Hola... as you can see I've temporarily transformed Sunflower Existence into a sort of tour documentation. It's mostly just so I can remember everything that happens, in a strange sort of way.
I've taken pictures but as they're on my big camera I haven't yet hooked it up to the computer. So here's what happened today.
I got Winston to take me (and my big ol' blue luggage, plus a purse, a makeup kit, and a backpack full of books) to midtown via gypsy cab and we arrived at the rehearsal studio where we'd been rehearsing for the past two weeks. The bus was loaded, sad farewells were bid, and we shipped off from New York on a big ol' bus. I read Sophie's World instead of doing homework. But that's typical.
Anyhow, there isn't much to write, but a little after we arrived at our hotel, which is a beautiful old fashioned sort of place, we took a cast trip to Wal Mart for anything we needed. Since we're doing a week long tech here in York, most people bought groceries; mine, of course, consisted of ramen and french bread (among other things.)
I really don't have much to write currently, other than tomorrow we've got a full day of tech, including a rehearsal with the local kids. My roommate for this adventure is Sarah, who plays Glinda/Aunt Em-- she's currently a little under the weather, which she's sleeping off so I have to be quiet as I shower and do homework... wow, this is a boring blog. In other news, I have lots of papers to write.
Love and peace,
-"Dot"
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
The very excellent happy good day
Hello everyone. Today, I didn't really learn anything new about life or myself. It was just a really awesome day and I wanted to talk about it.
Firstly, I had to sing at a luncheon for donors of my university. It was an extremely formal, country-club-esque setting and we got to eat super rich fancy food with hard-to-pronounce cheeses and garnishes, and we were served coffee in porcelain tea cups and stuff. One of those white tablecloth places with five sets of silverware kind of places. I felt like that guy in Titanic when he goes up from the third teir to the first to eat with all the well-to-do socialites.
But it was pretty cool.
And the weather-- god, I hate to be influenced so by external circumstances, but when a day is as beautiful as today was-- a quintessential New York autumn day. Brilliantly sunny, cold, breezy. I finally got to wear a scarf without sweating.
Walking back from the luncheon, I passed my mom's favorite NY scultpure...
...so every time I pass it I take a picture of me there and send it to her.
(I'm not showing you the version with my face in it, because it is hideous. Haha.)
After I got back to school, I sat outside in lovely city hall park for a while and read a book. Then I checked my email, and got super absurdly excited about upcoming events that I had to run to my school's computer lab and furiously type out some response emails. This was when I officially signed the tour contract. So, that's cool.
Afterward, I met up with the boyfriend, and we spent a while lazing about the park in the sunshine...
...and then I went to dance, which was just okay, since it's dance and I kind of hate dancing. But I did make a killer bun. That's big for me. (I suck at doing hair.)
But the day was still mucho happiness.
And yes, this was a completely pointless post. It's self indulgent, dull, and entirely useless to anyone passing along my blog and reading it. But I don't care. 'Cause I had a really good day.
Firstly, I had to sing at a luncheon for donors of my university. It was an extremely formal, country-club-esque setting and we got to eat super rich fancy food with hard-to-pronounce cheeses and garnishes, and we were served coffee in porcelain tea cups and stuff. One of those white tablecloth places with five sets of silverware kind of places. I felt like that guy in Titanic when he goes up from the third teir to the first to eat with all the well-to-do socialites.
But it was pretty cool.
And the weather-- god, I hate to be influenced so by external circumstances, but when a day is as beautiful as today was-- a quintessential New York autumn day. Brilliantly sunny, cold, breezy. I finally got to wear a scarf without sweating.
Walking back from the luncheon, I passed my mom's favorite NY scultpure...
...so every time I pass it I take a picture of me there and send it to her.
(I'm not showing you the version with my face in it, because it is hideous. Haha.)
After I got back to school, I sat outside in lovely city hall park for a while and read a book. Then I checked my email, and got super absurdly excited about upcoming events that I had to run to my school's computer lab and furiously type out some response emails. This was when I officially signed the tour contract. So, that's cool.
Afterward, I met up with the boyfriend, and we spent a while lazing about the park in the sunshine...
...and then I went to dance, which was just okay, since it's dance and I kind of hate dancing. But I did make a killer bun. That's big for me. (I suck at doing hair.)
But the day was still mucho happiness.
And yes, this was a completely pointless post. It's self indulgent, dull, and entirely useless to anyone passing along my blog and reading it. But I don't care. 'Cause I had a really good day.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Tour Contract
Landing a national tour has been, as far as I see it, my first real theatrical success.
I have had a long history of baggage associated with rejection; there's always someone prettier, someone taller, someone who can dance better-- and since high school, being rejected in theater has hurt me more than is really necessary or mentally healthy. It all started with what I consider my most embarrassing failure, junior year of high school.
