Just Another Monday in the Park

Mondays are never easy, so it is important that I do everything within my power to ensure that my first day of the school week doesn’t result in tears and panic attacks. 

Coffee is an important part of this.

Fate was kind to me for this first semester of the year, as Monday classes don’t begin until 12:30 p.m.  This allows to not only sleep in, but once we wake up we can roll out of bed, leisurely get ready for school, and still have an hour or two to put the last-minute details on any homework assignments we didn’t finish over the weekend.

On this particular Monday morning, my two scene partners and I set out on adventure to Central Park as research for acting class.  The scene that we will be performing on Thursday takes place at Central Park Lake.  There are also mermaids and small plastic light-up pumpkins involved …

Acting is weird.

The spot we have chosen for our scene to take place.  The bright green algae-filled waters are at first disgusting to the eye, but in their own way have a sort of magic about them.  I could believe a merman might break through the algae layer to partake in a secret rendezvous with his human lover right at this secluded and beautiful spot of the park.

The geese were plentiful today, milling around all of the people in the hopes of a treat.  We did not give in to their adorable antics!

Musical Theatre is Musical Theatre.  What else can be said about class today?  It's moving along just as slowly as usual.  Class at AMDA has a tendency to move at a breakneck pace for very short periods of time, leaving you feeling useless and panicked when you finally have nothing to do.

Tap class was a success today, as compared to last week when I found myself drifting in and out of consciousness despite my best efforts to stay focused.  What can I say, it must have been the coffee!  We learned drawbacks, and shuffle patterns that we used successfully in a variety of different combinations.  I'm glad to have our teacher this semester.  Contrary to my previous Tap teachers, he sees the importance in throwing new things at us quickly and skillfully so that we can acquire as many skills as possible in this short period of time before we enter the professional world.

On the menu for this week: white rice seasoned with red wine vinegar and sauteed red onions, topped with a fried egg and avocado slices, seasoned to taste with seas salt.

After a quick stop at Lincoln Center to pick up the plays I had on hold there, I made my way back to the dorms to prepare my first serving of this week's dinner.  Luckily, it turned out to be delicious!  In an attempt to save as much money as humanly possible, I have decided to make all of my own meals instead of eating out, meaning that I make one big batch of dinner on Sunday afternoon and eat it all week long.  By the end of this month, I should be able to compare my calculations and see if I've actually saved any money in the end.

Composition class is always a wonderful way to end a Monday.  At the moment, I'm working on a song about my life as a figure skater, encompassing all of the things figure skating has gotten me through.  Of course, as is always the case with Composition, about three new song ideas popped into my head in the moment, and I'll have to force myself to stay with one idea at a time.

There you have it.  An average Monday in the life of an AMDA student.  Stay tuned, for who knows what adventures lie in wait for tomorrow!  Especially with an upcoming performance in Acting class and the ever-dreaded top level Jazz class.  

There should be some stories to tell.

Love,

Little Me

Two Weeks Gone

Only fourteen days into it and I’m already well-acquainted with the shut-in syndrome that third semester is well-known for causing.  I can’t even go down to the kitchen to make my dinner for the week without bringing along Shakespeare and speculating about how much time eating takes away from homework.

Lincoln Center Fountain

Lincoln Center Main Building

Schoolwork aside, I’m continually excited to be home in the city where I belong, and the little things each day remind me why I’m working so hard for a future that's so uncertain.  Here’s a little taste of life in Manhattan!

It’s amazing how quickly and easily I fell back into routine here, almost like I had never left!  However, the little things like hundreds of new faces at AMDA and the completely different listing of Broadway shows point out how much time I've missed.  This new scaffolding around the projects next to my school, for instance, was put up sometime over the summer and has completely transformed my walk.  Even though I knew exactly where I was on that first walk back to school, I still found myself slowing down to make sure I hadn't accidentally passed my school!   

Boxes like these kept showing up for the entirety of week one.  Every day I would have a new box waiting for me, sometimes requiring several trips up and down the elevator to get everything!  Thankfully, they waited until week two to start piling on the homework, otherwise those boxes would probably still be sitting unopened in a forgotten corner of my tiny dorm room.

