Monday, July 1, 2013
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
So first and foremost when I first read the title for this play before I auditioned I though, "FINALLY they are doing a play centering around women." (they do a lot of plays that have tons of male roles, and very little female roles...and women are the bulk of what show up to the auditions.) Come to find out once I got a description of the plot that Leading Ladies was a play on words...because the "ladies" were actually men...in drag. Yup. BUT there were still a grand total of 3 roles for women, two of which were for someone my age...so there was still hope.
The PLOT:This hilarious comedy centers on two English Shakespearean actors, Jack and Leo, who find themselves so down on their luck that they are performing "Scenes from Shakespeare" on the Moose Lodge circuit in the Amish country of Pennsylvania. Wh
en they hear that an old lady in York, PA is about to die and leave her fortune to her two long lost English nephews, they resolve to pass themselves off as her beloved relatives and get the cash. The trouble is, when they get to York, they find out that the relatives aren't nephews, but nieces! Romantic entanglements abound, especially when Leo falls head-over-petticoat in love with the old lady’s vivacious niece, Meg, who’s engaged to the local minister. Meg knows that there’s a wide world out there, but it’s not until she meets “Maxine and Stephanie” that she finally gets a taste of it.
Once I got my hands on a portion of the script to audition with, just that small snippet was hilarious...and the role of Audrey, was just something I did not want to miss. She's as described in the character listing a "naieve bombshell". She comes across as
so I was hoping to get work with Katelyn and Theresa again whom I had gotten to work with on "Forum". They were both assitant directing.I was SOOO excited when I got the phone call that I had gotten the part, and better yet it was from my friend Katelyn only an hour or so after the 2nd night's auditions so, I had apparently blew their socks off from the very first night and I was completely stoked.
The first read through was so much fun and proved just how masterful of a casting director our director Jerry truly was. We hadn't even started to act the roles out but just having everyone read as their characters was beyond my expectations, and the script was INCREDIBLY funny. It had us in tears. Plus the guy who was going to play Jack who was to be Audrey's love interest in the play, happened to be the same guy that I had auditioned with for another play called, "Della's Diner"...and he was hilarious in that reading, so it seemed fate that we ended up being able to do a play together anyway even though neither of us got to do Della's!
It took us awhile of rehearsing the play several times over and over before we started being able to control ourselve
s in laughter. The jokes gradually faded, even though some things even when we started dress rehearsals were still being laughed at.When the boys got to transform into their official female counterparts at some our first dress rehearsals provided for a whole new level of laughter.
For the play...I had to rollerskate on stage for my introductory scene, which I was absolutely terrified about. I hadn't skated since I was 12, and skating in the rehearsal hall was ENTIRELY different then skating on the actual stage...which ended up being far less room to maneuver, and bore dozens of little things that could make my little pink wheels skid...hereby making me...fall. Although, I only fell ONE time during one of our rehearsals and that was it, so I've gotta say those were pretty fair odds.
This was also to be my first on stage/on screen kiss. Sorry boys, alas its been taken. At the end of the play...Audrey (at this point all revved up about being engaged) grabs her newly made fiancee and plants a rather forceful sexy smooch on him, so that was some new, interesting territory for me with this play.
This was also honestly the first thing I've done on stage...theater wise that I've had lines...so it was THRILLING to get to be up on stage and actually open my mouth to the audience, and getting to hear if they found me funny or not.
And the nice thing about the Pensacola Little Theater is that you get to go out to the foyer and say goodbye to everyone that just saw the play so I got to hear feedback on my performance things like, "You make a really good dumb blonde." "You were SO cute!" "I LOVED your character." "You were definately my favorite." "You did really good on those skates!" "I really loved your Brando impression." So it was just all really nice to hear :) Its motivating. And the
play in general got some amazing feedback...people were saying that it was the best play they've seen the theater put on in the entire time they've been going so, yay!It was also fun because the entire play was set in 1958, and so all the costumes, the music, the props everything was 50s related...and us gals SO wanted to keep all our vintage dresses!
