Guys, feel free to ignore this if you so choose. I just needed a place to type out everything I need to do over the next month and in a place I knew I wouldn't forget to look.

TO-DO LIST
Sunday - Jordan's show.
Monday - pick up posters, set up temp display outside LAT. finish Nerdfighters debate.
Tuesday - LGBT discussion leading/journals due.
Wednesday (cont. Friday) - Logic exam
Thursday - song monologue
Friday - event space raffle for next semester (for Nerdfighters)
Oct. 26 - Nerdfighters Halloween party
Oct. 29 - Mass culture midterm
Oct. 30/31 - RENT tour in Cincinnati (big question mark?)
Nov. 1 - Vagina Monologues director orientation. Have display outside of LAT complete.
Sometime before tech week - Peasants' Feast (?)
Nov. 7-12 - TECH WEEK
Nov. 11 - Transgender event (4-6); RENT speech/promotion
Nov. 12 - FINISH lobby display boards, woman!
Nov. 13 - SHOW GOES UP. 7 pm
Nov. 14 - 7 pm
Nov. 15 - 2 pm
Nov. 16 - Manley's benefit/fundraiser-for-the-GVSU-theatre-department show. Cook-Dewitt.
Nov. 18 - HIV/AIDS concert/benefit downtown. Fountain St. Church. 7:30 (?)
Nov. 19 - 7 pm
Nov. 20 - 7 pm
Nov. 21 - 7 pm
Nov. 21/22 - Strike

THINGS/DATES TO FIGURE OUT
- Rehearsal dinner/cast party
- 11 pm performance-for-the-RENTheads (what day did Karen say this was?)
- Headshots photoshoot
- Program bios due
- other things that I'm forgetting I need to get my crap together like right now.

"do what you love for the rest of your life. that way it'll never feel like a job."

This year is already infinitely better than last year. I feel myself getting more limber and graceful and strong because of my stage movement class, and the need to stay hydrated for my voice class is making me feel healthier already. Sleep is more desired because it's a luxury instead of something I do out of laziness. My American pop/mass culture class is super fascinating. And I get to be five years old and pretend to be animals in my improv class. Logic sucks, as expected, but it's really more tedious than difficult. I spend most of my time in the Performing Arts Center now and it's got the best AC/heat on campus, I'm pretty sure (the theatre lab is ALWAYS FREEZING jfc). Glee is by far the most relatable show I've EVER seen, I'm going to NYC in the summer if I make the Dean's List, Harry Potter park opens in the spring, NPH is hosting the Emmys on Sunday, Jordan won Big Brother, and HIMYM STARTS ON MONDAY.

BUT. MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL is the fact that I'm doing dramaturgy for RENT this semester. Basically I have to put the informational boards together for the lobby when the show goes up and come to rehearsals and give my two cents about cultural implications and character/music analysis and be like LOL HOW 'BOUT NO when people try to pull Rosarios by me. POWAR. Auditions were brilliant, and Manley Pope, while not my favorite Roger BYYYY FAAAAAR, is seriously the nicest and most understanding director I've seen at any level. It's good to know that he and Karen value my knowledge and willingness to do anything and aren't going to make me be their little smoothie gopher. Even though I DID have to play hall monitor at callbacks and ended up sick because apparently 70 people + small hall space = germs. But it was amazing and beautiful and I was grinning the whole time and I'm just so HAPPY. I love being so consumed by something I love SO MUCH and having it make a difference.

Also, tickets for the Cincinnati tour stop go on sale on the 25th AND I'll have enough money AND Connor's offered to drive. I'm surrounded and I love it. :D

There's only one way to sum up this week:
"YO SWAYZE IT SUCKS YOU DIED AND I'MMA LET YOU FINISH BUT MJ HAD THE BIGGEST DEATH THIS YEAR."

Chris: Where's Sid?
Cassie: He went to do his milk round. I think he likes having all that milk.
Chris: Cool. Lots of milk.
Cassie: All he can drink.
Chris: Lucky man. Non-stop glugging.
Cassie: He'll be chugging it down.
Chris: Oh he's milktastic.
Cassie: Milkulous.
Chris: He's a milkionaire.

I've finally started on series 3 but I can already tell they will mean NOTHING to me compared to the crew from S1&2. And there's no one near as interesting as Cassie SO. :P

I MET, SHOOK HANDS WITH, SPOKE, AND GOT THE WORLD'S MOST GENUINE HUG FROM JESSE LACEY TONIGHT.

there's no way I've come to terms with that ACTUALLY happening yet oh my GOD.

I SERIOUSLY DON'T HAVE A BRAND NEW ICON WHAT IS THIS MESS.

