Student Soundbytes

Posted: January 7, 2007

oh, yes, kids, it's that time of year again. the beginning of the spring semester. you know what that means? road trip with the theatre department! yep, every year during the first week of classes, the annual kennedy space center american college theatre festival (actf) happens. it's a week full of competition, plays, musicals, workshops, friends, sights, sounds, and all the fun you can handle. it honestly is the most fun week ever.......if you're into theatre, that is. oh, kids, i can't wait. this year, i'm competing in an acting competition called the irene ryans. i've prepared a 3 minute and 2 minute scene with my boy blane, and a 1 minute solo. and, and, and....there's a bunch of musical theatre workshops this year! yay! and it all happens in milwaukee,wisconsin! i'm bursting at the seams with this one! i can't stand the wait! actf, here i come!!!!!!!!!!

until next time kids, cheers!

Posted: December 6, 2006

wow, kids. it's dead week. the week before finals. the holidays are just around the corner. where did it all go?! the semester just began! seriously, though, it's been a good semester. let me give you a little recap of my classes for the fall: on m/w/f classes, i had my english classes. i had my intermediate writing class (w233) with professor charles totten. seriously, kids, looking for an excellent W233 prof take totten. you honestly do not feel overwhelmed in this class. it's really laid back, and totten is so knowledgable it's not even funny. then i had my western world lit. class with prof. hile-bassett. this prof, too.....yep, she's awesome. it's a discussion based class. take it if you like to read old school epics. it was uber interesting. then on t/tr classes i literally painted my face and drew people. that's all i did. my theatre classes for the semester: stage makeup and costume design. yay! talk about reverting back to my youth. i literally got to play with makeup and draw pictures. talk about a fun semester. i'm honestly sad to see it come to an end. why? i have biology and some other yawners next semster. boring!!!!!!!

until next time kids, cheers!

Posted: November 21, 2006

hey, kids. yes, yes, i am still alive and kicking. i know it's been a long red hot minute since i've last dropped in, but let's just have a little recap in the life of branonna (one of my many nicknames by the by) since the fall semester has started. okay, so i am finally having a short little break between shows. i've just recently been in "Babes in Arms" (the summer musical), "On the Twentieth Century" (the fall musical) and "The Exonerated" (the fall play). yep, been a busy little bee.....but here's the kick a#$ news: i was nominated for the Irene Ryan Award for my portrayal of Olive in "On the Twentieth Century"! yyyyyaaaaayyyy! okay, seeing as this is foreign language to many of youse guys, the irene ryan award is a nomination given to 1 or 2 actors in a production who had stand out performances. the nominations are given by 2 people: the director of the show and a theatre professor from another university who acts as a respondant and gives a review of the show. what's the point of the nomination? well......now i get to compete in an acting cometition at this thing called actf: the american college theatre festival. basically, this is the mecca for college theatre students. it's a week of nothing but theatrical shanannigans (sp?): shows to watch, workshops to attend, competitions to participate and watch, rubbing elbows with theatre majors from all over the midwest! it's amazingly good times! it should be illegal how much fun this week is. but anyway, the irene ryan competition usually has roughly 500 entries competeing for a chance to go to the nationals in washington d.c. and a shot at a $50,000 acting scholarship. needless to say, i'm beyond pumped right now! i've competed as a partner for the past 2 years, but this is the first time i'm competeing as a nominee! yay! ooh! ooh! and i was just cast as mary warren in "The Crucible" for next semester! life is awesome right now, kids! and the semester is almost over. cheers!

Posted: May 09, 2006

okay, kids, it is officially summer! woot. woot! so after 3 finals in one day, putting in a 39 hour day so i could write a final paper and take part in theatre day, and my very last few days of music (i have my minor!) it is game over. ah, i can breathe! but, here's the fun news! kids, i am so uber excited right now. yesterday (5/7/06), i had an audition for the principle roles in the fall musical "on the twentieth century". going into it, i felt really confident because i had a really strong audition song and i was really prepared- probably the most prepared i've ever been for an audition. but then sickness hit last week. noooo!!!! i woke up sunday morning stuffed up, hacking up a lung, and was hoarse as hoarse can be. great. fantastic. how am i supposed to nail an audish under these conditions? huh? so i go. i looked cute, at least. i warmed up on the way to campus and the notes came out fine, but they weren't 100%. so i go in, do my thing, and i nailed it. the directors were laughing and smiling and even said "you should consider submitting 'wonderful town' (which is the show i got my audition song from) as a season selection". yeah, i was happy. then we did the reading portion. that is the most fun part of an audition. we get to play. you basically grab the script and 'perform' it. i had so much fun! so, after a 3 hour audition, a group of us decide to head to halls downtown because that is where theatre people migrate to after rehearsals, auditions, performances, etc. craig, the director, shows up shortly after we get there. "well, you're all in the show. you want to know who you are?" uh, yeah!!! so he sits down and just goes around the table and says who everyone is. me, you ask? oh, olive. the supporting lead!!!!!!!! ahhh!!!!!! i landed a lead!!! yes! and i did it really under the weather! woot! woot! woot! i am so excited! so, uh, if all y'all are interested in seeing lil'ol' me in action, the show opens in october. ah! redemption tastes so sweet! cheers!

