Auditions Round 2

The callback list is up, and I am in the musical! I know I have a speaking role, but the cast list won't be posted until Monday. Today we ran specific scenes from Urinetown to give people a shot a various roles. I read for Cladwell and (for diversity's sake) Officer Lockstock. We also had to sing in front of the other cast members. I didn't expect this, so I had left my music at home, but I still felt very good about my performance. Emily asked me to go for character over technical quality, which is quite fun with MotH.

Drama catchup

This week has been dominated by theater. Tuesday through today were the auditions for Urinetown. Tuesday was the acting audition, wherein I recited a monologue educating kindergartners about the multinational conspiracy to turn us all into alien chow. I noticed that four or five guys came out of the underclass woodwork, which is encouraging. Wednesday my Classical Worlds class went to see Argonautika. It was extremely good, and it included Andy Murray, although Athena, we all agreed, stole the show. I was particularly impressed with their creative uses of a very minimalist stage. On the ride back I was appalled to learn that Vince and Ratched, both huge musical aficionados, have never seen Les Miz! This will be remedied anon. Anyway, when we got back we had our dance auditions. *sweatdrop* Give me some choreography and I will do my best, but I am neither flexible nor experienced. I pray that Mr. Cladwell does not dance much. Today held a Taming of the Shrew recitation in the morning. Between Red (who cross-dressed as the Kate to my Petruchio) and me, we recited 104 lines of dialogue with no mistakes (none on which we were called, anyway). After Shakespeare we saw a number of scenes performed by representatives from the Oregon Shakespeare festival. The only Shakespeare in the show was an excerpt from Two Noble Kinsmen, but Who's On First was VERY funny. As it is wont to be. Singing auditions were in the afternoon. I think I didn't perform as well as I did at my voice lesson on Monday, but it was clearly better than last year *shudders*, and Emily remarked on that. Callbacks will be posted tomorrow at lunch. *crosses fingers*

On another note. I spent most of my time in line for auditions today talking with Cheswick (who is a girl), and we came to a somewhat depressing realization: I have more experience playing a female on stage than she does. And before you ask, she has been in multiple plays here.

Finally, I have thrown a new hat into the ring for the spring play by...on second thought, I'll keep that a secret for now. You can wait a few months. *tease*

chilled fingertips

Zeus went home sick after Humanitas, so now I have over an hour of schadenfreude.

On the other hand, this being so early in the day, I have nothing of significance to blog about.

I could spend this time reviewing lines for my audition and my Shakespeare recitation, or I could search for better costume elements for said recitation.

I choose the latter. See y'all, whoever y'all may be. *waves over head while walking away*

Life update

So how are things going nowawdays? I'm not sick anymore. That's a good thing, right?

Saturday was a pretty full day. The morning and afternoon were taken up by prep for and the event of a memorial for my grandmother (read: a mass family reunion with hors d'ouvres), and in the evening I met Loyal, Seductress, Rose, Knight, Slasher, Sunshine, Loquacious, Gentleman, and Song (hooray for huge RK gatherings!) at Loyal's house where we watched Youtube clips of Eddie Izzard and the upcoming Sweeney Todd movie--and, of course, the DVD of our King Lear performance. Semi-competent cameraman aside, we actually looked pretty good. Many of us took BART home, and we passed the time singing various songs, most of them Disney. Riotous Knights, it cannot be said how much I love you all! *hugs*

My parents and I were planning to see the remake of Sleuth on Sunday, but it's out of theaters already--a minute at Rotten Tomatoes explained why--so we saw Enchanted instead. I am pleasantly surprised to say that Disney's still got it. It's simultaneously a Disney movie and a parody thereof, and it was done VERY well and humorously. This is a little personal bias sneaking in, but I'm glad that old-fashioned 2-D animation has not been discarded. Er...coincidentally, my required nitpick did involve the CG: Narissa needed to take a few cues from Maleficent in terms of making her draconic form look more threatening and less...Eragon.

In school news, auditions begin tomorrow! Yow! That means I have the rest of this evening to get my monologue memorized (it's about 70% there right now) and until Thursday to polish Master of the House. I will also finish my application for St. John's by Thursday if I know what's good for me.

