#one day..... one day ill be a theatre director......
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‼️ aita for looking out for a friend?
(all 17, pronouns provided for everyone included other than me)
so I have a relatively small friend group, including people who I'll call T (they/them, my best friend), G (he/him, the friend the title is referring to), and B (she/her, we don't get along). B and I have been on our high school theater team for 4-ish years together, right from the first show post-quarantine to (hopefully) our last senior show in April next year. Last year, my friends T and G joined for a murder mystery show and G LOVED it. we performed it, went into summer, and came back for our senior year. Now, it's important to note that B, T, and I are also on our school's robotics team and off season events typically fall around the same day of theater competitions (dont ask why there's theatr competitions, we mainly do them for fun). B has already said that theater is more important to her than robotics, so our theater director decided to do a two person show.
Our director had already said she wanted B and G to play the parts in the show, but we all asked for an audition anyway. Auditions come around, all four of us audition. We actually talked about doing a different show in our senior meeting a week before that had 5 roles, but everyone agreed that the two person show would be better. B decided to bring up a year old issue we had where I was venting about only getting minor supporting roles where I either die or spend half the show off stahe. I had said in that conversation that before roles were casted, I wanted B's roles. It was the biggest role in the show with no time off stage and I felt like I was at a point i could handle it, but B got the role and it was fine! I was chilling with my yelling role. Well, B heard this and interpreted it as me saying I could do her role better and stormed out of class after yelling at me about it.
This went unresolved for a YEAR because everytime I tried to talk about it she'd either yell at me or change the topic. And now she was using it as a petty argument to show that I'd be upset if I didn't get a role. This isn't even the worst thing that's happened between us, but let's get back to the aita.
So, as of the time I'm submitting this it's only the first week of rehearsals. B and G are both almost off book, which is impressive for G because this is only his second show. He's absolutely amazing at his role but has a habit of getting the idea of his lines and paraphrasing them (if that makes sense? like if that line is "it'll only be a second, let me check." he'll say "let me look ill only be a second"), but beyond that he's REALLY good at making you feel the proper emotion already. The Main issue with him already is he's missed two days of rehearsal, which wouldn't be bad if we weren't so late starting. He missed one day for a sport meet and one day for his sisters birthday, which was understandable to everyone other than B.
B lives, eats, and BREATHES theater at this point and if you don't take it as seriously as she does, she'll try to get you kicked off the team. Since G missed two days, B thought he wasn't taking it seriously enough and decided to tell our director. G was absolutely devastated, he was already misses an event that'd get him really good contacts for the field he wants to go into because B asked the director to make all of the rehearsals mandatory BECAUSE he wanted to do the event. He came to T and I to talk about it and I decided to go to rehearsal that night to warn the director B was trying to get G kicked off. B's full reasoning for trying to kick him off was that he wasn't prioritizing rehearsal and hadn't memorized his lines yet (again, first week).
Rehearsal went absolutely amazing, they were both almost completely off book for one of the longest scenes and did it so soso SO WELL. Once rehearsal ended after 3 hours and B left the room, I went to go tell the director. The director immediately shut me down and told me if B had something to say I don't have to warn her. G and I left trying to wrap our heads around what to do. I didn't want him to be kicked off and deal with the shame of not feeling good enough and he felt insulted that someone he thought was his friend would go through so many hoops just to pretty much sabotage a hobby of his. We agreed that if the director went through with kicking him off we wouldn't go down without a fight.
But, that was that, and I got home and joined a call with some other friends to decompress from how stressful the entire situation was. I would've been completely de-stressed if it weren't for the fact B texted me an hour after rehearsal ended with just "what happened between us?" Apparently, our director had told her that I was trying to warn her that B was gonna say something. I realized that B still thinks we're on good standing, friends even, when I absolutely do not.
I don't know how to go about telling her that any thread of friendship between was severed a long time ago, but I think me trying to protect G and keep him on the team was the final straw for her. I can't tell if I'm just blinded by my dislike of her or if I really fucked up in this situation.
What are these acronyms?
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I played crutchie in newsies, here are some of the things that happened
- the refuge was constantly referred to as "little boy jail." "I wish you were in king of new york" "can't, little boy jail." "yeah when i got rolled onstage for letter from the refuge-" "HAHA, LITTLE BOY JAIL!"
- an ensemble member came up with the hypothetical question "if you were starving and had no food, would you eat crutchie's leg?" he then proceeded to ask every single cast member this question. I now know which newsies would eat crutchie's leg and could provide a list if asked. jack kelly would he told me HIMSELF.
- someone accidentally called me crunchy instead of crutchie. various variations of that nickname ensued, my personal favorite being "cankle"
- somebody put me on the spot and asked me to name my crutch. I panicked and said pickles.
- jack kelly himself greeted me every rehearsal by pointing at me and saying "bum leg." what a wonderful friend.
- the theatre we performed at had a covered area outside that could be accessed from backstage. this area had a sign over the door that said "area of refuge." three different people asked me to pose under it and took a picture of me.
- our director had us practice the prologue together with her to guide us exactly two times, the first was in a practice room the size of a closet (i knocked a framed photo off the wall and my director and i blamed our jack immediately) and the second was in the theatre bathroom like ten minutes before the opening show (jack had to hold a mini piano so our director could play the notes for us. he looked very silly.)
- we had a medda wig that we didn't end up using. it was blonde and very long and jack put it on after the closing show. i begged him to sing hopelessly devoted to you. he didn't. :(
- Jack Kelly got sick the day before the show. It set off a chain reaction of understudies. our directors pumped so many concoctions and vitamins into him. he looked deathly ill and was sitting in the corner breathing through this crazy miracle cure device that looked So Scary but he magically got better it was beautiful.
- we aren't cowards like disney so when crutchie returns from the refuge jack and crutchie have a Big Hug and like five minutes before the closing show our director came up to me and was like “yeah i was thinking we should probably cut that, i don't know why they would hug like that, its almost a little weird.” and i was like “oh no i play crutchie like he’s gay don’t i” (I did and it was a little bit on purpose) so i thought that she told our jack too, but she didn't. i was fully prepared to give him a fistbump and he almost knocked me over with the hug.
- "care to let this young man’s artististry shine a light into your closed doors?” -our pulitzer three times
- stress dreams. everyone had them. in mine i forgot to climb onto the scaffolding during the overture AND i forgot to bring my crutch onstage. our director had a stress dream that our jack showed up really late to rehearsal in a three piece suit.
- sprace was canon. that's it. they called each other stage boyfriend offstage.
- entire cast swayed our arms back and forth during something to believe in. sometimes we turned on our phone lights like it was a concert.
- one time our davey lost his voice and wasn't singing during rehearsal so his understudy, who also plays race, was running back and forth between doing a weird voiceover over davey’s shoulder for all his singing parts and doing all his race parts. he was darting across the stage for the entirety of seize the day it was great.
- "And all the newsies run up the stairs, across the scaffolding, and down the other set of stairs and offstage.”
“Ms Sarah I only have one working leg.”
- up until tech week we didn't have our newsies banner newspapers for once and for all, so during rehearsals for that number we got out the giant bin of stuffed animals. the number just was so much more beautiful when it was performed by a bunch of angry looking teenagers holding small stuffed animals. like ten of them were frogs (or supposed to be frogs. vaguely frog shaped.)
