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.

Shadow Puppet Presentations

So today we presented the shadow puppet thing that we've been working on for the past few weeks. It was pretty bad but I think that our group did relatively well. I'm not very sure because I couldn't see ours, but I'm going to be really arrogant right now, we had the prettiest puppets. Or at least the crab and the princess were awesome. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be though. This seems to be the case for almost everything. My arms hurt so much from holding up the tree. It takes so much muscle which I lack. My arms were seriously so sore. And the crab and the water was hard, too, because Celestine and I needed to switch halfway because the crab is first hiding behind the tree but then it attacks the princess. Both of us had something else to hold, too, so that was even harder to switch. The crab would look all unbalanced at one point. There were even two sticks to move the crab's claws as well as one to keep the crab up. Basically, one of the claws did not move at all and hung there the whole time because we ran out of hands.

Puppet Presentation

The professor from CalState San Bernadino is incredibly funny. And she's so amazing at manipulating the puppets. The big floppy blue one looked exactly like how the ones on TV look and act. I was so intrigued. The cat one creeps me out though. It just looks scary. Especially the eyes. Definitely the eyes. But it's awesome how she made all of these herself. Of course, I loved the Nerf balls covered in cloth on a stick. There's so much thought put into a simple movement that people would just do normally. Puppeteers are so amazing. Instead of my Nerf ball doing what it was supposed to, I tended to do the movement instead even though I didn't need to move at all. And then my Nerf ball looked strangely spastic. Especially making him act all ninja; I could not do that at all. The detail put into making your hand talk like a mouth is also so interesting. Did not ever realize that our mouths speak in syllables. If she hadn't told us, I would've just opened and closed my hand whenever I started a new word. And the whole throwing thing or whatever to make moving the thumb joint easier, never would have noticed or thought of it. Actually, I don't think I'd even realize that only the THUMB is supposed to move. I move my entire hand. But now that I think about it, it really is only our jaw that moves. Wow, learning new things every day.

Puppet Scripts/Making

So we were supposed to devise a script based off an international fairytale or folktale. My group (Irene, Cindy, Celestine, Natalie, and me) chose a Filipino one where a beautiful princess is walking along the river and she meets the King Crab but she's disgusted by him so she runs away and shuns him when he asks her to talk. He is completely offended and goes after her to attack her. He scratches up her face and when she tries to wash the cuts with river water, her skin begins to turn into scales and then she becomes this ugly fish. Devising a script is harder than I thought it would be (everything seems to be like that). We just wanted to make our characters say random things but when we really looked at it, it didn't seem appropriate. Not in like the bad inappropriate but it just didn't fit what the story should be and where it was from. It's also really hard to change some of the story into actual dialogue (did I spell that wrong? the computer underlined it in red) so we had a lot of Narrator parts. But then Ms. Karr told us that that was bad. So we're making the characters pretty much announce what they're doing now. I'm not quite sure if it works better, but at least most of the Narrator is gone now. I'm also responsible for making the trees for our setting. It's quite fun except cutting them out is a bit annoying. Even though I only have two trees.

PPP Pitch

Eric and Kaitlyn wrote this together after I left Kaitlyn's house, so I don't really know what this is. Especially the theatre part that I didn't understand, they still wrote theatre-in-the-round. Maybe I'm confusing things, I don't even know anymore. But this is the pitch:

Our inspiration for this was Calvin’s toy Hobbes. It will be about a young boy and his father who lost his job and the family has to move into a Hooverville. In the play, the father finds a new job in a candy factory. He begins at the bottom occupation as a person who places candies in the boxes. In the beginning, he is ill-tempered, but his son inspires him to work harder. Eventually, he becomes a manager and succeeds. The father will wear ragged clothes in the beginning, and as he becomes wealthier, his clothes will become more formal. His son will have ragged clothes as well. The people competing with the father for jobs will also be wearing ragged clothing. The boss will wear a suit. It will take place in a theatre-in-the-round stage to make the audience feel closer to the performance. The lighting will be very dark and ominous in the beginning and towards the end; the stage will be brightly lit to show how wealthy he has become. There aren’t many props that will be used, maybe a conveyer-belt-looking-thing with some boxes and candies on top to show them working. Also, the child will have a toy tiger that he talks to and plays with. Father will have a suitcase as he goes higher up in pay. The set will be made mostly of cardboard boxes in the beginning, and there will be more furniture in their house towards the end of the play.

The word count is 249 which is pretty amazing. At least I think it's amazing. I'm just blogging about this since I haven't in a while.

Practice PPP

I went to Kaitlyn's house today to work on this thing. I still don't really understand how we're supposed to take something as inspiration and expand on it. Like I understand that we'll need to research on what our idea is, the setting, the clothing of the time period, etc. but where does this expanding on the actual inspiration thing itself come from? Our inspiration is the cartoon from last year of Calvin and Hobbes.

This is what we eventually came up with:

Background of the Great Depression
• Started in October 1929 with Black Tuesday (crash of the stock market)
• 25% unemployment in the United States
• Establishment of Hoovervilles, usually around the railroads
• Bank robbers such as Bonnie and Clyde become heroes because bankers were so unpopular
• Many fathers left home to find employment
• Coincided with Dust Bowl in the Great Plains
• Bonus Army kicked out of DC by General MacArthur on the orders of Hoover
• New election of F.D. Roosevelt and his New Deal
• Many people lining the streets selling apples to try to make money.
• This background information wil be used to

General Storyline
• A family is forced to leave their home because they are no longer able to pay for the housing
o This is because the father has currently lost his job store clerk
o Now, they have to move into a Hooverville
• At this time, the father is distraught while the boy remains optimistic
o The boy will have a stuffed animal which will later be used as a parallel to the son and the father. The stuffed animal is inspiration for the boy to remain happy while the boy is inspiration for the father to work.
• The father then spends days looking for a new job
• He is disappointed because he cannot find one
• He comes back ill-tempered and unhappy while his son cannot understand why
• Then, he finds a job at a candy store. He is a candy boxer.
• He meets the boss—who is very generous
o He is benevolent and he wants to lower his work load, thus he looks for a manager. However, while he is observing, he does not tell anyone he is looking for a new boss of the company.
o The problem: the father is at a very low level of work. He has to work his way up to prove that he can be the manager.
• He works hard and he quickly is promoted because the boss is impressed by his diligence.
• There is an antagonist. There is a co-worker, named Louis, who wants to please the boss.
o He tries to sabotage the father. However, he eventually is caught and is on bad terms with the boss.
• Ultimately, the boss favors the father in the end. And in the end of the story, the boss reveals that the father will be able to take over the company.


