Last Post for Summer 2k11. JWT over and out.

August 13th was our final show. It kind of sucked that it rained out within the final 15 minutes and we had to do a verbal summation, but I have no hurt feelings about the non-finishing. What we missed out most is that the actors' contracts had been written that they had to stay help with strike the final night, and due to torrential downpour, it sucked enough that no striking was done that night.

Leave that to the crew of carps to take everything down. out of 5 of us only 3 were worth a darn, needless to say strike took a lot out of me. And when we have to transport our set a half hour to storage, and you blow a tire on the first trip, it really sucks.

But, I made some friends, I made some enemies, never burned a bridge though, which I keep finding out is the worst thing to do. Have no hate.

I drove back on Wednesday, and got mad at the president. He stopped me for 45 minutes just outside of Davenport for his friggin motorcade to roll past. waste. of. my. life. time. money. sweat. Ironically I think I was almost in sight of where my alternator went out on my trip to Kentucky.

Now I come to ISU to kick some butt. Work in the shop of course, workstudy FTW, but...
I'm going to work every CY Stephens call I possibly can, because folks, that's real learning/practice, however you chose to look at it. And I'll get paid. ;)

Summer Ain't Over Yet

I'm still doing the Dramatists thing. It's still fun just hanging with those people doing office work. Brian has me doing so tech jobs now like running the lightboard during a few events. We had a Women of Theatre Conference at our space the other day. It ran all day long and I was there for 14 hours helping with projectors, lights, and setting up the rooms and the various events that were going on in the building. It was crazy but exciting, and we got to eat their leftover food stuffs. Just 2 days left working with them, but I think that I will be finding my way back to this organization in one way or another.

I am also staying in Chicago another week till the 19th. Foss sent me a tip that someone from the House Theatre was looking for an intern to help her with some kids classes. Basically a kid wrangler. I'm only doing it for 2 weeks which is two different classes. The first one, last week, was a class called Scenes and Songs, a class about musicals. The 7 kids picked some of their favorite musicals with Carolyn's guidance and we watched different scenes from the movies Marry Poppins, West Side Story, and Singing in the Rain. Then the kids wrote out what the musical was about and dialogue leading into the songs that they were going to perform. The kids did everything: wrote secnes, drew the set, choreographed the dances, got their costumes, and sang their little hearts out. It's been really enriching to see these kids creating something for the first time and how excited they are and all their big ideas. Brings me back to why we create these things call plays. Last week was really fun. My patience is being tested and it is surprising just how much I have built through my life. I can take a lot of shit before I ever crack, if I ever crack. Kids climbing all over you as you can assume gets old. The kids don't have as much patience, with eachother and especially for things they don't understand such as social problems like autism. Me and Carolyn (and teenagers in the class) are the peacekeepers. It was ok this week with only the 7 kids, but next week there are 40. We'll see what happens. We have more hands but that is still a lot of kids. I'm picturing a lot of breaking up lightsaber fights, because yes it is a Star Wars camp where they will be creating their own version of the galactic tale. I'm very excited being a huge Star Wars fan. I plan on dropping as many movie quotes as I can since it will be socially acceptable, if not encouraged during the camp. It will be a tiring and rewarding week. Seeing those kids makes me love what I do. I appreciate our organization and LISTENING skills we have developed as adults more than ever now.
I look forward to taking my Chicago experience back with me to ISU to help me shape my final year of college. Most of all I want to help others the same way as people have helped me.

Curtainbox Theatre Co, Eleventh (and Final!) Post

This was my last week at the Curtainbox. During class on Monday, we spent almost the entire time working on scenes, but unfortunately I had to miss a good portion of the rehearsal period because I was working on making a spread of headshots from people auditioning for a film that Kim is casting. This was still a fun project, and through going through the headshots, many of which had resumes attached, I learned a lot about different types of headshots and ideas of how to format a resume. I was able to join the class when they were done rehearsing, and the last part of the class was devoted to having a birthday party for two of our students. This was a nice way to end my time with the kids, as I got a chance to talk to them and their parents, which is something I don't normally get to do because our classes have to be so structured to prevent the kids from feeling overwhelmed or nervous. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with these children, and it is sad that I had to leave midterm.