#newsies#livesies#crutchie#crutchie morris#newsies musical#sprace#jackcrutchie#this was a life changing show#i got to keep my crutch#the entire cast signed it#its my most prized possession#lmk if you want the list of who would eat crutchies leg
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Twisted Wonderland staff OC’s; Tangled edition
The full character spreadsheet is finally done! Here are my three TWST staff OCs twisted from Tangled! I’m going to touch on all the points mentioned in the images so no worries if you can’t read my handwriting
Everything will be under the cut so it doesn’t look so overwhelming 😌💕
Likes and reblogs are appreciated, but please don’t repost my art!
Marius G.
Age: 32
Hometown: Isle of the Sun
Pronouns: he/him
Gender: male
Sexuality: Pansexual
Twisted from: Mother Gothel
Marius is an alumnus of Night Raven College and currently works as the Arts Director for the school.
Despite the grey streaks, Marius appears quite young for his age. He was classmates with Divus Crewel and was in Pomefiore while a student.
As the art director, Marius is in charge of classes spanning from the fine arts to music to theatre. Marius is often times teaching the theatre classes but since the arts are electives it all depends on how many students are attending classes.
Marius is incredibly vain. This man will stop class to ask his students if he looks good and is chronically fashionably late to nearly all his classes.
He does, however, have a keen eye for detail which might be because of his vanity.
Marius has forgotten that he’s supposed to be teaching classes on multiple occasions. He is the physical embodiment of the "I'm late for school! Oh wait I'm 30... I'm a teacher!!" meme
Marius can be quite strict as a teacher. Critique days are dreaded by students because Marius can be harsh with his words, though it’s usually because he wants to see his students succeed even if it doesn’t seem like it.
Marius is also known to not only have favourite students but also isn’t shy about reminding his classes who his favourites are. For example; when it comes to performing arts like theatre or singing, Vil is Marius’s favourite. Jamil also seems to be in Marius’s good graces due to his dancing skills.
Marius, Sunna, and Máni are all from the same hometown. Marius once tried to ask Máni out on a date when they were still in school; Máni punched Marius in response.
Marius now appears to show romantic interest in Sunna who often ignores his advances.
Marius has stated to despise young children (pretty much any child up till the age of 15). He seems to tolerate high schoolers, however.
I feel like Marius would have some kind of unique magic, I just don't have any ideas for what it would be. Maybe it would be centred around Gothel's manipulation skills or have something to do with age manipulation in some way.
Dr. Sunna Blumen
Age: unknown
Hometown: Isle of the Sun
Pronouns: She/Her
Gender: female
Sexuality: Bisexual
Twisted From: the sundrop flower
Sunna is a diurnal fae and is the older sister of Máni. They’re either step siblings or adoptive siblings, they don’t quite remember which (totally not an excuse for me being indecisive)
Sunna had no prior involvement with NRC prior to working as the schools nurse. She’s one of the few female staff members at the school.
Sunna is a generally warmhearted and gentle woman. She has excellent bedside manner and most who visit the infirmary feel welcome.
However, if provoked, Sunna will be passive aggressive in her medical care. Think tightening bandages just too tight, putting rubbing alcohol on a wound, etc. Sunna is a very patient person though so it’s not often that someone provokes her to this point.
Sunna seems to be the current subject of Marius’s romantic affections, though she generally ignores him half the time.
She almost always has candy on her to give to her patients. Sunna also adores children and often acts as a maternal figure to others.
Sunna’s unique magic is called “Flowers glow” and is like a stronger version of Morrigan’s unique magic.
While Spring of Avalon can only heal injuries/illnesses inflicted by magic, Flowers Glow can heal almost any injury/illness regardless of how it was inflicted. The spell essentially returns the targets body back to its “prime” or state of being before the illness/injury occurred.
Flowers Glow does require more magical energy than Spring of Avalon, though Sunna doesn’t often need to use her unique magic. With the exception of overblots, regular healing spells/potions are typically enough to heal someone.
Máni Stein
Age: unknown (younger than Sunna)
Hometown: Isle of the Sun
Pronouns: he/they
Gender: nonbinary
Sexuality: Demiromantic Asexual
Twisted from: the moonstone opal
Máni is a nocturnal fae and is the younger brother of Sunna. His eyes and the blue streaks in his hair glow in the dark.
Máni's hair is inspired by Rapunzle's (in the series) hair turning black when she was reading the decay incantation. I did, however, switch the green streaks for a turquoise similar to Cassandra's when she was corrupted by the moonstone.
He works at RSA as the ancient spell and counter-spell professor.
Máni definitely has Aizawa vibes. He would die for his students but he has also been shown to become annoyed with some of the more rambunctious students (ie. Amir or any of my Wonderlands OCs)
He almost always dresses comfortably and looks like he just woke up. Compared to his sister, Máni is the complete opposite; he’s often quiet, low energy, and can seem apathetic most of the time. However, he can be quite blunt when he does speak up, sometimes even coming off as rude or insensitive on accident.
Whether it be the way he was raised or his age, Máni values hard work and dedication. He isn’t one to serve the answers to a problem on a silver platter no matter the person and tries to instil that thinking into his students. Don’t even think about asking for a grade bump, Máni will laugh in your face.
I swear I didn’t have Aizawa in mind when I made Máni…he just gives Aizawa vibes 🤧
I’m a sucker for irony, that’s why Máni is at RSA and Sunna is at NRC despite seeming like they should be switched.
Marius asked Máni out on a date exactly one time, except Marius was rather blunt with how he asked and it offended Máni. Marius got punched as a result.
Máni is the unfortunate "leader" of the trio when they have to be together. The siblings don't always spend time with Marius outside of inter-school events, but when they have to be together Máni is the one who keeps everyone on track.
How does his earring stay on? is it super heavy or is it lightweight? the world may never know.
I don't have a set idea for Máni's unique magic though I think it would be some kind of variation of the moonstone's powers in the series. I'm not sure though if I want the UM to be based on just one of the powers (either the decay aspect or the stone creation aspect) or if I want it to be a combination of the two.
Here are a couple of little expression doodles! I love how the one really showcases Máni and Marius's relationship lmao.
What did Marius do wrong? I'll let you decide
And here's everyone all together! Fun fact: the pattern on the gold trim of Marius's tunic is the outline of the sun drop flower! it was a pain in the butt, but I thought it was a fun little easter egg.
the sketches with the original reference images can be found here and here!
#twisted wonderland#twst oc#twst#twisted wonderland oc#my art#artist on tumblr#disney twst#disney twisted wonderland#digital art#ibis paint x#twisted wonderland fanart#twst fanart#fan art#Marius G#Sunna Blumen#Máni Stein#tangled inspired oc’s#tangled oc
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Nancy Gryspeerdt: On my second day earwigging for Michael Gambon, I found myself lying under the bed in which the legend of stage and screen was portraying Winston Churchill. It was 2015, and we were on the set of Churchill’s Secret. Hidden this way, I was out of view for the camera, but not out of earshot, so I could shout out his lines for him to repeat. The idea was we’d cut my bellowing out of the scene afterwards. Earwigging is the process of reading an actor’s lines into a microphone. These are then fed into a tiny earpiece in the actor’s ear. The tech is imperfect and sometimes it fails, as it had that day when I was forced to improvise by hiding under the bed. Certain movie stars are said to opt for an earpiece purely to save the time and effort of learning lines, but I find that hard to believe. Line-by-line feeding is tricky. It can cause random pauses and actors often look distracted as they listen. The frustration Michael felt about the whole process was profound.