THIS'LL DO:


Guys. Oh my God. I've spent MONTHS AND YEARS thinking about what I would say when I met Jesse, and I WANTED to thank him tonight so badly; thank him for writing songs that I have absolutely no trouble relating to, thank him from writing songs that got me through the toughest time of my life and then some, thank him for sharing it and baring it all with us. But I sort of froze up.

Nevertheless, he gives the most genuine and embracing hugs of all time. He doesn't like, half go in for it because it's expected of him; these hugs were legit.



Oh, and the show was good, too. :P

"Some people feel like they don't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past."



BTW GUYS Emile Hirsch in Into The Wild UNF FOREVER turn-on turn-on yesss please

THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH, INTERNET.

I am so SICK of people - online and offline - turning into big sobbing faux mourners the moment a celebrity passes away. Today we lost two insanely huge figures in our pop culture. Farrah Fawcett has been treated with nothing but respect, bless her gorgeous self forever. I wish I could say the same for Michael Jackson. Sure, there have been hoards of people saddened by the loss to the music industry, but then there are the people who are ~shaking and crying~ and talking about how much they've always loooooooooved him.

The truth was, he was an anomaly to absolutely everyone in the past decade. We all thought he was going insane, as much as we respected him for his musical talent, and let's face it - as Americans, we turned our back on him. We're the ones who made him weird. We're the ones who made him a joke. We didn't know what to think.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on MJ or his run-ins with the law or whatever, but from the common knowledge that I do know, I honestly don't believe he was the monstrous child molester that some people seem to make him out to be. He had an awful, tyrannical, and abusive childhood. He was performing from the time he could talk. As he progressed into his adult years, I don't think he was anywhere near developed psychologically. During his trials, a mental health specialist admitted that he had regressed to a 10-year-old child mentally. We all have to agree: he was really screwed up psychologically. Okay. Personally, I don't think his friendships were anything more than that or sexual in any way. And I think the children that claimed they were were being manipulated by greedy parents who saw a chance to capitalize on someone developmentally frail (in fact, look at his 1993 case; the father of the boy can be heard on tape threatening MJ's career even before he drugged his son and had him "confess" to sexual abuse).

I just think... we thought it was weird. It wasn't something the majority of us could understand. So we called it child molestation and got it over with. How quick we are to dismiss mental illness, especially in mass culture.

All the people now who realize how tragic the whole thing is, who keep looking for signs in the past few weeks that could've prevented today from happening. Well. HIS WHOLE LIFE WAS A SIGN. And nobody gave two craps enough to do anything about it. Nobody cared then to reach out and help him; this was inevitable and none of us saw it coming.

In that sense, it is a tragedy. It's a tragedy to an entire generation. A huge population of the whole would say his music is part of their life's soundtrack. I'm not saying he was some martyr; he made mistakes and I definitely didn't give him many moments of my thoughts before today, when I really sat down to think about it all, but. It's DISGUSTING when people are still making child molestation jokes, or jokes about his appearance, or ESPECIALLY the people who have said "LOL HE DESERVED IT LOL the world is a better place lolololz".

You know what? Whatever. I just hope he's happy and at peace now, wherever he is. That's indisputable at least, the fact that he never had happiness and peace here during his life.

Jordan and I had a "NEVER FORGET" party over Yahoo tonight. Many laughs ensued. Too much fun with Photoshop ensued. I want to share our creations with you.


"THAT WAS LIKE EIGHT YEARS AGO!"
"PEOPLE DON'T FORGET!"

So it all started when Jordan decided to visit early-90s television...

( good times )

you're welcome, friends list. :]

"The train had pulled in, and it happened just then. I wanted to scream and cry, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to be embarrassed by screaming out loud, and I decided to hold it all in. And I bent over, and I thought I was going to pass out. Or throw up. And I thought: 'This is it. This is how Diana feels on her drugs. Everything is inside her, and nothing is coming out.'"

still exhausted from cedar point. in kind of a bad mood. need more sleep kbye.

Cedar Point was AWESOME. Last night I wasn't so sure if I could do the two-day thing again, though. There was a lot of walking and sleeping on the hard ground in the tent. Plus I feel like the rollercoasters all ganged up on me.

(Click on these links if you're not familiar with Cedar Point. It's the most extreme theme park on Earth. Officially.)

The Dragster kicked me in the face three times. The Millennium Force sucker-punched me in the kidneys all six times, and The Maverick is automatically like a full body slam but especially if you ride it twice.

But I feel much better after sleeping in my own bed and I would DEFINITELY do the two-day thing again.

It was 48 hours of pure awesome. Monique's WV friends were cool. Jordan faced her fears like a pro and sucked it up and rode everything with me. It rained and got cold at about 6 on Saturday, but all day yesterday it was just perfect. Perfect theme park weather and not-so-busy since it was a Sunday night. The longest line we stood in was probably about 30 minutes.

NOW I REMEMBER why it's my favorite place on Earth.

