Rehearsal

was planned so beautifully and Taylor Mac, was so easily adaptable that, despite his claims of it not being a polished show, everything that happened on the stage seemed intentional and very fitting. It made all five hours all the more enjoyable. Mass MoCA Spring 2016 program book describes the performance as “strange music history” and “world’s wildest history lesson” and they are not wrong. The show is a part of what is going to be a 24-Decade History of Popular Music in New York, and consisted of the years 1836-1896. Although one decade was skipped (because of the lack of puppets…?), the show was wild from start to finish. I previously attended a dress rehearsal for two of the performed decades I was sure about what to expect from the other three; I was absolutely wrong. I hadn’t realized when attending the rehearsal that the show is focused on the political aspects of the time period and how they relate to everything today. An example of this was staging a popular dinner theater play that usually took on Chinese culture was then removed from that because we shouldn’t be taking and adapting other cultures. Instead, to prove a point, Taylor Mac made the dinner theater play take place on Mars. Seeing Taylor Mac in drag helped the experience immensely, more than I thought it could. It seemed to complete the ridiculousness that was on stage. His costumes, created by Machine Dazzle, reflected each time period in unusual ways. They were all absolutely stunning, and the theme…

I had to see him as Mortimer through Elaine’s perspective and fall in love with him in that light instead of seeing him as Tyler through my own eyes. When rehearsals moved from the fine arts room to the stage where the set was fully constructed, we began dress rehearsals. The first time that I wore my costume, I was fully Elaine. Alyssa Masula never existed and Elaine Harper was passionate and emotional and enamored. I stopped delivering my lines as if trying to recall them from memory and…

turn. He will just say I have to go home and it will be the end of the road for me. I might as well go back to being an ordinary girl. I knew I was being ridiculous, but I couldn’t help myself. I kept watching as people were getting called on to perform. It was like being on “America’s Got Talent.” Then, the group I was in finally got called up for the audition. I was nervous, but since I was with my friends I was feeling a little more confident. After the audition, I felt like we did a great…

After about a minute, you arrive at your assigned seat and the well dressed man wishes you a wonderful evening and leaves to assist another audience member. Waiting for the show to begin, you decide to look through your program. Headshots and biographies of the actors and characters amuse you for a short period of time, but then you begin to notice that there are more people involved in the show than you had originally thought. Pages and pages of credits for everything from stagehands and…

particular leg and feet movement to improve on is bouree’s. Anytime I bourreed the movement looked awkward. I need to improve on my tombe’s as well, because I don’t emphasis the movement properly. Also, I have to work on my pas de chats on the left foot, since it doesn’t reach my knee. However, I don’t need to improve my legs and feet in echappes and echappe sautes. Also, I dont have to work on pointing my feet in any jumps. Now, moving on to my evaluation of class and rehearsal. I feel that I…

always on or the other. This being said, while I have been in shows before, I’ve never directed or been involved in the rehearsal process without being in the cast, so seeing the way our cast grew was amazing and awe inspiring. I couldn’t have asked for better people to work with and extremely honoured that I got to work with them. One cast member I would particularly like to highlight is Nicole Shi, who played Meg. I wish I remember what was going through mine and Rebecca’s heads when we cast a…

my final exams. Paige, my boss, was extremely helpful, and when I mentioned I was having trouble finding information she recommended three books from the UCA library for me to read. Jeremy, my director, also knew what direction to lead me in, and I easily found research that pleased him. When I presented my research to the cast and crew, they seemed very impressed, so I think I did well. The rest of my paperwork was easy to complete because oftentimes Jeremy had very little for me to do,…

facial expressions, and the lack of risk in the dance. I thought that my execution of the choreography was certainly not as polished as during the dress rehearsal, simply due to external circumstances outside of my control. My weakest points were the various turns, at which I either stumbled out of or did not complete the entire sequence. In terms of facial expressions, I understand that Mary does struggle with this aspect due to her experience in television acts, rather than theatre, but I…

During my time there, I have performed in multiple shows in various venues, including an amateur production of a show called "Fright Night" on the West End. It was the best experience of my life, from the rehearsals, to performing in front of hundreds of people on such a prestigious stage with a cast of nearly 100 other students. Every second of this was unforgettable and I am determined to do it again. While studying at PQA, I also studied film and television which taught me skills that have…

Having not taken TAPS 103, I decided to read the books for the course, Impro and Improv Wisdom so I would be up to date for 104. Although I have done improv for six years, I had never read a book on improv, so this was a new experience for me to read about what I have only learned about in practice. Impro by Keith Johnstone and Improv Wisdome by Patricia Madson are two very different books that both offer key insights on not only the best practices of improv, but also the role of improv in our…