Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Naodrith's LiveJournal:

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Monday, November 23rd, 2009
6:57 am	Gave in, got a Twitter. Not to sound like a stalker, but I did it because of Matthew Gray Gubler. He has the best Twitter ever. So I'm there as naodrith, as usual, if anyone wants to follow me. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
5:47 am	In the interest of proving that my life does not entirely suck, I present to you perhaps the most hilarious thing that has happened throughout the entire rehearsal process. Behold what happens when an actor misses an entrance cue, and the other two must compensate: HAMLET: Dead for a ducat, dead! CLAUDIUS: Now Hamlet, where's Polonius? HAMLET: At supper. CLAUDIUS: At supper, where? HAMLET: Not where he eats, but where he is eaten! *pause* HAMLET: *suddenly friendly* So what's new with you? CLAUDIUS: I got these beard extensions. Do you like them? HAMLET: Oh, yes. Very nice. Look at my hand. CLAUDIUS: Oh... HAMLET: Yeah, I cut it on that dagger over there. CLAUDIUS: Oh my. I would give you some antiseptic... *searches through pocketless knickers* but I don't have any. HAMLET: Oh, that's okay. LAERTES: *pokes head out from backstage* Am I supposed to be on? Made even funnier when you realise that Claudius is played by a girl, doing the most hilarious voice acting I have ever heard. And stroking a very long beard made of yarn. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
9:56 pm	So Jenna's in casts, Mom's having heart surgery tomorrow, our first real performance is on Thursday morning and we have nothing resembling a knife, and on top of all this, my ride is stuck in traffic thanks to an accident and I have to bike to school. Even though I've got the flu again and walking around the house is enough to make me want to pass out. Why, God, why. Happy thoughts/prayers, guys? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
9:55 pm	Mom's in the hospital. I don't know what's wrong yet, because Jenna was with me when Dad came home this morning, and now that I've woken up he's gone with her to the doctor for her wrists. So yeah. Add that to my big pile of being-stressed-the-fuck-out. Apparently when I'm stressed out I watch Criminal Minds, though. Got through Extreme Aggressor, Compulsion, and LDSK (because it's the best) last night while I was waiting for Dad to get home. EA isn't as bad as I remembered it being, and Compulsion was maybe a little worse. Don't like Elle. Did I ever? Bleh. Off to track down a retractable knife and try to get through the day. (Comment on this)
Friday, November 6th, 2009
5:14 pm	Jenna has managed to break both of her wrists on the playground, so...yeah. That happened. I can't believe we open in a week. Blergh. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
3:28 am	Today = not a good day. I'm tired and I don't really want to talk about it but I felt like posting to lament the fact that I didn't keep going with NaNo last night and build up a buffer, because I very much doubt I'll be in the mood to write anytime soon. Bleh. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
6:24 pm	I seem to be on the mend, or at least no longer bedridden. Go me? I haven't left the house in six days except for a brief trip to school on Monday for play stuff, which I spent coughing. Auditions today. Whee. OKAY SO EASTWICK. I am excited for Eastwick like whoa. Not only is it about witches, NOT ONLY does it have my girls Rebecca Romijn and Jaime Ray Newman, but I just found out it also stars Paul Gross, he of Slings and Arrows sexiness. So much eye candy, so little time. Criminal Minds tonight! :D (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 20th, 2009
8:18 pm	Day four of the flu; cannot really get out of bed, much less leave the house. If I have to babysit tonight, someone is going to die, and it will probably be me, because if I am expected to bike there, I am going to pass out in the middle of the road. Not even joking. Auditions Wednesday and I have a boatload of stuff to take care of before then, including somehow dragging my achy ass down to school tomorrow for a meeting with Gina. But it's really hard when my head and neck hurt so bad I can barely even sit up for short periods of time. Flu sucks. Should've got the shot. Hindsight. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
12:16 pm	Jesus Christ. Movie prices at the bigger cinema near us are up to seven bucks for a matinee, 9.50 for an evening show. Prices at the other one are fifty cents cheaper. What the hell. I mean, inflation and all that, but when I was a kid, I can remember getting matinee tickets at the big cinema for $5.25. And the last time I checked, evening prices were 8.75. Yikes. And the smaller cinema isn't even showing 9 this week. I guess I'll still go if my brother pays, but honestly, the big one does not deserve my money >. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
