Look like this whole writing two times a week thing is harder than I thought. This week has been particularly difficult, because the days have been so long and we’re getting quite a bit of homework that we need to complete. Last week and this week were much like any other. Nothing new really happened. I haven’t gone up for my third time singing The Light in the Piazza, but that will be my last time.
One thing that has really been preoccupying my time is the fact that next Saturday I’ll be jumping on a plane and flying home for a week. I’ll probably only do one blog entry that week, because I’ll be busy spending the rest of the week with my family. I’m really excited to be coming back!!! I can’t wait to see the ocean again, it will be legendary! Unfortunately it will only be for six days, so I won’t be able to see everyone that I want to see. However, I’ll be back next summer so if you miss me next week, I’ll have to see you then. There’s also Christmas break, but I’ll be spending that break with my family for the most part.
Anyways, I will write another entry on Friday to sum up what happened this whole week. Nothing crazy has happened yet, so I don’t think it will be long. Then I won’t write again till next week. Sorry for the delay in entries again.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Luck Be a Lady
Ten Fridays… wow. 10 doesn’t seem like that many, but I forgot that counting down weeks takes a lot longer than counting down days. That being said, this week is already half over, so hopefully after the 10th Friday the rest will all be shorter.
I hope that you all had a lovely Thanksgiving. I had a fabulous weekend full of Turkey and watching Jurassic Park. After a fun Friday night of partying, I spent most of my Saturday grocery shopping and telling my family on Skype how jealous I was that they got to get together. Then, on Sunday morning, I made a spinach salad and head off to my friend Emily’s house. About ten of us had not left for the weekend, so we all met up and had a potluck student dinner. It was so much fun and I really like spending my Thanksgiving with my new friends. After our lovely dinner, I went back to Residence with the other girls and had my first Sheridan Slumber Party!! We watched Jurassic Park (some of them hadn’t seen it, which is just totally crazy!!) and then later ate cookies and had girl talk. It was a lot of fun and a perfect end to my first thanksgiving away from home.
Monday was another do nothing day, which leads us to today. After a three day weekend I was still in a bit of a Turkey coma. Unfortunately for me my alarm also forgot to go off this morning and I only had about twenty minutes to get ready, no big deal… So after a rough awakening, I made it to school with time to spare. The vocal classes in the morning were normal and I watched the third Rep Lab presentation, which was a lot of fun. It featured such songs as “If I Were a Bell”, “A Little Bit in Love” and “Luck Be a Lady”. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed all of the performances.
By lunchtime, I thought that I was finally awake. I was a little nervous, because I knew I was singing in MVP. I went in to rehearse with the accompanist and I found that it was a different accompanist…turns out that the woman we had before wasn’t the regular, instead it is a lovely man named Steven Thomas. He’s a really sweet guy and I felt great talking to him. Then he asked me what song I was going to sing and when I told him “The Light in the Piazza” he proceeded to tell me that I ruined his day. I had completely forgotten how impossible “The Light in the Piazza” was to play if you haven’t played it before. Thank goodness, he made it through and I promised never to spring an impossible song on him again. We’re friends now, but I think that bringing in some Sondheim next wouldn’t be the best idea.
When we worked on the song today the first time I ran through it was good. Marie said that I had taken some of her direction too seriously, but that it was done well. In the scene before, my character is fighting with her mother, who actually slaps her before the song is song. Erin, my acting partner, and I both agreed that we didn’t want a really lame fake slap, so we just had her yelling at me and grabbing me by the shoulders. This worked fine, but Marie didn’t think that it had the same emotional effect as a slap would. So we both decided that Erin should actually slap me, just once, so that I could understand the feeling and the emotion better. I was completely okay with this, but in the split second before it happened, I realized that I had never been slapped before. At first it stung and it hurt a lot, but it made the entire song make complete sense. I will willingly say that I did cry a lot, but I sung through it and that’s all that really matters. It was amazing, but unfortunately, I didn’t record it at all, so I can’t hear what the difference in my voice was. Next time we’ll just have a fake slap, but I’ll never forget what it actually felt like.
