ISUTHEATRE

Wrap-Up

2012-01-09T09:12:00.000-08:00

The last day of the show went spectacularly. I got to work with a great cast and crew and had a great overall experience. Definitely something I would do again! While the show was exhausting to work on, the look came out how I wanted it too under budget which is great for a high school production.

Last Day of the Show

2012-01-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday went flawlessly! Even when one of the girl's hair fell out it was only a minor hiccup because it fell perfectly into the braid out of the bun, so it looked natural. The costumes look wonderful! It's so exciting to see all your hard work onstage. Turning in the budget worksheet and receipts today to my director. I have to say, working on the budget sheet taught me a lot about Excel I hadn't previously known. Good stuff to learn! The budget came out way under the 650 dollar budget. Costumes came in at around 125 dollars. The show looks great, and it was exhilarating to see the actor's excited about the show.

Day one and day two

2012-01-04T13:57:00.000-08:00

The first official dress rehearsal was very hectic! I had finished the aprons for two of the girls over the weekend and while one of them fit perfectly, the other definitely needed some alterations. I was happy to see that most of the garments that I was making were fitting very well and the alternations were working perfectly. While I still had a few alterations to do for various garments, the overall look of the show was in place.
The second rehearsal was much more intense. We worked more on hair for this one as we realized that in the first rehearsal that the girl's hair needed more bobby pins and hair spray to stay in through the multiple dancing scenes in the play. Braids and buns have been the top two hairstyles for this play as they usually stay out of the character's faces and look accurate. There have only been a few more adjustments that are necessary before tomorrow's final dress rehearsal.
Today I've been working on budget worksheets. I've been keeping my receipts of everything I have bought as materials for the play and am making a spreadsheet of how much I have spent and on what. I will then turn the worksheet and receipts to my supervisor to get repaid.

Official Start of Dress Rehearsal Week

2012-01-01T23:59:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow starts the first official dress rehearsal! Although we have had the actors been wearing the costumes for the past few days to make sure the photographers from the local papers could take pictures that would accurately portray look of the show. I have been working on the aprons for two of the women today, trying to make them look individual. A majority of the costumes needed adjustments, so I have to have those done by tomorrow too! The dress rehearsals are very important in determining what needs to change before the final show. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get time to sit and watch the whole show, so I can change anything before the final shows.

Friday December 30th

2011-12-31T02:16:00.000-08:00

Today marked exactly one week until the show. On Thursday, we decided that all of the characters should have a costume change for the second act as the majority of the characters had a change. I did a few more pulls from the costume shop to complete the look of each character. Some of this involved a little bit of buying from Goodwill such as the gansey, a kind of fisherman's sweater, that one of the characters wears. While I purchased one at Goodwill I had to readjust because the first was in too dark of a color. I also found the perfect shoes for the narrator of the story that will work perfectly. A lot of the characters need small little adjustments that will be done this week, and I'll put the finishing touches on the jacket then too. The jacket itself is done, fully-lined and everything!

Jack's Uniform

2011-12-29T01:18:00.000-08:00

Today ended my search to find a white British military coat for our character Jack and began my adventure in making a new coat for Jack! Overall the materials were relatively cheap, the lining, interfacing, twill fabric, and notions came to about only 40 dollars. A good price for a coat that will probably get used more than once in shows. I have about half of it done right now. I also went in to see the director today to talk about the costumes which lead to all the character wearing their costumes for practice. The director loved the overall look of the show and commended me on making the sisters look like a tight-knit family. I was pleased to hear that he liked the look of the show so far even though there were crucial pieces like Jack's jacket missing. Hopefully I will have the jacket done by Friday, but it will be surely done by Monday at the latest. We're coming up onto dress rehearsal week for me which should be pretty stress-free as most of the characters already have their costumes put together and just need nips and tucks here and there. There definitely are a lot of modifications that need to be changed before dress rehearsal week, but that's the price we pay for pulling from stock. I believe it's worth it though! Saves the department lots of money and keeps me on budget!

2 weeks until the show!

2011-12-26T22:35:00.000-08:00

This weekend marked the 2 week mark until the opening show. While the actors are getting a bit nervous, so am I! It's scary thinking about how little time I have to costume the show, basically about 3 weeks. We did all the final pulling on Friday and began to wrap everything up, yet there are still a few pieces that need to be discussed. The general's coat is still causing great concern, as I'm not sure where we can attain such a coat and renting one might not get here in time. The show being so close is getting nerver-racking. It may come down to having to make a coat similar to the director's instructions which is only scary because it would have to be done over a weekend! The pulls for the costumes went well, and I had another meeting with the director to show him what I had purchased for the characters and pulled. The characters are all dressed in similar muted tones although I would have loved to have a completely sepia-toned set of costumes, it's not practical in budget and time constraints to go by that strict of a look. However, the muted will look very good on stage and accurate to the time period. Within the next few days we will be working on trying the costumes on and possibly pulling different pieces if some do not work out. Then the week after that will be dress rehearsal week!

Thursday, December 22nd

2011-12-22T13:10:00.000-08:00

Today was my last day at my internship…kind of. After talking to Renata a few days ago, we decided that I'm going to come back next semester to do another semester of work. So I was sadder thinking that I wouldn't be coming back, but now that I know I am, it's just like taking a winter break from school and coming right back. For my last day, I did everything that I normally do. Things don't change very often around here. I archived Monte's emails, completed Renata's red marked emails, opened all of Monte's mail, posted the artist news stories, and mailed out some important documents. Even though I do the same thing almost every day, I have learned a lot at this internship and I'm really exciting to come back next semester and learn even more. Next year we're working with the T.V. show The Voice and the movie The Hunger Games, so we'll be extremely busy. I'll miss Universal and New York while I'm home over the next month or so, but I can't wait to get back to work in 2012.

The week in review!

2011-12-22T09:16:00.000-08:00

It definitely has been one crazy week! I went into the class yesterday to work on costumes again with the class and this time worked with a small group of three. I had finished all my renderings for the costumes, which turned out well and will be presented in a glass display in the lobby. The class' renderings did affect my renderings and I tried to integrate pieces into the show that they wanted to see. On Wednesday we finished the pulling for the class and did a few try-ons. These went well, the only problem we ran into was one character's costume, but I discovered a perfect coat for the character for only 20 dollars at my other job (Old Navy) that would work perfectly for the character. The most amazing thing is that the coat is just what the class was looking for as well! For anything that I haven't been able to pull, I've been able to search Goodwill or clearance at stores to find. Although I haven't executed a costume yet, I feel I may have to for the coat for one of the characters. The character is supposed to be a general who acted as a missionary in Africa for around 20 years. He comes back to be with the sisters (Kate, Chris, Agnes, Maggie, and Rose) in the play. The general needs a sort of military like coat, preferably in white. While the costume shop at my school is expansive, it does not have any sort of military coat like this. I think I will contact the costume director at the Des Moines Playhouse to see if she has any similar items. Hopefully I will be able to pull final looks today and tomorrow to be able to show the director again Friday.

Wednesday, December 21st

2011-12-21T15:44:00.001-08:00

Today was my second to last day at work so I did a lot of wrapping up. I entered a lot of the papers that Renata needed for the internship and I had to turn in my pass and i.d. Tomorrow I will just have the front desk call up to the 8th floor to have someone let me in. I still had to do all the normal tasks like archiving Monte's emails, going through Renata's red marked emails, and opening Monte's mail. We got a new shelving unit delivered for the back closet, that some how managed to stay clean over the last few weeks. We put it together a took a whole bunch of the Rolling Stones things that we have laying around and put them on the shelves and in the storage units. Our area of the office looks much cleaner now that all of the extra stuff is out of the way. I did some artist news for a few hours and realized that I'm actually going to miss doing artist news. I like being able to research our artists and use my creativity to write different stories about them. I did a few tasks for Renata here and there like running documents to different floors and opening mail and organizing emails. It was just another stereotypical day.

Tuesday, December 20th

2011-12-20T16:08:00.001-08:00

Today, we had another intern listening session. This one was for King Charles who is an artist from the UK who hasn't really had his big break out yet. They're trying to figure out what songs to put on his EP album that will be released in the US next year, and they're also trying to figure out what song they want to launch as his new single. To figure out which songs to pick for what, they have all of the interns go in to the lounge and listen to his entire album and then write down comments and a score out of 10 for each song. This album had about 15 songs on it and we had to listen to it twice, so it took a long time to complete. But it was fun to hear unreleased music and I was actually a huge fan of his music. I would definitely buy the album when it comes out. After we got out of the intern session, we came back and finished all of the normal tasks and put away a whole bunch of new CDs that we got delivered to us.

Monday, December 19th

2011-12-19T20:52:00.001-08:00

Today, Monte got another scoring sheet for a song writing competition that he is a judge for. It's through the same radio station that we worked with a few weeks ago, Z100, when we had to judge the songs for their contest. Now, they're hosting a song writing competition that Monte is a judge in, but before Monte listens to the songs and judges them, he likes to get an outside opinion. So the interns had to listen to all of the songs and give them a score of 1 through 10. There were about 20 songs to listen to, and because we were listening to the lyrics this time, we couldn't skip through some of the songs. We had to listen to all of them all the way through and that took quite a bit of time. I love listening to new music though, so I didn't mind putting in my headphones and focusing on the music for a little bit. After we were done, and after we had taken a lunch break, we did some artist news and I had to help send out some more mailings to more radio stations. There weren't 300 this time, more like 200, so it still took some time, but not nearly as long.

Thursday 15th - Friday 16th

2011-12-16T22:37:00.000-08:00

These past few days I've been pulling together final renderings for the show and creating boards for everything. I presented my ideas to the class on Friday, showing the class how to pull together a final sketch. When their class presented their ideas to me, I took note of a lot of the things that the group collectively had in their sketches. On Friday I also did an activity with the kids taking them in small groups up to the costume room to pick one piece that the justified their sketch of the characters they chose to present on. The kids were good in their justifications for their pulls which helped me understand their thought process. Although it may not have saved me time in the pulling process different eyes see different things in costumes, so it was great to get different opinions and to provide the learning opportunity. When surveying the pulls that the kids did I noticed that the costumes were workable, but there would definitely need to be revisions to each of the pieces. Overall, the class has been interesting and hopefully will continue to grow in their costuming abilities.

Outside of the class, I attended a rehearsal and did quick measurements of all the characters before they went through their lines. One of the main things about costuming that is so interesting for me is seeing how the characters interact with each other and how they individually portray their character. While the director and design team may have one idea of a costume, it is a great experience to see how the character develops with the actor as well. I'm excited to see how the design develops through the whole of the show.

