okay so my biggest worry when i act is that it doesnt sound.. right.
and today during oedipus rehersal my fear was confirmed a little.
during notes my director told me to work on sounding more conversational and less.. acty.
so after, i nodded graciously, wrote down the note on my script, left for my car after notes were done, and tried not to cry,
this is something i love doing. and i really want to be good at it. it means a lot to me. i want to continue doing it.. but how do you work on sounding more natural, or conversational.
people tell me to think of how i talk when i talk to my friends but i find that when i do that i get too carried away in the actual conversation, and forget to take notes on it.
help!

What you're asking of course is how to act - that is, how to live truthfully under artificial circumstances. Tough, ain't it?

If you're doing Oedipus, you have the additional challenge of classic material which is NOT entirely natural, being written in verse.

The classic solution to your problem is to choose an objective, that is to know exactly what you want in each moment of each scene. Then your intonations will be at the service of your efforts to get what you want.

It also helps to express the objective of each line in your own words - some people call this "speaking the subtext". Crude example: "To be or not to be, that is the question" becomes (for instance), "What I've really got to figure out here is, do I want to live or do I want to die?". You lose the poetry of the author's words, but you get closer to your own way of saying things, which after a while gets easier to add back into the author's words.

It doesn't hurt either to try your lines in all kinds of different tones, at different speeds, etc. without worrying if they sound "right". That will free you somewhat from line readings. But that just loosens what sounds like a pretty taut string right now. The next step is to tighten it in the right way - which brings you back to objective.

Acting's like real estate, only instead of "location, location, location" it's (can you guess what I'm going to say?) "objective, objective, objective".

Listen to what Jim is saying. The objective is important. And also remember that everything you do should be acted "life or death" this doesn't mean go over the top, but it means if you don't reach your objective you're going to have problems.
And don't worry, it's natural to cry and feel frustrated. All actors, even ones who have been at it for years still struggle with this. It's hard for us to totally give in to the character.

Ahh yes, conversations, fun FUN STUFF! Honestly I would suggest this:

When talking to ANYONE observe how you talk and how they talk. What seems natural? Go with that, study people in everyday life, you will get tons of ideas out of it. It worked for me, and you can ask JB actors for some advice as well, he'll definetly know what to do.

thanks guys!
are there any other thoughts?
I talked to my director today, he also teaches my classical acting class and he told me what he meant by the comment was that i seem kind of stiff when on stage. He wants to see me put more of myself into the peice, that i was a charming person, and he wanted to see it in my performances.
he gave us monolouges to do depending on our previous work, he gave us ones he could see us cast in. he gave me the prolouge as Rosalind in "as you like it"
i wonder what that says about me. he said something about it having layers.

Oh wow! Shakespeare! Trust me, if you can sound conversational with Shakpespeare your doin great.

There is in fact a whole section of this board on acting books:

What Are You Reading?

I also forgot that I linked to a few from my site:

Some popular acting books

(Judy Kerr's "Acting is Everything" is now in a much later edition - but it's about the business anyway, which you don't need to think about yet.)

Some of these books should be available in any good library.

Hi Snuffleupagus
I actually have some concern about the note your acting teacher gave you in itself. I don't know your teacher, and I am not saying he or she is good or bad, but this particular direction or teaching moment seems unclear at best.
Try to sound "less acty" is not a very helpful or act-able direction, or instruction. It's really more of a criticism--which is why you took it as such. If nothing else, it is a result oriented direction, which took you out of your work and put your attention on yourself instead of on what you--or your character--was DOING. As Jim said, put your mind on your objective. You shouldn't be worrying about what you sound like, just focusing with all your might on what your characters WANTS and HOW you can GET it. The less you focus on yourself (and how you sound) and the more you focus on your scene partner and getting him or her to do what you want so you get what you want, the better.
Your assignment of the Rosalind epilogue (I am thinking you meant?) from As You Like It, is strange in that it has you working alone. It may be that what you need most is a stronger attachment to the OTHER person in the scene, more focus on what you want and more tactics for going after it. When you're acting, spend as little time worrying about how you look and sound as possible.