5:44 am	I hate my body. It won't sleep anymore when it's supposed to. I stayed up all last night through this afternoon because I went over to Ashley's, slept from about three to ten, woke up tired, stayed tired until four when I went to bed, and now here it is two hours later, haven't slept a wink, and I'm so hungry I'm probably not going to. I have a meeting about the play at one, so the most I can get is six hours anyway, so I guess I'll just continue my unhealthy sleeping habits and sleep when I get back from that. And now, more tales of How We Know Martin Luther Hates Drama. So for the summer, we decided to do afternoon rehearsals. Before we even held auditions, so this was back in May, I asked to book the auditorium from five to nine every night. This was all arranged before we ever started using it. We threw in several morning practices as well, just because of schedule conflicts, but officially, we were supposed to own that goddamn room from five to nine, every weekday evening, throughout June. Fast forward to the third week of June. We're having a morning rehearsal when a janitor comes in and asks to speak to me. He asks if we're going to be in there the next night. I say yes, why? And he tells me...that they have a church group coming in at seven to measure stuff. Somehow there was a miscommunication somewhere down the line, and someone told them they could have it, even though we had it booked. And because of scheduling conflicts - I think I actually had to work that day, come to think of it - I told him in no uncertain terms that we could not change to a morning practice. But I was gracious, I was ever so kind, I said we'd find a way to work around the church group. I made the most of the hour and a half we had before they showed up, and then we sat outside and did a line through, and they were very grateful. I set it up with a church guy that they could come in the following Tuesday night, and we'd have morning rehearsal, which seemed to work at the time. (Of course, later on all the actors begged me for an evening rehearsal that night - Murphy's Law, you know - but whatever). Everyone was happy. So when I was talking to Gina the other day (that's Mrs Kortuem, I'm making an effort to think of her as Gina because she was never actually my teacher and she's only 25 and it's vaguely weird not to, okay), she mentioned that this church group...is still hanging around. Apparently they have projector screens and shit, and they're in the auditorium every Sunday, and all the stuff that's usually on the stage has to be moved off every Friday night for them. And bless her heart, when Gina heard about this, she was apparently the first person in the damn school to ask, "So what about drama?" Apparently the church group has promised to find a way to work around the sets and things, but if they've got all these projectors and crap? Yeah, not. So that is another reason we have decided to make Shakespeare our first pick: it's a bare stage with a backdrop. Desk Set is...decidedly not. Sigh. Nobody loves the drama geeks. (Comment on this)
Saturday, September 5th, 2009
12:23 pm	What the crap, self. That was pathetic. If you can't even give a sweet, cute guy your phone number in a dream, there is truly no help for you. I mean, the worst that could have happened is I learned a valuable lesson about my own ability to sleepwalk, right? Damn. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, September 4th, 2009
9:15 pm	My mother is an asshole and an idiot, but I think by now we all know that. She's still giving me shit over TCWWS(A), and she still knows nothing whatsoever about the fucking play. She is trying to simultaneously insist that she has nothing against Shakespeare per se, and that older people like her, who are the majority of the ML audience, "know that they don't want to see it again." She says stupid-ass things like that people want to see talent shine through, which you can't see with improv (...?!?!) She asked why I'm so into this idea, am I perhaps communing with Shakespeare's spirit? Maybe it's a fucking good play, you fucking bitch. ETA: Now she says that Shakespeare is not funny. Oh my God, who have you been reading? ETA2: You know, what gets me is that the bitch has no respect for the medium. Every play idea she brings to me was a movie first. Even Desk Set she's always talking about in terms of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. It's like she has no respect for the theatre unless she's had the opportunity to bring it home on DVD and watch it in the comfort of her own home. That's not what live theatre is about. ETA3: HA. She thinks Ethan was the only kid at ML who cared about acting. Ethan. Ethan, whose lines took me about ten minutes to learn when we thought he might not know his in time after he'd had weeks with the script. Ethan who was constantly coming to rehearsal late and screwing around. Newsflash, Mom: Ethan was a talented actor. He was not a professional actor. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
2:59 pm	I loff Mrs Kortuem. I mean, I already knew that, but I have been reminded of it. She is very nice and we get on well. We have basically decided on TCWWS(A), with Desk Set as the backup if the administration complains/the rights fall through. Just about everyone I have told about this play thinks it sounds awesome...except my mother. She is so pissed off, you guys. She actually tried to tell me this morning that she's not "criticising" or "involving herself," even though she repeatedly tells me I should do Desk Set and gets condescending about TCWWS(A). Even though she hasn't read the play, just looked it up on Wikipedia. And she hasn't watched it, she's just heard me listening to the commentary tracks. She claims that no one likes Shakespeare, so no one will want to see a parody of Shakespeare, and no one will come to the show. Sigh. So yeah, that happened. Then I talked to Mrs Tinsen and Bekah for awhile, and that was nice too. I do miss ML. High school is a lot more fun when you're not right in the middle of all that teenage crap. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