Thursday, December 15th

2011-12-15T21:55:00.001-08:00

Renata is giving us the day off tomorrow as an early Christmas present so there won't be a post tomorrow. I only have a few days left here at my internship, but I feel like I've been here a lot longer than 5 months. Today, Renata and I talked about me coming back to intern again next semester. She's been interviewing a lot of people for the position, but we're going to try to work something out so I can come back and help the new interns get adjusted and then finish out next semester working for her too. I would love to come back because I've met a lot of neat people and learned a lot of fun things. Renata and I talked about next semester for a long time while Monte was in a meeting for a few hours, but once he came out it was back to work. I spent the day helping another intern, Brandon, send out some mailings. We had about 300 CDs to mail out to various radio stations and it takes forever to package each individual CD and put on each label one by one. I had to stop a few times to watch Renata's lines and do a few things here and there, but I spent a majority of the day sending out CDs.

First (Official) Day!

2011-12-14T20:08:00.001-08:00

So for my internship over winter break I will be working at the high school I graduated from as a guest designer for their showing of Dancing of Lughnasa! While the job isn't as glamorous as I would want it to be, it's still a great opportunity. My theatre director and I had a meeting earlier this week about his image for the show. His ideas and my preliminary ideas were very similar, so I was happy to hear his ideas. Another part of my internship involves going in to the school's technical theatre class to help them understand how to costume a show. One thing I really wanted to demonstrate to the class was the fact that costuming does not just involve sketching and then making clothes. Costumers must pull from costume shops because making everything can become expensive and time-consuming. Today in class the kids all presented their renderings of two of the characters from the show. It was very interesting to see everyone's different takes on the looks. The class is interesting to work with because just one year ago I was in that class. I've been working on renderings today which I will present in class tomorrow as well as to my director sometime this week. So far my renderings are a mix of knowledge from the movie version of the show, my research on the era and my own style mixed in.

Wednesday, December 14th

2011-12-14T18:13:00.001-08:00

Today, we had to do a lot of preparing for the holiday party that's coming up next week. Renata sent out the invitations and the emails last week, and she created a specific email just for the holiday party that people can RSVP to so that we can have all of the info in one place. So today, my job was to create an Excel sheet to keep track of who is coming to the holiday party and whether or not they're bringing a plus one. Because we haven't checked the holiday email since last week, we had a lot of RSVPS to go through. I made a neat spreadsheet and went through email after email to enter the names of the people attending and the names of their plus one. It took a while because there are so many people at our company, but it's something that we can check on every few days because people will RSVP every few days. After I got done with the holiday list, I spent the rest of the day doing the normal things like archiving Monte's emails and completing all of the artist news stories. There wasn't a lot going on today in artist news, so it took me a while and some searching to find some good stories to post.

Tuesday, December 13th

2011-12-13T16:35:00.001-08:00

Today I did a lot of running around outside of the office. I had to stop by Lee's Art Shop down the street to buy a new frame Monte needed for a picture of him and Nicki Minaj. Lee's is a huge store with twice as much stuff as there should be in there, so it took me a while to find just the right frame. I also had to grab a birthday card for Slim from Lee's as well. Slim is one of the creators of Cash Money and is extremely important in the music industry. It was his birthday earlier in the week and we bought him a Louis Vuitton iPad 2 case for his iPad2 and before we sent it to him, we had to attach a card. I grabbed a nice classy one that matched the wrapping paper that we used. After that, I had to run by Morton's Grocery Store to buy some apples and grapes and peanut butter for Monte. He's gotten into the habit of having an apple before he leaves the office, so we like to keep a stash of them. After Morton's I ran over to Duane Reid to buy a few magazines that our artists are featured in. I brought them all back to the office and Mara and I went through all of the bags and completed everything that needed to be done. It was fun to run around town a little and enjoy the city during a work day.

Monday, December 12th

2011-12-12T16:45:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of construction in our building over the past few weeks because they're trying to move some offices around. Right now our publicity department is half on our 8th floor and half on the 6th floor. It's really inconvenient for everyone so they're switching some people around to keep everyone together. They're also changing the 3rd floor, the 5th floor, and the 7th floor. So almost every floor except for the lobby is being torn apart. This makes it extremely difficult to deliver documents to certain people because a lot of them have changed floors. Today, I spent roughly a half an hour trying to hunt down Monte's business partner Doug Koch who used to be on 6. Renata told me he was now on the 3rd floor, but after a half an hour of searching, I found out he was on the 5th floor. Once I got back, I continued doing the normal tasks until Renata offered to take us on a tour of the new floors so we could get to know where everyone was. It was good to figure out where everyone was so that I don't have a repeat of today all over again.

Friday, December 9th

2011-12-09T16:51:00.000-08:00

Today, Monte had back to back meetings so it was hard to get in to his office to get any of his work done. So we did a lot of tasks for Renata like placing more drink and office supply orders. We ordered more CDs that we're out of…even though we don't have any room for them ever since we got tens and tens of Rolling Stones CDs in. I ran over to staples to buy a few things for the office that we couldn't wait for. I got some binders and dividers and some USB keys. It didn't take me very long, and since I was out Renata said that I could take a longer lunch. So Mara and I took our time around the city a little and stopped at Lenny's Cafe across the street and ate and talked about what we were going to do next semester. Mara is staying at Republic, but is working over on the publicity side of things. So she won't be working for Monte anymore. I've been thinking about talking to Renata about staying on for another semester to learn some more things and really get in to the industry a little more. Once we got back to the office, we finished up all of the artist news and did some expenses with Renata. After that, we did little tasks here and there to wrap up the day.

Thursday, December 8th

2011-12-08T16:19:00.001-08:00

Today we started off by doing all of the normal things, and we had to do them on time and fast because Monte was back in the office. I archived his emails and went through Renata's emails to update contacts and schedule appointments. After that, I had to help post some notecards on Monte's board of upcoming projects, but that only took me about a half an hour. After lunch, we got a huge shipment of the new Amy Winehouse CD in, and we had to do a lot of promotional work with the album today since it came out this week. We wrote some specific artist news stories about Amy and the album, and then we sent copies of the CD out to important business partners of Monte. We had to personally deliver 10 copies of the CD to a woman who lives on the upper west side. So I got to get out of the office for a bit and drive with Danny (Monte's driver) to the apartment and hand deliver the CDs. It was nice to get out of the office, but once I got back it was the normal work of art its news and mailings.

Wednesday, December 7th

2011-12-07T15:50:00.001-08:00

Today, Monte was still gone, so we got to take it easy. I mean easy as in we hardly did any work all day. We went through and did the usual morning routine like we always do. We archived Monte's emails and went through and added contacts to the call sheet and scheduled some meetings for Monte. We opened up all of his mail and put it in a UPS box to send to his house, and then we did the artist news stories. It usually takes us a while to find the stories and write them up and post them on the website with pictures and links, but today we have everything done by noon. Renata, Mara and I sat around and worked out what the rest of the year will look like schedule wise, and it didn't really look any different than what we're doing now. We did it to waste some time because we completed all of our work so early. For the rest of the day I did some Christmas shopping online and then we did some crossword puzzles. Renata let us go early and emailed us a few tasks to do once we got home. All in all, it was a very easy day.

Tuesday, December 6th

2011-12-06T17:23:00.001-08:00

Today Monte left to go out of town for just two days. He's going to Nashville for a day to work on some Hunger Games stuff and then going to Baltimore tomorrow to work on some Cash Money projects. When Monte is gone, we take it pretty easy, but today we had a lot of little tasks to do. We went through all of the expenses and finished them and mailed them out to Monte's accountant. It was about 3 weeks worth of expenses that Monte had in his office that he forgot to give us, so that took us a while to work on. Then after we were done with those, we got a huge shipment of Rolling Stones CDs, DVDs, and box sets. We spent the next hour trying to find places to stash all of these things. We each got to take home a box set though, and they're worth about 150 dollars a piece and make the perfect present for a father or uncle. So it was like I was working and Christmas shopping at the same time. After that, we did some cleaning and organizing with the new shelves that were shipped in. The office looked nice by the end of the day, and we got to leave early. It was a pretty early Tuesday.

Monday, December 5th

2011-12-05T16:09:00.001-08:00

Today Mara and I got to go outside of the office to work. The team for Amy Winehouse is releasing a new album of some of her songs that she recorded but never released. And before new albums are released, we have listening sessions. Usually the only listening sessions I do are small ones for small bands in an office down the hall. But this listening session had a lot of important people from the business who all dressed up to come listen to and remember Amy. Mara and I got to go down the street a ways and check people in at the door. We did what you would normally do when you hear of people checking others in at the door. It was pretty simple and didn't take very long. But after we were done working, we got to go in and join the listening session. It was a really cool experience to be able to hear some of Amy's music before the general public did. It was nice to get out of the office for a bit and to be able to listen to good music while we were at it. I wish that we got more out of office tasks to do.

Friday, December 2nd

2011-12-02T15:10:00.001-08:00

Today we had Kid Cudi come in to the office. We had to put up a Kid Cudi board and change the sign outside the lounge to his name. Preparing for an artist to come in is just a routine for the interns now, so it doesn't take us long at all to get around to the key points in the office and change what needs to be changed. It was really exciting because I'm a huge fan of his and I got to meet him and shake his hand and say hi and all of that good stuff. He was here for a meeting with Monte, which he was in for quite a while. They were in Monte's office for about two hours and then they moved to the lounge. The lounge is where they listen to artist's new songs or songs that they bring in that belong to other artists. They were listening to a few new tracks from Kid Cudi's unreleased album. It's always kind of cool to be able to listen to the new music before it's released to anyone else. They were in the lounge for about an hour and the Kid Cudi left and the office went back to doing the normal work. For the rest of the day, we wrote some artist news stories about Kid Cudi and put up some pictures of him in our office. The artists always take the time to snap a few promotional shots with Monte and Avery.

Thursday, December 1st

2011-12-01T16:53:00.001-08:00

Today we did a lot of work with The Hunger Games. The movie doesn't come out until March, but our label is heavily involved in the film because we're supplying some music for it. We worked in Monte's office listening to sample songs matched with sample scenes and helped him rearrange the note card board that has all of the artists that will be featured in the film. Whenever we work with Monte, it's always a fun project. I was super excited to be able to do work like that today because I just finished reading the Hunger Games books and I'm obsessed with them. So any work I get to do in the office that's related to it, I love. We had to take down some notes of what we liked and didn't like and what we thought fit and didn't fit. It was neat to play even a very very small role in a film that will be huge. After we were done helping Monte, we got to do some more research for the film like watching the official trailer over and over and taking notes on it, and reading up on peoples' reactions and responses on Facebook and Twitter. All in all, it was a fun day.

Wednesday, November 30th

2011-11-30T16:36:00.001-08:00

Today we had 3 Doors Down come in to the office for a meeting with Monte. The office was pretty excited yet again and we got to do some preparing before the band arrived. We put up a board with their pictures on it like we do for every other artist that comes in, and then we went to the back closet and found some huge posters that we hung up by Monte's office. Mara and I went and got the band at the door and they were really nice. Sometimes you expect artists to come in and have a big head or a huge ego, but these guys were really down to earth and very polite. They shook our hands and introduced themselves one by one, and then we took them in and offered them beverages and sat them on the couch. They went into Monte's office a few minutes later for a meeting that took basically the rest of the day. So that left artist news to do and we opened some mail. Monte had about 20 magazines delivered today and a whole stack of mail that we had to go through and organize into bills and expenses and other important papers. It was a pretty calm day, but we got a lot done.

