This may sound foolish, but sometimes I miss the mountains so much that it hurts my stomach. Usually it's when I'm listening to music that I listened to a lot in Colorado this summer, or when I look through the pictures from Deer Valley. It seems really silly, but it's true.

So one of the things that I was "priviledged" to experience for the first time is: auditions...but, at college. We arrived Thursday afternoon. Before the night was over, I had signed up for choral auditions and for Annie vocal auditions and movement auditions.

So Friday came, and while I wasn't really nervous about the choral audition, I was a little jittery. Needless to say, I feel fine about my audition. It wasn't perfect, but it was the best I could have done under the present circumstances :)

So then came Saturday, and with it the Annie vocal auditions. I wasn't even jittery about this one..I was planning to sing Never Fully Dressed, and that's no big deal, and I had picked one of the monologues to read, and that was no big deal. So I went, and sang, and read, and it was no big deal. I think I did fine.

And this afternoon I have movement auditions. I'm not really concerned about these auditions either. So I guess the purpose of this post is to tell you all that I am staying busy and finding groups to audition for, and it's not really not stressing me out :)

jenna, stop procrastinating and give the good people an update!!

Alright...I'll begin to fill you in.

I am at school - Harding University - and I begin classes on Monday. I just got here on Thursday, and already I have auditioned for the choral programs and for the homecoming musical, Annie (well, the vocal audition...I have "movement" auditions tomorrow). I am moved into the dorm and mostly settled. My roommate, Molly, is fabulous...we are currently jamming out to Justin Bieber.

Okay...I'll continue later.

"little" girls

Here we are, the females that stayed in the "little" girls dressing room.
LtoR, Esther George (Ruth Putnam), Heather Beger (Susanna Walcott), Olivia Edwards (village girl), Rebecca (Betty Parris), and me (Mary Warren).

over for now

And, just like that, it's over. Well, the show itself isn't over, but I am now relaxing in the basement, sipping tea, waiting quietly until curtain calls. I believe I have been in at least one show on the OAT stage 8 out of the last 10 years. This is my home. I love the people here. I love the ugly mountains painted on the basement walls. I love the creepy artwork in the dressing rooms. I love the nasty rug that is always super grody. I love the smell of the building. I love the bat that makes appearances from time to time.

I'm really looking forward to working with new people with new ideas in a new space with new smells and new quirky things. I'm just really, really going to miss being home.

I have yet to cry. I had thought that I might cry on stage, but in the heat and adrenaline of the moment, I did not.

It's not over, I keep telling myself. It's just over for now.

So, in the near future look for some blogging on the following topics:

- Little Prairie Bible Camp

- college approaching much too rapidly

- the Crucible..yeah, I know, you're sick of me blabbing about it, but I can't help it!

- maybe I'll finish posting about our June vaca...we really did make it all the way to Deer Valley!

...and some other stuff. I'm at the theatre now, waiting around until it's time to go back on stage.

I love my life.

opening

This show has come so far...it's grown, matured, fleshed-out and been layered together by an extremely talented cast. And tonight, we open.

It's unreal how much I have learned while working of this show.

It's my last show at OAT for a while.

I'm really going to miss everyone. Especially Jeff the chair.

To quote the circus people in Seussical, "Come see the shoooooooow!!!"

humor from screwed lines, double negatives and Puritan grammar possibly getting to my head

There have been several times when people have messed up lines during Crucible rehearsal, changing the meaning entirely and making the rest of the cast laugh uproariously.

For example, the man playing Hale has a line concerning Proctor,

"From the beginning, this man has struck me true."

But TWICE now, he has accidentally said,

"From the beginning, this man has struck me too...."

This strikes everyone as unbearably funny, since in our production of The Crucible, John Proctor has a habit of getting angry with young girls (myself included) and throwing them to ground.

Once, our Tituba was supposed to say,

"Oh, yes, I love the little children.."

but it came out,

"Oh, no, I don't love the little children.."

..which was made even funnier with the comments that immediately followed, "Yeah, she doesn't love the little children. She eats the little children..."

Perhaps Tituba's mistake came from all the double negatives in the show getting to Erin's head (Erin being the actress that plays Tituba, of course..). There surely are an annoyingly large amount of double negatives in this show. Example:

"I never seen no sign you ever sent your spirit out to hurt no one."

Oh, the grammar in this show...
I think it's getting to my head.

This morning I said "I believe they are out picking blackberries, are they not?"

"Are they not?" Where did that come from????

Anyway, come see the show. It's intense. I saw Act 4 for the first time last night. I cried.

several things.

First - the Crucible. It is the thing that's taking up most of my time these days.


I am basically off-book..there might be a couple times I have to call for a line, but overall, I'm good. This is when the real fun begins.


My character appears briefly in Act 1, several significant times in Act 2, and in the whole of Act 3 (or "the beast" as it has been affectionately referred to). Act 1 isn't nearly as vexing as Acts 2 and 3, because it's not an emotional rollercoaster for me. Acts 2 and 3 are.