Michael had lost the ability to learn lines several years before. He would often recount how he’d been rehearsing Alan Bennett’s play The Habit of Art at the National Theatre in 2010 and suddenly collapsed, in fear. Memory decline was what he was afraid of, a slippery slope he would indeed begin to slide down. He was replaced in The Habit of Art and only returned to theatre once more in a one-man play, Krapp’s Last Tape, that relied upon his recorded voice more than live monologue. Developing a method for memorising and recalling lines is part of every actor’s practice. For all but the most demanding jobs, it’s a basic requirement before the real work begins, not a proof of acting talent. Occasional lapses happen, like an ill-timed cramp might for an athlete. But when an actor loses the ability to learn lines, it’s a career-ending injury. If you don’t have your lines, it is all you can think about.
Becoming an earwig hadn’t been my plan. Before stepping in to cover for Michael’s regular earwig in her absence, I was a director’s assistant and budding script editor. I got the gig because the director saw how much I loved watching actors work. It is a very well-paid role, partly, I think, because everyone involved feels reassured by the extortionate fees, as they might by paying a Harley Street doctor. The plot of Churchill’s Secret centred on the ailing prime minister being brought back from the brink after a stroke by the tough love and care of a young nurse. It’s possible that at the time of my peculiar meet-cute with Michael, the part of the nurse rubbed off on me. It was Michael’s last leading role, and the fact that Churchill’s situation spoke to his own paid off. He was proud of his performance. I continued to work with him until he fully retired in 2018, my work becoming palliative. The jobs ranged from a high-budget period drama (Victoria and Abdul), to indie projects done on a shoestring, to an almost walk-on part in Renée Zellweger’s Judy Garland biopic.
Though it was never properly defined, my job included telling Michael what the script was about and how he fitted into it. Then, we would run his lines over and over, in the back of cars and hotel lobbies, in an attempt to allay his massive anxieties. Despite this exhaustive prep, he was unable to retain much. And when we stepped on the set, we were starting virtually afresh. I would usually take my place in some cupboard within radio range and, watching him on a handheld monitor, I’d cue him, using exaggerated emphasis to suggest where we were in a sentence, while trying to keep my meaning somehow neutral.
Sometimes he’d find my intonation inoffensive; he would have less trouble interpreting the sentence and could make it his own. Sometimes he’d contort my emphasis, resulting in unusable takes for which we’d both feel guilty. He often said he wanted me to read lines “straight, like a machine”, willing me to be less of an encumbrance to his expression. But when we experimented with less signposting, he couldn’t gain sense from my sounds. Ever the precision engineer he had trained to be, he was insistent that if he had the use of his younger brain he could build the contraption he needed to compensate for its gradual decay.
Michael’s desire for autonomy was based on what he’d achieved, an incredible career characterised by versatility and power. Of his TV work, he was best known for The Singing Detective; of his films, for his role as Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts in Harry Potter (a film that “changed everything”, not necessarily for the better). But his humane presence enriched movies as various as The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover; Gosford Park; Layer Cake; The Wings of the Dove; The Life Aquatic and Quartet. In the 1960s, his work on TV series The Borderers led to him being sized up as a candidate to play James Bond. But he thought of himself as a stage actor first. Over the decades, he’d interspersed Shakespeare with Brecht, Pinter, Ayckbourn and Caryl Churchill, at the Birmingham Rep, then the Royal Shakespeare Company, then everywhere else that mattered.
[Financial Times]
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The Gilded Age's Broadway Divas: Miss Armstrong (Debra Monk)
Sometimes, a work family is a German mother and her Irish daughter, an English father and his clockmaking son, and a mean old spinster aunt who's only invited to the family holiday parties because she'd bitch for weeks if she wasn't. Miss Armstrong is Agnes's nasty lady's maid who has said exactly one (1) nice thing all season. And I love her.
At seventy-four, Debra Monk is the oldest woman on The Gilded Age, and the only one with the appropriate hair color to show it. As cantankerous as her mistress with none of the charm, Armstrong is nothing like her fantastic actress. Debra Monk is one of theatre's comedy greats. Much like Katie Finneran, Debra is playing against type. Us theatre buffs know her from Pump Boys and Dinettes (co-author, director, and actress), Company (Joanne), and the ill-fated Nick & Nora alongside Christine Baranski.
An absolute delight of a human being, Deb Monk is a wise-cracking mile-a-minute, raunchy, jokester and deserves praise and recognition for her work.
#1: "Everybody's Girl," (Steel Pier) - My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies (1998)
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Almost every stalwart theatre Diva has her signature song. "Everybody's Girl" is Debra Monk's pride and joy, and she sings it to this day. At her raunchiest yet, she serenades a gleeful audience with her sexual exploits whilst dressed in a black dress and corset that Armstrong would have a coronary over.
The clever lyrics are perfectly paired with her comedic chops. The whole performance is just a delight from start to finish. That exit has me screaming every time. Her performance in the stage show the song originated from netted her a third Tony nomination.
If we do not get a clip of Debra Monk in full Armstrong drag singing this song, what is the point anymore?
#2: "The Ladies Who Lunch," Company (1995)
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Before there was Patti LuPone, but after the great Elaine Stritch, there was Debra Monk as Joanne in the 1995 first Broadway revival of Company. Yes, another Stephen Sondheim. Often forgotten in the Company conversation, this production had a tough act to follow. Nominated for just two Tonys (Best Revival and Best Featured Actress--Veanne Cox, hello, I love you), there's not much that can be said about the 1995 production. It lasted two months, and no one can point me in the direction of any footage with Debra, so here we are.
#3: Debra Monk's Birthday Bash: Totally Hot and a Little Dirty (2014)
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For her 65th birthday, Debra performed in a raucous and raunchy concert to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids. The concert raised an impressive $140,355 for the charity, and featured a eclectic mix of rock 'n' roll, church music, and debauchery. Well, what else would you expect from Debra Monk?
As comfortable flirting with younger men as she is grinding up against scantily clad fellow comedienne Andrea Martin and Company co-star Charlotte d'Amboise, Debra is a riot from start to finish.
The entire show is available on DVD from BC/EFA, and I need it.
#4: "Ohio Afternoon," Oil City Symphony (1987)
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Performed as part of the "If It Only Runs a Minute" series that highlights really obscure shows that barely had a life, Debra reprised her drum-playing role in 2012. As if she didn't have enough talents. Only she could take drums and make it peak comedy.
#5: Game Night at Seth Rudetsky's Place
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No explanation needed. Hello, Andrea Martin. Love you.
LINK TO MASTERPOST
#the gilded age#armstrong (the gilded age)#debra monk#company 1995#sondheim#everybody's girl#steel pier#broadway#musical theatre
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okay, i am playing with my toys. you are all coming into the circle with me we are going to play with dolls together in my favourite way. by which i mean "time for the small opera company au". this is likely to be a borderline-offensive level of "bring your blorbo to work" in that parts of it may be thoroughly incomprehensible without outside knowledge. no less i hope that my passion for playing with my toys in strange ways is in some way charming enough to keep your attention.
i struggle with what to do with sir john franklin in an au where he is still alive in that "musical director" and "stage director" are both very much taken. but i guess he's like. emeritus producer/guy bankrolling the whole opportunity and who crozier talks to only through gritted teeth. alternatively franklin is the noda reviewer that crozier has a decades-long one-sided beef with. but also maybe that's sir james clark ross or sir john ross, if we need a Critical Offstage Presence.
crozier (as we have established) is the resident conductor/music director. he's good at it. in fact he is very good at it and knows exactly how to get both chorus and principals performing at their absolute best. he is very, very supportive of young performers... but only until the moment that they Fuck Up one time too many. simultaneously he is the sort of MD who most people do not want to work with more than once and who basically cannot do amateur productions any more because of... the person that he is.
