DID YOU MISS ME?!?!
Well I've missed this! I've missed my weekly journal and being able to vent and record the week's 'weekly' flavor. So it's back. And for the most part, I'll be good on keeping it updated thought I'm not sure which night of the week will be 'the' night for updates, I'll let you know as my life calms down.
So you want to know about my life as of late? Well lets get started:
First off, let me say that I do not think I have had a more busy semester. I'm in the fourth? (It can't be the fifth...the fifth week here?) and life has just been insane. School and life just hit me in the side of the face with a rush:
-18 Credits: (Math 1030, Dramatic Literature, Stage Make-Up II, Shakespeare in Performance, Stage Combat, Professional Aspects of Theatre, and Rehearsal Performance, [it's a jammed back theatre world])
-I had the BFA auditions, which I was accepted into. I am now a Bachelor's of Fine Arts major, but that's another scenario in itself.
-Jumping back into work. I work at the Utah Shakespearean Festival ticket office, and it was weird plunging myself back into the thick of things.
-LYSISTRATA, by Aristophones. I play Kalonike in this SUU production and I get to be pregger's for most of it, it's a really fun time on stage.
Speaking of Lysistrata, it opens TONIGHT!
ahhhhh nervousness. I feel good though, moderately. We had our preview night last night for the majors and its nice getting used to people actually laughing again at the new
material...other than all of us actors who are just like 'blah'. Lysistrata is a Greek play about the main woman, Lysistrata, who convinces the other women to deny their husbands any "home/marriage comforts", no cooking, no housework, no love, no....'you know', in effort to force the men to give up the war between the Athenians & the Spartans. I had to do an interview for our SUU Journal and here's what I wrote about it.
Q1: It can be daunting to come back to Cedar City, undergo a new school year, and realize you have just over four weeks to put a show on. Especially in the beginning with the play being such a work in progress, things constantly being polished and revised. In that same respect the rehearsal process has been made easier by the hard work put into the project by everyone involved and the sense of equality and unity as we all make suggestions, encouraged by Director Christine Frezza, and put this play together.
Q2 & Q5: I would encourage people to come because this play is relevant, and that is one of the purposes of theatre. It is too easy to find faults between the sexes, miscommunication, pulling your weight in a relationship, finding & meeting that common ground, is needed. There are so many more important things at stake in life, that people must find common ground. The humor of this show is watching the characters find the need for that balance, and the frantic desire to gain it. It’s almost too much fun.
Q3: The character I play in Lysistrata is Kalonike, an Athenian mother & housewife married to Athenian warrior Stratyllis, best friend to female leader Lysistrata. Kalonike, on her last leg, realizes that she misses more than just an extra pair of hands with her children and is looking for her partner again. She supports Lysistrata in any form, especially if it means that those missing parts of her life could one day resurface.
Q4: As far as the direction of the plot, the plot leads the audience to recognize that neither side rules supreme. One sex in this plot does trigger change, but both sides realize they must meet together somewhere in between to find any strong foundation on which to stand.
Q6: This school has a beautiful group of collaborators. In the College of Performing and Visual Arts there are individuals ready and willing to
Q2 & Q5: I would encourage people to come because this play is relevant, and that is one of the purposes of theatre. It is too easy to find faults between the sexes, miscommunication, pulling your weight in a relationship, finding & meeting that common ground, is needed. There are so many more important things at stake in life, that people must find common ground. The humor of this show is watching the characters find the need for that balance, and the frantic desire to gain it. It’s almost too much fun.
Q3: The character I play in Lysistrata is Kalonike, an Athenian mother & housewife married to Athenian warrior Stratyllis, best friend to female leader Lysistrata. Kalonike, on her last leg, realizes that she misses more than just an extra pair of hands with her children and is looking for her partner again. She supports Lysistrata in any form, especially if it means that those missing parts of her life could one day resurface.
Q4: As far as the direction of the plot, the plot leads the audience to recognize that neither side rules supreme. One sex in this plot does trigger change, but both sides realize they must meet together somewhere in between to find any strong foundation on which to stand.
Q6: This school has a beautiful group of collaborators. In the College of Performing and Visual Arts there are individuals ready and willing to
pursue excellence and art in whatever form presented to them. I am privileged to work with this cast and crew. I am thankful that at Southern Utah University I have been met with such partners and artists to endeavor with.
So cool beans. It's a really fun character, a really fun show...and it's been a lot of work. It's different from any other show I've been a part of...as far as 'growing' goes. Different challenges, different expectations, different mind set, different everything. But I love playing Kalonike, and I adore the cast & crew so that always makes things easier.
My life lately has been like that night you decide to stay up the entire night, pull an all-nighter, and then your two days become a blur of one huge day, where all your friends took a nap temporarily...everything feels stretched and fuzzy.
Lately it's been impossible for me to determine what I did on 'which' days, my life is becoming oddly enough like Jason Bourne... except I never was trained in death skills or anything of that sort.
"You remember when we did that funny thing that one time."
"Yeah that was this morning..."
"...oh."
Everything is blurring together into one. That's why its crazy to think it's actually been 5 weeks.
Something else that's new and exciting my life, is that I auditioned and obtained the role of Ruth in the MFA's production of Facing East directed by Matt Neves, who I worked with for Beyond the Horizon back in 06/07. He gave me the script to just read over it last spring, and I was immediately excited about the script. Its a bold work focused on an extremely sensitive, tender and controversial subject. I play one of the parents of an LDS couple who recently lost their homosexual son to suicide. It talks about what connects us to what is truly important, both love & faith which should always be unified, no matter how hurtful the situation. I said that I was initially excited about the project at first. After London and my summer months, I could not feel more connected and passionate about this story being told. It is an emotional roller coaster and I look forward to growing through this project. I also am so excited to play with a cast including Josh Stavros & Justin Scholl, and the show goes up in the SUU blackbox Nov. 13-15th.
So. I've taken too long on this first part of my new blog of my life. Entitled 'Play' because that's what I intend to do with it. Take it seriously, but never too much. Just play. Don't pause, just press play.
Hopefully I'll update it each week on Sunday.
Love you all
-ellesse
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