Independent Project Auditions

I hate how everyone is casting out of our own class because it suddenly feels like we have all this extra work since most of us will need to be in 2+ productions, even though there's only three. Actually I think we are. I know I'm in Irene's and Celestine's as the white mom and Snow White, respectively. And Celestine and Irene are in two, too. I think. I don't really remember. We already started rehearsals for Irene's piece because their piece is of a different genre than the other two so they're going first. Some parts of the script don't make much sense though. We were reading through it, and Celestine's character says something like "Oh wow! I love being in my family now that I know what everyone else is like!" but we all decided we would like the white mom the most. So that was weird. Also, I think Irene is most worried about blocking since all four of us (Celestine, Cindy, Shivani, and I) stay in relatively the same place all the time.

Monologues

We were supposed to take one monologue and apply two different characters to it. I guess I'm very limited because I could only think of one and it seemed really similar to my dinner theatre character. The second one, which was more crying and whiny, was random stuff that I just decided to do as I went up. The stupid fire alarm went off during mine though, it scared me a little. Oh, right, my monologue was called "Forgotten Movie Siren." I guess I'm just good at being overconfident and full of it. Irene's was really cute though. Hers is the only one I remember because of her puppet.

Phantom of the Opera

So for this six weeks, I saw the Phantom of the Opera at, again, the Pantages. I keep feeling like I should go somewhere else to watch things because I'm only seeing one type of production. It's probably not going to happen though, I love the Pantages and my mom's been taking me there since such a long time ago I can't even remember. Anyways, this is probably my absolute favorite musical ever. I love all of the music for this, Andrew Lloyd Webber is such a genius. I still cannot get over how great the music was, this is the one musical where I have a CD of all the songs because I love them so much, even though it's so opera-sounding. The music is seriously perfect. And it sounded even better hearing it live. Sorry I keep going on about the music but I guess since I have been playing piano since forever ago as well as violin, viola, and clarinet, it has more priority over everything else. Sorry, I will focus on theatre aspects now. After two Youtube videos.



This is some weird piecing together of pictures and stuff, but it's my favorite song so I will deal with it.



I couldn't decide between this one and Think of Me, but there are just too many random people singing into their webcam and this looks more performance-y. Also because Claire Moore is amazing.

I still loved the set. Pantages never ceases to amaze me. Especially when they used the lighting and they lit up the back with that screen still there. I could obviously tell that it was the same stage and everything but I just felt like my brain was tricked into believing that they weren't in the same place, the effect that they achieved was similar to that of movie editting except it was more amazing because they could not change anything since everything was directly seen by the audience. The actors were obviously awesome, they always are. Getting onto Broadway must be so hard since there's so much competition and you need to be absolutely amazing. I'm kind of sad because I heard this is the last tour that they're doing of Phantom of the Opera? I'm not sure, but someone said that's why Andrew Lloyd Webber and some people from the original cast(?) were there.

Dinner Theatre Closing Night

I'm really glad this is over since I'll finally be able to go home at the normal time now, but I'm also really sad this is over. I will miss all these people even though they're all pretty much 2-3 years younger than me. They make me feel so old. I don't really remember yesterday's performance that distinctly but I feel so bad because I know I definitely broke character about three times because a lot of my friends were here, and when I walk off the stage to sit, it was at their table and then two of them kept trying to feed me. And I finally got used to Toni sticking her gum on me. By the way, I never found the one she stuck on me the first day. I knew she put it on my neck because my neck felt sticky afterwards, but I just couldn't find it for some reason. I don't know where it went at all. I think all of us messed up a lot more yesterday and before the performance, a lot of the props were missing and we had to replace some because no one could find them. Someone who came on Friday tried to sabotage us. But they did not succeed, we are too cool for that. Going to Toni's house afterwards was really fun though. Her house is so nice, I'm so jealous. I don't really remember anymore, I'm too tired.

Dinner Theatre Opening Night

Acting in front of people is so freaking exciting. I cannot believe I did not realize this before. It is significantly different from our rehearsals, even when it's dress rehearsals. I'm just going to go over everything one by one. First of all, getting dressed before it started and staying in the drama room, waiting for it to start was significantly funner than usually sitting around the MPR while other people rehearse. The food smelled really good though, when we were behind the curtain making sure all of our props were in place. And then when the thing actually started, it was kind of awkward when some guy walked outside. I mean, we were all standing there in our costumes waiting to go in and he walks out and we had to hide or at least turn away and it was just weird. It was really cold outside. I am bitter that everyone either has a coat/jacket or long sleeves. EXCEPT FOR ME. What is this? But whatever, it's not even a big deal. Anyways, going in, I could not look at the people at all. I felt like I would forget my lines so I stared somewhere closer to the ceiling. I can't really remember details during the whole play anymore. It went relatively smoothly and the next thing I remember specifically was the intermission. I wasn't there for most of it because Natalie had to help me fix my make-up and hair so that it was less messed up but when I went out, I did not know how to interact with the audience at all. At least I was only out there for like half a minute. I learned something from today though, when the raffle is going on, Bailey and I should still stay inside because there is a long gap between the raffle and when we run in. It was really cold outside and boring. My favorite part is still when people talk to Joseph though, it's so funny. They need to practically lie on the floor or crouch really low because he's laying down behind the sofa. At one point during the second act, Joseph started eating a candy bar. Oh my gosh. It was so distracting, I don't even know. Everything else went okay after that, I think. Aldo's accent keeps disappearing and it only comes back when he needs to say "the body?" but I guess that's okay since Andi's fades out sometimes, too. The ending where the "producers" come out and talk to us is still awkward and weird and I hate it. But whatever. Curtain call was so funny. Melody's boyfriend is so freaking funny. When they stood up with the We Love Melody shirts, I almost fell over laughing. And after this, the only thing I remember is eating because the lasagna was really good and now I have a bunch of homework, I don't think I'm going to school tomorrow, I'm going to be up forever working. This kind of sucks.

Independent Project Reminder

We had our meeting with Ms. Karr today individually to discuss our independent projects. I think I'm actually doing okay and I'm looking forward to actually building the puppet over Winter Break. Okay, I'm only posting this because I feel like I won't have enough blogs this six weeks seeing as how it's going so far AND to remind myself to go talk to Mr. Yamashiro and to email Professor Smith.

Dinner Theatre Dress Rehearsal

I am getting kind of sick of repeating the same lines over and over again. But I still need to work on my act II lines because I keep messing up, especially when Andi and I are supposed to say "He didn't!" together. I keep forgetting and missing it for some reason. Anyways, wearing the costumes while performing is quite different. I feel like everyone got more into character and reacted more appropriately. Some of the props are a bit awkward though, as are the movements because of the costumes. Some things are more restricted now. For example, when I needed to crawl underneath the table, my dress got caught in the cracks between the platforms. It was also way harder to walk up the stairs because my dress is too long for me and I haven't brought in the proper heels yet. I really like my dress because it's green though, that's my favorite color ever. And everyone else is wearing black-ish colors so I feel a lot more special. I think they're finding a new dress for Andi and a new shirt for Aldo though, because Ms. Karr made a comment about how dark everything is. I just hope they don't change mine. I couldn't get the shot glasses poured in time during the scene change between scene one and scene two from act II. I don't know how I'm supposed to because it's really dark and I can barely walk down the stairs, let alone pour liquid into those tiny shot glasses. I also feel weird because we don't have an ice bag yet. What do those even look like anyways? I can only imagine a bag filled with ice, but that would look weird if Andi gave me an empty plastic bag. Being director is so hard, thank God I'm only acting, I wouldn't be able to handle all the responsibility. I'm actually pretty excited now.