Theatre Thread: Calling all Thespians!

[#HBC | J]

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SWF Theatre Thread​

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Theatre is a part of every high school, college, and also a part of life in terms of so many parts of it being exciting and holding so many different joys and woes. However, the reason this thread was created was to relish in the fact of being on stage or working off stage or just anything related to Theatre that you could possibly talk about in terms of whatever!

I have been on this site for a while and there has been no sight for a thread for thespians or theatre enthusiasts so I thought I would like to make one in order to get some discussion about it and it's something that I am passionate about.

Have an audition/show coming up?

Tell us! In this post, there will be a little excerpt to mark down all the people who have special dates coming up and most likely there will be people here to cheer you on in whatever aspect of theatre you are doing and empathize with you on the coming Tech/Hell weeks you are about to experience or your time on stage.

Questions?

If you ever have any questions regarding theatre, please be sure to ask! I have quite a few myself all the time. Like if you have an audition coming up and have no clue what song you should have or a good monolog that could help you possibly score that audition. There is also things such as learning how to memorize lines quickly or how to develop a certain character.

However, there are other questions that can be asked to about theatre. Like you don't know how to get accurate measurements on costumes/where to get costumes, how to build a roof to a house or a staircase, where to possibly find that lost prop that would be perfect or it is too elusive to find, how to turn your theatre into a great ticket stand, or how to re-wire certain technical aspects.

Performances?

If you have recorded any performances or have pictures of them be sure to share! Within this thread, you can post stuff of you performing a song or possibly just a monolog and share it here. No flaming will be tolerated at all so there is no worries at all. If you are looking for critique/help, please be sure to share!

Just feel like talking about Broadway/Shows/Performances/General Theatre?

Definitely not a problem at all here. Share with other people your thoughts on current plays on broadway or other places to your hearts content. Talk about the Tony's and other aspects of theatre life here in this thread.

Biographies!

So with any theatre person, they all have that little record they like to keep of shows they have done and also a little blurb about themselves in terms of a "Bio" so I thought it would be a bit of fun that, if you wanted to/felt like it, you could write your own theatre bio for SWF. (Unless you are like myself who dreads having to write bios for programs because no one knows what to say and you don't want to be that person who wrote the longest/shortest bio in the program or come off obnoxious) However, I decided to do one as well and add a few theatre photos of some preformances I've been in to help get this thread going which is a bit below.

[collapse=J's Bio]

I started theatre in the winter of 2010-2011 with my first show being Sherlock Holmes and I got that role by complete chance. I was originally cast as a 8 line character that had like 2 scenes in which he was in, however, I was an understudy in the play for a lead role and then I ended up getting that part in which I had to learn within a week and learn and accent and blocking and just wow. Then I did stage crew for my school's musical called Damn Yankees where I learned about the ins and outs of what goes on during the shows. That following summer I picked up doing 3 shows (Neil Simon's Plaza Suite, Kids Playwriting Festival 6, and Dracula) which gave me a lot of experience. However the final show Dracula began to perform around the time my fall show was beginning which I got the male lead in while another show was starting too (Fall: Enchanted April, Other show: A Christmas Carol) where I got lead roles in both of the shows. So I ended up doing three shows while preparing for directing my winter show (Shakespeare in Hollywood) which was a whirlwind but helped me out a lot. And finally the last two shows I've done in this leg of my life were Anne of Green Gables which was my first time acting in a musical and getting the male lead of the play as well then I helped for a bit with some assistant directing of a show called Twelfth Night but I ended up having to quit that due to moving.

I was an active member of my school's International Thespian Society and was also the treasurer of it my senior year. I am at the current time working on getting my degree in Theatre Arts with a primary focus in Directing and I am also looking for auditions at the current time in the place where I live.

In singing terms, I am a baritone through and through where I can play in the tenor range a bit but I love hitting those low notes so I float in the middle there. I actually started singing within the past year and never had sung a note in my life due to me never really being able to do get over the fear of it all.