Also, I will never lose a Slap Bet now… and if I had to choose between ten simultaneous slaps and five slaps anytime, anyplace, I would definitely go with five slaps anytime, anyplace. Then at least I would have time to recover in between slaps.
I hope that you all had a lovely Thanksgiving. I had a fabulous weekend full of Turkey and watching Jurassic Park. After a fun Friday night of partying, I spent most of my Saturday grocery shopping and telling my family on Skype how jealous I was that they got to get together. Then, on Sunday morning, I made a spinach salad and head off to my friend Emily’s house. About ten of us had not left for the weekend, so we all met up and had a potluck student dinner. It was so much fun and I really like spending my Thanksgiving with my new friends. After our lovely dinner, I went back to Residence with the other girls and had my first Sheridan Slumber Party!! We watched Jurassic Park (some of them hadn’t seen it, which is just totally crazy!!) and then later ate cookies and had girl talk. It was a lot of fun and a perfect end to my first thanksgiving away from home.
Monday was another do nothing day, which leads us to today. After a three day weekend I was still in a bit of a Turkey coma. Unfortunately for me my alarm also forgot to go off this morning and I only had about twenty minutes to get ready, no big deal… So after a rough awakening, I made it to school with time to spare. The vocal classes in the morning were normal and I watched the third Rep Lab presentation, which was a lot of fun. It featured such songs as “If I Were a Bell”, “A Little Bit in Love” and “Luck Be a Lady”. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed all of the performances.
By lunchtime, I thought that I was finally awake. I was a little nervous, because I knew I was singing in MVP. I went in to rehearse with the accompanist and I found that it was a different accompanist…turns out that the woman we had before wasn’t the regular, instead it is a lovely man named Steven Thomas. He’s a really sweet guy and I felt great talking to him. Then he asked me what song I was going to sing and when I told him “The Light in the Piazza” he proceeded to tell me that I ruined his day. I had completely forgotten how impossible “The Light in the Piazza” was to play if you haven’t played it before. Thank goodness, he made it through and I promised never to spring an impossible song on him again. We’re friends now, but I think that bringing in some Sondheim next wouldn’t be the best idea.
When we worked on the song today the first time I ran through it was good. Marie said that I had taken some of her direction too seriously, but that it was done well. In the scene before, my character is fighting with her mother, who actually slaps her before the song is song. Erin, my acting partner, and I both agreed that we didn’t want a really lame fake slap, so we just had her yelling at me and grabbing me by the shoulders. This worked fine, but Marie didn’t think that it had the same emotional effect as a slap would. So we both decided that Erin should actually slap me, just once, so that I could understand the feeling and the emotion better. I was completely okay with this, but in the split second before it happened, I realized that I had never been slapped before. At first it stung and it hurt a lot, but it made the entire song make complete sense. I will willingly say that I did cry a lot, but I sung through it and that’s all that really matters. It was amazing, but unfortunately, I didn’t record it at all, so I can’t hear what the difference in my voice was. Next time we’ll just have a fake slap, but I’ll never forget what it actually felt like.
Also, I will never lose a Slap Bet now… and if I had to choose between ten simultaneous slaps and five slaps anytime, anyplace, I would definitely go with five slaps anytime, anyplace. Then at least I would have time to recover in between slaps.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Don't Cry for Me Argentina!
