Totally Amazed

I should start off by saying that I realize I am biased, but read to the end anyways. Just give it a shot!

I saw Spring Awakening on Tuesday night and read the review published in the Tribune on Thursday. For the most part, I agreed with Chris Jones (author of the Chicago Tribune's review) but I don't think he did a fair job of capturing the brilliance of the show.

The musical Spring Awakening is based on the 1891 play by Frank Wedekind. The play was seen as so controversial that it was banned in Germany (Wedekind's homeland) for many years. Even by today's standards, the show is controversial in the content and titles of songs. The story focuses on a group of young teenagers as they deal with growing up and discovering their sexuality in oppressive 19th century Germany. The show is entirely relatable however. The characters in the show deal with a lot of the same questions that we do today, all set to a beautifully written score. The imagery of the set is amazing too and the show is definitely multi-faceted from being really funny to heart-wrenching. 

I know that a lot of people balk at the idea of seeing  Broadway musical, but SA is really the anti-Broadway musical, taking things in an entirely different direction. SA is a rock opera, so the music is something you might hear on the radio today and there are no big dance numbers. All the choreography in the show is much more modern and does not involve any jazz hands or chorus lines. As I've proven to some of my friends, SA is really a musical that anyone, theatre fan or not, could enjoy. 

I think SA is a musical that every teenager should see (or at least listen to the soundtrack!) If you see the show and don't connect with it in someway or feel anything from it, you're a robot. If you've ever felt overprotected, confused, hated your parents, loved your parents, wished your parents had done more for you. felt like a failure, like a rebel, angry, sad, broke, felt attracted to someone, felt confused by the accepted understanding of love, curious or confused about your sexuality, questioned what is really right and wrong, felt like you haven't lived enough, felt loved, abused, hurt, let down, felt really ecstatically energized, this is a show for you!

As far as the performance goes, I loved all of the principle and ensemble characters, with the exception of the lead characters, Wendla Bergmann and Melchior Gabor. I agreed with Chris Jones that Christy Altomare was a bit bland as Wendla, I would have liked to see more passion behind her beautiful vocals, and I felt that Jake Epstein (much as I love him) was a bit too static as Melchior. Melchior is a character that cares for his friends very deeply, but I thought that was shadowed by his passionate, radical views. 

Nevertheless, it was an amazing performance and by all means worth seeing!!! As the Tribune put it, the show is all about "Love, Sex, and Rock & Roll".

Spring Awakening is only in town for another week, so if you're considering buying tickets, now is the time to do so!

http://www.broadwayinchicago.com/shows_dyn.php?cmd=display_current&display_showtag=spring09 

An Amazing Night!

I wouldn’t normally blog just to talk about something I did, but this is not a post about any ordinary event. Tuesday, August 4, 2009 is a day that I will remember for sure! On Tuesday night I:

• Learned that to have a baby, I have to love a man with all my heart. There’s no stork involved at all!
• Was inspired to re-decorate my room with brick walls and 19^th century portraits
• Was inspired to cut my hair again, possibly unevenly
• Really noticed the effects lights give to a show
• Hung out in a shady alley to get a picture with a man I don’t know personally
• Felt the stage shaking with the Boys’ stomping in “The Bitch of Living”
• Memorized the choreography to “Touch Me”
• Sympathized with Morritz
• Exercised an amazing amount of self-control and refrained from jumping up with the cast in “Totally Fucked”
• Was engulfed by the effects of a fog machine
• Fell in love with musical theatre all over again
• Laughed and cried
• Walked across a real Broadway stage!
• Was close enough to hear the actors singing without the aid of the mics!
• Sat two seats away from Jake Epstein!
• Saw Spring Awakening opening night in Chicago….. SITTING ONSTAGE!!!!!!