All in the all the play was so much fun and I've been missing it since the day I stepped off the stage our closing day of the show. The cast was so well put together, and we all got along famously, which from what I hear of the theater world doesn't exactly always happen...but we were just one big happy crazy family. I truly hope I get to work with everyone again.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Different crowds will always find different things funny. Saturdays are statistically the best,
liveliest crowds (in this case LITERALLY speaking, since a lot of our audience was over the age of 60), and Sundays are usually the days we are desperately searching for a pulse. However, to our surprise one of our best audiences during the entire 9 show run, was on a Sunday! They laughed at EVERYTHING, were very enthusiastic clappers.I played the part of a courtesan (nice way of saying hooker), and there's an entire s
egment where each courtesan (or pair of courtesans in my case, I played one half of the Gemini) was introduced and did a dance. The dances were pretty risque, funny as well but we wondered, with the age bracket of our audiences just how often we'd offend people. Didn't seem to do too bad. And on good nights we got hoops and hollers even when we were reintroduced in the 2nd act.
g for a chair, and on the LAST day of the show, poor little Allison who played Phyllia missed one of her cues. One of the other actors had to come downstairs and tell her, and they had to stall on stage...talk about improv!
he audience exited to thank them for coming to the show, and they got to tell us what they thought of it, and talk to us individually. Had a lot of people make comments on our wigs, and ask if we were really twins. :-P Also had quite a few old ladies tell us courtesans that we were sexy, sexy. LOL. All in all it was an amazing experience, and most certainly addictive!Thursday, November 27, 2008
Okay, so rehearsals. I honestly haven't done a rehearsal since my last recital for my dance classes that I used to take. In fact, surprisingly doing those recitals was extremely insightful for what was to come for doing theater. So awesome, I am NOT going into this COMPLETELY like a deer stuck in headlights. That was atleast somewhat comforting.
The first night of rehearsals was pretty much one of those, "Hi my name is Bob, I am 32, and I've never acted a day in my life." sort of dealies. And then we sat there and read through the entire script, which was oodles of fun for any of the girls playing the courtesans. Only one of us has a grand total of "one" line in the entire production. As I said earlier the courtesans do the most dancing, we're dancers...not speakers what do you expect from us?! Ha.
The nights that were to come were spent working on all the group musical numbers one night, blocking certain scenes another night, group choreography another night. Everything was divided so that we were concetrating on one major thing per night. I assumed this was in an effort to not make all our heads explode by feeding us too many different things in only 3 hours.
Prob
ably the nights that I looked forward to the most, were the nights where we got to learn choreography. I miss dancing I really do. So sliding my ballet shoes back on, and getting to dance (whether it be level 3 and 4 moves or not) in an official room designed FOR dancing, was most certainly a rewarding element to being apart of the production.
And for a group of people that only 30% of have had previous dance experience, I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly everyone was able to catch onto the movements, and piecing them all together...it came along nicely, and ended up looking absolutely gorgeous for the stage. Teamwork!!
It was no surprise to me that the people that I bonded to quickly and mostly (aside from my voice teacher who I already knew I was going to talk up a storm with), were the other gals playing the courtesans. Its no wonder, considering that the 6 of us pretty much do EVERYTHING together in the show. The only time where we are individually doing our own thing is when we are each being introduced and doing each of our dances. But even that number we end up working in unison with one another. So I just feel insanely fortunate that the 6 of us get along so well, and we're not a group full of "Get out of my spotlight, bitch!" type...of women. Well...most of us anyway.
So my role...the role of the Gemini. Is of course shared with another individual. It was quite an arduous process putting together our dance. And all together frustrating, and disappointing. Not only did ou
r dance get changed several times, but we also have THE shortest dance out of all of the courtesans. We clock in at roughly 27 seconds, where as everyone else has atleast a minute to do their thing, if not more. At one point we were doing this complicated looking, but cool looking lift to one another...and they decided that we couldn't handle it and scrapped it. Which lead into a series of movements that in a barring all pleasantries sort of way...that more then resembled lesbian like tendencies. Don't get us wrong...its hot, and I am sure it'll make some people very very happy in the audience, but for two gals that have plenty of dance experience behind them...couldn't blame them for wanting to actually, show off that time, hard work and money they put INTO the lessons...but anyway. We got over it, and just decided to work on selling ourselves as a novelty to the audience.
When we actually got to move our rehearsals to the stage, I think that just made the experience that much more enjoyable. I loved being on stage for my dance recitals, and the sights
from the wings, the smells, the secret passages to get to one part of the stage to another...was all too familiar and was getting me pumped to actually all out perform the production for a live audience.
There's only one other person in the production that has never done a play before, and he's 15 years old...so it of course makes me feel a little outnumbered and a little vulnerable to some of the more intimidating members of the cast, but there are so many more people that are willing to let me crouch underneath their wing as I learn and I've appreciated it immensely. I guess its just been boggling my mind how many of these people are even several years younger then I am and have done soooo much theater work.
