I have to know I'm right

Yesterday, after my classes, I had a nice lunch and slept for until the very next day. I woke up, and felt a little bit of stress, like there was something that needed to be done.

That's how I've felt ever since Put On a Happy Face finally closed. Like there's some lingering thing that I keep forgetting about. Like it isn't over. But it is, and when I look back on it I have to tell myself that everyone did a good job and that I can relax.

I know that what I made wasn't perfect. Granted, I love to boast that I think my play was the best, but I have to acknowledge that a lot of that is bravado. Now that it's over, the feedback I'm getting I know is warranted. There were a couple things in my writing that were either overlooked or kept in out of stubbornness. I know I shouldn't care so much, and even then some of the criticism is nitpicky, but I still take it seriously. As is there's going to be a next time, which I know is not likely.

Put on a Happy Face was supposed to be a play that created a rude reality for the audience, one that exaggerates some of our worse traits but also gives them some justification. The idea of putting on a face is something we are all guilty of at some times, and the reason why may be because we are sometimes lacking in a genuine emotion. Esther's face conceals her sorrow and lack of love, Marcus' tries to hide his frustration and desire for control with that of a loving husband, and the Cohens' with the mask of friendship hide their unpleasant actions. While I'm not sure how much the audience use these characters to reflect on their own lives, I have heard good things every now and then. If I did not make something worth thinking about, at least it was entertaining. I know it could have been better, but I have to know I'm right when I say I made something that meant more than just a spectacle, that my writing touched people and made them think about the faces we wear.

As it begins to fade in the background of memory, I have to know I'm right.

Episode VII: Happily Ever After

This has been a great process to begin with and I can surely say that I had one of the greatest experiences ever. Flashback to six months ago, I knew I had to write a story for the play writing class and I didn't have any ideas. Last time I took the class, I wrote a play about Robin Williams and that play was easy for me to write because I admired Robin Williams so much and I just put my emotions into it and it became one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. When it came to this play “The Golden Raspberry” I had a hard time to connect to it emotionally. I wanted to write a comedy and I wanted to go full goofy with  it, I wanted to make people laugh from the beginning to the end. So, I've spent several hours coming up with a theme and I did. My theme was to write about my favorite thing in the world "Movies". once I had that theme in my head it was easy for me to come up with the charters. Andrew was based on an idea of what if, "what if Al Pacino is a really bad actor but he still wants to play Tony Montana". Linda was based on what if as-well, "What if Emma Stone is a bad actress but still decides to audition for movies". Paul, i based him on one of my ex roommate. He always had that stoner vibe and little bit dumbness to him. Jimmy, I based him on the police officer in the movie Super Bad played by Seth Rogan. After coming up with this characters, I fell in love with characters and then goofy story just came to me instantly. Last time, I focused on coming up with good character arcs and story line but this time all I had in my mind was I need to make people laugh. I wanted to do that because as an actor I would love to goof around the stage and make fun of my self and make the audience laugh but I didn't wanted to write something silly, something close to silly. When I wrote it, I knew the play didn't have any points and except for Andrew nobody else goes through the journey. My point was to make the audience laugh and I think I succeeded at it. I finished my script and I had the confidence that someone is going to pick my play because it's funny. They did and luckily their vision and ideas for the play were amazing. I gained more confidence when I was assigned a director. We both were worried about casting because for the play I completely located it based on the OSU lab theater and had minimal props and furniture because the space is limited in the lab theater. One thing I didn't base on the OSU theater was the actors. i have never seen or met anyone who I thought would fit the roles and me and my director were praying for more people to show up. At the auditions, there were total of twenty seven people who auditioned on both days and we were so lucky that our actors showed up. during the casting process, we got our main choices for Andrew, Paul and Jimmy. For Linda we got our second choice as we weren't worried about it. I can confidently say, we had a good cast and after looking at countless of run troughs I can confidently say that I cannot see any other actors as my characters than the people who we cast. The process of rehearsals began and I started to get nervous since I've never been this side of the table and I didn't know how to help. The only thing, I knew that would help the director is to not get into the way. One of the things I was nervous about was if my jokes would land or they would fail. I kept asking my cast if they understood what I've written and if the message was clear or not. Every time I got the answer a same one, "Don't worry, You're jokes will land". At that time I never knew what happened to my ultimate confidence  which had before the process has started. I was happy with the process till then but then one of my actor started to miss the rehearsal a week before company run through and I started to panic because the actor wasted all of our time and we didn't know what we were going to do, so made him sit down and talk to him about this issue and we resolved it on the spot and the actor had been great since then and never caused a problem. There were few line changes and those were due to the language barrier. The director never requested to change a part of the script and I'm grate full for that. We have reached the process of company run through and I was nervous and excited for my actors because they were ready for an audience and I wanted to see how the rest of the directors and dramatists would react and thankfully they reacted the way that I expected. I was always happy with our blocking and the choices the actors were making but then Jimmy, started to do a background joke during the monologue scene and I thought my director would give them a note saying not to do that since it was distracting everyone from an important monologue. Perhaps that the only thing that I would do differently. Opening night was here and I was nervous like never before. I felt exactly how I felt before my stand up in front of thirteen hundred people, its just the what if, "What if the Jokes don't land" or "What if the audience don't laugh" but I knew there is nothing I could do since I was at that point nothing but audience member. The reactions were absolutely brilliant. It exceed my expectations and I was so happy with the result. It was amazing journey, watching something you wrote come to life is just a great feeling and it hard to describe that feeling and I always grateful for this opportunity. I thought I would be use through out the entire process but I was wrong. There was always something for me during the process, there were questions, doubts and character building help. Looking back at the process, I knew that I was helpful and useful throughout the process. Now that the process is finished, I feel weird about it, even though I've seen the show countless times, it was hard to say good bye to it since it became an amazing part of my life and it is amazing for your imaginations coming to life but it also hurts when you know that it was the last time you're ever going to notice your imagination coming to life but like a great person once said "Part of the journey is the end" and even though I had great fun even though it was my imaginations I'm ready to say good bye to it and hope my imagination will leave happily ever after.  

