nminott’s Blog

Mr. Koller gave us an assignment where we had to select five affirmations and live and work with them for a week.  We were supposed to write them down on a piece of paper and put them in our pockets.

Here are the phrases I chose and how they made me feel each day when I looked at them

“I am a talented person”: I often doubt my own abilities.  I’m not really sure why, but I always put myself down and I don’t usually believe that I am a really talented person. I think that I don’t want to think I’m better than I really am. And I also really most of the time am not satisfied with what I put out and how I sing or act. Some of the time I do like it though…but then I listen to it on a recording and I’m like oooookay, nevermind. I’ll finish this later

“I am a good person and a good artist”

“Creativity is a blessins I accept”

“My creativity blesses others”

“I now share my creativity more openly”

Alcohol, Drugs, Sex, Money, Work, Food, Family, Friends

During class on Monday, we were instructed to write these eight words on a piece of paper and put them all into an envelope and then choose a word out of the envelope with our eyes closed. Once we picked the word, we had to write five ways it has negatively affected our life. We were told to do this seven times. My first word was alcohol. I had no idea what to put down for how it had personally affected me in a negative way because I have never gotten drunk or been in a situation where anyone around me that I knew was drunk or drinking. So, I had to dig deeper to see if there were instances that had affected me like things I had heard or from what my family members or friends had done. So, I came up with watching (not literally) live lives where they party every weekend, or even just occasionally. It makes me so sad to hear about my friends getting wasted – not being in their right state of minds and doing stupid things…and then not even remembering them later. My grandma also struggles with drinking. A lot of our family say she’s an alcoholic but she denies it and says, “I don’t drink that much!”. That has had an affect on me because it was hard for me to watch her forget things and tell stories over and over because the drinking wasn’t helping her memory at all. I have also listened to the conversations my dad and aunts have about her and it worries me about her. It makes me upset that to watch them be upset and watch how they have to deal with it. She has gotten better though, recently, so that’s awesome. I am GLAD to say that there are no personal experiences with drinking that I can speak about.

The next word I drew out of the envelope was sex. Yayyyy, yet another word that has not affected me in a negative way. This time, I reallly couldn’t think of a way that sex had affected my life in a negative way. But, I began to think about previous experiences and they were a lot like the drinking ones. It saddens me to hear about girls who go sleeping around with people they are not even in love with! Hellllloooo! That is why sex was created, to share it with the person you looovvvveeee. Anywayyy, ahaha, I can’t speak from a personal experience once again, so I really don’t know how Mr. Koller expects me to “dig deeper” with this one.

The last word I pulled was family. This one has really, honestly had one of the MOST positive impacts on my life. I have one of the greatest families in the world. My parents are always supportive and always encouraging of the things that I want to do. They let me state my own opinion and then talk the issue out with me. They also have just about the perfect amount of leniency. They let me do most of the things I want to do, but some things they don’t let me do only because they know certain things won’t benefit me or might hurt me. In fact, sometimes I wish they didn’t let me run all over town so I could spend more time with them. Buttt, obviously that’s not their responsibility for me to stay home and spend time with them, so I should make more time to spend with them in the first place. My sister is also ahmazing. She has been a great role model for me and is always there for me when I need advice or to just hang out and be friends. She has set a great example for me to follow. Many people ask me if I get frustrated or annoyed when people ask about her all the time, but I normally don’t. I’m really proud of her for everything she has accomplished and I don’t envy her for any of it. I do get down sometimes, worrying about if I will measure up to her or if I will be compared to her by other people. But I think I am my own person and I can carry myself without worrying about whether or not I’m matching up to everything she has done.

As for money and work, I do believe those can have both negative and positive affects. They can get in the way of important things like family. They can end up becoming someone’s idol or what they live for. Money and work can have a lot of power over a person and can dictate the way they spend their time, they way they live their life, and the way they act toward others. Since I don’t have a job I can say school is my workplace. And school does take up a lot of my time and can cause me to not have time to do all of the things that I want to do. Buuuut, I can also neglect school sometimes for the things that I do want to do and then I stay up late or get a bad grade on a test. Moneyyyy is something I think most people struggle with. Because everywhere I go, I have to pay for something. And since I do not have a job, I use my parents money. By doing this, I haven’t really learned what it is to not have to rely on others for things or to be self sufficient. Food hasn’t really affected my negatively, but boy if I didn’t have a fast metabolism it definitely would, because I eat a lot. I normally just eat whenever I feel like it. I do try to eat healthily most of the time so that’s good. But I probably should watch what I eat more often.

