The last two Sundays, Christchurch's Court Theatre has been filled with the shared stories and boisterous laughter of two solid staples of New Zealand theatre. It is easy to see why a viewing of Ali Harper's one-woman show 'The Doris Day Special' is such a charming mix of tears and laughter with these two talented and powerful women at the helm.

Everyone has their own pre-show rituals that they need to do before a show. This year I especially became extremely interested in seeing how other people prepare for shows.

At a normal social gathering your sister is having you would thing you would be allowed to bring a guest. Now, what if that guest is an imaginary six-and-a-half-tall rabbit? Well that's the case in 'Harvey,' which is currently playing at Elgin Community College (ECC). Elwood P. Dowd (Nathan Mann) insist on having his rabbit Harvey at all of his sister's social gatherings, but when Elwood's sister Veta Louis Simon (Alissa Teadt) and her daughter Myrtle Mae (Karen Almanza) decide to have Elwood committed to a sanitarium (mental institution) some interruptions occur along the way.

Today, I am posting a video blog that will take you behind the scenes of Angry Psycho Princesses, which runs April 26 - May 1, 2016 at the Buchanan Center for Performing Arts on the University of Wyoming Campus.

I think it is safe to say that all actors hate auditions. No matter how big or how small, there is nothing relaxing about standing in front of a table of people whose jobs are to sit there and judge you. Although auditions are not fun, it is something that we all have to endure in order to make it into shows (unless you're Idina Menzel and can just get roles thrown at you all the time. But sadly there is only one Idina).

According to page 136, paragraph four, subsection C of the Pirate Handbook, on a pirate's 'older-than-ninth birthday,' his trusty crew must grant him a fight! That is exactly what happened this week at the Theatre Institute at Sage in our staging of Backbeard's own birthday fight, an exciting 10-pirate quarrel with the hairiest pirate who ever lived at the center of it all.

As I take a seat at the back of the theatre, the cast of Through My Father's Eyes start practicing their songs. Peseta conducts with a flavour and style ingrained within him, powerfully finding the light and shade, making every word of the beautiful language understandable to those who can't speak it. When they make it to the peak, there is such strength in their passion for the song that it almost brings me to tears. But the true power is within the quiet moments; the palpable fragility, that makes you listen so closely and feel so deeply.

We've just finished our first week of music rehearsals for Backbeard at the Theatre Institute at Sage! Because Backbeard has been workshopped with our department a couple of times now, most of the cast is already very familiar with the music, so the trajectory of our music rehearsals was naturally a bit different than it would have been if we were rehearsing a licensed show. The familiarity that the cast has with the material already allows for the polishing of the music earlier in the rehearsal process than is standard, and this musical stability will assist with the fluidity of rehearsal once staging begins.

I love reading/watching the 'Day in the Life' videos on Broadway World! And now I get to do one!

Hi there! Welcome to my first BroadwayWorld blog! My name is Amanda & I am currently an ensemble member in my college's production of Sweeney Todd. I'm here to tell you a little bit about my experience being part of an incredible cast in a production in a tiny little town called Sparkill, NY.

Perfection: Something that everyone desperately craves, but no one can ever actually attain. Why is society so obsessed with striving for such an unreachable goal?

Welcome to Laramie, Wyoming, home of the University of Wyoming, the only four year university in the state, and also home to The Laramie Project. I promise that we aren't homophobic bigots. (Side note: two of my professors at the university were in that movie).

The arrival of warm weather in the Northeast means for most college students that the semester is winding down and that summer break is drawing nearer; however, for theatre majors at Russell Sage College, the warm weather is an exciting indicator for us that our summer production is just around the corner! The summer show is the most unique slot in the Theatre Institute at Sage's season, as actors and technicians who work on the summer show stay on campus up to a month and a half after the semester ends to put up what is always a fun and exhilarating children's theatre piece without the additional responsibility of academic work-a rare and valuable opportunity for a college theatre student.

Growing up in New Zealand, many hurdles challenge genuine and talented purveyors of the arts achieving success both nationally and overseas. These can include lack of resources or funding, sparse education institutions, or the term I have personally heard more than once: 'This is New Zealand, not bloody America!' If one finally breaks past these barriers and tries to make their dreams reality, there is suddenly the greatest hurdle in their path: Tall Poppy Syndrome.