Surrender Poems

The first one was a blues assignment for Poetry inspired by One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Bred to fit the mould
This is how to exist
Bred to fit the mould
Comply if you want to exist
The system’s so successful and old
It’s pointless to resist

Nail sticks up gets pounded down
Rebel locked up in a cage
Nails everywhere pounded down
Mistakes kept in a cage
Don’t even bother to frown
You’ll be here for an age

Some of us could leave
If we weren’t afraid
So many of us could leave
But they keep us all afraid
Thrash, buck, and heave
All you like but watch your spirit fade

You can’t make them stop
They control you hand and foot
You’ll never make them stop
When they control you hand and foot
You can’t scream in the Shock Shop
When you’re choking on rust and soot

Magnets control us now we’re machines
Hooked up to the combine
We’re just a group of faulty machines
Reforming for the combine
Some of us locked up since our teens
The moment we stepped out of line

Open up my arm
And see the gears inside
Open up my other arm
And see the wires inside
They say they mean no harm
So I thought until I died

***

My mind’s ears dance with fevered violins
And any hope of concentration twists,
Snaps, splits apart, and scatters ‘cross the winds
To disappear into distraction’s mists.
It’s funny just how fragile order may
Become at what small provocation makes
Its presence known: one violent melody
In full my contemplation overtakes.
At times when we need clearest thinking most
The strangest images may circles trace
Within our skulls, which play unwilling hosts
To useless antics of this mental chase.
But since diversions such I cannot fight
I may as well enjoy the sound and light.

College

UC apps are out of the way. I smile.

Prep

The musical has finally been decided, and it will be Urinetown. This means preparing for auditions (hopefully my cough will be gone by next week!) and looking over the parts. I'm not interested in Bobby Strong: I've done the romantic male lead already, and I couldn't sing high tenor with belt anyway. Officer Lockstock is a bass while I'm more strictly baritone, but he looks like a fun role. Caldwell B. Cladwell, on the other hand, looks like the best choice of all. A powerful character and the bad guy, and baritone range on top of that? Sign me up!

Next on the agenda are my audition pieces. Dance is all covered at the audition itself, so nothing to do there. Picking out a song to audition with is a cinch: Thenardier fits the character I want (sort of), and he's in my range. Beggar at the Feast if Emily wants something short, or Master of the House if not.

I found a good monologue, but I don't know how character-appropriate it is. On the other hand, it feels as though it fits the mood of Urinetown in general, so I'll stick with it anyway.

Now I just need the audition fine print due being out of the loop due to missing school due to this virus.

I hate bronchitis.

Or whatever malaise infests my chest cavity. The coughing has become less frequent, but more painful when it does show up. I didn't see Argonautika on Friday, and I didn't see Pleasanton today (bringing the counter to 6.5 months). I still attended Softy's class, but I tried to avoid physical contact. Most likely I'll take school off tomorrow to recover.

Here's a slam poem I wrote a few days ago for Poetry class. It won't make much sense unless you keep up with Internet fads.

who needs a microscope to examine viruses
when you can examine the internet and find
a teeming mass of memes and message board fads
more than you can fit into a container which you don’t even have because
NOOO THEY BE STEALIN MY BUCKET
you can’t insinuate yourself into that social network without
strapping on your armor of insulation against illiteracy
and running the gauntlet of repetition like
LEEEEROYYYY JENNNNKINNSSSSSSS!!!!!
and once you’ve battled your way through three hundred
jpegs and youtubes
of gerard butler screaming, “THIS! IS! SPARTA!!!”
and that weird little face intent if not hell-bent on-a FIRIN HIS LAZAH
you may be able to locate those rebellious snippets of intelligent conversation
half-buried in hairballs the lolcats coughed up
now I’m not saying the serious threads are any good
most likely they could be spiced up with a little ASCII or
moar Mudkipz which I heard u liek
no argument on the boards is complete without its counter-argument delivered
in the form of a deafening
OBJECTION!!!
by Phoenix Wright pointing his finger so ferociously it may be mistaken for a
FAL-CONE PAUNCH!
which inevitably incites a flame war over the relative manliness of
Captain Falcon to Chuck Norris
who roundhouse kicked the world into existence and don’t you forget it
who WANTS TO BE THE VERY BEST, LIKE NO ONE EVER WAS
then before you can say “you have no chance to survive, make your time”
you are buried in the brawl
between n00bs and trolls
between Star Wars Kid and Potter Puppet Pals
between Captain Planet and an unexpected Jinjo
between Rick Roll and the L-block from Tetris
between the O RLY? owl and badgerbadgerbader
and Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White
and Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s Black Knight
all presided over by the prairie dog’s DRAMATIC LOOK
until the sum of banned posters reaches
OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND!!!
at which point
your computer crashes
your frontal lobes liquefy
and
all your base are belong to us

And I close with another homespun verse to "You Are a Pirate:"

Yo ho, anchors aweigh!
We will find mountains of treasure today.
Drink up the rum till your liver is grey;
You are a pirate!

