Tale As Old As Time

Y'ello! As it's been almost a year since my last post, a lot has changed. My boyfriend and I broke up, I developed a crazy appreciation for One Direction, and I was in another musical-in that order. I also made an important decision. Instead of getting a BFA in college and trying to be an actress, I'm hoping to get into the Music Education program at my favored college. We'll see how the audition goes. Prayers so appreciated :)

Anyhoo. As I mentioned, I was in another musical. This was my last musical at the school program I've been in for over 7 years, and as such, I got super emotional. As it happened, this year we did Beauty and the Beast Jr. and had a brand-spankin'-new director. (That's the thing about our directors-we've never had one that lasted more than 3 years. It's like the Defense Against the Dark Arts post in Harry Potter, except nobody dies. As an aside, this new director isn't coming back next year, as per usual. Sigh.)

At my high school, Musical Theatre is a big deal. The decision was made to split the class into a Junior and Senior group several years ago, when I was a freshman. So the younger kids were doing The Musical Adventures of  Flat Stanley. (Whoopee!) Emotions ran high around the auditions. There was the scare for the director that we wouldn't be able to find a Stanley, for example. (She needn't have worried. We found a perfectly darling little blond-blue-eyed-freckled boy who could act, dance, and carry a tune. Crisis averted.) Of course, a ton of girls wanted to be Belle in the senior class. The role eventually went to a friend of mine. I would have been upset-and was, of course-but the girl is an absolute ray of sunshine, sweet as can be. You just canNOT begrudge her getting the role, no matter how much everyone else wanted it. I got the role of Babette, the flirtatious French maid who has an ongoing fling with Lumiere, the equally flirtatious candelabra. (Incidentally...Lumiere was played by a girl. There's just a lack of guys.) We only had enough guys who could cover Beast, Gaston, Monsieur D'Arque, and Cogsworth, as the main roles. Chip and Lefou were played by a couple of newbies to the class-Chip, an adorable, big-eyed 12-year-old, and Lefou a short, vivacious senior whom I knew from Literature class the year before. What I HADN'T known was that Lefou was an astoundingly hilarious actor. Her facial expressions, her movements, her line delivery had people laughing and clapping mid-song during "Gaston". She brought the house down, period, end of story.

The casting was quite well-done. Belle and Beast were darling, Gaston abhorrent, yet hilarious, Cogsworth darling and amusing, Mrs. Potts motherly and charming, Monsieur D'Arque side-splittingly funny. Beast was a new addition, a football player/actor who was over six feet tall and intimidating, with curly brown hair and tan skin. It was quite a sight to see him after the transformation-Prince Adam in all his handsome, tender glory, returned after a prolonged stint as a Beast. Gaston had a history of funny or passionate roles and Gaston, combining both, was an achievement. He knew how to handle a gun, he knew how to fight the Beast properly, he knew how to fall off the scaffolding we had onstage without hurting himself. He knew how to SWAGGER. It was almost painful, his attitude. Yike!

The costumes, as well, were amazing. This year, as we had a difficult show to costume, we opted for Costume Castle. I was helping out with the shows in whatever way I could, and begged to be taken along to Costume Castle one of the times my mum was going to help with the costumes. It turned into a  multiple-hour extravaganza in the freezing warehouse, with me trying on different costumes-including Beast's!-to find and organize the right ones. Pants, shirts, vests, dresses, mobcaps, aprons, capes, boot spats, feather boas, and Beast's head, cowl piece, and gloves. It was an ordeal-but an interesting experience.

Like I said, I helped out in whatever way I could. I was made backstage director for Flat Stanley, and so had a wee bit of influence and responsibility there. It was neat, to be "in charge", even if it was only over so few. I had cred in the rehearsal room and occasionally practiced scenes with the kids while the director took the rest of them. When we got to the dress rehearsal the day before the show, however, we train wrecked, having been unaware that I had too many jobs. We got it straightened out in time for the show-but just barely. Lesson well-learned.

Those few days before the show were brutal. Multiple-hour days, sets and props and costumes and microphones and safety pins and feathers and fog machines and sweat and tears and makeup and whispering backstage. I had my share of breakdowns. Doing a Disney show is a big thing. We had a LOT of people working, even some of the cast volunteering to help. It was big. We were tired, even before the show. And then the show came.

