I Remember Mama exclusive!

Giving you a behind-the-scenes peek at rehearsals:



We've been busy busy busy at rehearsals, working long (and late!) hours. We open in a week! I can't wait.

Uffda!

--I tried on blonde wigs the other night. I looked rather like Hannah Montana in one of them. (You get the beeeeest of both worlds! Chillin' out take it slow, then you rock out the show.... please don't ask me why I know those lyrics.) Anyway, everybody said I looked good as a blonde. Tina (she plays the lead, Mama) has super-dark hair and eyes like myself and she tried on wigs as well. When John (the director) saw the two of us alongside a couple of our (naturally-blonde) "relatives" he said, "Whoa, that's scary...you're all starting to look the same." Heheh.

--My only prop in the show is a handkerchief. Which I carry around in every single scene. I'm becoming quite attached to it. It's very useful for clutching to one's chest or wiping one's brow.

--We were looking for a Norwegian swear word (in order to replace some English swear words) and one of our Norwegian consultants told us to use the word "uffda" (pronounced "oofta"). I was...slightly shocked, to say the least. As silly as "uffda" might sound to you, that's a very common word in my family (and extended family....). You know, when you're really tired and you collapse on the sofa, you sigh and say "uffda!" Or when you pick up a heavy box, for instance, you might say "uffda." Right? Hello? Anyone?!

Apparently that's not as common a word as I thought. No one else in the entire cast had ever heard of it before, and so when I told them that for my family it's a very normal, everyday word, I got a lot of weird looks followed by laughter.

At least it was fun notifying my family that we've been swearing in Norwegian for years....heh heh heh.

you never know...

I was reading in some of my old journals this morning, and I came across this paragraph, which I wrote about 2 and a half years ago:

Last night we did indeed see "Fiddler on the Roof"! It was great fun, we all enjoyed it. My definite favorite song was "Matchmaker" that the three sisters sang. They looked as if they were having so much fun! I should like to perform that song.

Wow. You never know what might happen, do you?

Recap of a few of last week's rehearsals

Wednesday night:

We had a Norwegian expert lady come to rehearsal. She went over certain words and dialects with us (mainly with the people whose characters have the strong accents...mine does not). One thing that I (and the other Aunts) have to learn is how to say the Lord's prayer in Norwegian. *gulp* So she slowly worked through telling us how to say everything as we frantically scribbled down the pronunciations.

Also, it was raining that night and as I left the theatre I not only got soaked but had to dodge (not always successfully) the huge pools of water that were accumulating in the back alleyway. It was lovely. I smiled and started singing "Singin' in the Rain" with gusto.

Thursday night:

We reviewed musical numbers. Good to get those down pat.

Friday night:

...was supposed to be our first run-through of the show, but of course we only got through the first act. We were also supposed to have all our lines memorized. I had my songs memorized and my first scene as well, but the other scenes I hadn't really looked at. I decided to wing it anyway and was actually able to get pretty much all my lines, simply from how many times I've read through them at rehearsals! I felt pretty pleased about that.

dancin' in the rain

I've been having a lot of fun with my dance class this year. For one thing, it's an hour long instead of half an hour like last year's. It's loads easier to get more learned and accomplished when you have a whole hour. Secondly, my teacher changed it from jazz/modern to jazz/hip-hop, which I am really excited about. I love hip-hop. Jazz is so fun, too.

Another added bonus of having an entire hour is that we'll be able to do two routines instead of just one in the spring recital. We're going to do a classic jazz piece and then a jazz/hip-hop piece. Yesterday during class our teacher (Katie) told us the song we'll be doing the classic jazz routine to: "Singin' in the Rain" from the musical of the same title! I'm SO thrilled about this....Singin' in the Rain is in my top four favorite musicals of all time, so to be able to dance to the song is going to be a blast.

Katie taught us four little dance sequences that she told us to go home and work on. At our next class we'll have an audition - she'll have us do the sequences for her and she'll pick the soloists and duos for the number.

Overall I always have such a great time at class. Oh how I love to dance....

so you want to be an actor

Adrienne Kress is one of my heroes, because she is a children's author plus an actress/director/script-writer. I wanted to point out a couple of links to do with her that I found helpful/thought-provoking, as I try to figure out what path I want to try out after I graduate from high school.

An interview about her jobs as both a writer and an actress.

A follow-up post from her blog about pursuing acting training.