garden on my dorm room window sill."

Lying? Lying was easy as breathing. It was a survival skill Ezra had had to pick up a long, long time ago.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[tequila_squared]

"Oh, bonsai," Lito said with what appeared to be genuine interest. "Tell me more about your bonsai garden."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[gavegoodface]

You had only yourself to blame for the painful display of deliberate, impossibly bad acting that was to follow, Lito.

"I'm Garik," he said, standing awkwardly and addressing his chest instead of the room.

"I'm from..." There was a pause as Face did a very bad job of trying to hide the fact he clearly was looking around the room looking for inspiration. "...Pantolomin."

Another, longer pause. "It's a planet." Beat. "In space."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[tequila_squared]

Lito studied him for a long moment before telling him, "My friend, either you have tried harder when you were convincing your mama you didn't steal the cookie when you were three, or this is also a lie, no?"

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[gavegoodface]

Face was too busy facepalming. "Of course a planet's going to be in space," he muttered.

"I'm sorry, I've never done this before," Face lied with complete, embarrassed sincerity. "I blanked and all I could think of was pants and space."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[spin_kick_snap]

Coming up with a backstory was easy. Selling it was not.

"My name is, umm, Kathy Li, and I'm a--a junior. I'm from Seoul, but I just moved to America to live with my aunt and uncle? Umm, not because there's anything wrong with my parents! I just want to attend an American university--oh, wait, no, I do, does that count?" She was blushing now. God, she was bad at this. "I mean, I wanted--want!--to attend Duke University, and my family thought I should live in America for a bit before deciding."

She came to a stumbling halt, still scarlet. This was very hard, yes.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[tequila_squared]

"Okay, breathe," Lito said kindly. "You want to avoid hesitating, and sounding like you're asking a question. You're telling me something about yourself, not checking to see if I'll buy it, yes? 'Um' is a big tell, so try to avoid it. //And if you can't sound anything but American, don't try to pull off being from Seoul.//" Yes, thank you, Sun, for your somewhat blunter input, given in flawless Seoul-native Korean. "Would you like to try again?"

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[spin_kick_snap]

Okay, all of that information was super-useful and stuff, but Kathy's attention was thoroughly ensnared by one bit of it.

"//You speak Korean?!//" she asked, jaw-dropping. "//You sound like you just stepped off the plane from Seoul!//" Kathy's own accent betrayed both her American upbringing and her family's roots in Busan, to the southeast of Korea.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[not_every_mage]

"I'm Anders," Anders said, getting the last few details of his lie straight in his mind. "I'm from Starkhaven. My parents are merchants and they sent me here because they caught me in bed with the stablehand."

He wasn't a bad liar; it went with how much time he'd spent running away.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[tequila_squared]

"Well, I hope the stablehand was worth it," Lito joked. Maybe half joked, because: his teenage nightmare, right there. "Where is Starkhaven?"

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[not_every_mage]

"It seemed like it at the time," Anders said, with a smile that wasn't quite as worldly as he'd hoped. "And Starkhaven's in the Free Marches, east of Tantervale. It's a different world, don't worry if you haven't heard of it."

RE: Introduce Yourselves

[cuzfriendship]

April was positively delighted about this assignment, but her chosen persona was much more reserved to the point of creepiness. She adopted a low, monotonous voice and raised her eyes the bare minimum to appear awake. "My name is April and I collect spiders and scorpions," she droned. "I like watching dental surgeries on the internet. And I'm from Canada."

Her brightly colored clothing didn't quite jive with the character, but her performance was pretty good.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[tequila_squared]

"Very good, April," Lito said. "Do you have a favorite kind of spider?"

RE: Re: Introduce Yourselves

[cuzfriendship]

April fought to keep a straight face, and there was a hint of a smile twitching at the corner of her mouth, but she pushed forward. "Yes, I especially love black widows," she monotoned. "They're just the right size to cuddle."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[dwarvenswagger]

Okay, this whole exercise seemed to be without any merit. Which would be why Thorin was aggressively frowning throughout the entire thing.

"I am Thorin, son of Thrain. My home is..." He sighed in annoyance. "Khazad-Dum. My family are all miners."

There. He lied. And it was awful.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[tequila_squared]

You would thank Lito one of these days, Thorin. Just you wait and see.

"Do you not like Khazad-Dum? Is it unpleasant there?" Oh, Lito, you have no idea. (Also, Lito had completely butchered the pronunciation, but hey, he'd tried.)

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[dwarvenswagger]

He was dramatic enough all on his own!

"I have never been," Thorin replied, making a face as the poor word was butchered. "It is infested with goblins and trolls."

And a Balrog! Just for funsies.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[boneyard_girl]

"'M Ada Miller. I'm not from around here at all, I got sent to school because my mother thought it would be good for me to learn something that wasn't from carnies and con-artists."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[tequila_squared]

"'Carnies and con-artists?'" Lito repeated, the words sounding quite foreign in his mouth. "Is that who you were learning from before?"

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[boneyard_girl]

"There might have been a real teacher or two," Ada said, but she sounded doubtful. "And Duncan's only been arrested, like, once, so he hardly counts as a con."

Ada Miller you are gonna get your bottom swatted if Eglantine ever hears you were disparaging her actually legit teaching credentials. Let alone the slander on Duncan's character.

"But this place said it was for advanced and gifted students requiring an academic challenge, so here I am."

Hee, 'gifted.' That was totally what she was going to start calling herself instead of 'memory-impaired.'

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[tigerundercover]

"I'm Raven Darkholme," Raven said. "I'm from upstate New York, where my family settled after the closure of the freak show we used to work for."

She could go on. She had a whole thing about the Great Depression and the family opening a grocery store near Niagara Falls where she worked summers before coming to Fandom.

And she was absolutely set to demonstrate her "freakiness".

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[tequila_squared]

"Were you sad when the freak show closed?" Lito asked. "Or were you excited about getting a chance to live a different kind of life?"

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

"I'm Hanna Heller." Um. Oh, Hanna was *always* terrible at this. "I am from... Russia." She then said, "//It is very nice to meet you,//" in somewhat stiff Russian. "I want to be, um." What? She looked around frantically. "... a hot air balloonist."

Well, at least she had imagination?

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[tequila_squared]

Lito didn't have any Russians in his head to call her on her name or accent not being Russian, so she was safe there. But he did tell her, "Relax. It's not a test. Well, it might be, but don't think of it as one, that's no good. Think of it as a game, yes? Now, why do you want to be a hot air balloonist, Hanna?"