The Epic Day of Thrift Store Epicness

4 girls... 3 buses... 2 thrift stores on opposite ends of town.

This was the story of my Saturday, which was spent-- as always-- doing things in the name of the show. After spotting an ad for a dollar sale at Avalon Exchange in the PittNews (I took this as a sign from the musical gods. They said 'go', and so I went.), we decided to begin the hunt for some costume pieces.

We started out at noon, bussed it up to Squirrel Hill and hit up Avalon.

Dollar sale was moderately disappointing, but we DID find shirts for both Leaf Coneybear, and some throwback threads for VP Panch, which-- companied with the Coach tie we found (yes, COACH...)-- made for the most heinous costume of the day. Evan was proud.

Next stop was the Cold Stone, because Shannon (my producer/assistant director/sanity/everything) insisted (and really, who says no to Cold Stone? Ever?). All I'm saying is that Oreos and Gummy Bears are my jam.

Then, despite the snow that was falling unrelentingly from the sky, we decided to venture to the South Side to hit up the Goodwill. This process, however, would involve a trip on the 59U-- the notoriously unavailable city bus.

So what did we do?

We called Telefact!

If you ever need something answered, call them: 412-624-3228.

Does not matter where you are in the world.

They will answer your questions.

And unlike KGBKGB, they're FREE!!

Anyway, the nice guy at Telefact informed us that the bus was coming at 2:02 (actual time of arrival was 2:08, but considering I've waited literally HOURS for this bus before, I wasn't complaining).

Next stop, SOUTH SIDE!

Hopped off at the Goodwill-- which shall hereafter be known as the Mecca of Costumes-- because you can find EVERYTHING you need there.

With help from Julie Anne (our thrift store/costume queen), we picked up an awesome two piece suit for Schwarzy and a jacket for Ms. Peretti.

On a side note, I was randomly browsing the sports shirt rack, when to my complete surprise, I discovered a San Diego Padres jersey for $8.00. Now, being as I'm dating possibly the world's only loyal Friar's fan, I consider myself sort of a vicarious supporter of the franchise. So I figured 8 bucks, why not?

In talking to the boyfriend later on, I came to find out that at full price, the jersey cost something to the tune of $200. Not a bad deal, I would say.

Anyway, exhaustion from thrifting led to a trip to Qdoba, which turned into an almost-three-hour discussion of Broadway shows, which then turned into a trip back to campus, which then turned into movie night in the suite, while I worked on the epically massive Taj Mahal backdrop for the I Love You Song.

All together, a pretty awesome day. =)

The scripts are here! The scripts are here!

Well ladies and gents, I am pleased to announce that I am currently in the possession of 12 brand-spanking new, hot off the presses copies of 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee scripts!
After a sojourn (back) to the 16th floor of the Cathedral and hauling the small but heavy cardboard box back to my dorm, I FINALLY got to do a read through for myself. The script is possibly the funniest thing EVER... and I lost count of how many times I randomly busted out laughing while going through it.

By far, the best part is the outrageous words and definitions. Here's some of my faves:

Word: Apoop
Definition: Toward the back; to move astern on a boat.
Sentence: Guido, the seasick Italian sailor said, 'Scusa me, boys, but I'm a-gonna go apoop!"

Word: Ecdysiast
Definition: A striptease artist
Sentence: Politically correct Tom told his son, use Ecdysiast, the word "stripper" is insulting.

Word: Jihad
Definition: A holy war by Muslims, a hostile campaign for an idea or belief
Sentence: Billy, quick, duck behind this western wall. I think I see a Jihad coming.

Let the lolz begin.

Let the games begin...

Okay. So the black cloud has officially situated itself over my head!
I knew it would only be a matter of time before all the craziness began, but honestly, I thought I would AT LEAST have the scripts in hand.
But no.

Anyway, so the story goes like this:
I went up to the theatre department this afternoon to meet with our wonderful advisor Deirdre, who had emailed saying that a package had arrived for us :O
I went there all excited, hoping (praying) and well, EXPECTING there to be at least 1script that came along with everything.
But alas, when I opened the big, bubble-wrap-lined package, the only thing there was the orchestra parts, with no scripts to be found.
Deirdre and I did a mutual "hmmmm..." and resolved to check with MTI about it.

I later discovered (later here meaning about 5 minutes after leaving the theater department... i told you this consumes my life) the invoice that had accopmanied the orchestrations that cheerfully informed me that my rehearsal set of 12 scripts and cast scores was on back order, and would hopefully be shipping within the next 10 business days.

In the words of a one Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre: "Woe is me".

