Winter Vacation Lacks the Vacation

The most difficult part about this process, I have discovered, is plain motivation. I am entirely capable of getting everything done that needs to get done. I'm off book for The Baby Dance and Othello already, and I'm just about halfway done with my Spinning Into Butter monologue. I could have easily finished that monologue today, but I couldn't bring myself to. I don't know how to combat the overwhelming urge to wander off or take a nap or do anything but what is required. When curled up on the most cozy couch in creation, it's hard to deny yourself a good long nap.

And it's just being able to focus that gets difficult, with so many other things going on in my life. Personal issues, familial things, necessary cleaning, working out schedules and rehearsal times and placement exams (yup, new item on my to-do list), it's just this constant barrage of things that just have to be dealt with. But that's not what this blog is about, so I'll spare you the details.

It's a work in progress, organizing everything important. I'm managing fairly well, but I am running out of time. Next Thursday is when my week of rehearsals for ACTF begins, so I'll have to be entirely off book and done with text analysis as well. I need to send in my Straw Hat application, now that my headshot has been taken and my prints came in, thank you to Karen of Happenstance Portraits and Photography, http://www.kcmarston.com/ (she's in the process of redoing her website and name and such). Once my application is in, I have to cross my fingers for an audition slot and then get working on audition material.

I've also begun to try and piece together something I should have started long ago, a collection of monologues I have worked on, known as a Monologue Morgue. While I was cleaning today (I hoard paper. I'm some kind of paper monger) I rediscovered some marked up monologues and threw them in a binder, and hopefully, when I get a minute, I'll start putting them all together in an organized fashion and go find stuff I've already done and start a real Morgue to have as a resource to take with me.

I will also need to drill Bat Boy into my head once I'm solid with the ACTF work. Straw Hat material will have to be worked on simultaneously.

I'm looking into exercises to relax the jaw muscles. I've recently discovered I clench my jaw and it explains the stiffness and inflexibility and inability to relax the zygomaticus muscles (thank you senior year anatomy), which is a real problem for someone who wants to make a life out of utilizing the function of her voice and face. Hopefully I'll have some information to share, if I get a chance to look it up and go through my Stage Speaking notes. I need to release the tension there. It's incredibly painful and very annoying.

New Look

I'm in the process of giving the blog a facelift. New year, new look, I suppose. Any suggestions?

Day 3 of the New Year

Happy Belated New Year to everyone, thank you for following me this long, if you've been reading this long, and if not, thank you for reading this at all - it's been an eventful year, and I've learned more than I ever imagined in the past 365 days. I'm not even close to where I want to be, but I'm shuffling my way up. Care to tag along for another year?

It's the third day of the new decade and already I've had half a dozen plans disappear in a puff of powder snow. It's that season, I suppose, but still - it really puts a damper on my feverish attempts to get work done. My headshots have been postponed indefinitely - again - I remain sans social life or ability to do much else besides memorize. And memorization requires a break every now and then or I'll explode.

Straw Hat application is due to be postmarked in less than 12 days, now, and I need at least one headshot print by then or I'm screwed. SECTs are in Kentucky and I don't have that kind of money right now to be booking flights and motels and all that jazz. I filled out the Straw Hat application, I just need to print it out and print my resume and get a headshot, plus the 35 dollar application fee and the 45 dollar audition fee and send it all in.

Snow - please cease fire.

"Juliet is the sky, and I am the sun. Or something."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121975740

When you get a good idea, go with it. Turn it into something - this reminds me that I need to start writing something with my friend Anne, a play in the style of Vagina Monologues but less about cooters and more about people.

I want to see this, actually - very much. :)

Happy Holidays

Merry Belated Christmas, Happy Early New Year.

Decided I'd make a list of all the theatrical things I have gotten myself into that are immediately pressing in my life.

• ACTF (scenes and monologue)
• Bat Boy (off book by Jan. 25th)
• New headshots needed (I'd like to get those done while my hair is still pretty)
• Resume editing down
• NETC auditions (?)
• Straw Hat auditions (?)

This is my winter break. I do want to do this for my life, so it's really quite thrilling to be so immersed right now.

I've added a new box on the right of the blog, links to audition websites in case anyone is interested. So far it's just the NETCs and Straw Hats, but I'm still looking so I should find a few more soon.

Classes have obviously finished until next semester, and, like I said, I should have plenty of stories regarding Circle in the Square and my New York adventures. Circle is going to be so incredible, I really can't express how excited I am for it. A few anecdotes from Circle alumnus I know:

"He took the lighter and put it under her skirt and told her to do the scene again. It was so fucked up, but it fucking worked."

"He wasn't getting the feeling he wanted, so he kept digging at him, saying stuff to piss this kid off, just to enrage him more and more and finally he handed the kid a knife, held out his arm and said 'cut me.' And you know what? He would have let this kid cut him. If it would have gotten the feeling and emotion the way he wanted, he would have let this kid cut him really bad."

I can't wait.

10 Things I...

http://blog.cambiareproductions.com/2009/10/25/10-things-i-wish-id-been-told-in-college-and-1-i-was/

Read this. Read this, read this, read this. Then read it again. Then read it yet another time.

____

Finals have consumed my life and stress made what life I had miserable, so any attempt at blogging stopped at the "maybe I should write something" thought. I did, however, get cast as Meredith in Bat Boy: The Musical, and I have plenty of work to do before KCACTF in a month or so.

I'm on break now, so give me a few days and things might get back to normal around here.

Thank you if you've kept up and had patience. Next semester will be different, I promise.

There will be a new weekly session, hopefully, about the experiences I have at Circle in the Square Theatre School in New York, because intensity is about to get cranked up all the way to 11.

Happy Holidays to everyone.

Bat Sensuality

So I've been incredibly sucky at keeping up with this lately - when life gets busy though, it sure as hell gets busy.

The one acts are over, thank god - I thought I'd seen some bad shows, but nothing tops the debacle I was just a part of. I don't want to talk about it.

I auditioned tonight for Bat Boy. It's the first time I've ever walked out of a musical audition and felt continuously good about it. Thank Kaia Monroe for voice lessons. Thank fate I've known Bat Boy for years. Thank something wonderful for the burst of confidence I got halfway through my song. And thank you, Larry, for making that dance easy. :)