Oh no! I have officially become a slacker!! I really should have thought more before starting a blog. It’s like having a second job :P Sorry for not writing all week, but you should all just be happy I’m still alive. I survived, although it wasn’t the hardest week of my life, it was pretty tough. I would bore with information about this week, but other than the quizzes it was quite average. Instead I’ll tell you a bit about how amazing Stratford was and then a few weekly highlights. I promise that after Thanksgiving I’ll definitely get back to writing on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Stratford… Wow… Those kinds of shows are exactly what I’m striving for. Both of the shows that I saw were visually amazing. I absolutely love seeing live theatre and I find that shows always inspire me to do better. The first show that I saw was a Shakespeare play called “As You Like It”. For those who don’t know what it’s about, it’s a comedy, meaning that it has a happy ending where everyone gets married. The show is all about miscommunication and men falling in love with women who are dressed up as men, therefore other women fall in love with women, thinking that they’re men, and then some random event happens that makes the ending all good and everyone happy. It would explain it in more detail, but it was too complicated. I loved the production, although the leading man was a little girly. My favourite character in the show was the Fool, he wasn’t exactly funny; the only way to describe him was sarcastically witty. He delivered all his jokes so smoothly and in such a way that I completely understood their significance. Another one of my favourite parts was played by a man named Brent Carver, who I only found out afterwards is a famous broadway acting for came from BC… I think. He was the most amazing actor in the whole thing. All of his monologues were delivered so well, he had me hanging on his every word. And amazingly enough he’s also friend with my Acting Teacher…Awesome!
The second show that I went to was “Evita!” First of all, I want to say that I really am not a huge fan of the music. Other than “Don’t Cry for me Argentina” I hadn’t heard the rest of the show ever before. I found that a lot of it sounded the same and although there was some really good dance songs, they weren’t the best vocally. That being said, all of the singers themselves were amazing for making those bad songs almost sound good!! The chorus had incredibly strong vocals and they made the chorus numbers some of my favourite songs. The actor who played Che, the narrator (by the way, why him? His presence in the story seemed remarkably pointless. He might as well have been some random guy), was the most amazing singer! His voice just made me want to die…He was that good. He hit all of his notes with amazing confidence and accuracy. That fact the he was amazingly attractive also helped. The woman who played Eva Peron was one of the Sheridan grads and let me just tell you, she is amazing. Some of her notes sounded weird, but I think that’s just because the songs are bad. Her belt sounds incredible and she is so beautiful. I really hope to be like her some day, although I don’t think I could ever play Evita. The visual side of the show was incredible. They used a projector for a lot of lighting stuff and I really liked that. The colours were super bright and the set was the most amazing thing. It was an amazing production, although the show itself is kind of off, but it was amazing.
So after that wonderful weekend, I had my birthday on Monday, which was really great. Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes and I had a lovely day. The rest of my week was rather boring. I love you all so much and thanks for putting up with my slacking off. I hope this entry is sufficient to make up for missing Tuesday. I hope that you guys all have an amazing Thanksgiving and I’ll write again next Tuesday. I’ll definitely have something to talk about: I’m singing Light in the Piazza for the second times so wish me luck.
Stratford… Wow… Those kinds of shows are exactly what I’m striving for. Both of the shows that I saw were visually amazing. I absolutely love seeing live theatre and I find that shows always inspire me to do better. The first show that I saw was a Shakespeare play called “As You Like It”. For those who don’t know what it’s about, it’s a comedy, meaning that it has a happy ending where everyone gets married. The show is all about miscommunication and men falling in love with women who are dressed up as men, therefore other women fall in love with women, thinking that they’re men, and then some random event happens that makes the ending all good and everyone happy. It would explain it in more detail, but it was too complicated. I loved the production, although the leading man was a little girly. My favourite character in the show was the Fool, he wasn’t exactly funny; the only way to describe him was sarcastically witty. He delivered all his jokes so smoothly and in such a way that I completely understood their significance. Another one of my favourite parts was played by a man named Brent Carver, who I only found out afterwards is a famous broadway acting for came from BC… I think. He was the most amazing actor in the whole thing. All of his monologues were delivered so well, he had me hanging on his every word. And amazingly enough he’s also friend with my Acting Teacher…Awesome!