Setting:

Source: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://arizona.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341bf80c53ef011168d02683970c-500wi&imgrefurl=http://www.blogforarizona.com/blog/2009/03/bushvilles-the-new-hoovervilles.html&usg=__Yo1hd241NBiWtHD_iH_H8WBm-MY=&h=340&w=437&sz=27&hl=en&start=0&sig2=ETindzVOEqO8t4u6T3piSg&zoom=1&tbnid=1aVoZBaEv08VCM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=158&ei=iGKQTPHKPJHAsAOTubx8&prev=/images%3Fq%3DHoovervilles%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D571%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=289&vpy=106&dur=923&hovh=198&hovw=255&tx=114&ty=119&oei=iGKQTPHKPJHAsAOTubx8&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0 -- In this picture, we learned how the setting should look like.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www3.niu.edu/~td0raf1/radicalunionism/548_154_hooverville_umsl.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www3.niu.edu/~td0raf1/radicalunionism/unemployed.htm&usg=__pivp_ZT8Qp9lQh3SPBTDEbEMISU=&h=484&w=502&sz=33&hl=en&start=0&sig2=Nm7NLgkPavK9OvLviWYxMg&zoom=1&tbnid=HC7Lv6Nb28GuCM:&tbnh=126&tbnw=135&ei=BmSQTKTCLovQsAPf0sF6&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhooverville%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D571%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C3&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=293&vpy=260&dur=1415&hovh=220&hovw=229&tx=181&ty=195&oei=BmSQTKTCLovQsAPf0sF6&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:15,s:0&biw=1366&bih=571 – from this image, we learned what an individual Hooverville looks like.
Hooverville like the one pictured above.
In the play, the focus family specifically living in a particularly shabby and quickly thrown together house made of wooden planks and a cardboard box.


http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://arizona.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341bf80c53ef011168d02683970c-500wi&imgrefurl=http://www.blogforarizona.com/blog/2009/03/bushvilles-the-new-hoovervilles.html&usg=__Yo1hd241NBiWtHD_iH_H8WBm-MY=&h=340&w=437&sz=27&hl=en&start=0&sig2=ETindzVOEqO8t4u6T3piSg&zoom=1&tbnid=1aVoZBaEv08VCM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=158&ei=iGKQTPHKPJHAsAOTubx8&prev=/images%3Fq%3DHoovervilles%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D571%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=289&vpy=106&dur=923&hovh=198&hovw=255&tx=114&ty=119&oei=iGKQTPHKPJHAsAOTubx8&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0

The factory will somewhat look like this in the production. This will be part of the setting because the father will spend a lot of time working there.


http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://arizona.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341bf80c53ef011168d02683970c-500wi&imgrefurl=http://www.blogforarizona.com/blog/2009/03/bushvilles-the-new-hoovervilles.html&usg=__Yo1hd241NBiWtHD_iH_H8WBm-MY=&h=340&w=437&sz=27&hl=en&start=0&sig2=ETindzVOEqO8t4u6T3piSg&zoom=1&tbnid=1aVoZBaEv08VCM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=158&ei=iGKQTPHKPJHAsAOTubx8&prev=/images%3Fq%3DHoovervilles%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D571%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=289&vpy=106&dur=923&hovh=198&hovw=255&tx=114&ty=119&oei=iGKQTPHKPJHAsAOTubx8&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0 – This picture helped us imagine what the line for getting the job looked like. Setting up what the Great Depression looks like.

This image represents many men during the Great Depression lining up for the job. This image will help us set up the scene in which the father is waiting in line hoping to get picked for the job in the candy factory.
Staging:
• Either in theatre in the round so that the audience can see the full set.
• Or in a proscenium theatre depending on which would work best for blocking.



http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.playhousecompany.com/images/drama.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.playhousecompany.com/drama.html&usg=__13_dJyiFizQ_pNMLw8eU5khtHp4=&h=428&w=640&sz=35&hl=en&start=21&sig2=N23hHwK9Z7rOEz2lpZBkGw&zoom=1&tbnid=Zr9loqbrZtzCKM:&tbnh=125&tbnw=205&ei=SmiQTJn0K4vEsAPey-SxDg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtheatre%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bround%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D571%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C342&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=239&vpy=225&dur=7481&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=175&ty=86&oei=CGiQTKuZMoL4sAOwifV5&esq=5&page=2&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:21&biw=1366&bih=571 . – This gives us an image as to what a theatre- in the round looks like. This gives us an idea with the amount of space the staging has.

Costuming
• Still presentable clothes at the beginning
• Clothes gradually become shabbier and more patched up
• Only one outfit per character but with clothes layered on so the outfit looks slightly different depending on the season.
• Father and sons: winter coat (younger ones with more secondhand), wool pants (different lengths, some look like they have been outgrown), beat-up looking shoes, newsboy caps for sons.
• Mother and daughters: winter coats, leggings/ tights, very simple dress with minimal decorations, similar shoes to the male characters possibly a hat similar to a sunhat.













http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1108/706103675_b07ab61127.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.loansafe.org/forum/great-depression-2/17395-how-did-women-suffer-great-depression.html%3Fpagenumber%3D&usg=__BR54ygUvRVOTEbn2TK15AS54UPw=&h=309&w=500&sz=106&hl=en&start=0&sig2=v9vpDWgfbALmHfmPa2M1Lg&zoom=1&tbnid=hj0zvtIl9rGQFM:&tbnh=122&tbnw=166&ei=MWyQTOqqH4H4swP1qIx9&prev=/images%3Fq%3DGreat%2BDepression%2Bwomen%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D571%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=608&vpy=255&dur=1040&hovh=176&hovw=286&tx=176&ty=99&oei=MWyQTOqqH4H4swP1qIx9&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:0


This is the costuming for the men and boys. Each of them are dressed in shabby brown clothing and do not have many decorations. They are not wearing suits, but rather some overalls, and some heavy torn-looking clothing. The clothes are undersized, for the most part.


