So, the show I am working on opens this coming wednesday. It only runs 3 days, but I think it will turn out well, and have an audience! If anyone wants to come, it is Wednesday and Thursday at 8pm, and Friday at 4:15 in MacGowan room 1330 at UCLA. This is the undergraduate one acts. They are free. There are two being performed. The first is called Woyzeck, and then after intermission will be the one I have been working on, States of Shock. It's my Stage Management debut in college, and I'm terrified! This is my chance to get my foot in the door of the department. I don't want to blow it!
As a side note, a summer or so ago I was called OCD. It REALLY bothered me, though I didn't say anything. Then I went to my last production meeting here for the show, and had my page of questions that still needed to be answered. I tried to go through by department and find out the answers, but there were so many things left at loose ends, that it took awhile. Everyone was laughing at me. I apologized, and thanked them for their patience, but wonder... does the fact that I had a list, and went through it make me OCD? Am I OCD, and people are just too nice to tell me? Maybe this is one of my problems that keep others away, and I'm unaware of it. Now I'm going to fret over this for a long time... great. Another tally on my OCD chart.
Ok, so 2 weeks ago I got to go home for the long President's Day weekend. My dad was nice enough to pay for me to drive a rental car home so I wouldn't have to take the same yucky bus/subway/train ride that I normally have to take home. I LOVED getting to drive home, but it took more time than the train, because the dumb rental car people didn't come pick me up until 3 hours after my appointment. I missed traffic, but if they had picked me up when the said they would, I would have missed it on the early side instead of the late side. Grrr!!!
My mom and dad then paid for me to be able to go see The Scarlet Pimpernel at The Lawrence Welk Theater. I had to see a musical this quarter and write a paper on it, so they were kind enough to make that possible. Shannon drove and attended the performance with me. I had never seen the show before, but had heard the music, and liked it a lot. Shannon didn't really care for the performance, but since I had nothing to compare it to, I liked it! Maybe someday I will get to see another performance somewhere else, and then I can get a better gauge on how good the show was. In the meantime, here are a few pictures!
This is the front of the Welk Theater. I thought the music note in the fountain was cute!
I've never really watched Lawrence Welk, so I'm not sure what the giant crystal champagne glass is about. It looks really cool though, and is the first thing you see when you walk into the Lawrence Welk Theater & Museum.
Look! Lawrence Welk himself! The band was apparently running late, but he has his baton up to lead them when they get into places!
This is the statue on the other side of the fountain. What would have been really impressive would have been to have him in the fountain, with water coming out of his baton...
Since I got back from my long weekend, I have mostly been living in MacGowan here at school. It has been fun, but I wish I had more knowledge of how things ACTUALLY work. I know it will come with experience, but I want to know NOW!
Last weekend I got to go to the Geffen Playhouse across from UCLA campus and see Time Stands Still a new play by Donald Margulies. It starred Anna Gunn, David Harbour, Alicia Silverstone and Robin Thomas. What makes it even cooler is that I didn't sit in the audience...nope! I sat in the BOOTH! With the Stage Manager!!! His name is Jimmie McDermott and he was super nice! I got to see the dressing rooms, hang out in the green room, walk the set, go backstage and watch the show being called. Seriously, being behind the scenes is SO MUCH BETTER than just watching. I went to the matinee show, and wish I could have stayed for the evening show as well. It was the highlight of my week!
The low point of my week came right before, and right after my Geffen experience... I wore my blacks to the Geffen, because I figured I would be backstage, and wearing your blacks is a given. (I was the only one there in blacks.) That being said, I decided to wear my tech shoes to the playhouse. My tech shoes are good for walking around the stage and stuff, but not more than that. They are work boots, but I got them at Target, so they are not the greatest of quality. When I wore them for one day at Sea World last summer, I got blisters, but I decided to wear them to the Geffen anyway, and hope for the best...
Bad idea.
I walked the 20 minutes to the Geffen. I was right across the street, and could already feel that my feet were having an issue, when I realized I had forgotten my wallet back in the dorms... I had to go to the bookstore, and had hoped to go before the play, so I had left early. I ended up using my extra time to walk back to the dorms, and get my wallet. This left me no time to go to the bookstore, but got me back to the Geffen right on time, and with very sore feet. I walked all over the theater, and when it was all over, I walked to the grocery store, the bookstore (about a mile south of the playhouse) and the drug store before walking all the way back to the dorms. My feet REALLY hurt when I got back to my room. I took off my shoes, and found 5 blisters. I took a picture of the worse one, but it was on the outside of my foot, so it looks weird. Be warned...
My first ever blood blister! It was painful and GROSS! Here it is a week later...
I have ugly feet. Now it also looks like I have gangrene on my foot. Fabulous. At least it doesn't hurt anymore, just looks yucky.
First item on this year's Christmas List: New tech shoes.
Anyway, 2 more weeks of school, and that's it for winter quarter 2009! I have already gone through my first round of registration for Spring quarter. You are given 2 passes at classes. The first time you register you are only allowed to register for 10 units, and the second time, you can register for everything else. It gives people a chance to get into the more popular classes. I used my first pass to get into Spanish and the crew for the spring musical, Anything Goes. My next pass (Monday) will be my chance to get into my last quarter of theater history (yeah!) and theater design. Until then, I need to go work on my homework, so I can pass this quarter!
I hope everyone has a good week! I will try to post pictures of the show on my blog next week, Toodles!