Maybe it's just because I've really never done a drama before, or maybe there is something legitimately special about the show, but last night after running Act 3 (the intense courtroom) I was shaking. I was pumped with adrenaline. I wanted to cry. I think it's just my lack of experience working on a show like this. It's really cool.


--


Tomorrow night is the FOLLIES! Come come come! OAT, 7:00, $10. Be there...or don't.
The Light girls (that are in town) will be performing ;)


--


As if I need anything else to be thinking about, I have the senior recital on Monday, the 25th, 7:30, the Presbyterian church in Rolla, free. You can come if you want to. I'll be playing :/

Reheasals for The Crucible began yesterday. During the afternoon session we did a read-through, and in the evening we blocked act 1. It's a little scary how quickly this whole process is going to be...after rehearsal this afternoon and tonight (blocking acts 2 and 3), I'll be done with blocking. We're supposed to be off book by next Tuesday. I'll try to keep y'll updated on how it's all going for me...very different from a Fine Linen rehearsal! And it's not a musical. And it's not happy. Very, very different from anything I've done before.

I had read the play before in school, but I have never seen it performed, so the read-through was extremely helpful as far as understanding the character's personalities and the tonality of the piece. It's going to be an excellent production.

Last night I dreamt that I was standing in the Cardinal dugout. My beloved Wainwright was about to head out to the mound to give Carpenter a pep talk, but before he left, he gave me the stinky, sweaty hoodie he was wearing...I was supposed to "hold onto it" for him.

Strangely enough, as I stood there, holding his nasty hoodie, and watching him run out to the mound to encourage his teammate, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

Because I got to hold onto Adam Wainwright's hoodie.

Ha!!

trip: day 2

We left the Bacon's early the next morning. Breakfast consisted of breakfast burritos that Uncle Dennis so kindly made for us, coffee that Uncle Dennis so kindly made for us, and Fluffy Fresh donuts. When Mother was pregnant with me, she craved Fluffy Fresh donuts. Now I understand why...they are divine.

The Little Ones slept across Kansas.

We finally arrived in Colorado Springs around 4, if I remember correctly. We went to the hotel to meet up with the rest of our family and change for dinner.

Dinner was delightful. We ate the Flying W Ranch, a ranch with a reputation for fabulous Cowboy food and fabulous Cowboy music.

Besides the dinner-and-music show, the ranch has all sorts of Western-style shops and...stuff. It's like a little town.

After a wee hike, you can sit on these red rocks and get a great view of the Flying W and Colorado Springs.

Twas a bit windy...

Teepee for the children (and adults) to play in...

LtoR: cousin Joseph, Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Dan, cousin Elizabeth

The food was great. The music was even better.

Here ends my account of June 10, 20ll.

trip: day 1

The first leg of our journey from Rolla to (ultimately) Buena Vista, CO began June 9, 2011. Packed into the minivan like hoards of young girls into a Justin Bieber concert (meaning there were a lot of us in a tight space), we (my mother, father and two youngest sibling...C and R left with the grandparents that morning) hit the road with excitement, enthusiasm, and lots of animated movies.

We drove to Kansas City, Missouri...the very place where on January 24, 1994, the world was changed...I was born :) I love driving around Kansas City with my parents because they are constantly pointing out places they used to work, or places that people I should remember (but don't, because I was, like, 5 when we moved to Rolla), or places that are just really interesting. We spent the night at my Uncle Dennis and Aunt Michelle's house (who lives in Lee's Summit, really, not Kansas City). They are avid Cubs fans, but we love them anyway.

Here ends my account of June 9, 2011.

last summer

As we've been preparing for our upcoming vacation, we've had fun browsing pictures from our adventures last summer...

One day I challenged the kiddos to dress up as a movie character. Here's Matthew as Russell from Up and Meredith as the Sugarplum Fairy from the Barbie version of The Nutcracker.

Matthew (Russell) and Rebecca (Ellie)...

"Adventure is out there!!"

They look similar, no?

We celebrated Matthew's 3rd birthday on August 24th!

Random tea party/dress up day. Courtney as a masked Venitian-Parisian, me as a drunken pirate princess, Clarissa as a hippie named Violet Sunshine, Rebecca as a snobby British chick , Meredith as Nancy Drew, and Matthew as a little boy that wears his pajamas all day.

Gotta love Bible camp skits!! Here is Rebecca portraying Elijah (see her beard??), with her buddy Katie doing an excellent job portraying the soaked sacrifice that would soon be destroyed with fire from heaven.

The Fantasticks was fantastic...Here's Becca and Carl (she gave him that black eye).

Becca and Jordan..

..and Becca and Ryan :)

I can't wait to see everyone's pictures from this summer, and look forward to sharing ours with you...use sunscreen and drink water, folks!!

~jkl

did you feel that?

...because I sure didn't.

There was an earthquake last night.

I slept through it.

I'm not sure if I should be glad or disappointed.