Videos are Elusive, Beating people up, and Materialism

All those videos I was planning on putting up?

My lighting design (which I have yet to see)?
My stage combat fight (which was really weird to watch?)

Yeah, they're elusive.  I can't figure out how to format my videos to load anywhere, and the link to my Lighting Design posted on youtube hasn't happened from my professor yet, so my poor little blog is empty.  :(  Booooo.

Stage Combat class kicked my ass.  It was great- I learned a lot of techniques, I learned that I will NEVER be a stunt person (not that that is a huge shock to anyone who knows me...)  But I worked my butt off, and had a lot of fun in the process.  Physically and mentally demanding.  Finding a balance between character, motivation, scene requirements, safety, and the illusion of fighting...  Tough stuff.

Today in Theatre TLC (Theory, Literature, and Criticism) (aka TH511) we began class talking about MATERIALISM.  Basically, "money makes the world go 'round."  (Thanks Cabaret.)  Everything we do is motivated by commodities, even art and culture.  Yesterday, someone brought up the fact that a LOT of people are starting their own theatre companies, which led me to link to this article .

It all comes down to money.  A Theatre has to be sustainable, and to maintain a theatre, you need an audience.  Publicity costs money, or at least it used to.  But now, with things like Facebook and YouTube, cou can basically advertise for free, or at least for less money than taking out ad space or mailing postcards, etc etc...  So with the advent of the internet, and being able to promote shows for less of an investment, is that leading to the sudden boom of theatre companies?  Does that have something to do with it?  Why NOW is there this sudden influx?  Is this sudden theatre explosion watering down the quality of theatre?  Or is it diminishing the audience of other theatres?

Materialism.
I have a feeling this has turned into a stream of consciousness.

On the flip side, we need to have money in order to support ourselves, but sometimes the element of a job or of a profession (which leads to making money, supporting one's self) inherently makes us dread (or at least wear out) in our profession.  I love working with kids.  I love teaching.  But some days I dread going to work.  At work, I think that most people to some degree become cynical, jaded, frustrated...  Why?

I can head to the theatre after work and be completely rejuvenated by going there...  because I'm choosing to do what I love.  But my friends who work there are worn out, ready to leave work...  but they're making a LIVING doing what they love.  I wonder if I were to ever get a job in a theatre if I would wear out on work simply because it's "work"...  even though it's work that I love.  I could volunteer in a theatre for HOURS, and have spent 6-8 hours (a work-days worth) AFTER a day at work and been completely happy.  What's the difference?  How does the lack of a monetary incentive make it better?  (Does it make it better?)  My theatre friends could leave work (tired of being at work, ready to leave work) and go to ANOTHER theatre to volunteer their time or do something of their own volition WITHOUT a monetary incentive, be doing basically the same type of work and not be jaded or frustrated, etc... by that.  What's the difference?  Is this the flip side of materialism?

You seek out employment, and if you're lucky enough to get hired to do something you're passionate about, why does getting paid for it seem to suck some of the enjoyment out of that?  Is it because you're working for a higher authority and don't have complete freedom?

Anyway...  Materialism.  Yeah...

In a couple days in 511, I have to do a role-play presentation of Zora Hurston.  She's awesome-- I like reading her essays and her life story is really interesting.  She's all about creating a theatre of and for the black community...  Sooo... I'm going to be playing a black woman who believes that white people who try to usurp (??- that might not be the exact right word, but my brain is fried and it's the best I can do) performance styles or elements of African-influenced performance can never succeed in re-creating them because they don't know what it's like to be black.  I have to try and accurately portray this woman that, in her thinking, I would never be able to portray because I don't understand what it's like to be her.  Does this make the whole project futile?  I also feel like I'm going to come across as racist, which is distracting me from the research a little bit.  


Grad school is fun.  (that statement is partially sarcastic, and partially serious...)


...We're roasting marshmallows at Wine at Nine tonight.
7 days of class after today.
Home one week from tomorrow.
Have to get ready for class now.


If you made it this far, congratulations!!!  


Here's my final presentation from Stage Combat, which magically worked when I tried to upload it.  This is by no means a final, polished stage production, but a work in progress.

and here's a picture of a pretty sunset as viewed from outside my apartment.

I survived musical theatre!!!!!!

I survived my presentation! I felt (of course) relieved that I had gotten through it without passing out, throwing up, or having any other sort of adverse physical or mental effects on myself or anyone else...  And I felt GOOD about it, which was one of the last things I was expecting.  It's a pretty cool emotional high to go through that growth (in less than two weeks).  Last week (a week and a half ago?) I was so petrified that I could barely produce sound singing "O What A Beautiful Morning" in front of people with the notes being plunked out on the piano as I sang.  Not the whole song mind you-- just those 5 words.  Today, I got up in front of my class, sang JASON ROBERT BROWN with insanely ridiculous accompaniment, and brought the story and character to life.  And I felt PROUD of my performance.  (Relief too.  Lots of relief...)  It's a pretty cool high.


