David Chiu

I think it’s so ironic that I was assigned scenes from the play “Doubt” to work on for class. I first started working on the pivotal scene between Father Flynn and Sister Aloysious a few months ago but then stopped going to class for financial reasons.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t all that excited on working on the play. The material made me a little uncomfortable and it would be a real stretch for me to play a priest in the 50’s with a Bronx accent. But that was the point - to stretch me artistically as an actor. So now it’s 2006 and my beautiful wife has signed me up for scene study class as part of my Christmas present. Yesterday I was told that Lisa (my acting coach) still wanted me to work on scenes from the play so I’ve now been paired up with a different actress to work on the scene between Father Flynn and Sister James. I was also told that Lisa wants to see the scene “on it’s feet” (memorized with blocking) this Sunday. A 5-page scene memorized, blocked and with accents prepared in 3 days - no pressure right? Luckily I found the Doubt website along with some video previews. I gained so much more insight on the play and the characters by just watching the 2 minute clip. It also really helped inform me of how the Bronx accent should sound.

So I have blocked off a couple hours on Sunday before class to rehearse with my new partner. This will be a good test to see how much more confidence I have gained as an actor after studying materials on self confidence.