[collapse=Acting pictures]

Sherlock Holmes (2010-2011)

Kids Playwriting Festival 6 (Summer 2011)

Dracula (Fall 2011)

Enchanted April (Fall 2011)

A Christmas Carol (Winter 2011)

Shakespeare in Hollywood (Winter 2012)

Love Letters (Winter 2012)

The Female Odd Couple (Spring 2012)

Twelfth Night (Spring 2012)

Anne of Green Gables: The Musical (Spring 2012)

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Videos:

None yet!

Audition/Shows Coming up:

J:
You're a Good Man Charlie Brown - Audition (7-28-12)

I hope everyone who comes into this thread to socialize enjoys it and you don't have to be a thespian/theatre kid to socialize! Anyone is welcome!

 

[Chronodiver Lokii]

Eeeee theatre <3

I was never in any plays.....but I worked on stage crew in high school. Set building/painting, set moving, sound crew. I mostly worked on the musicals because the straight plays weren't that exciting, but I did paint sets for the straight plays.

I worked on Thoroughly Modern Millie, Grease, and Ragtime.
Grease was my personal favorite, and I ended up learning many of the dances/songs because of the actors. I miss crew, and wish my college had a stage crew.

 

[#HBC | J]

Haha Stage crew is always fun. I love the fact of wearing all black on show-days. I was usually put in charge of painting and unless I was in a work-mood, they kept me away from the hard stuff. I also got to work fly for a couple of shows too.

Sound crew is fun and not fun because I got to work mics once and putting on mic tape is fun to give bratty actors a bit of pain.

And oh my gosh, you did Ragtime?! That show has one of my favorite songs ever in it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeAXnQg11q4 - Your Daddy's Son

A friend of mine had to sing it for her final and it was amazing.

 

[LoliLovesRain]

I remember doing a monologue before for school and I really enjoyed it. xD It made me want to act but alas I'm too scurred so I'd rather be a voice actor but then again I don't even know if I can change my voice much orz. Maybe one day :-p

 

[Chronodiver Lokii]

Haha Stage crew is always fun. I love the fact of wearing all black on show-days. I was usually put in charge of painting and unless I was in a work-mood, they kept me away from the hard stuff. I also got to work fly for a couple of shows too.

Sound crew is fun and not fun because I got to work mics once and putting on mic tape is fun to give bratty actors a bit of pain.

And oh my gosh, you did Ragtime?! That show has one of my favorite songs ever in it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeAXnQg11q4 - Your Daddy's Son

A friend of mine had to sing it for her final and it was amazing.

Haha mic-ing actors was my main job
Well, helping mic actors. Bratty actors suckkkkkkk

Well, Ragtime would've rocked if our theatre department didn't decide to try and be 'diverse'......which is difficult when we are a predominately white school. Stereotypically white. Private preppy all girls school white.
Like, if they didn't choose ragtime for the reasons they did, it woulda rocked. But no one knew how to match the tone of the show except one girl who could actually sing to fit the show.

.....and then they decided to do the Wiz.

My friend got Dorothy though and she rocked it <3 now she's a theatre major <3

 

[#HBC | J]

Woooooow that sounds hilarious for your school and that kind of sucks about that. My director would always want to pick shows that "tell a story" so we always got these obscure shows like Enchanted April which was like a literally lifetime movie about women and their "feelings" and getting away from their mean husbands and "finding themselves in an enchanted april".

Plus I know what you mean about a mainly predominate female theatre department. Being the main male theatre kid in the school was very interesting. Got the senior superlative for best actor though!

That is great about your friend getting Dorothy!

@Loli: I know we have talked about you becoming a voice actor! One day we need to like skype and just help each other work on acting a bit. What was the monolog about which you did in school?