 

I am a huge theatre geek, and when I learned that I could have the opportunity to see SA opening night in the onstage seating (at a seriously discounted price no less!) I jumped at it! I’m proud to say that I’m a member of “The Guilty Ones”, a group that started in New York as a fanbase who decided the show was so amazing they were going to take publicity for the show into their own hands. Broadway in Chicago started a chapter of The Guilty Ones here and in exchange for talking up the show and recruiting people I get awesome prizes like discounted tickets and free stuff! A pretty sweet deal if you ask me! It was great for me too because no one in my family is into theatre and with the exception of a pair of Rent tickets my brother got me when it was here last February, I get all my own tickets. For anyone who loves theatre but can’t get tickets easily because they’re so expensive, look for deals! There’s usually some kind of promotional code you can use, or student rush tickets and it is definitely worth it!

Seeing SA made my life a little more complete. It was just amazing! It started out in a small theatre off-Broadway and I think being so close to all the action is a little more like it was originally seen. What made it even better was that I got to bring my best friend with me to see it too, so I got to share that experience with her. Seriously one of the most memorable nights of my life ever!!

 

Blast from the past

  This is a story I wrote when I was in 7th grade, from the prompt "Write from someone else's point of view." My Language Arts teacher, Mrs. Meyer, liked it so much that she had me submit it in a writing contest and it ended up being published in the Anthology of Short Stories by Young Americans, 2004 Edition. 

                                            Lucky's LIfe  

       My name is Lucky. I am a cat. I live in a nice house with my family of five humans. They're all pretty nice to me and don't yell as much as they did when I first came in the house. Let me tell you who is in my family and a bit about them. Let's start with Mom. She is very nice and takes care of me with the rest of the family. Dad takes the family places in that big shiny thing that rolls. (Then I get the house to myself!) Then there are the kids. Veronica (I like to sleep on her bed with all her stuffed animals), Kat (she is my owner), and the little one, Gabe (dun dun dun!).

       I like my family or at least get along with them okay, except for Gabe. He is my archenemy. We never get along. he thinks he can scare me, but he doesn't know that I am the bravest little kitty in the world!

       Aaahh! What was that? Oh, never mind. That was just The Noise. The Noise is just a lot of little beeps that wake up the humans every morning so they can leave (except for Mom who stays home with me). After a while, the humans leave, and it's just me and Mom. We usually just sit around for most of the day and watch the square thing with moving pictures. Then Mom has to leave and go get the kids. I don't know where they go, but they smell funny when they come home.

       My life is perfect! Well, almost. I haven't had any animal friends since I was just a little kitten. But now, I have just uncovered a horrible truth: I am not alone. A week ago, I was sitting in the kitchen eating when I heard Mom and Kat yell. Something small and furry (it looked like a hairball with legs) ran out from under the radiator in the kitchen (I always sit next to it when I eat). I realized what it must have been, a mouse! I, being the brave little kitty I am, dove towards the heater, but could not get my paw far back enough to reach the ugly little thing. So, I gave up and finished my breakfast. 

       When Dad came downstairs, Gabe said, "Dad! There was a mouse!" He made it sound as though I hadn't put any effort into catching it. Dad said "Stupid cat!" (I've heard that before) and told Mom that he'd have to get some mousetraps. That made me mad. I walked away without rubbing against his legs to say good morning. 

       I was still upset when everyone had gone to bed that night. I had to prove to them that I am brave and can do whatever I need to. So, I came up with a foolproof plan to catch the little hairball. I snuck downstairs and sat on top of the heater in the dining room. Now, all I had to do was wait. Just when I was going to give up and retreat (go to bed), I saw it. It crept out from under the heater in the kitchen and under the table. I jumped down and caught it by the tail. It gave a little squeak and shivered with fear.

       When I looked it in the eye, it said, "Please don't hurt me Miss. I was just trying to get food for my family. I didn't mean to bother you."

       Then, I can't believe this, I felt sorry for the little guy. When I asked, he told me his name was Cheddar III.