Last Saturday was my first Remicade treatment back at Mount Sinai. Thinking I could get to the treatment center purely by memory, I ended up getting lost, resulting in an extra mile I had to speed walk in order to make it to my appointment on time. Adventure! Though of course, I never could have done it without my handy dandy Google Maps App! Central park may be a vast labyrinth, but at least Google knows every inch of it!

Back Entrance into Lincoln Center right next to the Big Apple Circus currently taking place there.

By the time I walk home from school, New York is usually dark, and my favorite path back to the dorms is right through Lincoln Center.  Something about the beautiful grand structures, the tourists taking pictures in fancy outfits right before a show, and the gorgeous fountain right in the middle of the square is absolutely magical.  It is all too easy to lose yourself once you start staring into the choreographed dance of the water in the fountain.

I can't contain my excitement about my first musical theatre piece of the year.  I'm performing a duet from The Fantasticks, one of the classics of musical theatre, called Soon it's Gonna Rain.  I'm particularly excited to devote the next few weeks to inheriting the character of Luisa, who I find to be so similar to me it's actually terrifying.

I spent my Halloween night reading and studying, having celebrated the night before with friends watching the first six episodes of American Horror Story.  However, walking back from a rehearsal at school, I stumbled upon this amazing kid-friendly Halloween block party happening only one block away from the dorms.  I stayed long enough to snap a picture before scurrying back to my room to read a little more of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, our current reading assignment for Acting.

An attempt to make Microwaved Fudge in a used salad container from the school.  It turned out harder than fudge usually is.  No matter; chocolate is chocolate, and it shall be eaten.

Here's an exciting piece of news: I have decided to join the National Blog Post Month challenge this November.  The proof is over on the right side in the Archives how sporadic and widely spaced my posts have been throughout the last year.  I've filled up many a paragraph with empty promises to post more often, never following through.

But no longer!  For now I have created a reason to post every single day.  If I can actually convince myself to complete this challenge, you'll be excited to join in many a day in the life of Little Me as I actually recount all of my adventures on a schedule!

Stay tuned for tons of fun, soon to come.

Love always,
Little Me

Home, Sweet Home

I didn’t realize how much I had missed New York City until I boarded the bus from LaGuardia Airport.  Walking through the familiar streets without a doubt of where I was going seemed like a dream.  Did I really just spend four months in Nebraska?

ten minutes before touch-down

Classes begin in the morning and I can still hardly believe that I’m finally home.  New York City is truly where my heart belongs.  For the past week, I’ve been so excited I find myself unable to fall asleep every night, and with Tap Dance Placements and Musical Theatre in the morning, tonight is no exception.    

Today, my first full day in New York again, I awoke bright and early at 7:30 a.m. courtesy of over-excitement.  None of my boxes have arrived yet, and so I find myself living out of my carry-on luggage.  Breakfast was a microwavable oatmeal cup with no utensil for assistance.  Fulfilling.

I hit four stores right away.  Trader Joe’s for groceries, Bed Bath and Beyond for household appliances, Staples (all the way on 81^st – ten blocks away!) for much needed school supplies, and Duane Reade for everything I forgot along the way.  $250 and one very worried National Credit Administration later (randomly spending tons of money in New York City alerted their systems,) I collapsed into my fold-up desk chair.

the freakishly small living area I now call home

A note about my room.  All of the rooms at the Stratford Arms are smaller than your average dorm room.  My room is much smaller than even those rooms.  I am actually living in a closet.  The space between the foot of my loft-style bunkbed and my closet equals the width of my carry-on.  I have to squeeze between the head of the bed and the sink corner to brush my teeth and do my makeup.  

I feel like a ninja as I navigate my living quarters and often find myself very thankful I am still small and skinny.

However, because my room is positioned directly in front of the elevators, I can actually connect to the school’s WiFi this year!  This means more blog posts for you!  Other silver linings include, but are not limited to: the fridge fits on the floor instead of on top of the drawers, I have very nice desk space and drawers as compared to last year’s, my sink is not clogged (yet), and I live on the least occupied floor, all the way at the top!

comparing my new room to this picture of last year's, it is now apparent that I was living in luxury back then

New York City, everyone.  Gotta love it here!