Tuesday, November 29th

2011-11-29T16:05:00.000-08:00

Today we had some people from the Indie Pop label come in to the office. Indie Pop is the label that Dev belongs to and The Cataracs belongs to as well. Dev isn't huge yet, but she recently released her successful hit "Bass Down Low" which did really well. She found the two boys from The Cataracs a few years ago on MySpace and the three of them teamed up to start making a whole bunch of music together. They've been pretty successful since then. The Cataracs and Dev were both on the hugely popular song "Like A G6" which kind of rocketed them up to musical fame. Indie Pop has a lot of other artists similar to Republic's artists, and they came in today to have a meeting with Mnote. They were in his office pretty much all day, so we couldn't do our normal routine of archiving the emails on his computer and putting his mail in his office. So we spent time doing some expenses with Renata and looking up artist news stories. When Monte has long meetings in his office it's like when he goes out of town because we can't get in to his office to do a lot of work. So we stuck with researching artists and writing news stories for the day.

Monday, November 28th

2011-11-28T16:43:00.001-08:00

Today it was tough to get back in to the swing of being back at work. The morning routine went smoothly like always. I archived Monte's emails, which there were a lot of because of the long Thanksgiving break. After that I went through Renata's red marked emails and archived those. I opened a whole bunch of new CDs and put them away in the cabinet. We got some more Drake albums and then some Christmas CD that we're releasing. The CD is a mix of a whole bunch of artists that have kind of the same musical feel. Jack Johnson is on there and so is James Morrison; it's a really low key and kind of beachy vibe. That's the vibe that I love to feel around Christmas, so I'll have to take a copy home to listen to. Luckily it was another low key day, so I did some artist news stories about Nicki Minaj and Jessie J. After that, I worked on some website information. I have to make a spreadsheet of every artist and their personal website to hand out to people of the company. We've made a bunch of lists like this before, but now we have to make an official list for everyone to look at.

Friday, November 18th

2011-11-20T21:37:00.000-08:00

Since Monte is still gone today, we got to relax a little bit around the office. The work load wasn't bad at all...actually there wasn't really a work load at all. We got to come in later than usual today because we don't have to do the morning routine when Monte isn't here. So when I got in, I archived his emails and went through and archived Renata's emails too. I opened up some of the mail that was sent to Monte and then put it all in a UPS box to mail to wherever he is. Then I did some artist news and got all of the stories done in about a half an hour. After that there really wasn't anything to do except archive a few emails here and there. When Monte is out of the office, Mara, Renata and I like to do word puzzles all day long, so we did. Today was my last day at work until Thanksgiving break and then I come back to work on the 28th. I was surprised that they were giving us the whole week off for Thanksgiving, but I guess that's what they always do for interns and holidays here. I'm so glad to have a week off for Thanksgiving, and I'm glad there wasn't a lot of work to do on my last day here.

Thursday, November 17th

2011-11-17T16:04:00.001-08:00

Today Monte emailed Renata a project for the interns to work on. The projects Monte gives us are always kind of fun, and this one wasn't bad either. Our record label is working with an Asian record company called JYP. They're huge over in places like Korea, China, and Japan. Today, JYP sent Monte a movie called the Wonder Girls, which is basically a movie like Spice World with a band basically like the Spice Girls, only these girls are from Korea. So today the interns had to sit down and watch this movie and take notes on it. We got to comment on things that we thought were good and things that we thought could use some improving. The movie is geared towards the younger audiences of America, and I thought it was really cute. We typed up about two pages of notes of things that were good, and about a page of notes of things we thought could use some work. After we watched the film, we had to watch a presentation of the JYP company and write down notes about that as well. A lot of today was watching and writing, and I was okay with it. I like it when Monte seeks the input of the younger people that work at the company.

Wednesday, November 16th

2011-11-16T18:57:00.001-08:00

Today was a busy day because Monte leaves for Nashville tomorrow. He goes right from Nashville to Los Angeles after that so he'll be gone for the rest of the week. The day before Monte leaves is always busy with last minute phone calls and reservations. I spent a lot of today going over his itinerary and calling the car service to make sure all the destinations were correct and I called a lot of hotels to make sure the room reservations were correct. After I worked on his itinerary, I worked on compiling all of the artist links for our website and making a spread sheet of them. Another woman who works on our floor, Colleen, asked if the interns could help out with it. So today when I didn't have anything to do I would work on that. I got the list about three fourths of the way done, and it shouldn't take me longer than another day to wrap it up. 3 Doors Down came in to the office today and I got to meet them and put together music bags for them. Whenever we have a guest come in the office, we put together bags of new CDs for them to take with, so I got to make a bunch of those. After 3 Doors Down left, Monte had to go to a dinner meeting so he left around 5. That meant that I got to leave early too.

Tuesdy, November 15th

2011-11-15T17:14:00.001-08:00

Today Monte gave us a project to work on that took up most of the day. The radio station here in New York is Z100 and they have a contest every year for singers for them to get a chance to open up the Jingle Ball. The Jingle Ball is a huge concert here in New York that huge artists perform at. This year, Monte is a judge to pick who wins the Z100 contest and as of right now there are only 25 contestants left. So Mara and I sat down with the list of 25 singers, links to their websites, and the voting sheets, and we listened to every single person and wrote down scores from them. The scores were supposed to be from 1 to 100 so I scored mine in intervals of 10. There were different things that we had to score them on, and then we had to add up all the scores and come up with a final score. Some singers were good, but most of them...weren't. It was hard to listen to 25 singers in a row and still keep an open mind about each person. It took a long time to listen to each person, and by the time we were done, we only had time to do a few artist news stories and then it was time to leave. It wasn't the most exciting job, but it was pretty fun compared to office work.

Monday, November 14th

2011-11-14T17:14:00.001-08:00

Today was a pretty laid back day. I did the normal things like archive emails and open the mail. After I did some artist news, another assistant came over to Renata's desk and asked if he could borrow Mara and I. Renata said yes so Patch, the other assistant, took us and all the other interns into Avery's office. Avery is Monte's brother and they run the record label together. All ten of the interns were in Avery's office for what we call a listening session. A listening session is when all of the interns get to listen to a few tracks, today it was five, of unreleased music and we have to score each song on a score card. We had to rate which song we liked the best and the least on a scale of one to five. I thought it was really fun, I love to hear unreleased music and I like it when the label asks for outside opinions.

Friday, November 11th

2011-11-11T17:21:00.001-08:00

Today was just a normal day. Blaine was there today, so it was nice to be able to split the work up between two people. I archived Monte's emails in the morning and then went through all the marked emails in Renata's inbox. I added a few people to the contacts sheet and the call sheet and then I scheduled a Gala for Monte. After that I went through and organized all of the printed emails that he has laying around, and then I got his breakfast ready. After that I spent the day doing some artist news and mailing out a few plaques from Monte's office. I had to mail and Eddie Vedder plaque to someone in New Jersey and then I mailed a Taylor Swift plaque to someone else in New York. I had to spend some time trying to find a box big enough for the Taylor plaque, but it didn't take me too long to get that all done. After that, I worked on the website and did some more artist news. It was a boring day with not a lot going on, but I felt like I got a lot done.

Thursday, November 10th

2011-11-10T15:45:00.001-08:00

Today we had a band come in to visit. Steel Panther is a rock band that still dresses up in the 80's hair band kind of costumes and wears crazy make up. I did some research on them before they came in so that I would know who they were (granted their costumes would be hard to miss). Their a band from the LA area and they sing songs with a KISS kind of feel to it. Their songs are supposed to be kind of a joke, but they still sound good. They have songs called "Just Like Tiger Woods" and "17 Girls In A Row". Their new album is coming out and it's called "Balls Out". Pretty much everything they do is inappropriate, but I actually didn't mind listening to them. I went and greeted them at the door and was surprised to see that they were all wearing jeans and t shirts and sweat shirts. They didn't look like the people I had seen in the pictures at all, but they were extremely nice and very polite. They had a meeting with Monte and then took a little tour of the office; they even came back and talked to all of the interns and introduced themselves. I really liked having them in the office.

Wednesday, November 9th

2011-11-09T16:25:00.001-08:00

Today we had to listen to more lyrics. I was not excited about it at all because last time it was extremely difficult to try and understand the lyrics in every song. And to make the job worse, the band that I had to listen to was a rock and roll band that screamed half of their lyrics as opposed to singing them. This project took me literally all day except for the morning hours. I archived and split up the mail like usual, but then I sat at my computer for the rest of the day and tried to listen to those lyrics. There were 11 songs and I split the list in half and gave the other intern 5 of the other songs, but it still took us all day to do. Because the songs weren't released online we had to write all of these out too. I felt like by the end of the job I could sing back all of the songs because I had listened to them so many times. It wasn't a very eventful day and all of the staring at the computer screen made me tired.

Tuesday, November 8th

2011-11-08T16:03:00.001-08:00

Today we started another big project. I like working on big projects more than the smaller tasks because it gives me more to do. Today Renata told us that we have to start cleaning out the back closet for the marketing department. If you've ever seen that closet, you would know that it's a complete disaster. Another guy that works no our floor told us that the interns for the past two years have tried to clean out the closet, but no one has been able to because it's such a mess. So Mara and I decided we would try to get through it in the next few days. We went online and ordered about 10 organizers to put everything in and then we started to sort through the boxes in the closet. We have close to 100 shirts with our artists on them, so we organized them in to piles and folded them. Then we found a bunch of PR folders for our artists and had to run all around the office to try and find who was in charge of what artist to see if they wanted to keep the folders. After that we went through the CDs and donated the ones we didn't want and kept the ones we did. We gave more CDs to Tunes for Troops and the children's hospital than we kept. It was a lot of manual labor and running around today.

Monday, November 7th

2011-11-07T16:56:00.001-08:00

Friday, November 4th

2011-11-04T18:43:00.001-07:00

Today I worked with Blaine nearly the entire day on a project. After doing the usual morning routine of archiving emails and opening mail, another guy that works on our floor came over and asked if we could help him with a lyrics project. He gave us a CD of unreleased songs from the UK and asked if we could listen to every song and write out the lyrics. Because the songs were unreleased, the lyrics weren't any where online. There were about 14 songs on the CD and because all of the artists were British, it was even harder to understand what they were saying. I had to listen to each song about 5 or 6 times just to get every lyric right. The whole project took a while, but we had to get it done by 5 so that helped push us a long a little bit. After we were done with that, we hardly had any time left in the work day to do anything. I did two artist news stories that weren't very eventful, and then I had to run across the street to the super market to buy Monte some apples. After I got back to the office I got to go home. It wasn't a very exciting day because I spent the majority of it sitting at a computer trying to understand lyrics to songs I didn't know.

