It's been a while....

A lot has happened since my last post, hence the long time between posts, we finished up Check Please and district thespians was amazing, so here goes my best summary, thespians first.

      District 2 Thespian festivals always have a nervous energy tension to them, a kind of internal tension split between the joy of being around other people, the high you get from performing, and the nerves associated with being judged by peers and professionals. Whenever theater people gather en masse there is a level of comradere, sure you want to do well, but you don't want to see someone else fall flat on their face because the competition is against yourself more than it is against the other cometitors.
      While this is a slightly poetic way of describing the festival it is the most accurate way I can find of describing the feel of the whole day. The two events I compieted in were monologues and costume construction, I also was an actor in a student directed scene for a friend of mine. I was not in love with either of my monologues and it showed in my performance, my physicality was not practiced and my nerves started to show. I didn't do poorly though, just not well enough to make me truly happy, the judges gave me a 'good' and that was that.
      My next event was costume construction and I was much more confident going into that event than I was for monologues, truth to tell I had spent much more time preparing for this event than I had for my performance and it was evident. I presented the skirt and fully lined jacket which were my pieces for the costume of Eliza Doolittle from the second act of My Fair Lady. The judges were thrilled by my piece and were very complimenatry, and I was thrilled by their reaction. The comments they gave were to fill out my research booklet and clean up some threads. For this event I earned critics choice and am going to be able to compete at State Thespians with my costume, I can only hope to do so well at the state level as I did at the district. The other members of my troupe did well too, however we missed out on the talent of those who recently graduated that were constistant superior winners. All in all it was a very nice day, and winning didn't hurt. :)

Check Please was a production  that I was very glad to have done with. The cast gathered at the beginning of tech week the play appeared to be a fiasco in the making. No one knew their lines, the set wasn't finished and the lights weren't working, oh and our director was rather irritated with all of us. Although tensions were running high and everyone was annoyed with one another, some more than others *cough-assistant-director-who-didn't-know-anything-cough*, we ended with a product that we could be proud of. The author, Jonathan Rand, was in town and watched the show; he said that he truly enjoyed the play and he wasn't just being nice. I learned how to put up with morons and to make sure what I was supposed to do was done so that I could help others.

And now for the one acts...

Pictures from the Play:

Check Please pt2

Rehersal has started for Check Please, and we have been forced to hit the ground running due to our time constraints (for more details, see the rant filled Check Please pt1). Here are some pictures from auditons and rehersals. We have been forced out of the auditorium for the last week so we had rehersal outside, which was actually very nice.

script for act three of three of the play

Rehersal on Thursday 10/21

Auditions, Part duo



Abbie Garcia, Charlie Lafer, and someone I don't know doing a read through



Costume Construction Pt 2

A status update on my costume work for District Thespians:
As November 13th draws ever nearer I have begun to actually sew the peices together. Thus far I have almost completed the skirt (all that remains is the waistband and hem) and some of the interfacing for the collar of the jacket. I have successfully learned how to put in  a zipper and to take more care in sewing and cutting out pattern pieces so that they line up, in the design I have it is imperative that ever seam lines up with the one above it.

The front of the skirt:

The Back of the skirt

Now that the skirt is finished, the elaborate jacket promises to be very challenging and test my tailoring skills.

Diviners Change

Due to recent changes in casting, and certain unprofessional decisions made by three senior memebers of the cast we have been forced to change the play. Because three of our four leads dropped the play we are now going to be performing Check Please. This play is a comedy which is different than the serious piece we were attempting to perform. This change occured two weeks into rehersal, with only four or five weeks until we perform changing the play was easier than trying to find the chemistry between new leads and recasting the other parts. Producing a quality play will certainly be challenging in our time space, but I have confidince in our dedicated cast, if any more set backs occur we will certainly have stories to tell. The decisions of the few members of the cast to leave the play demonstraites a degree of unprofessionality and egocentricism that is not usually seen in the theater community. Quite frankly, they have burned quite a few bridges in their rash decisions because the theater community in Jacksonville is so small. Needless to say the rest of the cast is rather annoyed by this recent turn of events and are very annoyed with the two seniors who had a choice to leave the play or not. One of the two is actually lying about her reason for leaving, in order to have a good excuse.
What ever happens Paxon will put on a quality play, and I know that I will still be the best thespian I can be without letting any events have an effect on my performance.

The Diviners!

As our fall play we (the Paxon Players) are producing the show The Diviners, as such I have auditioned and receieved a call back. This was a new experience for me, I have auditioned for shows before and gotten parts, but I'd never recieved a call back. The call back gave me a chance to develop a closer understanding of the characters in the play and to gain further interation with the possible cast members, both those I knew and those I did not. I recieved the part of Goldie, who is a middle aged woman who owns a diner in the small (imaginary) town of Zion Indiana. This part will be an interesting one to portray, because she has a slight accent that is necessary to portray the character well, and her age will be one that I have not acted before. I am looking forward to working on my physicality and character development, whether through the LaBon Method or some other route. I will pay special attention to 'getting out of my head' on stage and into the character which I often have a problem with: I am often too like myself, or I over compensate and become flat and fake.
More posts will be coming as the play progresses. All in all I think it will be a really good production.

Beginning of First Project

      Okay, so for the first project that I am planning I will improve my sewing skills and learn how to research and create period costumes. This project will increase my knowledge of both theater arts and my skills as a seamstress. I am attempting to make a coat and skirt for the costume construction part of the District Thespians competion. I chose to make a costume for the character of Eliza Doolittle from the Ascot Gavotte scene from My Fair Lady. I chose this scene because of the artistic freedom given the costumer, the play script simply says that Eliza is dressed exquisitely, this can be interpreted any way. I have chosen a pattern with a fitted, high collared, lace trimmed jacket paired with a trumpet shaped full legnth skirt. I found fabric both at JoAnn's and Calico Corners, both of which had sales on the fabrics I was looking for.

      I tried to find fabric that did match the time period and would look nice on stage under the lights. I'm using a red and gold brocade for the coat with a gold lining, covered buttons, and cream lace. For the skirt I'm using a cream duck fabric with a scarlet ribbon trim.

First Entry, Brainstorming

With the new CAS regulations being enacted at PSAS I've decided to blog about my activities, this seemed to be the easiest and most reliable way of keeping up with my projects for eighteen months. For this first post I plan on brain storming project ideas.

• perform skits at hospitals (CAS)
• Learn sugar work (C, A maybe?)
• Improve my singing/ confidence performing for others (CA)
• Write more songs, submit...somewhere (C)
• Lose weight/ work out more (A)
• Tutor younger students (A,S)
• Head the Donna Hicken Marathon water station (CAS)
• Direct scenes for Black Box theater (CAS)
• Community theater (storybook theater) for younger students (CAS)
• Improve sewing skills (C)
• Improve Drama Club at PSAS (as secretary) (CA)
• Streghthen the Classics program at PSAS (as junior president(JR YR) and president(SR YR))

Well, those are ideas~ we'll see how far they'll go.