I am almost hesitant to write right now because I didn't do very well at rehearsal tonight and I am very down on myself for it. So fair warning, this might be a very gloomy entry.
(I know, I know: bad dress rehearsal, good show. But all I can think right now is that I wish we had a rehearsal tomorrow night!)
I am messing up so badly with my ah-ah-ah~!s on almost every turn, and I don't know why! I honestly never really had a problem during rehearsal unless no-one ever corrected me before and I'm way more tone-deaf than I thought I was. (I suppose that's possible, though I'm fairly certain I'm tone deaf anyway and oh lord why did I ever think that singing in front of people was a good idea?) I'm honestly kicking myself for messing up so badly and am considering having one of our ensemble sprites (we have a five-person ensemble that are dressed as woodsprites; they are uniformly amazing) to sing my part for me instead.
I was originally fairly pleased to get this role simply because I don't think I'd ever done a part that was mainly singing or mainly depended upon my singing voice. I've always been a better actress than I was a singer, and I'm not even saying I'm all that great of an actress. (Why do I want to do this with my life again?)
In any case, I was always "the girl that can act, oh and if she needs to sing she can do that too" and not "the girl with the great voice." I've had multiple friends with legitimately fantastic voices and I've always felt I've had to work a lot harder to even sound pleasant at all. (Which has always been upsetting to me; if I could have any one innate talent it would be to have a lovely singing voice.) Recently, with MP's help, I've been gaining more confidence when it comes to singing, but obviously it's possibly false and not actually earned confidence.
I need to stop that now. I can go on thinking that but writing it down is probably a bad idea.
On the brighter side, our Baker's Wife told me about an audition that's coming up that sounds interesting. (The next show the company I'm doing Into the Woods with is doing is Guys and Dolls, which - frankly, I would love to play Sarah Brown but it's not going to happen.) I've had my eye on a couple of others, so hopefully I won't have too much downtime after this show is over.
to fix, to hide, to move, to battle... to see what the trouble is.
curtain up, light the lights!
So, I'm late in updating on this since technically (unintentional pun) tech week started on Sunday with our cue-to-cue (which was intensely boring, as always). Monday we had a run with only essential costume pieces (aka my ten-foot-long three-piece wig) and full tech. We didn't get all the way through the show, which was slightly worrying, but we did keep stopping and starting throughout to make sure everything was set correctly in terms of set pieces and props and lights and sound cues.
And last night was our first full dress rehearsal, which went fairly well, all things considered! There are quite a few quick changes, and they were all pulled off masterfully, in particular considering how elaborate some of the costumes are.
My wig, as previously mentioned, is about ten feet long all-told, and curly. It catches on literally everything and anything, including but not limited to: the tower/tree I sit in for most of the first half of the show, the Witch's robes, my dress, every single piece of the set that hasn't been sanded down (all of it), the ladder I walk up and down to get to the tower, etc. I wear it wrapped about my shoulders like a curly blonde scarf when walking about the backstage area and still manage to get myself snagged on everything. I'm going to talk to KD tonight about possibly staying up in the tower until "Stay With Me," which is the first time I appear outside of the tower, simply because getting up and down the ladder with a long flowy dress and my wig is impossible to do quickly or gracefully.
I love tech week. I always have. Everyone refers to tech week as "hell week," which it can be, but I unabashedly love having rehearsal every night until the show and basically running on caffeine, sugar, and adrenaline for a solid week. I love costumes - I used to joke that getting to play dress-up was the primary reason that I liked doing theatre. (It's not true, but I do love playing dress-up!) I love bonding with castmates in a way that you don't really do until tech week. I love hanging out in the green room (our green room is purple and mustard yellow, by the way). I just love the final surge of energy and dedication going into the opening night of a show. I wish we had more than one weekend to perform. That's one of the few things I'll miss about the Place That Will Not Be Named; at least they had a whole three weeks or so of performances.
But most of all, I just love doing what I love to do. I'm grateful to have the chance to do it. And now I must be off to go to our final dress rehearsal before the show starts on Friday, since tomorrow we're going dark!
no-one out-crazies ophelia!
Rehearsal went well today! P, our original music director, came back to help us with music since M had a concert. We ran through both finales (Ever After for Act I and the Into the Woods reprise one million or so for Act II), and we tightened up the scene where the Narrator and I die. And...that was pretty much it, not much to write home about. I marked the screaming again, since my throat isn't really feeling any better yet.
A lot of today's rehearsal was spent finalizing costumes and making last-minute adjustments. The costumes in this show are seriously, seriously amazing. Easily some of the best I've ever worked with. KD fixed my wig, it has a big flower and lots of ribbons on it now and it looks less like I just stepped out of the 70s. I'm going to be using my own hair after it gets chopped off, so that reminds me that I have to get my roots done.
That reminds me, I never mentioned my inspirations for Rapunzel! They are as follows.
Act I:
Act II:
...there's actually not a whole lot of acting involved in this role, to be honest. ;)
And now we're on to tech week! Sunday is our cue-to-cue and then after that we have full-dress runs! And Friday is showtime! Whee!
well, not simply.
today I worked on
Love Makes Such Fools Of Us All
Take Care of This House (this is the only solo version I could find)
I Feel Pretty
Somewhere (no-one really needs links for these, do they?)
I Couldn't Be Happier/Thank Goodness (this isn't the whole thing; it's a weird arrangement in my book)
Glitter and Be Gay
So I worked on LOTS of new stuff today with MP! I'm sort of shopping around for an awesome audition song-slash-something that I might be able to sing at the concert this year. I didn't realize that the character in Barnum that sings "Love Makes Such Fools Of Us All" is Jenny Lind, ha!
