Viva La Viv

As a musical theatre major at ONU the grind never stops. On Sunday the company of the “ONU Holiday Spectacular” completed their final weekend of shows. This was a crazy weekend and an amazing way to say goodbye to such a beloved process. Monday night we had our annual end-of-semester gathering to say goodbye to everyone. This party is always super interesting because the requirement for coming is that everyone has to bring a dip! If you don't bring a dip you don't get to eat. People bring all sorts of crazy concoctions but they all end up being edible and usually very good. My roommate and I always bring a dip we call “Puddin’ Thang” which is essentially just pudding and whipped cream. On Tuesday we started the weeklong process of auditioning for next semester's shows. This always takes place during dead week of every semester. Unfortunately for us that takes away from the relaxing aspect that is usually associated with dead week. Our first night of auditions was the first ...

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...

With opening night tomorrow I can’t help but feel that I am perpetually in tech week. There were four productions this semester and I participated in three of them. I feel constantly exhausted. It feels like it's been months since I’ve gotten the proper amount of sleep to sustain the lifestyle of a musical theatre major. I am extremely excited about Thanksgiving break because it means I might finally catch my breath. Of course I am also excited to see my parents again since I haven't been home since the summer. I think a big hug from them might solve most of my problems. We are flying to Kansas to see my grandma so I’m hoping the week is relaxing enough to rejuvenate me. Immediately after we get back from break we dive into tech week for the second weekend of shows in Lima. These rehearsals are especially exhausting because they include travel time to Lima as well. The nights are sure to be extremely long and sleep will be hard to find.  Nonetheless I am so excited to open this...

Being a swing for the “ONU Holiday Spectacular” has been the most challenging and rewarding thing I have ever done. A swing is someone who learns multiple tracks in a show and is prepared to perform them with little notice if one of the original actors cannot. For this show I swing all of the female ensemble roles. This is around 15 tracks. It can be very challenging to know everyone’s choreography and their specific placements for every number. Each girl has a different partner and lifts that I am supposed to know how to do. I am also in the ensemble for this show so I need to know all of this and my own track as well. I have been spending a lot of time practicing in case I need to go on. Yesterday I got a text from the stage manager telling me to be ready to perform the entire track of one of the senior girls at that night's rehearsal. She has a few extra things in her track including a tap section and a few solos. I spent all day studying the track and learning the tap. It was v...

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...

As a student with a difficult major and three minors, I have to take many classes. Most of the time my brain feels overwhelmed with different types of information from each class. Every once in a while these classes collide and give my brain a break. This has happened so much this past week that I knew I had to write about it. The first instance of this was with Arts Marketing and Principles of Social Media. Both of these classes have been teaching SMART objectives and SWOT analysis. In Arts Marketing we are all responsible for the marketing of one of our spring productions. We are still in the beginning stages so we are focusing on objectives and strategies. I have found this especially interesting because I am in charge of this year's big-ticket show . “Hello, Dolly!” is a classic and respected musical so the marketing of it is intricate. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I want to approach it. In Principles of Social Media, we are talking about the same topic but on...

For the past two weeks, I have been stage managing ONU’s production of  “Commedia dell’Arte.” This production is a short workshop led by a guest director from Italy. Fabrizio Paladin, a highly respected actor, playwright, director and musician with expertise in improvisation, is good friends with ONU faculty member James Savage who lovingly describes him as an “Italian tornado”. So far I have loved learning from and working with Fabrizio. He is kind and hilarious but also extremely passionate and wise. Even though I am not a member of the cast I already feel like I have learned so much from him. I am grateful to have this experience and to learn from such a knowledgeable person.  “Commedia dell’Arte” was the start of modern theatre and show business. It helped globalize historical language through performance. It is a theater method that includes all styles and genres. This particular version was written by Fabrizio. It follows a servant named Zagna who accidentally delivers a...

This week I got to experience a form of social media that I never thought I would explore. Matt Cook and I partnered up for this podcasting project and lovingly named it “Trash Talk.” We have a close friend in our program who has run the Instagram account for the Theatre Arts Department for the past three years. Her name is Katja Roberts and she is currently a senior musical theatre major with a social media minor. I have always been impressed with the quality of content Katja creates and the number of people she reaches. Because of this, we decided that Katja was the perfect person to interview for our podcast. All three of us are currently in rehearsals for different productions so we met at 10 p.m. one night this week to film. Matt and I had previously made a list of about 15 questions that we thought would allow for thoughtful answers from Katja. Those questions were: Briefly introduce yourself and what you do here at ONU.  What interested you in the position of social media ma...

One thing I love about the Musical Theatre program at ONU is they make sure their students are well-rounded in the arts. One way they do this is by requiring an ASM credit to graduate. An ASM is an assistant stage manager for any ONU production. You can receive this credit by fully stage managing as well. This semester I am receiving my third ASM credit for stage managing our production of “Commedia dell'arte”. Many people in my program have asked me why I would continue to collect ASM credits when I no longer need them. Honestly, I really enjoy it! While I of course love to be onstage performing, I've found that I also love the offstage aspect of theatre. I have always been a fan of organization and routines so being in charge of a show fits well into my interests.  Last night was our first rehearsal. We have an Italian guest director here and he was really great. It was an educational experience witnessing my peers making art from a new perspective. Thankfully I felt well pre...

I am a sophomore musical theatre major at ONU and sometimes it can be a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, only some of my classes are academically challenging. On the other hand, my major has an extremely rigorous time commitment. From the first day of school, I've been in rehearsals almost every night. I've been learning new songs and memorizing lines for a show that plans to go up with less than two weeks of rehearsal. This particular show is exciting because it is different from your typical ONU production. It's what is called a director's lab. A director's lab is a show that is entirely put on by a student director. In this case, our show was also written and choreographed by that same student. Due to this, it is a very different experience and a larger time commitment than I am used to. Another thing we've jumped right into is auditions. This week is our second week of classes and our big audition week. “The ONU Holiday Spectacular” is the Christmas sh...