jopson is basically his secretary but he also does a bit of everything arts admin-wise.the only thing that jopson can't really do is read music; he knows "that's middle c" and can extrapolate from there but he isn't A Musician as much as an Admin Guy. however he is occasionally called upon to be a body double for somebody who's off ill or for a principal who wasn't called for a rehearsal because all they would have been required to do was Lie Upon The Ground because their character was dead. no less he has, like, surprisingly arts snobby opinions on the best operas.
the stage director is fitzjames. this is really just a vibes-based thing because he is All Vibes. but he of course came from straight plays where there's no real need to be able to carry a line and therefore has little respect for Breath Control. occasionally he starts getting Regietheater Ideas, and on those occasions crozier threatens him with the baton. otherwise he's very popular with everybody. (apart from crozier.)
dundy has my Operatic Performance Backstory. which is that he had a mis-spent youth of gilbert and sullivan and one day heard somebody say the word "basingstoke" as though it was in and of itself a joke for the last fucking time, snapped, and started doing actual opera. i don't know if he's a tenor or a baritone but if he's a baritone he was pigeon-holed into patter roles and fucking hate[d/s] them. (this is just how i feel about gilbert and sullivan. as i said, dundy has my opera performance backstory.)
regardless of voice type he fucking loves doing real opera (especially if he's a baritone; if he is then he's counting down the days until he gets to do iago). but if he's a tenor he at times misses playing the dickheads that are afforded to tenors in the gilbert and sullivan canon. (he eventually sucks it up and campaigns for a production of yeomen, plays fairfax, and loves it.) if he's a tenor he eventually specialises into don josé-type roles because he finds them more fun than the sappy loving boys.
little is in charge of everything that involves not getting near a performance space. if he could then he would never actually go into a theatre and would work entirely from home. but crozier, unfortunately, does not allow him this luxury and does not believe in work from home. he has an "office" in the theatre that is basically just a ludicrously luxuriously-sized broom cupboard.
being (in his own estimation) extremely uncreative is not insulation enough for somebody who would much prefer to make a very complicated spreadsheet and who can do just about every excel formula from memory. he can read music and is secretly one of those "can look at music and just immediately sight-sing it perfectly" types. crozier knows this, so sometimes he is dragged unwillingly out.
irving is the other person whose office is in the glorified broom cupboard because he's actually the company's accounts guy. this is in keeping with the real john irving, who was, in fact, a Maths Guy. but of course he is also a musician, perhaps surprisingly: as i've already said he is one of the two types of Church Music Lifer. (he is the sort who knows everything and takes it all extremely seriously -- in other words he is a dec tenor.)
irving also brings hodgson, who is the other type of Church Music Lifer, along. they're both tenors in the same choir but on opposite sides of the church and on the rare occasions that little gets drafted in (which he likes, surprisingly), he sings bass on the same side as irving. little is the Purported Third Type Of Church Music Lifer, who doesn't believe any of it and is just saying the words (when he does say the words) recreationally and understands none of it.
this whole bit has really been an opinion for one specific person other than Me. i will therefore continue it by saying that hodge is, as he was in The Real World, the son of a priest (and therefore couldn't escape it). he... i cannot explain this better than he has the Church Organist Personality. and while he does occasionally play he is muuuuch more useful as a singer than as an instrumentalist.
in the opera company he's the rehearsal pianist (and he is extremely good at it, which surprises a lot of people). otherwise, he understands all of the church music stuff, but mostly so that he can make very niche jokes about it. this is the sort of thing that cracks him up. that being said, he does also Get irving in a way that very few other people are able to because of this. (also the lieutenants, who all live together for... what are by now probably obvious reasons, are definitely all Animal People. irving has a dog and hodge has a cat. little has something odd like a lizard.)
finally, hickey is usually in the chorus. however there was one (1) occasion where somebody didn't turn up for a concert because they were ill and crozier gave him a single solo line. this went to his head immediately and he has yet to stop thinking about it.
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4 and 16 for ask game.
4. tell me about your most vivid memory, good or bad.
To preface, i think it's funny how mortifying experiences stand out most vividly.
In high school I did theatre. I didn't do it well, but i did it (I also quickly learned meticulous organization made up for lack of singing and acting skills so i quickly pivoted to stage managing). I was subpar at best, but for some baffling reason, the theater director gave me the role of Claire in Proof.
If you're unfamiliar (and who is?), Proof is a four person straight play about the daughter of a mathematician who is coming to grips with her own genius and mental illness. I played the city-living, bossy sister who flew in to be antagonistic.
We did the show in the school's black box. So picture something terrifyingly intimate. Did I mention I also have stage fright?
These black box shows were always set aside for like, the legitimately talented people because, as I mentioned before, it was intimate. Terrifyingly, in your face, all the people can inspect and interrogate and see every tiny bit of good (or bad) acting. To this day I still don't know why I agreed to this role.
So, opening night comes. I've practiced, I've rehearsed, I've begged the theatre gods to bless me with a tear drop of competence. It doesn't come. Instead, I step out of the tiny closet we called a 'backstage' onto the set and... completely blank on my lines. Moments become seconds become minutes and suddenly it's midnight and the janitor is locking us in and I haven't uttered a word. I exaggerate. BUT! not by much. The play was suspended in a state of paper-shuffling, polite coughing, tiny whispering limbo while I, back turned to the audience, stared at the imaginary brown paper bag in my hands and waited for a miracle that the theatre gods were determined NOT to give me. Finally it came from one of my cast-mates taking pity on my sad, petrified state who whispered 'bagels' from the back-closet-stage, jumpstarting my idled brain into action.
On a lighter note, there was another night my character and another character, Hal, were meant to be frozen in the background for some flashback scene(?) And we were supposed to be suspended in this state of studiousness while reviewing a notebook, but the page we flipped to was graffitied with the things high schoolers graffiti when they're bored and cheeky, and we could NOT keep our shit together. The giggles were contagious. The director was not amused.
16. what is a skill or talent you’ve completely lost or overlooked? why did that happen?
Playing keeper! I used to play it/love it/crush it but then a knee thing happened and I shifted toward theatre. Still love to play pick-up every now and then, but those games rarely need a keeper.
ask game
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Who is James Maxwell? See a lot of posts about him on your blog- is he your Blorbo?
He is my blorbo, my only real blorbo (as in person I think of in relation to everything and will be very annoying about on the internet at the least encouragement).
There are a whole lot of James Maxwells, but my blorbo is not the Scottish Mathematician or the author or the footballer, he was an Actor in old British telly. I like him a lot.
(I have no explanation for myself.)
He has a good face, though, right? XD
Anyway, he was technically an American, but his family were all actually from Nova Scotia, and he wound up in the UK and worked here as an actor, director, and writer from 1950 until his death in 1995. (He also has some very nice obituaries. I like a man with a nice obit. /o\ /cries)
I like to watch him in things and make gifs of his face, and also find out about him irl because though he seems to have liked to claim he was very Ordinary and Average, he was not!
He was super-brainy but ran away from a career in academia
because he saw Dame Edith Evans on stage in New York one time and then literally within 1-3 days max got himself on a liner to the UK to land up at the Old Vic Theatre School and managed to get a place there.
he helped to found a pretty cool and important theatre in Manchester, which took him and his Old Vic Theatre School friends 25 years but they kept at it till it really happened.
he is now a ghost at the Royal Exchange Theatre that he helped to found and has a tv credit from beyond the grave (if you believe people who make Most Haunted)
He also seems to have taught at drama school in London for a while and additionally helped support quite a few other people in their careers.