At my school, we have music classes, art classes, musical theatre classes, photography classes, dance classes. Performance night was, thus, a big deal. Starting in the afternoon, people would walk in and look at the art and photographs the students had worked on through the semester. Then the show would start, and people would listen to the students sing, watch them dance, applaud the hard work they'd done, all culminating in the two performance nights we had in the school year-one in the winter, one in the spring-the winter a taste of what was to come, the spring an event. I was late getting backstage-my hair had to be done up, and done up it was, by a hairdresser. Strutting backstage in my dress, curls ringing my face and hairspray stiffening my braided updo, I found myself in the company of a couple of guys from the senior class who eventually proceeded to do as boys do, discussing flame-throwers and groaning over what was ongoing onstage. Flat Stanley went well compared to the dress rehearsal. There were a few tears backstage, but not much tearshed. I didn't see much of it at the time, and I skedaddled soon after, eager to get food. My crew soon joined me and we scarfed down food and proceeded to get ready for OUR show. Makeup, hairspray, costumes, character shoes. We had worked for months to reach this moment and it went so fast. It was so good. It was funny, touching, grand, a spectacle. When we reached the final chorus of "Beauty and the Beast", the audience didn't even wait for us to finish. They applauded as we sang out our "tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, Beauty and the Beast."

I'll miss it so much. It's funny that next year I won't be taking that class again. But what a note to go out on.

Sing, or I'll dock you two week's pay!

So, I don't do a lot of community theatre. Competition is super tough at Acting Up and I've only gotten into 2 shows. (Hey, I got lines this last show. Yes, 2 people dropped for me to do them, BUT I HAD LINES.) But I have homeschooled friends who get into AU and we have a silly ol' time.

My best guy friend ever, though-let's call him Mister Music Man, shall we?-really doesn't like Acting Up all that much. He doesn't get to talk to me when I spend all my evenings rehearsing, and the whole organization just doesn't make him happy. Let's give him a catchphrase-"At Loveland Stage..."

Here we go. Okay, I'll audition. (I made one certain blue-eyed boy very happy)

JOIN THE DARK SIDE

Alright, butforrealz. So I auditioned. Got in late, felt like throwing up, had NOT experienced an audition like that before. So now we all had to wait for the cast list to come out. When it did, I saw that I was in the ensemble again. Oh, yeah, did I mention I was also missing the first 3 weeks of rehearsal? Tally-ho!

So I finished HONK! and came back from camp and walked into rehearsal one day. Was told soon after my appearance-"Wow, and I thought MY hair was long!"

(Um. Can you wrap yours around your neck?)

I soon found out several things about Loveland Stage-

1-The cast was remarkably accepting.I'm a dork, dorks appreciate acceptance.

2-They were also hilarious.

3-If you go onstage with gum in your mouth, the dance director will burn you in a pot of boiling oil. (Not really. But she will single you out and make you get rid of it.)

4-It's a lot less low-key than Acting Up.

So we rehearsed. I actually spent a bit as the dog trainer when the actual dog trainer was on vacation. Learned songs. Learned dances. Got closer to show time.

Please don't ask me to compare LSC to AU, though. Yike.

Anyhoo. We finally hit upon tech week (a.k.a let's lose 5 pounds week) and by that time I was finding out more.

1-You're a friend of Mister Music Man, I'm okay to talk to.

2-I still had glitter in my jazz shoes from HONK!

3-Circque de Paris-freestyle dancing, THAAAAANK YOU.

4-NEVER. Just never. Say Macbeth backstage.

5-If you put noodles or tampons in puppets that teenage guys will be using, it's just plain YES. If they find out onstage and manage to keep acting? Um, yeah, we were cackling backstage.

6-Don't let your fellow thespians clip you on the shoulder with their hands. (Just don't.)

7-If you're about to come back offstage after a serious song, KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN AND DON'T LOOK INTO THE WINGS.

8-Don't toss Sean's script around. He's bigger than you, most likely.

