Violet 2/3-2/10

I'm Mason, and I'm working on Violet, a musical by Jeanine Tesori (composer, Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek the Musical) Brian Crawley (librettist), and based off Doris Betts' short story "The Ugliest Pilgrim". Violet is the 1960's story of Violet Karl travelling via Greyhound from her home of Spruce Pine, North Carolina to Tulsa, Oklahoma to a televangelist to heal her scarred face. On the way she meets with various people on and off the bus including two soldiers named Flick (a black sergeant) and Monty (a white paratrooper), both of whom she loves and whom love her in very different way. This production is at North Hennepin Community College with theatre director Mike Ricci, and I'll be playing Monty.

Rehearsal actually started on the 2nd with a meet-and-greet along with a listen to the soundtrack, but I couldn't get there due to the weather. So my first day of rehearsal was the beginning of music, which we will solely look at for the first 3 weeks of rehearsal, and with the cast being 9 total I was placed into several of the ensemble pieces.

I'm not from a choir or band background, and I've only done a few musicals as the one role who doesn't sing (i.e. Lewis in Pippin), but I've done enough musicals to know Tesori composed incredibly complex music; 4-6 part harmonies throughout on individual lines spanning over 2 octaves, 2-4 key and time signature changes in nearly every song, all with Carolina accents for 2 hours. On top of this, most of the rehearsal time is sight-reading right now, another area I'm woefully undeveloped in.

My goal is to not lose my voice

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: Final update (super super super delayed)

So about the time I stopped blogging was when I was opening 4-5 mornings at the coffee shop every week on top of rehearsals almost every night that went to 10/10:30p.  Kids, get sleep while you can.  You quickly learn naps are amazing.  Between costuming, doing shots of espresso, and running the show constantly I did survive and now will conclude my blog for the show.

Rehearsals went really well.  I was constantly learning and being pushed by my director and scene partners to play, to relax, to discover. Angie Toomsen was one of the best directors I've ever worked with.  People were off book about two weeks before we went up.  It was quite a while past the date we were supposed to have lines down. However, not everyone had worked with Shakespeare, so it was a bit more understandable.  By the time the show went up, the cast was spot on with lines and characters.

I was in charge of costuming the show, and we had about half of the costumes the week before tech.  I found out then that our photographer would be coming to get pictures Sunday night (1st tech night).  Even though I was "costume designer", it was very much a collaborative on the parts of both Angie and I with a lot of communication. I could tell she was super busy ad stressed, so I offered to take the credit card with my measurements sheets and scour a couple theatres and second hand shops in Iowa City.  Mission success!! There were a lot of pieces that had to be altered, mainly dresses for the women.  1960 had a pretty specific style of dress and length of skirt, so I tried to alter the dresses to fit that time. In the end, there were some influences of the 40's, and my character pushed the envelope with a later 60's style.  I felt the show show turned out to be very cohesive, though.  Angie and the rest of 4th Room Theatre were all super happy with the outcome. I heard very positive comments every night about the costumes as well.

Tech week was crazy - aren't they always? I was at the theatre every night between 5 and 5:30 to check costumes, help set up lights, get ready, and warm up before the show started at 7p.  It was a long one and ran till about 10:15. being an outdoor show, the weather really affected us on nights.  If is was muggy, it was hard to bring energy up. We had a couple cooler nights and that first weekend was beautiful. I found that a small cup of coffee before the show was a good idea. Tuesday night of tech, Angie told us to surprise her with something within our character's world. She really wanted to push us to play.  So if we upped the stakes, she and Kevin would cook a steak for the winner. maybe not the best tactic ever, but it must have worked. We all came the next day with energy and life in our characters. It was fun seeing and hearing what people were doing.

The run of the show went well.  We performed all the shows that first weekend, and all were successful.  I felt like we were telling a story, and though it was the same one, it was a little different every night.  It had life. Everything was beautiful: setting of the house as a backdrop, costumes, the words spoken.  Everyone who came loved the show.  We were a little cheated on our second weekend, though we did perform our final show. Thursday was cancelled because of the rain. Friday was cancelled because of an event at the nearby football stadium we had not been told about, even though we had asked multiple times. We wouldn't have been able to compete with the noise of 5000 freshman, the marching band, and fireworks at 9p. It was frustrating, but our show Sat night made up for it.  The audience was packed in, and super vibrant and responsive.  In the end, an extremely successful run.  I could not be prouder or more honored to be a part of this production.  Angie's direction, passion, and pushing in combination with a hard-working cast made for a wonderful show.

That being said, some things I learned (by no means a complete list):
1. The combination of theatre and working an almost full-time job is super rough. Especially when you're up till 11:30/midnight and then up at 4:30a to open a coffee shop.  Caffeine became my friend this summer (starting to see a worrying trend here...). With that in mind, I feel like I got a taste of the real world. You have to be super passionate about theatre to do this while also having another job so as to make a living. It's not easy.  I talked to people last KCACTF, and Foss shared stories as well. But until I actually did a bit of that myself, I didn't realize how draining it is.  And yet at the same time, it's amazing. I'm exhausted in every way possible, but I'm doing something I love with a bunch of great people.