 

[LoliLovesRain]

xD I don't remember what it was called but basically I was a young girl who looked in the closet and peeked at my presents and my mom was on her way home from work and I knew she would know and i would get in trouble so i was freaking out lol. I chose it because i knew it would work. It was really weird there were obviously other stuff but it was basically me just talking to myself about it but I had to move around and pretend i was genuinely scared xD

Aside from that like I used to be in school...plays kind of? Like there was singing involved so I used to do that lol the singing stuff was so long ago tho O_O I don't even remember if i was any good xD

I wanna start getting back into it because I really love the idea of being able to do stuff like that even if it's on the side xD buuuut alas the scared bri comes out a lot :-p

 

[#HBC | J]

Well walk me through what normally happens when you act. Why do you start to get scared a bit before acting? I used to have that problem when I was starting out but then I just decided to move past it, but now the nerves kick in whenever I am about to sing.

That monolog seems really fun. And by singing stuff do you mean like Musicals or Chorus Concerts and the like?

 

[LoliLovesRain]

I THINK it was chorus concert bull **** xD

I get nervous because I'm afraid of failure i guess?...I don't even really know lol like i just get rlly scared and freaking out like omg but what if i look stupid or they dont like it and ahhh and yeh i have like a crap ton of conversation in my head and just kind of go into a corner and hide xD

 

[#HBC | J]

Haha, the only chorus stuff I ever did was my school's Men's Choir and then the graduation choir for this year. The rest of the time I went to chorus concerts were because of solos and friends being in them.

Failure is always a scary thing to be afraid of but the thing is, just believe in what you are doing and regardless of whether you think you sound stupid or they wouldn't like it just push past it and think "I am doing something I love, just gotta try my best" and it may yield good results.

 

[Kal]

I've never been much into performing myself (though once I had to sing a piece from "Assassins," for a class; it did not end well), but I really love theatre, especially musicals.

Let's talk about musicals! >_>

Any notable musicals people recommend? I am a big fan of Sondheim, so I would recommend "Into the Woods" for anyone who hasn't seen it. Or something more mainstream like Tim Burton's 2007 adaptation of Sweeney Todd.

 

[#HBC | J]

Definitely can talk about musicals. Sadly my ipod consists of like half musical soundtracks....^^"""

Sondheim is a genius in terms of creating musicals and Into The Woods is one of my favorite albums to listen to. The Prolog/Into the Woods song is like 10 minutes long but I can still listen to it repetitvely and all the way through and be completely fine. Though my favorite songs from that musical are probably I Know Things Now, On the Steps of the Palace (a friend of mine did this song so got a connection there), Agony, and The Prolog. I also like on the songs that weren't added to the musical but are still on the soundtrack like Boom Crunch because it takes skill to be able to sing that song well due to the rhythm and words not really mixing well but still sounding great.

I would love to take part in that musical someday.

Let's see from "mainstream" musicals in today's world, some musicals that come to mind are like Wicked, Avenue Q, Hairspray, and Rent along with Sweeney Todd.

Mostly because most people just know of Wicked because of how iconic it has become and people are more like this now:

It's a fantastic musical and has an amazing song-book which Cheno and Idina did a stellar job showcasing and everything about the show is great. Doesn't mean it's every musical though hahaha. Also every time a girl is about to have an audition or get the chance to choose their own song to sing in front of people, it's been from wicked most of the time. I've seen Defying Gravity, No Good Deed, Thank Goodness, What is This Feeling?, Popular, and For Good be performed and it's like "Ooooookay...."

Rent is mainstream because of it's movie counter-part that did really well as well and had some broadway stars in it as well. Really good musical, but not one of my favorites.

Avenue Q is possibly one of my favorite musicals (not because all the guy song vocals' are in my voice range and jazzy a bit xD) but because the show is controversial with the premise of it being an adult R rated parody of Sesame Street with puppets/muppets being the majority of the cast that interact with human characters.

Hairspray is another one people just seem to know/love because of it's fun and bubbly movie version with big names like John Travolta, Michelle Pheiffer(sp?), Christopher Walken, Queen Latifah, Amanda Bynes, Zac Efron, Brittany Snow, and others. The songs are also a common known thing like You Can't Stop the Beat and Good Morning Baltimore.

