The last rehearsal that I had was on Wednesday. Because I've never written about my weekday rehearsal, I've decided I'll let you guys know about it now. In order to get to rehearsal, my grandpa picks me up at exactly 4 PM (when school ends) and brings me to my brother's school. Most of the people in Little Mermaid go to the same school as Alec, so most of the older cast is already there by the time I get dropped off. I get dropped off right in front of the school's theater and we wait there until our director, Kim, picks us up. By the way, these are probably the craziest people you will ever meet. Once, I arrive at the school, we're already bouncing off the walls and having so much fun. We wait there until Kim, our director, arrives to take us. Now, once she gets there, it becomes absolutely insane. We have to somehow shove everyone inside the car and make sure we are all in there. Once we are all clear on that, we head over to the theater. The car rides to the theater are always the best. We blast the music, annoy Kim, and have a blast together. I've never met funnier people in my life. Those car rides always make my day complete. We usually stop for food before we go to rehearsal. It's always either in Panera or Chipotle because those are the closest restaurants to the theater that we all like. After we eat, we rush on over to the theater to begin our rehearsal routines. So, on that note, please come see The Little Mermaid, Jr. We have worked so hard on it and would love to have an amazing audience.
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Today was a very special day for the Mermaid crew! We made our first public appearance at the Midtown Festival. Midtown is in Palm Beach Gardens right by the Gardens Mall and it is the plaza where the theater we're performing in is located. The festival was a day for families to come with their little kids and have a day of pure fun. Many other people performed: the cast of Shrek the Musical and various other dance studios and casts performed as well. The Mermaid cast was all dressed up as you can see in the picture; well, at least the principals were. Unfortunately, my costume wasn't ready yet and I had to walk around in a Little Mermaid t-shirt. The entire day, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., we walked around the entire place and talked to all of the kids and promoted our show. We got very positive feedback. It was so cute watching all of the little kids run up to Victoria (Ariel) in pure amazement and excitement because they were in the presence of one of the most famous princesses out there! The most adorable moment by far was when Victoria was practicing "Part of Your World" inside the theater before she actually performed it. There were a couple families in there and each of the families had a little girl. These two little girls were adorable. As Victoria gloriously sang her way through the song, they just stared at her in amazement. Helen, our musical director, signaled to Victoria that she had a small audience behind her; so, Victoria signaled to the little girls to go stand with her. She sang to both of them and it was probably the most adorable thing I've ever seen in my life. They stood there and smiled and I really cannot put into words how magical that moment was. They definitely chose the right Ariel to play the role. This week is going to be absolutely insane. I have to fully memorize three shows for this week. The first show I need to memorize my lines for is The Little Mermaid. Our off-book date is this Wednesday, but I have it pretty much down. I just need to do some polishing. I had rehearsal earlier today and we ran the entire show with only a few of the principals just to get a feel of how long the show is going to be in order to decide if there is going to be an intermission or not. As we were going through the show I tried to put my script down as much as I could in order to see if I knew most of it. The good thing is that I did pretty well on it. I just need to work on entrances and exits and how to time my lines to the music. That was also the purpose for today's rehearsal; to learn how to time our lines to the CD tracks.
The second show I need to memorize is While the Auto Waits. The show is this Thursday and it's a cute little ten minute show. I can say that I honestly did not know that ten minute plays existed until my theater teacher mentioned it. It's a very cute story about a boy and a girl. At the end there is a nice little plot twist and it will definitely be an "awww" moment. The next show I need to memorize is Anna and August. I need to be off-book for it by Friday which is definitely not a lot of time. I have a lot of memorizing to do for that show. I am playing the role of Anna and it's going to be difficult memorizing all of those lines, but I'm sure I can do it. Time to start memorizing some lines!!! Rehearsal this week was very enjoyable as always. We were going to focus more on dance this week so the first thing we did was stretch and get warmed up. Next, we sat down in a circle and went through all of the songs in the show to make sure we were ready to learn the movements and the choreography. I still have a little bit of my song to memorize still, but I'm at a pretty good pace with memorization right now. Once we were done with that, we split up. The Mersisters and the rest of the ensemble went to go work on their song, "She's in Love." That is probably my favorite song in the show. It is so catchy and I have memorized that song better than my own song. As they worked on the dance for that, I worked on some scenes with the director and the understudy of Flounder. The original Flounder will not be able to perform opening night so we will need the understudy to fill in for the original. The new Flounder is an adorable little girl that is so full of life and is amazing to work with.