John Donne once wrote, 'No man is an island entire of itself'; this statement is something I always try to keep in the back of my mind, especially when working in the theatre.

Ever since I was a little toddler in a tutu every adult I have come in contact with has told me to 'reach for the stars', and that 'I can do anything I set my mind to'.

Until this point, my blog has been all about what happens when an actor has a job, but now it's time to cover all the wonderful things that happen when an actor enters a magical time called 'Unemployment.'

Unfortunately, all good things must eventually come to an end, and Assassins is no different.

After doing six shows a week, you begin to settle into a production; the scenes seem to run smoothly, most actor's seem to be making similar choices in each performance, everyone can recite their lines at the drop of a hat, there's nothing to worry about, right? Wrong.

Well, here we are; we finally made it to opening night.

INTIMATE APPAREL, a play described by Nottage as a 'quiet play' in which 'every scene takes place in some sort of boudoir,' is in it's heart about the private relationships between those close to us and those we wish were closer.

Do you know the saying, 'sharing is caring'? Well, here at Auburn the cast of Assassins has taken this idea to the extreme. It seems that in the past two weeks, the entire cast (except for about three extremely lucky people) has come down with a bad case of what seems like the plague. With all this sickness and lagging energy running rampant backstage, it sometimes seems impossible to keep the show running smoothly. So how does a cast with an abundance of sneezing and coughing still manage to project their voices to the last row and sing high notes until their ears ring? (That was a real question; sometimes I really don't know how we keep going.) Somehow, thanks to steamers, tea, cough drops, Dayquil, and shots of olive oil, we have all managed to power through rehearsals, but our ability to keep going comes from more than just our mass amount of pharmaceutical products; it comes from our ability to work as a team.

Sometimes being a theater student can feel like I'm living a double life. I leave for school to be a student from about eight in the morning to five in the afternoon, and then almost immediately after school I arrive in the theater for rehearsal, which can last until about ten at night, or sometimes longer. Between school, rehearsal, my sorority, homework, and just trying to be a normal college student, it's fairly easy to feel overwhelmed a good ninety percent of the day. Most of the time I can never imagine my world as anything but chaotic, but then I remember one person that I know for a fact is always working longer and harder than I am: the Stage Manager of Assassins, Amanda Murphy. Amanda is the ninja that makes sure everything that needs to be done is taken care of, before anyone even realized there was a problem. Just imagine, one person in this cast is responsible for writing the schedules, communicating between the creative teams, taking notes for the director, keeping a eye on the actors, making sure everyone is where they need to be, and making sure everyone knows exactly what they're suppose to be doing. I know that she has about a million more jobs, but in order to actually write everything she's responsible for, I would have to fill up at least three more blog posts. This girl is responsible for all of these tasks in addition to her school work, and she pulls it off flawlessly; she is basically a behind the scenes Beyonce. I know I can't even begin to fathom what a huge responsibility stage-managing is, so I wanted to hear it from Super Girl herself.

Throughout my life of performing, I have always been told to 'take care of myself' and 'always work to make myself better'. I feel like to the untrained eye, this industry seems extremely 'I, I, I' and 'me, me, me' focused. This idea might explain why in most movies the theater kids are portrayed as the uppity, self-centered narcissists (I mean come on, I know most of us can relate to Sharpay Evans on a personal level). An actor's job is built on introspection, on looking inside ourselves to find our motivation, but sometimes we become so focused on what's inside us, we forget that we are part of an ensemble.

The process of stepping into a new role is definitely not something that can happen over night; it's something that an actor must gradually enter into. There is so much for a performer to learn about a new character; an actor must grasp an understanding about the role's background, who this person is, what they believe, who they trust, how they carry themselves (I could write a thousand more components, but let's be honest, none of us have time for that). Now imagine you have been cast in a new show, and your character isn't even a person (per say), but instead you are an idea, a concept; what if you were history? For Jordan Lunstead, a senior at Auburn University, this hypothetical situation is all too real. Jordan will be playing the 'Balladeer' in this production of Assassins, and has the responsibility of telling the story of each and every assassin, through song. In order to wrap my mind around such a complex character, I sat down with my friend, Jordan and asked him a couple questions about the challenging process that lies ahead of him.