BWW Blog: Spring AQuakening

I'm writing this post at 10:00PM with an hour left in Monday night Spring Awakening rehearsal. Today we had a music review since it's the first day back from spring break (which is why I didn't write a post last week; hear about me sitting on the couch watching Rupaul's Drag Race All Stars 3). Currently they're running the "Mama Who Bore Me" reprise, and it sounds pretty fabulous so far. My big in the MT program, Callista, is playing Anna, and she's on her own part for most of the song, but I can hear here so clearly and correctly, she's killing it. Getting to hear so many of my peers in their natural state is inspiring to watch, not only the seniors like Kelly (Ilse) and Ashley (Wendla), who appear so comfortable in their environment, but also my freshman friends: Rachel, Kirsten, Bre, Alaina, Derrick, Tyler, and Leon, holding their own and establishing themselves in the program.

Something I've always enjoyed is watching people enjoy good art, so it's entertaining to see everyone freak out whenever Tyler (Georg) sings his riff solo in "Touch Me", or when Adrian (Melchior) flips into falsetto in "Left Behind". It's weird not singing, but I'm so happy to have this opportunity, because music assisting is something I could get professional work doing while going to auditions, and being busy is always good.

This morning I had my voice lesson, and ah I LOVE it. Last Friday of studio I, and a bunch of other freshman, sang our Musical Theatre songs, and whenever we weren't singing, we had to write two things we loved and one thing to improve in our peers' performances. It used to be difficult for me to evaluate others, because 1) I'm too nice and 2) I'm not the best at articulating what I think, but after a semester and a half of learning terminology to describe the voice, it was not as bad as I anticipated. Miss D gave me my feedback and feedback on my feedback in my lesson, which was very helpful. Some of the things I've been working on in "Moonfall" (/in general) for a while are smoothly transitioning into full notes, breathing in the correct places, and phrasing. I've also significantly improved upon my ability to translate critiques into performances without overthinking and letting it psyche me out. We discovered that I need to start filming myself singing my rep, because I get freaked out about what my face looks like onstage and have to incorporate more of my natural emotiveness into performances. This Friday I'm performing my French song: "Le Papillon et la Fleur" in studio, and I can't wait. Art songs are my forte, and it's beautiful.

In other news, the School of Stage and Screen is in the midst of an Assassins game that is tearing apart friendships. We're playing a slight variation that the version I played in high school, we just have to touch our target's elbow outside. The freshman MTs have banded together in an alliance, and are taking it very seriously. Sadly, my target is a film major who I've never met in person, but I'm utilizing my connections from the films I was cast in to track him down. It's stressful, but a good distraction from all of the work.