I ended the rehearsal with watching how "She's in Love" was doing. I am just a little concerned thought because there are a lot of little kids in that number and the choreography is a little difficult for them. I'm sure it'll all turn out fine, but they seemed a little confused during the rehearsal. Anyways, the day at rehearsal was a good day and we got a lot accomplished.I can't wait for the actual performance days to come!!! This weekend I was not called for rehearsal. This was actually a pretty good thing for me. It gave me time to memorize my song and work on the notes. It also gave me some time to look through some lines and start trying to memorize them and work on them. In order to work on lines, I usually ask my brother, who is playing Prince Eric, to go through the book with me. He reads for the scenes that I'm in and I read for the scenes that he's in. It is actually a very good method and this is how we've been doing it for years. Even if we're not in the show together, we'll still read for each other and it definitely helps a lot.
Although I specifically was not called for rehearsal this weekend, there still was a rehearsal. This rehearsal was set up for the Chef and the Chef's Chorus. The chef, played by Sydney Wolff, has a song in the show; and if you remember from the movie, it was the scene when the chef was chasing Sebastian around the kitchen. I got there towards the end of the rehearsal to pick up my brother and when I got there, they asked me to watch the choreography that they had done. The scene is very cute and funny and the choreography is great. I think they will get a good repines from the audience. Another thing that they worked on in the rehearsal was scene work. This is where my brother was. I didn't get a chance to see what scenes they were working on, though. When we work on scene work, we work on the dialogues, not the songs. We read through the scenes and put our own movements in it instead of a set block. This gives our director an idea of what the actual blocking will be and it also helps us work on our lines. My director, Kim Enright, has been working on her new website. Here you can buy tickets or just see what we're up to. Check it out!! http://kwpproductions.com/ My last rehearsal for The LIttle Mermaid was on Wednesday.I went in to practice my song for Scuttle. The name of the song is "Human Stuff." This is when Scuttle is trying to teach Ariel what the "dinglehopper" is and what he thinks the humans use it for. In the real world, this "dinglehopper," is seen as a fork. In the song, he also introduces the "snarfblat" to her. The "snarfblat" is what used to be a smoking pipe and Scuttle said that it was used for making music. The rehearsal was called for Scuttle, the sea gulls, Prince Eric, Ariel, and Flounder.The first thing I did was begin to learn Human Stuff. In the show, Scuttle has almost like a backup group of three birds. The people chosen to be my little backup gulls were three little girls. They are possibly the cutest girls I've ever seen. I was actually very impressed by them. The song is very quick and has many entrances and spots that they need to pick up on and they did it very nicely and quickly got a hang of it. I was very surprised and I definitely wouldn't have chosen any different people as my backup gulls. We are definitely going to do amazing and it's going to be an incredible turn out. The song in general is a very cute song. The rest of the rehearsal was used for reading through some scenes. This helps with memorization and we did a tiny but of blocking. the blocking will probably change, but I think we are on a very good start and we have a nice idea going. I'm very excited because Scuttle is an extremely fun character to play and he is very humorous. The show is definitely at a nice start and I think thats it is definitely going to be a success. I hope I'll see you there! Below is a video of the song I am going to be performing in the show. Skip to around 2:30 and that is the beginning of the scene that leads into the song. Hope you enjoy :) Theater kids are the best people you can be around. They are fun, clever, hyper, and all around good people. I have the time of my life every time I'm around these kids. Last night, I took two of my theater friends to fright nights with me and met up with some of my Oxbridge friends. I introduced them to each other and one of my Oxbridge friends said, "You guys are the funniest people I've ever me," speaking to my two theater friends. If anybody were to meet them, they would definitely agree with that statement. Almost every theater kid fools around and when it's time to get to work, is completely focused. In every Little Mermaid rehearsal, we are possibly the craziest people you will ever meet during a break and then when it's time to get serious and work, we are fully focused and will work through any song or dialogue. We are all extremely hardworking people and it definitely shows when a show day comes around. Actors have to memorize lines, be at every rehearsal, learn choreography, memorize the blocking (movements on the stage), etc. It is not an easy job and it's a major commitment, but none of those things bring us down. Those things are fun and are the reasons for why actors perform. At parties, it is extremely easy point out theater kids. They are usually the craziest, most energetic people there. One major clue to find a theater kid, is if there is a stage in sight and there are people on it. Those people are most likely the theater kids. For example, at my Quinceañera (15th birthday party) there was a stage in the facility. I am proud to say that my theater friends found their way to the stage and were having a blast. I couldn't help but obviously go on the stage myself and have a blast with them. The entire night, I was getting comments on how amazing these people were and I couldn't agree more. Not only are theater kids fun people, but they are incredible friends. They are extremely easy to become friends with and they will never let you down. I have made friends in theater that I will never regret meeting. Some of them are my best friends and I can trust them with anything. My theater friends and I are an entire family. We will never let each other down. We have laughed together, cried together, and have basically done everything together. If you ever become friends with a theater kid, and especially like the ones I've become friends with, you are a very lucky person. They are the best, most amazing people you will ever meet. Below is a video of my experience from You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. I think from there, you will get a pretty good sense of what amazing people theater kids truly are. Yesterday morning I had my first ever rehearsal for Little Mermaid Jr. The rehearsal began at 9 and concluded at 12:30. The first thing we did, as all actors should do, was warm up before we started anything. Warming up gets your voice and body ready and it loosens you up. Warmups consist of tongue twisters and such to get your moth moving. Once we were done with our warmups, we began vocal warmups which warms you up for singing. Nobody should just go right into singing without maybe going up the scale a couple times. After our vocal warmups we grouped ourselves and got into two rows. The groups were: the boys, the younger kids, the altos, and the sopranos.
