Hell Week

One of my favorite parts about being in a play or musical is hell week.  I know, that probably sounds horrible because of the name, but despite the excruciatingly long days and sleep deprivation, hell week is so much fun!

If you are not a thespian, the infamous hell week (or tech week) is the week before the show opens.  Rehearsals are much longer (I usually don't get home until 9:30 or 10:00 PM).  It is when pretty much everything is done and you just do full dress rehearsals.  You run through the show as many times as you can before it opens and the director gives you notes.

Hell week is when you spend more time with your director and castmates than with your family.  It is when you spend more time at rehearsal than at home.

I love hell week because I love theatre.  It is fun.  I enjoy the long rehearsals of having fun and spending time with awesome people (because honestly, once you hang out with thespians, normal people just aren't as fun anymore).  I love hell week because you get to see all elements of the show come together to create the show.  All you're doing is touching things up before the finished product goes up in front of an audience.

I love thinking about two months ago, or however long ago you started rehearsals and seeing how far you all have come since then, how much work you've put into this project, how much closer you all have grown by doing this together.  Tomorrow will be exactly two months since our very first rehearsal for Once On This Island, and those two months have just flown by.

I'm a senior this year, and I keep getting sad thinking about these things today.  It is not my last show-- I am in The Diviners at our brother school (because I go to an all-girls school)-- but it is my last musical, my last show with a lot of these people, and my last show with this director, Mr. Bozanich.  He is the best director I know and he has helped me to grow so much in his shows.  I'm extremely grateful that I've gotten to work with him these past few years and had amazing experiences and made unforgettable memories because of him.

Before every single performance, Mr. B tells us three things that I will never forget: watch all your firsts, have big fun, and do something that you can be proud to call good theatre.  Two weeks from today is closing night.  Two weeks from today, I will have heard those words for the last time.

These next two weeks are going to be bittersweet.

I'm alive!

Wow, that's crazy, it's been nearly two and a half months since I last made a blog post!  I have good reason, though: I've been extremely busy lately.  Yes, I will admit that some of that "busy" was actually countless hours of scrolling through Tumblr or reading fanfiction or watching things on Netflix, but most of it was made up of college apps, AP homework, and rehearsals for the spring musical.

I hadn't mentioned yet that I got a part in the spring musical, Once On This Island!  I am a proud member of the ensemble (and if you are familiar with the show, I am a minion of Agwe, the god of water).  No, I did not get the part that I had originally wanted, but I was called back so that made me really happy, and one of my best friends got the part and I am extremely happy for her!  We've been rehearsing daily for a little over a month now, and I just realized that we open one month from today!  When I say just realized, I mean that quite literally-- I looked at the time and noticed the date and we open exactly one month from today; so crazy.  I've been having loads of fun through rehearsals, learning all the music and dances and spending time with some of my closest friends.  It's quite a blast!

Well...that is the most interesting thing that I have been up to lately.  I could bore you with grueling details of doing AP homework or my suffering through all my classes, but I'm sure you don't want to hear that.  I'm just really excited that it is the last semester of my senior year of high school.  I can't wait to go to college.

I promise I will try to post updates a bit more frequently, if I have anything interesting to say! Until next time.

Auditions.

I suppose this wasn't the best year to try NaNoWriMo for the first time, what with AP classes and college apps and all.  I kind of gave up about a week in.  Maybe I'll try again next year.  I'm just not going to talk about college or school right now because that's way too stressful for me to even think about.  Instead, I'll talk about auditions.

Earlier this week, I auditioned for this improv event at my school.  It's basically like the tv show Whose Line Is It Anyway?  For auditions we played a bunch of improvisational games, most of which involved being given a character and a quirk and you have to act it out and have one person try to guess what your character/quirk is.  But there's lots of other things too, like 4 headed musical star, Freeze, etc.  Anyway, there were maybe 20 to 30 people who auditioned for that, and 8 people were chosen and I was one of those 8!  So that's pretty exciting!  I'm glad I'll have something to do after school again until December 9!  Except the problem is I'll need to get a ride to Bosco (where rehearsals will be held).

Also, coming up on December 10, are auditions for my school's musical next semester, Once On This Island.  All the drama kids at my school are really excited for this show, and I am too (well, I'd be included in the 'drama kids' bit because I am one, but nevermind).  It could very well be my last audition for a school play or musical, and I've never done a musical before.  I'm sad, nervous, and excited at the same time.  The song my director told me to sing is called The Human Heart, and it's for the part of Erzulie.  I really want the part of Erzulie.  Like, I've never wanted a part this badly before.  I've been practicing singing the song for a few weeks and I'm going to continue to practice until auditions.  At auditions, all I can do is try to kick some ass.

A few weeks ago, I recorded a video of myself singing The Human Heart in preparation for auditions.  If you'd like to see that, you can do so here.  Now, I should probably get back to doing something productive, like cleaning my room, or working on college apps, or practicing my song...  Aimee signing off now.

Books read: I should just take off this counter.  I'll try again next year and see if I can read more books and keep better track of them.

Disneyland trips: 15

Current song: The Human Heart from Once On This Island

Quick Update

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before or not, but I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year.  So far, I'm not doing well.  By today I should be at over 11,000 words but as of right now, I've only just passed 2,500.  So...that's lovely.  I'm going to do word sprints right now.  But if you're doing NaNoWriMo and would like to be my writing buddy, tweet me (@itsaimeepond) or message me on tumblr (aimeelikescheese), because I could use all the help I can get.

