Fall Auditions/Heather Chandler (Classical Acting)

Holy crap it has been an insane couple of weeks.

This weekend were the auditions for all the Fall semester shows. They included: Edges, Assassins, MacB,  and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. We audition in groups of 12 in front of ALL the directors/professors. It is exhausting.

I went in, expecting to be cast in Edges, and sang a cut from "Anyways" by Kerrigan and Lowdermilk (which is my strongest vocal piece right now) and I did a monologue from Rabbit Hole (which I am not crazy about but I've been using it for everything lately) and a monologue from Troilus and Cressida (Shakespeare Piece). My audition was good. I felt very confident and proud of the work that I put forth. And I have recently decided that that is how I want to feel after every audition. I'm going to stop trying to decide who I should be cast as and just start putting my VERY best foot forward in every audition. Then I can know that I did everything in my power to ensure I was promoting my self and my talent in a positive way.

Anyhow.

Callbacks go out. And I get called back for everything except Edges. Which I honestly found vey strange. But I shrugged it off and focused on the callbacks that I did have. At first I wasn't very excited about Assassins, because it honestly has never been one of my favorite shows. But then I learned that they were probably going to cast a woman in the role of the Balladeer which is the only character that I really like in this show. So when I got called back to sing for the Balladeer I was pretty excited. It didn't go great but I was still happy with the work I had put forth.

That was sort of the theme throughout the callbacks. with MacB I knew I could have done much better but I still felt good with the work I had done. R&G was a little different just because I had to email my callback to Peter due to work being at the same time as the callbacks.

After all was said and done, I was just happy to be on the other side. It was very relaxing to be honest: I didn't want to be in any of these shows extremely badly. I just wanted to be in something for the fall. So I didn't feel any pressure to prove myself or anything. I felt confident in my skills and talents and just left them out on the floor.

Well, the cast lists have been posted and I have been cast in Assassins! I will be playing Sara Jane Moore. I honestly don't know a lot about her and I can't focus on diving into Assassins yet because Heathers has opened and is running and that is literally sucking all of my life-force away.

I have seriously never been more exhausted from a show in my entire life. Heather Chandler is so draining. She takes all of my energy, concentration and will power. I literally give her everything I have and she takes it and we walk on stage like the "Mythic B*tch" we are. It is so exhausting but so very empowering. There is nothing like strutting out on stage and hearing a crowd lose their minds! The roar of cheering from opening night (last night) was deafening! It was such a thrill.=]

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE performing??

The Exploritive Mind (Classical Acting)

It has been a couple of weeks since I last wrote about my improvisation class, but we played with some really cool material today so I just had to share!

Today we have entered into a subject about working with different amounts and types muscularity involved. We began by moving around the space as if we were just a skeleton. We experimented with what it felt like to envision and imagine movement just from the joints. This was so interesting to me because it resulted in this very angular movement. It was fun to explore what it felt like to move from the finger joints or the joint of your right shoulder or left hip.

After that we explored what it would feel like to be just a body of muscle. This movement seemed a little floppy at times, so our instructor told us to imagine we had to use every single ounce of force that we had. All of my muscles tensed and suddenly it was like I was forcing myself through an ocean of wet concrete.

We began to switch very rapidly between the two styles of movement, experimenting with tempo and repetition of certain moves. We also played with the ease of movement; this idea that sometimes it took all our strength and concentration whereas at other times it only took a minimalistic thought.

Following those two exercises we experimented with what it was like to move from our skin; what it meant to revel in the feel and touch of everything. This was the exercise that reached me the most. a little background:

I grew up as an insecure little girl. I was taught not to flaunt my body or do anything that might attract direct and outside attention to it. That has since transferred over to my grown-up vision of myself. I dress very modestly and I don't move or dance or do anything that would attract outside attention to myself. Which has then registered to my brain as zero confidence. Well, over this last year I have had to find confidence in MANY places. It began in The Spitfire Grill I had to find the confidence to take up space on stage and to be loud and be heard. It has since continued on in Heathers. I am wearing a mini skirt! I have never worn anything that short in my entire life! She is this brash and fierce girl who knows how good she looks and she flaunts it everywhere she goes. I am 100% NOT that girl. So finding the confidence to move that way and flaunt that way has been such an immense struggle.

But with this exercise, I finally just let myself go and experience what it felt like to move from every inch of my skin; what it felt like to revel in the beauty of movement that my body was capable of. It was such an eye opening experience; so much so that I felt I was truly experiencing movement for the first time; like I was discovering what it meant to walk and to dance and to feel the energy electric on my skin.

It was empowering and I hope to use that in my work with Heathers. I guess we will see how it goes!

The Opera: that I can never remember how to spell or pronounce (Classical Acting)

I was lucky enough to see the Saturday night performance of this show. I have been told that was the best night, in fact, to see it. So I feel quite lucky. I walked in just as the lights dimmed and the music of the overture began. As the orchestra began to fill the auditorium, my breath was taken away. The sweeping sounds of various instruments all playing together in harmonies almost too complex to catch was remarkable. I get so used to being a part of shows with small orchestrations that to experience something so sweeping and beautiful was surreal. Quite honestly the orchestrations were my favorite part of this opera; what a neat experience to be a part of.

When I regained control of my breathing I took in the stage and about lost it once more. We have such talented designers at SUU. The marble pillars were painted with such care and detail that I had to remind myself that they were set pieces. Then the show began and the lighting painted these beautiful tapestries of light and color across the stage. My eyes enjoyed almost three hours of stimulation and indulgence; dancing from the lighting to the set changes to the costumes.

And those costumes were stunning. The jewel tones balanced with the lighting and the colors of the set pieces perfectly. It was such a cohesive design. Until Claire Robinson stepped out in the second act wearing a bright, canary yellow gown. Now, I understand that her character was meant to stand out. I understand that I am not a design major and that I was not the one that designed this show. But that color did not belong on that stage in that color scheme. The gown was gorgeous, there is no argument about that. However every time she came on stage in that dress I was thrown out of the show and all I could think about was how terrible it looked against everything else. Which truly was too bad because Claire has an incredible voice. She is stunningly talented and yet she was costumed in such a poor color.

Aside from the yellow dress, my biggest issue with this show was that I could only hear and understand about half of it. So much so that when it ended I didn’t have a clue as to how the conflict was resolved. I felt like I didn’t understand any of the characters or their purposes or character arcs. I felt completely robbed. The biggest exceptions were Keaton Johns and Robert Wilson. I could hear and understand everything they said and sang. I was reminded again just how important diction and projection truly are. It is vitally important to slow down and enunciate everything we say when we are on stage. Otherwise the audience won’t catch the story we are trying to tell.