Anyway, he was a very good Henry VII for the BBC and he cheers me up a lot when I feel ill (which is almost all the time).
He was in Doctor Who one time, but it was in "Underworld" so understandably he is not much known from that!
he also likes attaching appalling fake hair to his face and also falling over and crying.
When he was in Dracula he got upset about flowers and needed a lot of tea and a blanket to cope
somehow i like this man ridiculously anyway. <3
anyway, this is why most people don't ask me who James Maxwell is any more. XD
<3
#james maxwell#replies#asks#human nxture#best kind of ask!!#gif#apologies#yes he is my blorbo whoops#i have many gifs
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i have never been angrier in my entire fucking life, it is taking every fiber of my being to not actually punch someone right now /srs
so this fucking show im assistant directing, WAS assistant directing, i quit because it was hell. the director is this piece if shit entitled bitch who doesnt know or care how to run a good show. i signed up to assistant direct, ended up babysitting a bunch of kids from four to six every day five days a week. while i was doing the job I DIDNT SIGN UP TO DO i was verbally berated, abused, mistreated, and taken advantage of at every possible corner. when i learned tech week would be till eight i fucking quit
heres where i get fucking pissed: the kids were amazing. theyre a bunch of talented, bright actors who are absolutely lovely, and for most of them this is their first show. i understandably feel awful for quitting, plus the bitch director hates me nowc but i show up to opening night to cheer them on
i want to kill this woman
kids are crying, shes yelling at them backstage constantly, lighting and sound cues dont work, choreo and blocking are nonexistent, so are props and costumes and set: everything needed to make a show a show is absent or so shoddily put together that it genuinely looked like it was going to fall apart
and the kids are amazing, they do so well with what theyre given and theyre so good and talented and im serious when i say theyre all gonna go far, if it werent for the fucking director
show starts 20 minutes late because she hasnt finished playbills, curtains are see through and on yhe verge of collapse at all times, they're doing this show in a HIGH SCHOOL CAFETERIA btw, all the costumes she got yesterday from thriftsmart, she got kids ti make all the props and set and it shows, and she never told crew what to do, so shes yelling at them constantly while giving them no direction at all. a crew kid is forced on stage at one point to turn on someones mic, he was crying
i had to comfort no less than four crying kids afterwards, all sobbing because she had yelled at them and berated them for no goddamn reason other than the thrill of the power trip
oh and btw, the second the show ended she disappeared. didnt talk to parents, cast, crew, just fucking dipped.
and you know what? im going to the show tomorrow too. i fucking quit because i forsaw this shit was going to happen, but no way in hell am i just gonna watch while these kids that i love suffer. fucking survivors guilt is a thing, and i want to kill her for making me kill myself for this goddamn show
i wouldnt be surprised if these kids hate theatre now. theyre all a bunch of talented, starry eyed young impressionable kids who she is using for her own power trips and abuse, and shes probably ruining theatre for them forever. shes hurting the people i love and forcing me to get involved again when i had already gotten out. seriously, fuck this shit, im so mad. you hurt me thats one thing. you hurt my kids? fuck you, seriously go fuck yourself.
sorry for the long fucking post, this show is so fucking awful i havent even talked about a quarter of the shit going on, theres so goddamn much of it
ill be fine, i just had so much fucking work to do this weekend that i cant get done now because of this goddamn show. if she directs the show next year i will actually kill someone, i hope she dies slowly and painfully /srs
#vent#tw vent#srry ik i never vent on here#but this shit is so awful#and im so goddamn tired of it#tl;dr powertripping director is hurting the kids i care about and survivors guilt is a bitch#theatre#zombie prom#fucking zombie prom#shit show anyeay#i hate it here
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REVIEW: HTI's Fun Home - An Ambitious and Heartfelt Premier for Hamilton's Theatre Community
Adapted from Alison Bechdel’s groundbreaking graphic novel, Fun Home is a refreshing original musical about the power of memory and how it helps us shape, reexamine or even destroy our identity. Moving between past and present, Alison relives her unique childhood playing at the family’s Bechdel Funeral Home, her growing understanding of her own sexuality, and the unanswerable questions about her father’s hidden desires. It was the unexpected winner of Best Musical at the 2015 Tony Awards, championed the underrepresented (specifically women writers and directors) and has become a sorely needed addition to the musical theatre zeitgeist.
Hamilton Theatre Inc. has taken an ambitious risk with producing Fun Home as part of their 65th season. It is Hamilton Ontario's premier of the show and there has been a great deal of anticipation regarding its opening. After several health based challenges leading up to opening night, the show finally opened its doors to Maple Avenue and the Bechdel "fun home." While the production has its flaws, it ultimately grants audiences a brave, humourous and heart-felt look at the lives of the Bechdel family and how tragedy can lead to healing and hope.
Director Tyler Collins has staged Fun Home to incorporate all the memories present-day Alison recalls. The main set is the house, which begins as a dusty relic and is unveiled as Alison's father's passion project and, as we discover, a way to express his closeted queerness. The set design has some effective reveal elements to it which I won't spoil here but shows the ingenuity in how to make larger scenes work on a small stage.
HTI often faces the challenges of spacing and this time, the orchestra is affected. Some members were in the loft and some were on the ground floor which often made the sound levels uneven and several songs were very difficult to hear over the instruments. Lesson 101 at HTI is always the power of projection as the cast is not mic'd and the hanging mics only provide so much assistance. Due to many cast members recovering from illness, this may have affected their ability to project so bravo to those who pushed through. That being said, audience members who are not familiar with the songs and story may find difficulty in hearing several cast members throughout. The production features some moody lighting that adds to the overall atmosphere of the show but is also underlit for several scenes. The actors faces were often so dark that the emotional impact was frequently lost. Perhaps, for the remaining shows, some extra spotlight usage or warm washes would help resolve this.
Where this show shines is in its casting. It is no easy feat to cast three individuals to play the same character at various points in their life. Collins and the creative team made brilliant choices in casting Kristi Boulton (Present-day Alison), Sabrina Gabrielle (Medium Alison) and Ariana Abudaqa (Small Alison). Each of these actors bring charm, humour and nuance to their performances and they even match one another in stature and vocal prowess.
Boulton interacts with the other versions of Alison in an endearing way while making hilarious quips about situations as she tries to make sense of her past. Boulton impresses with her deep understanding of the source material and channels the emotional impact of the story with deep respect and soaring vocals, particularly in Maps and the gut-wrenching Telephone Wire. Gabrielle embodies the nervous energy of Medium Alison perfectly while they accept their sexuality and their awkwardly joyful Changing My Major is equal parts funny and relatable. I hope to see more of Gabrielle on stage in the future. Small Alison is energetic and sassy, almost to a fault. There is undeniably a great deal of talent in Abudaqa but her performance of Ring of Keys comes off a bit too manic and less reflective in the realization of Alison's sexuality. It is a pivotal moment in the show and it doesn't have the impact it should. All this to say that at the finale, these three will have you tearing up with their powerful performance and gorgeous harmonization. Bravo.
While Alison is our protagonist, the show ultimately focuses on the strained relationship with her father Bruce, his closeted sexuality and the deeply concerning (and ultimately tragic) decisions he makes. Ian McKechnie is another strong casting choice in this role. He understands the levels needed to make this role work so that the audience never hates him but like, Alison, never truly understands him. The moments of rage and intensity delivered by McKechnie shows off his skilled acting ability and the tension and despair never feels phoned in. Very impressive work.