I'll have pictures and stuff later guys thanks.

Awesome. I haven't done one of these in YEARS.


01. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper at their livejournal.
02. Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper.
03. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this. The point is to see what you had on.

( Unter hier )

Now that I have a free moment for the first time since last night, I want to do my Tonys recap post hahaha

There were only a few shows that I've been absolutely in love with this season, so I wasn't expecting the Tonys to be too spectacular. And then NPH was announced as the host last month. And that all changed. YOU ALL KNOW ME. And you know, just for the record, I don't get a lot of the indifference that is coming from the theatre community today. Boy was obviously pretty nervous about the whole thing (regardless of the cool demeanor he's been promoting the gig with haha) but he was passionate about the point of the Tonys.

AND FOR THE RECORD, I think he blew the roof off with his closing number. But that may just be because he can do no wrong in my eyes.

And ratings were up 20% from last year. Book that beautiful man for next year right now, Theatre Wing. You know you want to.

OKAY MY RECAPS (semi in order):

- THE OPENING NUMBER. I got way way way too into that. I screamed and cheered at random moments, including but not limited to Aaron Tveit stealing the spotlight from Stockard, Bret Michaels getting taken out by the set piece (WIN!), Hair's portion of the number!
- Neil going off-prompter for part of his opening monologue. I nearly teared up it was so genuine to me. And totally relateable, dude - Small Town, USA, theatre kids, represent!
- I shrieked when Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey won for N2N. I shrieked anytime N2N won anything, but this was the first time. Freaked my friends out. :P
- BILLY ELLIOT. I'm still not sure how I feel about this show. I mean, I liked the movie and I really have nothing against the show; I was just bitter that it was obvious it was going to sweep and steal all of Next To Normal's awards. ;D Their performance was INTENSE, though, dude. Actually piqued my interest haha
- Alice Ripley, Broadway's best leading actress, 2009! What a crazy intense speech, but she was still the HBIC last night. A few of my friends knew NOTHING about N2N but had to agree after their performance that she DESERVED that Tony. What an incredible performer.
- Speaking of Next To Normal's performance, oh my GOD. Highlight of the night for me. Even though Alice's mic was a bit wonky, it was just. Ugh. There was SILENCE in the living room we were watching it, it was so intense. (And that's saying something; we're usually loud and obnoxious).
- I really wanted Jenn Damiano to win best featured actress. I knew she wouldn't, but it would've been awesome to see. Especially since she wasn't involved in the performance.
- HAIR'S PERFORMANCE. GAVIN GAVIN GAVIN! I was kind of expecting Aquarius, but I was so excited when they went with Hair. AGAIN. GAVIN. GAVIN. AND ALISON. THE WHOLE TRIBE. OH MY GOD.
- Who was my pick for best leading actor, by the way, but I have to admit I was extremely endeared to the three Billys accepting their award. So speechless. :']

The ceremony was really performance-heavy, but I absolutely loved it. I'm of the general opinion that they shouldn't have featured the many touring shows (especially Mamma Mia!; what an embarrassingly bad performance of "Dancing Queen") over shows that are actually in the city, but I get the point of it. Shrek The Musical will never NOT be a joke to me, so no further comment on that.

I think I'm done. I missed something, but I'm done for now.

I just want Hair and Next To Normal to last until I can get there next summer. DON'T CRUSH MY DREAMS, BROADWAY.

( EDIT: THIS WILL NEVER NOT BE HILARIOUS )

EVERYONE. EVERYONE. PLEASE ALLOW ME TO DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO MY ANIMATED DR. HORRIBLE MOOD THEME.

Okay. Now return to your regular scheduled programming. Or keep reading this entry. Whichever flits your fancy.

ASHLEY'S HOME. I know she's really depressed about it, but I don't think she even realizes how much fun she's going to have with us this summer. Seriously. Between the art fair and whatever we so choose to do for my birthday and nights at the SNACK HOUSE and QAF marathons and whatnot. Yeah. It just hasn't sunk in for her yet.

This Sunday we're having a Tonys viewing party. Connor thought I was inviting him to Tony's party. Neither of us know who Tony is. BUT. Now that that confusion is over, he will be joining us. It'll either be at Monique's house or at my house (pending what her father says) and there will be dressing/suiting up and elegant foods (Jordan seems to think we should have "elegant foods. like pancakes.") so. If any of the attendees here (so Jordan, Monique, and Ashley...) have any ideas for other elegant ideas, let me know.

CEDAR POINT IS SO SOON. I am so so so excited to get my ride on after watching the Extreme Terror Rides special and remembering what it was like to ride the Millennium Force and Dragster, but even more exciting is doing it two days in a row. I've only ever gone for one day at a time during the summer, so I'm excited to camp out and go to the park two days in a row and ride a whole crapton of rollercoasters. Awesome. Also, major tanlines and sun-kissed hair coming my way and HOPEFULLY a bit of that freshman fifteen dropping due to all that walking and sweating out calories two days in a row. I can only hope.