Thursday, November 3rd

2011-11-03T16:04:00.000-07:00

Today I got to work a lot with The Hunger Games. I got to see a lot of unreleased material for the movie. I just finished reading the first and second book in the series and I've started working on the third book so I'm much more in to the whole franchise now. Our label is doing all of the music for the film and I got to work in Monte's office a lot rearranging notecards with possible artists and songs that will go in to the film. I also got to see some unreleased posters from the film which made me much more excited now that I see which actors are playing what characters. After we worked on the music for the film, I got to see some stills from the filming of the movie and that was really fun for me. I love it when my label mixes with the film industry because that's something that I love learning about.

Wednesday, November 2nd

2011-11-02T17:16:00.001-07:00

Today the guys from Cash Money records came in. The office was a little excited, like they always are when someone big comes in. I didn't have to do too much because Slim and Baby were in Monte's office with him for practically the entire day. They came out every once in a while to chat with Renata, but because the meeting was hours and hours long, I didn't have to do a lot of the daily routines that I normally do. So I spent my time working on artist news and the website. I've been working on the website for a while and I really just want to get it done and out of the way. But artist news was what took me a while because there was nothing going on in the music world. Everything was taken up by Kim Kardashian's divorce, so other celebrity news got pushed aside. I'm assuming I'll be able to get a few good stories out tomorrow once the Kim K drama has settled down. I didn't know how much something like a huge breaking celebrity story would affect all celebrity news.

Tuesday, November 1st

2011-11-01T17:53:00.000-07:00

Today, Renata was really sick so she went home at around noon. That meant that I had to run the office by myself, and while I was extremely nervous, I was kind of excited too. Luckily, Monte took off for London today so my job was to watch the phone lines and answer a few emails that came in to Renata. I had to help a few of the other interns with things they didn't know how to do, like mail UPS and archive emails. I almost felt like the boss for the day, which was kind of cool. But I would never want to do it all the time, it was too stressful. Monte called a lot to check on who called for him, and to check up on when the car would pick up him and where it would take him. It's the most that I've worked with Monte yet and he wasn't even in the office. After writing some artist news to pass the time, I got a pleasant surprise. Another assistant from the other side of the office brought over Javier Colon, who was the singer who won the first season of the voice last year. They came over to grab some CDs for Javier to take back with him. He introduced himself and shook my hand, and he was very nice and polite. I was a little starstruck, but because he was so down to earth he was really easy to talk to. I'm glad that I stayed until 6:30 and didn't leave at 6 because otherwise I wouldn't have gotten to meet Javier.

Monday, October 31st

2011-10-31T17:25:00.001-07:00

I was sick on Friday, so I didn't get to go in to work. But today was a really fun day because it was Halloween. Not only did I get to leave the office really early at around 3:30 or 4, but we hardly did any work. I was so glad that Halloween fell on a Monday because it always sucks doing a lot of work on a Monday. The office was decorated with little Halloween things here and there and everyone was dressed in black and orange. Renata and pretty much every other assistant had candy on their desks for the guests and for the interns and other people that stopped by. We did a few Halloween inspired artist news stories. We did one on singers' past Halloween costumes and then we put up a poll of what people think our singers will dress like this year. Really the rest of the day was spent chatting to Renata and relaxing. It was hard to be productive because everyone was really excited to just get out of the office and celebrate the holiday. It's hard to write a blog about what I did today because…we didn't do hardly anything. I was grateful for the small break from work.

2011-10-27T21:32:00.000-07:00

Today Renata gave me another big project to work on. After I was done archiving and opening mail, and doing all of the normal things, I had to start working on the website again. It's been a while since the website was updated by the web technician, so Mara and I had to go through the website and write down everything that needed to be updated or changed. We had to go through every artist again and figure out what singles were missing. So we had to go on to iTunes and write down every single for every artist. It wasn't hard work, it just took a long time. It will be a project that we work on over the next few days because we have to many artists. The rest of the day was pretty calm, I had to get tea and water for one of Monte's business partners, Matt. He was really nice and actually sat and talked with the interns for a while. Then once I got back to Renata's desk, she told me and Mara that we were going to start doing intern friday starting next week. Each department will take an hour every friday to sit down with all of the interns in the company and explain what their job is like and what they have to do on a day to day basis. I'm excited to start learning about different aspects of the industry that I don't really know anything about.

Wednesday, October 26th

2011-10-26T18:34:00.001-07:00

There was a lot of energy in the office today. We found out early that Nelly was going to come in to the office to meet the team so everyone was really excited. For the first half of the day, I had to take down all of the pictures on the boards outside in the lobby and inside the office and replace everything with Nelly photos. Then I had to find some Nelly CDs that we could play over the speakers the whole day. This is just kind of the procedure that we go through whenever any artist comes in. I packed some fliers and CDs into mailing envelopes after that until Nelly came in at around 3. I was introduced to him and he was really nice. He was kind of shorter than I thought he would be, but he was very polite and said hi to everyone, even all the interns. After that I tried to focus and work on some artist news, but I was too excited that I just met Nelly. That, and Nelly and his team and Monte were blasting some of Nelly's new music from the lounge which my desk is right by. It was a pretty laid back day because of Nelly. After he left, Renata let me go early because we spent the whole day getting ready for him.

Tuesday, October 25th

2011-10-25T16:02:00.001-07:00

Today neither of the other interns were in the office because they were sick, and Renata was in meetings with Monte for a large majority of the day so I had to do a three person job by myself. I was extremely stressed out today and had a million things to do. I had to do five different artist news articles and I had to create something new called “Breakout Artist of the Week” where we spot light a certain artist who is releasing their album that week. I had to monitor Renata’s phones all day because she was hardly at her desk, and they ran about every five minutes. I had to send out a few things in the mail, which obviously wasn’t very difficult. And then a few ladies came in from the Florence and the Machine management team and I had to get coffee, tea, etc. After the meeting was done in Monte’s office I had to archive a few things in Monte’s email and them I opened all of the actual mail and organized it. Then we got three packages of CD’s that I had to organize and put away. There was a lot of stuff to do on my own today, but luckily it was all easy stuff that I already knew how to do. It was exhausting, but kind of nice to work on my own for a day.

Monday, October 24th

2011-10-24T16:46:00.001-07:00

It seems like Monte just got back to New York and he already left again. He went over to London today until Wednesday next week. No one ever really tells us why Monte is going where he is going, so the whole thing is kind of mysterious. When he left, the office got more relaxed again. I didn't have to order his lunch because he was already gone so I spent the day eating New York style pizza and researching our artists. Renata came over to our intern desks (what we call intern row) and just hung out for a while. It feels more and more everyday like I'm just hanging out with my friends. Actually today it didn't even feel like I was at work. I'm very lucky that my work consists of things that I do on my own anyway. In my free time outside of work, I like to stay up to date on entertainment and artist news, and now I get to do it for a job. In fact, a lot of times when I have to write an artist article, I hardly have to do any research because I already know what's going on. Renata called me over to her desk to do the call sheet. When you do the call sheet, you make a list of all of the people that called for Monte today and leave a memo of what they want. There is a certain process you go through on the computer to enter the callers. The first day it took me a while to get the hang of it, but now I can do it like it's second nature. I've only been at this internship for about a month but I already feel very comfortable and I'm more and more confident each day in the jobs that I have to do.

Friday, October 21st

2011-10-21T17:00:00.001-07:00

Today was a pretty standard day. I did archiving and artist news and we chatted with Renata about some more interns for the Spring term. We have to set up the interviews soon for the two students that we liked. Then late in the afternoon, Renata sent Mara and I an email that asked if we wanted tickets to a concert for Saturday night. We went over to Renata's desk to talk about it and she said that Monte and his wife and Avery and his wife were going to go to the Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull concert, but now they weren't going to go. So Renata asked if we wanted the tickets, and of course we did. So tomorrow night, I get to go to Enrique for free, which is just another reason I love my job. After that, we had to redo one of the boards in the office and one in the lobby. When we have an artist or artist's team come in to the office, we have to change the boards around the office with picture of them. Today we changed them to Washington who came in again. It didn't take very long because we keep all of the photos on file and we just have to staple them up. I'm glad Mara was helping though, it would not have been a fun one person job. After that we helped one of the newer interns put up a new huge poster of Florence from Florence and the Machine. It was about 6 feet tall and was hard to keep it from sticking to literally everything. It was a three person job for a reason. I guess I was in an organizing mood because after we decorated a little bit, I just wanted to keep going. So I organized a lot of things around the office including Renata's desk, the CD cabinet and my work area.

Thursday, October 20th

2011-10-20T16:05:00.001-07:00

Today Mara and I spent a lot of time at Renata's desk working with her. We got some resumes emailed to us for Spring interns who will fill our positions. We spent the day facebooking them and doing some background research. We read over there emails and gave our first impressions and then we broke down what we did and didn't like about each person. We made a list of pros and cons of all seven of the resumes and then kept narrowing it down from there. All of the resumes were sent in to us through an organization called Dream Careers, and it was kind of a turn off right away that these resumes were sent in by a teacher or an adviser of all of these students as opposed to them taking the time of finding us and sending in their resumes themselves. But we still went through and researched them. We narrowed down the seven applicants to two that we liked. Then in a few days, we'll set up a phone interview with them and me and Mara and then if we like them enough, we'll set up an interview with them and Renata. It was fun to see potential interns, but I'm not sure if any of them are the right fit.

Wednesday, October 19th

2011-10-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

Today was another fun day where I got to learn some inside information from the music business. I got to go through and organize some Grammy nominations. When an artist gets nominated for a Grammy, they have to be nominated to be nominated. And I got to go through the list of nominated nominations. There were a lot of artists from our label for almost every category because we have had a lot of successful performers this year. After I went through the list, which took forever, I got to do some expenses with Renata and Mara and I had to archive Monte's emails twice today. He was in and out of the office a lot so we did a lot of cleaning up and organizing in his office. He had a meeting with Washington's manager and The Cab came in to showcase. They have a song on the radio and have already made a name for themselves, but we're working on signing them. It was a pretty busy day and there was a lot of running around and not so much sitting at the computer. It was hectic, but I prefer hectic days.

Tuesday, October 18th

2011-10-18T16:52:00.001-07:00

Today wasn't very exciting at first. Monte flew down to Nashville for a meeting with Taylor Swift, so he wasn't in the office. It was a slow day and we got caught up on expenses and mail and what not. At 2:30 we had a conference call with Jessie J and her manager and an interviewer. Basically we had to listen to the interview and if the interviewer asked Jessie J any questions she wasn't supposed to, we had to step in. They talked about when Jessie wanted to become an artist and a little about her past, and then they talked about her upcoming tour ideas and album ideas. It was a pretty stereotypical interview, but I thought it was cool to be on the phone with Jessie J. I love her and I loved being able to hear the inside scoop on her talents. After the phone call was over, we were getting a lot of work coming in from Monte from Nashville, so we had to stay a little late and work on everything that was flowing in. We got a lot of potential album art work for some of our artists like Drake and Mayor Hawthorne. It's neat to get to see all of the creative ideas from people in the industry before the public gets to see it. Unfortunately, it's kind of hard to write a blog about what I do and see at work because a lot of it can't be released for everyone to know, unless I want to get fired...which I don't.

