The show went really good last night! At first it the crowd was a little small, but When Bella Ruse started playing more people started showing up, so it turned out to be a pretty big crowd.  It was so cool to see them perform again, it literally never gets boring.  I have so much fun watching them to what they love.

Playhouse TV

Just finished a week of "Playhouse TV: Night time Television" for 5th and 6th graders. It was a good week with an enthusiastic group of 23 kids. The week was spent writing and rehearsing a half hour tv news program with the kids. We split the kids into 3 groups; news, commercials/movie trailers, and promotions, the teacher and each intern spent the week with one group. I worked with the commercials/movie trailers group. I really enjoyed helping the kids come up with ideas and learn to collaborate together as they invented products to advertise and movies to make. I tried to let them work as independently as I could, often telling a child who had an idea "don't tell me, tell your company members," but I had to step in when ideas got a little wild. After writing on most of Monday I took their scripts home and typed them up, editing where it was needed, but wanting to keep as much of what they wrote as I could. The rest of the week we spent directing them; blocking and rehearsing their scenes. The kids memorized everything remarkably fast, allowing for more time to run and tweak some things, which was perfect because we ended up doing the entire show live. We had originally intended to do part on video, part live to match the "Daytime TV" class, but due to technical difficulties, it was not possible for us to do so. Overall it was a good week, I worked a lot more as a leader this week rather than a teacher's assistant, which was good practice for this upcoming week, in which I and another intern are teachers, not assistants, in "Theatre Survivor Week," a class designed and taught by 2 of the 5 interns for grades 7-10.

Day 18!!!

Saint Paul Bound! Today we are getting ready leave for Minnesota again, Bella Ruse is playing in Saint Paul and this will be their last show in twin city area for awhile sense they are relocating to Columbus.  I had a blast the last time I was there so I can't wait to do it again.  I have been working on a second song, but it is not going as well as the first one did, but Kay said that is normal especially when your first starting out.  I can't wait till the July 4th show here in Orange City, sadly it will be my last night with the best teachers ever :)

More rehearsal.

Yesterday we put "The Prevalence of Mrs. Seal" to bed and today we're starting on "...And Then I Wrote". It's going to be a late night, because we open next Thursday and it just worked out that we have a lot of half days between now and then because of July 4th and a weekend of preformances. Next weekend we'll start doing shows on Thursday, and we'll open 'Wrote' and 'Seal' both.

We've started trying to organize the costume storage space and it feels like it's never going to end,and when we finish each night it feels like we've done absolutely nothing. If anything, it looks worse. It's coming along, slowly but surely, but being stuck in the basement with endless piles of moldy costumes is not my idea of a good time.

Later today they'll start working on Act II, of 'Wrote' which means I'll get to be on stage again. Hopefully the time crunch won't stress everyone out too much.

Day 17!!!!!

So I finished writing my first song ever yesterday! Today I started another one, but its really scary.  I don't know if its scary or I am just letting my insecurities get in the way.  Writing a song is so personal and unknown, especially when you have no idea how to play the piano.  Bella Ruse just keeps pushing me to keep writing and trying no matter what, which is a good thing because sometimes I need a little push.

Aerial Silks Part One: Silk Knot

Today we learned silk knot, which is a pair of aerial silks with a knot in the bottom that you sit on, stand on, straddle, etc. It was an intense upper body workout since you constantly have to hold yourself up and you're not harnessed in. We did a lot of moves that involved letting go of the silks and  trusting gravity and your weight to hold yourself in, and I realized that I've learned to trust myself a lot more since we did trapeze two weeks ago.

-Kathleen

Day 16!!!!!

So today I am actually attempting to write a song.  Joseph and Kay have been trying to inspire me to just write it and not think about how to do it.  I have never written songs before because I get frustrated when I can't figure it out, and I am always afraid I won't be great at it.  But Kay told me just to sit down and do it, there is no right way to write a song or way to learn how to do it, you just have to try.  So that is what I am attempting today :)

Urinetown -- Closed for Repairs

Howdy,

The run of Urinetown: The Musical is officially done. The final weekend of shows saw 3 sold-out houses. We even had to turn a few latecomers away. Some of my family and friends came to see the show, and I got some really good feedback from them. This was my great-aunt Sandy's first musical ever, and she greatly enjoyed it. I'm grateful to the cast and crew for a fantastic run of a very fun show.

Strike went by fast after the Sunday matinee. I had the opportunity to play with power tools, which is always fun. Next up will be Tom Foolery at ACTORS. I left my contact information with the technical director for that show and the board, and they agreed to contact me with more work throughout the summer. I'm looking forward to more new experiences with the Ames Community Theatre.

Keep living the Dream,
Brandon