Our three core classes this semester are Musical Theatre (9 hours/week), Acting (6.5 hours/week,) and Vocal Production and Speech (4 hours/week.)  Combine these with the four dance classes: Tap, Jazz, Ballet, and Theatre Dance, and the ever-present Practicum requirement and you’ve got a full load!

I think that pretty much covers it all!  I know I’ve been negligent about blog posting, but I’ll be back tomorrow with more, that you can be sure of!  Having available WiFi, no matter how slow, is so very helpful to my resolution to post more often.  We’ll see if I can actually stick to it this time!

Sleep well, my friends!

Little Me

A Much Needed Explanation

Dear Reader,

You may have noticed that it’s been over six months since my last post on this site.  If you found yourself checking back in every once in a while only to find that nothing had changed … I’m sorry for the disappointment which must have followed.

Many factors played a role in my online disappearance, but two stand out as the most impacting:

1. My social anxiety got the better of me.  It was fun to write posts and design my site while I knew no one was watching.  However, when I finally started to advertise and get some readers … I freaked out and ran away.  As one of the many steps to overcome this stupid anxiety, I’m back and ready to write!  Come at me, readers!
2. Second semester happened.  The curriculum at AMDA is designed to steadily become ten times more difficult and intense with every semester.  I found myself drowning in rehearsals and paperwork for the first six weeks before I could finally climb on top of things.  With my ten regular classes plus four extra-curriculars piled on top, I unfortunately neglected Little Me.

I wrote a lot during my hiatus in fits of inspiration, but I never got around to editing and arranging them past the raw, disconnected ideas.  You’ll probably see ideas from some of these past articles as I get myself back into the swing of things.

6 Months in a Nutshell:

• I successfully completed second semester with an A in every class (okay, some of those were A-) which boosted my morale tenfold!

  

  The Process of Performing

• I made my way back to Omaha, NE, leaving most of my friends behind as they go through AMDA’s Summer Semester.
  
• I got a job with KinderCare as an Assistant Teacher, which was probably the best decision I could have ever made!  I realize now that it is actually possible to love your job, even if it’s not acting.
  
• I won a national figure skating competition three weeks after coming back!  No one expected that one.  I am also preparing for a local competition and a regional competition before I go back to New York in (gasp) six weeks!
  
• I am always saying my final goodbyes to something or someone during "The Last Summer" as I like to call these four months in between the spring and fall semester.  It’s been an emotional rollercoaster.

You will see more from me soon, I promise.  I've got lots of pictures and stories I'd love to share with the world!  If only I can get them out of my head and into a Word Document ...

All My Love!

Little Me

Musical Theatre Class: Post 1960's

Musical theatre class meets three times a week.  It is one of those classes that your entire group participates in together.  Our teacher was the magnificent Teri Ralston, who originated roles in several Broadway shows, and has an impressive performance record backing her up, as well as several teaching and performance degrees.

F1 Musical Theatre Class

Curriculum

There are two main projects covered in first semester musical theatre.

The first is the Post 1960’s Repertoire.  All students must research modern musicals and keep a list of songs from at least twelve different shows that they could conceivably perform now or in the next five years.

The second are the performances of three to four songs that you prepare and perform for the teacher and class.  You have a final performance of each song with a set and costumes, plus performances of one of your previously prepared songs for Midterms and Final Demonstrations.

The main focus in musical theatre is on acting, not on your vocal quality.  Finding “actions” – active verbs – to go with every line of lyrics in each song is one of the most emphasized elements.  For each song, the student prepares a Song Dossier, filled with an in-depth analysis of the character, show, and the objectives and actions of the song.

I performed “I Know Things Now” (Into the Woods), “The Portrait” (A … My Name is Alice – Final Demo Song), and “Nobody Steps on Kafritz” (Henry, Sweet Henry)

Type

Whether you like it or not, in musical theatre class, you will be type-casted.  Don’t try to fight it; don’t get angry and huffy when you realize you will never be able play the five-year-old Matilda, and don’t throw a fit when you realize you probably won’t be allowed to perform “Send in the Clowns” as a 19-year-old college student.