Monday, October 17th

2011-10-17T17:14:00.001-07:00

Monday, October 17th- Today we had another artist come in. Unlike when Gotye, this artist was trying to get us to sign her, instead of us wanting to sign her. She came in and performed a showcase in the lounge which I got to watch. The performance was interesting and everyone from the label that was watching was really supportive of her, but I kind of got the sense that she wasn’t really our label’s style. After she showcased, she went in to a meeting with her people and Monte and his people. Obviously we weren’t invited in to watch that one, so Renata Blaine and I talked for a while about what we thought of the performance. Renata explained in very clear terms that signing artists is like dating. She said, “When we sign artists, they’re one of two people in the relationship. They’re either the girl who does everything to get the guy (our label) to notice them, or they’re the guy who ignores everything the girl (our label) does to get noticed.” It was a brilliant analogy and I had never really thought of an artist/label relationship like that. It was obvious that this performer was the girl in the relationship, while Gotye was the boy. I like it when artists come in to perform because then the rest of the day is pretty relaxed from all the excitement of the morning. After they went in to the meeting, I did the normal things like archiving and writing artists articles.

Friday,October 14th

2011-10-14T17:02:00.001-07:00

Friday, October 14th- I got to spend less time away from the computer today, and more time doing some cool work. Instead of working with Renata, one of the other assistants borrowed the interns for the day. The other assistant, Jack, had Mara and I go back to the huge (and extremely messy) back closet to take inventory. While it might not sound fun, we weren’t looking for boring things like computers or files. We got to take inventory of autographed items. My first items to take inventory of were the guitars. There were about 6 signed Taylor Swift guitars, 5 signed Hinder guitars, and 4 signed Jack Johnson guitars. Those items weren’t hard to find because they were in huge boxes just sitting in the back, but after we found the guitars we had to take inventory of signed photos and music and other miscellaneous papers. This took a little longer because the paper was everywhere in the closet; in file cabinets, in cardboard boxes, on their own, everywhere. I couldn’t even keep track of how many artists were in that back closet. I saw nearly every signature that belonged to the label. It took us a while to look through everything, but part of the reason was because I was taking my time to read what the artists wrote, or I was just looking in shock.

Thursday, October 13th

2011-10-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

Thursday, October 13th- I came in and did the usual today. I got there about 15 minutes early and, so I took my time with the breakfast and tea set up. There were a lot of emails to archive, so I got most of those done before Renata came in. Once she was there, I had to start working on the notecards that go in Monte’s office on the bulletin board. The notecards have the names of artists that he’s working with right now and lets him know who’s a priority. Usually it’s as simple as putting a notecard in the computer and hitting print for what you want, but Monte decided that he wants smaller notecards. So Blaine and I had to spend a while cutting all of the notecards in half and then rearranging the margins and the setup of the artists names and logos that are printed. It took us a while, especially because the notecards were so small they kept jamming the printer. Once we got one notecard with the artist names figured out, we would have to change the margins and rearrange the print on every card after that. It was a little frustrating that there wasn’t just one template that could be applied to every artist name, but it went by kind of fast because it was just Blaine and I working while Renata was in Monte’s office. The notecards, which there are about 200 of, took us most of the day, so I spent a long time with a computer and a paper cutter.

Wednesday, October 12th

2011-10-12T17:34:00.001-07:00

I spent the whole day today doing one task, but I thought it was really fun. Today I had to organize and book a trip for Monte. He's going to the Dominican Republic for a Christmas vacation. It's not a trip for business so I didn't have to find information on meetings or business partners, instead I got to look up vacation info. It took me all day to finalize plans and flights and hotels, but I actually like booking trips so I didn't mind it. I had to search forever for a non-stop flight from New York to Dominican Republic. The only airport out of all the airports in New York and few in New Jersey was JFK. So once I found the flight, I had to go and find the hotel that was fit for him and his family. It wasn't exactly hard work staring at beautiful resorts and beaches all day. I made sure to look at the activities each hotel had so that everyone in his family would have something to do. They're staying in Punta Cana, which looks gorgeous, and will be there for a little over a week. This was one of the few days that I didn't work with anything music related, but it was a nice change of pace. Especially because it was something I enjoy.

Tuesday, October 11th

2011-10-11T16:07:00.001-07:00

It was hectic in the office today. Because we've had a lazy last couple of days, we had a lot to get done today. Thankfully, Monte had a meeting outside the office first things this morning so that gave us a little more time to get everything ready. It seemed like everything came at once this morning; Monte's breakfast came while I was archiving emails and burning CDs at the same time. Blaine was in the office today so she helped out a lot. I had to burn some CDs of some unreleased Florence and the Machine albums and then I had to burn a CD that had a whole bunch of big name artists coming together to make a Christmas CD. After I was done making the discs, I finished archiving emails (which there were about 30 of) and then I had to do some of Monte's scheduling. I had to go through the list of red marked emails and schedule the events emailed to him and add the contacts that were emailed to him. Right after that, I had to make a skeleton for the next London trip he's taking, which is basically just an outline of what he will be doing from day to day. Things are more relaxed when Monte isn't in the office, but all the preparation leading up to him leaving is extremely fast paced and stressful.

Monday, October 10th

2011-10-10T16:01:00.001-07:00

Today was all about CDs. I spent a good majority of the day making CDs of 90 second snippets of unreleased songs and of demos. It was actually kind of fun because I got to hear a whole bunch of potential music from big name artists. I had to make labels on the computer, which I had never done before. I didn't ask Renata for help and I tried to figure it out on my own. I messed a few up, but by the end of the day I knew what I was doing. I did about 50 CDs and then I did 30 CD cover inserts. Those weren't as fun because I had to cut those all with scissors because the huge paper cutter went missing. It took a while to get it all done, but I got to listen to some new music while I worked and then when I was done Renata let me leave early. It was a pretty relaxing day. I spent most of the time at my desk cutting and sticking on labels and packaging CDs.

Friday, October 7th

2011-10-07T17:45:00.000-07:00

Today I hardly spent any time in the office. Renata had me and Mara run some errands around town and that took all day. We had to go pick up some organizers from Staples. Staples took us a long time because we had to try and locate the items with the specific item numbers, that and it was extremely crowded in there. Then we had to do a usual intern job and go pick up our boss's prescription at the Duane Reid down the street, which we had to wait an hour to go back and pick up. While we were out, we stopped and picked up a nice lunch, which wasn't much work. And then we had to go to the UPS store to pick up Monte's mail that failed to get to the office in time. It didn't take a long time to complete the errands, it was just the walking from place to place that took all day. When we got back to the office, we only had an hour and a half until it was time to leave. In that time, I archived some emails and I organized the emails that were rapidly coming out of Renata's computer. Then I had to print some CD case labels and cut them out to mail to someone in California.

Thursday, October 6th

2011-10-06T17:06:00.000-07:00

Today, Renata, Blaine, and I went to the other floors of the building so Renata could show us where everything was and introduce us to people we will need to know. Today we only got to see the 6th and 7th floors which we never go to since we're on the 8th floor. The 6th floor is the Motown brand of our label and it's smaller than our floor. That's where Barry Weiss's office is and he is another extremely important person to the business like Monte is. We didn't get to meet him, but we saw where his office was and met some of the people that work for him. We went to Motown's publicity department and figured out what they do for a job and it was really interesting. After the 6th floor, we went to the 7th floor which is like another branch of the 8th floor. It's still smaller than our floor, but a little bigger than the 6th floor. The 7th floor is where we go to drop off our UPS packages and it has the conference room that holds the huge important meetings with Monte, Barry, and the other heads of the company. The 7th floor is extremely confusing, so Blaine and I made a map for it when we got back to the 8th floor. For the rest of the day, we worked on informative things to add to the intern folder for future interns. We mapped out the 8th floor and added important passwords and log in names. The day went by really fast today because we got to poke around everywhere.

Wednesday, October 5th

2011-10-05T15:30:00.000-07:00

Today was the slowest day that I've ever had in the office. By the end of the day Renata told us that she shouldn't have even had us come in for work that day. Monte was out of the office today so there was nothing to do. We didn't have to turn his office lights on, we didn't have to get his breakfast or lunch, and we didn't have to get the lounge ready. I did a little bit of artist news, but nothing was even going on in the entertainment world for me to write about. Today wasn't a day of work as it was so much a day of hanging out. Renata, Mara, and I spent the day sitting in Renata's cubicle playing sudoko and word puzzles. We ate some candy and watched funny youtube videos. I wish work could be like today was every day, but I know that today was a once in a blue moon kind of day. I got to come in late at 10:30 since Monte was gone and I got to leave early at 5. It was a very relaxing day, and I didn't mind it one bit with the amount of work we had been doing in the office for the last few days.

Tuesday, October 4th

2011-10-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

Today we had a whole bunch of boxes waiting at Renata's desk when we got in. I went around and did the usual of turning on the lights and getting breakfast ready before I opened the boxes. There were about 6 of them and they were too large to be normal mail. Once I opened them I saw a whole bunch of big photo albums and then I got excited. It was a whole bunch of Jessie J albums for her song Price Tag. The song had sold 1 million copies so the bosses of the company got a platinum album in a frame with a fancy Jessie J picture in it too. Monte has a whole bunch of platinum and gold albums framed in his office but it was neat for me to be able to take them out of the bubble wrap and be the first person to see them. We get a lot of exciting packages in the office, but this was the first time I got to open one. The rest of the day wasn't as exciting though. I spent a lot of time following Renata around and organizing certain emails and taking pieces of paper to certain people in the office. I went over to the publicity department for the first time today and met some important people over there. There is always new artwork in every corner of the huge office, so I love going new places.

Monday, October 3rd

2011-10-03T16:04:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 3rd- Today Blaine couldn't come in so I was the only intern in the office today. Renata gave me a big project to work on that will take a few days. On our Universal website, we have a page of all of our artists, and each artists has their own page. There were well over 100 artists on this page, and I had to go through to each artist page and make a list of what each page was missing. Under each artists, there's their discography, photos, and their biography. A large majority of the artists on there didn't have anything on their pages because our site hasn't been updated in a long time. It didn't take me as long as I thought it would to make the list because a lot of the artists were missing the same things. I got the list done in one day, but over the next few days I'll have to go through and fill in some of the things that they're missing. Renata explained that this is also a good way for us to get to know more about the artists because we will be looking for information about the small artists as well as the big ones. This project will help the interns become well rounded in the knowledge of our label.