Notable musicals though, I would seriously recommend The Fantasticks. That is by far my favorite musical. Listen to these two songs for a bit of the premise of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KklLsdWaoBU - Much More

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_COP3cyN7zg&feature=fvwrel - Try to Remember (probably the biggest known song in the musical due to it being iconic for it's rhyming scheme being of it's first like September/December/Remember)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucxi2RbVqYA - Metaphor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPfqFD2kfVU&feature=fvwrel - Soon It's Gonna Rain

These are all songs just from the first act of the musical. But yeah, the thing I love about The Fantasticks is because in the first act it's like a normal musical with love and romance and happiness and "evil" plots and villains. However, in the second act of the show, it tells the story of what happens the "Happy Ending" and where everything goes wrong, the lovely couple hate each other, and what happens in the real world.

By Notable, can you tell me what you are looking for there? Because there are many "notable" musicals but there are some different ways musicals are notable for. The Fantasticks is known to be the longest running off-broadway show to date. Then there are some shows like My Fair Lady that are just iconic as one of the best musicals ever created because of performances by Audrey Hepburn (musical voice, Marni Dixon) and Rex Harrison being the first to do a lot of things.

Sorry for the little blurb. ^^"

 

[Kal]

Oh, to be honest, I hate Wicked and Rent. I find both musicals to be rather terrible. Both musicals had stellar casts on Broadway, but I feel Wicked had just ****ty, ****ty music that was really bad (especially for Schwartz, who composed masterpieces like this). "Think of it as personality dialysis." Really? Really?

Rent was just pretentious with nothing to say, in my opinion. Lots of ****ty lyrics like "How do you document real life/When real life's getting more like fiction each day?" I have a hard time putting into words what exactly bothered me, but this sort of faux-pretention was one of the major issues.

I do, however, absolutely love Avenue Q. Hairspray is also really good, but John Travolta did the film a disservice by the way he forced Edna to be an actual woman, and not a man clearly dressed in drag. But Blonsky's performance was brilliant.

By "notable" I really just meant anything that was interesting to you to allow for discussion. My Fair Lady was pretty awesome, though I found the premise that there would be this linguist who held to this ridiculous prescriptivist theory of language to be sort of silly. I suppose there would not have been much of a plot if he was a desscriptivist who just wanted to respect Eliza's dialect for what it was. >_>

As for Into the Woods, it's hard to pick a favorite song, but I really like "Moments in the Woods."

Just a moment,
One peculiar passing moment...
Must it all be either less or more,
Either plain or grand?
Is it always "or"?
Is it never "and"?
That's what woulds are for:
For those moments in the woods

and

Let the moment go...
Don't forget it for a moment, though.
Just remembering you've had an "and",
When you're back to "or",
Makes the "or" mean more
Than it did before.
Now I understand -

And it's time to leave the woods.

Man, what a ****ing awesome musical.

Anyway, I will look into The Fantastiks. Is there a recording available somewhere? It always disappoints me when there isn't a recording of a broadway show available. Like the original West Side Story. Man, what I would give to see that.

I've seen a lot of older musicals. Carousel, Gypsy (probably one of the greatest musicals of all time), My Fair Lady, Oklahoma (gotta love Rodgers and Hammerstein), Singin' in the Rain, South Pacific, The King and I (film version wasn't very good, actually), West Side Story, The Music Man (oh my god I love The Music Man >_>).

Except that 2003 remake. It had Chenowith, but she was cast heavily against type, which was weird. And Broderick just completely lacked the charisma Preston carried with him. Gah, what a ****ty movie. >_<

What did you think about Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd? Lots of varying opinions on that one, but I thought it was fantastic. If you haven't seen the original Broadway show with George Hearn, then you probably thought the movie was awesome. But if you saw the 1981 performance first, then you might hold some resentment to the character differences; everyone is more down-to-Earth and a lot of the humor was removed. I personally thought it was a very fresh, dramatic interpretation, but I know a lot of people found it off-putting because of their attachment to the original characters.

Sorry about the unfocused nature of this post. I'm basically just ranting about various **** I like.

 

[#HBC | J]

Yeah, I can definitely see your point in not liking Wicked because it's very...bubble-gum in terms of lyrics and the way the music is. That's why I feel it hits the teen crowd very well for marketing purposes.