9-If he looks like a pedophile and asks you to his white van, ask if there will be candy. Wait.....

10-Find a bathrobe. DO IT.

11-Get a tattoo. We're Carnival freaks, after all, and YOLO. :P

12-Traffic behind the backdrop is a 1/2 lane street.

(By the way, don't burn yourself on the fog machine, loves. IT HURTS TO BURN YOURSELF.)

(Hey, was that stage kiss real....?)

Acting Up, acting in, and across and through.

This summer, I finally got into the community theatre I've been wishing about for the last....oh who knows.....year? I would get in there to audition and screw it up beautifully. But this time, I must have done okay, because all of a sudden I found myself in a whirlwind of rehearsals and long car rides and dancing and making new friends and seeing old ones and generally having an interesting summer.

Now, however, is opening night. And although it was rocky at first, not knowing much of anyone and yet knowing who they were from past productions, I'm now in love with it. I'm getting into community theatre kinda late for someone who wants to act as a profession, so my way of making up for that is to audition the you-know-what out of those theatres NOW. And yet, I'm not ready for Tom Sawyer to be over so I can audition for the next theatre that comes along. I love the backstage chatter, outrageous makeup and wigs, the costumes, the heat and lights and applause and performance, and opening night gives me the Happy Show Jitters. 

This summer has been a season of firsts for me. For the first time, I'm in a production without at least one of my siblings, and I guess I'll have to get used to that, since Sarah's going into teaching and Abby is only 12. For the first time, I danced in the Heritage Day Parade. For the first time, I hung out all summer with a bunch of public schoolers instead of homeschoolers. For the first time, I rehearsed in a funeral home. For the first time, I had a picture in the newspaper, because I can sing and act and dance-well, dance, in a technical sense.

It's honestly been a bit rigorous and painful. People have a tendency to step on my feet more than others. I've accepted it, at least. People have randomly started bleeding. Just....."I'm bleeding...!" I bought boots and then discovered they were too small. Too late to get others. I'm brilliant. I lost 6 pounds in the past 3 weeks. Dancing and running all over is the logical reason.

And yet, I'm auditioning next time? Why, yes, my dears. I probably am.

Mrs. Wilhelm took this picture and is practically documenting the whole tech week, in addition to painting and working on sets. What a boss!

The Thespian's Alphabet-I

I is for intermission.

Now, when it comes to HELP, we ALWAYS, repeat ALWAYS, do junior versions. Fiddler on the Roof, they cut out the dream sequence(which we put back in-HA!), The Rumor, Little Chavaleh, and Now I Have Everything-which was one of the songs I would have been in, thank you. Seussical-Havin' A Hunch, reprises, and even part of the plotline. Really?! It just happens with junior versions. Still fun, but not the whole experience. When you also have group voice, numerous musical classes, MT Jr., and who knows what else performing, really, we wouldn't have TIME for the uncut version. Thus, no intermission. 

We have an intermission of our own, however.

For some odd reason, talent runs through family when it comes to MT at HELP. Adam, Bekah, Caleb, and I, for some, have the ability to play "mentor" to Bram, Cora, Rikah, Sam, and Abby, who are, I must boast, QUITE talented, and have a tendency to snag roles that make the audience believe that too. HOWEVER. This means that we, as the older siblings, are pressed into service as backstage help. Last year saw us, along with our roles in Annie, with me being a backstage hand and the rest on crew. OUR intermission, is when the little rascals have finished making the audience happy with their musical, usually much more light-hearted than ours is, and we participate in the race to zoom out before anyone has left their seats, eat in a record 10 minutes, and get into our costumes, makeup, mics, wait for a mic check, help everyone else since we're all running around like crazy, and generally get our blood pressure up.

Somehow, I don't think that's what an intermission is for.

Oh well. That's the way I like it.

The Thespian's Alphabet-G

G is for gypsies.

No, not like hoop earrings, tell-your-fortune-for-silver gypsies. I mean the dancers. The Broadway chorus liners.

There is a Broadway documentary I enjoy watching, from the Ziegfeld Follies to Wicked, hosted by Julie Andrews and with fantastic photos and facts. Am I a geek? Yes. Am I happy? Yes. B'Way: The American Musical. If you're like me, you'll love it.