In the real world, you will be type-casted.  You could be thrown out of an audition without even having auditioned simply because you do not look the part.  In any audition, the first test to pass is whether or not you look right.  If you don’t, you go home and try again later.

So, in a super fast program like AMDA’s, you are encouraged to find and embrace your “type” so that when you graduate, you will be able to audition for jobs which you actually have a chance at landing. 

My type is the ingénue.  Usually a soprano, the ingénue is the young, pretty idealist of the show.  Examples of the ingénue include Cosette (Les Mis), Johanna (Sweeney Todd), and every Disney Princess ever.

I don’t mind my type.  Ingénues, though young and naïve, are usually the lead or secondary lead characters in shows.  And they’re just so adorable, you can’t hate them.  They can be annoying, but not dislikeable.

It’s kind of sad that I can’t take on more mature, deeper roles simply because I look very young, but in the future, when I start to look older, I may be able to move on to roles like that.  Fingers crossed. 

Lots of Love,

Little Me

First Semester Overview

Semester one of AMDA is officially over.  That’s like being done with my Freshman year.  It’s hard to believe how quickly time has passed, and yet how slowly.  Just a year ago, I was half way through my second semester of senior year in high school, preparing for Skills USA in the culinary academy, competing in figure skating competitions, just coming back from Metro’s High School Culinary invitational with a gleaming silver medal … time is a fickle thing.

With the 10-day long vacation, I decided I should write about my classes and what prospective students can expect from AMDA’s curriculum.

I’ll start off by saying this.

AMDA NY’s two-year integrated musical theatre program teaches its students how to perform in theatre such as Broadway shows.  Every class is performance-based.  Musical theatre history, stage production (such as costumes, set, lights, etc,) directing, general ed, and other classes involving mostly reading and paperwork are not a part of the curriculum.  It’s a conservatory.  A trade school.  You learn how to do it.

If you aspire to be a director, a playwright, solely a singer, or anything that is not a triple-threat theatre performer, I would advise looking elsewhere. 

That being said, for those who want to be on Broadway and have the ability to do the extra research without a class to teach them, AMDA has a top-notch program.

I’ll give a brief overview of the first-semester curriculum.

Dance

You have eight hours of dance classes every week, which sounds like a lot, but is actually not nearly enough, or so all of the teachers constantly remind us.  You have to be willing to put in the work outside of class and practice on your own if you want to be ready for the real world when Fourth semester comes and goes. 

Classes include Jazz, Tap, Ballet, and Theatre Dance, which is basically walking in an extremely detailed stylized manner. 

There are four to five levels of dance, depending on how large your semester is, and you will be placed in whichever level they feel you are ready to be in based on your placement performance after gaining entrance to the school.  Almost every level learns the same routines and techniques, but the speed and complexity of the material they learn varies.

Other Performance

First Semester Integrated Students take Acting 1: Foundations, Musical Theatre: Post 1960’s, Voice Production and Speech, and Sight-Singing all of which meet two to three times a week, as well as Individual Voice, which is a one-on-one class with your own personal voice instructor that takes place for one hour once a week.

Also, first semester integrated students take a class called Musical Theatre Film Lab.  It is the only non-performance class taught at AMDA.  This serves as a kind of musical theatre history course taught through recordings of musical theatre since the very beginning.  It meets once a week for one hour, and you can take out of it as much or as little as you are willing to stay awake for.

Extra-Curriculars

One really great thing about AMDA is that it offers many, many chances to take extra classes, mostly including precious performance opportunities, all of which are free. 

I took Composition this semester, where I was actually able to write and perform my own song.

Students are encouraged to go to Dance Review, held four times a week which goes over everything learned in theatre dance.  VPS Review and Sight-Singing Review are also encouraged, as well as American Standard 15-minute coaching sessions (for VPS)

Other extra-curricular opportunities include, but are not limited to: Stage Combat, Clowning, Dance Workshops (auditioned extra dance classes), Opera Lab, Playwriting, Dialects, Tumbling/Gymnastics, Café Performance Series, and several others.

Over the next week, I will write detailed descriptions of the work and curriculum in each class, and overall life as an AMDA student.  Stay tuned!

All my love,

Little Me

Fairytale Friday

$32 Rear Mezzanine Seats

Before: 7:20

After: 7:40

How Sweet the Sound of Silence

The man who lives across the street from me yells.