http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1108/706103675_b07ab61127.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.loansafe.org/forum/great-depression-2/17395-how-did-women-suffer-great-depression.html%3Fpagenumber%3D&usg=__BR54ygUvRVOTEbn2TK15AS54UPw=&h=309&w=500&sz=106&hl=en&start=0&sig2=v9vpDWgfbALmHfmPa2M1Lg&zoom=1&tbnid=hj0zvtIl9rGQFM:&tbnh=122&tbnw=166&ei=MWyQTOqqH4H4swP1qIx9&prev=/images%3Fq%3DGreat%2BDepression%2Bwomen%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D571%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=608&vpy=255&dur=1040&hovh=176&hovw=286&tx=176&ty=99&oei=MWyQTOqqH4H4swP1qIx9&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:0

Women, like in this picture will also be dressed in shabby clothing. They mostly wear dark colors and sweaters. Others might wear light coats.


http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sydneymate.com/store/stuffed-animal-toy/stuffed-lion-tiger/free-picture/tiger_plush_toy1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.sydneymate.com/store-det/stuffed-animal-toy/stuffed-lion-tiger/19597-OT.htm&usg=__U66Ix7gfYcwifhb12swVDIIghAs=&h=400&w=400&sz=38&hl=en&start=0&sig2=b8kT5DBG-JlRIeYsH3W6Dg&zoom=1&tbnid=VSXU1HcAfw-I_M:&tbnh=130&tbnw=128&ei=53KQTJmPAoXWtQPugb12&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dstuffed%2Btiger%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D571%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C114&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=594&oei=53KQTJmPAoXWtQPugb12&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:16,s:0&tx=100&ty=80&biw=1366&bih=571
Toy used as the center of the piece, held by the son. Does not necessarily have to be a tiger but it must be a bit worn to look like it has gone through everything with the boy. The tiger will show up over and over again to show that this is the inspiration for the boy to remain positive just like he is the inspiration for his father to keep working.

*I feel like they didn't understand when I said theatre-in-the-round because our picture is of a proscenium theatre but since Eric is writing the actual proposal part, maybe he wants to change it? I don't know. Whatever, it's not important.

In the Heights Review

I wanted to continue my post-every-day thing so I'll do my review now. I actually saw In the Heights in summer with Celestine and Irene. It was at the Pantages Theatre (I seem to see everything there which probably isn't a good thing). Before I say anything about the actual show itself, I was just really excited because the actress playing Vanessa, Lexi Lawson, was actually in Rent when I saw it (also at the Pantages) about a year ago. I am now so into the Broadway musical world that I recognize specific actors and actresses. Pretty proud of myself. Anyways, the actual production now. The set was amazingly intricate. The way you could see into each store and they could also be kind of "pulled out" or the scene could extend out into the stage while still being in the store was awesome. And the changes all happened so quickly. The transformation of the stage into the club was also pretty cool. The set itself was still recognizable but it was clear to the audience that the setting had changed, even without the dialogue. The lighting, mood, and music all were modified to fit what they should be in a club. The one thing about the set that didn't make sense to me, however, was the upstairs apartments. There was some guy from the chorus singing in one of them at one point, and then later, Benny and Nina come out from the same apartment? Do they all live together or something? I understand that the guy in the apartment earlier made the blocking more interesting but it was a bit weird that they would all live there. Especially since some girl was up there with a flag earlier, as well. Of course, I loved the music for this which is probably completely natural seeing as how this is a Broadway musical that is relatively popular. My favorite is definitely 96,000 just because of the way it sounds. And because the beginning where everyone goes 96,000 over and over again gets stuck in my head so much. I think I will embed a video of it here. Share the love.



I actually did not watch this but the video title said that it was so I'm just going to believe it right now. I lost my train of thought after looking for that video. Uhhhh... I don't think I had anything specific to say about the lighting since I cannot get over the set. At the end when they pulled down the mural the spray paint guy made, I started crying. IT WAS SO SAD. I can't believe that she died. It was terrible. Some of the choreography seemed a bit awkward to me at times. Like when the people would stop and just slow motion their last movement? I don't know how to describe it but I thought it was weird. Maybe it fit with the song, I'm not good at keeping up with lyrics especially since some words were Spanish and I just got really confused and blanked. Even though the Spanish was pretty English-related. Off topic, but Lexi Lawson (the actress that I saw last time) has really pretty legs. I was and am infinitely jealous of that.

Sidenote: I made dinner theatre. I am the only girl who got a guy part. I guess I was so amazing they had to change the guy role to female just for me. /in self-conceited mode right now.

Dinner Theatre Callbacks

This is also going to be a short, relatively unnecessary post telling of callbacks. This was better than yesterday because most of the intimidating advanced drama kids were in the performing arts center doing callbacks for the fall play. I actually did not even bother to try out for that because I was already too scared. My life is so pathetic. Anyways, callbacks were also better because the part I had to read this time, I understood this character so much better. I think it's kind of funny how I got called back for a guy's part, but I'm not complaining. I'm aristocratic and snobby now. That can totally happen naturally, considering how fabulous I am in real life (just kidding, even though I really am pretty fabulous). Okay, I'll stop now, my blog is getting too blog-ish. But I'm excited since I think I did way better today than yesterday so hopefully I got in! :)

Dinner Theatre Auditions

I realize that I am blogging like every single day for the past three days which is weird but everything seems to be coming up at the same time. I don't know why. Anyways, this post is going to be relatively short outside of these unnecessary sentences I'm sticking in. Today was dinner theatre auditions as my title says. I kinda regret going now because I feel so inferior compared to the kids in actual drama. I mean, us IB kids don't do anything outside of what is necessary for class. I felt so out of it. And also, pantomime is infinitely harder than it looks like. I was not quite sure how to do it but some people did it SO WELL. Seriously, these auditions are not good for my self-confidence. And I was like shaking the whole time. If you looked at my paper closely, it was shaking. I was so nervous, I don't even know why. Oh well. Whatever.

EDIT: OMG, I MADE CALLBACKS. I don't even care if it's just because I know Anna and Cindy, I'm so excitedddddd. HAHAHAHA.

Independent Project: Building a Bunraku Puppet

So I did some research on my independent project (I feel so left out since I'm the only one doing Option B but whatever). This is everything I've come up with so far to help me.