We were having auditions for the worst musical in all of history, Lil Abner. I didn't even care that it was the worst musical in all of history, because our school only put on one show a year and dammit, this was my time to grab the lead and establish myself firmly as Queen of The High School Theater Scene. Because that would make me Popular and Feared among all the other people, muahaha. (So I staunchly believed)
I was certain to get the lead female role of Daisy Mae. Right?
Then the cast list came out.
I was a nameless chorus girl.
My best friend Kelly saw the cast list first, and in her wonderfully sardonic fashion, disregarded the whole thing as pure idiocy.
I didn't take it so well.
My life was over. I was not established as the Queen of the High School Theater department. No one would look upon me with envy. No one would ever think anything of my skills. They would all go to the girl who was pretter and more popular who landed the role.
I had a wonderful family, wonderful friends, a bright artistic future, and I thought I had nothing to live for because I wasn't the lead hillbilly in a terrible hillbilly musical. That's how out of proportion I was.
The girl who did land the role, as you can guess, was a gorgeous, absurdly thin blonde, and all the little high schoolers went "OOH SHE'S SO TALENTED OMG BROADWAY."
Of course I compared myself to her. I was nowhere near as pretty, or thin, and she really DID look good onstage.
I cursed the director, I cursed the girl who snagged my role, I cursed my luck. Why would these kids praise this girl?! I was the one who had been working in theater since I was six! I was the one who'd been in over forty shows! I was the one who had a professional voice acting job for five years! I'd worked in regional theaters everywhere! Why the hell had casting come down to this, where I was reduced to working with a chorus of ambivalent teens who would never make it in a real acting career like I already had?! I was smug and hurt at the same time.
My failure was tormenting. Daily I wallowed in self hatred and pity and spite for the world.
Still, my failures began to add up. I nurtured my bitterness, let it stew. And even when I went off to college, for every show I didn't get cast in, it would weigh me down, like I was carrying all my rejection in a giant backpack.
But that backpack kept getting bigger every time I didn't get cast.
Freshman year passed and I wasn't cast in All Shook Up, Carousel, or Bare...
...or Spelling Bee, or Quanah, or my 2nd favorite show of all time, City of Angels. In fact, I have only ever been cast in one faculty show, winter of Freshman year when I played the understudy for a workshop musical. (which is a whole nudda story.)
My backpack of self-loathing was quite heavy at this point.
I wish I could say I went through a period of enlightenment, and suddenly became a generous, forgiving person who understood where I needed to improve, but it really got me down. I was so discouraged by all the rejection, by all the ways I needed to improve as a performer, that all I could do was suck it up and audition outside of the city like my director told me to.
And then, after one little non-equity open call for the Wizard of Oz one morning, I got a callback for a dance call.
Then I went to that dance call. Got another callback.
Went to that callback. Sang some more. Well, this is nice, I thought, but with my history of rejection, it's not gonna go anywhere.
Then I got another callback. This time for the producer.
And then...
I got a call from the casting company saying I had been picked to play Dorothy in next year's tour.
I think it was the fact that I finally had to accept my defeat-- since my "defeats" weren't really defeats, they were just, well, other people being more right for a role than me.
So all I needed to do was suck it up.
I guess the lesson here is: there will always be someone better for a role, until there isn't, and then that's your turn. But you have to wait your turn.
The other lesson is that high school theater sucks, but don't worry, life just gets exponentially better after high school is over.
I have had a long history of baggage associated with rejection; there's always someone prettier, someone taller, someone who can dance better-- and since high school, being rejected in theater has hurt me more than is really necessary or mentally healthy. It all started with what I consider my most embarrassing failure, junior year of high school.
We were having auditions for the worst musical in all of history, Lil Abner. I didn't even care that it was the worst musical in all of history, because our school only put on one show a year and dammit, this was my time to grab the lead and establish myself firmly as Queen of The High School Theater Scene. Because that would make me Popular and Feared among all the other people, muahaha. (So I staunchly believed)
I was certain to get the lead female role of Daisy Mae. Right?
Then the cast list came out.
I was a nameless chorus girl.
My best friend Kelly saw the cast list first, and in her wonderfully sardonic fashion, disregarded the whole thing as pure idiocy.
I didn't take it so well.
My life was over. I was not established as the Queen of the High School Theater department. No one would look upon me with envy. No one would ever think anything of my skills. They would all go to the girl who was pretter and more popular who landed the role.
I had a wonderful family, wonderful friends, a bright artistic future, and I thought I had nothing to live for because I wasn't the lead hillbilly in a terrible hillbilly musical. That's how out of proportion I was.The girl who did land the role, as you can guess, was a gorgeous, absurdly thin blonde, and all the little high schoolers went "OOH SHE'S SO TALENTED OMG BROADWAY."
