Les Miserables review

Tonight, I was able to see a production of Les Miserables at Segerstrom Center for the Arts.  It was my first time seeing the entire musical and let me say, it was phenomenal.  However, coming from my old high school's drama department, I do have a bit of a critic in me, so there are a few things I wanted to talk about.

If you do not know what it's about, I'm not going to summarize it because it's very complicated.  I tried to explain the basic plot to my dad but it still took about twenty minutes because there's so many little things that have to be included!  So if you are unfamiliar with the musical, you can read about it on Wikipedia so you can understand the characters and scenes I'm talking about.

Firstly, I'd like to talk about the set and lighting.  As part of the set, they had this screen that they would project onto to show the background or scenery, and in some cases it moved.  Like when Jean Valjean was carrying Marius through the sewers, they had a sewer image projected onto the screen that moved so it looked like he was traveling through the sewers.  I thought that was very cool.

The lights, though, were a bit less than satisfactory.  The overall lighting and color filters they used were good and fit the mood.  However, there were some times where a performer was not in enough light.  I don't know why, but their faces were in shadow.  There was one scene at the beginning with Javert singing and he was the main focus, but if you hadn't been paying attention, you wouldn't have known which person onstage was him because his face was in shadow and he had the same amount of light as everyone else.  Also, the spotlight that was following people sometimes missed and the people would be out of the light for a few seconds.

Now, to discuss the performers.  There's a lot I could say about them, but I will keep it brief.  The man playing Javert was a great actor, but I couldn't understand what he was saying most of the time.  I already knew some of the lyrics to the songs, so I understood those parts, but the parts that I didn't know sounded like gibberish.  He could articulate a little more.  I think that bothered me so much because articulation is one of the most important things we work on at my old school's theatre program.  The audience needs to understand what you are saying.

Eponine was a phenomenal singer, but I don't think her voice was right for the part.  The girl has an incredible voice, but sometimes, the songs would sound a bit awkward with her voice.  She killed the end of On My Own, though.  I was almost in tears because she sounded so wonderful.  Also, her acting wasn't up to par.  I mean, obviously Eponine would be a difficult character to play, and she did a decent job, but I don't think she really thought about the different layers that went into her character.  She was good, but she could have done a much better job.

I also didn't hate Cosette as much as I thought I would.  I know that there are a lot of people who don't like Cosette, and I'm not quite sure why.  She isn't a bad character.  I think it's mostly because people feel bad for Eponine, and that causes them to hate Cosette.  I love Eponine, but I also really like Cosette too, and  I like her relationship with Marius.  It's what the story needed.  Marius was never in love with Eponine anyway, and Eponine knew that.  If Marius had been torn between Cosette and Eponine, then I might understand people not liking Cosette because he chose her instead, but there was no choice.  He always loved Cosette and they have a good relationship.

I'm not sure if my rant about Cosette is considered complaining, but I'm going to stop complaining now so I don't seem whiny and talk about people I liked.  My favorite actors were those playing Jean Valjean, Fantine, and the inkeeper & his wife.  Those people were absolutely outstanding.  Especially Fantine and Valjean.  I was in tears at Fantine's Death because it was so...beautiful.  I'm not sure that's the right word, but both actors were amazing and brought so much emotion and talent to the scene that it had me in tears.  The other number I really liked was Master of the House.  It was hilarious.

I'm also glad that Fantine and Cosette actually looked like they could be related.  Often, I've seen that Fantine looks more like Eponine than Cosette for some reason, which makes no sense because Cosette is Fantine's daughter.  And then there's the the 25th Anniversary Concert with Lea Salonga as Fantine and Katie Hill as Cosette.  How do you go from Asian to white and blonde?  I don't get it.  But this time they were both blonde, so that was good.

Overall, it was a great production.  I'm actually really excited for the film to come out later this year, and I plan on going to see it at midnight!  I'm also glad that Samantha Barks is Eponine for the film because, of all the different  girls I've seen as Eponine on youtube and such, she is my favorite.

Anyway, I should be getting to bed because I have to be up early tomorrow because I have freshman orientation.  Yay college!  Before I go, I wanted to let you know that I have a new blog on Tumblr for short stories and such that I write, so you can check that out if you'd like at http://deathbypolarbear.tumblr.com/

Until next time.