I mean yes, I've done a lot of film work. But theater productions take SO much time to pull together. I mean a feature film will take months to pull together sure, but I am not at the stage yet where I've had the pleasure of working on something like that. Short films, take maybe tops...a couple weeks to complete. So this whole rehearsing 5 nights a week for 3 hours a night, and then performing it 9 times, and having 3 pick up rehearsals in between that time...thing? Yeah wow, can we all say time consuming? Its been pretty exhausting, but fun as hell. So I guess it just blows my mind how many plays others have done, given the knowledge of how much time it consumes. 
Saturday, November 22, 2008
At this point currently, I have been taking voice lessons for 9 months. But back in March is when I decided that I'd start auditioning for plays around this area. Better sooner then later to ATLEAST start getting over this fear I have of singing in front of people. The first musical I auditioned for was for Pensacola Little Theater, and it was for a musical called, "Seussical". Was definately a more relaxed environment then the Disney audition. So, if anything I was OVERprepared for this audition in comparison.
One thing that quirked my eyebrow though, was the fact that nearly 70% of the people auditioning were under 5 feet tall, and no older then 15. Well, that just didn't seem right but they assured everyone that they needed adults for the show too. So for the first time ever, I sung in front of a whole room of people that I didn't know. The judges, the other auditionees (and their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins, great uncles, etc.), and felt like I was all out going to pass out. I didn't do that great of a job, but little did I know that just that initial step up into actually doing something I was never able to do before was going to be a big milestone for me.
I didn't get a part in the musical, and again it discouraged me slightly. When I audition for films anymore, I am completely past the point of discouragement if I don't get a call back. Guess I got to work into it with theater. But about a month and a half after THAT audition there was going to be another audition for a musical called, "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum"...and my voice teacher was also going to be auditioning for that one, and insisted that I go out for it. Not only that, but he assured me that ALL the parts were for adults this time. Ha.
Again, this was for Pensacola Little Theater...and the audition process was exactly the same as it was for Seussical. I had done some research on the play, and where as I would've loved to land a leading part I was just really hoping to land a part of a courtesan. They do the most dancing in the show (I've got 13 years dance experience in ballet, jazz, tap, and modern), and they have actual character "names". Which would be a lot nicer to add to a resume versus, "Ensemble".
Come call backs, I got the call! They offered me the part of one half of "The Gemini", which was a pair of courtesans that were twins. I was definately excited, overjoyed, felt like running through a meadow with my hands outstretched to either side and-you get the picture. Unfortunately, that same day...I was in a car accident. Which is a COMPLETELY different story all together, but long story short. I was t-boned at 65 mph, got knocked out on impact, didn't remember a thing except for the car heading towards me, and then waking up in the ambulance. It happened several months ago, I just recently got a new car (other one was totaled)...the whole freakin' mess is over with, and I am physically fit as a fiddle, and so what happened with the play do you ask?
I fortunately was able to still do it. My boyfriend God bless his soul, willingly drove me not only back and forth to work, but also back and forth to the many dress rehearsals every week that I had to go to. So I was able to go through with it. :-D
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
So, the Naval Aviation Museum holds a Halloween event for families every year, and this year they partnered with Pensacola Little Theater to have a haunted helicopter. It's this old war copter that they decked out in Halloweenish stuff and barred off the cockpit with caution tape, and put two skeletons in the pilot seats.They needed some actors for the copter, so I volunteered my time. Got to pick out a costume from the theaters enormous collection. Went through many phases, picked out several "dirty dresses", the directors contemplated making me a clown, which I honestly wasn't so keen about...I wanted something, different and unique that I could play with. (Yeah I know it was just a kiddie haunted house thing, but every oppurtunity counts!)
So I dug through some boxes from their previous year that they did a haunted theater of sorts and found the perfect dress, black lace and torn up...and fit like a GLOVE. So I became the dead black bride.
Not too many kids were scared of me, I startled them sure because they weren't expecting to see me as they rounded the corner, but once I opened my mouth to speak the fear would soon turn into a smile. Kids like creepy, undead women who like to stare absently at the wall...WHO knew.
interacted with them...to put them more at ease. Complimenting their costumes, asking how they were doing...and what not. Several kids got pictures with me, and one little girl INSISTED on coming back through several times just to talk with me, including running back in to give my legs a hug. That...I wasn't expecting. 