Friends can definitely have a positive and negative affect on a person. I can say that most of my friends have had a positive affect on me because I don’t like to associate myself with people who don’t treat me like a real friend. I try to look for people who will lift me up and make me a better person. I look for people who will challenge me to grow as a person and will show me where I’m making mistakes so that I can fix them. I have, though, been friends with people who have brought me down and haven’t really treated me like a true friend. I have had friends before that were more concerned with themselves and what they wanted than concerning themselves with looking out for my interests as well. Those friendships ended up taking their tolls on me. I am still friends with some of those people because I know they are good people at heart and they really do care about me, but it just has been a frustrating journey with some of them. Some of my other friends have just been plain rude and began to confront me for small “wrong” things I did and I didn’t appreciate being yelled at for things like that. Then there is the aspect of friendship that Alex was talking about in class. She said that friends have a huge impact on your life. The people you hang out with the most will rub off on you and you will no doubt pick up some of their sayings, likes, dislikes, or values. I know for myself that if I hang around someone for too long I tend to act like them sometimes. And it’s not because I’m not my own person or that I am striving to be like that person, it is just because when I hear something so much it sticks in my brain and it just comes out. If I or someone else notice that a trait that I’ve picked up is bad, I try to fix it immediately.

These eight words definitely have their cons. But most of them have pros too. I’m really glad we did this exercise because it got me thinking about some of the “sinful” things that I know I want to stay away from and it got me thinking about a lot of the blessings I have in my life. I know that I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about the blessings, but what am I supposed to do if some of the words are blessings to me rather than deadlies??

Over Spring Break, I went to see Fiddler on the Roof in Naples because my friend, Tyler, was in it. I have to say that I had no idea what it was going to be about when I walked into the theatre. But I realllly enjoyed it! There were a lot of crazy themes in it and it was a lot about the Russian society back when the Czar was changing. Some of it went right over my head and I had no idea until after the show that the fiddler was a symbol for the old traditions in the Jewish town in which the show took place.

The set for the show was really good and quite intricate yet simple, not too much. They used mostly browns and earth tones for their set. and it was really cool because they turned their sets around so that it could be used for two different things, kind of like our set was for Sweeney Todd (for real, how many times am I going to reference that show???). The songs and music for this show are challenging. You have to have a good ear to sing the songs because there are so many sharps and flats and they all sound like they are in minor keys. I was really impressed that all of the singers seemed to stay in pitch the majority of the time.

The acting from most of the main characters was really good. The character Model, however was a little too over the top for me. He was supposed to be a nervous wreck all the time but it just seemed like he was overacting and tryyying to be funny. But he wasn’t too bad. The girl, Hodel, has a really awesome voice. I can tell she has had some really great training. She was also a good actress…and Tyler told me she is only a freshman! I think that’s so awesome when people are so talented at a young age. The main character, Tevye, the father, was a very good actor I thought! And that is realllly important for your lead character to be really strong and talented…obviousllly. He really set a high bar for all of the other actors and actresses to live up to. The only other main problem I noticed was the balancing of their mics. In certain songs the harmonies overpowered the melody, so that was very strange. But, their harmonies were gooood, that’s for sure. You could pick up most of them, so that was really cool, too. Because that’s a disappointment when you can’t hear all parts in a song because the melody just drowns the other parts out. I think the overall message of the show was conveyed very well through the actors and I was a pleased audience member.

The last day before Spring Break, in class we read Act I of a random play that Mr. Koller gave to us. It was very boring because the characters were all doctors and all they talked about was tuberculosis and other diseases. Some of it was actually quite grotesque. The whole time we were reading the play we were all wondering why we were reading it. Mr. Koller kept saying, just wait, just wait, it gets better. Still, none of us understood what he was talking about. He finally told us that nothing exciting happens in Act I, so we have to wait till we read Act II…III…and IV!!! How can a show that starts out soooo boring and feel so long already be FOUR acts long?! He told us the play actually gets very funny and that most people who have gone to see it have enjoyed it. We all thought he was ridiculous. But hey, if he is saying this about the show because he has read it and reviews on it, then what reason do we have to not believe him?

He told us to think about it over Spring Break and come back with thoughts on it. But we ARE NOT allowed to look it up. I want to sooo badly! Anyway, while we were still in class and I was bored out of my mind thinking how unentertaining the script was, I got to thinking about it and realized that we were only cold reading and so there were no costumes, sets, lighting, real characters, and obviously it was going to flow slower because we didn’t know the lines. After we were done reading through, we all started talking about how it was such a bore, and Mr. Koller said that same exact thing – that we weren’t on the stage and we were only reading a script so of course we weren’t going to get a real feel for the show. I am actually excited to read the rest of the acts because now since I know the show is actually good and funny I want to know what happens!!