A lot.

When I say, “across the street,” I mean that if I look out my window, I can see directly through his window and into his apartment.  There’s a reason I keep my blinds pulled down at all times.

I can’t tell if he’s constantly practicing the same very emotional monologue, or if he’s screaming at a person, or if he’s just crazy and yells at the walls, but it always sounds exactly the same, with the same inflexions and punctuation.  After half an hour of listening to it without understanding any words, it gets a bit annoying.  Especially at 12:30 a.m.

Add that to the sounds of the cars passing by, the girl who lives next to me who talks loudly on her phone at the most absurd hours of the day, the screaming teenagers in the hallway, and the people going in and out of the shower right next to my room and you get …

Noise.

Welcome to New York.  You learn quickly here to appreciate the silent moments in life, for they are few and far between.

Wishing you the sweetest silence,

Little Me

Final Demos Begin ...

Theater Dance is one of the many classes we take here at AMDA, and for it, we learned five separate dances to be performed for our final demos.  As a learning tool for the dance "Satin Doll", our teacher sped up the pattern, set it to music, and told us to have fun with it.

This was the result:

Theater kids will be theater kids.  Satin Doll is about ten times slower and set to smooth jazz, but it will stay stuck in our minds for years to come thanks to this faster, more fun version.  We'll jump into it on the sidewalk, in the grocery store, even at school dances.  

Final demos begin tomorrow, which means that our regular classes are over for the first semester, replaced with two weeks of rocketing stress levels, makeshift makeup classes, and extra rehearsals leading into a ten-day break before second semester begins.

Wish me luck!

Love,

Little Me.

This World We Live In ...

The world of theater school is a horribly volatile mixture of extreme emotions.  One day, or a week, or perhaps even for a whole month, you’ll be feeling super positive about everything in the world.  You’re doing well in your classes, you’re learning like never before, and with the whole world of Broadway going on around you, you think, “I’m totally going to be able to do this!”

And then, one morning, you wake up and everything feels wrong.  Maybe it’s a side effect from your sleep aid, or from the lack of sleep.  It might be hormones, stress, exhaustion, dehydration, fatigue, malnutrition, or a number of other battles we constantly must fight as college theatre students. 

Somehow, you start feeling anxious and even a little bit depressed.  You’re physically exhausted, swamped in work you probably should have done a week ago, final demos are one week away, and you have to struggle with the fact that your college experience is already one-quarter of the way over.  And then your teachers tell you, very nicely, that this is the real world of acting, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns, and you are always working.  Even when you’re sleeping.  And they mean well, but in this anxious, depressed state, you begin to feel like the apocalypse is upon you.

Then you go to your last class of the week, anxious for the weekend so you can lock yourself up in your tiny dorm room and pretend you are anywhere else.  But in your last class, your teacher says, “I want you to walk into the room like your name was just written above the title of a Broadway show.”

And suddenly, you can see it.  You can see your name in lights, and you can feel that joyful sensation within in you, and as you start to walk, a sense of pride fills you from your head to your toe, and you smile this brilliant smile, thinking, yes, I can do it, and I will!

And in the rest of said class, you dance like your life depends on it, and you’re utterly exhausted from a long week of depression, and you can’t breathe because it’s such a hard dance, and you can feel the blisters on your feet and the ache in the ball of your foot from dancing in two-inch heels for four hours that day.  And you don’t even mind, because this is the world you want to live in.

You want to be exhausted and fatigued and sleep deprived, because it means you get the chance to act.  And sing.  And dance.  For a paycheck!

And you love it.  Always remember that.  When you love something like this, no work is too much work.  

Ever.

Love, Little Me

The New Facebook Page

I'm back in NY! After a semi-relaxing two week break and a not-so-relaxing sixteen hour airport extravaganza, I'm finally home.

And it got super stressful the minute I got back. Awesome. Saturday is only ... four days away ...

Anyway.

In an effort to post more often, I have created a Facebook page to better summarize my days here in NY.  It's called:

Little Me - NYC

Go check it out and like the page if you'd like to see my posts on your newsfeed.

And now, I sleep.

Love,
Little Me