A Curious Series of Small Murders: So Many Things

Ok! It's been a hot minute since I made a post here. A lot of things have happened. Runthroughs, tech, dress, and opening. And now we arrive at the closing performances. Runthroughs were a little shaky at first, a combination of nerves and incomplete memorization. After the first round of runthroughs we had another rehearsal where we sped through the play as fast and loud as possible. Not only did this help with memorization, it also brought spirits back up and everyone left the rehearsal feeling energized and happy. By the time second runthroughs were done the actors were doing much better.

Tech week went pretty smoothly for my play. The lighting effects were pretty simple, with the only special being the red light near the end of the play. During tech the light was pretty much impossible to see. So the lighting crew had some ideas about how to fix it when dress rehearsals came around.

Dress rehearsals were a fun process. Getting to see the play with all the pieces in place was awesome. It made me so happy to see the costumes, make up, and sound all come together.

Opening night! I was so excited going into the theatre, I thought I would be more nervous but I wasn't. I was confident in the actors and the tech crew, and I knew the jokes were landing with the other writers and directors during dress rehearsals. A couple minutes before the show started my director Sarah leaned over to me and told be there would be some new sound cues in the play. I had no idea what they were going to be. I thought maybe there would be some different intro/outro music or something. I was not prepared for the first "Law and Order" sound effect. I was caught so off-guard that I burst out laughing harder than anyone else in the theatre I think. The play was a hit, it got a lot of laughs and some groans. My favourite thing about seeing the play performed is seeing the audience piece together the twist. hearing the occasional "Ooooh." or chuckle at one of the hints in the play makes me so happy.

Overall, I am so proud of how this play has turned out. My cast and director along with the student designers have all been phenomenal in bringing the silly play I wrote last term to life better than I could have imagined. This whole process started with stress over casting and scheduling and has been nothing but fun since then. I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome.

Happy Face - "Don't Be Afraid"

And with that, I can now officially say I have directed my first play. Right before graduation to boot! It all feels so surreal; graduation, this show, the whole works. But I honestly couldn't be happier (stressed to the nine's, sure, but happy nonetheless). I am so proud of how far my Happy Face cast has come! I love each and every single one of them more than anything! I was so completely terrified coming into this production. I had little to no faith in my directing skills before we started this. I didn't think I knew what I was doing or hardly any good at it. I was so scared that people would judge me too harshly for my choices or something like that. But hey, were we are! We opened this show and it’s fantastic! Plus people are absolutely loving it!

Opening night went great, not smoothly by any means BUT everything that night threw at my actors, they dealt with like complete pros! The curtain was pulled to reveal sets behind it, so my actors adjusted it from backstage. A sound cue didn’t go off so my actor improvises and tapped her heel. One of my actors missed their entrance so they other covers and they dealt with how to make it up extremely smoothly. The vase fell off the table and my actor, completely in character, responded to it falling. Of course, the entire time I am sitting there in the audience just CLUTCHING my seat for dear life. Because, at this point, there’s not else I can do. I can’t run up and fix it. I can’t pause the show and deal with it. I have to just sit back and be there supporting them. Which is so incredibly hard, just letting that go. Letting them be up there, just having to know and believe that they've got this. In a sense, letting your little baby birds fly. Letting go of that control and power and having faith. It's also this notion of letting it go into the audience's hands as well. Just saying to them, here is what we’ve created for you, please for God’s sake like it. And just sitting there… waiting….hoping. And then... sitting in the crowd among them, realizing that they do actually like it. Thankfully for me, it is also pretty well written (thank you, Cole) so I didn't have to do a ton of work, it speaks for itself. But it's so rewarding being in the audience and feeling their laughter at the funny moments, their cringes at the awkward ones, and in some cases, their tears at the sad ones.

