Crank It to 11!

 I know in my personal blog posts I talk a lot about how stressed I am and the overwhelming things that go on in my day-to-day life. Unfortunately for the readers, I am going to talk about it again. The production that I am in has really started to hit the ground running in the past week. As of writing this post, we have staged over half of the show, and we still have around a month of rehearsals before we perform. For those of you who are not regular theatre-goers or performers, we are moving at a relatively fast pace. I am finding myself having difficulty playing my character truthfully while dancing in the musical numbers. I was trained as a dancer in high school, so whenever choreography gets involved, I feel myself pull out of my actor instincts and revert to a dancer’s brain.

I am also having to find the balance between voice and movement, especially in my big number. Not only is my song vocally demanding, but it has been staged as such that it requires a lot from me physically as well. It has become everything to me these past couple of days to take care of my voice and body—drinking mainly hot drinks and trying to stay as limber as possible. I’ll let you in on a little secret: in my number, there is a point where I drop into a right split, so staying active throughout the day and not becoming stagnant and letting my muscles go is important.

While doing this, I am also balancing schoolwork. I have to make sure I am very strategic in what order my priorities fall, so as not to lose sight of where I am in my schooling. I have been in talks with my advisor about changing one of my minors as well, so we have been hard at work doing the work needed to ensure I have a timely graduation. I am still adjusting, and hopefully soon I will be able to talk about something else in my blog that isn’t about stress!