There is a great deal more to praise about HTI's Fun Home. Amber Mill's breaks our hearts with her tragically resentful Days and Days. This song is a key example of why musical theatre exists: to show emotion and reveal one's self when words simply aren't enough. Mills demonstrates the heartbreak in this song and it is delivered beautifully. The Bechdel brothers (Gretchen Tellez and Olive Millie) deliver some refreshing moments of levity in Come to the Fun Home and Raincoat of Love and Jackie Mahoney and newcomer to the stage, Ivan Bond provide balanced support as Joan (Alison's girlfriend) and various characters throughout. The costumes are period accurate for the 1970's and the colour matching for the characters, particularly the Alison trio, is creative and clever.
HTI's Fun Home is a welcomed piece of musical theatre in our community and almost a decade since its original debut, still has a story that needs to be told. Audiences will come to understand more about the rollercoaster of emotions while discovering one's sexuality, the hardships associated with it and how the past can be our greatest resource to accepting ourselves and those who impact our lives. Tickets are selling quickly for this Hamilton premier. Go to the Fun Home.
For tickets and more information, please visit: https://hamiltontheatre.com/tickets/
Photos by: Kreations Photography
#musicaltheatre#tonyawards#funhome#alison bechdel#hamonttheatre#hamiltonontariotheatre#HamiltonOntpremier
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Movie Review | Vigilante (Lustig, 1982)
This review contains spoilers.
Given the premise, this obviously invites comparisons to the Death Wish series, and plays in some respects like a supercharged amalgamation of the first two. You get the hero's family being attacked by a multicultural gang with cute matching outfits, his wife being brutalized and his son being killed. This is a gruesome and horrific scene, but perhaps easier to watch than in those other movies because it seems less eager to revel in sexual assault. You get the hero, who was previously against vigilantism, eventually warming up to it after the law lets him down. We already know he's in for a bad trip when the DA, who's supposed to be prosecuting the case, basically admits defeat against the violent crime problem by citing a bunch of bullshit statistics. (To paraphrase a very wise man, you can come up with statistics to prove anything. Forty percent of all people know that.)
But it isn't just that the courts fail to sufficiently punish the gang member accused of the crimes against his family. Thanks to the smug liberal judge assigned to the case and the DA revealing her talent for being the world's worst negotiator, not only does the gang member get carted back to the streets after his murder charge is dropped and his assault charge gets a suspended sentence, but the hero gets thirty days for objecting to this gross miscarriage of justice. The depiction is so over the top that if you squint enough, you can read the movie as a satire of the vigilante thriller genre. Early on, the hero questions what would separate him from the bad guys if he started taking the law into his own hands and at one point he would go too far, and the movie practically answers that at the end by having him blow up the judge who bungled his case. It's almost as if the movie wants to demonstrate in the most extreme terms what it would look like if you took the vigilante ethos to its logical end point. To say the ending left me uneasy is to put it lightly, but it's undeniably forceful.
This is a better movie than Death Wish and its sequels (full disclosure: I haven't seen the fifth) because William Lustig is a much better director than Michael Winner, and for whatever questionable ideas the movie pushes or interrogates about its subject matter, it treats the proceedings with a dramatic sensitivity mostly absent from the other series after the original. It helps that Lustig is working with a tremendous cast, with an effortlessly sympathetic and wounded Robert Forster in the lead, and supporting players like Fred Williamson and Woody Strode lending charismatic voices to the movie's ideas. But most fun is Joe Spinell as a sleazy lawyer, who is known for playing deranged, sweaty maniacs but is also entertaining when playing slimy fast talkers, and who steals the movie in his couple of scenes as he maneuvers to get his defendant off lightly while threatening him with "Legal Aid" when the gang tries to stiff him on his fee.
And the gulf is wide on a technical level too. Winner is the furthest thing from a polished craftsman, although the crudeness of Death Wish 3 does give it a nicely unhinged quality, the action contained within playing as a series of pure violent reflexes, one goon killed after another in the cinematic equivalent of a nervous twitch. But while Lustig sets his movie in a crumbling pre-cleanup New York, he gives it a palpable sense of mood as she shoots it in chilly blue widescreen cinematography and scores it with grimy synths to boot. And the grim, two-fisted violence is lent an added charge by the surprisingly elegant cutting, closeups of a cracked family photo frame after the attack on Forster's family, and closeups to Forster's scowling face as he metes out his revenge.
I'd been itching for a rewatch since I missed the chance to see it in theatres a few months ago (a combination of dreadful winter weather and having fallen ill at an inopportune time), and was very pleased to revisit it and find that it rocks even harder than I remembered.
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The Passion of Joan of Arc
(1928, Denmark-France, silent, directed by Carl Dreyer)
Carl Dreyer's legendary picture about the martyr Joan of Arc has been cloaked in mystery from the day its production began. French nationalists were concerned that such a controversial project was being carried out on French soil by avant garde (read: non-Catholic) artists.
Predictably, censors severely edited the film for its French premiere. Meanwhile, Dreyer's original version was destroyed in a fire.
After the director composed an identical second print from remaining elements, a second fire destroyed that print.
As the notes in the Criterion DVD version of the film point out, Dreyer's film endured the same fate as Joan herself: judges, scissors, and fire.
Over decades, badly altered and "musically enhanced" versions could be seen in theaters, and Dreyer is said to have been devastated by the sorry state of affairs. He died believing that his greatest work had been lost forever. However, in 1981, someone discovered in an office closet several canisters of film, one of which contained an original print . The office was located in a mental institution in Oslo, Norway.
For almost half a century, the only audiences enjoying an authentic version of this marvelous film were comprised of the mentally ill and their caretakers. Yet there's an uncanny consistency in that fact. Renee Falconetti, the actress who portrays Joan, is said to have never worked in motion pictures again because she was so emotionally spent by the experience (she did suffer some emotional breakdowns during and after production).
Another key player, Antonin Artaud, the Dada-Surrealist wild child, opium fiend, and Theatre of the Absurd founder, was eventually institutionalized (after a short and notorious career) because he was tormented by "voices." All of the bizarre circumstances of the film's history notwithstanding, Dreyer's work remains a landmark example of cinema as art.
Regarding its impact—primarily through a highly stylized conveyance of a real event—Jean Cocteau commented, "It seems like an historical document from an era in which the cinema didn't exist."
Dreyer's achievement is remarkable considering that he abandoned every common cinematic technique that might convey anything approaching reality. Art director Hermann Warm (The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari) found inspiration in the primitive art of illuminated manuscripts, in which perspective is entirely ignored.
The result is an Expressionist take on medieval art (a successful convergence of Surrealism and medieval minimalism, one could argue) manifested in one of the most peculiar sets in film history.
In this realm, physical structures, light, and angles do not observe geometry, and it is not possible to perceive their scale in relation to the actors.
The "geometry" and rhythm commonly associated with motion pictures are also absent from Dreyer's work. Spatial relationships between actors are seldom consistent, if they can be determined at all.
There are no establishing shots as such, and cuts from one player to another do not always match dialogue or action.
Most of the shots are close-ups of faces—but what amazing faces they are. Gifted veterans from the French stage are captured in carefully sustained, intricately detailed shots, and the result is unforgettable. Except for a few brief glimpses, almost none of the set is visible.
Dreyer's production notes indicate that he merely wished to employ a set that could immerse his actors in a milieu that might emotionally transport them to the historical setting. That speaks to Dreyer's confidence considering that he was working with gifted set designers at the peak of their talents.
Notes also suggest that the disorienting visual style works at "unmooring from the present" the imaginations of viewers.