Nurrrr....

Pirates are bursting with glee
For they have a lifetime to plunder the sea
Strap on yer eyepatch and sign up with me
You are a pirate!

Ninjas may be cooler, but pirates get the best songs.

Anyhoo, as you can see, I have returned to my blog now that my life is slightly less hectic and hellish. It's still not great: I have developed a nasty cough and I am massively sleep-deprived. Oh, that way madness lies! Let me shun that. No more of that.

We are now reading The Taming of the Shrew in Shakespeare class, and recitations are being picked out. Red and I will be doing the first round of Petruchio (that's me) vs Kate. I confess the block of text is a little ambitious, considering the minimum is 14 lines: between the two of us we have 104. What can I say? I like the wordplay, and I'm willing to take on the majority of that chunk. Regarding costumes, I had an idea this afternoon of Petruchio in full lion-tamer circus getup (complete with curly moustache if I can obtain one). Red seems to like it.

Speaking of 'staches, I will be growing mine back now that we've finished the play. Saturday night, I believe, was our strongest performance. There were no noticeable line or tech gaffes, and I think the acting overall was best tonight. Loyal, Song, and Gentleman came to see it. Yayyy! *hugs* Oh, right. I'm sick. *sterilizes hugged parties* Tonight I changed up the curtain call a little. Normally I just come on in my patient's outfit, but this time I entered as end-of-play Bibbit, i.e. shirtless and with my throat covered in blood.

I hope we get back to meditations in Humanitas soon.

I'm seeing Argonautika at Berkely Rep this evening, physical condition permitting. Our Classical Worlds teacher came back with rave reviews, and we have a field trip scheduled in two Wednesdays, so I will definitely see it at least once.

Urinetown and Pajama game remain locked in battle to be This Year's Musical. We will find out on Monday which it is.

Signing off.

Zombie boy needs donuts.

What's with the title? I'll explain later.

Night 2 of OFotCN hath been nailed. In my opinion, tonight was even better than last. In particular, I felt that I did a better job in my suicide scene with Ratched. T met with us earlier for character work, which helped us synch up in terms of subtext, but I think that my pre-show meditation attempt was helpful as well.

We've been working on meditation for the last couple of weeks in Humanitas, and in the last two days things have finally started to get interesting. On Thursday I experienced the feeling of my equilibrium going haywire: it was as if I were lying on a platform which kept tilitng and spinning. Aside from the initial shock of what I felt, it was great. Today I was the guinea pig for a dream interpretation. I entered meditation again while Bruce asked me questions about what was in the dream (starting with a recurring dream I had last year) and prompting me to delve deeper into it. I felt some of the spinning again, but also a heaviness and thickness in my body, and I lost track of the location of my arms. I still knew where they were logically, but they felt as though they were in a diferent position. I was still a bit spaced out when I reached advisory, and somebody had brought donuts. The titular quote then escaped my lips.

During some downtime in rehearsal I tried to re-enter the meditative state. My cell phone rang and snapped me out of it, but I could tell that I had dipped a toe into a dark place in my mind. It's an odd mix of the negative emotions you've triggered and the excitement of such delving. I tried to draw upon that place in the performance and I believe it strengthened me.

Tomorrow I will meditate again if I have an opportunity and dive as far as I can. If it gives me tools to push myself to greater emotional extremes, then let my casements be unstopped!

