| Woooo Class of '06 |
[Mar. 19th, 2006|08:42 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  Skippy sail-abrated all day | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Springtime for Hitler"- The Producers | ] |
I have had a looong weekend. We did the sectional competition for contest play, and we got fourth place. We saw a lot of other shows, very few of them good. There was one, Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, that was so bad, even Mr. Calvert was making fun of it. It was a good day, overall. Before the awards ceremony, we were all in the auditorium watching Wallace and Gromit. It was pretty funny, because we were all so worked up and tired that the audience was clapping when Gromit was fighting the penguin. It was surreal and bizzare in the extreme. That was a fairly long portion of our day, but it didn't end there.
When we got home, it was time for Senior Sailabration. It's a cruise-themed party for the seniors. I got there at about 10:25, five minutes before the doors opened. I was there with probably thirty other people or so, trapped in the little airlock space between the outside doors and the doors to the atrium. It took me about fifteen minutes to finally get in. It was a fucking blast though. I got a massage, a haircut, some hotdogs from Portillos, and a tatoo. There was a live band, plenty of free food, a moon bounce, an inflatable obstacle course, and plenty of other stuff. There was one thing that was really great. You know those things where you get in a booth and they blow money around? They had one of those and I won $15. At the end, they had a hypnotist. That was a great show. At one point, he was having them do a parody of American Idol. It was hilarious watching some of these people perform. Most of them were eerily good. However, when one girl went up as Jessica Simpson, she had no idea what was going on, and just dropped her mic and went back to her chair. The guy playing Simon then said, "If I had a dollar for every time you were terrible, I would have one dollar." At another time, he was pretending they were all at the Kentucky Derby, and he asked them what their horse's names were. One guy yelled out "RICKY!" and that was surprisingly funny. The hypnotist went to one and said, "What's your horse's name?" The guy said "Number 43." Yeah. It was a good show. After that, there was a raffle. They gave away stuff like prom packages, tennis rackets, gift certificates for Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and mini-fridges. I won a portable DVD player. That was pretty cool. It was a good party.
Overall, I was up from 5 o'clock on Saturday morning until 5:30 Sunday morning. I then proceeded to sleep until 5 tonight. So, this weekend I was awake 24 hours straight and slept 12 straight. |
|
|
| Brocht euch die Beine |
[Mar. 17th, 2006|07:54 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  Skippy scares people | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Back in Black"- AC/DC | ] |
Well, today we performed our contest play, Playing for Time, for the school. Three times. It was exhausting but so rewarding. We knocked 'em dead. Literally and figuratively. We made several people physically uncomfortable, which is the point of a show about Nazis. I personally creeped several people out. Alot of people aparently heard about us and came and saw us during their lunch period, a good sign. When we hung the Jewish translator, Mala, people gasped. Some people in the audience were crying. And the thing that is probably the most significant of all, in the entire audience (which for our last two shows was more than we usually get for a Mainstage) filled entirely with high school students, no one said a word. It was absolutely silent. We held them powerfully, with emotion and plot, not something that one generally thinks of as holding a teenager's attention. Alot of the people who have been around for awhile compared us to A Few Good Men, the contest play from a few years ago. This is also a good sign, because our 'A Few Good Men' took third in State.
I feel that our show needs perhaps a little explanation. Some of you reading may have seen Naperville Central's production of the same show. We are different because, whereas they were religiously faithful to Arthur Miller's text (including his racier stage directions, the use of the phrase "Jew-shit", and the absolutely abyssmal ending scene) we cut the hell out of it. Also, because we lost five members of our cast during the course of our brief time together, we are a strong ensemble. Also we changed some of the plot drastically, to the show's betterment. For example, we lost our Frau Schmidt, and so instead of having Alma (the orchestra conductor) being poisoned by her, we have her tortured to death by me, Josef Mengele. And one of our best moments, the hanging of Mala, isn't really in the show. It's in the script merely as a monologue, but we actually do it. She hangs like nobody's business. One teacher saw us on Wednesday and was so uncomfortable that she really didn't want to see it again today. But she thought it was important enough to bring her class anyway. Maybe I'm just being overly optimistic, and that's never been good for me before, but I think we stand a good, ney, a great chance tomorrow at Lake Park.