Posted: April 20, 2006

okay kids, so you know how i mentioned before that this week is "spring fling"? well today was the 6th annual "last bash bbq." i mean, truly it sounds like a grand time, right? uh, not quite. okay, so this is the 6th one of these puppies they've put on, right? you'd think after 6 years, they'd have worked out all the kinks. good god! it was a red hot mess and a half. bust. i repeat, it was a huge bust. now, nonna doesn't get upset over much. i do, but it takes a lot. and today, i shook my fist in fury several times. so all the flyers said, "bbq @10" meaning 10 am. okay. cool. my good friend meg, and i decide to skip a class so we can be first in line. 10 comes and goes. no food. okay, fine. we wanted to skip class anyway. 11 comes and goes. still no food. we have officially been in line for oh about a half hour now. next thing i know, and i notice this because i was at the front of the line, all of the physical plant employees begin forming their own line and are getting food. my mother freakin' food!!!!! and not only this, they take all of the ribs and stuff that has been made and waiting for us, the students!!!!! oh, and, by the way, i have to give "mad props" to my boys that help out with admissions and the like......pete, jim, tony. you guys sweated it out with the kids today instead of cheating like physical plant. i thank you. anyway, so it is now 10 til 12. i have class at noon. still no food in my stomach. and now i have a god-awful sunburn because i am a pale soul. i finally get my food, and hey, guess what?! IT WASN'T EVEN THAT GOOD! ahhhhhh!!!! so i waited in line for an hour and a half, got a sunburn, and for what? crappy bbq. and did i get a big delicious rib? no, i got undercooked chicken. god, biggest bust of the year.

but, there was some hope for the day......the live music!!!! yes, i am an avid follower of the local music scene. i've got my bands i follow around, and i'm always open to new bands. it's good i tell ya! seriously, go out and check some bands out. you'd be surprised what ft. wayne has to offer. anyway, so my boys of definitely gary peformed today. at first, i was kind of upset because i had a class at noon and that's when they played, but, tada! my lucky day. that class ended up being canceled. all hail d.g.! they rocked it out as usual. god, i love those guys. i also heard left lane crusier for the first time. dude, those guys kicked so much ass, it wasn't even funny! two guys, right? that's it. two guys. they just jammed like southern rock/soul/blues/bluegrass style. man, i was all kinds of groovin' to that! they were amazing! i've wanted to check them out for a while because i've heard they're great. do it. both of these bands. seriously. they're gold. both bands. but, honestly, if it weren't for that 2 hour block of wonderful local bliss, i would have cut someone today. not gonna lie. someone would have been cut. amen.

Posted: April 19, 2006

okay, so every spring about this time, there's a little diddy on campus called spring fling. dudes, it is the sweetest week of all time! the weather is beautiful, and there's free stuff everywhere!!! so yesterday, there was free pizza outside of walb along with fun t-shirts that say "college" on the front a la animal house. so, seeing as i'm in shutdown mode right now, i decided to skip my noon class because i didn't have my stuff ready for class because i decided sleep was more important. (oh, little side note, i went to bed at 7 and woke up at 7 aw, yeah!) so, anyway, back to the story, so i skipped my class because my good friend josh got to campus at around noon to cash in on the free grub thanks to me texting him about it. i had already had my alloted 2 pieces of delicious sausage pizza hut pizza, but i stood in line with josh anyway....and then came the most glorious thing i heard that day...."you can only have 2 pieces at a time, but you can get back in line as many times as you want" are you kiddng me?! i mean, not gonna lie, i thought that was a little dumb and wasteful of plates, but, hey, i'm not complainin'! so josh and i decide to play it cool, sit outside, eat some pizza, enjoy the sun, walk around a bit, then get back in line. we actually had it timed out pretty well cuz every time we made it back to where the pizza was, a fresh delivery had just come. score! so we had our fill of pizza and pop and went our separate ways to our respective classes, and then, i saw it......yes, kids, a little over an hour in the sun and i have a sunburn! fantastic. but, hey, it was worth it! free food. unlimited free food! i can deal with a red upper body for a few days!