In Steel Magnolias, we only have eight people working on the entire show. We have seven people in our cast and our director. It’s going to be our job to put the set together, as well as learning all of our parts. I have only worked on sets and the technical part of theatre a couple times before. So, this should be an experience…especially with all girls doing it with the help of one man. (The one man did create almost the entire set for Sweeney Todd and that was amazing). I think we can do it though. Because a lot of the set requires a creative eye, which most of us have. It’s probably a good thing that Mr. Riis has girls helping him to design the set. However, when the building comes in, I hope we can all be assets and help him instead of being bums on logs with no muscles haha. Mr. Riis said it should be easy to make…I hope he’s right.

We are going to have only one set for the entire show :/ I really wish we were going to have at least two, because I think it would be much more appealing for the audience and would keep their attention more. BUT! If we do an amazing acting job then the audience shouldn’t have to be concerned with the set. I just hate being stuck in the same set for an entire show…ANNE FRANK!! Every show is different though, so I think that if the set is exceptionally good and it’s really bright and pretty then it will make our show a-ok!

Outside of Theatre class, Mr. Riis held auditions for an all girl play, Steel Magnolias. I kind of jumped into it without considering how much other stuff I already had on my plate. Time management is going to be put to the test these next two months. So far, Steel Magnolias is moving right along and we are all doing pretty well with our lines. Some of them are easy to forget though, so I have to go back and rememorize, joy. It is really fun to be in a show of all girls, but we get distracted really easily, which is not good or beneficial to any of us. It is especially difficult because we are all verrrry talkative, so it’s not like we have one person to keep us under control. I do try to reel everyone in when I know we really need to get down to business (which should be all the time) Mr. Riis also kind of lets us goof off, too. He does tell us to be quiet and I try to respect him because first of all, he is an adult, and second of all, he is in authority over us.

I think the show will be good if we all hunker down and take it seriously. FOCUS is definitely a key part of theatre.  If you are not focused and dedicated 100%, your show will not be as great as you want it to be. I also learned that in Sweeney Todd. When we didn’t focus, we barely got anything done and no one ever improved. It also brought down everyone else who tried to focus. When we did focus, we got so much more done and moved forward. Dedication and perseverance are also so important in any piece of theatre. Dedication goes right along with focus. If you are not dedicated to your show, you won’t work hard at it and you won’t take it seriously. The commitment level has to be very very high or else you won’t get anything done worth showing to an audience. Perseverance is an essential character to possess. This is because if you do not persevere through the rough patches (like struggling with memorizing your lines, getting into character, other people not knowing their lines, or the lights and sound not working) and get frustrated instead, you will mentally psych yourself out and you won’t be able to give it your all because you are too busy stressing over these things. I struggled a lot with that during Sweeney Todd because I thought the music and amount of lines were really overwhelming, annnnd the set wasn’t working, people weren’t getting into character and were goofing off instead, so I got really stressed and overworked myself over some problems that weren’t even my own! So, I learned that I need to have determination and perseverance and not let things get to me, but work them out instead. I also learned that if it’s not my problem, then I don’t need to add extra stress to myself and worry about other people

Sunday in the Park with George…is AMAZIIIIING. But there is no reason it shouldn’t be, because after all, it is written by Stephen Sondheim who is an absolute genius. We watched it in theatre a couple days in a row and I have never seen a show that intricate. The set was made so that you were looking at an entire park. They used perspective – the scenery was painted smaller and smaller so it looked as though things were getting farther and farther away. The costumes were really intricate, too. In one scene, the lead woman, Dot, was modeling for George and had to stand still. She was wearing a dress that excentuated her butt because that was the way women dressed during the time period (1884 in Paris). She began to sing a song, that of which was an aside to the audience. And when she did, the sleeves of her dress released her and the skirt opened so that she walked right out of it! We were all stunned and we thought it was one of the coolest things we had seen on a stage. Now, obviously the dress wasn’t what “made the show”, but it went perfectly along with all of the other aspects of the show. There were many other set pieces, like dogs that came out of the floor, umbrellas that came out of the sky, a frame that outlined the picture that the actors and actresses made to look just like George Seurat’s famous painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”.

The music was also absolutely wonderful. In the song “Sunday in the Park with George”, Dot sings sooo fast and there are so many words fit into a small amount of measures. That right there showed me that the show was defffinitely Sondheim. I also appreciated when the actors correlated their movements in time with the beat. We did some of that in Sweeney. It’s like a trademark of Sondheim’s or something. I also liked how he intertwined some of the songs throughout the show – it’s really cool when a writer does that because it ties the whole show together and it sparks memory of previous songs in the brain of an audience member.

