On Sunday November 6th, the Broadway Advocacy Coalition held the first in a series of monthly events called The Invitation. The theme was Political Participation. The Coalition has teamed up with professors, lawyers, and students at Columbia Law School in an effort to bring the arts and policies together. The Broadway Advocacy Coalition was formed after a social media post from Amber Iman became a movement. Her fellow Broadway actors Adrienne Warren, Britton Smith, Cameron J. Ross, Christian Dante White, and Jackie Bell came together with her to organize an event to bring to light the plight of Black people in America. After the success of that first event, Broadway for Black Lives Matter, they decided to expand their programming to include The Invitation.

Welcome back! By the time you see this article we will be 2 short days from OPENING NIGHT! Tech week is a time people dread, a time people love, a magical time where everything comes together. I decided to find out how my fellow cast members survive this week and comprised a not so short list of things that can help make this stressful time a little easier for everyone involved.

'You've both discovered something important that you really care about. It's just not together.' (Kiri-Lyn on 'Notice Me Horton')

Oh, The Places We'll Go!

John Cage, an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher, and artist, was interested in finding and collecting ordinary sounds to use; he wanted to capture and control them to use them as musical instruments. His pieces included normal objects as the instruments, something previously rejected in terms of art and in terms of sound. Most of the people who are interested in sound, then and now, would use the things he recorded in the field as sound effects: a car driving at 50 miles per hour, rain, or the static between radio stations. But instead, he used them to create music. A Chicago critic wrote about one of his concerts and the musicians' use of 'beer bottles, flowerpots, cowbells, and automobile brake drums' to create a musical piece some might call noise, but one that John Cage called music.

This week takes a turn to the future well, sort of. The future of Act three is the topic of the week. We find ourselves in an implied graveyard with rows of chairs and the inhabitants of those chairs represent the gravestones of the dearly departed.

Since my last blog, some stuff has happened!

As stated last week, the concept of family is a very large aspect of this production. Last week, we had the pleasure of meeting the Gibbs family. This week we get an inside look at the perspective of theatre and the production from the Webb family.

If you're a theatre major, chances are all your classes are in the same building, and all the work you do is in the theater. We're oftentimes 'stuck' here - spending the breaks of our days in the green room or design studios, doing homework, reading, designing. When I get the chance to work or do something outside of my confined space, I take it.

On News Year's Eve of seventh grade, I made the resolution to step out of my comfort zone and try new things. Little did I know as a twelve year old that this would lead me down an exciting path towards an outgoing, theatrical me! I began to make the conscious choices that would push me out of my little bubble. Before long I was doing theatre and learning new styles of dance. By the end of senior year, I figured I would continue to step out of my comfort zone and move from little Boise, Idaho all the way to New York City for school. That is when I learned that I had a flaw in my mentality, as I soon discovered that life was not just about being willing to try new things, but about having the courage to fail.

The concept of family is a very large aspect of this production. The cast becomes a family through bonding; the script features two every day families. This week, we have the pleasure of meeting the Gibbs family and getting an inside look at their perspective of theatre and the production.

This week has been a lot of schoolwork and rehearsals (the usual). So, I decided to interview one of my favorite humans who happens to also be in the theatre. LeeAnn Dowd was the first Chapman person I met; it was during the summer before my freshman year in NYC while she was interning. We instantly hit it off and she even came to one of our shows! During my freshman year I looked at LeeAnn, a senior at the time, as a role model; she started Cross the Line with another senior, Sierra Stenzel, the club that I'm leading now. Our outlook on theatre was very similar. We also went on to do ASTEP's Artist as Citizen Conference together, which was an incredible experience for us to share. Even though LeeAnn has graduated and moved to San Francisco, we still keep in touch and she graciously let me interview her for the blog. Hope you enjoy getting to know a recent post-grad perspective!

How one Rocky Horror director aims to do more than put on a show.