Friday, September 30th

2011-09-30T16:06:00.001-07:00

I found out today that our label is doing all of the music for The Hunger Games movie series which is exciting. I just bought the first book in the series a few days ago and started reading it and so far I like it. There's a lot of work to be done on the movie and today it was discussed a lot. There were huge promotional posters of the movie being carried in and the interns had to do a lot of research on the books. Our company likes the employees to be educated on the projects that are going on in the label, so today was like a crash course in The Hunger Games. I literally spent the entire day researching the history of the books, the history of the author, what direction the label plans on taking the music, what actors are playing what roles, when the release date it, etc. At the end of the day, Renata encouraged us to buy the books or borrow them from her and start reading them. I'm not too far in the first book, but I need to get to reading because I feel like I'll need to be an expert on what happens in the book as well at some point or another.

Thursday, September 29th

2011-09-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

Now that Monte is back in New York and back in the office, my days are a little more regular. Today I did the normal tasks of getting the food and tea for Monte and turning on the lights and unlocking doors around the office. Then I sat down and archived some emails in his office and then did the call sheet out at Renata's desk. Once all the computer work was done, I opened all of Monte's mail. All of his mail is to be opened and taken out of the envelopes and stapled together. I have to separate the mail into a business pile and a home pile and then place them on his desk. Once the mail was finished, Renata had to go in to Monte's office for a three hour meeting with some guests that came in. That didn't leave a lot for me and the other intern to do, so I did a lot of artist news and wrote a piece on Jessie J and Nicki Minaj. It was a pretty stereotypical day and I didn't mind it too much. It was kind of nice to keep to myself and my work and get a lot done. I spent a lot of time on the computer and I organized my desk space a little so I feel more settled in.

Wednesday, September 28th

2011-09-28T16:49:00.001-07:00

Today was a stressful day because we learned how to use the phones. By "use the phones" I mean answering and directing Monte's calls, which the workers here take very seriously. And that's understandable because there are some very important people that call here. You always answer the phone with "Monte Lipman's office". The person will normally state their name and ask if Monte is around, but you always double ask their name so you can write it down, and then you write down the phone number that shows up on the phone down next to their name. If Monte is in his office (which he always is) you tell the caller that he is on a phone call or in a meeting, because you don't know what Monte is doing in his office or how important it is and you never want to interrupt. If it's a really important person calling, like an artist, you are supposed to put them on hold, write their name and what line they're on down on a post it and then take it in to Monte's office. He will either tell you to keep them on hold and he'll pick up, or he tells you to tell them that he'll call them back. After we learned the basics, Blaine and I had to go through test phone calls where Renata pretended to be someone calling the office and then she graded us on how we did. The first time I went I got a B+, but by the end I had an A+.

Tuesday, September 27th

2011-09-27T15:44:00.001-07:00

First thing when I got in to the office today, I learned how to restock the CDs in the office. I went through a step by step process on a website. The website is called EGratis and it was very simple to use. You type in the username and password for the company and then click on free goods request. This lets the site know that it’s for the company and that's who will be paying for it. When we order from this site, we never order the edited versions of albums. We always get the unedited, deluxe versions so that the people who get the CDs get what was meant to be on the album. After you select the album and artist you want, you type in the reason for the order, which is always office supply and then hit submit. It was really easy, and now I feel confident that I'll be able to check the cabinet and immediately order what is missing, as opposed to asking Renata about it. For the remainder of the day, I walked around the 8th floor to take inventory of who needed more of what CDs. Today was another day of people interaction, so I had fun.

Monday, September 26th

2011-09-26T16:52:00.000-07:00

Today I learned how to use the CDs that we have in our office. The CDs are kept in the bottom cabinet and they're in alphabetical order. There are a whole bunch of artists in there, and each artist has to have 10 to 15 albums in the cabinet at all times. The CDs are handed out to people that come in for meetings with Monte, to people around the office, or to guest artists. Renata also taught me how to make a bag for guests leaving the office. You have to try and guess what kind of music they like basically. She told us that if someone like Slim or Baby comes in to the office, you're obviously not going to give them a Colbie Caillat CD, you would give them CDs more along the lines of Nicki Minaj. There was a man, Andrew, who came in today to have a meeting with Monte. That was my chance to make a CD bag for him and I thought I did a pretty good job. He was dressed in a nice suit and had glasses and was very polite. He even took the time to meet all of the interns, which rarely happens. I threw in some classic rock that we have, a little jazz and easy listening, and then added some Lady Gaga just to mix it up. Once he left, I reorganized the CD cabinet which took forever. I re-alphabetized all of the artists and made sure they had the amount of albums they needed. Renate told me she would teach me tomorrow how to restock artist CDs that didn't have enough. I had a lot of catching up to do though since I was sick on Friday and missed a day.

Thursday, September 22nd

2011-09-23T16:55:00.001-07:00

Today was all about Lil Wayne. His new album Tha Carter IV was released at the beginning of the month and it sold nearly one million albums in just the first week. I did a lot of research on Lil Wayne today because I wrote a huge artist news article about him and all the crazy success he's been having. His new album sold 964 thousand copies in just the first week, and the only other person to have a higher record than that is Lady Gaga with one million copies. Lady Gaga is also on our label. We got a whole bunch of shipments in of his CD too and I got a deluxe target copy for free. I get a whole bunch of fun artist promotional stuff from my work. I also got a bracelet and some sunglasses for our artists Dev. We got our charts in today to say where some of our artists stood and how many records we sold that week, and as a label as a whole we sold just over one million. That means that almost all of those sales were from Lil Wayne. The office was abuzz with Lil Wayne talk all day and it seemed like he was everywhere. When I archived Monte's emails, there were a lot about Lil Wayne and where they were going to go from there. My article about him talked a little about his past compared to the amount of crazy success he has now.

Wednesday, September 21st

2011-09-22T17:22:00.001-07:00

I had to stay kind of late at work today because Monte comes back to the office tomorrow. I was supposed to leave at 6 at night, but I didn't leave until around 8. A whole bunch of the work I did today was mailing. I spent the day licking envelopes and writing addresses. By the last half hour of the day, I went on to Staples.com and ordered an envelop glue stick so that I wouldn't have to lick them anymore. I sent all of the mail today by UPS, which requires a certain process on the computer that I learned my first day here. All of the mail except for two pieces were going to other places in New York City. A lot of it was also promotional pictures and bobble heads for our artist Mayor Hawthorne. We sent some promotions to The Today Show, The View, and Regis and Kelly. The California packages were going to The Ellen Show. It was fun to be a part of promoting a new artist even if that meant just sealing and addressing envelopes. We were cut really short on time though; our mail is taken out at 5 and the UPS is picked up at 8 and we sent out our UPS boxes at 7:50. It was a long day, but I felt accomplished that I got a lot done; even if I didn't have time to do artist news and sound scans.

Tuesday, September 20th

2011-09-21T15:44:00.001-07:00

Today, Renata taught me and the other intern, Blaine, how to do Monte's expenses. I was extremely confused at first because I had never done anything like expenses before. Renata explained that you mark the magazine, food, parking, etc. expenses with an E. For magazines we put a post it that says "pay and expense". The E expenses are paid for by the company, and then there are the personal expenses that you mark with a P. These include things like clothes, haircuts, etc. Then there are the FYI expenses that is everything and anything that comes from the bank. Because expenses are something important, the interns have to sit at Renata's desk with her so she can double check all of our work before we put it in Monte's office. That's also why we use post it notes for nearly everything in the office. I went through an entire stack of sticky notes in the first week, and now it's already like a habit for me to write everything on a post it note. Besides learning expenses, I did the usual desk work. I wrote some artist news articles, but I spent a majority of the day away from the computer and more so on the phone with people. Even though I wasn't with people, it was still nice to be able to talk to people instead of look at a computer for hours and hours.

Monday, September 19th-

2011-09-20T16:00:00.000-07:00

Our boss, Monte, left for LA over the weekend and he won't be back until Thursday morning, so Renata gets to run the ship around here for a few days. When Monte is gone, it gives us less work to do. We don't have to do his breakfast, lunch, or tea and all of his emails are automatically forwarded to him in LA. I usually come in to work at 9:30 in the morning, but when Monte is gone I get to come in to 10:30 which is nice to have an extra hour of sleep. Renata told me that when Monte is gone we get to leave work early too so today I got to get out at 5:30 instead of 6. Today there was a lot of communicating with Monte's people out in LA. I had to call to arrange the car pick up for Monte for the few days he's there. I also had to make reservations for Monte and his business partners out there. Work is very slow when Monte isn't here, so I did little things. I submitted an order for more office supplies and did an artist news about Jay Sean. I always leave artist news until the end of the day because I can do it quickly; so then I got to slip out of the office by 5:30.

Friday, September 16th

2011-09-19T16:03:00.001-07:00

Today I got to take a peek at the new Jessie J video that is coming out soon. Jessie J is one of our big artists and I happen to love her music too. She recently had surgery on her foot, so the music video had to be adjusted a little because of her situation. All in all, I loved the music video and it prompted me to look up some other info about Jessie J. When I have a little free time at work I like to do some research on our artists so that I can stay up to date on what the company is working on. After about 3:00, it was hard to get a lot of work done because we had a group come in and perform a demo in the lounge. The lounge is right behind my desk so it's super loud when they play live music. I was never told who the band was or whether or not they were part of our label, but I really liked their sound. Renata told me that next time a group comes in to perform that the interns are allowed to go in and watch. For the rest of the day, I did one artist news article about our artist Dev and then did small tasks for Renata like sending out mail and archiving emails.

Friday, September 16th

2011-09-16T22:30:00.000-07:00

Today I got to take a peek at the new Jessie J video that is coming out soon. Jessie J is one of our big artists and I happen to love her music too. She recently had surgery on her foot, so the music video had to be adjusted a little because of her situation. All in all, I loved the music video and it prompted me to look up some other info about Jessie J. When I have a little free time at work I like to do some research on our artists so that I can stay up to date on what the company is working on. After about 3:00, it was hard to get a lot of work done because we had a group come in a perform a demo in the lounge. The lounge is right behind my desk so it's super loud when they play live music. I was never told who the band was or whether or not they were part of our label, but I really liked their sound. Renata told me that next time a group comes in to perform that the interns are allowed to go in and watch. For the rest of the day, I did one artist news article about our artist Dev and then did small tasks for Renata like sending out mail and archiving emails.

Thursday, September 15th

2011-09-15T17:26:00.001-07:00

Today was kind of a hectic day. We had an Australian artist come in. His name is Gotye and he came in with his management team to discuss signing him to our label. A few minutes before they came in to the office, Monte pulled me and Renata aside and explained to us that every record label in the business is trying to sign Gotye, but we need to get him. To make Gotye and his team more comfortable, Monte had the office go on a mad hunt for The Book of Mormon tickets for that night. The musical was in about 3 hours and we had to find 4 orchestra center seats, which was nearly impossible. After making a few phone called, Renata finally found some and we were able to give the tickets to Gotye and his team when he was done with his meeting with Monte. A majority of the day was spent greeting people at the door and taking them to the lounge to wait for their meeting with Monte. I performed the standard procedure of asking if they want anything to drink and then saying that Monte will be with them shortly. There wasn't as much office work today as there was people work, and it was a nice change of pace.