She kept mentioning that songs would make "great encore songs" for me, which, what? Also she said that she can really imagine me singing "Glitter and Be Gay" which makes me :D because I've always wanted to sing that song. I...can hit the high E-flat(s) on a good day?
Other than that, had yet another lesson where I couldn't get out of my own way or out of my own head. Or out of my own way. In my defense (am I really defending myself to myself?) I am not feeling well and my throat is scratchy and I'm afraid of straining my voice when we go into production next week. If I'm going to be honest, and really, what's the point of this if I'm not, these are all excuses for me babbling and making stupid faces when I hit wrong notes or things feel wonky to me.
MP was very strict about my unconscious naysaying and judging myself today; I really have no excuse for it at this point. It's not cute and it's not funny and it's not endearing, it's not even proving that "I don't really sound like that," it's just distracting me from doing what I need to do. Because every time I do it, my mentality goes further and further downhill, and eventually I just have absolutely no confidence left and I waffle about. Note to self: STOP THAT.
Rehearsal went really well today! I finished painting my second rosebush and started in on some vines and ferns on the bigger set pieces. (What? That's important!) I marked all of my screaming (we only did the second act today) because I'm worried about straining my voice too much. I finally hit the right tone with the hysterical laughter before "oh nothing!" and everyone cracked up, including M. :D Now I need to solidify what I'm doing with the final "ah-ah-ah~" at the end.
"stop being such a coward."
I'm starting to think maybe I should just write this stuff down in a paper journal because I can perhaps be a bit more long-winded and honest with myself there. It's easier to scribble words down on a piece of paper than look at them in black and white on a computer screen. Or something.
Yesterday's rehearsal was disastrous, for me. In general, it went well (the first act, especially). But my singing was terrible, basically through the whole thing. We started off working on "Our Little World" and I sounded awful and had issues with things I've never had issues with before (the aah-aah-aahs in the beginning and middle?! seriously??) and then C got all huffy with me (like, "what is your problem today!") and it threw me off for the rest of the rehearsal, it seemed like. I couldn't get any of the aah-aah-aahs for the rest of the run, for some reason. I might be (probably am!) getting sick, but that's no excuse for getting shaken once during a rehearsal and then letting it affect the rest of my performance. What is wrong with me indeed.
Part of that might be the fact that I spent the night before with PC and L recording "Ridin' Solo" with L on ukelele and both of us on vocals (and then making PC record the ~*~soulful piano version~*~ of the same after L went home, which was both legitimately awesome and incredibly hilarious, especially him spelling out "S-O-L-O" during the bridge).
Listening to my voice played back at me like that always unnerves me - I've only done it once before but last time it made me feel awful. This time it wasn't as bad because it was both me and L and we were basically goofing off and not taking it too seriously. It came out pretty cute and he might be able to make something good out of the raw materials we recorded with him. (It sounds awesome with the accordion synths.)
After that PC and I talked about lots of things but eventually came around to the fact that the reason I don't sound like I want to sound when I sing is because I'm afraid of it, that I'm afraid of "owning it," is the way he put it. (Especially anything even the slightest bit outside my (teeny tiny) comfort zone.) And he's right, I want to sing it "right" and "well," but I don't put any heart into it. I thought that I had started to get over that but I guess not, because clearly I was still feeling the effects of being shaken like that the next day, with C setting me off again.
I made mention of this, obliquely, earlier in this journal saying "why can't I act when I sing?" I'm not having too much of an issue with it for Into the Woods because most of my acting while I'm singing consists of "blank and happy" or "blank and kind of crazy" anyway. But singing with MP on arias and such, it's too hard for me to get past the I HAVE TO DO THIS PROPERLY fears and instincts to even try to emote. And that's what it is, it's fear: down at the base of the thing, it is fear.
I was going to go on about the fact that I am awful and shouldn't try but that is not productive at all so I won't.
la tua povera Zerlina
on the 4th I worked on
V'Adoro Pupille
Batti, Batti O Bel Masetto
Blah, I forgot to write in here this week. I've been sleeping most of the week because I feel awful, but I should have written anyway.
I definitely felt rusty getting back to singing lessons after two weeks away. (Frankly, I did not keep on top of it while I was away, so it's not that surprising.) I relapsed back into the old way of making faces at myself and nervous-fidgeting when I wasn't doing things properly. Batti, Batti felt okay but V'Adoro Pupille didn't feel that great in parts. Plus, I didn't work on ornamentation at all (for V'Adoro Pupille) because it is so incredibly frightening to me.
As for rehearsals, they are going okay. I just need to learn the words to "Our Little World" and I should be fine because I'm really not having that much of an issue with the music. It's just remembering where the words go, and in what order. And trusting my instincts.
le vostre faville son grate nel sen
I worked on
V'Adoro Pupille (again!)
And I guess I never wrote about this or thought about it very much! I remember MP really wanted me to start working on ornamentation, which is primarily a confidence and musicality confidence issue. It's scary, therefore I would rather not. She said it was scary for her, too, but still. :(
Rehearsals have been fine. Not terribly exciting, we're currently in the "okay now I have to remember all my lines and blocking and music and do it in the right order oh gosh" phase where you're not quite comfortable with the book out of your hands just yet.
A tiny little personal victory: I sent an email about replacing Cinderella, since our Cinderella had to drop out. I'm still not really speaking to my mother over the fact that she told me "this is only community theatre and you can't even handle that, you'll never be able to handle it in real life." But I did it. And I was told that it was being taken care of but thank you for offering and I bet you would make a great Cinderella. So...there's that, at least? No-one seems to have been offended by my offering, and things haven't been awkward since I did...
I'm still not going to tell my mother.