Showing posts with label play. Show all posts
Showing posts with label play. Show all posts

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Play of Awesome: The After Party








Everyone was so excited about the show! Many people have said that this is the best show our school has put on, which is a big compliment considering: 1. It was student written and directed, 2. It was the first play in the chapel, 3. It was the first play that involved video, 4. We have a reputation of big productions, 5. The Play was called the Play of Awesome. Who would want to go to a play titled awesome that was less than awesome? So there was quite a lot on the line and I'm so thankful everyone loved it!






Another drama tradition is having the after party at Village Inn. Eating breakfast food at midnight? Awesome.




There's something funny about the next two photos ...




That photo of Matt and I was taken a year ago. This just further proves that Mr. Benson and Miss Williams, and Matt and I are the same people!







top row from left to right: Rory, Graysen, Mary, Alex, Holly (our stage manager), John, Matt, Me
bottom row: Jenna, Amy, Shannon, Steve, Caleb, Mr. Benson (our drama teacher), Miss Williams (our interpreter)

What started out as nothing more than a crazy idea turned into the best production ever. I am never going to forget the memories I made or the people I made them with.

To sum up how the play was in one word: AWESOME!




Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Play of Awesome: The Performances





From the book: So what's this all about?

This is Mr. Benson, our awesome drama teacher. Not only is he a great teacher, but he's one of my good friends (he's a great mentor). I'm so glad I've gotten to know him and his fiance and I'll be so sad when I won't be able to see them every day. I can't believe that this was my last high school production ever. Oh golly I'm gonna cry. Moving on.


Getting the milk to cereal ratio just right.



High tens.

A lot of this show depended on the audience. We found that the show was rougher if the audience didn't laugh as much. It was like we soaked up their laughs and that determined how excited we were to perform. Monday and Tuesday were alright performances, but as more people came for Thursday and Friday, we got more laughing juice for our acting souls! Laughter truly is the best medicine.



My main monologue was about pushing the button on the soft drink cup lid. And it's so true. Pushing those things is awesome!


Couch fort.


The man couch.

Since we played ourselves in the show, Matt still got to be my boyfriend in the play! This scene was the Man Couch scene; you know, those couches conveniently located outside the women's changing rooms? Yeah. Awesome!


Opening a new jar of peanut butter.

Perfectly popped popcorn.

Like I've said before, I wish we could perform it again. It was just so funny and emphasized the importance of life and all the awesome things that it holds.

Be sure to check back for another post in this awesome series! (is that joke getting old yet?)






Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Play of Awesome: Part Two






After our drama department knew we wanted to write a play of awesome for the spring show, we immediately began auditions. It's always cool how perfect for the parts each person is, and one of the cool things about this play is that we were each playing ourselves! That made for all our efforts to go into improvisation and projection and more technical aspects of the show rather than portraying a character contrary to ourselves.






Not only were we perfect for the parts, but we were perfect for each other. The cast became like a big huge family and I seriously love every single person involved with this show. I don't think I could ever stress how thankful I am for this cast.





(I also think these were the coolest shirts ever.)

A funny little fact about the show is that Neil, the author, (and you can read his blog here!) is Canadian, and one of our main characters, Caleb, is Canadian! He had a cute little moose that sang songs about Canada and he even made a couple appearances on the stage. Hooray for Canada!





We were worried about there being too much black and white on the stage, so some of our favorite awesome things that had been cut from the show were redeemed with a spot on one of the flats!




I got the idea to do a giant mural for our "family room," complete with some family portraits!





There are a lot of traditions for our shows, one of which is doing a chant before we perform. We added a couple new traditions though, such as singing "We Are Young" at the top of our lungs and dancing backstage. Yeah, we're crazy drama kids.





This is the book that started it all.





One thing in particular about this show that was different was the fact that we got to perform it all week. It was always sad in the past to work for multiple months on a show that we only performed for two nights. (Granted all the shows in the past were very stressful so two nights was about all we could take!) The Play of Awesome was virtually stress free because of the small cast, I think. No having to deal with a 40+ member choir and 20+ person cast. A little bit really does go a long way.

It's funny though because I'm sad that this show is over, even though it's been extended for so long. I just want to perform it again!






There was a lot of improv involved with this show, just because the script was flexible enough for us to do so. This left for many a laugh behind the stage. Some of the things people said on stage were just too funny! And we could laugh because the audience was laughing louder than we were, so they didn't notice us chuckling backstage(for the most part, hehe).








Aaah just look at how beautiful that set is!



Stay tuned for a post about the actual performances and the after party!