2. Taking initiative, working hard, and pulling your own weight make you stand out.  Because of what I gave to the show, I've made huge connections with the members of 4th Room. Angie constantly praised the work I put into the show. They all want me to come back next summer and work with them again.  And if I don't have an out-of-state internship lined up, I probably will. It was an incredible experience.

3. If doing costumes again, start early.  You can't start early enough.  Get measurements asap, even if that means catching a cast member on lunch break. Also, make a list of everything you obtain as you get it and where it comes from. The last night of the show I was putting a list of where each costume was supposed to go (whether bought or from a theatre), and was racking my brain trying to remember some of it.  So document everything.

4. Keep a rehearsal journal with notes, discoveries, character sketches, fun stuff that happens, anything.  It's a good tool to have and also fun to look back on.

5. Have fun. Play. Discover. Create. Know no bounds.  Don't let fear or the need of perfection hold you back some possibly achieving something wonderful. Rehearsals are meant to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy.

In conclusion, this summer was amazing.  It went by all too fast, but a lot of good things happened.  Wouldn't trade it for anything. I will keep the experience and knowledge I gained while working in Much Ado close beside me as I continue along this path I call life.

Blind Sculpture Project Pt.II

Following my time in Chicago, I returned to Ames to continue working on the music for The Blind Sculpture Project. I've been using Logic Pro to manipulate and edit the sound clips. The microphone on my laptop works incredibly well, and (as of right now) the extent of the internship was to create the recurring theme within the play which my current hardware handles well enough. Oddly enough, some of the preliminary recordings include the sound of traffic from cars outside which only seemed to enhance the ambiance of the track.

Logic Pro has a number of different "guitar pedals" which adds distortion to any sound that travels through the computer's microphone. Each track follows sculpture-inspired poetry, and each track needed to reflect that feeling. Using a metal sheet, I was able to distort sounds to create an echoing clang behind a distorted violin melody. The ukulele becomes a powerful source of sound with added reverb, along with heavy distortion, and it becomes the central instrument to provide orchestration for several sections.

The internship was relatively short compared to the ongoing project. I will continue to work on the play as a whole and, over time, adjust the music as needed. 

How To Succeed, debrief

It's now several weeks later, and my time away has given me perspective. Was it an artistically charged and groundbreaking theatrical experience, and did I grow as an artist? Other than having a greater appreciation of trained craft and the chance to practice observing scenes from a passive character role, not especially.

But.

As I mentioned in my first post, I've been slowly gaining an awareness of the community at large and what it means to operate for that community. It's good hard work to make a play you love come up, but it's a much more complicated work understanding what an audience will accept and love. The risks for a single production have much higher consequences within a community theater in comparison to a collegiate theater, and choosing a season is one of the most challenging risks.

Another is the importance of community within a production. I realized how much excited I wasn't bringing to productions when surrounded by a tightly-knit cast excited to have fun with each other and play around on stage. It was an eye-slapping moment to find out how jaded I had become.

I became more aware due to my experience in How to Succeed in Business of not only my role as an element in a play but of the play's role as an element of the community, both inside and outside a production.

How To Succeed, the production

Cast in the ensemble, we began rehearsals in the April 21st and went until June 12th. Aside from fellow ISU students joining the cast were several regulars of Actors within both the cast and crew I've worked with: I was in a very familiar and comfortable environment. During this time we worked very closely with the music director and choreographer as well as the artistic director to learn (and retool) the music and staging for each scene. No surprises, but what's different from working in ISU is the absence of time spent on script analysis or table work. I suspect this connects with Actors' season philosophy of choosing shows with high community acceptance, which could be harder to sustain if they chose shows complex or difficult enough to demand table work.

Rather, How to Succeed felt like a manufactured machine in its efficiency and pragmatism. Rehearsals were scheduled down to 30-45 minute blocks and organized to dismiss cast members quickly, off-score and off-book dates were announced soon after casting, and there was frequent reminders from the production team to not fool around. I feel this is a very strong reaction against last year's musical, Pippin: while not a poor show run, the production process was, in nearly every aspect, horrendously inefficient and stressful to the point many cast and crew weren't treated respectfully. Fearing this, I feel H$2's mission statement was to avoid these mistakes with significant preplanning and constant communication from the director and producers (who at Actors also function as rehearsal stage managers). The director's previous experience as an IBM auditor definitely came in to play (ha). Rehearsals went smoothly and we met all deadlines along with having time to retool the blocking choices (IBM didn't help there), and while the constant reminders to keep focused (regardless of said focus) were dulling we were treated professionally.

The cast of actors was a mix of ISU Theatre students, Actors regulars, and a surprising amount of theatrically inexperienced people. This composition resulted in a solid performance foundation with plenty of neophyte exuberance and a desire to have fun, which was very appreciated after such a work-intensive spring semester. Frequent food donations and planning for cast parties, show quotes and puns shared, and an overall strong camaraderie within and for the show was more prevalent than any other show I've worked on. While sometimes a little put off by their verve, I'm still impressed by how strongly a show that we at ISU could call simple can succeed so well in creating an ensemble. While the crew was unfortunately very removed from rehearsals for the most part, once we began seeing them more frequently towards tech week they were included in the fold.

