Shorts!

The production of Shorts! (and particularly my scene) went really, really, really well. Mike was pleased. My cast had a great time. The audience loved it. We took production photos yesterday, so hopefully I can post those soon, because they're going to be fabulous.

The show went like this:

Act I
"Misreadings" by Neena Beeber (about an English professor and a failing vapish student who misunderstand each other; the student commits suicide later)
"Sure Thing" by David Ives (a couple in a coffee shop; the two hit a bell in order to "redo" things and get the answers they want)
"Baseball is Life" by Chris Peck (an original piece- very good, but very talky. A man puts his dream of baseball ahead of everything else)

Act II
"Words, Words, Words" by David Ives (three monkeys typing into infinity will sooner or later type Hamlet- but they don't know what it is)
"The Man Who Couldn't Dance" by Jason Katims (a former couple talk about what went wrong and ponder life)
"The Actor's Nightmare" by Chris Durang (a bewildered accountant wanders through a Noel Coward play, Hamlet, and a version of Samuel Beckett's Endgame)

All in all, it went over really well. I just need to finish and turn in my production binder.

Now I need to study for exams, learn my lines for Advanced Acting, and get ready for Enchanted Attic! The first cast meeting is on Tuesday, and I'm pretty excited.

And soon I'll be able to post something other than theater!

Titling something "hell week" is always a great conversation starter

That's right, kids, it's hell week. That wonderful time of year when every exhausted theater student is scrambling to remember lines, gathering costume pieces, and spending four hours a night in the theater when they would really rather be sleeping.

Our last dress rehearsal was last night, and we open TODAY! It's really going to be fabulous. And just to prove how fabulous it's going to be, here is a sneak preview of my monkeys:


Aren't they amazing? I might be getting a DVD of the performance, and if I do, the link is going up here! Also, please note the tire swing in the background. It is a real, actual tire swing that the three actors play around on. It's so awesome.

I had my director's evaluation with Mike yesterday. And even though I was terrified, it could not have gone better. The only negative thing he had to say about me is that I'm a people pleaser, which leads me to taking on too many projects. Which I know quite well. On the upside, he has seen a lot of progress in me as a director and that I have a lot of talent for it- which I wasn't expecting at all. He also thanked me and complimented me profusely on my work for Lighting of the Green, and that was quite gratifying.

I don't think I ever explained what Lighting of the Green was. Every year Lipscomb University hosts a big concert led by Amy Grant and a bunch of other people in front of the bell tower on campus, and people from all over Nashville come to see it. This year, the theater department was asked to supply characters, either Dickens or Disney, to walk around during the event and talk to people. So it was like working at Disney World again. But within a week and a half, I cast and costumed 20+ people. It was a ton of work, especially since I had to make so many pieces from scratch. But yeah. Mike was very enthusiastic and pleased about the job I did. On to what I was talking about...

It looks like I'll get an A in Beginning Directing. That's really making me happy. My grades have gotten a lot better this semester, which I really needed. All in all, it's been a better semester than usual.

Life is going to settle down a bit after this weekend. The show will be over. Classes will be almost over. Soon I'll be home for Christmas, stitching away at my sewing machine and poring over wedding magazines with P. Hopefully my blog will have less of a one-track mind then. Maybe it'll be more interesting, and people will actually read it. :(

I really want to write a blog about how my fiance and I met and all that. It's a pretty cute story, and I need to remind myself that, beyond all of this theater stuff, I've got a real life.

Audition Purgatory: Day #7...or is it #8?

I think it's day #8...

I don't really want to talk about callbacks. I looked fantastic, if I do say so myself (if you go here you can see my amazing outfit), and I think I did well with the improv, and I felt like I did a great job with the cold reading...but Mike the Almighty only had me read once. Either I was just a train wreck, or the one reading was so strong that he didn't need to see me again. Let me tell you, those are two wildly different options, and I don't know how it's going to go down. I was a bit of a wreck afterwards (read: broke down and sobbed), but Erin consoled me, and Shannon (who is an ACU person and knows MTAD really well) said that she felt the strongest auditioners for the role of Ethel were me and Becca. So I have no idea. Really, no idea at all.

If we can get ahold of Ash, we're duking out the cast list with Mike the Almighty Director tomorrow. Maybe I'll get to know then if I have a part...I certainly hope so.

On the theatrical upside, we did our first run-through of act 2 for Shorts. MTAD was very pleased with my work and my actors and only had a few minor notes for me. And...I do have to say that mine was the strongest of the three scenes for the 2nd act. Scene #1 is good, but the blocking is very flat, and Scene #3 is so talky that the actors kept getting lost...and the scene lasted an hour.

Now in other news...to get my mind off the drama that is theater...

I spent about two, three years writing a book. I finished it this summer with a grand total of 360 handwritten pages. I typed it up...and then I forgot about it. So now I'm trying to edit it so I can finally let my friends read and critique it. Some of them are chomping at the bit, so I should probably finish it soon.

...and now I've run out of non-theater things to talk about.

Crap.

Is it Friday at 5pm yet?