Spring Planning

Today marks exactly one week from the opening of my last SMC play as a sophomore! Next week The Actor's Nightmare by Christopher Durang opens April 29th at the Essex High School black box theater, the first play fully produced by the Saint Michael's College Drama Club in years! Directed by Rory Fitzgerald as his senior exhibition project, Nightmare has been in rehearsal since January and with a tightly bonded cast of 5 has taken off. Starring Jayden Choquette as the bemused George Spelvin, Nightmare takes you in and out reality with scenes from Noel Coward, Shakespeare, and Beckett, not to mention the famous Man for All Seasons to wrap up this hilarious play. Also starring Liz Levenson as the buxom beauty Sarah Siddons; Molly Ziegler as the sharp-tongued (yet sweet!) Ellen Terry; Mike McKinney as New York actor Henry Irving; and Catie Robertson as the world's perfect Meg the Stage Manager. Vans will be transporting students to and from Essex High both the 29th and 30th for 7pm curtain.

Other than Actor's Nightmare, the semester is coming to a close as usual. It is very strange to know that I will be a junior in college soon! If only there were a way to slow down time. I barely have time to ponder this momentuous passing between things, however: the Drama Club is not only wrapping up the end-of-year picnic (May 3rd before the Singing for the Actor performance!) and budgeting; we have already started planning for next year! With budget approved for four Drama Club shows, 2 huge workshops, and the traditional events such as the 24-hour play festival, ACTF, the New York trip, and socials, things are booming. My hope is to work on Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog next fall, whether it be directing or production managing (finding a space to perform, working out details...most of what I am doing for Nightmare, only as its own entity given the complications Rory and I have been working out this semester!) It has been recently staged at UCONN and again at Ithaca College, and I think it would be fun for Saint Mike's to do as well.

Besides trying to keep up with classes and the Drama Club, I have a lot on my mind in terms of planning for the future! After school ends, I will be working on two dance shows at the Barre Opera House as well as one in Waterbury. At the end of May I truck back up to SMC to start an internship at the Saint Michael's Playhouse. For students interested in Saint Mike's for theater, this opportunity is a sticking point. Students apply for professional internships in their area of interest (for example, last summer I was a stage management intern, and am continuing with that position this summer) and get to work alongside professionals in a summer stock atmosphere: that means two weeks of building and rehearsing a full-sized show, performing that play or musical for two weeks while working on the next one during the day, and then changing over everything within 72 hours for the next one to open. The first show closes late Saturday night; we open the next play Tuesday night. It is an intense learning environment, and by far one of the best experiences I have ever had in the world of theater.

Also coming up for me is a potential study abroad next spring semester in Granada, Spain. I applied a few weeks ago to both the SMC study abroad department and to my program, API, and am simply waiting to hear back. There I will study art, architecture, and Spanish, and though it will be a break from theater, I fully intend (at this point) to continue my theater career. One thing I learned from John Devlin, our technical expert here at SMC, during a scenic design class last semester was this: Life is like a bucket of water. Every experience you have is a new drop added. Unlike sand, water droplets merge and affect one another instead of remaining their own separate being. This is also how life and memories work, and I can't wait to see how a new culture will change my point of view in the world as well as how my take on theater and scene design change. I have never been farther away from home than Florida; never overseas, either, and so this would be an adventure to blog about :)

As a Virgo, I guess I will never stop thinking ahead and planning and plotting. Beyond next spring, looking into my senior year, I am thinking about my own senior project already. My brother Andy introduced me to a band called The Decemberists some years ago, and more recently to their album The Hazards of Love.

This album was originally written as a rock opera and is an original British-style fairy tale that would be fantastical onstage. Already interest is growing within the theater students of my year and the classes below us; a musical will always be popular both with people working on it and with audiences. The story is dark and the music is pretty intense; I feel that it is like nothing SMC has ever seen before. I have a meeting with Cathy Hurst, one of the department's directors and acting/directing professor, next week to make a proposal. Wish me luck!