       It sounded important, so I said, "All right. I'll let you go, but you better not let my family see you."

       Then I climbed on top of the counter and used my claws to open a bag of bread. I cut the slice into pieces and gave it to him. He thanked me, and we became friends. Cheddar kept his promise and never let my family see him. (If they did see him, I'd be the one begging for food.)

A Book Review of Sorts

Exploring A Whole New World

            When I think of writing, I see a world, entirely its own, a parallel universe to the one we live in. This world has beautiful areas: pastures, forests, oceans, caves, mountains, large cities and quaint towns, all worth exploring and each one with hidden secrets only revealed by frequent visits. Early on in my life, I was forced into child labor in the industrial sector of this world, with gigantic factories all bent on one thing: showing my fellow workers and I how to turn out well-structured, logical writing. Now I find myself with some vacation time away from the factory, but completely at a loss in deciding where to go. The world beyond the factory is immense; the weather is fickle, sometimes clearly showing the splendid features of this new world, and other times veiling everything in fog so that I am completely and utterly lost.

            Luckily for me, in his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King creates a guide to the world of prose that lies outside of the factory. I found King’s book very helpful, but above all, honest. King writes with a deep knowledge of the beauty and terrors of the writing world because he has experienced them all firsthand. It made me feel better about my own qualms to know that a writer as successful as King can understand how scary literary criticism can be when he states in On Writing, “In many ways, Eula-Beulah prepared me for literary criticism. After having a two-hundred pound babysitter fart on your face and yell Pow!, The Village Voice holds few terrors” (21).

            On Writing also helped me realize how much about writing I already know. For example, when I write on my own, I usually write poetry. It is poetry that I always thought of as the genre that takes its own course as it is being written. When King says in the book that prose does the same thing, my initial reaction was to disagree and think of poetry. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized that he is right. In class we’ve talked about how the way a story unfolds is dictated by how the character reacts, so in that way the story writes itself.

            Being a writer is like being a coxswain for a rowing team. I coxed for the men’s team last year, had to learn to steer the boat from my seat in the stern without being able to see directly in front of me. As coxswain, I could make calls and steer the shell, but there were limits to it. If I used the rudder too much I would only slow us down in the water and I ran the risk of upsetting the balance of the shell. I could control the course we took but I wasn’t the power behind our movement, the rowers were. My job was to be the brain of the boat as a whole and think for the rowers, to ensure that everyone was working together. Our shell wouldn’t have made much progress if I tried to power it by myself. Writing is the same way. If I try to alter the natural flow of a story or the course of action a character is taking, my efforts will have a negative effect.

            King’s book also proved to be insightful in areas outside of writing. By telling stories of how his love of reading fantasy and science fiction books and then writing them developed throughout his life, King was able to touch on many other subjects. One thing that really stuck with me was when he said, 

   I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction and poetry who as ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all. I’m not editorializing, just trying to give you the facts as I see them (50).

I know exactly the reaction that King is talking about, the face people make when you tell them that a career in the fine arts is your passion, like you’ve just said your life goal is to be a hobo. Offering personal stories and wisdom he has learned over the years really made King’s book accessible, and he was able to give advice without sounding preachy.

             I came away from On Writing feeling confident about my own abilities, which I think is the highest compliment that can be given to that book; it means King accomplished his goal of advising writers who are serious about writing. If I could share just one thing from On Writing with writers everywhere, it would be this, “…stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position” (78-79).  It is King’s one piece of advice that I found the most encouraging, challenging, and the one that best summarizes what he has to say about writing.  

A Foray into Fiction

The Concert- Second Draft

Joshua knew he was playing the right notes, but they sounded wrong, hollow. Normally, Joshua enjoyed playing piano sonatas by Haydn, but right now there seemed to be too many notes. His fingers felt weak and clumsy, finally tripping over each other and creating dissonance. He refrained from banging his fists on the keys and instead played the third movement of Beethoven’s moonlight sonata. After playing the fast, powerful piece, Joshua’s breathing was more relaxed and his fingers felt stronger again. 