I'm a high school graduate.

It's been a while since I last blogged, but since then, I've graduated high school.  I know, big accomplishment.

However, I told myself that, since I can drive, I'm actually going to do stuff this summer.  I'm not just going to sit around in bed all day long and I'm going to hang out with my friends.  Well that's not working out so well. I mean, I went to lunch with my friend Caity two weeks ago.  And I've been to two of my friends' graduation parties.  And I went to the swap meet with my mom and my sister last weekend.  But other than that, I've been in bed, not doing anything.

It's not like I don't try to make plans.  I wanted to hang out with a few of my friends on Tuesday, but only one of them was free and he didn't have a ride.  He was trying to get me to battle my conscience to go pick him up illegally (because I'm not eighteen yet).  That didn't work out.  Then I was supposed to hang out with him and a few other people today, but then my friend Bianca said she can't do today and said tomorrow instead.  Let's see how long it takes for tomorrow to fall through...

I mean, I am doing a lot of things this summer, so I'm really excited.  Like, starting next week, I've got a lot coming up!  I'm going to see Les Miserables on Wednesday.  Then, Thursday and Friday is freshman orientation, so I'll get to visit my college again, and I'll get to meet people!  The next weekend is VidCon, which I'm very, very excited for and I will give anything to talk to Felicia Day and Hayley G Hoover sometime that weekend.  I'm also supposed to get together with my director's wife and kids for a Denny's trip because his daughter Karina wants us to, and I have no idea when that will be but I hope it's soon because I miss them a lot!  Then it's July and, well, I'll stop talking about everything I'm doing this summer.

I just want to get out of the house and see some friends, but all of my friends are either busy or can't drive!  Instead, I'm stuck here, in my bedroom, watching old episodes of Avatar the Last Airbender on Netflix, daydreaming about what it would be like if I were actually a waterbender and wishing that bending was real because then the world would be a better place (and by better, I mean more awesome).

Improv and coffee house

I hope you all enjoyed the poem from last time, and I apologize for not having made another post sooner.  I've been a lot busier than I thought I would be.

I'm not yet ready to say goodbye to performing in high school...  This Friday is a Coffee House and Improv night and I'm performing in both!  The first half, coffee house, is when people can go up and perform whatever they want, be it singing, dancing, a monologue, stand up comedy, whatever you want! Auditions for that were today and I'm singing For Good from Wicked with my friend Lisa, and she'll be playing it on piano.  I didn't know if we were going to do it for sure or not until today at break, so we just practiced for the first time today at break, lunch, and after school.  Except we only had the piano at break, so the rest of the time we were just working on harmonies because I am horrible at them.  I'm singing Glinda's part, but doing the high harmonies that go with Elphaba's part because Lisa can't play piano and harmonize at the same time so she asked me to do it.  And when we went to audition today, there was no piano in the theater, so he just had us sing acapella for our audition.  He said we were fine, just to work on the harmony because I screwed it up again.

And improv is basically like Whose Line is it Anyway.  There's six of us and we do a bunch of improv games and it's a lot of fun.  I did it last semester, and I'm really glad I get to do it again this semester.  I'm also glad that I get to stretch out my time before I have to say goodbye to high school theatre for good.  I'm not looking forward to the drama club banquet in two weeks because that will be a sad day.

ONE. MONTH. UNTIL. GRADUATION.  It's so close but so far...

Poetry?

Last night was closing night for my last ever high school show, The Diviners.  It was...bittersweet.  But I will discuss that later because tonight is prom and I have to get ready soon, so I have something else to leave you with.

About a week ago, Hayley Hoover made a blog post about poetry, and included a poem that she wrote with the prompt for it, inviting her readers to write their own poems based on the prompt.  Now, I'm not much of a poet (excluding that mysterious poet phase I went through a year ago...), but I decided to take a whack at writing a this poem.  I wrote it in class yesterday and the day before, then I reread it today to make sure it doesn't completely suck.  I shall include the prompt too, if you wish to also write a poem.

Warning: my poem contains mild language. Well, not mild exactly.  I kind of drop the F bomb.