BUNRAKU PUPPETS:
• 2.5 to 4 feet tall
• Less complex heads have eyes that move from side to side, up and down, or close; noses, mouths, and eyebrows can also move
• Head moves by string/rod mechanisms
• Head has a wooden neckpiece (dogushi) that is placed through a hole in the shoulder board; this is the stick the main puppeteer uses to control the head
• Heads are carved of wood and hollow
• Controls for the movement in the head is in a handle that goes from the neck to the puppet’s chest; hole in the back of the torso for the main puppeteer to put left hand into
• Main puppeteer uses right hand to control right arm of puppet
• Left puppeteer uses right hand to control puppet’s left arm with a control rod starting from the puppet’s elbow, sometimes with string mechanism as well
• Third puppeteer operates feet and legs
• Some puppets (female) don’t have legs/feet so the third puppeteer bunches up the lower half of the costume to create the illusion that there are feet and legs
• Body is costumed in traditional Japanese dress depending on character and status of the puppet
• Body can be created using a “shoulder board” with cloth draped in front and in the back and attached to bamboo hoops; loofahs attached to create shoulders
• Arms and legs attached separately to the shoulder board using strings
• The term bunraku can only be used after permission is received, otherwise it’s called a ningyo joruri
• http://www.gasha.biz/ (this is in Japanese)
• http://www.bunraku.org/ (mostly videos of performances to study movement)
• http://www.puppetsinmelbourne.com.au/blog.php/2008/07/06/my-bunraku-puppet-finished (someone’s blog of the puppet they made even though they said it sucks)

MAKING THE HEAD:
• Choose a wood (Styrofoam/papier mache?) and make a rough sketch.
• The center line must be drawn accurately and then the nose and eyes sketched in.
• Eyes and nose are used as a guide while carving.
• The back must be hollowed out after carving to add the mechanisms.
• The dogushi stick needs to go through the neck stick so that it will connect to the head unseen.
• Paint to fit character after.
• 7 different female heads (http://www2.ntj.jac.go.jp/unesco/bunraku/en/contents/dolls/female/index.html)

COSTUMES:
• Usually consist of: under robe (juban), inner kimono (kitsuke), outer jacket (haori) or outer robe (uchikake), collar (eri), and the belt/sash (obi)
• Robes are sometimes stuffed with cotton to make the body seem more soft
• There must be a hole in the back of the robes where the hole in the body is

Shadow Puppets

Shadow puppets are actually extremely interesting. I never really connected that this was part of theatre and drama so this is pretty cool. Everyone's been doing drama activities since they were little. The videos that we watched from Princes and Princesses are pretty freaking awesome. My favorite is the one with the little ants running around collecting the diamonds for the guy.

This one:


Although all the characters are shadows, their emotions and actions come through perfectly. The amount of work and thought that was put into this amazes me to no end. I mean, the people who made this rely completely on the actions and voices from the dark shadows yet they each have their own personality and clear distinction. I've never seen this before and I still can't get over how cool it is. I guess this most is relatively useless but I really wanted to post this video since I really like it.

Puppetry

So school started and this sucks. First assignment of the year for drama is to research puppets. My group (Cindy, Kavita, and Shivani) was assigned to research puppetry in general. So I'm just going to go google puppets. This is what I have come up with:

Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance which involves the manipulation of puppets. It is very ancient, and is believed to have originated 30,000 years BC.Puppetry takes many forms but they all share the process of animating inanimate performing objects. Puppetry is used in almost all human societies both as an entertainment – in performance – and ceremonially in rituals and celebrations such as carnivals.
Most puppetry involves storytelling. The impact of puppetry depends on the process of transformation of puppets, which has much in common with magic and with play. Thus puppetry can create complex and magical theatre with relatively small resources.

Also, a list of various types of puppetry:

Animatronics Robotic puppets. Read the full explanation
Blacklight Puppets seen using UV/blacklight.
Bunraku
Japanese rod puppets.
Caricature (portrait) puppets
Any puppet that looks like a real person.
Costume or body puppets
Puppets you can wear.
Finger puppets
Things you can put on your fingers.
Found puppets
See ‘object manipulation’.
Glove puppets
Puppets worn on the hand. Traditionally speaking ‘Punch and Judy’, not The Muppets.
Light curtain
A trick using lighting where the puppeteers are ‘invisible’, but the puppets aren’t.
Marionettes String puppets.
Marottes
A type of rod puppet.
Mouth puppets
Puppets that talk. Has subcategories, ‘muppet-type’, ’sock’, etc.
Muppet-type puppets
A type of mouth puppet usually in reference to the Jim Henson methodology.
Parade puppets
Large puppets used in parades.
People puppets
Another term for ‘muppet-type’, usually just for marketing and avoiding copyright infringement.
Rod puppets
Anything that uses rods.
Shadow puppets
Puppets where only the shadow is seen.
Shoulder puppets
A style of cable-control (rod) puppet, that sits on the shoulder.
Sock puppets
A form of mouth puppet using socks as the materials.
Table-top puppetry
Puppets that are small and performed on tables. Often known as ‘bunraku’.
Toy theatre
Puppets performed using small table-top model sets.
Ventriloquism
The art of making the puppet look like it’s doing its own talking.
Water puppetry
Vietnamese underwater puppetry.
Wayang Golek Javanese rod puppets.
Wayang Kulit
Javanese shadow puppets.
White light theatre
Puppetry performed with the puppeteers visible at all times.

I'm pretty sure the format for the list of puppets is messed up.

Taming of the Shrew

I feel like I should blog about this because we watched seven different videos of it. But since it is testing, I do not have the time and energy to go find the paper I took the notes on. I will come back to fill in this gap. But probably during summer when I have time for things again.

May Show (Medea and Seussical)

sadkfjhlskdjfhksldjfh REALLY SORRY, I'LL GET BACK TO THIS ASAP.

Medea Rehearsals

SAME AS BELOW. NEED TO FINISH WORLD LIT.

May Show Rehearsals

I REALLY NEED TO BLOG ABOUT THIS BUT HONESTLY, I DO NOT HAVE TIME SO I WILL GET BACK TO IT. I JUST NEED TO RESERVE IT SO THE DATE COMES OUT PROPERLY.

Medea Costuming

Dhara tried to teach us how to make "togas" out of bedsheets today. We're not very good at it at all but it reminds me of Greek Festival in sixth grade. I don't feel like this is the best way to do it, but good enough. I couldn't find the right sheets but I'm not going to be allowed to by any so right now I'm using white sheets with little flowers on them. Please pray that Ms. Karr doesn't notice.