9:22 am	Fuck, I hate being sick. I had trouble sleeping all day yesterday, and now I am having trouble sleeping today. I have been attempting sleep for like five hours at least and it is not working very well at all. This is cutting into my plans for the day, man, which were basically to take some notes on TCWWS(A) so that I am prepared to defend my choice if someone reads the play and notes the dirty jokes. :P It is very difficult to focus when one is sneezing and exhausted. I'm waiting for a call from Dr Jensen, and I'm going to email Mrs Kortuem to see if we can meet up to chat about the plays and stuff sometime soon. I really want to get this thing off the ground, man, and the cold is NOT helping. I also have to finish filling out my paperwork before I go into Martin Luther again, which fortunately should not be today. I hope. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
4:01 pm	Gmail isn't working for me and I am very sad. In better news, I just got an assistant director! I got a call from Mrs Kortuem, who used to be Miss Rahn, who is an English teacher at ML and who was our faculty advisor for one of the summer dramas. She really wants to be involved, so I am very excited about this - she gives good notes, as I happen to know. Still trying to decide between TCWWS(A) and Desk Set. Desk Set is the "safer" choice, obviously, which also makes it about a thousand times less fun. On the other hand, the bolder choice may not always be better, especially at a school like Martin Luther - Dr Jensen says he's willing to do just about anything, but the school has had problems before with some material, because ML parents are idiots. Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar are both considered far too sacrilegious, for example. I don't particularly care about parents' hurt feelings, but I do care about my actors and some of them might be uncomfortable with some of the TCWWS(A) material. And also I would like to be invited back, so there's that to consider. Sigh. I'm looking at the week of September 21 for auditions, which will give us six weeks of rehearsal, I believe. Huzzah. Man, this journal has become all drama, all the time, hasn't it. Is that better or worse than when I wasn't using it at all? :P (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 28th, 2009
9:07 pm	everyone's a critic I really should have expected, once I announced the directing thing, that my friends would immediately start offering their own play ideas. Just one so far, actually, but Phill's "argument" took up three comments to my status on Facebook. :P Phill thinks I should do Waiting for Godot, having many actors play the various parts of the characters' psyches. He sounded vaguely condescending (though I do think not intentionally) when he said that I seem to prefer comedies and murder mysteries, "and that's fine," but perhaps I should try something new. Well, I am reasonably familiar with Godot. I've owned a copy since I was, oh, sixteen? And I love the play and it would be a lot of fun to do, but I don't think it should be done with multiple actors, for two quite similar reasons. First, I'm a sucker for character relationships. The often hostile friendship between Vladimir and Estragon was the thing I loved best about the play when I first read it. If you break up their characters into several parts, yes, you might be making an interesting commentary on the psyche, but you lose the character study. Second, part of the atmosphere, in my view, should be this sense of crushing loneliness. Didi and Gogo only ever run into two other people (and a messenger) in their time in the play; for the most part, they're stuck with each other. So are Pozzo and Lucky. And Godot will never, ever come. If you're crowding the audience's minds with a bunch of different actors, well, suddenly it's not so lonely up on that stage, is it? No, I lied, I have another point, and that point is quite simply - when you pick a play you have to cater to your audience, in some ways. If you're putting on a children's play, it had damn well better be appropriate for children - not just content-wise, but with the themes and ideas and story. I don't mean to suggest that the ML audience isn't smart enough for Beckett, but look. We have a matinee for middle schoolers, and half the people there on any given night are just parents and relatives looking to see their kids perform. Nothing wrong with making them think a little, but an absurdist play is going to make them think a lot. Most of those people will not be familiar with Godot, therefore will not get whatever I am trying to do to it, and it's rather silly putting in a huge director's note explaining Beckett. There is a reason I mainly do comedies and murder mysteries: I like my audience and my actors to engage with the story. It's why I hated that adaptation of P&P: it was drowning the story in noise. You cannot engage with absurdism in that way. Waiting for Godot goes round and round in nonsensical circles, and it's a delight to read, really it is, but in the end, nothing has happened. They have waited. They are still waiting. TCWWS(A) might not be a traditional story, but it is funny and engaging and interesting and cool. Godot is likewise all of the above, but a significant portion of the audience simply will not get it in this venue, so I won't do it. The end! Fuck, I am now late for work. DAMN YOU BECKETT. (No I love you Beckett, never leave me) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