Other updates, I'm in the process of applying for colleges right now and it scares the crap out of me.  I think I really want to go to LMU or Chapman and major in screenwriting, but it's really competitive so I might not get in.  I'll just hope for the best, I guess.  So that adds a bit of stress, and school too.  At least I have a five day weekend this week.  (Well, technically it's four days, but on Tuesday I don't have to go to any of my classes because I'm helping out with sophomore retreat).  That will be really nice.

And a little tid bit: I started watching Firefly.  I finished the entire series and the film Serenity in about four days because it's that good.

Now, I shall go do my word sprints and rack up those words before the last day of November.  Wish me luck!

Books read: Um, 25ish? I lost count.
Disneyland trips: 14
Current song: The Modern Leper by Frightened Rabbit

Wow, I actually have free time now!

The last 38 days of my life have been consumed by the school play I was in, Night of the Living Dead.  Yes, the one based on the 1960s film.  I was the part of Judy, and it was so much fun.  We ran for 2 weekends with 6 shows, and 3 of those shows sold out!  That was pretty amazing.  But it did take up a lot of time.

And now that it's over, I have time again.  I have time to do homework, time to go on the computer, time to read, time to watch tv, but most importantly now, time to write.

You know what month is coming up, right?  Do you know what November entails?  Yes, that's right, it's NaNoWriMo!  This year will be my first time participating in National Novel Writing Month, so I'm really excited.  My only problem is that I have 3 ideas, and I'm not quite sure which one to do.  And the funny thing is that all three ideas are in three different genres.  One is fantasy, one is mystery, and the other is like, teen fiction (but the good kind, maybe kind of like John Green if I write it well enough).  I'll probably end up writing the fantasy one because I've had that idea for the longest amount of time, so I have the most ideas for it right now.

If you're participating in NaNoWriMo, let me know! We could be writing buddies!  Oh, also, if you don't know, the goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.  You can go to the website, if you want to register or to find out more.

Also, Halloween is coming up!  I'm going to be Bellatrix Lestrange.  I already have most of the pieces to my costume, and I'm really excited with how it's turning out.  My friend is having a Halloween party on the 29th so hopefully I can go to that, but it's the same day as DTASC and my parents will be out of town, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to.

Here's to a good Halloween and a writing-filled November! Cheers.

I've been really happy lately

Sorry for neglecting this blog lately.  I have been really busy for the last few weeks or so, what with school, Kairos, rehearsal, etc.

Right now, I'm the happiest I've been in a long time, despite being a bit stressed.  I'm worried about college apps, my classes, Night of the Living Dead opening in nine days, and DTASC, but I'm seriously so happy.  I love what I'm spending all my time doing and I love the people I'm spending all my time with.  I've been sitting in the drama room at lunch a lot more often, and I love it in there.  I also just went on Kairos, the senior retreat, a week ago.  I was there with my closest friends and it was an amazing experience.  After that retreat, I feel like a new person and I'm so much happier than I was before.

Like I said before, we are nine days out for Night of the Living Dead.  Things could be going better...  My costume is complete and I'm assuming everyone else's is too, but Mr. B still has to stage my fight with Emily because neither of us have been there on the same day to work on it.  The entire set is outside because my school has bingo in the MPB on Wednesday nights, so we have to take everything down on Tuesday nights, and it's been raining all day.  We covered the platforms with tarps, but there was one where the tarp didn't go all the way down so the rain could have gotten underneath.  Let's just hope that it stops raining when we lug everything back inside tomorrow.

I'm going to be very busy for the next few weeks.  Tomorrow, I have rehearsal until 7:30 PM, and the next day, I have rehearsal until 8.  Then, I'm at school for eight hours on Saturday for rehearsal, and starting Monday, rehearsal goes until 9.  I know I'm going to be very busy, but this is one of my favorite parts of doing a show, so I am excited.

Until next time.

Books read: 22
Disneyland trips: Same as last time. I'm too lazy to check.
Current song: My Love is Like a Star - Demi Lovato

38 Days

I hope you all had a lovely Labor Day weekend!  I didn't enjoy my weekend as much as I would've liked too because I was anxiously anticipating the Night of the Living Dead cast list that was posted this morning, before school.  I said I would tell you what happened when the cast list went up, so here it is: I got the part of Judy!!

Sure, it's not the part I originally wanted, but it's what I was called back for, and it's still considered a principle role, so I'm very excited and extremely happy about this!  First rehearsal was today and it was so much fun!  First day of show season, so everyone was very excited and you could just feel all our energy!  Oh, another thing about my role: it has a stage kiss.  That should be...interesting.  But I'll just not think about it until Mr. B. wants to work on it, which hopefully won't be for a while.

I also found out today that the play opens in 38 days.  I mean, 6 weeks sounds like a lot, but 38 days doesn't.  It seems a bit scary and intimidating, going into this knowing we have only 38 days, but we can do it.  Everyone I know in the cast is fantastic, and those I don't know will probably be great too.  I'm just very much looking forward to these next six weeks!

Books read: 18
Disneyland trips: 13
Current song: Creature Fear - Bon Iver