Wednesday, September 14th

2011-09-14T17:22:00.000-07:00

Today Renata came in late to work because she had a doctors appointment. I got in at around 9:15 and she wasn't in the office until 10:30, which gave me and the other intern, Mara, the chance to run the office by ourselves a little. We did the usual morning tasks like turn on the specific lamps and lights in Monte's office, (Monte is the CEO of Universal Music Group) we opened up the lounge where artists come in, and we did the sound scan and label analysis which is something we do every Wednesday. For those, we take last week's top 200 charts and top 40 charts of our artists and arrange them for Monte to see and evaluate. I found out today that our record label is number 3 in the world which is up two spots from where it was a month ago. I love learning little things here and there about our company as I go along. Once Renata came in, it was a pretty relaxed day. I did three stories on artist news; one about Amy Winehouse, one about Lil Wayne, and one about The Band Perry. I did a little more research on the label and our artists just to stay up to date, and I found out that we own more artists than I thought. We have about 10 labels that we own under the UMG name including Lady Gaga's label, Enrique Iglesisas' label, etc. We have a connection with nearly every major artist in the industry and it felt neat to be a part of something that big.

UMG Week One

2011-09-14T06:46:00.000-07:00

I recently got an internship at Universal Music Group in New York City. I'll be here for the remainder of the Fall semester and my first week here has been exciting and a bit overwhelming. In just the first day I was shown the ropes of how nearly everything works. The woman I'm interning for, Renata, wasted no time spreading the lessons out over a week or even a few days. She handed me a black leather journal and told me to write down everything that she said, and so I did. There were a lot of things to take in, but most of it was simple. I had to do basic intern things like get the lunch and breakfast for the CEO of the company, I had to staple together incoming emails, I had to archive messages, I had to call for limo pick ups, etc. The first day was me figuring out what to do and how fast I could do it, and by the second day I already had the routine down. For the first week, the first 4 or 5 hours of the day would fly by because I knew exactly what I was doing and hardly ever had to ask for help. But the last few hours of the day, I started to get handed tasks that I performed more slowly because I wasn't familiar with them. But I tried to restrain from asking questions, and I figured out most of the problems by myself. I love the other interns I work with and Renata is a lot of fun. Even though it's an internship, I can tell it's also going to be like hanging out with friends. Another intern, Blaine, writes artist news with me every day. Artist news are the little news articles we write about our label's artists (obviously). I like writing them because it gives me a chance during the day to be a little creative and stray away from the usual office work. The first week was enjoyable, but I can tell I still have some settling in to do. I'll have a more structured routine by the next couple of weeks.

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

2011-08-20T21:38:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-12T06:40:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-08T08:43:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-07T22:36:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-08-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-02T13:30:00.000-07:00

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.

Goodbye California Breeze and Hello Iowa Heat

2011-07-31T19:43:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

So my internship has officially come to a close and I am so sorry to see it end. I have never had such a wonderful and memorable summer. I've been fortunate to be a part of so many great experiences and I have met such wonderful people in my short time here.

For my last night here, I am sitting in a rehearsal for a new musical entitled Rocket Science (recent winner of the Richard Rogers Award). I was fortunate enough to actually take part in the casting process about two weeks and I can't tell you what an interesting and awesome experience that was. It was so cool to experience the other side of auditions for once. It was really eye opening to see the process behind a professional audition, and the biggest thing I think I learned was to not to take it personally if I do not get cast. And wow! What great talent there is in LA. I only wish I could see the entire process all the way through the performance!

So since I last posted, I have continued to take classes at The Groundlings as well as I finished up a comedy sketch writing class I was taking in West Hollywood and today I had my last boxing class at my local gym. (Creepers beware!) I can't tell you what amazing friends I have made because of these classes. And each week my friends and I go to two or three comedy shows at The Groundlings as we get tickets very cheap because we are students. Last night I went with a friend to a UCB (Upright Citizens Brigade) comedy show, which I must say I wasn't impressed. I much perfer The Groundlings style (think SNL). However I think it's only fair to give UCB another shot when I return to LA.

So as my internship comes to a close, my thoughts go ahead to next summer. I've been invited to return to LA and work with the Festival (which I would love!) and on Thursday I also went into The Groundlings office and talked about the possibility of an internship with them, so we'll see what happens. =) Either way, I can't wait to return to L.A. and all of the traffic that goes along with it! (I survived Carmageddon! haha)

But even with all of the fun I've had this summer, I am so excited to get back to ISU! I can't wait to see you all and get back into some ISU theatre! I'll be seeing you all soon! =)

TITP

2011-07-29T23:58:00.000-07:00

A fun story to give a giggle to go with our fun show.

Last night we were forced to call off our show due to a huge storm in the area. We only made it through the opening number before we had to make the announcement and clear everyone out of the park. Our executive producer had a friend in the audience with his five year old son who was SO excited, just beside himself, to see the Cat in the Hat. He settled in near the front with his blankie and his Cat in the Hat stuffed toy just doe-eyed for the show. He saw about seven minutes of the show and we made the announcement to clear the park. His dad was so sad he had to tell this little boy they were leaving and he wouldn't see the rest of the show. "Come on son we have to leave now." he said. And the little boy replied, "Thanks, Dad, that was best show I've ever seen!"

Ah, children and theatre....

Also, we have just announced our upcoming season: Sweeney Todd, Sweet Charity, A Disney Double Feature of Cinderella and Jungle Book (yes that's two shows every night for two weeks!), Urinetown, and You're A Good Man Charlie Brown

This is a big change in our theatre considering we usually only do family friendly "PG"ish shows...and we usually only do four. I love our new executive producer and what he's doing for us... but I have to be honest, that's some scary changes! We just want to know if we get paid more! ; )

4th of July weekend

2011-07-29T15:53:00.000-07:00

During the weekend of the 4th of July, I went down to help Mallory finish up the rest of the set. We worked specifically on props, or what I called, very technically, the "hanging on things," which were basically parts of the set made out of poster board. I created two mirrors, a fireplace, a radio, a sign, two broken windows, and two stained glass windows. Again, I must express my admiration for designers. Personally, although I did some research as to what certain things looked like, I more or less just dove in and started drawing. It was interesting drawing on the poster board as well, since I was drawing on the floor in her living room, practically dancing around the pieces in order to finish lines or add some decoration to certain parts. After drawing out what I wanted, we painted them the next day. I must say, despite my belief that I have very little skill in actually drawing/painting/etc, I was very proud of my rose stained glass window and of my fireplace. They may not have been perfect, but they looked like they should, with the fire looking a bit more like actual fire than I had thought it would. After finishing painting and such, we loaded everything together and made sure we had made everything we could before going to Orlando.

From doing the construction and much of the designing of what the set would look like, I have learned a few things. First of all, I have learned that I do have some artistic talent, so I will stop saying that I do not have any. It is not my area of concentration, but I enjoyed experimenting and working on something new that I am not completely comfortable with and getting to learn how much work it actually takes to create a cohesive design. Second of all, I have most certainly learned a respect for set painters and art designers. They make their jobs look easy and now I know how much it truly takes to make it look as simple as it really is not.

PRT past week and a half update

2011-07-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

Hola mis amigos. Como estas?

So it's been a little over a week since I have talked to you last and I'd like to go through a couple things and what has happened for me.

Starting off where I left off last time, we went to Apple River and camped for a night. Apple River consists of tying inner tubes together and floating for 3 hours, really fun, rocks hurt. It was so hot and humid that I literally sweated for a good two days straight. Hey, at least I'm keeping hydrated! That was on Monday, Tuesday we headed to Minneapolis and hit up the Mall of America where we shopped for a couple hours. Here the best thing happened to me. I was going to the bathroom (I know, but this is why it's the best thing) and in my stall I noticed an entertainment type of newspaper talking about movies and shows and what not. I was reading through it and saw that there was a production of Waiting For Godot that was being performed that weekend in an abandoned theater, unfortunately I couldn't go. Anyway on the back was an ad that said "God of Carnage now performing at the Guthrie" so me and Tamara (Ms. Tamara White accompanied me on my trip :) ) went and got rush tickets for God of Carnage at 730 in the Guthrie proscenium stage. And let me tell you that it was really really good. The set was great, acting was good, and all in all very funny. After the show we met up with an old friend of Tamara's and had a few drinks (I didn't because I was driving) and hit the road and got home at 4 am...

Wednesday came and it was our last performance of Arsenic and Old Lace, kind of bitter sweet. We had a really good house for that night and things were going really well. However, we have a company member who decided to change up the ending a bit (he's a principle character mind you) and "come back to life" after I have supposedly knocked him out. This little event was not known by the 3 of us characters onstage at the moment and when that happened what do I do? I instinctively tackle him back to the ground and hit him in the head one more time. not even thinking, it was pretty sweet, love being in the moment. We played it off like we knew what we were doing but behind the scenes I was not a happy camper. Our patrons pay to see the same show every night and when things like this happens, well, it's just not professional. So strike for the AOL came after and that came down quickly as well for being a big set. After we were done loading the U haul with AOL we started building Crazy for You. So the biggest problem I have had with this company is that the majority of members will sit there and talk and complain rather than work. We all knew it was going to be a long night, but it doesn't help when some of the people just stand there and complain how they aren't going to get to bed til 4am. There were 2 units that I guarantee wouldn't have gotten done if I hadn't started on them. And people wonder why I get frustrated. Anyway we got CFY damn near complete when we decided to head back to Brookings. There we had to then unpack AOL from the truck. We didn't get done till 330am that morning and we had rehearsal for CFY at 11am. Love rep!

So we had a pick up rehearsal on Thursday which went well and then a performance that night. You could tell that it was dragging and we were lacking energy because we had only 5 hours of sleep and then a rehearsal which should be counted as a performance with how hard we went. I personally stayed to get things done with the set and then performance. *phew* Busy, busy.

Just a side note, it's really hard to perform two different shows back to back in two days. Well, not necessarily hard but it's exhausting. Two different characters in two days as well. But it was fun nonetheless. and this actually added up to 8 straight performances for audiences. My endurance has grown so much in that sense. Crazy for You's run went really well and I'm glad that I'm finally done with performing for the summer. Now I can just relax. Another note, the actor who changed the ending for AOL is also in the ensemble for CFY, and he is the type of person not to care if he's in the ensemble. Decided to instead of actively listen and help tell the story, decides to come up with new bits and one liners ever night to make people laugh, however, that pulls focus and messes up timing with the others onstage who are actually trying to put on the show that was directed. I have to write a paper at the end of the summer and so I'll put it up and that'll have more details.