The first thing we reheard was the finale. I won't say the songs though because it is a surprise, but there is a way that you can figure out what songs they are. Come to the show! These shows are always a blast! Anyways, after we finished rehearsing the finale, Sarah Hardwick (Sebastian) and the ensemble went to practice Under the Sea, the "mersisters" and Becca Suskauer (Flounder) practiced She's in Love, and the rest of the principals and I went over some lines. We concluded the rehearsal with a small meeting and then we were dismissed. It was a very fun and exciting rehearsal. After the rehearsal, I went home only to get ready and drive to my next theater related activity at 3:30. Every Saturday I go to a think called YAG (Youth Actor's Guild). There we have classes and work on performances. Right now we are beginning a clowning show, where we each come up with our own clown and perform! Now, it isn't as simple as it sounds. Each clown must have a personality and none of the clowns can talk which makes everything even more difficult, but it all all come together and it will be a great show. To kick off our clowning show, our class yesterday was about clowning, of course! We learned some of the history of clowning and we went over some of the different things that we can do! My day yesterday was so much fun. Theater is a huge part of my life and to be able to be on stage is a dream come true. If anybody is interested in theater, I definitely recommend beginning classes at Bob Carter's Actor's Workshop & Repertory Company. The link to their website is: http://www.actorsrep.org/ Being able to be a part of the Rep has been so much fun and I hope people become interested in joining! Also, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, which I am performing in as Peppermint Patty, is coming back from November 2-4. Come see it! It's a cute and fun family show! See you there!! Today, I went to see The Diary of a Madman, an excellent show if I must say so myself. It was playing in one the the American Heritage campuses, about 50 minutes from where I live. The story is about a man named Poprishchin, a low-ranking civil servant who would do anything for this one beautiful woman to notice him. It is the daughter of a senior official whom he has fallen in love with. As the show goes on, he begins to get crazier and crazier. His diary shows his gradual slide into craziness. At one point in the show, he was positive that two dogs were having an affair and believed they were writing notes to each other and was absolutely sure that he found the notes written between the two dogs. Later on, he begins to believe that he is an heir to the Spanish throne. At the end of the show, he ends up in an insane asylum and by that point, he is absolutely insane. The show was also very humorous. In the original show on broadway, Poprishchin was played by Geoffrey Rush. If you do not know who Geoffrey Rush is, he played in movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean and The King's Speech. If you ever have a chance to see this show, I definitely recommend it. It is very entertaining and it's just incredible to go through the story of an insane man like Poprishchin. I'm sure everyone has seen Disney's the Little Mermaid at some point of their lives. Well, here's your opportunity to go see this magnificent movie come to life on stage! If anyone has not heard of the story, it is about a mermaid named Ariel who wishes to be a human to go find her true love, Prince Eric, and goes to the evil, sea-witch Ursula for help. Ursula will help her become a human under one condition: if Ariel gives away her voice to her.
Come and see this magnificent tale and have a blast under the sea with Sebastian, Flounder, Ariel, and the rest of the crew. The show is at the Borland Center in Palm Beach Gardens and takes place from December 28th - January 6th. The tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for students. You can buy tickets at www.showtix4u.com and I hope to see you there! The show is starring people such as Victoria Devereux as Ariel, Alec Ruiz as Prince Eric, Sarah Hardwick as Sebastian, and many more phenomenal actors. I myself am starring in the show as Scuttle (the bird)! Once again, I can't wait to see you guys there! |
Analisa RuizI am 15 and a sophomore at Oxbridge Academy. Every week, I will post a new blog all about Theater, whether it be local news or even news about broadway! Archives
December 2012
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