October!

Wow, I can't believe we only have another week left in October! Where does the time go?


 The past few weeks, I've been busy with The Shape of Things and keeping up with classes. Columbus Day Break was a really nice long weekend, spent in part at home making cider with my family and Mike, and the rest spent relaxing at school and in Burlington with Mike. We saw UVM's performance of Cloud 9, which was really fascinating and well-performed. This past weekend I saw Vermont Stage Company's Glass Menagerie at the Flynnspace, a show I helped hang lights for, which was also well-done, if to a depressing script. Unfortunately, Death of a Salesman with Christopher Lloyd was sold out. Spamalot also showed at the Flynn, but that sold out over the summer. If you want to hear about that show, ask my brother Andrew.



Spent some time at SMC taking pictures :)

In personal news, I've been sick for the past two days- completely knocked off my feet by some sort of virus. Luckily I'm recovering, albeit slowly; tomorrow I have a full day's rehearsal for The Shape of Things at Champlain, and heading straight to the Barre Opera House after that to work lights for a Jamie Lee Thurston concert. Then it's home, sweet home! for the night before coming back to an evening of rehearsals for the directing scenes, studying for exams/working on projects, and relaxing with a friend to dye my hair :) That's right, I'm dying it purple this weekend!

The directing scenes are scenes chosen by each student in the Directing I class to cast and analyze and direct. My scenes, as with several other class members, are from a play called Quake by Melanie Marnich. Auditions were last week, and they went very well! We had a great turnout and lots of choices for everyone, and during class we cast in such a way that everyone got at least one first choice. I had so many people do well that I had 2 first choices for almost every role! The scenes will be presented on the evening of December 13th.

Otherwise, not much else is new. This illness is quite an inconvenience, but I'd rather it happen now than next week. Starting Monday, The Shape of Things moves into the Flynnspace to tech and have dress rehearsals before opening on Thursday! It will run for 2 weeks. Things are pulling together, if a little rushed near the end of the rehearsal process here, and it has been a scramble to pull a stage crew together, but other than calling the show and my one day of tech Tuesday (also an exam/project presentation day at SMC...) training my stage crew will be my biggest challenge. I'm taking things a day at a time right now though! Many thanks to my wonderful roommates who bought me soup and are very wonderful in general! <3

End of Week 6 Back at SMC

Wow, 6 weeks at school already! I can barely believe it. And yet it has been a long and somewhat rough haul for me so far this semester. Settling back at school and finding my rhythm amidst all the crazy days of meetings, classes, rehearsals, homework, planning events, hosting events, and keeping up with friends has never been as intense as this semester so far, and I'm afraid it's starting to show in my school work. Luckily this weekend is a long weekend to relax and catch up on homework, to go home and make cider with my family one day, and of course to see my boyfriend Mike, who is wonderful enough to drive 6 hours up here from LeMoyne in Syracuse, NY, to see me. Thank God for Columbus Day weekend!

After this weekend, the Drama Club and theater department at St. Mike's have lots of events coming up! My show with Champlain College, as well, will be opening in under a month. The Drama Club kicked off the year with the 24-Hour Play Festival and the Light the Night Walk, as you may have read about in a previous entry. We also had a mentor-mentee scavenger hunt across campus, which was lots of fun, and have 2 more events for our mentor-mentee program in October and then later in November. Also coming up are auditions for the directing scenes, a haunted house right before Halloween (!!!), The Shape of Things presented by Champlain College at the Flynnspace; the Saint Michael's Theater Department production of The Art of Dining; a sound workshop with Aaron Bowersox presented by the Drama Club; Drama Club applications for ACTF, the American College Theater Festival that we attend every January; and a devised piece of theater that I myself will be directing, performing in early December. Right after that, the Directing I class presents scenes at the top of exam week, and the semester wraps up with a Holiday Party! Wow!

Dear Mother Nature, I need a boat to get to class!

This week at SMC,  fall fashion is in full swing. The color of your umbrella, the pattern on your rain boots, and what style raincoat you choose to wear each day are seen and admired or abhorred from underneath dripping hoods and across a misty campus. Luckily the leaves are starting to turn yellow and are brightening things up!

Outside my suite, there is literally inches of standing water in the grass. No water on our floor though so it seems that SMC knows its buildings! There's a puddle in the Alliot circle that actually stands halfway up a car tire- guess I'm not driving over there anytime soon! Hopefully one of the things Saint Mike's will work on in the future is drainage. I'm sure, for colleges without any hills on campus, this is a common issue.

Unfortunately, all this precipitation means I've only gotten to take my new roller blades out once this week!