This method provides a stunning emotional immediacy appropriate to a historical subject. The resulting series of images is also beautiful (that's hardly surprising with cinematographer Rudolph Maté at the helm), and at some point it is uncertain if the film seems like a work of art because we are so disoriented, or if encountering such a deeply satisfying image disorients us.
Add to this Renee Falconetti's performance, which utterly defies comparison, and you have a rare motion picture experience.
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Why are the theatre/film schools like that? 💀💀💀
In mine most profs were complete idiots. One of them, a well know actor and the president of the Academy at that time, did absolutely nothing in class. He bailed most of the time due to “shootings” and the few days he came we practically did nothing, just some chats with him about his job. To grade us he asked us to write in a paper what we thought we deserved. I kid you not.
Another one, who was a tv producer, was most likely very mentally ill and undiagnosed cause he would have the most random shitty ideas that we had to comply with and a lot of mood-swings. The day of the final exam he came 40 mins late because he was smoking week in front of the back door and then proceeded to give us the weirdest exam ever that kept us a minimum of 3 hours there. We had to make a plan of how to shoot an event and he kept adding snipers, famous people and animals to the mix.
There was one that I deeply hated cause we had 3 classes with him that were practically the same. He was more on the sociology side but did not know at all how to be a professor. His classes consisted of spiting facts and giving 10+ random bibliography per day. I learned nothing and I still have murderous waves every time someone mentions his name.
There was a couple who were married and had the sane vibe of old and way to classical. They were harmless until the end, when we learned that they blocked A LOT OF THINGS to make the space and curriculum better. Like, requesting funding to take a paid intern for their research lab of 3d shit, choosing the one (a friend of mine), signing the contract and then NEVER DO ANYTHING NOR SPEAK WITH THE CHOSEN PERSON. She had to go crying to the dean for a response and even then they were not held accountable. The school employed her as a paid intern in another department to make up for it but the rest never got resolved.
Other profs were alright, just very weird characters. The screenwriter prof was a very funny man but deeply depressed and had us all worried at first hour on Mondays (his Very Bad Day).
And on top of that was The Building™️. You see, ours was made by a very famous architect and it won several awards. Every couple of weeks we had someone taking photos of it. However, it’s the most impractical building ever because it was built as at a museum and not a school. The chairs are absolutely demential. So uncomfortable and very easily breakable BUT they cannot be replaced until 20-30 years from now because they signed a contract with the architect that said so. There is one (or two if your lucky) power plug per class but millions on the corridors. The bathrooms stalls are so narrow that if you want to enter with a bag/backpack you cannot close the door. In fact, some of those doors barely close without anyone inside. The editing rooms have gigantic windows where you cannot block the light so you can’t see shit on the computers. Well, windows are a thing in general. Classrooms have them but only one of them can be open partially with a button and let me tell you it does not help to ventilate properly 🙊. And the doors, boi, most of them had the handle broken so someone was always at risk of getting trapped there. You taught that they would fix this but it’s been more than 6 years since I finished and it’s still the same. There’s a twitter account that posts the shenanigans that are going on and most shit is the same.
So yeah, wild shit is always happening I guess 🤷🏻♀️
✨🎥 anon
literally all film/theatre schools are same shit different channel slkdfjsldkjflskdjflskdjflsdjflsdkjf oh i feel you for all of this. most of our profs did actually know what they were talking about thank god, but a lot of them were old bastions and hadn't worked professionally in AGES so they were sooooo out of date to how the scene actually operated in the modern era. we had a couple of real characters and one of which was the director for my thesis show, who was five foot zero inches and thin as a twig, wore leather pants frequently and called everyone 'lovey'. and like i previously said, was somewhere between 65 and 85 and nobody could tell bc she occasionally went to switzerland to have some crazy type of botox done to her face. we did have potentially maybe two sexual abusers?? i never got confirmation on any of it bc it was kept sooo tightly under wraps but in one case i'm not sure if there was any evidence brought forward (he was just a regular abuser though, that guy fucking SUCKED), and the other guy i only found out about from a former student bc the whole thing got swept under the rug bc his wife ALSO worked in the department. also the whole staff was like. so racist. the year after i left one of the shows that went up to committee for season suggestion was a show written in the 70s that had a bunch of racial slurs in it (and no people of colour in the script) and almost the entire student body put a petition up to remove it from selection but the director wouldn't stand down so they did it anyways 💀💀💀 i was fucking glad i was out of that hellhole by that time.
and oh my god the building architecture.....never before have i been so glad that there's no famous architects from anywhere near my hometown bc fuckin YIKES. we had a designated separate building from the rest of campus that was built in the 80s specifically for the theatre department, so we rarely left bc all the rehearsal rooms + class rooms were all in there with the theatres. and almost no non-theatre students came in bc there was only one 'theatre' class that a non-registered theatre major could take, and that was a public speaking class, so every time that class happened once a week we'd all give eyeballs to the lost looking business and sciences majors coming in. also there were signs on like every door that said 'no non theatre personnel beyond this point' (bc the building also had the box office and held audiences for when the shows were running) so anyone who was lost always looked extra lost. plus the whole thing was a huge maze bc there were upper level catwalks and corridors that connected the grid + fly systems between the two theatres, so the techies sometimes would go up to the upper levels and not come down for the entire day.
oh and there was a tradition where if you had sex in the building you would mark the spot with a black 'x'. in my first year we did a show with a big coffin as one of the setpieces and on one of the last nights of the run two of the actors fucked in it
#i literally do not know why they did bc it was not a nice plush coffin. it was literally a plain wood box#and there were a TON of wood shavings inside it so i know someone got splinters in their ass#someone also had sex in the upper level of the costume loft and i have no idea y bc 1) dusty 2) mothballs 3) the floor was a fucking GRATE#OH and two actors fucked on the upper level of the fly tower WHILE a bunch of ppl were still in the theatre. that was funny#i dont actually think this happens anymore it fell a bit out of vogue in my fourth year bc as a year we were so fucking boring#and when i say boring i mean we all were very dedicated to working and were not big partiers#but the year under us was a MESS. but im not sure if they ever got told about the tradition or not#its so nice to know that performing arts schools are always the same no matter what country theyre in lskdjflks#im literally in shock at the one about the three hour exam like what the fuck...?????????? huh?? what????????#thank fucking god we only had tests in our theatre history classes holy shit#moral of the story: DO NOT GO TO THEATRE SCHOOL#text#answers#non kpop questions#✨🎥 anon
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Chloe Hart Q&A
@/chloesjhart on Instagram, 10 December 2022
Some of the questions asked (Chloe confirms that “a few”, implying at least three, are sick as of the moment):
Q: Fav music genre?
A: Apart from musical theatre, of course, it would be Country music. Specifically, the band Rascal Flats — they're, like, my favourite band ever. Um, but in terms of like, modern music [chuckle] sometimes somebody would play something at warm-up and I'll be like, [excited tut] what musical is this from? As like, a joke — um, 'cause I just- I don't really listen to contemporary music.
Q: Favourite Christmas film?
A: You can't just pick one! So - I have a few. Um, obviously Home Alone 2 is one of them. Um, After(?) Christmas is one. Um... and one of my new favourite ones is The Christmas Chronicles, which is a Netflix film, um, which is good — and I love Jingle Jangle and, um, I love Miracle On 34th Street — like, the one with Mara Wilson. Um, yeah! And I also really like The Princess Switch [chuckle] with Vanessa Hudgens! So silly!
Q: What's your favourite thing about touring?