Oh, in related news, I did manage to convince the directors to let me do the dance audition for Annie Get Your Gun. I got in. I'm the Waiter/Train Porter. I'm in one scene where, between the two characters I portray, I have two lines. Also, we've been in rehearsal for two weeks, but because of contest play, I haven't actually been to any of them. I hope I'm not missing anything important. Oh well. |
|
|
| Laissez les bon temps rouler! |
[Feb. 28th, 2006|09:04 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  Skippy's got three hours left | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Tradition"- Fiddler | ] |
Happy fricking Mardi Gras everybody! Today is the rockingist day of the year, because tomorrow is the beginning of everyone's least favorite part of being a Catholic: 46 days of abstinence. yay. Oh well, I'll join you all in the land of the fun after Easter.
Anywho, as I said earlier, I would like all of you to come see my contest Play Playing for Time, which will be open to the public on the 15th at 6 in WVHS auditorium. The best part, it's free! |
|
|
| "I have, from the start, been fond of your music..." |
[Feb. 24th, 2006|03:18 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | Skippy so damn tired! | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Another One Bites the Dust"- Queen | ] |
Yeah, today was a crazy mother fucker of a day. I got up at 5 to go to Normal, Illinois for a Presidential scholarship thingy at ISU. They had donuts, so I was happy. My dad and I spent a good half hour laughing at how the student union is called the "Bone" center, and how they call the Presidential scholars PS's, and they had all kinds of things in their literature like, "I'm so glad I'm a big PS." It was pretty funny at the time. The interview went pretty well. Then we went on a tour, and the dorms were pretty fricking sweet. I went to the theatre building and saw all of that stuff. They have like three different stages, and have shows almost continuously throughout the year. It was kinda funny because the guy giving the tour was this huge south african guy, so it was kinda difficult to understand him. Lucky for me, too, is that Fall '06 is the last year you can get into the program without auditioning. I'm terrible at auditions. Alot of times I have no idea how I manage to get into shows. Maybe because I'm so likeable. Oh well. Now I have the final dilemma. I'm gonna have to make a list or something to compare all the colleges to see where I should go. I have no idea, frankly.
So, after all this, I manage to get home at 4:30, change, and I have to jet out to catch the dance review for the musical auditions (we're doing Annie get your gun). I get there, find out I missed the whole thing, by a couple hours. I don't know whether or not to do something about that. On the one hand, I'm sure I could convince Calvert to let me do it solo. On the other hand, I don't think I'd be able to do it, it was kinda hard, and I'm not even sure I want to do another goddamn cowboy musical, where I would be relegated to dancing back up cowboy again. So then, defeated, I went to borders and dicked around for a while, because I had to go back at 6:30 for contest play rehearsal. Things are getting ridiculous in there. We've lost four of our fourteen cast members. We've actually had to recast most of the show. And this is such a fucking confusing play, with twelve orchestra members we've condenced into three, so we have no idea what instruments anyone is playing. And, Arthur Miller really fucked up the ending, so we have no idea how we're going to salvage it at the end. I have faith we're gonna get it though.
So now, here I am, I've been up and out from 5 until 9 today. I have so much damn homework due tomorrow and not a single iota of drive to get it done. Uggh. DAMN YOU TIME! DAMN YOU TO HELL! |
|
|
| I need to post more often... |
[Feb. 21st, 2006|06:27 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  Skippy is the angel of death! | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Barret's Song"- Titanic | ] |
Well, let's see what's going on that's worth posting...