In your poem, include at least fourteen of the following items: a statistic, a dish eaten cold, three forms of heat, a smell you can't forget, a line from a movie, something out of a textbook, two things you wish you had said, a reference to an aunt or uncle, some kind of moving vehicle, two words beginning with R and ending with "-ion", a stage direction, two distinct hours of the day, an historical figure, an adhesive, an animal only seen up close in the zoo, a slang expression ("call it quits," for example), something really bad that you did, something that undermines or negates everything else you've said.

Such a big part of my life
I can’t just quit cold turkey.
I want to get out of here, take a car
And drive past midnight
Sleep in until 2 in the afternoon

And they’ll say “Sorry for ending the world”
Well, not the world. My world.
I don’t want to go,
But I can’t be free here.
Like a polar bear, looking so content
But restricted to the confines of his cage.

Do I continue or move on?
Will I never again be told,
“Watch all your firsts,” or “Exit stage left”?
The sweltering heat of thirty bodies backstage
And the scorch of the stage lights.

Will I now only be warm in the sun?
In the sun I only freckle or burn, so
The smell of sunscreen is a familiar one
That reminds me of the summer I long for.

I can stay here and rebel
(In my own, unrebellious way)
Chew gum in class, and when they tell me
To throw it out, I’ll stick it in my textbook,
Binding the monotonous pages together.

But once I’m gone, I’ll want to come back.
I’ll wish I could’ve thanked those who helped me
Or given a big ol’ “FUCK YOU” to the ones I hate.
I can’t just let it go.

Aunt Olivia says she’s proud
When she doesn’t care about this, about me.
And I’ll miss the words of Shakespeare,
Bringing meaning to what others deem gibberish.
But they don’t understand.
I won’t have to let it go completely.
I’ll give this a shot.
I can duct tape my life together:
The new, and the old.

Hopefully you enjoyed it!  Now that my life isn't consumed with rehearsals and performances, I might actually post every day in these last few days of BEDA.  Maybe.

One month and three days until graduation!

Last show of the year

I am currently sitting in my AP Literature class, listening to the prosecution and defense groups for the Hamlet trial we're doing discuss things.  This is one of those times that I'm glad I'm the judge.  I get to sit here on my laptop, listening to them, but also type up a much-needed blog post.

The Diviners opened this weekend.  This is my last show in high school and gosh, it's so much fun!  If you don't know what The Diviners is about, you can click here to read a brief description.  But it has been so much fun.  The cast is amazing and we're always goofing off backstage.  This might be the most fun I've had doing a show, except possibly Night of the Living Dead because, come on, it's pretty tough to beat zombies and fake blood!

During the last month and a few weeks that we've been working on this show, I feel like I've grown so much, both as a person, and in my acting ability.  This director is amazing and he's helped me so much along the way. I have a few "romantic" scenes with my friend Mat, and I was having major troubles acting that well, so there was one point where he kept the two of us onstage and we talked it out.  We talked about why I was having trouble with it, what I can do to make it better, what he can do to make it easier on me.  I swear we were just sitting there for about a half an hour.  Once we got that over with, everyone was already halfway finished with their lunch!  But it helped because I was so much better after that.

And now that we've opened and done four shows, I just love it even more.  My other director came to see the show last night with his family.  I like it when people tell me that I did really well.  Both of my directors have told me that I'm doing a really good job, and that just makes me feel really good about myself.  Mama B told me that I was very believable at pretending to be attracted to Mat!  Hah, she even said that I did a better job at that than Nicole did in Once On This Island.  Emma told me that my screams at the end gave her chills.  Jess told me that her sister started crying because of my screaming.  It's just, things like that make me feel very accomplished.  Last night when I was screaming and crying at the end of the show, after the blackout and when we were just standing there, I felt like I was still crying.  I was breathing heavily and blinking away tears and shaking.  I think that was my best performance so far.

I really can't wait for Wednesday when we get back to performing!  I really hope my director's family comes again, because I really love them.  Except I will probably be pretty sad on closing night with senior circle and everything.  But I'm not going to think about that right now!  I'm just going to enjoy these last few high school performance and give my all.

I am so ready for college.

This has been my first week back at school after spring break, and although we didn't have school on Monday and today is only Thursday, it feels like the longest week ever (albeit, it could have something to do with the fact that it's hell week, but that's beside the point).

