Viva La Viv

This past weekend the “ONU Holiday Spectacular” toured to the Lima Civic Center for our second weekend of shows. We had our first weekend at the Freed Center before Thanksgiving break and got a nice week off before going back into tech for the Lima shows. This show is put on every year in Ada and Lima so luckily it is a well-oiled machine. However with live theatre there is always something bound to go wrong. As I mentioned in my previous blogs I was a swing for this show. That means I learned all the female ensemble tracks and was ready to go on for any of them if they were unable to perform. Unfortunately one of the senior girls got very sick during our last dress rehearsal. I got a text at noon on opening night telling me that I had to perform the majority of her track at that night's show. This was very nerve-wracking because her track had a lot of extra things in it including jumping rope while tap dancing, rollerblading and a small group number. Additionally when somebody wit...

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 ...

This summer was a summer for the books. I got to live a lifelong dream of mine by studying abroad. After careful research and help from the lovely people in the ONU Abroad Office, I settled on a monthlong course at Roehampton University in London, England. I study musical theatre at ONU, so the best summer course for me to take was a Shakespeare class that interested me greatly and fulfilled one of my gen ed credits. It was absolutely the right decision. That class allowed me to see two incredible shows at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. I learned so much about theatre in a city that is absolutely filled with it. I also made some great friends from Nevada that I can't wait to connect with again over fall break. They teased me over the summer because I took so many pictures they thought my storage must have been begging for a break. It was an amazing experience and I am so grateful to have had that opportunity. However, as the summer went on, I started to miss my friends back at sc...