Of course I compared myself to her. I was nowhere near as pretty, or thin, and she really DID look good onstage.
I cursed the director, I cursed the girl who snagged my role, I cursed my luck. Why would these kids praise this girl?! I was the one who had been working in theater since I was six! I was the one who'd been in over forty shows! I was the one who had a professional voice acting job for five years! I'd worked in regional theaters everywhere! Why the hell had casting come down to this, where I was reduced to working with a chorus of ambivalent teens who would never make it in a real acting career like I already had?! I was smug and hurt at the same time.My failure was tormenting. Daily I wallowed in self hatred and pity and spite for the world.
Still, my failures began to add up. I nurtured my bitterness, let it stew. And even when I went off to college, for every show I didn't get cast in, it would weigh me down, like I was carrying all my rejection in a giant backpack.
But that backpack kept getting bigger every time I didn't get cast.
Freshman year passed and I wasn't cast in All Shook Up, Carousel, or Bare...
...or Spelling Bee, or Quanah, or my 2nd favorite show of all time, City of Angels. In fact, I have only ever been cast in one faculty show, winter of Freshman year when I played the understudy for a workshop musical. (which is a whole nudda story.)My backpack of self-loathing was quite heavy at this point.
I wish I could say I went through a period of enlightenment, and suddenly became a generous, forgiving person who understood where I needed to improve, but it really got me down. I was so discouraged by all the rejection, by all the ways I needed to improve as a performer, that all I could do was suck it up and audition outside of the city like my director told me to.
And then, after one little non-equity open call for the Wizard of Oz one morning, I got a callback for a dance call.
Then I went to that dance call. Got another callback.
Went to that callback. Sang some more. Well, this is nice, I thought, but with my history of rejection, it's not gonna go anywhere.
Then I got another callback. This time for the producer.
And then...
I got a call from the casting company saying I had been picked to play Dorothy in next year's tour.I think it was the fact that I finally had to accept my defeat-- since my "defeats" weren't really defeats, they were just, well, other people being more right for a role than me.
So all I needed to do was suck it up.
I guess the lesson here is: there will always be someone better for a role, until there isn't, and then that's your turn. But you have to wait your turn.
The other lesson is that high school theater sucks, but don't worry, life just gets exponentially better after high school is over.
So don't let rejection get you depressed, because something better will eventually turn up and you'll be rewarded.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Being Alone
There is a certain kind of bliss about being all alone. Those who know me may understand that, at times, I'm a very solitary creature. In elementary school, I had a really hard time making friends, so I would spend my hours on the playground by myself, happily swinging or making up songs or reading those Time Warp Trio books (which were the coolest back then.) Freshman year of college, I had this same problem; I was so afraid of befriending my fellow theater majors that I kept to myself, spending my freezing Saturday mornings taking long walks down to Wall Street and back.
Nowadays, I have many friends-- not to mention a wonderful boyfriend, whom I spend most of my time with; he is like my other half, and when we aren't in class, you can always expect us to be somewhere together, out exploring Chinatown or playing Halo at home.
But sometimes, when waiting for him to get out of class or work, I find myself alone again, like I used to be. And those times are happy too.
Being alone, satisfactorily, is a really useful skill to cultivate. Many people struggle with being alone but it's something I've really come to love and appreciate. However, there are differences between my alone self and my public self.
The first thing I've noticed is that when I'm alone, I eat better. For some reason being around friends makes me want to eat a ton of junk food.
But when I'm alone, I think things through carefully and don't indulge myself. Also, I really do like mashed potatoes better than cheese fries.
So what is it about friends that make me want cheese fries? It's like they're bringing out my crazy side.
Also, being alone, I come to a sense of peace, reading and thinking...
While in a large group or at school, I return to my normal state of awkward explosion mess.
So, for a lot of people, being alone is weird or awkward. For me, LIFE is weird and awkward.
Gotta go to class-- but afterward, I'm gonna hang out with Winston. It's my favorite thing-- it's even better than being alone. It isn't quite so lonesome. :)
Nowadays, I have many friends-- not to mention a wonderful boyfriend, whom I spend most of my time with; he is like my other half, and when we aren't in class, you can always expect us to be somewhere together, out exploring Chinatown or playing Halo at home.
But sometimes, when waiting for him to get out of class or work, I find myself alone again, like I used to be. And those times are happy too.
Being alone, satisfactorily, is a really useful skill to cultivate. Many people struggle with being alone but it's something I've really come to love and appreciate. However, there are differences between my alone self and my public self.
The first thing I've noticed is that when I'm alone, I eat better. For some reason being around friends makes me want to eat a ton of junk food.