Monday, which is yesterday, I suppose, I went to NIU on a visit. It kinda sucked. It was really fucking cold, and we didn't end up actually doing anything. We saw a presentation, and watched a rehearsal of their chamber orchestra (my brother came along), and we saw the dorms. The dorms are the queerest (as in odd, not gay) buildings I have ever seen in my life. They have this one story circular structure surrounded by four, five story protrussions, that are the actual dorm rooms. The rooms and hallways were really small. There's no way in hell you're getting a couch through there. The halls were also weirdly antiseptic. There was nothing on them, they were just blank and white. We went to the theatre building, it's pretty damn cool. We didn't actually get to tour the building, because of a mix up involving BFA auditions. Which I'm going to next week. Anyway, this was the coolest, purplest building I've ever seen. And the theatre program is awesome. They have an honest to goodness Equity company. If I went there, I couid get my card before graduating. Hell yeah. Plus, people like James Gandolfini and the guy who plays Homer Simpson went there. However, due to the dedication of the BFA program, my mother gave me the 'Are you sure you want to major in theatre?', with the intonation of 'we will not allow you to major in theatre, no matter what.' I plan to roundly ignore her, however. Part of this is, of course understandable, because I am essentially doing exactly what my brother, Joe did. He ended up dropping out of school after a year and now is living, unemployed at the moment, in Michigan. So, her concern is justified. I am confident I'm not as much of a slacker as he was, though. Although that's probably not true either.
Elsewhere, I'm going to some kind of scholarship thing at ISU. It should be pretty good. I've heard some good things about the school. That's that.
In today's news, not much happened. Although, I got to see the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre do Macbeth. That was kick ass. I particularly liked the way they expanded Ross and Angus, and made the sweep of the play flow rather well into only 75 minutes. I am disappointed that they didn't decapitate Macbeth in the end, but that was more or less all. I really liked Lady Macbeth's crazy scene, the actress was fantastic here. Also, the banquet where Banquo's ghost comes back was superbly done. They very effectively made Banquo disappear, which gives me ideas for some projects I've been working on, *wink, wink*.
Also, in coming attractions, I am in my school's contest play. That is, a 40 minute cutting of an ordinary play. In our case, its Arthur Miller's Playing for Time. Its about a Jewish women's orchestra in Auschwitz concentration camp during WWII. I play the depraved Doctor Mengele, the Angel of Death. Its a good show, full of tension and sexual innuendo (one of the girls sells herself to the Nazis for sausage, and another pair go lesbian) and questions of morality. I feel we're going to have a good run of it. We have already been doing this for a week, and we've gotten really connected to each other. On the first day, Mr. Calvert asked us all our fears, which he is perfectly serious about implementing, which is why I think this is going to be good. We're going for truth on a deep, impressive scale. If any of you are in the area, we are going to have a show for the public at Waubonsie Valley Auditorium on either the ninth or the tenth, I'll have to get back to yall on that. |
|
|
| College stuff |
[Feb. 11th, 2006|11:28 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  Skippy is almost a college boy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Join the Circus"- Barnum | ] |
I just got back from a scholarship weekend in Iowa. It was a good time. The school is pretty tight nit and fun. Plus, it has a theatre in the round. And they seem obsessed with Sondheim. So that's cool. Anyway, here's what happened.