Other than the little things I really am still having a good time here, unfortunately I only have a week left. I'm going to miss everyone here. The major things I have learned are that I'm patient, hard working, can put on multiple shows in days, my people skills are still good, and I have learned not to put up with dumb people, if I have a choice. Along with my shop skills and tap skills I think this whole experience was great and I learned a lot I wouldn't have if I would have stayed home and done a community theater show or something. I don't regret anything that I have done this summer and can't wait to get back and show everyone what I have learned about myself and theatre.

Sweating out Toxins

2011-07-26T19:49:00.000-07:00

Expect the unexpected in Prestonsburg. I ended up doing landscaping today for a set.
For The legend of Jenny Wiley there is no backdrop, there is no cyc, no curtains. But wooded mountains, we have that. They needed an entrance upstage center, so we carved steps into the clay of the mountain and paved it with other stone from another.

They light the forest for the show, and I get to hid inside a Styrofoam rock. I gave it an Indian name "Big Log in Stone" because that is what it is.

I might have a good job next summer, if I choose to come back. We're talking mega promotion. To the yeah.

Curtainbox Theatre Co, Ninth Post

2011-07-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted. The office is a brick oven when it’s super hot out, so Kim decided to cancel class on the 18^th for the students’ safety. This week it finally cooled down a little, so we had class on Monday. After doing a few warm-ups, including sound ball which the students are getting really good at, we read through two of the final scenes, including the scene for the pair I was working with last week. It was really fun to see the students perform, even though it was only a cold reading. It was apparent that the students had internalized many things that we had taught them, such as articulation and projecting. This is particularly notable, as autistic individuals in general have a strong tendency to mumble or stutter. One student in particular often can only rapidly repeat the first syllable of what he is trying to say. Fortunately, this can be dealt with by counting down from three to the student. I don’t know specifically why this works, but I’d guess that it has something to do with the fact that autistic children take everything literally (sarcasm, for example does not register with them), and the student would not understand that the countdown at its core has no power or meaning.

Kathleen

Finally a Strike

2011-07-24T21:01:00.000-07:00

We finished Annie. I got to rip stuff apart. I made me feel good from all my pent up frustrations at the lack of leade-...skil-...motiva-...well anything from the ATD we have here. So I've all but officially stepped into that role. Which means, I have a lot of influence, but no authority. A lot of responsibility, but not much pay. So goes it.

We all dug the set for The Legend of Jenny Wiley out of like 3 different storage facilities. Watched the designer run of that today, its surprisingly well written for a locally written historical drama.

Its a crazy puzzle, but its working out far better than I hoped for. The rocks are beautifully carved foam, and a true testament to the guys of the summer of 2009 who had to rebuild the whole set.

We were supposed to do some paint tonight. but it rained. Bummer...not.

Last day in Santa Fe!

2011-07-23T16:49:00.000-07:00

OK, my car is packed, the apartment is cleaned (I want my $100 deposit, please!), and the last thing on my list is to go see "The Last Savage" by Gian Carlo Menotti. It opens tonight, and I was able to get a ticket, so I haven't seen any dress rehearsals. It's the only comedy this summer, but it's not a well-known opera, so it hasn't been selling. Hopefully there will be good reviews, and it'll be the must-see show of the summer!

I had a busy week--after first dress on Monday night, the designer (Allen Moyer) decided that one of the costumes wasn't working, and the team that built the first costume had too much to do for "Wozzeck" the last opera, and couldn't build a new costume. So it fell to my team to build a new pair of pajamas for the title character! Since second dress was the next night, they pulled a pair of PJs from stock, and sent the shopper out looking for animal print fabrics. He came back with about a dozen swatches, Allen picked one, the shopper went back and bought the fabric, and we were off and running! We got the basic garment pieces done, had a fitting with the singer (Daniel Okulitsch, who is a real Barihunk!), and finished them up in time for final dress on Thursday night! Whew! So I'm excited to see everything on stage tonight!

And then, in the morning, I hit the road! I'll get home early evening on Monday. I can hardly wait! It's been a fun summer, even with the fires, and road construction, but I'll be glad to be home! See you soon!

TITP

2011-07-23T02:08:00.000-07:00

Tonight we opened the ADD friendly and ever-popular SUESSICAL the musical! And let me tell you, it's a darn good time. Unbelievable cue heavy and everyone still has no idea what we're doing...but guess what? Kids still had a freakin great time and there nothing better than that. : ) Honestly we could use another night or two just to run the show and really work out the glitches, I've never had a rougher opening night. However, the director and our executive producer were still pleased with the show because, like I said, our patrons still had an awesome time. We had a ton of compliments and one little girl asked our board op. if we would be doing the same movie next weekend....kind of cute (and a little sad that she said 'movie', but still delightful she had such a good time). We have over 200 light cues and we had spot pick-ups til our hands burnt and our eyes blurred but we're having a great time. Hope everyone else is wrapping up their summers with such a fun time. And if you're not... Shawnee Mission Theatre in the Park, Kansas City, Suessical, 8:30....be there, we'll cheer you right up.

GRSF

2011-07-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

So... It is getting close to that time when we are wrapping things up here. 1.5 weeks left and the apprentice/ intern show of King Lear opens this Sunday. It's exciting, terrifying, and tiring, but it will go on.

I have had a great time here and hope that i will be able to return in the future to continue spreading the art and getting people excited about shakespeare. Even though I am tired and cranky and mostly sick of the people I a working with at this point, I am having a great time.

One thing that i have learned about being an intern specifically, is that the information you recieve about what is going on is predominately information that is absolutely necessary for you to know. If there are things that are happening or decisions being made that are for or about the company, you probably wont hear about them, or know that such things are being talked about. That is frustrating, especially for me because I really like to be involved and part of the creative and decision making process. I hope that in the future, if I do make it back to Great River, I will be able to lend my thoughts to the important decisions. Or maybe not even the important ones, just any decision in general.

TITP

2011-07-19T02:25:00.000-07:00

We just closed Aida this weekend. Sunday night was change-over, midnight to 6am. Then back today at 2pm-4am.... plus it was about ten thousand degrees out here so everyone was in a sleep deprived, heat stroked, zombie coma. Today was a terrible day. Nothing went well, everyone was cranky, and as usual I was yelled at for not getting enough done...even though I am not the one in charge of what gets done on a daily basis. My job is to do what I'm told and I don't understand why I am the one getting reamed over what I have no control over. That will probably be very vague to all of you but remember, anyone can read these : / Anyway, we also had our swing quit tonight. His parents came to talk with our boss and said the hours are just too outrageous and they would be taking him home never to return again. Well....okay. So that sucks. We are in the middle of a change over to our last show of the season, literally two and a half weeks and we are done and NOW he quits?! I don't understand it, but I suppose things are what they are. We haven't finished focusing, or even hanging/circuiting yet and the designer has yet to see a run of the show so we have zero cues. Look out Seussical... welcome to The Park.

Hairspray is Open!

2011-07-18T12:34:00.000-07:00

Hairspray opened Friday, the 15th, after a preview the night before and an un-official preview the night before that. Shows have been going well thus far - there are still some kinks with the synchronization of the band, recorded accompaniment, and singers; I've got my fingers crossed that they'll get worked out... eventually. The audiences seem to enjoy the show, but why take their word for it?? Tickets are ON SALE NOW at dmplayhouse.com, use the coupon codes "TRACY" or "FRIENDS" for a discount :) (End shameless plug) A review of the show was posted on the Des Moines Register website today (http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2011/07/18/theater-review-hairspray-at-the-playhouse/) it could be better, but it could be a lot worse too - I'll take it!
So... I'll see you at the show.

PRT Update

2011-07-17T20:33:00.000-07:00

So last time we talked was when we opened Church Basement Ladies. So those two shows went REALLY well, ended up selling out an 800 seat auditorium the second night! Wow! Ushering was really fun for that show...not. Remember when I said this was an all around learning experience? Well my learning continued on Thursday when I had to work box office for 6 hours. It was great getting my people skills back in action. That night we had our first change over and it went pretty quickly, relatively. CBL got taken down in 25 minutes and we got up Arsenic and Old Lace up in a couple hours which really isn't bad. Speaking of AOL, as of this afternoon we have had three out of our four performances and today was the best of them all. It's hard remounting a show after not touching it for a month. We had one pick up rehearsal before we opened and even though the show was still relatively good it felt like we were fishing for reactions and just going through the motions, which you never want to do when on stage. Finally we got back to where we were today thankfully. We have one more performance of AOL on Wednesday night then we pack that up and do CFY. Man can't wait to dance on the Brandon stage, there's soo much room!

Weather update, I don't know about you guys but we have had the worst humidity I have ever experienced! I'm sweating from just typing this! However, we have had pretty cool heat lightning storms that have been fun to watch.

The next two days we have off so the company is traveling to Apple River in Minnesota for a day of relaxation, can't wait for that! That's going to feel great in this heat! I'll let y'all know how it goes, hopefully I don't get sunburned again...

TaTa for now!

Josh

Beauty Plays 12

2011-07-17T19:20:00.000-07:00

Had our last show for the summer. It's been a crazy. Started off with building the set and furniture and then helped back stage for 3 different shows. I've had to remember 3 crews, 3 different arrangements of the set, 3 different groups of props, and 3 different schedules. If it would have been 1 show, it would have been less strain on the brain. But it is what it is. It's been a blast, but its time for me to recover for the school year. See ya then.

Ziemann out

The Show Is Over

2011-07-16T16:04:00.000-07:00

The Final Battle has been performed! Over all the performance went better than I anticipated it to. There were a few moments that I feel were rough due to the lack of tech rehearsal time. There were a few scene changes that took way too much time. I do have to say, that this experience has helped me to realize that even if tech week is sometime a little like spending a week in hell, it is an absolute necessity to putting on a good show. My job of documenting the show went really well. After all the rehearsals and the performance I have taken a little over 5000 pictures. All of these are taking up about 16GB of space on my computer. This internship has been a great learning experience for me in many different ways, and I feel that it has helped me grow as a theatre artist.

Taylor

Final Day of Final Battle

2011-07-16T15:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the one and only performance of The Final Battle for LeakyCon 2011. It went pretty much as I expected. The call times were unclear, and many people were not where they needed to be when they needed to be there. Though all of the actors were asked to bring their own foundation, at least 3/4 of them did not. I was apparently the only makeup designer who knew which characters she had been assigned to, and it took me nearly 2 hours to finish 7 actors makeup (even though I only worked on each actor for, at most, 15 minutes) because none of them were there when they were called. I was expected to be doing mic checks simultaneously with the makeup applications. That also did not happen. During the run of the show, all the mic changes actually went really well backstage. The mic change crew leader and I had gone through the whole script with a chart of the changes, which I'm sure helped us tremendously. The scene changes that happened during the show were another story entirely. They took FOREVER because they had never been through a tech rehearsal. I have heard many an actor talk about how they will never take tech rehearsals for granted again, now.