A lot has been happening.
Starting off, I choreographed Disney's Beauty and the Beast for Campus Lights. It was madness. I had to create 2 large company numbers and teach them. I had a BLAST doing it though. And I couldn't have asked for a better cast. There were literally people of all dance levels and they all gave 110% to make the show wonderful!
I was also cast in Molly Sweeney. To tell you the truth, I didn't want to do the show because it's a show that consists of 3 people never talking to each other... only in monologues that go on for a couple of pages at a time. That thought terrified me. And on top of that, I'd be required to learn an Irish dialect (I'm horrible with dialects). So when I saw that I was cast as Frank Sweeney, I almost had a heart attack. I mean, yes, I was ecstatic that I was cast, but I almost died because the only thing I could think about was, "How in hell am I going to get through any of this?" Fortunately, everyone who worked on the show was absolutely wonderful. Cindy and Jody who played Molly and Mr. Rice were absolutely wonderful. And Lissa, Chase, Joy Beth, Roma, and the rest of the production staff was a dream! Somehow, because they all believed in me, I was able to get through the show... all 2hrs and 10mins of it... (45-50 of those minutes were taken up of me talking in an Irish accent to the audience about random facts and useless pieces of information). I didn't want the show to end though. I had SO much fun doing it, and I learned so much about myself as a performer.
That was the bulk of my semester. And unfortunately, I don't have the fun of performing that show to keep me going through each week until the semester is over. The rest is currently all about trying to keep up in classes.
My summer is looking promising and fun, however. In July, I am getting to go to Germany for the International Performing Arts Institute for Musical Theatre. I'm incredibly excited for that. And I'm also getting to go back to Making It On Broadway in August. I cannot describe how grateful I am that I've gotten these opportunities. While I am terrified and continue to be terrified about graduating, these programs such as Making It On Broadway and hopefully IPAI make me feel much more secure about my future. While Murray is a great school, there's not much training here for musical theatre. Most of what I learn about musical theatre, I have to find out myself. However, getting to attend these intensives, I feel like I'm getting the knowledge I need to be successful in this field. I'm hoping at least.
This semester, I also picked New Dawn up again. New Dawn was a musical I started working on my freshman year here at Murray as a Theatre Class project. I continued working on it for a while, but quit because I got discouraged. Somehow, I picked it up this semester and am almost completed with the score. I have to finish the opening numbers for each act as well as one other number within the show. I'm hoping to finish the numbers and the book this summer, and if all goes well, potentially trying to have a blackbox production of it next semester. Or at very least, a reading. I'll keep posted on it, but I'm super excited.
But as a whole, I think this semester, I've learned a lot about trusting myself, but more importantly, I've learned a lot more about trusting God and knowing that God has a plan for me. I'd been focusing on making everything work how I want it to work, but I'm starting to see that opportunities that I think I want may not be what is best for me.
"I've let go the need to know why. I'll take what answers you supply. You know better than I." - John Bucchino