**EDIT: So apparently, all of our togas look sloppy except Cindy's and my prayers didn't work because she noticed. Now I potentially need to buy new sheets. Let's hope not. I don't really know what else I can say about this, honestly.

Medea

So we started this a long time ago, but a bunch of people are always missing for testing and everything. We didn't really get anything done today, either. Our whole class isn't very good at acting at all. It's not our thing. Chorus is incredibly awkward. We got regrouped. I used to be Seleena's partner but now Ms. Karr split us into four groups of three. We don't really know what to do with ourselves and we mess up our lines a lot even though we only have like three. There's also large chunks cut out from the original script in order to fit the piece into the time limit. I'm kind of sad. I was absent the day they casted this show so I couldn't be one of the Nurses or Medea. Oh well. Now I don't need to remember as many lines. Well, right now, I can just say that we're going to suck. And that's basically it.

Practice TPPP

This is obviously not the right date for this since I was in testing this day. However, I cannot remember the correct date so this will be the new date for this post. I hate this. I'm not creative at all. But anyways, I had to write about Cindy's stimulus which happened to be the poem (different from mine). From her information, it was a lot of history background so I basically only got a sense of a setting from that. I made the rest of it up. About some guy, who's in a hospital bed, dying. He's recording videos to express his bitterness and unhappiness throughout his life. As he dictates the videos, the events he speaks of would be acted out or something. I'm so cool. The piece would be in proscenium theater and the dude would be in the front with maybe a spotlight on him when he comes on again. As he begins recording the videos, his voice will fade away with the light that is focused on him and the lights would come on in the back to show the play that would be acted out. It's basically a bunch of little stories together.

**EDIT: I just realized I didn't even write about my own pitch. I chose my stimulus as the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon and I focused on the stuffed doll that Calvin believes to be Hobbes. Uh, now I have deja vu so maybe I have written about this? Okay, I'll stop now.

Chicago

So today, I went to see Chicago. Again, it was at the Pantages because that's where I go for everything, apparently. Anyways, I'm really pissed off right now because I just typed all of this out and it disappeared on me so I need to redo it and it's late and I have a history test tomorrow. Anyways, I do not like this musical very much even though it's popular and everything. I feel that the plotline is stupid, I hated the way the stage was set up, and I don't know. Just don't like it. The plot. Like in the beginning, she's (Lila/Lyla) cheating on her husband with another man that had sold them furniture. But then he tries to leave her and she goes into drama queen mode and decides to shoot him. Then tries to blame her husband and calls him useless when he doesn't succeed. Okay. Whatever, I can forgive that part. But the part about two grown women competing for fame simply based on the fact that they killed their family members or other random people. Because that's totally going to happen. You'll become the next Britney Spears if you only kill someone and go to jail. I also didn't feel that the setting was as magnificent this time around probably because the orchestra took up all of that space. I don't understand why they built it like that to take up 7/8 of the stage and then have the people in "jail" sit on the side on chairs. I also didn't understand where the boys came from after because there's nothing that says they come out. Aren't jails supposed to be split into guy jail and girl jail? So what difference does this make? Where did they come from? And I felt so bad for Amos. He was definitely my favorite by far although he played a minor role. It was also funny how the sunny and cheery news reporter with the amazing opera voice turned out to be a guy. That was pretty funny. And totally unexpected. The other funny part was when the six ladies in jail were singing about why they were in jail. Each of them said their story so that it wasn't their fault, really, but it was merely accidental. Like that one girl talking about the knife and how her husband ran into it about ten times. That was funny, too. Their clothes were okay-ish, I guess. It didn't really affect how I looked at the play and what was happening. Sometimes it even confused me because after the Hungarian girl died, she came back as part of the chorus and I was so confused. Yea, that's about it.

FDIC

So today, a lady from the FDIC (Fashion Something Institute Center? Maybe.) came to talk to us about costuming. I personally felt that the highlight of the entire thing was the picture from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when all the first years are going to the castle in those little boats across the lake with Hagrid. Yea, I have giant Harry Potter bias. Anyways, she told us how important costuming is and how the littlest details could affect an entire movie. One accessory that doesn't fit into the time period or doesn't match the overall effect could result in a giant mess. Costuming gives first impressions for the movie or production. Apparently, finding costumes for everyday things is even more difficult than a time period piece because those are okay as long as it looks like the clothes are from that time period and seem relatively similar. The costumer also already has an idea for that type of costuming. However, for movies set in present day, the costumer has to take into account a lot more the type of characters, what the characters are like, and they also have a lot more choices to choose from. Although costuming seems like just going out shopping, it is quite difficult. Costuming is used to show differences between characters and it's very important to keep track of the small accessories and details. I mean, imagine if you're watching a movie and an actress has earrings on right now, and then ten seconds later, the earrings mysteriously disappear. That would be absolutely disastrous.

Shakespeare

So, uh, I personally hold a very strong grudge against the William Shakespeare man. I got a B in English freshman year because of him. I also have extreme difficulty understanding everything he writes. The language sucks and then he writes in iambic pentameter. Wow, way to make it worse on me, Mr. Shakespeare. Anyways, we were learning about how he was born in the perfect time period because Queen Elizabeth was a more tolerant of theatre and stuff than Queen Mary and those King guys. His luck has become my demise. All of Shakespeare's works came from the Elizabethan era, or not like all of them, just most of them because Queen Mary made everything art and entertainment related banned. That lucky man. So we're supposed to choose a soliloquy or monologue or something from Shakespeare to act out. My issue is that I don't even know what the words mean, so how am I supposed to act it out? I don't know either. I'm doing a passage from Romeo and Juliet (so typical, I know) of the Nurse because I always thought she was funny. I don't know what she's saying but that's okay.

Ending of Seussical

This is just kind of weird now. I know I only sold flowers for the musical which doesn't really count for anything, but I just can't believe that I won't need to go today. I kind of miss it. Last week's performance was, of course, magnificent. The audience last Friday was really into it and it made watching the performance even more fun. I think the actors did even better because of the audience interaction. It still amazes me that most of the parents went for all 5 times. I guess this is a little late to be writing about it, but I was just suddenly thinking and I really do miss it. Watching the musical five times was still so much fun even though I knew what was going to happen pretty much exactly by the last performance.

