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.