Oh. Here are the notes taken during the dream exercise:

"Forest Cave"

• sky is dark--either evening or early morning
• evergreens
• pine needles--brown on ground, green on trees
• fog but clear where he is
• can see mountain in the distance
• rocks scattered, 1/2 the ize of his body
• stone archway--cave
• more than 30 ft, less than 100 ft away from cave
• only can see 3 ft into cave
• no one around
• water dripping from the roof of the cave
• pebbles on the ground, air clammy, smells like it has been raining in the cave
• 50 ft into the cave, moving slowly
• a lot brighter outside--10 a.m. maybe?
• turning downhill, and narrower
• usually would have noticed zombies by now, but not this time
• some branches off to the sides--a good distance ahead
• the wal of the cave feels smooth, but not flat
• call out: someone responded, "Come on!" in a higher voice.
• Who is it? No voice, but metal banging on stone--follow the sound...
• Taking first branch on the right--cave becoming even narrower
• hole in the ground, otherwise a dead end
• sound coming from the wall behind the hole
• call out..."Come on in; the water's nice."
• dropped a rock in the hole, made a splash
• jumped--water fairly cool, mid-thigh--larger chamber, dry ground a short distance away
• two bodies floating on either side
• face almost as if half done
• hair-black
• corpse
• other body--face down, brown hair, Tshirt and shorts, heavy boots but still floating
• push the one w/ the boots to shore, but very heavy
• anyone else in cave? --> some insects, possibly beetles, but none on or near the ground
• call out...noise comes from straight ahead
• an outline suggesting a door
• arms feels heavier and wider
• ask for person to come out
• door shattered & disappeared
• someone coming out: skinny as a straw, wearing a hat, name given as Sarah but voice like a boy's, in dream because it got lost
• Why calling Peter? ...heard me in cave and hoping to get a ride out
• "Put me in a bottle"--but I don't have a bottle
• About to say something but noticed something, ran off, & jumped up the hole
• blob of orange/yellow light in the next room--> going inside
• Room bigger than the last, 4 pillars, covered in vines, waer ankle deep
• walls retreated & disappeared
• now sees the zombies
• walk over, ask who they are? "Nobody" fell over & began to twitch
• "You dealt with us on the hill before"
• Want me to apoligize for killing them
• Are you willing?
• Have themselves confused with someone else--so "no" I won't apologize
• Ask them for a gift...
• They started screaming
• Tell them they must give you a gift...
• Holding out its hands--growing, extendng from bright blue bulb, no idea what it is--one part hollow
• zombies quiet
• dismiss them--white and frozen, faded away...they're gone

It ended there for class, although Bruce thought there was quite a bit of material we could have uncovered with time. I hope we get back to it next week.

McMurphy!

We've made it through opening night! WOOOOOOOOOO!

***CUCKOO'S NEST SPOILERS AHEAD***

That was a fantastic opening night. It was a large audience for a Thursday and we really got through to them. Vince said that both of his parents were crying by the end. On the note of Vince, he...well...sort of destroyed the electrical box. Save that energy for Saturday, big guy. Ratched and I each seem to have a really strong sense of where the other is: when I stand up to Ratched near the end and move to block her from reaching Candy, we came within a couple finger-widths of each other. Not to say that the show was perfect; Harding skipped about half a page of dialogue in Act I (very good covering, though), and we had a momentary blackout just before the pary scene (I'm glaring at youuuuuu, Kenzi!). Still. Fantastic. Harding's dad came up to me afterward and said that I was portraying a spot-on anxiety disorder, and this guy worked in a psychiatric hospital for ten years!

Acting is more than just my passion or expected profession. It's what keeps me human. I can say that without theater I would be a lot less like me and a lot more like Billy. Each play seems to improve my life or my identity in some way. For example, going through Cuckoo's Nest has made me more comfortable about exposing myself physically.

Oh, yes: When I located T after the performance I promptly asked him for notes. My favorite note that he wrote down for anyone was as follows,

"Shock therapy scene: fucking awesome."

I have no doubt that our next two nights will fare just as well.

Three days till Cuckoo's Nest!

Tonight we FINALLY got a full runthrough with tech! This play is at last coming together, although we still need to work on keeping straight faces in a couple of areas. Vince and Nixon--or should I say Chief and Ratched--are awesome, and Scanlon is doing quite well for his first performance here. I'll be meeting with T at lunch tomorrow for some more character work; I haven't yet felt Commitment Fatigue during my last scene, and it needs to be 100% believable.

I come from a place.

I wrote this poem a couple of weeks ago and forgot to post it. Rehearsal today reminded me.