Cats

I was so freaking excited when my mom got these tickets. This was my absolute favorite musical when I was five. I loved it like you don't even know. I could watch it four times a day (back when VCR's existed). Of course the performance was awesome and I loved it. Anything at the Pantages Theatre is almost definitely guaranteed to be amazing. The setting was definitely awesome. And all the hidden doors and everything definitely had a cat-like feeling because it allowed the actors and actresses to enter and exit like animals. They were all crazily flexible, by the way. It was not normal. Anyways, the costumes were pretty good but for Mr. Mistoffelees, the glittery thing was weird. I get that he's supposed to be magical and everything, but I really don't think there was a point in making his costume all glittery. At first, I didn't really get the plot, and although I got that the cats were all introducing themselves for some reason, I didn't realize, until like the second to last song, that they were competing for a chance to be reborn. I'm sure they mentioned it somewhere in the first two songs, but with all the hissing and whispering sounds they made, I guess I just missed it. I love Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer. I think they were so funny and the level on which they matched was crazy. They did everything perfectly in sync. I didn't really understand the part with the random battle on some boat, but I guess it connected to the Gus (the theatre cat) even though I don't know why it was included. When Grizabella sang about her memories performing and stuff, she didn't get a random scene thrown in. But I don't know. The part with Macavity was wonderful though. The usage of the set and the lights really made it seem real, even though Macavity's costume (or what I saw of the shadow) was pretty freaking weird. It was like lightning had struck him and all his fur stood up. Why that Tugger guy kept making appearances out of nowhere is beyond my comprehension as well. But I'm not complaining since he was definitely one of my favorite characters. He was portrayed so well. Overall, I loved this musical (still do) but the whole plot in general is a little bit confusing. Not sure how I understood this when I was 5 years old if I barely understand it now. My brain must be deteriorating. That is pathetic. Anyways, Andrew Lloyd Webber is a musical genius, so this post would obviously not be complete without a few videos of my favorite songs (which also happen to be some of the most famous).

Grizabella: Memory (the song doesn't really start until 3:02)


Mr. Mistoffelees

This song is so definitely my favorite out of all of them but I'm not sure why they all started singing this in the very end.. It didn't seem to fit, but I loved it anyways.

Cyrano Predictions

So after Act III of Cyrano, we were supposed to predict what would happen. Not going to lie, I'm terrible at this. Everything we said during class, came from my partners, not me. But that's okay. But we kind of cheated since Anna and I both read parts of the ending already. So we knew he died. But we didn't know why. So we basically said that Cyrano was going to die after Roxanne finds out who was actually writing the letters and that she actually loves him, too. Now that I think about it, that is pretty sad. We should have just let him live and let them live happily ever after, like a fairytale. Even though that's obviously not going to happen, at least it could have been happy for a while. I hope our prediction doesn't come true because that would be sad.

On a related note, we performed a little bit of that monologue Cyrano has about his nose and it was fun but some of it was weird. I mean, who would compare your nose to a house? Does that make any sense? Maybe it does. I don't know.

Seussical

Since I couldn't work backstage (stupid seventh period), I decided to volunteer to sell flowers for the musical so I'm somewhat involved. Seeing the musical for the first time is definitely so EXCITING ! I've actually never gone to the school musical, so this was a completely new experience for me. But I do love High School Musical, so I guess I was destined to love this, too. I also really loved how involved the parents are and how they know everyone in the production and the amount of flowers they send is crazy. I love that one part where Horton and Jojo are singing together and the shiny green lights come on. So pretty. And the scrim (is that what it's called) lights up with those little shiny white lights that look like they move when you blink. That part is so sweet and cute. I don't really understand the point of Vlad Vladimirasdjkhkaj because that part was really confusing. I also thought that the Wickershams were not really together most of the time, especially during their own song. But I did love how their voices suddenly went all low sometimes. I thought that was funny. Gertrude was definitely really cute and funny. I didn't like the Sour Kangaroo's costume very much. I didn't think it looked very kangaroo-ish or properly represented the attitude of the kangaroo. It was just some weird patterned dress.

30 Ways to Read a Play

So today we got that list to help us analyze plays. I'm really glad that Shivani moved to sit next to Kavita because this way, the way the numbers were assigned, I got 19 and 20. Hahahahahahaha, I feel like a winner because I got the two easiest ones. What was happening in the writer's life during the time they wrote the play and past performances of the piece. Seriously, thank the lords I got these. Some of these are hard, like the one about inside/outside? I don't even know what that was asking. Basically, all I had to do is read the beginning intro thing for the play. Okay, done gloating. This post was pretty pointless.

Reading Dr. Seuss

I don't know if I should include this since it isn't really drama-related, but I'm going to twist it so it will be important. We went to Westhoff today to read Dr. Seuss books to the elementary school kids in order to promote Seussical. This has taught me how important it is to connect with people and how different it is to experience something where the audience randomly interjects with words I have sometimes never heard of. Yea, that was my attempt to twist it into something important. I don't think it worked. But anyways, this was really fun. I was partnered with Cindy and she read And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street and I read The Sneetches. We got these really awesome Cat in the Hat hats. The tall red and white striped ones? Yea. Wish we could keep them. Cindy and I read to fourth graders and then kindergarteners. Pretty big age difference. The fourth graders were significantly more quiet and paid more attention. Sidenote: We knew a lot of them from taekwondo do it was even more fun. The kindergarteners were so much funnier though because this one kid read all of the books so he kept trying to read it before we did, which didn't really work because he forgot a lot of it. They were so cuuuute. Seriously. My reading wasn't especially entertaining though, so I think this makes me realize how difficult the narrator's job is. The narrator needs to make boring nothing seem interesting. Most of the time it's boring nothing anyways.

British Arts Performance

Before I say anything important about this, let me first emphasize that the judge ladies did not really have an accent so I was pretty sad. I was practicing my accent for three days but then I thought that I might offend them so I talked normally. Celestine said they had more accents when they were talking to themselves, but I guess they hid it when they were talking to us. Anyways, my first performance was the one with Anna (please see previous British Arts post). I borrowed my grandma's pants for that and Anna had this tacky looking sweater with a giant scarf. We tried to put flour in my hair, but it didn't work. Bit sad. I forgot to get glasses to be more grandma-looking but I guess our costume's were pretty good for last-minute, since we didn't know we needed costumes. I wasn't really ready because I just finished getting dressed and we had to go right away, so it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. I think we did okay. Maybe. We'll see. Right after that, I had to change for my performance with Cindy. I personally like this one better. Our costumes were awesome. They were like the frilliest-looking dresses from the costume room. Mine was blue with poofy layers of skirt and hers was yellow. And we found matching earrings that were giant. My singing is kind of suckish though, so I think we won't do as well. I feel kind of sorry for Cindy since she sings really well. However, we are over that. I guess this was a good experience and I'm glad I did it.

