fandomhigh | Drama, Monday, Period 4

"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?"

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"//It's a long story,//" Lito told her, switching back to English to say, "Appearances can be deceiving, yes? Perhaps you could say you're from Canada, or a different state than the one you're actually from. Stick to a story you can defend even if you get called on it."

Part of Kathy just wanted to hear him keep speaking Korean; she hadn't heard anything but English since the last time she'd gone home to visit her family and it was funny how much you could miss the sound of another language in your ears.

"I picked Seoul because I could answer questions about it--" Questions she hadn't thought that anyone would know enough to ask "--but I see your point. I'm giving myself away with every word I speak." Sure, she could have just delivered it all in Korean, but that had seemed like cheating. And apparently Mr. Rodriguez would have known the difference anyway.

"Okay, err..." She took another second to think. "My name is Kathy Li and I'm from a small town outside of Las Vegas. My parents shipped me out here because I was developing a gambling problem." It was everything she could do not to end that sounding like she was asking a question.

"Much better," Lito said, encouraging. "Perhaps a trifle more emotion when you're admitting to the gambling problem, just to really sell it."

For a moment, Kathy looked like Mr. Rodriguez had just suggested she go pet April's spiders. In fairness, Kathy might have preferred that.

"Umm...okay. Umm." She hastily cycled through possible emotions. Was she sad to have let her parents down? Angry at being sent away? Scared of how she was going to survive without the roulette wheel? Could she take, like, half an hour to go do some research and come back?

Eventually, she settled for 'defiant' because that seemed more like a lie than any of the other options she'd imagined. Slumping in her seat, she sighed and rolled her eyes. "My parents think I was developing a 'gambling problem'," she sneered, with air quotes. "Whatever. What do they know? Betcha $20 I'll be back home by Christmas."

Lito's reply was two thumbs up.

Drama, Monday, Period 4

Re: Introduce Yourselves

Re: Introduce Yourselves

Re: Introduce Yourselves

Re: Introduce Yourselves

Re: Introduce Yourselves