The song I directed I am really proud of also.  I worked with my actor on accessing the emotion of the piece, which was especially difficult for him, being very different from the character he was portraying.  I'm really proud of his performance, and I think he was really happy with the direction I gave him.  He said I asked all the right questions, so I'm feeling really good about my process as well.


The thing about this class is that it made me realize how CHALLENGING musical theatre is.  I'm really glad I had the opportunity to experience the actor side of it--  that's something I don't think I ever would've done on my own.  I have a better understanding about the depth that musical theatre has the potential to harness, and know how to better access it to allow the audience to empathize with the characters, understand the story, and buy into the whole presentational aspect of musical theatre which can be so distancing.  I feel more comfortable with using the music in the score to help tell the story, and using those clues musically to figure out what's going on with the character at given points in the score...  It makes me really excited to start to really dig into my thesis and figure things out.

I'm about to go in and record my cues for my final lighting design project.  Video (hopefully) to come after my presentation.  We had to select a piece of music to use to design our lights for, and I'm really happy with the music I edited (not perfect, but with the time crunch I had, I cut a nearly 5 minute song down to 2 minutes, which I'm shocked I was able to do and keep the story intact...)  I also added a soundscape layer of effects that really help tell the story of the music piece that I chose.  We'll see what happens when I go to record!!!  Now to go get into a lighting designer mental space...  The person cueing before me is learning how to use the techno-beams (which are movable, programmable intelligent lights) and I hope to use them in my design as well!!!

More to come later... 

Surviving Musical Theatre

I sang.

I survived.

Some might say I did well.

The thing that our Musical Theatre Directing professor (who is a brilliant, highly accomplished, nurturing professional, and she doesn't take crap from anyone) is driving home is that Musical Theatre isn't this whole big show, performance "jazz hands" kind of art that people assume it is.  I absolutely buy into this ideal.  Not to say that there's no place for jazz hands...  but the quote she said today really kind of puts her ideal into perspective: "Musical Theatre isn't singing...  It's feeling on pitch."  She keeps telling us that it's about having the audience empathize with you...  Just sympathize with the character, and I think that's a very important distinction.  The whole point of these characters singing their feelings is that they've run out of words...  the music is there to heighten the emotion...  It adds depth where words just can't do enough.  Our voices are so deeply connected to who we are, and you really have to go to some really deep (dark?) places to access that emotion and not perform it for the audience, but to really access it, feel it, and make the audience feel it along with you.  The singing breathes life into the songs.  Pretty crazy awesome stuff.  


Anyway, the song I have to sing (I think I posted it before) is "I'm Still Hurting" from The Last 5 Years by Jason Robert Brown.  It's ridiculously difficult music...  written in 9/8 time signature, very few of my notes that I sing are in the accompaniment, lots of words, blah blah blah...    It's the opening number to the show, and my character's husband has just left her, seemingly out of the blue.  The structure of the musical is really cool...  It's all done through song, and my character tells her story of the relationship from the end and goes backwards to the beginning, while the male character tells his story of the relationship from the beginning to the end, and they cross in the middle.  I *love* the song, it's absolutely beautiful.  But...  me being me, having a terrible time getting out of my head and just singing the emotion of the piece without worrying about the words.


Without going into all the gory boring details of the hour or so we spent workshopping it this morning...  I sang through it once as we had rehearsed, and then Terri (my prof) walked us through some exercises to try and access the emotion and really pushed for me to delve into those "dark, uncomfortable places" to access the emotion of the song.  Not to perform the emotions, but to really access them and feel them onstage.  While I'm very positive I probably missed all the notes, it didn't really matter, because the emotion was there, and raw, and accessible to the audience, and THAT was really cool.  I'm not usually a crier, but there were tears (I think I cried through a lot of the song) and there were some in the audience too.  (Not that I like to make my friends cry, but you know...  acting.)


This is NOT a performance class.  This is a directing class.  So it's not about doing well, or being able to sing, or any of that.  But going through the difficulty of being pushed to do something that scares the living bejeezus out of me will be really helpful when I'm going through a lot of the same trials with my students, especially if singing is NOT their thing.  We've seen different techniques, tried and felt different things...  And will see more as we workshop more songs in class...  so I'm looking forward to it.  Now that i have my workshop out of the way, (as well as the workshop for the song I'm directing) some of the pressure is off, and i can really watch without being distracted or nervous about my own workshop.


We still have to direct and rehearse with our directors, and still have final performances of our songs on Saturday (when the session is over,) so there's that looming...  but now that I'm over the hurdle, that should be slightly less intimidating (but still scary as hell...)


And NOW...  I'm off to go out to dinner and go bowling with the rest of the people in the program.  Tomorrow is our first day off since getting here, and I'm going to enjoy the hell out of the half-weekend that we have!  We're going to see a melodrama in CleElum, and go see the fireworks in Ellensburg tomorrow.  And I've turned off my alarm clock.  SLEEPING IN!!!!!!!  It will be great!