So, if you have already seen the show, thank you. And I thoroughly hope you enjoyed yourself. If you haven’t seen it, please do! They’re so wonderful! All of us students have really been putting a lot of work into this. Again, I couldn’t be more proud of my actors.

So here’s to opening nights and here’s to putting on a show!

-Sam

Aaand it's gone

Well, that seemed rather quick.

In a week we went from company, tech, and dress rehearsals and tomorrow the show finally closes. It's kinda surreal that it's already almost over.

Company run throughs were a treat, since not only did I get to see my show and the others, but I got to see how an audience reacts. I was very pleased that most people seemed to like it, and relaxed a bit while watching the rest of the shows. There were some things that felt like they were missing, which put me at a bit of unease, and that didn't go away until later.

Tech was not so fun. Seeing as how our show had three queues, most of my time was spent in a chair waiting for the rest of the shows to end. Granted, nobody really likes tech, especially if we wait around for most of it, but fortunately I was able to nap for the most of it. This came in handy later as it helped give an element of surprise for the shows I hadn't seen in all their glory.

Dress was easy, as there weren't any real issues that came about. People remembered their lines and it seemed like clockwork at this point. Everything was going well.

The first performance was nerve-wracking. In my seat, I suddenly realized that there was nothing I can do but watch. What if the actors forgot an entrance? What if a sound queue was missed? What if the vase fell off the table? I tried to calm my nerves and tell myself that these things wouldn't happen.

I was wrong.

They happened.

And my actors adapted and handled these challenges like champs. Whenever I tensed up in fear, the actors made small organic changes to account for these. By the end, I was satisfied that the first showing wasn't a train wreck, and now I keep telling myself that it only goes uphill from here. Everyone has a performance where something goes wrong, and we already had it without letting it mess with the integrity of the show. It's awesome.

Tomorrow, I get to show it to my mom. I hope she likes it. It is kinda depressing.

The Three Snap Shoe Swap

Hello again to all you out in internet land,

I think this one of the last blog entries, if not the last. I know you're all horribly disappointed, but do try to keep a stiff upper lip about it. Since I've last updated you all, we've had tech, two dress rehearsals, and opening night. Theatre moves quickly.

This is my last show here at OSU and honestly the highest note I could have gone out on. Everyone in the theatre department kind of has a niche. They might do more than one thing (act and also Stage Manage or run wardrobe and do sound design) but everyone I've talked to usually has a preference: they classify themselves an actor, or a costumer, or a designer.

I'm a writer. I have been since I was nine. This is my niche. This is what I love to do. I have acted, run wardrobe, constructed sets, managed props, and I have enjoyed every moment. But my preferred method of storytelling is writing: scripts, novel manuscripts, poetry. My heart is here, and best expressed with words on a page.

The Three Snap Shoe Swap was an important story for me to tell as I graduate and my brother stays here at OSU to finish his degree. We are not nearly as close as Mia and Cal, but we are siblings and love each other even if we don't have anything in common.

He's an engineering student. I'm a theatre major. 'Nough said.

I know our career paths will likely take us in different directions and lead us to different cities. This might be the last time I live in the same area as my brother and that saddens me. But, a part of growing up is understanding that even if we are apart, I am always there for him, and he for me.

I hope you all enjoy whichever panel you come to see, it has been a pleasure working with such a talented group of individuals.

Sincerely,

a nostalgic playwright

Sasquatch Performance

This week we had our opening night on Wednesday. After tech and dress rehearsals, I was so excited to see the cast perform in front of a full audience. The show sold out, and the audience was very reactive and in tune to each of the shows. It was so exciting to sit in the audience and watch Sasquatch, knowing that we had put the work in and this is the final product. My family was there on Wednesday night, which was really special for me. The characters in this play are based off of my family members, so they all had a laugh at some of their personality traits that I poked fun at. I am really proud of how the show turned out. From the actors, to the staging, to the lighting and sound design, I thought it was a very enjoyable show. I also really enjoyed getting to see the other shows that my peers have developed this term. Each of the shows is creative and unique in their own way. I'm looking forward to seeing the show again on Saturday!