Rent is a musical that I just never find myself absolutely loving but it's alright. I agree to the self-pretentious air the movie has around it for some strange reason.

I do, however, absolutely love Avenue Q. Hairspray is also really good, but John Travolta did the film a disservice by the way he forced Edna to be an actual woman, and not a man clearly dressed in drag. But Blonsky's performance was brilliant.

When talking about the bolded, that really wasn't Travolta's decision but was Adam Shankman's decision to have Edna be an actual woman since he was the director. (Adam Shankman is such a lovable man and really good at what he does.) But yeah, Blonsky was like literally Tracy and just perfect in every way.

With Avenue Q, it's sad that I really want to do Special at an Open-mic night or some time for fun when I'm a dude and a baritone. xD Though Stephanie D'Abruzzo did a phenomenal job as being Kate Monster and Lucy the **** because dag on that range.

I also find it funny that a lot of the actors in the musical where from Sesame Street.

Anyway, I will look into The Fantastiks. Is there a recording available somewhere? It always disappoints me when there isn't a recording of a broadway show available. Like the original West Side Story. Man, what I would give to see that.

I wish there was a recording of the musical somewhere that is like actually decent. *siiiiigh* I want to fully see this show someday whenever I can get the chance or just to be in it as any of the characters. (Preferably El Gallo or Matt)

But The Fantasticks was never on Broadway and was always an Off-Broadway production that did better than a LOT of broadway shows while being one of the biggest musicals ever done.

There is, however, a terrible movie that does not do it justice at all. It's on Netflix's instant-watch if you have that.

I've seen a lot of older musicals. Carousel, Gypsy (probably one of the greatest musicals of all time), My Fair Lady, Oklahoma (gotta love Rodgers and Hammerstein), Singin' in the Rain, South Pacific, The King and I (film version wasn't very good, actually), West Side Story, The Music Man (oh my god I love The Music Man >_>).

I need to see Gypsy sooooooooooooooooooo bad. Like I have heard a lot of the songs and researched it and I really want to see it. I grew up on musicals since I was younger like West Side Story, Grease (and the failure which was Grease 2), Little Shop of Horrors, Fame(don't know if this counts??), Sweeney Todd, and others but yeah. I've also seen recently myself Hello Dolly!, My Fair Lady (got to perform a couple songs from this musical), listened to Guys and Dolls, The Secret Garden, and some random shows like There Won't Be Trumpets, Ragtime, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, 1776 and others.

I literally had State Fair, Carousel, Oklahoma! in my hands but I couldn't watch them due to moving so now I have to wait till I am settled in my house.

What did you think about Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd? Lots of varying opinions on that one, but I thought it was fantastic. If you haven't seen the original Broadway show with George Hearn, then you probably thought the movie was awesome. But if you saw the 1981 performance first, then you might hold some resentment to the character differences; everyone is more down-to-Earth and a lot of the humor was removed. I personally thought it was a very fresh, dramatic interpretation, but I know a lot of people found it off-putting because of their attachment to the original characters.

Actually I know the character differences, especially the difference with the character Ms. Lovett (whom I thought, Angela Lansbury did a phenomenal job. Don't get me started on that women haha I can go on with what she has done like Sweeney Todd, Gypsy, Beauty and the Beast, There Won't Be Trumpets), but I love seeing characters portrayed in a different light and I loved Helena Bonham Carter's performance of the character! I thought the movie was really good and did not lack in terms of Musical-to-Movie because they both stand solidly on their own. I don't think either really outshines the other and both are very very good portrayals of the show.

Sorry about the unfocused nature of this post. I'm basically just ranting about various **** I like.

No problem at all! That's what this thread is for, all things theatre so don't apologize. ^^

==============================

Okay I have a question to everyone because I need help so I'll just start with this simple question:

Has anyone seen/heard/been in/whatever in the show You're a Good Man Charlie Brown? If so, I need to talk about this because of *Looks up to important dates in the OP*.