I'm in English class right now and I just finished my last ever independent reading test.  EVER.  The play I read was pretty good, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, but I'm just so glad it's over.  It just means that I'm one step closer to school being over.  One step closer to graduating.  One step closer to college.

I visited LMU on Sunday, the college I'll be attending.  It was incredible.  I absolutely love it there.  The campus is so beautiful, and the people are so friendly, and the screenwriting program is amazing.  The head of the screenwriting department is just such an awesome person and I can't wait to have class with him.  The current students majoring in screenwriting are really nice and they seem just so passionate and dedicated to their choice major.  One of my favorite things is that every Monday night, the school of film and television shows a movie, and a person who worked on the movie comes to talk about it and answer questions after.  I know what I'll be doing every Monday night next year!  I just paid for the commitment deposit last night, so it's now official: I'm in the LMU class of 2016!  Go Lions!!

It's just...seeing life on that campus made me so excited for college.  I'm over high school.  I don't want to do any work.  I just want to perform The Diviners, go to prom, Gradnite, Boscars, and then graduate.  Senior exit interviews are next week.  Once those are over, there is barely a month left of school, and then graduation is on June 1.  We're in the final stretch.  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not just an oncoming train.

I love Joss Whedon!

I'm not sure if you know this or not, but I am going to be pursuing a career as a screenwriter.  Or, more specifically, writer for television, but basically same thing.  That's what I'll be going to school for starting next year and it's what I want to do for a living.  And Joss Whedon is the person I look up to in this field.

I tell people (friends, family, etc) that I want to be a screenwriter, and then they'll ask me what kind of movies or tv shows I want to write.  My short answer to this question is, "I want to be like the female version of Joss Whedon."  I have said this exact sentence multiple times.  Joss Whedon comes up with brilliant ideas for television shows and writes amazing, real characters.  I like how his shows are in the supernatural/science fiction genre.  I mean, I wouldn't want to watch or write about real situations.  If I'm going to watch or write something, I want it to be about something unreal, something that makes you think, something that makes you feel.  I can't tell you how many times Joss Whedon has made me cry, and it's because the situations, the characters, they make you feel.  I like that.

The point of this post isn't to just rant about how wonderful Joss Whedon is.  I actually found this little survey on Tumblr in the Dollhouse tag, so I figured I could fill it out on here!

1. Favorite Joss Whedon show? Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. Least favorite Joss Whedon show? The only one I haven't seen yet is Angel, so I guess that.
3. Favorite Buffy episode? Either Once More With Feeling or Tabula Rasa
4. Least favorite Buffy episode? Either Doublemeat Palace or Ted. Those both were just hard for me to watch for some reason.
5. Favorite Buffy character? Willow Rosenberg!
6. Least favorite Buffy character? Probably Riley.
7. Favorite Angel episode? I haven't watched Angel, sorry! I will soon though!
8. Least favorite Angel episode? see above
9. Favorite Angel character? I'll just leave these blank
10. Least favorite Angel character? 
11. Favorite Firefly episode? Jaynestown
12. Favorite Firefly character? Kaylee or River
13. Favorite Dollhouse episode? Epitaph One and Two
14. Favorite Dollhouse character? I really love Mag, but she was only in two episodes, so if I can't say her because of that, then Priya or Bennet (who was also only in a few episodes but whatever).
15. Favorite character from Dr. Horrible? Penny
16. Character I love that everyone seems to hate? Dawn
17. Character I hate that everyone seems to love? Angel, and I'm not a big fan of Paul
18. Whedonverse OTP? Willow/Tara, Xander/Anya, Buffy/Spike
19. Most random ship I sail? Inara/Kaylee (yes, random but I don't care) and Mag/Kilo (not as random because Mag does have a crush on her!)
20. Favorite season of Buffy? 4
21. Favorite season of Angel? Haven't seen it.
22. Prettiest Buffyverse character? Faith
23. Whedonverse character I want to slap? Angel
24. Whedonverse character I want to marry? Spike, Willow, Wash
25. How I became a Joss Whedon fan? My dad made me watch Firefly, I fell in love, and decided to watch Buffy on Netflix. Then Dollhouse. I had already seen Dr. Horrible but didn't know much about Joss Whedon at the time.

So...that's it!  If you're also a fan of Joss Whedon, feel free to let me know your answers in the comments! :)