Speaking of which, I told Jordan the other day that I needed to go to the mall before Cedar Point because I can't come up with two outfits to wear. Her only response was "I taught you so well". WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME? But no really I need cute amusement park wear

I've been neglecting my LJ so much recently because of Twitter. I never have things to say anymore because as soon as they happen in real time I just tweet about them! But I'm going to try to use LJ more because I want to use this mood theme more often.

Priorities!

I just want everyone on my flist to know that you can be from middle-of-effing-nowhere Michigan and still be completely awesometown.

My proof lies in someone you may not expect from me. No, I chose to go with my own gender in this expose, but I will use this icon in an attempt to lure you in (also, it'll be relevant later).

Today, Jordan and I were talking about the celebrities we like most in the world. I came to a scary realization; I'm not a big fan of blonde girls. NO OFFENSE TO MY BLONDE FRIENDS; I just couldn't think of any!

It took me far too long to think of Miss Kate Reinders here.


Now. You may not be aware for whatever stupid reasons you're not, but Kate Reinders is a BAMF. She went to a Christian high school in MUSKEGON of all places before moving to NYC and being hot and quirky on Broadway.

A lot of Broadway fans think she's one-dimensional and just all-around goofy and spastic and awkward. And that's true, she is. At least she had something to fall back on (more on that later).

Kate is most known for her replacement role as G(a)linda in the Broadway cast of Wicked. True story: she sang part of Popular on Jeopardy. Look it up. Now. Truth be told, she was a crazy Glinda. It was scary. Glinda on crack, maybe, and that's saying a lot considering what Cheno accomplished in making the role. No, I'm actually a bigger fan of Kate's work in the 2003 revival of Gypsy. Her goofiness and neuroticism was just about perfect for Dainty June. Enough of that.

I just wanted to prove to you all how cute she is. This is a talent-put-aside post. Just cuteness.

( overload of Michigan blonde in here )

DEAR ASHLEY,

( here are some things to look forward to this week when you're sad about coming home )

Dear radioplays,

Courtney. You wonderful, beautiful girl. In mmmmm OCTOBER, I posted a survey on my LJ asking for recommendations in all different categories, etc. etc. For the TV show, you rec'd Skins to me. Nearly eight months later, after hearing about how wonderful it was on all different corners of the internet, I finally gave in and decided to give it a go. It's summer, I was bored, I needed a new show to watch. And voila.

Courtney. This show is absolutely beautiful. In about four nights, I finished the entire first series. In fact, I just finished it a few minutes ago and needed to come straight here. It's pretty much impossible to ignore spoilers about the entire show, of course, so I knew what was going to happen, but I was still all up in knots over the finale. In just four days I'm madly in love with every last one of these characters and they WILL NOT LET ME GO. Cassie especially is one of the most gorgeous and introspective characters I've ever seen on a TV show (even if my best friend thinks she's a drug-addled Luna Lovegood from her first episode impression hahaha and yeah even I wasn't sure from the first episode but I kept watching and oh my God I'M SO GLAD I DID).

(I'm not usually for dramedies breaking the fourth wall, but the Cat Stevens cover at the end of the finale was just so well-played. And Cassie and Sid on the bench!)

But anyway. I digress. Mostly I just wanted to thank you for recommending it in the first place, all those months ago. It took me a long time to get here, but thank you! It's absolutely fantastic. <333

- Amber

My school's doing RENT in November and they're bringing in Manley Pope to guest direct.

REACT.




Mrs. Cohen/Pocket Tease girl AND/OR Student directing/stage managing, Y/Y/Y?

brb waiting for email back from theatre dept. head!

By definition, I am not cut out for anything.

I'm the way youngest of three children in a lower middle class family. My parents don't get along at all, but financial reasons call for them living under the same roof. I grew up in a neighborhood that is basically Michigan's answer to a Levitt subdivision. All the houses look the same and they were all built to house the workers who worked in the now-defunct Ford plant.

I used to collect roly-polies and caterpillars in bug collecting containers that I bought at the dollar store next to the K-Mart my grandmother pretty much lived in. There seemed to be hundreds of kids in my neighborhood when I was growing up: Tyler and Eddie and Avery and Kiki and Kimisha and Charlie and Tony and Scott and Erica and Randy and Tracy and Devin and Raven and Allissa and Rhiannon. Brittney and Brittany and Sam and Conner and Brandon and Stephanie and Kristina. They're all gone now for the most part. In college or working or moved away. And when we see each other, we barely acknowledge each other. But we easily used to trust each other with our lives. Or at least our bicycles while we went in to eat dinner.

( By definition, I am a good girl. )