Wednesday was officially my last day at the office. I was only there for an hour and a half, so it wasn't a very eventful day. I did get a taste of scriptwriting though, as we needed to reset the answering machine message, so I typed up what should be said. I don't think I'm going to win any awards for it, but at least it's a start! I also typed up some announcements for the acting showcases each acting class has at the end of the term. I was a little sad to end my internship, but Kim and I talked about doing some coaching over Christmas break, so I'm not saying goodbye to the Curtainbox yet.

Kathleen

Hairspray: Closing and Strike

Yesterday was our last performance of Hairspray. The show ran for four weekends and we had pretty consistently full crowds who seemed to really enjoy themselves. I had a great time getting to know the cast, crew and directors and I'll definitely miss working with them.

Strike went really well - it was well organized and everyone came together to take care of business. People brought their own power tools if they could and for the most part there was minimal standing around waiting for something to do. It took us two and a half hours to tear down the set, with quite a few flies, two jackknife platforms and a rolling set of stairs. After strike we had a delicious potluck and said our goodbyes.

Being in Hairspray at the Playhouse was a really great experience. I met a lot of new people and we came together to make something we were all proud of.

Minimalist Blog Entry Title

This summer I was in Stagewest's production of 'The Shape of Things' by Neil Labute. Lots of other people have discussed Stagewest's Labute rep series but I'll just reiterate that the theater produced three of his plays simultaneously and there were lots of ISU people involved in many capacities. It was a neat experience! It's wild to see how much theater stuff is going on in the Ames/Des Moines area and how many people are involved in different things, kinda encouraging to think that there are tons of opportunities to work even here. I'd seen stuff at Stagewest before but this was the first show I'd been involved with.

I expected to encounter another level of professionalism working with a professional theater (pardon my redundancy, not a lot of synonyms there) but I kinda didn't. That's not so much a slam on Stagewest as it is a compliment to ISU. My experience was really similar to some I've had in school. I helped some (not as much as I should have) with set construction and it felt exactly like it does at ISU, which says something awesome about our crews and student designers. This might have had something to do with the fact that so many ISU people were affiliated with the production but I prefer to believe it's 'cuz typical ISU productions aren't so far behind the professional world.

When I first read 'The Shape of Things' a couple summers ago I really liked it for whatever reason and sorta set up this romanticized version of it in my head. When I read it again in preparation for the audition I was doomed to be disappointed because I remembered liking it so much the first time. Since then every subsequent reading has been increasingly disappointing. It seems like Labute just brings up really broad hot topics (subjectivity of art, subjectivity of the 'human experience') by stating their importance, ie: "I understand the words you've used here, but they're both pretty subjective. Art, truth." Seems like telling instead of showing. His dialogue also feels a little overwritten to me. This might be a bad example but I didn't enjoy the movie 'Juno' because the main chick is way too clever to be a human being. Everything she says feels like part of a stand up routine. Some of the dialogue in a tSoT feels the same way to me, it's just too smart to be real. The characters are supposed to be college students; We've all spent a lot of time around college students and I'm willing to bet none of them talk like that.

Acting is always hard but I assumed it would be easier in a play like this. My character was sorta peripheral and never really dealt with any extreme stimuli. This may sound really amateur or whatever but the way I see it the more extreme the stimuli a character is exposed to the bigger/better imagination the actor will need to insert himself into those circumstances. I guess I'm learning that this isn't necessarily the case. At my level (white belt) more extreme stimuli sorta give me more to work with, whereas when the given circumstances a are a bit more mundane I need much more specificity of imagination to insert myself into them and 'live truthfully in imaginary circumstances' or whatever. I don't wanna generalize 'cuz I'm sure I'll end up being wrong again but now it seems like the more similar a character's experiences are to the actor's the harder everything is. Is anyone else really uncomfortable expressing opinions about acting stuff? Maybe it's because I can be an elitist prick sometimes but I always feel the need to make excuses for everything I say regarding acting so other people don't judge me. I'm always worried that people will think whatever I say will sound amateurish or hint at some lack of credibility. The environment feels so competitive, even outside of shows or whatever, every discussion feels like a dick measuring contest to see who can sound simultaneously the smartest and the least pretentious. The media is all about finding ways to make us feel self-satisfied and superior. I watch reality TV because I love to feel smarter than those people. All I ever do is look for flaws in everything people say so I can write them off and feel smug about it. It's completely messed up! Even writing this is a way to convince myself that I'm somehow 'above' everyone playing the status game. You can't escape it, life is one huge status game and it's awful. In theater when we come together to work on a project I'm still looking for ways to self validate instead of actually supporting some greater cause. I wanna make something without even briefly pausing to admire myself in the limelight. It'll never happen because I'll just be secretly patting myself on the back for foregoing patting myself on the back. I hope everyone is this selfish so I don't sound completely crazy right now. I want to be a part of something bigger and I want to create art and all that but it's so hard to convince myself that it's not just for personal gain.