And so to the lovely people at Musical Theater International, there are many choice words I could use right now, but because I am a rational, level-headed person, I will satisfy myself to convey the full extent of your incompetance through the following image:





P.s. If anyone out there has a sub-legal copy of the Spelling Bee script so I can at least to a god forsaken read through with my cast, hit me up. I will pay cash.

More evidence of how musical theatre is taking over my life and brain...

It's true.

Tonight, I had every intention of working on my Italian homework, since naturally I found it necessary to procrastinate for the ENTIRE week we had off. I went to YouTube for some background noise, put on the Lion King musical recording...
One thing led to another, and I stumbled upon this user who has posted a CRAPTON of musicals.
I will now be up for countless HOURS watching EVERY. SINGLE. VIDEO.
And will then have to wake up early tomorrow morning to finish all the stuff I DIDN'T get done, because in my mind, musicals are just more important.

Story of my life.

http://www.youtube.com/user/dsdffdsfdsdsffsd#p/u/185/BTDII7g26B4

A Very Nice, Very Nice, Very, Very, Very, Nice Beginning

Once again in life, I find myself standing at the beginning of a new adventure.

It's not as grand as going away to college, it's not a career change, it's not even a new haircut.

This time around, my new beginning is a musical.

The decision to blog about this came to me spontaneously today... maybe it had something to do with the fact that this morning, I caught Julie & Julia on PittTV and was madly inspired, or maybe it was just simply because I want to hang on to every minute of this experience, and the best way that I know how to do that is through writing about it.

If you were to ask me how I wound up as the student director of William Finn's 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, I would be obliged to tell you the story of how Musical Theatre Club came about.

The Reader's Digest version is as follows: last year, my friend and roommate Larissa decided that it would be jazzy to start a Musical Theatre club on our campus (which until now has been painfully devoid of the art form.). A few forms and signatures later, we were official. As we came to discover shortly after, that had been the easy part. The response that we received from the students was INCREDIBLE, and before we knew it, we had something on our hands that was bigger than Larissa or I could ever have imagined.

Our first project as a club was putting on a musical variety show, featuring songs from everything from Spring Awakening to Cabaret. With a cast of 35 performers, every waking hour of my fall semester was consumed by schedules and rehearsals and pages upon pages of sheet music. The result was an outstanding night of music and theatre... performed before a packed house.

With one show under our belt, I guess you could say that we felt pretty lucky, because we decided to try our hand at doing a REAL show. I still can't tell you exactly how we worked everything out, but in the blink of an eye, we had a performance contract from Musical Theatre International and were drafting documents for our Student Government Board to approve our funding request.

The night that would decide our fate came on a Tuesday, when we had to appear before the board at their meeting to pitch our case for funding. We had an outstanding showing of club members who were every bit as committed to musical theatre as Larissa and I were. As the board deliberated, we sat with fingers crossed, until the miraculous words "request approved in full" came forth from the mouth of the SGB president himself.

Two seconds later we were scheduling auditions, finding a pianist, and holding callbacks.

Now, as I sit here (during the time when I would normally be in Astronomy, thank you Snowpocalypse!), the show has been cast, and we are all waiting with bated breath for the arrival of our scripts so that we can begin rehearsals!!

This whole experience has taught me several things about myself: it's taught me to be a leader and all that, but most importantly, it has reminded me of my undying love and passion for music. I don't claim to understand it, I definitely can't read it, and I'm pretty sure I have about as much vocal talent as a dying whale, but there is nothing on this planet that affects me or moves me like music. There's just something about it that can transcend knowledge, language, and everything else that might separate and categorize we human beings.

I've always been a die-hard musical theatre aficionado, and leading Musical Theatre Club has definitely helped me rediscover that. It's strange, and kind of funny... throughout my life, I've had periods where I've been involved with theatre, then gotten away from it, and just when I think that that door has shut completely for me, something comes along and kicks my butt right back into it.

And now here I am, trying my hand at directing for the first (official) time. I've got my perfectly organized, color-coded-tabbed director's binder ready to go, I've done some basic set design sketches, drawn up some costume ideas. I can sing the show in my sleep, backwards and forwards... I know the characters, what drives them, what motivates them.

At the same time, I know that there are going to be so many things that I have NO CLUE about (pit orchestra. where can i find one of those? hmmm...), but I'm ready to take all of that and figure it out.

As the opening song from the show goes: "it's a very big, very fraught, simple but it's not, it's a very big undertaking". That to me is the show. It's a very big undertaking, and it's scary. It's taking a jump off a cliff and hoping you land on something soft, it's setting out on a voyage across the sea with a whole crew depending on you to get them there safely.

I'm a little intimidated by it.

But to tell the honest truth, I am excited.

Petrified.

But excited.