I've seen 2 shows here so far. Both very enjoyable. The Last Five Years was nifty. Good music, and 2 strong performances from the leads. The leading lady's singing voice blew me away, as it does every time I hear her sing with The Callbacks, and the lead guy's acting makes me want to see anything he has even a bit part in. Also, the set...completely cardboard. Slick. Though, I've got to admit, after building for Lulu, I'm a wee bit sick of cardboard. Sooo much cardboard.
The other show I saw was tonight: The Playwright's Festival, which I'll definitely be participating in next year. Something like 5 student-written 15-minute plays. Whole thing, including the initial delay for stuffing extra people into the Ex, took an hour and a half. And was highly enjoyable. There was even a musical about reaching nirvana through air-guitar. Excellent.
I'll be doing props for Rocky Horror...which I'm incredibly psyched for. I'm just a bit worried, since the show goes up in two weeks...and I've still not gotten a prop list. Bah, why worry? Creativity peaks under pressure, no? At least I'm hoping that's the case, since I've still got my big Shakespeare paper looming.
I'm an assistant sound designer for Slavs!, which is Kushner, so must be good. That goes up in mid-November, so I'm not as concerned about that one yet. Yay tech!
I'm in Ruddigore...and rehearsing it constantly. Who knew being in the chorus of a Gilbert and Sullivan show would be so intense? But I love it. Uber-busy, doing theater stuff 24-7. That's how I do. Hopefully I don't fall down and go boom.
Still looking for my people. Hard to explain what I mean by that. The home-away-from-home, tell-them-anything people. Might have to look beyond my dorm. Might not. Still working on that. Having a good time looking though.
Time to start writing anything for Shakespeare. Less than a week to churn out 7-9 pages of awesomeness for my favorite class.
10/21/05: The Shakespeare paper is due today. I have a draft! It shall be revised! Victory will be mine. Possibly. The quiz in QR--the first actual test of my college career--was not too shabby. I fear not. I did almost have a heart-attack when my calculator died at the very beginning of the quiz, but all was resolved. Where was my Hackley training (Bring 90 pencils, enough batteries to power a motor vehicle, and a bottle of water)? Who knows? It was 9 AM.
Had a splendiferous Wednesday. Churned out the Shakespeare draft, did a little Lulu set painting (God, I hope they fixed the giant hole in the mainstage), and headed to Rocky Horror rehearsal to make me a list of props. The show, even in its rough stages, is amazing. So fun. Quite possibly better than the movie--no disrespect to Tim Curry, he's still the man. The prop list I've assembled is ridiculous, and possibly not going to happen on 100 dollars...but I'll make it happen. Searching for fake blood recipes yields some strange websites. I'm very pumped for this Rocky mayhem. It goes up in a week. No problem. I'll just finish revising and start making brains and such.
Ruddigore, meanwhile, is also magnificent. I've officially learned all the music I need to know for the show. Now to memorize it. Yeep! Shouldn't be too bad though. The songs are always stuck in my head anyway....when he's a bad Bart he will tell taradiddles, he'll tell taradiddles when he's a bad Bart....
Just started reading Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. It's awesome so far, but thoroughly distracting me from my work. Excellent.
All right, time to buckle down and get this done and to the Barker Center.
11/12/05: Haven't updated this in a while... as predicted. So let's see. Rocky went well--so sparkly, so...well...rocking. Very fun. Now I'm working on Slavs! (sound tech) and of course rehearsing for Ruddigore. Slavs! sound = a scary experience for me, since I really haven't done this before. Here's hoping I don't royally screw up. It aught to be ok as long as I don't, you know, forget to turn on the sound board or some such nonsense. I'm excited. It's on the mainstage and looks very slick. Hey, plus, I get to see it as many times as I want to and for free. Free Kushner play yay! The view from the booth is splendid. I'm psyched to be learning a new realm of tech. This is the simplest version of sound, really, being turn up the CD using the board, turn down the CD using the board, do the same for the mics, etc. But hey, I'll take what I can get. Oh the power.
As for Ruddigore, it's getting pretty serious. Daily rehearsals and runthroughs on the horizon. Scary stuff. Totally fun. The wine and cheese party Thursday night was outstanding. Best party I've been to in a long time. The show is less than a month away. It's going to be perfection of course.
Ah, since the last entry I've gotten my Shakespeare paper back. All is well. It's practically time to start writing the next one. Yikes. God, I love that class. I don't think I love Ben Jonson plays, but that's cool. Ben Jonson himself, however... infinitely amusing. Not a secret agent like Marlowe...but otherwise the leader of an action-packed life.
Went to the Pops concert tonight. Pirate-riffic. Really a great program--good script, full of Arrr puns. Good selections. And there were little kids in pirate costumes. My kind of concert. Afterwards, I met up with Samir, Anna, Colin, and Nicki. Yay! Hope to see them tomorrow at Sammy B's concert! I capped off the night with a lot of Angels in America with Sarah and her boyfriend. Much fun. My favoritest play, after all. Or one of them. Hard to pick. Bah, I should go to sleep. More fun tomorrow. And at some point I should do work. Bah again.
12/15/05: As predicted once again, I haven't updated in a month, so here goes. This will surely be even more nonsensical than the entries that came before. Let's see, since the last entry... Slavs! went very well. I could confidently claim competence in the area of sound opp-ing...perhaps not yet sound designing, but closer than I was before. I've got some cool tech things on the horizon, so I'm pretty psyched about those. Ruddigore was amazing! I've never done such a long run of a show. It felt almost like being a professional. Sad/glad it's done. I get to goof off a bit at the end of the semester, now that my crappy expos draft is in, my not so crappy second Shakespeare paper is in, and I'm basically done with my last problem set for QR. I've got some paper stuff looming over reading period, but ah well.
I can't believe I've gotten through a semester of college. It's been thoroughly remarkable and fantabulous and deal-with-able and perfect and impossible and enlightening...all that stuff. Not every fantasy came true, but a bunch of great things have come about that I didn't even consider. Which, I suppose, is how life works. Ah, the profound blog statement.
Man, I'm going to miss my Shakespeare and Seminar people. Those classes were amazing. The classes, the profs, and the people. Good stuff. I mean, come on, we went on a Narnia field trip... We talked about Hegelian dialectics... What more could you ask for?
I'm going to sit down and read The House of Bernarda Alba or Pride and Prejudice. Which one? Who knows?