Massive Catching Up - AGAIN

Ugh. It’s been a month again. I’ve been so stinking busy that I haven’t had time to blog. Surprise, surprise!

The biggest thing that drained my time in February was An Evening with Jason Robert Brown. It was a musical revue that I put together, directed, ran sound, and music directed for the Theatre Arts Guild at school. It was an okay experience. There was only one cast member who I really wanted to strangle for arguing with me, and most of the cast did a fantastic job – despite having to cover for losing a cast member to pneumonia on opening night.

The best part of JRB was the fact that I had so many friends come and support me. The show was not advertised well AT ALL (partially my fault) and so the week of the show, I sent out a mass text and created a Facebook event to invite tons of friends to come and see it. When all was said and done, we raised several hundred dollars for TAG and close to half of the audience that came over the two nights were there because I invited them. I would publicly thank all of them individually, but I know I’d leave someone out. So, to those who came – THANK YOU!

Also in February, I went to Disneyland with my ENTIRE family – parents, siblings, in-laws, nieces, and nephews. It was quite an interesting experience, and I’ve been working on a blog about nothing but the trip since I was actually still in California. Someday I’ll finish it and post it. Of course, I still haven’t posted the half-finished blog from my trip to Texas in the fall of 2006, so don’t count on it.

School is kicking my butt right now. I have so many big homework projects and so many scene projects to worry about. It’s a really fun stretch, though. Besides directing a scene (a stylized classic Universal horror-style take on The Monkey’s Paw), I’m acting in three scenes right now for various classes, and I’m playing characters I would never be cast as. They have a great range, too: one scene I’m playing a tough, drunk military Sergeant, one I’m playing a closeted gay Mormon, and one I’m playing an older man whose adult daughter is coming out as a lesbian to him. Fun, eh?!

Also, for school, I’m required to direct a one act play for Short Attention Span Theatre. I picked my script last week, and it really is the perfect script for me: very dark humor with a nasty twist at the end – SERIOUSLY nasty twist. Think Hannibal Lector. I love it. I’ve been working on getting music and sound effects together this weekend because I’m so busy that I don’t want to put it off until the end. We finished auditions on Friday night, and I got a GREAT cast. I’m excited to start working with them.

One of the other projects that’s keeping me busy is The Wizard of Oz with youth theatre. I FINALLY finished recording all the tracks on Saturday. It’s definitely going to be an interesting show. I used the following inspirations in the music: smooth modern jazz, country-western, classic crooner, Maroon 5, disco, Enya, Backstreet Boys, and more random little things. The music is all taught except for one song, so from here on out, it’s pretty much just polishing. The kids are doing a great job, so it’s fun, even though it’s time consuming.

Broadway Bound, my youth theatre group for 6-9 year-old girls ended the last week of February, too. We had a performance on February 29, so you’d think I’d have more free time now, but my Thursday afternoons have already been busy and will stay that way until the end of April.

The other project I’m currently working on is Smokey Joe’s Café at the SCERA. I’ve only had a few rehearsals so far, because they did the choreography first while I was working on JRB. The cast sounds AMAZING. I’ve been able to push them really hard and add in some really tricky harmonies. I’m really excited for the show to open next month. (And not just because it means one more show out of the way, either!)

March is turning out to be as busy as February, and April will be even worse. Short Attention Span Theatre opens one night, and Smokey Joe’s Café opens the next. That week is going to be AWFUL. You’d think life would settle down after that, but you’d be wrong. The next week is Hell week for Wizard of Oz, and then I have the run of that and finals at the same time. However, on April 26, EVERYTHING will be over.

And then I start my new project on April 28…

For those I haven’t told yet, I’ve been asked to music direct the 35th anniversary touring production of Saturday’s Warrior and its sequel The White Star. I was very hesitant to accept, because I’ve never been the biggest SW fan. However, fun story: I was praying about whether I should accept the job or not based on some rumors I had heard, and RIGHT as I asked God a question, I got the answer in the form of a text message on my phone. How can you say no after that?! (Not to mention it’s paying REALLY well.) So, the month of May will be slightly busy, but not nearly as bad as the last few have been. Only one show for me, please and thank you (I’m counting them both as one show, because SW is only going to be a short revue as opposed to the entire show).

After JRB, I really got to thinking about how great and supportive some of my friends are. I’m so busy right now (I don’t really have any free nights between now and the end of April) that I hardly have ANY time to spend with friends. JRB was kind of an eye-opening experience for me. There were people that came that were JUST there to support me. They didn’t know the music, they weren’t part of TAG, they probably had better things to do on a Friday or Saturday night, but they made time to come and see me. I had given up on inviting friends to come and see shows because it always hurts when somebody goes on a rant about how much they hate theatre and even though they care about me, they won’t support what I do. However, friends came out of the woodwork for JRB. I had friends there that I hadn’t seen in MONTHS. I think I’m going to be more selective about who I spend my time with from now on. When I do have a random free night in the middle of 15 busy nights, the people who support me are the people who get first dibs. Either that, or I’ll just start auctioning my time on eBay. :) (I sound really egotistical, but that’s really not my intention. I’m not trying to brag over how many people want to spend time with me. Although it is pretty cool…) I do know that there are friends who had really good reasons for not being able to come to this show and to others in the past, but there are others who didn’t even respond to either the text or the Facebook invite – or both in some cases. I’m not mad at anyone, and not even really offended. I just know where my time priorities will lie for the next while.

I *think* that’s it. There are other things going on, but man! I’ve been writing this blog for over a half hour, and it’s already three pages single-spaced in Word. Someday, I hope to have a life that isn’t entirely based around the shows I’m working on. I doubt that’s ever going to happen, though.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy this short from last week’s SNL.