EDIT: We passed both of them and Anna and I got like honor or something? I don't know, she kept the paper thing. But it's still pretty exciting.

Senior Presentations

So, apparently, at the end of our two years of theatre, we're going to need to give a 30 minute presentation about what we've learned and something about theories and foreign theatre stuff. I am so not looking forward to that. Out of the seniors that gave these presentations in our class, only like one of them actually got to 30 minutes. This actually just sounds really hard in general. First of all, talking for thirty minutes. Dang, that is a really, really long time. And everything about theatre. I guess I'll worry about it then. Anyways, the seniors all seemed pretty well prepared but I must admit I got pretty bored. By Karina and Serentip's presentations, I only listened to the introductions and then looked if they had any pictures. Otherwise, I just skipped everything in the middle. This is probably going to come back to bite me next year when I get writer's/speaker's block but I couldn't help it. I must apologize for that.

British Arts

Please let me first state that I have no idea why I was insane enough to sign up for two different pieces. Bad life choice there. But then again, both of these are interesting and fun to work on although I feel bad for Anna and Cindy since they both need to put up with me not really having time to practice theirs individually the whole time. Anyways, I'm doing a scene from The Proposal with Anna. It's the one where Andrew's grandma is randomly chanting in the middle of the forest and Margaret finds her and she forces Margaret to begin chanting and dancing as well. I really need to work on my dancing since it looks not very Native American-y yet and my grandma-ness. Will be scheduled for this weekend. I hope I can fix it since the British Arts thing IS next Wednesday. My other thing is the Stepsisters' Lament from the Cinderella with Cindy. I'm Esmerelda and she's Prunella, not that it makes that much of a difference because we're both bitter and ugly. I find this extremely entertaining not only because I completely can't sing for my life, but because I can sing badly and have a "I smell poo" face the entire time. I don't know why I think it's so much fun. Will work on blocking for that.

IB Performance

This was a bit scary since I've never actually performed in front of actual people outside of class. It doesn't really help that my English teacher was there. And my English teacher from last year. But that's okay, we got through it. Oh my gosh, the crash. It was so off today. It was supposed to go off so Tiffany could say her line, but it didn't! So she had to say her line anyways and Natalie and I had to throw feathers and stuff like the chickens killed themselves somehow, but the crash sound went off AFTER THAT. So awkward. And it went off TWICE after that. I cannot imagine what the audience thought especially since they've never seen the piece before. They don't even know anything about it. It makes sense to us because we've seen it about 82347293847298374 times. BUT THEY HAVEN'T. Everything else went fine though. I hope. I don't think that the audience will have noticed compared to the crash. I can't get over that. I didn't even know if I was supposed to limp or not anymore after since the whole thing was weird. But that's okay. At least we're done now. I couldn't get my makeup off in time for my next class though, so I went with the blue stars around my eyes. It was awkward. My GLC stared at my funny.

Dress Rehearsal

This was extremely hectic. None of us had really done anything with out makeup or even our costumes so it was very experimental. If the date for the performance hadn't been pushed back, I have no idea what we would've done. Anyways, our costumes were relatively easy to change into unless Shivani's dresses. Tiffany and Karina have the cutest little hat things. They're so funny. Kaitlyn and Iris look really cute with their shirts and little ears and tails. I guess our makeup is done like kabuki? since we have random colors. I mean, since when do chickens have blue on their faces? But we actually looked pretty awesome with our yellow noses. It looked like an actual beak even though we had red lips, too. Anyway, I guess rehearsal went pretty well even though we messed up a little and the crash is still weird. Especially since we skipped that whole part by accident somehow. But it's not like the sound went off either so no one cares. I accidentally limped back on stage anyways and I had like 30-second lag time in figuring out that THE CRASH NEVER HAPPENED. My gosh, at least it wasn't the real performance or that would've been terrible. I would've looked so weird. Random limping time, why not? Besides that, I think we did okay overall. Even though I had to ask Mr. Collins to let me stay during extended block to practice more and he officially scares me, I'm glad we rehearsed more. I'll feel better about it on Friday.

Tech

This is a lot more complicated than it would seem. The people in the lighting booth need to be able to know exactly where everything happens so they can get the dimming and the spotlights and everything. This does not work so well because Samantha, Anna, and DJ are doing the lights and they all have their separate pieces so they haven't seen our rehearsals and have no idea where everything is. A lot of the things you imagine are quite different than what actually happens. Especially the crash. That comes on at the randomest times sometimes. I guess we'll need to work on that. I don't really have anything else to say about this except that the blackouts end too fast sometimes and we can't get off stage in time after putting things on stage. Because things like the flying contraption don't exactly fit so it needs to be pushed and it takes forever. Sidenote: I finally watched John Tucker Must Die. I didn't even realize their scene wasn't a big one that was connected! It's from a lot of different parts in the movie. They did a really good job connecting everything.

Costumes

I know I've mentioned this before, but I'm playing a chicken with Natalie and Jackie. I feel like the third wheel since they're twins. But anyways, I was worried about our costumes because I had no idea where I was going to buy a giant feathery yellow thing like those people trying to promote fried chicken but thank the lords Karina said we're not actually going to BE the animals. Originally, we were going to wear red shirts, black leggings, and yellow shoes. But yellow shoes became a problem since not that many people actually have yellow shoes. Now, it's been changed to yellow shirts, black leggings (no change), and black jazz shoes. Karina mentioned something about red shawls with red feathers but I have no idea what that's going to look like yet since she needs to make them. I think we'll look more chicken-like with beaks or something but since that'll mess with our diction, Karina's going to do it with make-up instead. I don't know how.

Characterization

Kermeka told us to look up videos online to see how the animals we were trying to portray would act like and since I'm a chicken:



I don't think this will help me much but I'll talk really flusteredly the way Chicken Little does and dance as much as I will be allowed to.