The second show that I went to was “Evita!” First of all, I want to say that I really am not a huge fan of the music. Other than “Don’t Cry for me Argentina” I hadn’t heard the rest of the show ever before. I found that a lot of it sounded the same and although there was some really good dance songs, they weren’t the best vocally. That being said, all of the singers themselves were amazing for making those bad songs almost sound good!! The chorus had incredibly strong vocals and they made the chorus numbers some of my favourite songs. The actor who played Che, the narrator (by the way, why him? His presence in the story seemed remarkably pointless. He might as well have been some random guy), was the most amazing singer! His voice just made me want to die…He was that good. He hit all of his notes with amazing confidence and accuracy. That fact the he was amazingly attractive also helped. The woman who played Eva Peron was one of the Sheridan grads and let me just tell you, she is amazing. Some of her notes sounded weird, but I think that’s just because the songs are bad. Her belt sounds incredible and she is so beautiful. I really hope to be like her some day, although I don’t think I could ever play Evita. The visual side of the show was incredible. They used a projector for a lot of lighting stuff and I really liked that. The colours were super bright and the set was the most amazing thing. It was an amazing production, although the show itself is kind of off, but it was amazing.
So after that wonderful weekend, I had my birthday on Monday, which was really great. Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes and I had a lovely day. The rest of my week was rather boring. I love you all so much and thanks for putting up with my slacking off. I hope this entry is sufficient to make up for missing Tuesday. I hope that you guys all have an amazing Thanksgiving and I’ll write again next Tuesday. I’ll definitely have something to talk about: I’m singing Light in the Piazza for the second times so wish me luck.
Friday, October 1, 2010
You Walk With Me
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
Maybe I should start putting lame quotes at the beginning of all my posts. Actually, I might start writing funny ones at the end if I can find them. I just read that in Tweflth Night, so it seemed appropriate to write it down. It was on my mind. I’ve heard many renditions of that quote and I didn’t realize that it was from a Shakespeare play.
Wednesday was relatively normal. After Jazz class I had about 3 hours to spare. I read some Shakespeare, hung out with some friends and ate my lunch. It was pretty basic for a Wednesday. Later we had our Improv class which was really cool this week. We worked with viewpoints and I found it was a lot of fun. We did some grid work, which is very interesting to watch and participate in. She let us do a lot of watching and I love it when teachers to that. I find watching things is very effective for me, especially when I don’t understand something.
After that was Pop class; I got to watch a couple amazing performances by my friends. I find that everyone has improved so much even though it’s only been a month since we all started in this program. Voice and Text is proving to be a lot harder for other people that I find it. The lessons are a little out there, but my classmates are having trouble understanding some of the concepts. Personally, I haven’t had that much trouble. I’m very open to that method of teaching, so it doesn’t make me super frustrated or angry if I don’t get it at first. I’m having trouble understanding my friends difficulties with it.
I love Thursday mornings… Not! History is proving to be very challenging for me. Those of you who know me well know how much I love history. Luckily, it’s theatre history, but I still find it really hard to take sufficient notes. We already have a quiz coming up next week and I can’t help but feel nervous for it. I know that if I study hard I’ll get a good mark, but I just don’t know if I’ll know enough. So wish my luck with that quiz, because I do find it scary.
We finished our amazing Fosse routine in Dance today, which it sad, because I found myself really enjoying it. We’re having a guest teacher next week, so that will be a lot of fun. In MVP we finally started on the second round of our songs. The last performances were, “Purpose” and “Dance: 10, Looks: 3”. Both were amazing to watch, especially “Dance: 10, Looks: 3” Marie had a lot of fun stuffing Brooke’s shirt in that song. It was very entertaining by the end. I think that I want to perform my song again next Tuesday, hopefully. I’ll have to get together with the Piano player before that and see what she thinks.
Today was good, even though I didn’t do a lot in the morning. Ballet was good and we even had the Vice President come see our class for 2 minutes before leaving. Then we spent the last 40 minutes of class talking with Gillian, who is probably my favourite dance teacher. We talked about the National Ballet School, where she trained in London, and how horrible her audition was, even though she still got in. The rest of the day was really easy. Again I had no ear training, so I spent my break with Victoria and we had some good times. Then there was Computer Skills, where I finished the assignment in an hour and it’s still not due for two weeks.
