Playing Catch-Up

Wow. Where to start? I haven't blogged since the end of October.

I danced for joy when Ah, Wilderness! ended. Even though I was feeling a little better about the show toward the end, I still didn't enjoy the experience.

After that show was over, I had to get right to work on the sound design for Canyon Suite. I hated the script for that show, so it was kind of a challenge to get through it and come up with a concept for the sound. Eventually I came up with an awesome idea and had all the pre-show, intermission, post-show, and scene change music come from a radio within the hotel room set. Then to tie it together, I added interstitials of myself as a radio announcer. The show turned out to be pretty good, despite the script.

The week Canyon Suite opened, my youth theatre had a touring show with the oldest group, which turned out okay, even though the kids really scared us for a while. Then, we had our fall parent performance with all of the groups and finished the year out.

For my final project in my directing class, we had to direct a scene from the play Some Girls by Neil Labute. I was given the first scene, which was twice as long as the others, and I was told it was because they knew I was good enough to handle it. One other student and I got long scenes and had to find a clever way to use 4 actors when it only called for 2. I had a really good concept, and then one of my actors dropped out the week before we performed. The concept kind of suffered as a result, but it stilled turned out really well. After it was over, the department chair told me that my scene and one other were the best.

Fall semester ended, and not a moment too soon. I didn't get my usual 4.0 because of one class - my stupid Educational Psychology class. I expected some poor grades in a couple others, too, but this is the only one that screwed me in the end.

Christmas came and went too fast. I got LOTS of great stuff. I know I'll leave some out off the top of my head, but some of my favorites were: a new laptop, a naughty Batgirl action figure, an autographed(!) copy of Amy Grant's autobiography, lots of DVDs, Guitar Hero III, and Rock Band. The last two were presents to myself. :) I felt like I deserved them after the rough semester. Especially because I had major money troubles throughout October and November, and I had saved up a lot of money and had been good about not blowing it.

January and school started at about the same time, and even though I rather like my classload so far this semester, I wasn't fully recovered from last fall. Also, I was really sick the first week of the year and missed my first day of classes. And I've had pretty much non-stop colds since Christmas.

I was on the selection committee for next year's theatre department season. I was really bummed because one of the shows I really wanted to do was "off-limits" because of a professor's request. BUT! We're still going to have an amazing season next year: Flies in the Snuffbox, Nosferatu, Tea with Mint and Lemon, Twelfth Night, Burial at Thebes, and Chess. (It's a European-themed season.)

After an incredibly rough start, An Evening with Jason Robert Brown is now underway. I have an AWESOME cast, and I can't wait for the show to run later this month. We have a great songlist, and the songs are AMAZING.

In youth theatre, we've started working on The Wizard of Oz. I've completely reorchestrated it and made it funky. There are some numbers close to the original, but now there are some jazz, pop, hip-hop, swing, rock, disco, country, and metal aspects. I'm really excited for it. The kids are doing really well.

I'm also currently working on Smokey Joe's Cafe. It opens in April (just before Wizard of Oz). We just had auditions and rehearsals start later this week. It's going to be an incredibly hard show to cast. I'm really excited for it to get going, hough. Especially because I know it's the favorite show of many of my friends...;)

Oh, and I had my birthday, and I feel really old now.

I think that's about it for catching up. I'll be better about blogging in the future, I swear. Dammit.