I got there Friday morning. I went to a couple classes, pretty boring really. Then I had some crappy cafeteria food, and they gave us a panel discussion on various stuff. Anyway, not much interesting happened until after dinner when they introduced us to our hosts. I was staying with this RA named Jake. This is an interesting school. (It's Coe College, btw.) First off, we went over to see one of Jake's friends in the theatre dorms. That's right, an entire building of theatre people. Kick ass. The sixth floor was a mad house I would be proud to be a part of. They had a fort made of furniture and cushions in front of the elevator, and a Halo LAN set up. So we played some Halo, and got our asses handed to us. I met a couple other "prospies", or prospective students, and then we went to see a comedian named Val Kappa. She wasn't very funny. Kinda one of those dry comedians, but without the jokes to make the dry humor work. Then we went to something called Blindspot, which is like a showcase where anyone who wants to can go up and do whatever the hell they want in front of an audience for five minutes. This one girl sang a really bad version of 'There's a fIne, fine line.' It kinda pissed me off. Also, there was a breakdancing battle between two groups of asian exchange students. I was going to get up there and do a really bad version of "My Girlfriend who lives in Canada", but we decided to cut out early and go bowling. At midnight. And so we did. I bowled a 134. It was a good time. We were going to go play pool then, me, Jake, his friend Grant, and Grant's prospy, but the pool tables were in the bar and no one under 21 was allowed in there after 8. And it was midnight. So, we just sat around, watching other people bowl, singing badly to the bowling alley music. There are some sexy women at this school, let me just say that. Also, I got some cake, because it was some guy's birthday. So that was good.
This morning, I went and did my audition for the scholarship (the actual reason I was there), and I think it went alright. They should be giving me a bunch of money at this point.
Oh... Randomness. I was eating dinner at a table with a couple Coe students in the theatre department, and it turns out one of them is from Naperville. She went to Bennet. Not only that, but she actually saw us do Beauty and the Beast, because she's friends with Erin Oschel. Weird coincidences abound once you get into the real world. I definitely did not expect to meet someone who has seen me perform before... at a college in Iowa.
Anyway, this school looks pretty nifty. I think it has definitely supplanted North Central as front runner for college. Partly, that is also due to Mallory telling me that North Central's theatre dept. isn't that useful. Oh well. I still have like three or four schools to visit. And then I actually have to make a decision. |
|
|
| I believe my heart.... It believes in you |
[Jan. 22nd, 2006|08:33 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  Skippy is catnip to the ladies | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Maybe, Katie"- Barenaked Ladies | ] |
Well, it's been a descent week. We sold out our show tonight and we did freaking awesome. The pick up rehearsal was a blast as usual. I think we should sell tickets to that. We would clean up. It's kinda cold in here. My aunt and uncle came down for my show on Saturday. That's really great. I wish my brother could have made it, but that was pretty unlikely from the outset. Tomorrow starts the second semester, so I don't have military history anymore. That kinda sucks, because I will probably have homework in the class I'm getting. It also means I'm not bowling anymore. I like bowling. It's probably the absolute best gym class ever. But, I think I can take it at least once more in the second semester, maybe twice. Something kinda sucky: because of the show, I am not going to be competing in Speech anymore, because the show always overlaps a tournament time. So, my partner, Tony, is kinda pissed because now we can't go to regionals or conference. Also, I'm missing all the Speechy misadventures. Oh well.
Movies: I saw Wedding Crashers last night. It was pretty damn funny. I recommend it. A movie that I 'watched' but didn't see much of this weekend: Tristan and Isolde. That is one long ass movie. The reason I didn't see much of it is probably the best news I've ever had: I have a girlfriend. I saw it with Katie, who I'd been flirting with for a couple of weeks now. It seems she feels the same way about me as I feel about her. Yay for me! It is frankly about bloody time. I didn't want to graduate without having had a girlfriend. And she isn't like any of the other girls. I know her better, she's not ape shit bonkers or just being insincere. So, happy times for me, baby. I have a beautiful girl who actively wants to spend intimate, quality time with me. I hope to God I don't fuck this up. |
|
|
| Another Op'nin' |
[Jan. 13th, 2006|10:52 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  Break a leg, Skippy! | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "If I Can't Love Her"- Beauty and the Beast | ] |