Definitely working on my neck twitching movement from now on. But this chicken is crazy, he would be so good at this:

Commedia

I got to play the old guy who's obsessed with money. I know his name starts with a P but I really cannot remember how to spell it. I would look it up, but I'm not in the mood right now since I just want to finish this entry ASAP so I can study for math. I might be biased, but I think our group (Cindy, Jackie, Natalie, Seleena, and Anna) did a lot better than the other group because they didn't really use anything commedia. It kind of just looked like a scene. Especially when Eric said that Scooby-Doo line. Scooby-Doo didn't even exist in Italy when commedia did. I had a lot of fun with this because my character has that growl-y, low voice. He walks funny, too. Jackie's best thing seems to be acting like she's drunk and stumbling everywhere. I was married to her; that was exciting too. We used those stairs that lead up to the other door to the drama room from the outside from the back because we wanted a balcony for Natalie to stand on. The only really negative thing was that the sun was in my eyes the whole time but I guess my character would be slightly squinty anyways since he's old and stingy. They usually look like that, right? Like Ebeneezer (sp?) Scrooge? And Ms. Karr, I'm sorry that Jackie and I were whispering off at the side. I really did not realize that it could be heard from the audience.

Stomp

This isn't exactly a play but my mother just ordered random tickets from Pantages and she didn't know that this was like Blue Man Group-ish. But other than that, these people were amaaaaaaaaazing. Their sense of rhythm and their use of ordinary, everyday things to create music was crazy. Their set was awesome, too. The back wall with all the signs and everything. Wow. This show is really creative and whoever came up with it must be a genius of DaVinci status. I'm probably overexaggerating. But when they strapped themselves to the wall thing and made that crazy rhythm-music thing with the four people jumping around hitting random objects OH DANG. Very cool. My favorite part was definitely with the trashcan lids. I think you could definitely see their passion just by seeing how bent up and weird-looking the lids were after the whole routine. I don't even know how they didn't hurt themselves since their hands were attached to the lids. It looked pretty, sort of, too, because with the lights going and the guys spinning around, the silver trashcans and the trashcan lids had this shiny lightsaber-looking thing going. There was this set of drums in the middle of the stage and the stage must have all these little doors and hidden ladders because I would see one of them playing the drums and something would distract me and then someone else would be there. Although this didn't require much acting, they were still good at it when they needed to be funny. That one little scene in the middle with them reading newspapers and that one guy doing his own little thing and making elephant ears and stuff. Oh gosh, favorite part. My mom's favorite part was the beginning when everyone was using the push brooms and this guy walks in with a guitar case but then he pulls out a push broom, too. I don't know if it's because I'm biased since my mom put me in music classes for more than 70% of my life, but this is seriously my favorite show ever now. I like it even better than Wicked and Rent.

John Tucker Must Die

So Samantha, Noelia, Christine, and Anna had their own scene for some drama festival thing I think. I've actually never seen this movie before so it was pretty exciting seeing bits of it for the first time. I think I will go watch this movie now. Very inspiring. I thought this was pretty funny and Samantha's character fit her almost perfectly. It practically was her in real life. Noelia was funny and she acted out her character really well. I thought Anna was kind of awkward and she overdid parts of it, but I haven't seen the movie and her character might be like that. I wouldn't know. I think the movie script was a tad bit weird though because since when do teachers leave during dentention? Mr. Vu never does. But then he does sometimes sit there and talk to the people that are in detention a lot. Sorry, I went off topic, but anyways, it was also strange how whoever Christine is playing suddenly said shut up. I have never heard anyone do that in real life out of nowhere. I need to get out more. The transitions between scenes went really well though. They managed to move everything smoothly and finish setting up by the time Christine was done with her monologues.

First Showing of IB Pieces

This was kind of scary at first because the seniors still intimidate me sometimes. Especially Kevin because he always has that "I'm so bored, everyone's so bad, why am I wasting my time here" face. Or maybe he just naturally does that. I don't know. Anyways, we hadn't really gone through this with actual movement on a stage. It was more of reading lines and working on reading them the right way. And we have not yet found all of our props (slightly worried about how our flying contraption is going to work)so some of the movement that is supposed to involve food or whatever is not doing so great. Plus, I really don't know how the crash is going to work because it just looks kind of awkward since I'm just standing there. And I suddenly fall over when it looks like Natalie just sort of ran over to where I was. The floor is very hard, just so you know. Very hard. I have developed this new bruise on my knee because I hit it on the floor. I'm also a bit worried about the election part because Kermeka told me and Natalie to run back and forth in the FRONT but I kind of stayed in the back because doesn't it look weird to have us running in front of the main characters? I don't know. Kermeka still told me to run in the front after, so I guess it looks better from the audience than it does in my imagination.
The commmedia(sp?) group was really funny. I kind of wish I was in that group since I've never been very good at anything serious and our piece is about politics. Politics is not exactly Chowder-like. (Sidenote: Chowder's my favorite cartoon ever.) Like Water for Chocolate was okay-ish but Kevin and Eric both have some of the awkwardest acting ever. I can't even describe it. They're always funny even when they're serious like during the stabbing scene. The chronological order of the piece was also a bit weird because I really could not understand how Seleena was talking about Mama Elena dying and her diaries but then Mama Elena is alive again in the end? I don't know. Didn't really like that book so I skipped parts of it. Maybe she reincarnates or something.

Mahaburata (spelling?)

This movie was funny. It definitely belongs in the comedy section. It was a bit hard to keep track of which character was related to who since everyone was difference races. That was probably a good political move, but for a sleep-deprived high schooler, that was a not so smart move. I also wasn't very sure how the beginning connected with any of the rest of it at all. Parts of it also didn't make sense to me but that was probably just because of the different culture. I didn't understand how the lady who married the guy and tied a blindfold over her eyes could feel birth growing in her, but then she asked her servant to hit her stomach with an iron bar. And then a big black thing came out and the guy telling the story mysteriously appeared and was like put a piece of it in a jar and then you will have a thousand sons. Why would she even want 1000 sons? And then when they were fighting and the guy was like I WILL NOW MAKE YOU A PRINCE to the guy who was at the beginning. This plotline is a bit too complicated for me, I believe. But I think this will make me watch a lot more Indian movies from now on. I would actually really like to finish this movie and find out what happens since I don't get it at this point. Maybe I'll go wikipedia it and find out how the scary god/man/thing that was supposed to kill the exiled brothers managed to be defeated.