Before I got to BW this fall I had something akin to a laundry list of things I had to do:

•Memorize Colline’s part in La Boheme
•Choose, practice, and memorize 2 songs for Rent auditions
• Transcribe one of them into a readable piano part, because no sheet music for Radiohead’s
“Just” exists.
•Choose, practice, memorize, and type out 2 monologues
•Memorize a scene for Candice Perdan’s directing final
•Choose and practice two songs for classical guitar lessons
•Arrange to buy an acoustic guitar on Craigslist (tomorrow, in Kent)

So it’s been a little overwhelming and not all of it is… done. Rent auditions are tonight, which will be a load off, but other than that, most things are still pending. At least they couldn’t make me do all of it today…. right?

So my shows at Nebraska Shakespeare Festival just closed, so I thought I’d blog again for fun!

Overall, it was a great experience and I definitely have BW to thank for being able to do it. It was a 7 week process with actors and directors from all over America (and a Juliet from the Philippines, who was totally awesome). And it’s always nice to be paid for something you used to do just for fun.

Now I’m just relaxing at home, planning road trips, sleeping a lot, and enjoying myself! I’m kind of excited to get back to school, but I’m enjoying my free time too.

This year is. It’s an interesting feeling, when you get to think about it in between running around in circles screaming your head off about finals. There are some beautiful, beautiful days outside now.

Freshman year has just flown by. It seems like yesterday that I was meeting Natalia, Joe, and Ciara at orientation, and my first classes started, and I can still remember getting lost in the midst of all the unfamiliar buildings with names I didn’t know yet, and climbing the steps of Dietsch last semester to get to English. It all feels like it was yesterday. But doesn’t everything in retrospect?

Times at BW aren’t always as intense. Sometimes, you can sit back for an hour at the end of the year and eat a nice relaxed lunch with fellow bloggers and friends, and take ridiculous photobooth pictures while eating spicy chicken strips and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Ps. The PB&Js at Lang are out of this world. They do imitate them in the main union but there just isn’t the same amount of love. Love makes all the difference. Love is all you need. Write it down.

Sam and I, warping our faces.

Is going so well! I’m learning so much from the whole process. It’s great, because the role is so in my type that it gives me practice at being a neutral leading man, and all the physicalities that go along with that. Scott Plate is helping me loosen up into that posture, et cetera, and is teaching me how to keep it interesting, even if the action seems low-stakes for me.

Other than that, not a whole lot special has been going on! It’s been about 4 hour rehearsals a night (tomorrow I get a five-hour one haha), which is busy, but SO fulfilling after not being in anything all year. Life is going well, readers!

Yesterday was the culmination of 4 years of work by the 13 Music Theatre seniors: Showcase.

For those of you who don’t know, showcase is perhaps THE most important thing BW offers to the MTs. It is a streamlined, colorful show that displays to the highest degree possible the talent of each of the seniors, which they perform here and then take to New York City, where it is watched by an auditorium full of agents and casting directors who then decide who they would like to call back for interviews. more than 90% will then have agents before they move to the city in May.

It was incredible. Every person shined in their own way; one of Vicky’s greatest abilities is to help them choose the pieces that will set them apart from the crowd, and from each other. There was belting, there was dancing, there was legit soprano and comedic scatting, but above all there was a sense of culmination and unity in their performances.

That’ll be me in 3 years.

This monday were auditions for the principal roles in La Boheme, and I decided that I was going to go for the part of Colline. And, after a 3-day audition process with two days of callbacks, I ended up with the part!

I had been surprised I even got as far as callbacks, but they must have seen something I didn’t! I was double-cast in the role with Jonathan Cooper, who is a sophomore Vocal Performance major, and a fantastic singer. They’ve brought in an incredible music director, Constantine Kitsopoulos, who actually directed the music and conducted for La Boheme when it was on Broadway in 2002, as well as other Broadway shows and operas. There’s an article here: http://cleveland.broadwayworld.com/printcolumn.cfm?id=82247 which is incidentally the first site that pops up if you type in “Constantine Boheme” on Google. Awesome. BW is a great place.

Last week the campus came alive. It was like Yoshi’s Story, where they open the book and there’s all this crazy stuff going on inside. Yeah, that.

It was so warm and sunny that I think people spontaneously exited any building they were in, because EVERYONE was outside. There were people on every tennis court, blankets stretched out on the grass, people eating on the tables on the union lawn… it was lovely. I did participate in all of the above, as well.

Today, however, it is thunderstorming, and nearly freezing. Que será será. I had a good day anyway.

I got one of the best phone calls of my life today. I’ll explain.

Today I was offered a contract with the Nebraska Shakespeare Festival! This may not sound like a big deal (Nebraska, who cares, it’s just a festival). But! It’s a huge deal for an actor to get work, especially well-paying work in his hometown that also gets him EMC points!

EMC stands for Equity Membership Candidate, which is a very good thing. Once you get 50, you become Equity, which means employers have to follow certain rulesets for rehearsing, paying, and employing you in general. Also, you get precedence on auditions in New York, as opposed to waiting in line for hours on end. However, you can reap a lot of benefits just by having points at all. EMC people still get a certain degree of precedence for auditions, and have some other perks as well. It’s a nice thing, and I really wanted it before auditions for summer stock shows second semester of next year.

I want to give a special shout-out to Scott Plate, who helped me prepare for this audition like crazy, came up with the idea for me to go do it, and supported me throughout! And to Anna Maria for increasing my dance ability for that dance call… I owe a lot to the one and a half semesters I have here already, and it just makes me so excited to see where I’ll be in 4 years!

This week has been what we in the business like to call a train wreck.

Every day it has managed to be nonstop from when classes start to about 9 at night. Classes usually start at 8 am.

Not to mention that I never sleep until 2 in the morning for whatever reason happens to want to kill me on any given night. Sometimes I’m actually too tired to get ready for bed. As my APUSH teacher would have told me in high school: “LAME and PATHETIC”

But seriously, this semester in general has been killing me softly and subtly as it went. For some reason I’ve decided that midnight is no longer late, and my sleep cycle is progressing from “human” to “bat” at an alarming rate. Soon I’ll be eating bugs and getting to class by echolocation.

And now, I am home. Yes. I will, in fact, sleep til 11. I will, in fact, enjoy my life. I will not think about classes. I will not think about any unfortunate BW social situations. Well. I’ll try. I may, however, practice some music. I’m not on strike or anything. Yet.

Goodnight readers. Have a lovely break. With time on my hands, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you. Or rather, you’ll be seeing me. Or rather, you’ll be seeing the pieces of data that I altered and added to on this site.

Now that’s what I call the digital age.