What am I up to these days? Scroll down and see!
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Auditions
I just had two auditions. One for Lagoon and one for "Revengers" at Off Broadway Theatre in Salt Lake. I am so glad that the two audition locations were three minutes apart!
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
High School Musical
Last night was the closing night of the most successful production that I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of.
I had just graduated in December, and had been told by Stephanie White that there may be a job opportunity with the conservatory.
I contacted Stefan Espinosa, the Conservatory Supervisor, in mid December to ask about jobs. He emailed back immediately asking for a resume and I obliged. After a few weeks with no word from him, I recieved an email telling me that, most unfortunately, there was not an opportunity for me that quarter, but that there was a show that he wanted to work with me on, "High School Musical". He asked me to come in as the assistant director and, after working my schedule to fit, I accepted.
The first day was nerve wracking as I had never worked as an assistant director before and didn't know what was expected of me. I had talked to Stefan earlier that day to go over preliminary set drawings, but I still wasn't clear on what I was supposed to do. When I walked into the rehearsal hall for the first read-through and saw the size of the cast, I started freaking out. There were simply more people in that room than I had ever worked with before.
The first few weeks of rehearsal were more of a learning experience for me than hands on directing. It gave me an idea of what the direction of the show was and how the blocking would turn out. I would point out blocking that I thought looked awkward after rehearsal, and Stefan would take that feedback and use it or lose it. One of my designs actually made it into the show, albeit for a different scene, but I still count it as a win.
In the third week of rehearsal I was given the job of coming up with a set of projections for each of the scenes. It was difficult to compile everything and come up with a design that Stefan would approve of at first, but I eventually got there and hammered out a total of forty-three separate projections that all had to be built from scratch.
Once I had the projections pretty much done, I set out with the intent of giving these kids some quick fixes for their scenes. I quickly learned that the way I learn things does not work at this level and had to get creative. It was during a scene that I was told to rehearse, but for which I only had about half of the kids necessary, that I stumbled across my first breakthrough. It was a scene where high school kids are pretending to be animals. I couldn't do what I was told, so I had the kids act like animals with no context. It was very enjoyable for them (at least they looked like they were having fun) and really helped with their character development.
One of the other things that I stumbled across was a quick and easy way to learn projection. Out of desperation I asked the kids to talk as if they were speaking to a class of sixty students. To my surprise, that worked much better than the technical explanation of the act of projection.
Due to the quality of the show, we sold out all three originally planned performances and the last performance sold out within nine hours.
My favorite experience was watching the amount of growth throughout rehearsals and performances, and knowing that I helped to make that growth happen. I no longer view some of these kids as kids, but rather as young adults. I am grateful to the Utah Festival Opera Conservatory for affording me this opportunity and hope I will get to work with these actors and actresses again soon.
I had just graduated in December, and had been told by Stephanie White that there may be a job opportunity with the conservatory.
I contacted Stefan Espinosa, the Conservatory Supervisor, in mid December to ask about jobs. He emailed back immediately asking for a resume and I obliged. After a few weeks with no word from him, I recieved an email telling me that, most unfortunately, there was not an opportunity for me that quarter, but that there was a show that he wanted to work with me on, "High School Musical". He asked me to come in as the assistant director and, after working my schedule to fit, I accepted.
The first day was nerve wracking as I had never worked as an assistant director before and didn't know what was expected of me. I had talked to Stefan earlier that day to go over preliminary set drawings, but I still wasn't clear on what I was supposed to do. When I walked into the rehearsal hall for the first read-through and saw the size of the cast, I started freaking out. There were simply more people in that room than I had ever worked with before.
The first few weeks of rehearsal were more of a learning experience for me than hands on directing. It gave me an idea of what the direction of the show was and how the blocking would turn out. I would point out blocking that I thought looked awkward after rehearsal, and Stefan would take that feedback and use it or lose it. One of my designs actually made it into the show, albeit for a different scene, but I still count it as a win.
In the third week of rehearsal I was given the job of coming up with a set of projections for each of the scenes. It was difficult to compile everything and come up with a design that Stefan would approve of at first, but I eventually got there and hammered out a total of forty-three separate projections that all had to be built from scratch.
Once I had the projections pretty much done, I set out with the intent of giving these kids some quick fixes for their scenes. I quickly learned that the way I learn things does not work at this level and had to get creative. It was during a scene that I was told to rehearse, but for which I only had about half of the kids necessary, that I stumbled across my first breakthrough. It was a scene where high school kids are pretending to be animals. I couldn't do what I was told, so I had the kids act like animals with no context. It was very enjoyable for them (at least they looked like they were having fun) and really helped with their character development.
One of the other things that I stumbled across was a quick and easy way to learn projection. Out of desperation I asked the kids to talk as if they were speaking to a class of sixty students. To my surprise, that worked much better than the technical explanation of the act of projection.
Due to the quality of the show, we sold out all three originally planned performances and the last performance sold out within nine hours.
My favorite experience was watching the amount of growth throughout rehearsals and performances, and knowing that I helped to make that growth happen. I no longer view some of these kids as kids, but rather as young adults. I am grateful to the Utah Festival Opera Conservatory for affording me this opportunity and hope I will get to work with these actors and actresses again soon.
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