I binge-watched the entire first season of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend last month because I'd been hearing good things about it for a while and finally decided to see it for myself. It absolutely lives up to the hype-it's unlike anything I've ever seen on TV. The brainchild of Rachel Bloom follows a big-shot New York lawyer (played by Bloom) as she moves across the country on a whim to be with her high school boyfriend whom she hasn't spoken to in more than ten years. You can imagine the chaos that ensues. The show is a theater kid's dream. Each episode is like a mini-musical. The songs are amazing, the dialogue and storylines are hilarious, and the characters are, like every day people, flawed but lovable. In honor of Season 2's upcoming premiere, I thought I'd share my top five favorite songs so far (in no particular order):

This semester, I am taking a Writing for TV and Film class - which means that I'm writing a script for a movie. I tossed around different ideas, as did every student in the class, and we tried to find the simplest idea and most interesting idea in which to write our very first script. Anna, our professor, told us to think about things we know, because those are going to be easiest to write about. I couldn't write about the life of a congressman, because I don't know anything about that. I don't know any congressmen. I don't know what they do, and even if I did a lot of research, I probably still couldn't get the dialogue just right, or the lingo. So I bet you can guess what I chose to write about.

Welcome back! This week's article features an art form that a production of Our Town would not be complete without: PANTOMIME! For those who don't know what pantomime is, I decided to give you the gift of the Oxford Dictionary definition:

Very recently, I drove from Auburn to Atlanta to see one of my favorite bands at The Tabernacle - Two Door Cinema Club - and not only did I end up falling in love with them even more, but I also fell in love with Jack Garratt, who was opening for them. My friend Josh and I went together, because neither of us know anybody in Auburn who likes the same music we do - but I ended up seeing my friend and fellow sound designer, Carl, there also!

Monday October 3rd marked the beginning of Month 2 of rehearsals! At this rehearsal, we really ran through the material! It went fairly well!

Getting off book not everyone's favorite part, but a necessary one in the rehearsal process. Once the book is out of your hand, you can move freer and explore the character more. You can really dive into specific choices when you aren't preoccupied by the book taking up space in your hands. How does one get off book, you might ask? Well here are some tips and tricks based on what I've learned in my experiences, with input from some of the cast from Our Town.

Hey. It's been a while. And yet, three weeks seemed to have flown by. I guess that's senior year. Between homework, rehearsals, and work, I haven't been able to set aside enough time to write down my thoughts. But here we are, so let's do this.

Music is in the air at the University of New Haven as the Theatre Club prepares for their third cabaret. The tradition started last Fall under the direction of Robert Vaccaro, who also directed the Spring Cabaret 'Cabaret 2: Electric Boogaloo'. Upon Vaccaro's graduation, the Cabaret was passed to the direction of two time cast member Jared Reynolds. I had the pleasure of speaking with the director, choreographer, and a few cast members about their experiences with Cabaret III.

My apologies for not publishing this week's blog sooner!

Recently, I had the amazing opportunity to interview Rafael Casal, co-creator of #BARS workshop currently in association the Public Theater. He is a rapper, poet, actor, playwright, teacher, and musician. His highly socially-conscious work combines elements of hip-hop music and theater in a unique way. It was only fitting to have the interview in the Public Theater.

This time last year, I met my friend Anthony Narciso. He was contracted to be the sound designer for Playhouse Creatures, a show that I was running sound for. We didn't know it at the time, but we were to become thick as thieves and become the best sound team there has ever been (okay, maybe we're a little biased). We share sound effects, projects, and ideas - a good mark of two sound designer best friends. We created a shared dropbox folder - and titled it Anthony and Cheyenne Sing Sound Shanty's. Probably the most important folder we have inside our sound shanty's is our sound dictionary. We've just been taking ordinary words and using them to define events and happenings that we find in the world of sound. For example, the first definition we came up with was for 'Smashed,' which is defined as 'the poor mixing of a track, only possible when patching a fisher price keyboard into a cassette tape recorder and mixed with low quality YouTube,' and this definition spawned from a show choir performance in which I received a terribly recorded track to play.

It's been three weeks since the first rehearsal of Guys and Dolls at the Orange County School of the Arts, and things are moving along quite quickly! This year is OCSA's 30th Anniversary Celebration, which entails extra concerts, master classes, and special events for much of the cast, so we are working frantically to get the show done before our schedules get any crazier.