In Acting today we did a really difficult exercise. Unfortunately for you guys, I’m not actually supposed to talk about what happened in acting class to other people. Let’s just say it was an exercise in emotional trust and letting the other students know something about you that you never tell anyone. There were a lot of tears and lot of people have had to deal with some shitty things. I felt good about that class; because it lets you see a side of people you might not have noticed before.
So I think that I might write an entry on the Stratford trip over the weekend at some point, because I won’t be able to fully describe it on Tuesday. I’ll see how awesome tomorrow is and possibly write something. Write again soon!
Maybe I should start putting lame quotes at the beginning of all my posts. Actually, I might start writing funny ones at the end if I can find them. I just read that in Tweflth Night, so it seemed appropriate to write it down. It was on my mind. I’ve heard many renditions of that quote and I didn’t realize that it was from a Shakespeare play.
Wednesday was relatively normal. After Jazz class I had about 3 hours to spare. I read some Shakespeare, hung out with some friends and ate my lunch. It was pretty basic for a Wednesday. Later we had our Improv class which was really cool this week. We worked with viewpoints and I found it was a lot of fun. We did some grid work, which is very interesting to watch and participate in. She let us do a lot of watching and I love it when teachers to that. I find watching things is very effective for me, especially when I don’t understand something.
After that was Pop class; I got to watch a couple amazing performances by my friends. I find that everyone has improved so much even though it’s only been a month since we all started in this program. Voice and Text is proving to be a lot harder for other people that I find it. The lessons are a little out there, but my classmates are having trouble understanding some of the concepts. Personally, I haven’t had that much trouble. I’m very open to that method of teaching, so it doesn’t make me super frustrated or angry if I don’t get it at first. I’m having trouble understanding my friends difficulties with it.
I love Thursday mornings… Not! History is proving to be very challenging for me. Those of you who know me well know how much I love history. Luckily, it’s theatre history, but I still find it really hard to take sufficient notes. We already have a quiz coming up next week and I can’t help but feel nervous for it. I know that if I study hard I’ll get a good mark, but I just don’t know if I’ll know enough. So wish my luck with that quiz, because I do find it scary.
We finished our amazing Fosse routine in Dance today, which it sad, because I found myself really enjoying it. We’re having a guest teacher next week, so that will be a lot of fun. In MVP we finally started on the second round of our songs. The last performances were, “Purpose” and “Dance: 10, Looks: 3”. Both were amazing to watch, especially “Dance: 10, Looks: 3” Marie had a lot of fun stuffing Brooke’s shirt in that song. It was very entertaining by the end. I think that I want to perform my song again next Tuesday, hopefully. I’ll have to get together with the Piano player before that and see what she thinks.
Today was good, even though I didn’t do a lot in the morning. Ballet was good and we even had the Vice President come see our class for 2 minutes before leaving. Then we spent the last 40 minutes of class talking with Gillian, who is probably my favourite dance teacher. We talked about the National Ballet School, where she trained in London, and how horrible her audition was, even though she still got in. The rest of the day was really easy. Again I had no ear training, so I spent my break with Victoria and we had some good times. Then there was Computer Skills, where I finished the assignment in an hour and it’s still not due for two weeks.
In Acting today we did a really difficult exercise. Unfortunately for you guys, I’m not actually supposed to talk about what happened in acting class to other people. Let’s just say it was an exercise in emotional trust and letting the other students know something about you that you never tell anyone. There were a lot of tears and lot of people have had to deal with some shitty things. I felt good about that class; because it lets you see a side of people you might not have noticed before.
So I think that I might write an entry on the Stratford trip over the weekend at some point, because I won’t be able to fully describe it on Tuesday. I’ll see how awesome tomorrow is and possibly write something. Write again soon!
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