cheers,
b

Posted: April 12, 2006

hey, kids, it's me again. yeah, sorry about last week's little diddy. i just really needed to let out some steam. thanks for letting me. okay, so yesterday was so grand. i love days like yesterday. for starters, i got a paper back from my music literature prof. okay, so we had to choose a composer, read a biography about him/her and write a 4-6 page paper over the book/composer. i chose samuel barber because his music is amazing. we knew about the paper at the beginning of the semester; it was due march 21. i got my book the friday before spring break. it was 515 pages long. it sat in my room unopened until march 20. i skimmed the book in 2 hours, wrote down things here and there, gathered up a few nice quotes and the such, hand wrote my paper so i could proofread and edit as i typed, and got my paper done by 8:30 tuesday morning. my class is at 9. kids, i got an "a" on the paper! can you believe it! i didn't read the book, i b.s.ed 6 pages, and i even got "nice quotes" and "good work" on my paper! the best part is, a few of the people in the class has to do rewrites on their paper because it was so grammatically incorrect, she didn't even read them. wow. see, kids, procrastonation is a good thing for me. that little grade just tickeled the hell out of me. don't get me wrong, i feel bad for my classmates, a few of them are really good friends of mine. english and writing is just natural to me. math is another story, but english is cake. if y'all ever need any help on a paper, just ask! i'd be happy to help!

moving on, jeez, this is a long one today, but if i haven't already mentioned it, i'm a model for ipfw. i'm one of those smiling faces you see on postcards and brochures and the like. so there was a shoot yesterday from 4-6. and let me tell you, pete, gene, and jim are great guys. photo shoots are awesome! for some time, though, i was the only person there besides pete and gene. there were supposed to be like 7 or 9 or something like that, but i was cool with it. i'm one of those people who likes to have her picture taken. it's fun to me. so we walked around and took pictures in various places outside the dorm area. eventually, 3 guys showed up. they were all really nice guys. especially this guy named justin. dude, he was cracking me up! pete told me i'd like him if we were ever at a shoot together; yeah, he was right. anyway, so the shoot ended up being really fun (which it always is), but when you get just the right group of people together, the dynamic is brilliant. that happened yesterday. everyone was laughing and telling jokes and picking on each other. seriously, kids, become a part of the photo shoots here, they're loads of fun and you meet the most interesting people! ah! yesterday was so much
fun!

cheers,
b

Posted: April 5, 2006

here we go for yet another installment to put on my blog space. yay!!

okay kids, i'm a little angry this week. i apologize in advance. i'll try to control my temper. so i'm running the light board for the first show being perfomed in the newly renovated studio theatre here on campus. it's a senior project for one of the directing majors here on campus. here's the problem. no one cares about this show!!!! the actors still don't have their lines solid. what was supposed to be a tec sunday (which, for non theatre people, that's the sunday before the show opens where all of the lights, sounds, and costumes are added into the show) turned into tech monday. not good! on top of that, the actors did a full run-through for the first time last night!! yes, last night. why last night? because the guys who were supposed to design the lights and sounds didn't do their job, that's why. as of last night, we finally had the sound cues cut and layered like they were supposed to be because one of the ACTORS took it upon him to get the job done. (pause for a breath). that was not his job!!! on top of this, as of last night, we finally got a sound board operator. a professor. yes, a professor is doing a student's job. why? because the guy who was supposed to run the sound (and was also supposed to design the sound) all of a sudden had something come up in indy this weekend. so instead of another student stepping up and saying, "i can dedicate 5 nights of my life to a show," a professor had to step up and do it. why? because it seems that no one in the department that isn't involved in the mainstage show at the time, wants to be a dedicated member of the theatre department. they are all too busy being social and working. honey, i have 2 part time jobs. i barely work. i'm married to this department. that's what is expected out of a theatre major. this is where you should want to be. if you don't want to put the time and effort into it, do something else! seriously! am i doing this show for any kind of credit? no. i'm doing it because i care about my department. i want to put out successful theatre. i'm giving up my paycheck to better my department. am i bitter for that? no. not at all. i just wish other people in the department would do the same thing. is it money they're worried about? honey, that's what student loans are for! this department has so much potential to be great. people just need to get over themselves and make the department what it very easily could be!!!!! god, i feel so much better now. i'll end this on a good note. you know what makes a wonderful and quick meal? a can of peas mixed with american cheese. delicious! healthy! try it some time, seriously. peas and cheese. mmmmm.... until next time,

cheers,
b