Thought of the day: the idea of energy

The word energy is something of great value to me and finding the key to unlockng its potential is a never ending quest that I find myself set on continuing. I believe that in the end, no matter what your religion, your beliefs of the afterworld, your belief of creationism, your lack of belief in anything; it all comes down to how you divvy out your share of the universe's energy. Your "prayers," or "positive thoughts," or "visions" are all ways of transforming energy from one form to another. 

I therefore ask, and ponder myself, why shouldn't these energetic actions prove useful to the person perfomg them?  Why can't I say a prayer to my God and invest energy into that action, and someone else say a prayer to their God and have the interaction between them be linked by energy? 

Perhaps I am baing, and I'm getting off point. Energy is the key. How do we then unlock the potential of transferring energy into different forms? Can things like "the force" really exist, or is it simply our mind bending our surroundings to fit our energetic outputs? 

Philosophical, no? Yeesh...

Anyway, thought if the day has come to a close. Stew in that :P

On Being the Boss at a Theater Camp

Holy poo.

I'm going to be the boss at the CHS Theater Camp.

Not sure if I can handle that...Ha! Just kidding. I'll be fine.
However, my procrastination gene (I'm pretty sure it's a gene at least) has taken over and I don't feel like working on any of the stuff I need to do before next Monday. Poop.

Luckily, I know the show...CUZ I WAS IN IT. It's Fantastic Mr. Fox and Timmy and I were in it when we were wee little eighth graders. Tim and Tomas are helping me with it. But I am still the boss...Mwahahahahahahahah!

Alright, enough of that. I need to figure out how the hell to organize 17 first through fourth graders in the form of something that resembles a show with a beginning middle and end...Oh, and a plot would be good too...in the course of a week. Crap. Poo. Excrement.


Ok...so, Step One...or rather Day One.
Kids arrive...we should play a game. A get to know you game. Yes.
Then, auditions. I need them all to read something...hmm. Mr./Mrs. Fox dialogue? Yes...NO, even better - two small fox dialogues. Win. I am awesome.
Ok, so we have Auditions down...then I have to cast it. Perhaps we should play another game...no. I should cast it right away and give them their scripts.
Then we work on staging? Sure. Right yes. Staging and learning stage directions, you know? US, DS, SL, SR, C, etc., etc.? Awesome.
Then...uh...they go home? I'll throw in snack time somewhere too.

Day Two!!!!
Arrival and warm up game. Tim can lead this. Then we get to work. Finish staging and then play some memorization games. We will run the different scenes a few times to solidify it.
Snack time somewhere. Memorization will be the big deal for today. And remembering blocking. Kewl.

Day Three...already?!
Arrival and warm up game...Run the show? No. We will work on just running the lines all the way through. Sweet. Off book by the second half of the day so we can run the show. There. I win...again.

Day Four (SWEET):
Arrival and warm up game. Again. We will run the show and make sure everyone is on the SAME page. We will be AWESOME by the time Friday rolls around. Heck yes we will. Then we will play some games and do it one more time...with "costumes..." lol

Day Five:
PERFORMANCE TODAY! Work some stuff, run the logistics and all that jazz. Life will be good.

I think I got it! I am so cool. I am the boss, yo! (BTW, I'm also ghetto...you should have known that by now though. Clearly I am anything BUT white...durr)

I'm excited, but I should probably re-type the whole script. Poo. Looks like that's what I'm going to do now.

Laters :P

Sing. Act. Live.
Emily Elisabeth

On directing and how much I like it

I want to direct something again, but I really don't know if I'm going to have time to do that any time soon.

In the mean time, I'm watching Family Guy...Peter is trying to find a Jewish Stockbroker...

That's kind of it. Sorry for the boring post?

Until next time,
Sing. Act. Live

Emily Elisabeth

On Casting and waiting for lists to be posted

I decided I should share how I handle not being cast in something that I thought I was a sure thing for and how it makes me feel.

First, I try to think of the positives, let all of my friends who did get in know that I'm happy for them. Grin and bear it kind of thing. I then look at the list for about the 6th time just to be sure I didn't miss my name...again.

Once I have discovered that I didn't make it...again, and have secluded myself from anyone who I would like to avoid disappointing, I essentially cry my eyes out. It happens. I feel petty, insecure, conceited and worthless, which makes me sob harder. It's ok though. That's why I have a Tomas. He makes me feel better and allows me to get snot all over his shirt. What a trooper :)

I then explain to whomever is around that I am not disappointed that I didn't get it, but I am disappointed that I didn't get in but some other specific person(s) did. This makes me cry again.

Now I call my mom. I tell her that we can do that thing we wanted to do that would've been postponed had I gotten into the show. She says they were dumb, I cry some more. Yeah, crying is ok. I know it. Feel free to do so, just don't make it the biggest thing in your life. Remember that life goes on and you have other things to do as well. Talking to my mom reminds me that God must have a different plan for me. It also allows me to talk about the process in a way that isn't necessarily productive, but it makes me feel better...

Then I distract myself with whatever is at hand: TV, Food, a movie, or what-have-you. This is healthy and is a period of time to just relax and not think about anything. After completing this step, I move on to figuring out what I'm going to do with all the time I suddenly have on my hands. This is when I begin to think about filling it up with other things I should probably be doing.