I don’t come from three California towns.
I don’t come from Altadena.
I don’t come from just north of the Los Angeles smoke and lights,
Where certain people can make a half million dollars a day
For having a fashionably unkempt hairstyle.
I don’t come from the yellowed hills of the Bay Area.
I don’t come from Pleasanton.
I don’t come from a blacktopped elementary school
With a buzzer
And buildings like abandoned wagon wheels.
I don’t come from the house that leaves
Nine years’ worth of memories to clog my cortex.
I don’t come from Alamo.
I don’t come from a one-story house
Built in the fifties
Where I still can’t remember where to lock the gate after
Six years.
I come from an isolated black box,
A high school I’ve never attended,
And an auditorium in Orinda.
I come from pages crisscrossed with a highlighter
And framed with notes on blocking.
I come from a mountain climber’s axe.
I come from Venice, 1941.
I come from a broken belt tied around my head.
I come from a trampoline.
I come from iambic pentameter.

Yee!

Composition class with Softy has begun again! Whee! *runs around hugging random people*

Loyal and Slasher returned as well (as has Sunshine, but she had to miss today for work on Twelfth Night, which is really ironic when you consider that the play we are working on in class is Twelfth Night), and we got Knight, Song, and Gift, Lantern's younger sister, and a new girl. Apparently another guy signed up for the class, but as he was also absent I am currently the sole source of testosterone. Not that it matters; when I'm with the Venetians (it's easier to say "Venetians" than "Venetians and/or Riotous Knights," so that's what I'm sticking with) I don't even pay attention to gender categories. I just become smiley with the knowledge that I'm around such incredible people again.

Today's class included warmups Softy-style (oh, how I miss those warmups!), five minutes of automatic writing (either I'm a really slow writer or everyone else is really fast) and soundscapes using Orsino's opening monologue. A bit of angelic chorus may have snuck into ours. *shifty eyes*

No more class until Saturday, but until then it's all theater all the time (Cuckoo's Nest performs this week!), so I may be able to survive. Then again, I may not (see yesterday).

On the notes of theater and survival, I am sharpening my knife for immediate post-performance use on our line-shoddy Harding and McMurphy (mostly Harding). Ooh, that reminds me: Vein #11 from yesterday was that Ruckley dropped the play outright. LESS THAN A WEEK BEFORE OPENING NIGHT! Sure, he has very little blocking, and the only thing he ever says is, "Fuck 'em all!", but it's the principle! This is why one maps out one's conflicts BEFORE getting cast!

Enough angry posting. I want to smile some.

But I don't have time. Shakespeare Honors work needs to be finished, and then shower. Mister Emoticon will smile for me.

^_^

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!

Why are all these veins in my neck standing out? Don't get me started (too late).

Vein #1. No meditation today, so that much less time to simply relax.

Vein #2. I had to turn in some ten sheets of college paperwork.

Vein #3. A schoolwide (hum!) conspiracy has led to FOUR essays being assigned in the same time frame.

Vein #4. That time frame is PERFORMANCE WEEK, where I stay at school until ten o'clock every night.

Vein #5. Therefore I had to run around begging teachers for extensions, one of whom I had to simultanteously ask for a letter of recommendation that I had assumed on other paperwork she would write.

Vein #6. We had a quiz in Statistics.

Vein #7. We had a test in Shakespeare.

Vein #8. Rehearsal ended nearly half an hour before I had projected.

Vein #9. While running Lear monologues in an attempt to blow off steam I blanked on a word in one of the lines I've run the most for at least ten minutes. (She hath...she hath...ABATED! SHE HATH ABATED ME OF HALF MY TRAIN!!!)

Vein #10. At the last minute I realized that I still had not given T the last piece of paperwork, which meant sprinting back up to our remote theater.

By 4:00 I was foaming at the mouth. Literally.

Disintegrations

During meditations today I had some more images of my body coming apart, and Bruce suggested I start keeping a journal of them. Here's what I've seen so far:

1. The aforementioned "sand crumbling."
2. Cracks radiating from my face across my body with black syrup flowing from the cracks.
3. My body slowly being vanished by fire from the feet up. Okay, at least I know where this one came from. It was the image in my head during the "blow, wind, and crack your cheeks" monologue.
4. A small grey whirlpool appearing at my center and growing.
5. My body tightening and contracting until it shattered like a block of ice.
6. Expanding and widening, but losing its substance simultaneously until it faded away completely, revealing a shriveled, spaghetti-thin version of my body as what might have been the frame.
7. A tiny hole opening in my forehead from which reality fountained.
8. Collapsing into a pile of children's blocks.

'Tis strange. Now to sing, take a shower, and see what the night has in store.