Hello friends! Last Sunday I found out I was cast in BTG's production of "The Club" by Eve Merriam, I will be playing the part of Henry's Assistant. I guess I will find out what that is at our Meet and Greet! I have been super busy with classes and other responsibilities but here is a recap of my second week as an apprentice!
WEEK 2
Monday June 15, 2015:
Today we started the day with car parking orientation. Part of our responsibilities here is helping direct traffic and work concessions for the Fitzpatrick Main Stage and Unicorn Theatre, so this was the day that we learned how to organize the parking fields. It was pouring rain and it was very confusing to understand what our instructor was trying to explain to us. We left the orientation hoping we would not have to car park in the near future ;). Following the orientation, we had to drive back to Pittsfield for the meet and greet for the "Bells Are Ringing"production. This was a quick introduction, and then the cast stayed for a read through of the play. The apprentices that were not cast in Bells went to Dance class. The crazy warm up is starting to get easier as we get stronger. Today we learned the Tap Dance to "Turn It Off" from "The Book of Mormon!"! It was fun getting to do tap again, but dancing on concrete floors is killing my feet.
Tuesday June 16, 2015
We started our day off with singing with Mark Gionfriddo today. The Bells kids were called for rehearsal, so it was just the apprentices that are in Mary Poppins and The Club. We talked to us about the Musical Mondays we will be performing in. The first will be all Jerome Kern songs, and the thrid Musical Monday will be titled "Even Stephen" and it will be a night of Stephen Sondheim and Stephen Schwartz songs. The second Musical Monday will be a Rodger's and Hart Musical called "By Jupiter". We were instructed to bring in any Schwartz/Sondheim/Kern song we had in our books to perform in class tomorrow. He then taught us techniques to warm up our bodies and voices to get us ready to sing. We spent an hour and a half warming up our bodies and voices before he let us leave class early so he could work a bit with the Mary Poppins cast apprentices. The early dismissal was unexpected, but welcomed so we could catch up on more sleep. After lunch, the Bells kids joined us again for dance class. It once again started with the Broadway warm up, and then we learned the dance to "Two by Two" from "Book of Mormon". This dance is cheesy and fun, and it might be my favorite one so far.
Wednesday June 17, 2015
Today we had our first Yoga lesson. Everyone was super sore from dance class, and our instructor did a ton of strength poses, so by the end of the lesson we were all exhausted. That class was quickly followed (as in a 5 min potty break) by singing with Mark. He warmed us up and then wanted us to sing our Kern/Sondheim/Schwartz songs. Since I do not have any songs by those performers in my repertoire, I did not sing, however, I enjoyed listening to my other apprentices. We are a talented group! This was just a way for Mark to get to know our vocal styles a bit more so he could pick pieces for us to sing. The next class of the day was dance with Ilana. We started with the killer warm up and then went into choreo for "Joyful Joyful"from "Sister Act 2". My foot was killing me from dancing on the concrete floors, so I was only able to learn about half of the dance before I had to sit out and ice it. Everyone was really into it and we recorded it at the end of class.
Thursday June 18, 2015
Our day started off with singing with Mark. He gave us our Jerome Kern pieces for the first Musical Monday. He selected the song "Till the Clouds Roll By" for me to sing. It is a cute piece and I am excited to get to work on it. We ran through each of our solo pieces in class and then released for lunch. We found out that our dance instructor pulled a muscle in her back and decided to cancel class. We had a nice relaxing afternoon, we went to a local coffee shop and got to know each other better. I have made a nice core group of friends. There are five of us and we call ourselves "Team Ox Blood" (it is referring to the color, not actual Ox blood, we are not a cult). Team Ox Blood is made up of me, my three roommates, Maggie, Eleanor and Sophie, and one of the boys, Christian. Our leisurely afternoon ended with us having to go do car parking. We we got there I was surprised with getting to do concessions! And more surprising, I made $3.50 in tips! Whoopie! We ended the day by going to Patricks Pub (Ox Blood's chosen hang out spot, we lower the average age in there by about 40 years) for a quick drink/bite to eat. We ran into Ilana and Mark there, and Ilana stayed to hang out with us. She told us stories about her adventures working on Broadway and we asked her about our favorite Broadway Stars. We really like spending time with her. When we left Patrick's she told us to wear all black to class the next day and bring our heels.
Friday June 19, 2015
Today we started class off with singing with Mark, and today we were assigned our Sondheim/Schwartz songs! I get to sing "The Worst Pies in London" from "Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"! I am so excited because Mrs. Lovett is a dream role of mine! We sang through all of the songs, and then were released from class. We later had dance class, did the warm up, and then Ilana announced that we were learning the dance from Beyonce's "Single Ladies". So we channelled our inner Queen Beys and learned the dance. I was not picking the dance up AT ALL, so I decided to just move around and do hairography instead. I later found out that I fooled people and they thought I did a good job with the dance! Later Maggie, Sophie and I were scheduled to see "Thoreau, or Return to Walden" at the Unicorn. It is a one man production, and it was brilliant. It is set when Henry David Thoreau spent time in Walden, and it is centered around his thought on life, and commentary of events of the era. It was touching, funny, sad, wonderful and the acting was ON POINT. We all thoroughly enjoyed it.
Sunday June 21, 2015
Today was our first day off! Woo! But it was spent doing more work. Maggie and I were fortunate enough to be asked read with one of the actors in Deathtrap. He needed to record a couple of video auditions, and he needed us to read with him. It was interesting seeing how a professional actor works and I think Maggie and I both took a lot from the experience. We then had to do our laundry. So we found a coin-op laundromat and got it done. Later that night we saw Jurassic World. I loved it.
More to come!
XOXO,
Kate
No comments:
Post a Comment