He knew he had only a few minutes left in the practice room before he went onstage to give his last concert for his music school. Next year he would be at Northwestern, hundreds of miles away from Phoenix. Joshua couldn’t wait to get out of his parents’ house, but the concert had to be his main focus right now. He inhaled and closed his eyes, and a flood of thoughts overwhelmed his brain. 

It wasn’t until an ordinary car ride with his father that Joshua thought of making music his life. In the conversational way he had of speaking only to cover the silence, Joshua’s father said, “So… do you think this is something you’ll want to study in college?  Do you think you’ll take it seriously?”

It was a big question to ask a kid, and Joshua hadn’t known how to respond. No, he hadn’t thought about a career in music, he still had his heart set on growing up to be a doctor like the ones on the TV show his mother watched. But as Joshua got older, his father’s question stuck with him.

As his lessons became more demanding,  Joshua began to take them more seriously, devoting more time to perfecting pieces of music. Joshua’s parents were proud of how well he was doing and eagerly came to every performance. After a while though, Joshua’s concerts became routine and even though his family still came to his concerts, they stopped hearing the music.

Joshua had always credited his father with the idea of pursuing music professionally, even if he never said so out loud, so it hurt when his dad stopped coming to concerts altogether. Joshua’s dream of pusuing music was something his dad expected him to grow out of; he wanted Joshua to pursure something more realistic.

Music was not something Joshua could give up,  was a part of his life, a part of him. The notes and emotions on the pages he spent so many hours working on weren’t his own, but he connected with them. Music gave Joshua a voice that he was never able to achieve with words alone. Music wasn’t just sounds produced from squiggles on a page, it was the composer’s way of telling a story or sending a message, and Joshua used the same notes to tell his own story, to say what he wanted to say.

Then there was the fight with his dad. After doing reasearch over the summer and emailing the heads of music departments from schools all over the country, Joshua felt like he had a pretty good idea of where he wanted to go to college. One afternoon, Joshua asked for the car to drive to the music store so that he could pick up sheet music for auditions. Not even glancing away from the Tv screen, Joshua’s dad had sighed and said, “Not now, Josh. The piano doesn’t have to consume every minute of your life, it will still be there tomorrow.”

Even though Joshua asked his dad again and again, he still refused to help. Joshua’s audition dates seemed to loom closer, so he sought the help of his music teacher instead. Joshua only grew more determined every time his dad refused to help or ran off stats about which med schools were ranked at the top, and he spent hours praticing and driving himself to auditions.

Joshua exhaled. He had put in so much work over the past few months, all on his own, that this concert would be a final celebration of  what he had accomplished. Next year he would be at Northwestern, majoring in music and finally doing what he wanted to, even if no one else stood behind him.

Before he knew it, it was time for Joshua to be onstage. He walked out to applause and the introduction from his music teacher, and froze. There, in the first row sat his dad.

With a smile creeping across his face, Joshua sat down and began to play.  

One of Those Moments

I'm bad at keeping up with things, there's no two ways about it. I forget about email correspondences so my responses would be faster by snail mail, I rarely check my voicemail, I never delete text messages until my phone can't hold anymore because going through and deleting them would be too much effort, I don't pay much attention to invitations to groups and such on Facebook so I end up having 20-something requests, and I go months and months without blogging.

I know that part of it is I don't really know what to do with a blog. Not enough happens in my life to interest people to read about it, and I'm not witty enough to make interesting comments about everyday things. I felt the same way with my idea book for my creative writing class for a long time. I wanted to write in it and make it my own, but I didn't know how. 

So just now I had one of those "Oh, duh!" moments and realized I can post what I've written for creative writing. I feel better about some pieces than I do others, and I'm not sure how good the writing is overall, so comments and critiques on pieces I post would be much appreciated.