Now, the period I study and enjoy most-and hope to make a career out of acting in revivals from-is approximately 1960-1990's. Julie mentioned, in passing, while talking about A Chorus Line-one of my favorites-that the dancers were "the self-entitled gypsies". Maybe that was just a thing right then. Maybe now they call themselves something different. But I love the term and continue to use it, joyfully confusing some people.

I, myself, cannot dance to save my life. I plan to work as hard as I can in college to fix that. I'm willing to have a mental breakdown and lose 30 pounds and starve and swindle myself and work until I sweat blood to be able to dance. Theatre is my life, and not being a very good dancer isn't about to stop me. I don't intend to be fabulous, but I want to be able to hold my own in an ensemble role, at least.

Mainly, I suppose, there are 3 things you need to be able to do to be in a Broadway show. Sing, dance, act. I can act a little, dance a little, if I work at it. But my strength is singing. I adore belting out Barbra Streisand and switching to head voice to handle Betty Buckley. Sung-through musicals are brilliance for my kind. Absolute genius. Thank you, Andrew Lloyd Webber.

But the "dancing" musicals appeal to me too. Cats, A Chorus Line, Even a Little Phantom. I so do wish I could dance. I want to be that lithe, multi-talented girl walking down the streets of New York in my sweaty rehearsal clothes and have people look at me and wonder, "Is she some sort of actress?"

The best kind, Baby. Broadway-and Broadway actors, singers, AND dancers-forever.

The Thespian's Alphabet-H

H is for the heat.

Now, don't get me wrong. I AM a whiny person. But anyone will tell you how rough it is. What makes it worse is that half of the musicals we've done or so have been with period costumes, so we don the long skirts, boots, heels, ties, and dress shirts-and end up sweating like crazy.

Maybe it's just me. But summer is my favorite month of the year. I can deal with high heat levels-some of the time. But this, really, isn't fun. Hot lights+makeup+period costumes=a mad stripping and getting back into regular clothes at the end of the performance.

It's crazy!

Also, compounded onto that, is the fact that EVERYONE. Will be nervous. Even the people who have been doing it for years. Stage fright is not a thing of the past. If it's not fear, it's high anticipation. A lot of emotions running high. And a lot of sweating like crazy.

Let's hope we don't drown ourselves.

The Thespian's Alphabet-G

G is for giggling.


The thing about our theatre classes is that usually, we have 35 girls.....and 5 boys. Not only does that mean that some girl is going to be walking around in a suit with a hat to hide her long hair, it means the classes are always hyper. Girls are generally more spastic than boys-and a LOT louder.


And then....there comes the giggling.


Sure, we can control ourselves. But, you have to realize that this is not an easy feat. There are a whole slew of weird jokes, facial expressions, or gestures that make a group of girls collapse into giggles. And there are a LOT of girls back there trying not to laugh while the boys wonder what girls are good for. (Ah, my dear boys. Wait a couple years, and you shall find out.)


BUT NOT ONLY THIS! Even being onstage, we can start to giggle. We're nervous up there. It's totally true. I have HORRIBLE stage fright. We're not totally confident up there. One of your fellow actors makes a funny expression, it's amusing. Girl number 2 stumbles over a line, it's downright giggly. A little boy from the audience yells, "MOMMY, I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!"-it's positively hysterical.


Honestly, kid? You can wait.


Another thing is, the more intense the scene, the more you cringe when someone starts laughing. Last year, I was Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof, and personally, I consider that the most intensely physical romantic role in that musical.


And it was mine, all mine. And Adam's, considering he was Perchik. And we were the laughing stock of the entire year.


Seriously. The class thought us dancing was too funny. They thought him proposing to me was hilarious. They thought me holding his head in my lap and bursting into tears over his bleeding body was the most hysterical thing ever.


I have never blushed more in my life. IT'S STAGE DIRECTION, PEOPLE. Don't act like you've never seen it before.


Gah. The trick is to tell yourslef, when something funny happens, that it's not funny. I don't know why she's laughing, that's just normal.


Hopefully, you won't laugh during the most devastating part of the musical.