We opened the show on June 13th for a three weekend sold-out run, one of the highest grossing shows Actors has done in 20 years. The show was a near 3-hour behemoth that always ended sweaty and exhausted, but much of the audience took the time to congratulate the cast on specific highlights for them (they especially appreciated Carter Roeske looking like someone about to have a nervous breakdown in the background), and was overall a well received show for crew and audience.

Ankeny Drama Camps Week Three: July 7-11

The final week of camp and I am in the position of assistant to the instructor for two of the programs one in the afternoon and one in the morning. The morning class was for 4th-8th graders and it was an Audition workshop where we discussed everything from head-shots, to audition forms, to etiquette, to monologues and a variety of various important audition tools. In the afternoon we worked with 6th-8th graders on improvisation; needless to say their were a lot of crossover students, and that being the case I formed strong bonds with many of these adolescents.

One in particular was named Joey and he had such a strong presence both on stage and in the classroom. He was very witty but in a way that was more a kin to an old man than a kid going into the 8th grade. I first met Joey in the musical theatre program and he seemed very reluctant to engage in our frivolous games and acting exercises. But as the week progressed it became very clear that he was testing the waters and trying to maintain a 'cool guy'  sort of aire that is very important to a young man of his age. The more and more the week progressed that faded away and his love for theatre became amazingly apparent. I cast him in one of the songs as Flynn Rider and his solo was filled with spunk and spot-on comedic timing so when I saw he had returned for not one but both of my programs I was overjoyed and the bond we had started to build before grew with a vengeance.

I know people say that for a teacher all it takes is one student to truly learn something important for it all to be worth it, but I never fully understood that until I worked with Joey. For the audition portion we had the kids memorize a comedic and a serious monologue to be performed at the end of the week. Joey loved movies so he picked one from Jaws and one from Ferris Bueller, the 'clammy hands' one, that just speaks to what kind of kid he was. During improv the first day we learned a game called the three headed know-it-all where each person says one word and the three of you form a sentence; Joey and I played this game, just the two of us, every moment we could, and we started to from patterns where we knew what the other person had to say. He was amazing at improv because not only could he articulate the first ideas that popped into his head but his ideas were so off the wall they generated new and exciting responses from his partners. He opened up so much more this week with not only me but with everyone else in the classroom; it was very clear that he had abandoned the cool persona and was much more focused on making friends and making something he could be proud of.

While a lot happened this week and I learned a gallon of important lessons and games I would have to say Joey was what affected me the most. I saw him at a Teen Club show with Story Theatre and I can not even begin to describe the amount of joy I experienced in seeing him on stage doing what he loves and knowing that's where he belongs. I fully believe it only takes one person to change your entire outlook and make your experience a powerful one, and I am immensely thankful that Joey was that person for me.

Ankeny Drama Camps Week Two: June 23-27

This week was a lot different than my first encounter with the camp, mainly because my title was that of an assistant to the camp director, therefore I was not in charge of any one class, and instead I floated around all of them helping out where I was needed. This week we had five different camps in operation: Adventures of Pete the Cat which was for K-1st graders, If You Give a Kid a Stage and A Dr. Seuss camp for 2^nd and 3^rd graders, Acting Out for 4^th and 5^th, and lastly a program for 6^th-8^th graders called In the Spotlight. While not all of these were full day programs each was taxed with creating a performance and therefore it was my main function to act as a stagehand and run all the technical stuff. Two elements of theatre I am less than adept at. Thankfully I had brilliant teachers who knew exactly what they wanted and it wasn't painfully difficult to facilitate their wishes.

I helped build sets, find props, locate costumes, and find furniture in the incredibly dark and Room of Requirement-esque storage space. I also ate lunch with the kids who were there for both the morning and afternoon programs, and introduced new games to them. I dealt with children that had wonderfully positive attitudes as well as those that had no desire to be there. I worked with a myriad of age groups and was overcome by each ages willingness to learn the ways of the theatrical world.

There was an entire day where I was covering for a teacher who had been overcome by sickness, and I was working in the K-1^st grade room and after a week of older kids I was rather intimidated by their attention span. Each activity would take at most fifteen minutes and then they would lose interest, so to combat with their energy my energy had to be bounding about the room at a velocity on the verge of self-destruction. But the level of heart they hold is phenomenal, every single one of them had a love for acting and they did not let their age get in the way of their self-confidence and dedication; I have no doubts they will take that passion into their lives and flourish, and that’s mighty exciting.

Overall this week taught me the immense impact and importance of doing such a thankless job; regardless the amount of accolade and exposure working on the sidelines is crucial to the process and can make or break a show. At ISU we are a family, not one element is more important than another because every single person in the process brings their own unique skills and vision to the table. This week strengthened my love and belief in collaboration and I hope that these kids saw us all working together and put that level of respect and dedication into everything they do.