Ten points to Gryffindor for the Wizard of Oz reference. And an additional five for the Harry Potter reference.... can you tell I'm tired?
Anyways, just in case anyone was wondering, college auditions are physically, emotionally, and mentally draining. All at the same time.
But before I get into that, Tuesday introduced the rest of the classes that I'll be taking this semester! Intro to Production is the same... but this semester I'll be on the crew track instead of the shop track. The differences between the two will be interesting, and I'm excited to see which of the two I can say I like better.
Right after Intro to production, I go upstairs in the same building to my Writing 150 class. Ho boy. I like my professor a lot, but she outright told us that this class is going to require a bunch of work. I'm not excited for that. However, our topic for the class is Race and Class in America. It's nice to have an open environment to discuss these types of topics and issues. Plus, the class make-up is very diverse, so we're sure to get a lot of interesting discussion out of it.
I had a larger gap between this class and the one after it, which is a shame, because it's in the same room that Intro to Production is in (in the same building. If it had been a little sooner to the time, I could've just hung out in the same building all day, but oh well.
Theater History 1.... will probably be my least favorite class this semester. It's odd... You know that feeling when your high school class is doing presentations in front of the class, and there's always that one kid who goes above and beyond and makes everyone else jealous, but that the teacher is absolutely blown away by? And the kid that does that knows it and is super happy with him or herself and super "professional" about it while everybody else is fuming because they know their projects are going to stink now? ...That's the impression I got of my professor. It's like... she's trying too hard... but she doesn't look like she's trying hard.... and her lectures feel a lot more like presentations than lectures.... and I wish she'd just get to the point and stop trying to make us think critically about theater history until after we'd learned it. The other weird thing about it is... The class is boring... but I'm not bored when I'm sitting in it.... Well, I am... I think I want to be bored, but I can't. I'm forced to pay attention to boring material being overly enthusiastically given to me. *sigh*... I think I'm more excited for what we get to read in the homework for this one.
The rest of Tuesday I spent getting ready for auditions. And yes, I had a bit of a mental breakdown trying to decide what to use to audition and because of all the stress I was feeling with homework, starting classes, and pulling everything and nothing together in order to audition. What helped a lot was I went for a long walk around campus to work on some homework (for scene study) and to memorize a monologue and to work on my songs. The weather's been really warm here, and it was a beautiful, warm night. I enjoyed my time walking around and talking to myself :)
Yesterday, Wednesday, was a day much longer than I ever would have asked for. My scene study class was first, and I think this is going to be my favorite class this semester. I really like the professor and my fellow classmates. I also really like what we've been doing in class warm-up and exercise wise.
The problem with Wednesday was that the Involvement faire and the Farmer's market were both going on. I swung by the Involvement faire for a bit, but most of my time was spent either worrying about my auditions or attempting to practice for them while I wasn't hurridly doing homework for sociology.
Nothing to report on Sociology, except that the professor does know what he's talking about, he's just very focused on the track that he's taking the class in so he's not taking time to elaborate more on what he knows when people bring up observations about data in class. He's still a super nice guy though. I can't wait to go to his office hours and hang out with him!
More audition practice, my first voice lesson of this semester, then rushed back to my dorm so I could go to a job interview. I won't elaborate on that unless I get the job, which I find out tomorrow.
Dinner, and then to auditions.... again. Ho boy.
The first show I auditioned for was the musical, Grand Hotel. I was quite honestly the closest I've ever been to being so nervous that I downright walked out and didn't audition. I was feeling shaky, self-conscious...panicking. I was panicking. There were at least two other girls who sang one of the same songs as me, everybody was mega super talented, it was in the Bing theatre which is a big place to audition in in general, and on top of that, John Rubenstein was in there. He originated the role of Pippin on Broadway. On top of THAT, everybody else seemed to be super confident. I know they probably weren't 100%... but nobody else seemed nervous....
Needless to say, I felt like I did an awful job on that audition and left almost in tears.
I decided to go through with the second audition I had in mind, even though I felt like the last thing I wanted that night was another ordeal. The play is called Fortinbras, and is basically a parody of Hamlet. It turned out to be a pretty nice experience. It was definitely the weirdest audition I've ever done.
There was only one person in the audition room, who I assume was the director. I did a contemporary monologue first, and kinda slid my way through most of the beginning because I messed up words. Pretend like it was what you meant and move on. No big deal. For the second monologue, we were asked to prepare something stylized.... Stylized? I don't have anything stylized.... So I performed "Of the Awful Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles..." by T.S. Elliot. I memorized it years ago when Cats was my favorite musical, and the poem tells an obscure story about dogs and cats. So... I acted it out. Surprisingly, she really liked it, and I could tell... So that's kind of cool. I still don't know what to make of it. Who'd've thunk?
After all those auditions, you'd think my day would be done, but I stayed up til 2am working on homework with Jinny and Kate. Doing homework with other people made it more fun... but that was way later than I wanted to be up.... ever.... especially after the ordeal that I went through that day.
Today was much calmer, which was nice. Back to Writing 150 this morning, with nothing new to report besides the fact that we have our first big paper assigned to us already, and I learned that a stereotype for white people is that white people are serial killers. Huh. I never noticed that serial killers tended to be white....
Stereotypes about my own race fascinate me. I feel like white people hardly ever get mentioned in conversations about race without being considered the "domineering, powerful race who thinks they're the best and hates everyone else." That bugs me though... but maybe I should go into this topic on a blog that's not mostly about auditions and callbacks.
Callbacks!!! I actually got called back for both shows!!! I know!! What the heck?!?!
I got a dance callback for Grand Hotel, which was a shock since I was fairly certain I bombed the entire thing, and I got called back for a very small, but funny, role in Fortinbras, which is super cool. Yay!!
I was late to my history class since I ran into a friend at EVK and ended up talking with him for too long, but nothing new to report on the class. It's still annoyingly trying to get us to be super excited about every single little detail that we don't know about yet.
Came back to the room, worked out, talked with mom, and got an early dinner before rushing to get ready for the callbacks.
I wasn't half as nervous about callbacks as I was auditions. That's odd for me. I'm used to the opposite... maybe this time, it was because I had the assurance that they liked me enough to ask me back, and that justified any stupid thing I might do while I was actually there. We learned two dances- one was jazzy, more Charleston style, and upbeat and fun. The other was short, slow, and more ballet-like. I'm going to be so sore tomorrow. I did well though, and I'm proud of myself.
Right after that callback, I rushed over to my second. There were 3 other girls called back for the role that I was called back for, so we went over the side together before we went in. Each of us performed it twice, but with a different person each time. It was really fun!!! The character is actually two characters who are very similar- Polish girls who don't speak Danish (English). In this particular side, Fortinbras learns that they did pick up a little Danish/English while they were... well... spending some time with his palace guard, if you know what I mean. It's a bit vulgar, but not graphic, and very funny. I had a good time :)
Since then... I've been too worn out to try to do anything else tonight. I talked with some friends on Facebook, bought a ticket to see Rent next weekend on campus, and hung out with Jinny, Jessie, Corona, and Kieryn. I'm super tired now though... Plus, I refuse to be up super late again tonight. Take THAT piles of work to do!!! I have the weekend to get you done!! HA!
I don't know when cast lists will be posted, but even if I don't get in either show, I'm glad I made it through the auditions. Next time, I'll know how to be better prepared- material wise, of course, but more importantly, emotionally and mentally.
Fight on, friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment