Let's start at the very beginning...a very good place to start...
Working on something you enjoy doing with people you love is an amazing feeling. It�s bliss. On my way out of the new Theatre Production class today, I passed by a few members of the Pit orchestra, and couldn�t help but feel overly sad about not going to practice. Not getting to jump on the bench singing my heart out before having an onstage kiss. Not going to Emily�s for some friendly fight club boxing brawls. Not having a 16-hour school day. Instead...reality check...I�m online again. I enjoyed not getting online for a week. And I�m listening to �The Sound of Music� soundtrack.
These are a few of my favorite things.
~~
I�ve never known opening nights to be bad. I mean, you�re all there, you�ve practiced so much that you know nothing is going to go wrong. You�re still nervous and excited because it�s opening night. Sure a lot of the memories we can�t get out of our minds are bad ones, but I�ve said it before and it�s true that the mind looks at the negative. But for all of you optimists out there, you deserve credit for looking at the future in only a positivistic way. You don�t get excited about something that you know is going to go bad. And people should look at things in a good way. So I was really excited for the play and chose not to let myself get nervous.
And I went out on stage...and blanked out. So for all of the people out there who went to the show on Thursday night only...you didn�t get to see me at my best. I was quite angry and very hard on myself that night. It�s important not to be too hard on yourself. Sure everyone wants you to do your best no matter what you�re working on, but they gotta learn that nothing is perfect. Practice doesn�t make perfect, practice is just experience.
But we are the ultimate judges of ourselves, and it�s hard to get past that. I screwed up and I hated myself for it. I felt really bad. I think it was just that there was a lot of pressure after SO many months working on the play. Bonding with friends, getting better at singing, getting better at acting, and trying to do a German accent. I blanked out, my mind had nothing, and my improvisation is not very good, or at least it wasn�t that night. And I got really scared out there on stage. It was literally the most scared I have ever been. I don�t know what I did, what I said, but whatever it was got me offstage. And it felt like it took forever. I just stood there. Anyways, it�s time to move on, and I have.
I go to the hills, when my heart is lonely.
~~
Friday night went perfectly. Perfect is flawless. I was more than happy to get in line with the rest of the class and greet our audience on their way out the door. Everybody was complimenting me the cast. It felt so good, and I was really happy about it. The first thing my dad said to me when he saw me was �Boy, you really nailed it, tonight.�
I always look forward to my dad�s compliments. He�s real sincere. And he�s proud. My whole family gives great compliments, even the Fat One. It all just makes me want to cry.
And after that performance, I was all ready to go out and celebrate. The show was fantastic (although a little long). And Friday night performances are followed by the traditional cast party at Pizza Hut. That place is amazing. Oh, the memories. Everybody was really happy and energetic, and it was just an amazing time. Chelsey was taking video clips on her camera, and for some reason I started talking in slow-motion. I walked around and got to visit with everyone, including the amazing pit people (orchestra).
It was so much fun, and yes, I�d give just about anything to go back in time.
I know I will hear what I've heard before, my heart will be blessed with the Sound of Music. And I'll sing once more.
~~
Weeks earlier, the weekly Enterprise came out. That�d be our local newspaper. I was interviewed. He asked me why I wanted the part of Rolf. I�m quoted saying �Since there is a lack of guys in the class, I knew I�d have to sing, so I wanted the best song.�
What an ass I make of myself.
How do catch a clown and pin it down?
How do you keep a wave upon the sand?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?
~~
�The Sound of Music,� as we all should know, is about Julie Andrews. No, Captain Georg von Trapp�s seven children are left without a mother and he runs his house as if he was still a captain in the Navy. The latest governess is driven out of the house from the tricks that the children play on her. Maria Reiner (sp?) is a nun at the nearby abbey and is sent to care for his children. She brings music back into the home and the family becomes famous, performing in festivals. The captain falls for Maria, and she quits being a nun for him. I played Rolf Gruber, who was a love interest for the captain�s oldest daughter, Liesl.
In the movie, Rolf and Liesl are my favorite characters, although Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews are amazing. Rolf�s blonde hair gave me the idea to do my own hair and go to the nearest hair salon and get it professionally done. �Sixteen Going on Seventeen� is the best song because Rolf and Liesl are amazing singers. As a seventeen year old, I played it with a higher voice, someone who talks faster, like a teen, but mature to a degree.
I also played Herr Zeller. I knew he was going to be the badguy of the play, so I really wanted my lack of stage time as Rolf to be made up with someone really cool. Herr Zeller was perfect. I had originally planned to have a sinister voice and be in a wheel chair to look like Dr. Strangelove. I have never seen that movie, though, unfortunately. Any hint of a German accent came to me when I practiced at least one line with my version of German. My �that�s� changed to �zat�s� and my �when�s� changed to �ven�s.� And I had fun with it because...I guess it came naturally. My blonde hair was wetted down for the scene without a hat, at a party. And I was given spectacles and a fake moustache. I liked it. And I also hunched over and walked slow. So Rolf was young, walked fast and stood up straight, and talked faster and lighter.
I�d say they were different enough, even though Byrdman couldn�t figure it out.
Liesl was played by Courtney, who I think is a deeply religious female. It�s a lot of fun to make her laugh, but too much of the time I think she took me too seriously. I don�t know how much fun the play was for her, but in the beginning I remember her being so excited to do it. She was the kind of person who kept me encouraged in the play. I had fun the second half of the practices, when I could sing my song and just got to work and hang out with the amazing people behind the whole thing.
Courtney was sixteen going on seventeen, and was perfect for Liesl, being an amazing singer, and a fine actress. Her mom grew up acting and now directs church plays which Courtney�s been involved with, and gave me a lot of acting tips. She hadn�t seen me act on stage before talking with me about what other people were doing wrong (or just what they weren�t doing), but right after my scene, I got off stage and asked her how she thought I could improve up there. She said I was really good. And right after that was when I found out who she was...Courtney�s mom.
She told me that with stage acting, it is important to listen to what others are saying. You can quote ME on saying that the only thing that makes your performance stand out is working with other actors who make you look good. And the only way you can look good from your other actors is learn their lines. Then you can really react to what they�re saying, instead of already knowing what you�re going to say to them. And with stage acting, overacting isn�t a bad idea. On film it may make you look bad. Unless you�re Johnny Depp. Or act opposite Orlando Bloom...he�ll make you look good, he�ll make anybody look really good.
I�m just kidding, sorry, Orl.
Also, never stop smiling. That'll give a hint of fun. It's called a "play" because we're all playing around. We're "pretending." All kisses don't mean anything, and they never did. Nobody sings and dances in real life...it's all staged.
And those songs are so catchy.
The hills are alive with the sound of music
With songs they have sung for a thousand years
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music
My heart wants to sing every song it hears.
~~
After Saturday night�s performance (which went even better for me), I got Emily and drove home to get my Aladdin CD and drop my family off, and then picked up Justin on my way to Becca�s cast party. It was a pretty sweet place to hang out in. Her living room has the coolest fireplace. So cool that I can�t even attempt to give a visual. But also, the room was so big that there was a plug in the floor. Uh huh. It once housed secret service or something, and they gotta have cool places to live in. Apparently there�s a bomb shelter in the basement, but Becca couldn�t find it when she gave a tour. She couldn�t find a room in her house. The corridors of her basement wouldn�t allow us.
While many (most) were downstairs playing a Karaoke video game, where they could sing into a microphone (one of the coolest games ever), I was upstairs dipping strawberries into a chocolate fountain. A fountain...of chocolate.
Afterwards, on my way to take Justin home, I got a call from Emily�s cell phone... �Hey, it�s Alec.�
And then I went over to Alec�s house to watch a few episodes of �Family Guy,� which is even better with an audience instead of watching it alone on Sunday evenings. And then people left me alone in the Alec and Zak residence (Ana, Emily, and her brother, Ben were there). And for the next three hours, we talked. So at 4 in the morning and with play the next day, I really needed to get some sleep. So I watched another �Family Guy� episode with Alec (Zak took himself out) and then fell asleep. The next morning, I woke up around noon and then went home for just over an hour. It was Sunday, the end of a weekend, but certainly didn�t feel like it.
That performance had a lot of breakdowns. The microphones that we used kept messing up. I used three different ones rather than my usual one mic, and I was good the whole time. After that performance, the guy who was in the light booth controlling the mics came up to me to say "Now I really know how you felt Thursday night." He was really understanding about it, not only being one of the coolest guys ever (and understanding everything), but he's a dad. He was our Louisa's (for the first three performances before Casey got back) dad. But after Sunday's performance, things really felt like they were winding down. It already felt...over. During the photo shoot after the play, and after the little awards ceremony (Thank You to my Grandpa for helping out with our gigantic sets), Rachel came up to me to talk. Rachel, who I know I�ve talked about before, is quite the skilled actress. She really loves working on plays and being in them and really gets into her roles. She knows how to overact just enough to make herself look really good onstage. She came up to me just to tell me that her mom really enjoyed my performance, and that made me feel really good. Then I asked her how sad she was going to feel now that it was over. Me, being a depressing little bitch, but...she said that it takes her about a week to get over it. Me too. That�s my goal, at least.
I went home and asked Diana who she thought was the best. She said that Ana and my good friend Justin, who got the lead as Captain von Trapp were both really good. My dad said that everyone was really good and that Ana�s singing really stood out. And he also said that Mary stood out as a fantastic Mother Abbess and then I had to help him think of the names of all of the nuns. Becca, Kelsey, and Emily, who were all great, stood out to my dad. One of my favorite parts is in �Maria,� when the start singing �How do you solve a problem like Maria,� and bounce their hands together as if they were about to pray. That was a nice touch, and they all did it so well together. Good nuns.
And I came home that night with my Nazi pistol. My coolest prop. My coolest costume had to have been my black Nazi trenchcoat. The play was long, but it went fast every night at least for my dad, and my whole family saw it everynight. The coolest scene in the play was when the von Trapp family escaped from the festival, and all of the lights in the theater turned red. An enormous Nazi flag came down in the middle and Nazi banisters fell from the catwalk above. Then a siren sounded and Tom (who was quite a sport, even though he went into the class thinking he wasn�t going to have to do anything) came out to yell for his soldiers to come out. We stormed the theater, looking for the family von Trapp, and even �captured� the Principal one night.
So it was an exciting time for the audience. And as Rolf, I came out to perform lines taken from the movie between the captain and Rolf. But just like the play, I let them go, surprising many (I hope) who were only used to watching the movie.
I mean, it's the mystery of what is in those brown paper packages that make them one of Maria's favorite things.
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
brown paper packages tied up with strings...
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs...
Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings...
What are your favorite things?
~~
Entry Dedication:
It was another great experience creating so many unforgettable days, and one of the greatest weekends of my life. Thank you to all who saw the performance and all who were there with me (and for me). What fantastic friends I have. I�d also like to thank my family for going to every performance and enjoying it every time. And also, to Courtney, for letting me kiss her everyday for a week.
Never stop smiling.
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