Well, folks, tonight is it. Opening night. And on Friday the Thirteenth, no less. Certainly ominous, definitely not cheering timing. But, it's going to be a great night. Last night was fantastic, and we can only get better. Tomorrow will suck though. I have the show tonight, then the cast party, then I get up at 6 for a speech tournament. Then, after spending all day there, I come home and go back to the show. No sleep this weekend! So, I have high hopes for tonight and for this show. Unlike my last show, this one will probably not suck. So, I'm off. Wish me luck! But don't actually say those two particular words. That would be disatrous. And no one likes disatrous. Also, be sure to avoid Scottish plays. And no whistling. Oh well. |
|
|
| All play and no sleep make Homer something something |
[Jan. 7th, 2006|03:34 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  Skippy...so...awake.... | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Habanera"- Carmen | ] |
Hey all. I just got back from the Drama Club Lock-in. It was a blast! I'm having trouble typing this, because I haven't slept yet. That's right, I stayed up the entire time, and now I'm going insane. I tried to spell 'insane' with an 'x'. What did we do? Let's see... Well we played Movie and TV Scene It. Totally won. Great games. We had a big screen rigged up, and so we played from about the middle of the auditorium. That was cool. We ate pizza. We also played a lot of theatre games. We played Prince of Paris for like an hour. Then we played Bang a couple of times. That's a fun one. It's basically a series of shoot outs. Then, from Who's Line is it Anyway? we played the question game, and the alphabet game, and the Party guests game. One time during the party game, I was Bob Barker, and everyone was dying because I was giving some fairly obvious clues but the guy hosting couldn't think of who I was. And then one of the techies was a guest and he played as Mr. Calvert. It was hilarious. Partially because it was about Three AM when we played that one so everyone was already getting a bit nutty. Then we watched The Incredibles and National Treasure on the big screen. That was pretty cool. I got up partially through the Incredibles to pee, and emerged from a dark, windowless room I had been inhabiting for a good nine hours at that point, only to realize it was light out. Surreal to the max. Anyway, all the girls had gone to sleep and so after the Incredibles it was about a quarter to nine and so the three guys and the three teachers (also guys) just started picking stuff up and waking the girls, who were a little amazed we had stayed up the whole time. I think I'm still awake because I must have had about five or six cokes. And I had been eating pretty much the entire time I was there. I ate an entire bag of tostitos and two bags of popcorn. And a lot of pizza. So now, I can't figure out what to do, because I really should probably sleep, but I have too much energy to stop, And it is getting progressively harder to type this. I'm having to retype the same word over and over again. I think I'lll just go watch t.v. Too many l's . Oh well. |
|
|
| Happy New Year? |
[Jan. 3rd, 2006|11:12 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  Skippy went skiing | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "One Vision"- Queen | ] |
Yep, I'm back, everybody. I had an eventful week. Let's begin towards the beginning, and see where we get from there.
On Wednesday, we left for the airport at like six in the morning. We ended up staying at the airport until ten at night because all the flights we tried to get on were booked solid. We spent the night at a nearby hotel, where I didn't get any sleep because everyone in my family snores. Sadness. So, on thursday, we managed to get a flight, but it still kinda sucked because we were a day short in skiing. So, we skiied for four days. Every single day was beautiful weather, in it's own way. On Saturday, visibility was horrible, which meant there were less people on the slopes. Plus, I had a new experience. I've been in pitch blackness before, but this was the first time I was in pitch whiteness. I was up at 12,000 feet and there was so much snow and mist you could only see white in the sky and there was no vegetation at that altitude so you could only see white below you as well. It was surreal. But very, very cool. So, once again, skiing was pretty much awesome.
I read two books over break, Ishmael and Wicked. Wicked was alright. The author really didn't answer many of the questions he raised, and hardly gave you the information you would need to answer those questions. It was therefore a little disappointing. Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is a book everyone should read. It will change the way you look at the world. It is about a man who seeks a teacher to help him understand how he can change the world. That teacher turns out to be a gorilla named Ishmael. They have several discussions about how and why society is bringing the world to its doom, and how we could stop it if we wanted. It brings up some interesting ideas, such as an interpretation of the Cain and Abel story that suggests it is actually a wartime propaganda story from when the farmers of the fertile crecent were decimating the Semitic herders of Israel. If you can find it, I strongly suggest that you read it. |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
iammurpheus's journal