A: I think it's probably that we essentially have a sleepover every night with my friends, 'cause we share digs most of the time. Um, its basically like having constant sleepovers, like we're all - all of the queens are sharing with one other queen over Christmas, so I'm sharing with Leesa (Tulley), Jen(nifer Caldwell) is sharing with Nat(alie Pilkington), Casey (Al-Shaqsy)'s sharing with Harriet (Caplan-Dean), Jess(ica Niles) is sharing with Grace (Melville), and Becca (Wickes)'s sharing with Alana (Robinson), and so we're all sharing with another person. It just feels like constant sleepovers!
Q: Do you have an updated Aragon costume?
A: My costume is being altered, not updated! I have the most up-to-date Aragon costume, um, and it's just being slightly altered size-wise, um, because my body has changed slightly due to lots of gym and stuff, so!
Q: Worst show you've ever had?
A: [chuckling] On Six? Um, I don't know if it's the worst show, but when I was in Coventry, um - I haven't been ill very much actually on the show— this is only the second time I've been off ill. Um, but when I was in Coventry, it was the first time, and, um, I had a sickness bug on the Tuesday. And I went back to work on the Wednesday, and... I don't remember the show! I honestly — I came off stage and I was like, "I don't remember doing any of that, it just happened," and I was completely out of it. And then I was off again the next day because I was just — I just came back too soon. So I think that was probably the worst because I don't know what I did! [chuckles] Everyone said I did alright but I- [sighs] God know what happened.
Q: Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
A: Hopefully with a child or two and working as a casting director!
Q: How did you and Ellie (Haffenden, the dep stage manager of Six West End) meet?
A: We initially met on the first day on rehearsals, and then, um, we met again after that — we didn't talk that day — and then we met again a few weeks later when I went to the Vaudeville to watch the show. Um, and, then she slid into my DMs! [laughing] She's gonna hate me for saying that!
Q: Did you always want to be in Six?
A: Well, there is a fun fact actually that um, I was actually... meant to go to an audition for the original-original cast (presumably referring to the Original Arts Theatre/Albumcast), or like the original... yeah, the original cast. And, um, I didn't go because I went on a holiday to New York instead! [laughter] I also read the breakdown and thought it was totally not something I could do. Um, which is crazy thinking back on, you know... well, thinking back, that some of the girls that were here were still in like, secondary school when that happened.
Q: How do you cope with comments people make about your size during the show?
A: Okay, this is gonna be my last question, but thank you so much for keeping me company! [...] So, firstly I just wanna say that um, thank you so much to those who send, sort of, messages of support
and love when I've mentioned this happening in the past. And I think it's important to say as well this isn't something that happens every day, not that I know of — it could happen every day, but I only really see it when it's in the first three or four rows and it really isn't nice when I see it. Um, I cope with it differently every time. Sometimes I'm feeling really good and I don't really care and I just, like, let it wash off my back and I just don't say anything. Some days I get a bit upset, some days I get a bit angry. And some days I just get sorry for those people that have that and I'm reminded sort of — um, I also think it's really sad that those people have obviously missed the entire point of the show, which is about building up people and empowering them, and celebrating, and not judging. Um, and... these people obviously don't really compute that because they sit there commenting and judging upon my body and literally going "oh my gosh, she's in a leotard and she's wearing a tights and a leotard and she's big!" like it's a crazy, crazy notion, but um, you know, I guess- I guess that's their opinion and that's fine, it's just- it's a shame that they can make me feel really vulnerable and self-conscious, um, on-stage, which it does sometimes. Um... but, I'm just glad that I'm old enough for that to not really affect me outside of it; it worries me other people who might be more impressionable. Um... but yeah.
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In honor of tech week being next week for my show, I am presenting the JRWI theatre kids.
Harlem just is. He monologues various plays to himself and was his director's absolute favorite leading man. Like, he's a theatre kid no contest.
Have I met Ashe yet? No. But character designs and clips alone tell me that she obviously would be a theatre kid if she went to a normal school. Like, she would so be vibing in the booth or a tech director who does some of the stupidest shit daily but is also more concerned on the safety of people than literally anyone else.
Gillion is one of those kids that were just dragged in one day and never left. The obvious mental illness just fits in so well, not sure what crew he would do but he would be a valued member.
Chip is so on set, and I'm not biased. He would blast some of the absolute worst music and commit OSHA violations hourly. Like he's just in the shop swearing up a storm while getting shit done. Also all set crew members are incredibly depressed.
Jay also does theatre and is just one of the token common sense people, she def is high up in the command chain.
Kian is such a fucking theatre kid. He is one of Those theatre kids but does some of the most banger performances. He is the cast member always seen doing the stupidest shit but is so important.
Kasper holy fucking shit. This bitch is the Biggest theatre kid and just god damn. I do not have to explain this.
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Blaine Food Headcanons:
( note: this is for MY muse, not necessarily canon blaine)
*tw for binge eating/purging/unhealthy relationship to food
Food hasn’t always been difficult for him. As a child, his mother cooked pretty healthy meals for her boys — lots of protein and veggies, sometimes casseroles. It was when he and his brother were alone with his dad that they’d have more ‘fun’ food. Pizza, BBQ, food on the grill, donuts for breakfast. Still, he never really complained about his mother’s style of cooking. He wasn’t picky.
It was about 50/50 with his friends. Friends from within the neighborhood typically had meals more boujie than he was used to. But friends from school would invite him over and he’d borderline binge on ‘junk’ food. Chips, desserts, candy, soda — he usually came home from their houses with a stomach ache and was ready to have his mother’s cooking again.
Though his mom appeared to be very conscious of blaine’s health, she and her husband allowed Blaine to drink coffee from a very young age: as young as 8 or 9. They noticed it gave him energy, and he performed better and got more done when he had coffee. The caffeine combined with the pressure to perform well is probably what kick-started Blaine’s anxiety issues.
Blaine is not picky, and never has been. He enjoys all kinds of cuisines. Italian is his favorite, it’s more of a comfort food, but he also loves Chinese, Indian, Thai, Spanish, Greek, anything. There are very few things Blaine won’t eat, and he’ll try anything once.
His relationship with food began to become more complicated in junior high. While puberty was making a lot of his friends grow taller and slim out, Blaine found himself gaining weight but not growing as tall. He didn’t see it as a huge issue until some guys in the PE locker room started to point it out, and worse, when his theatre director made a comment. He started trying to lose weight, gain muscle and cut out ‘junk’ food completely. However, he spent so much of his time trying to focus on eating healthy that when ‘junk’ food was readily available (such as at friend’s houses) he would binge, sometimes to the point of making himself ill. One of his friends even encouraged him to try purging so he could eat even more. He’d feel guilty about it afterward and then stop eating completely for a few days. No one in his family or friend group ever really knew about this. It embarrassed him.
During high school, his relationship with food improved. He was becoming more muscular from boxing and learning how to fight, so he needed all the calories he could get. He ate a lot in high school, and never really thought much about it.
Blaine’s relationship with food hit an all-time low his freshman year of college, at NYADA. He’d heard of the “freshman 15″ before but wasn’t really worried about it until he began gaining quite a bit of weight himself. NYADA and the move to New York was stressful, albeit what he wanted, and he found himself indulging in food again. There was so much more variety available in New York, and eating gave him comfort. The weight gain made him very insecure, especially since Kurt was becoming more muscular and focusing on sticking to healthy food. Blaine’s insecurity in his body created a lot of tension in his relationship with Kurt, and himself. The more insecure he got, the more he ate for comfort.
#headcanon#binge eating tw#eating disorder tw#' i'll be your clown. ' (verse 01)#' somewhere only we know. ' (verse 02)#' take me back to the night we met. ' (verse 05)#' love is a battlefield. ' (verse 05a)
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