Curtainbox Theatre Co, Tenth Post

In class on Monday, we read through our last two scenes, and the groups each split off with a teacher to begin rehearsing and blocking them. The pair I worked with had one of our highest-functioning students and our lowest-functioning student, which proved quite a challenge. It made me wonder how individuals with autism feel towards others who share their condition, especially since it ranges radically in severity and characteristics. I know that despite being high-functioning, the one student tends to become easily (and sometimes violently) frustrated when there is disorder or lack of focus in the class, so I was a little worried that this would be the case when working with the lower-functioning student. However, the rehearsal went quite well, though I had to read all of the lower-functioning student's lines to her and have her repeat them back to me since she would not read them herself (This is not a case of illiteracy, but rather another example of the "mental blockage" characteristic of autism).

The next class, sadly, will be my last time working with these children, though the class still has three more sessions left. It is quite unfortunate that I will not be able to see the final showcase, as I was looking forward to see how the scenes turn out.

Kathleen

Last PRT Post...

So today is officially the last day of my internship. Sad. The past week has gone by so fast it's unreal. We had a successful run of Almost Maine and then a really good run of Church Basement Ladies for their last two performances. We ended up selling out both nights in an 800 seat auditorium! After we got done Sunday we had a couple days of clean up which was a lot for the scene shop. Taking all of the usable flats back to the warehouse for storage and destroying everything that we wont use again. I tell ya, taking a sludge hammer to a door flat that gave you a really hard time over the summer is very satisfying! Today we have a end of the summer banquet where we just recap on the year, this will be a good time I imagine and after that the AFTER PARTY!! Celebrating a successful summer! Since I'm taking 1 PRT credit for school here this summer I had to write a paper for my final grade, I wish I could attach it but writing this blog, I don't see an option, oh well. It just went back over what I have learned being here and what I have learned about myself. And then just things I didn't like and ways I think they could fix it. Stuff that I have mentioned in my posts. Anyways I really enjoyed this summer and I can't wait to get back to Ames in a couple days and tell y'all about it.

This is Joshua Ster reporting from Brookings, South Dakota. Signing off for good! :)

Day One in Orlando

So, unlike my fellow travellers to Orlando, I did not have time to actually blog about my experience while in Orlando.  I was ridiculously busy from 5am to midnight or later.  So, here is my account of my time.

Day One/Official Day One

So we arrived in Orlando on Monday and I went with Mallory to her apartment where I met the fellow maker of The Final Battle, Lena.  We discussed a bit about the show, but otherwise tried to relax and settle in before the storm, so the calm before the storm, as it were.  The next day, Tuesday, we got the ball rolling for real.  Mallory and I went to the conference center, which was the Pacifica Ballroom complex which was attached to the Royal Pacific Hotel.  It was a  beautiful complex, with a lot of space available, all of which would end up being used during the conference.  Mallory and I talked with the hotel people who were in charge of relations between the LeakyCon people and the hotel management and found out where to load in.  Load in was delayed a bit past the time we wanted because the instruments that were being picked up were rather far away.  However, when the truck was finally able to arrive, we actually had a bunch of the cast, crew, and orchestra there and ready to help unload.  I, along with Mallory's dad, took charge of the load in process, with assigning people who knew how to move instruments properly to do that and having others help carry in the set pieces to the main ballroom. We were lucky to be able to put them in the back of the room, since they were still in the process of building the stage and the area where the main events would take place.  We accomplished load in quickly and efficiently.  However, there was one problem with the orchestra not having a room to rehearse in.  This was eventually resolved through much strife, but by the end of the day, we had gotten what we had wanted to get done finished and I personally went and swam in order to relax a little before the insanity that was to come.