In the end, not being cast is a good way to get things done. Now that everyone knows how I cope, I hope they can learn from it, and again, realize that it isn't the end of the world. Hope you enjoyed my knowledge. Oh, and it comes for a reason, I recently was NOT cast in the summer shows here in town, while a bunch of my friends were. It's sad because now I don't get to bond with them, but they get to bond with each other. I imagine there will be some awkward-ness and stories once everything gets started, but I'm ready for it I guess.

Hope life is treating you well...until next time,

Sing. Act. Live.
Emily Elisabeth

On having so much free time...but not really

So,
tick, tick...BOOM! is over. This is sad. I thoroughly enjoyed myself while we were producing that show. It was epic to say the least.

I don't know that I've ever been in such a short rehearsal process for a show, but bonded so quickly with my whole cast. It was glorious, and I don't regret a second of it :) I miss you all though!

In any event, now it's over, and while I thought I would have a TON of free time, in reality, I don't. I am in a directing class. This means that I have two projects to be working on to practice directing things in different stage settings. I'm working on a ten minute scene right now that takes place on a thrust stage. It's actually really cool

But aside from that, I'm also helping out a colleague with a show she is directing...i.e. I'm in it. ;)
That's cool. I can deal with that.

Oh, but I'm also working on my Junior Recital! BAH!

I'm not dying yet...but I'm hoping I can handle everything over the next few weeks.

The end of the semester should be smooth sailing though, all this stuff is done soon:
B.F.A. Re-audition: March 27th
Crimson Audition: March 28th
Recital: March 28th @ 1:00 pm
1st Directing Project: March 29th
2nd Directing Project: April 9th
Look Away Performance: April 20th

Then I'm done? I think so. Here's to a great rest of the semester :D!

Until next time,
Sing. Act. Live

Emily Elisabeth

On a New Year with New Possibilities

So.
It's 2010.

Normally the New Year celebration hype doesn't do much for me. And to be honest, this year hasn't been much different. I think it's because I don't look at "years" in terms of actual calendar years, but in school years instead, like, September to August kind of thing.

That being said, I'm hoping this new "year" (by which I basically mean semester) is going to go more smoothly. I came across multiple difficulties in the theater department last semester, many of which centered around my health and the inability of the staff to understand the things I can and cannot do. Mind you, I basically said screw it and did it anyway.

I was in Godspell this fall. Of all the things I could say about it, I will say just this:
I learned a lot.

One of those things is that I never want to do that show again.
Another has something to do with the people I worked with.
Another is that breaking your ankle during a rehearsal game doesn't get you sympathy, but rather gets you in trouble because some how it's your fault and you should be able to dance on it. Then despite the fact that the doctor told you it was at least sprained if not broken, you were of course lying about it to get out of doing the work. Never mind that you hurt yourself in the middle of rehearsal, finished rehearsal and was off your crutches for the next dance rehearsal. Somehow that means that you are supposed to learn your choreography for your song even though they never gave it to you.

Needless to say, it was not a a fun time. I have many other issues, but because of that I am going to make sure it doesn't happen again this semester.

Student Disability Services, here I come!

Other than that I've been fighting the battle of being able to work with Tomas in a scene, which apparently, I'm not allowed to do...yet another crackpot theory in my mind.

But I digress. I feel as though I am complaining a lot, when actually I found this semester to be very valuable in my "growing as an actor" experience. We worked on a lot of different things in class this semester, my favorite of which was clowning, and I felt like I performed my final scene with flying colors this year. I had never been as connected to my character as I was the night we performed it. It was a good time.

If you haven't experienced what it's like to be a clown, I highly suggest it. It's a very unusal sensation, but very cool at the same time. I might be the only one in the class who thought so, but I know it helped me in other areas of difficulty.

That being said, I bid you adieu. Here's to a prosperous New Year!
I am off to take a shower now :P

Until next time,
Emily Elisabeth

On relationships within the theater

So, I'm in something of an interesting situation.

I am, once again, in a relationship with a fabulous guy, who is also a major part of my theater department at school. My "head-over-heels-ed-ness" about this particular guys is through the roof. It's great. I love him. He makes me really really happy.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid this will affect the roles he and I get in the department...I know we'll be cast because we're being required to audition and accept the roles we get. I think it would be an incredible amount of fun to be in a show with Tomas. So that brings up the question, "How do you go about maintaining a relationship in a place that is, essentially, considered my work environment.

Uff da. I've tried it before. It kind of works, but I get very very attached, very very easily. I think I did alright with Tim...though we may have laid it on a little thick. Eh, we were freshmen...sue us. Clinton wasn't a theater nerd. It made for a different change...he came to all my shows though, so that was pretty sweet. Joe was a theater major, and was in more shows than I was last year. It worked out, but we stated dating in the middle of a show...and I wasn't in any of his classes.

I just worry about my classes with Tomas...like, they're not going to put us together for scenes because we're dating...or they'll put us together for weird things because they want to experiment...because we're dating.

...

And, once again, my loyal readers (ha!) have learned what it's like to be in my brain while I'm still awake at 12:23 am. It's all good. I have things I'm going to do tomorrow: Doctor's appointment and Bartending School as it were.

On another note, I've decided that the reason I love music so much is because it gives me a way to convey how I feel so much more than anything else I can come up with. My own words just fall short most of the time. The poetic meanings, and sometimes, blunt sentences that certain songs contain just get the point across so much easier, fluently and beautifully (most of the time). It makes me wish I could write music, but since I pretty much fail at that, I'll stick to singing it. At least then I can use other people's words to say what I want.

Alright,
Good night until next time
Emily Elisabeth