Viva La Viv

I have wanted to be in the “ONU Holiday Spectacular” for as long as I have attended ONU. This week I finally got to live that dream! We started music rehearsals two nights ago. These rehearsals can be pretty hectic because we do this show every year. This means that most of the older students know the music already and the younger students are trying to catch up. There is a lot of music to learn and we move through it very quickly because we only have 16 rehearsals before we perform. Tonight is only our third rehearsal and we are already moving on from music and starting the dances. Almost all of the dancing in this show is partner dancing which makes for a very fun rehearsal environment. Last year I did crew so I got to feel this cheery energy from the outside. This show puts everyone in such a good mood. It is done every year so the first week of rehearsals is everyone's cue to get in the holiday spirit.  Another thing that adds to the joy of this show is the child cast. We have ...

While I was completing this week’s Pinterest assignment one of the concepts I wrote about stood out to me. This concept was the idea of a strong personal brand. We studied this in Chapter 2 of our textbook but I think it is something I should elaborate on. As a musical theatre major this concept is very important to my success in the professional world. In this industry everyone is essentially running their own small business. When I walk into an audition room I need to make sure I am marketing myself correctly for the role I want. The whole package I bring into the room has to be consistent. This includes the song I sing, what I wear and the headshot I present. All of these things add up to the brand I have chosen for this particular audition. This brand is so specific that it changes from one audition to another. Much of what we are learning right now is how to identify where we fit. For example I currently fit well in a young and innocent role. That’s why I’m choosing most of my rep...

This past week has been tech week for “Ride the Cyclone” at ONU. Tech week is the week before a show opens where the technical elements are added. It is known to be an extremely tiring week because it’s officially crunch time. The nights are long and tensions are high. For this show I am one of four follow spots. Follow spots are the people who sit in the grid and move the spotlights around to follow the actors. Thankfully tech week is almost over because the show opens tonight! Tech week started last Wednesday with the designer run. The designer run is the first showing of the show for the whole designer team. This includes the lighting designer, costume designer, sound designer and the student crew. This night is always electric because it's everyone's first time seeing what the cast has worked so hard on.  Then we had two days of break before the real tech started. We moved into the theatre on Saturday. The crew had tech training all morning before we started cue-to-cue that...

Every January I do something to kickstart my year. I make a Pinterest mood board for the upcoming year. This always brings me joy and gets me in a good mindset early on. I believe this is something everyone should add to their resolutions. Here are the foolproof steps I take each year: Step 1: Download and Update Pinterest Every year when I know this is approaching I make sure I have Pinterest downloaded and updated on my phone. I don’t use it much throughout the year so I double-check that it’s ready to go. Step 2: Start Your Search In the search section I start by typing a few words that I want to represent my year. Words like “happiness,” “organization,” “clean” and “healthy” usually give me the results I am looking for. Step 3: Make a Board Next I find a post that I like and pin it to a new board. I title that board “Mood Board for the Year” or something along those lines. Step 4: Pin Your Posts Once my board is created and I have those words in my search I am ready to start. I go ...

When I was 10 years old my parents allowed me to download Snapchat. I was about to go into middle school and I was one of the last people in my grade to get social media. I remember being so excited because I could finally be added to group chats and start snap streaks with my friends. The first few years of my being Snapchat active were bright and shiny. I ran wild with it. I think I made a group chat for every single random group of people I ended up hanging out with.  I have always been the type of person who feels the need to be involved and liked by everyone. This was especially true when I was younger. I had a huge fear of missing out so I would push myself into groups to an almost annoying point. Snapchat helped me feel like I was missing out less. For that reason I grew pretty dependent on it. At the time I absolutely loved this but looking back I don't think it was a good thing. Once I got to high school Snapchat started to take a different turn. I don't know if it was...

This fall break was one I’d been looking forward to for a long time. I finally flew to Nevada to see my friends. Over the summer I studied abroad at the University of Roehampton in London, England. While there I met three girls I now know will be my best friends for life. Their names are Averey, Alexa and Sage. All three of them attend the University of Nevada, Reno. At the end of the summer I bought plane tickets to reunite with them over fall break.  When we met in London we immediately clicked. We all prefer to stick with a smaller group while traveling to stay organized and make the most of the trip. That's why we got along so well. We packed so many adventures into those three weeks. Every day we went to our classes and every night we found a new place to explore or sight to see. It was genuinely an experience of a lifetime. We were also neighbors in our university housing so we did everything together. Leaving them at the end of the summer was bittersweet. I was so excited wh...

As I was reading Chapter 6 this week it mentioned the rebranding of Twitter. This stuck out to me because I still call it Twitter whenever I talk about it. It's not even something I actively think about. We all referred to it as Twitter while completing our live-tweeting assignment as well. This made me think about how we as a society often get stuck in our ways and refuse to change.  One example of this was when Musical.ly rebranded to TikTok. This change happened in 2018. Most of us use its correct name now but that was not the case when the switch first happened. I remember there being quite an uproar surrounding it with many people swearing they would never use the new name. A larger example of this is the Willis Tower in Chicago. In 2009 the tower’s name was changed from the Sears Tower to the Willis Tower. Many people still haven’t accepted this name change and others don’t even know about it. If you don’t live in or near Chicago you might not have heard of or care about the ...

One of the great things about being a theatre student at ONU is the number of opportunities our school gives us to experience and participate in the arts. One of the things we do consistently is the Cabarets. TAP is ONU’s theatre honors fraternity and they organize these events. Most of the people in my major are TAP members. Twice a semester they send out an emai l announcing the theme of the cabaret and asking participants to send in music. The first 10 people to respond get a spot in the performance. These cabarets are an awesome  part of our program because everyone shows up to support. This semester I got to perform in my first one. The theme was duets and trios. I decided to sing “The I Love You Song” from “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” with my friends Sam and Matt. Usually these cabarets are done at the Cask Room on Main Street but this time it was done in the Bear Cave. This allowed us to add more blocking and we were very excited about that. We spent about t...

Last weekend I left ONU for the first time since the start of the semester. My cousin was getting married and my family and I were all invited. The bride and groom have been together for five years and are very happy together. The bride has even been attending our family ski trips for the past three years. She is a great addition to our family and a good friend. Her family is Serbian so this wedding was an interesting mix of two cultures.  I was unable to attend the ceremony because I was live-tweeting the homecoming parade but I heard about it from my mom. The day started at 10 a.m. at the bride's house where the entire wedding party participated in traditional Serbian rituals. Then the group made the long commute to the Serbian church. My mom says the ceremony was beautiful. The bride wore a lovely dress and all of the bridesmaids were in emerald green. There were quite a few different traditions that took place in the Serbian wedding ceremony so it was fun to hear all about them...

My first time live-tweeting ended up being incredibly fun. As a musical theatre major I don't get many chances to participate in campus activities. I have never been to a football game because they always fall during rehearsals and I can’t join a sorority because the time commitment clashes with my other responsibilities. I am very busy so this lack of school spirit hasn't bothered me much until now.  I attended the parade with two of my friends who are also in my major. We stopped at Starbucks before settling in to watch the parade. It was absolutely packed! I made sure to tweet about that because I was shocked by how many people could fit into a small-town coffee shop. We got our breakfast and found a cute picnic table on Main Street to sit and watch.  One of my favorite things about parades is hearing the music before you can see the band. It felt so nostalgic listening for the sound of the drums coming down the street. I made sure to tweet about that too because it was ver...