In theatre, everyone involved in a production must work as one body. Each person must be aware of everyone around them and must do their job to the best of their ability while still keeping everyone else in mind. Now of course, you can’t be worried about and stressing over what everyone else is doing because that will not help you achieve what you are supposed to be doing for the show. However, everyone involved in a show must work together as one body so that they are all on the same page and all have the same idea for the “masterpiece”. If just one person slacks, it brings down the rest of the show. Everyone also has to cooperate and get along so that there can be focus and togetherness. Also, what one person does can affect the whole rest of the group. If someone doesn’t feel like working hard one day, it can rub off on the rest of the group. But, it also works the other way, and if one person is really enthusiastic and motivated, they can lift the spirits of the other members of the production and motivate them to work harder.

Withhhhh Anne Frank, we didn’t really work as one body and I think that played a huge role in our disastrous product. We all took it pretty seriously at the beginning and none of us were ho hum about it. But as soon as we saw that it was going downhill, one after another began to mope around and not want to get anything done. So, we all actually played a part in being “the one who doesn’t want to work hard”. I realized that if one of us had really stepped up and said come on guys, we need to do this, that we could have changed our outlook on the play. And yes, maybe not everyone would have joined in our attempt to revive the show, but that’s because some of the people in our class are just lazy…

Anywayyyy, one of the things I learned in Anne Frank was that in a show, EVERYONE needs to work together. And I promised myself that any time I am in a show I will work together with everyone else and I won’t be dead weight bringing everyone else down.

In January, we were assigned the PPP (Practical Performance Proposal). I dreaded doing this project from the very day that it was assigned to us. I think that was just because it was a big project and I didn’t feel like putting the time into it. Oh yeah…and I didn’t understand at all what I was supposed to do!!!! So, I ended up waiting until the very last couple days to work on my PPP, which wasn’t a good idea… but oh well, I got it done and I was pleased with my work at least!! I ended up using the topic of the Planetary System because it was the one that interested me most and made the most sense to me. I brainstormed for a while and thought of a pretty cute idea. I made all nine planets plus the sun into people with characteristics that matched up with the actual characteristics of the planets. I used Pluto as the main character and he was the outcast. This idea came to me because of the whole controversy of Pluto not being a planet anymore. As soon as I thought of it I started researching the planets and found information on all of them and began doing my PPP. I looked online for outfits, thought up and drew a set, wrote out a storyline, and attempted to think about the lighting as if I were really going to put on this show. My final product was really neat and looked very professional and well put together so I was really happy with the work I did.

During the process, I learned that there are a lot of things that go into one production…DUH! I didn’t really learn that, I knew that… it just was a nice reminder. But what I really learned was that a real show would take a different person to create every aspect I was creating because there was just too many intricacies for each part. However, even though there needs to be different heads for each different part, they all have to have the same idea and vision for the show, or else it won’t come together as one in the end. The whole thing is such a CREATIVE process. I mean, I kind of didn’t even feel like I was working on schoolwork because I like to be creative and I like theatre, so it was fun putting it together. I also learned that authors do everything for a purpose. They tie different things together at the beginning of a play, novel, poem, movie, whatever, so that everything connects somehow. It was really awesome for me when I realized that I was doing the same exact thing.

I think it was a great idea to have the juniors do a “Practice PPP” because now we know what to expect for next year and we know how to put it together.

So, back to the beginning of Anne Frank. The auditions were really laid back and I didn’t get as nervous as I normally do. That in itself kind of foreshadowed that Anne Frank wasn’t going to be taken seriously by any one of us. I originally wanted to play the part of Anne, because she was young and just trying to enjoy life. Alex wanted to be Anne, too. I felt bad that the two of us were going for the same part agaaaain and I considered not auditioning for it because I just didn’t want to put her in that position of running against me. Fortunately, neither of us got the part haha. And at first I was disappointed of course because I wasn’t satisfied with the part I got because I didn’t really want to be that character, but in the end I was relieved that I didn’t get the part because I realized I would have had soooo many more lines to memorize haha. I also would have had to kiss Schuyler…and that just would have been weird-no offense to him.

After auditions I also realized that Margot would be a good stretch for me because I am sooo not like Margot – quiet and reserved. As Anne, I would not have had to act as much because I act like her in real life half the time. However, as Margot I was totally out of my comfort zone and I had to put a lot of effort into becoming her.  Not that I ever really even got deep into characterization with Margot. We barely got out of our scripts or really began to explore our characters. And as I’ve said in previous journals, characterization is hugely important.