But when I'm alone, I think things through carefully and don't indulge myself. Also, I really do like mashed potatoes better than cheese fries.
So what is it about friends that make me want cheese fries? It's like they're bringing out my crazy side.Also, being alone, I come to a sense of peace, reading and thinking...
While in a large group or at school, I return to my normal state of awkward explosion mess.
So, for a lot of people, being alone is weird or awkward. For me, LIFE is weird and awkward.
Gotta go to class-- but afterward, I'm gonna hang out with Winston. It's my favorite thing-- it's even better than being alone. It isn't quite so lonesome. :)
Monday, September 6, 2010
A temporary test
I am at the apple store in Southlake, testing out blogging on the iPad. Verdict thus far? My only issue seems to be making capital letters. I wish they had an autocorrect for that. In other news, I'm really excited about Portal 2. Ok, I'll write more later on a real computer. Do you think I could take this on tour instead of a laptop? Then I wouldn't need a new Internet card :P
Friday, August 27, 2010
Harry Potter Books, in summary
This summer, I vowed to do something I never had before: read all of the Harry Potter series.
I'm currently on the sixth, even though I basically know what happens throughout the end.
So, here is a brief summary of the books as opposed to the movies:
1. SORCERERS STONE- Harry escapes a bad life and enters a cool one. Little kids swoon with envy. Insert storyline of "chosen boy" like in Star Wars and every other fantasy story existant.
2. CHAMBER OF SECRETS- They make friends and fight monsters! BEST FRIENDS FOREVER.
3. PRISONER OF AZKABAN- We meet the two most attractive characters in all of literary history, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, who have a questionably close relationship with one another. (Delightfully so, of course.)
4. GOBLET OF FIRE- Cedric Diggory dies, but reincarnates as a sparkly vampire in another movie series, so it's okay. Then Japanese women make body pillows shaped like him.
5. ORDER OF THE PHOENIX- Harry whines because no one understands him. (Well, he IS fifteen...)
6. HALF BLOOD PRINCE- Ron whines about Harry being popular and Hermoine whines that no one likes her, which is true.
7. DEATHLY HALLOWS- Harry wins. JK Rowling rakes in millions.
The end.
I'm currently on the sixth, even though I basically know what happens throughout the end.
So, here is a brief summary of the books as opposed to the movies:
THE HARRY POTTER BOOKS IN TEN SECONDS
1. SORCERERS STONE- Harry escapes a bad life and enters a cool one. Little kids swoon with envy. Insert storyline of "chosen boy" like in Star Wars and every other fantasy story existant.
2. CHAMBER OF SECRETS- They make friends and fight monsters! BEST FRIENDS FOREVER.
3. PRISONER OF AZKABAN- We meet the two most attractive characters in all of literary history, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, who have a questionably close relationship with one another. (Delightfully so, of course.)
4. GOBLET OF FIRE- Cedric Diggory dies, but reincarnates as a sparkly vampire in another movie series, so it's okay. Then Japanese women make body pillows shaped like him.
5. ORDER OF THE PHOENIX- Harry whines because no one understands him. (Well, he IS fifteen...)
6. HALF BLOOD PRINCE- Ron whines about Harry being popular and Hermoine whines that no one likes her, which is true.
7. DEATHLY HALLOWS- Harry wins. JK Rowling rakes in millions.
The end.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Beach Day
Last week, me and the Chinese family took a trip to Long Island, to the beach at Robert Moses park. The day was a little cloudy, windy, and the water was freezing, but overall it's a lovely beach and I'd like to go back (when the water isn't sub-zero)
In the car, a very grumpy QiQi (pronounced Chee-Chee) is woken up from her nap.
She demands to play with the iPhone! Now!
From left: Adeline (who's going to Yale this fall), Qi Qi Hidalgo, and Jennifer, Winston's sister and Qi Qi's mommy.
It wasn't too crowded and the waves were really big!
Like, "oh shit" big.
I got knocked down a bunch of times.
Wins + beach = happy.
Happy feets.
Qi Qi approves of this beach. Almost.
Jennifer, Lena, and Qi
Emily the epically awesome
You almost got it there, Qi. Keep on truckin'.
In the car, a very grumpy QiQi (pronounced Chee-Chee) is woken up from her nap.
She demands to play with the iPhone! Now!
From left: Adeline (who's going to Yale this fall), Qi Qi Hidalgo, and Jennifer, Winston's sister and Qi Qi's mommy.
It wasn't too crowded and the waves were really big!
Like, "oh shit" big.I got knocked down a bunch of times.
Wins + beach = happy.
Happy feets.
Qi Qi approves of this beach. Almost.
Jennifer, Lena, and Qi
Emily the epically awesome
You almost got it there, Qi. Keep on truckin'.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)