10:39 am	I got the job! :D I am so so so so excited. Now to attempt to prepare for auditions, which should be in two or three weeks, if I remember my drama schedules correctly from school. But first I have to go to my other job, bleh. At least it's a wardrobe call. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
6:34 am	In my tireless search for plays for a job I don't even have yet, I have come across something terrible. So I thought: Pride and Prejudice is a good story. A great story. It's a classic romance with little to no makeouts, perfect for high schoolers; it's clever; it's funny; and it's got lots of female parts. So I began to look for play adaptations of P&P. Well, dear readers, I found one. And only one; there are others in existence, it seems, but I have been unable to unearth either their scripts or their authors so I may narrow my search. And the one I found...appalls me. The author has taken this beautiful story and not so much adapted it as totally failed to adapt it. In the first scene, Mr Bennet and the girls come out, and he introduces them to the audience. There is one particularly jarring moment where the girls all chime in with the famous first line of the novel ("It is a truth universally acknowledged...") despite this being narration in the book, but fine, I can handle it. It's an introduction. There are lots of Bennet girls. Clearly the author felt this was necessary, and now we can get to the actual story. Except this doesn't stop. Throughout the play, wherever there's a scene which happened offscreen in the book, instead of adding a new scene or perhaps adding some dialogue describing it, characters (mainly Mary and Kitty, presumably just to give them something, anything to do) will turn to the audience and, in an aside, explain what has just happened so that we can get to the next completely accurate exchange from the book. Exposition at its worst. It's impossible to get lost in the story, because the script makes damn sure you are aware that you are at a play, watching a fictional narrative unfold. Even worse, the author demands a very bare set - movable furniture against a sky backdrop, and that's it. This is not merely suggested set design, there's a huge-ass author's note at the beginning of the script where the guy babbles about his Totally Awesome, Man set design. This guy just gives the impression that he is very proud of himself. Ironic, isn't it? So yeah. I hated that experience. I'm going to ask about TCWWS(A) if/when I get the job, and if a few dick jokes are not okay, we'll just do freaking Desk Set. I am now beyond caring. Desk Set has lots of female parts, few but not too few male parts, the possibility of an ensemble cast for the party scene if I feel like it, I know the play extremely well already, Dr Jensen already said he doesn't care about the drinking, and it would be fun. And if two possibilities is not enough, I will cry, because I am so tired of every play I look at having a tiny cast, a male-dominated cast, a huge cast, insurmountable adult content, or insurmountable stupidity in it. The end. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 27th, 2009
8:04 am	No word yet on the directing thing, and I am still suffering from insomnia. At least my throat only hurts in extreme cases. Like yawning. Which you tend to do a lot of when you can't sleep. I am having second thoughts about doing "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" if I get the job, mainly because I watched it yesterday and it is much dirtier than I remembered. Most of the problematic bits can be altered, and a lot of them are just blocking gags, but the Othello rap is a problem. 'Cause, see, it's a rap. It's a song. With rhymes. And when the rhymes are "hide the salami," "whore," and deliberately not saying the word "penis" when it's obvious what you mean, that is a problem at a Christian high school. I don't know if I feel comfortable cutting the rap entirely - there's a bit before it which means you wouldn't have to cut Othello itself entirely, therefore salvaging the theme of the play, but that's still a lot of text to cut - but it's better than having everyone go home offended. Plus there's way more screaming and screeching than I remembered, which might not work out so well in that tiny, tiny space. It's such a hilarious, clever play, but a lot of the humour is very low-brow as well, and I don't know if the ML audience would get it. But I don't know what else to do! All the plays I know either don't have enough parts, have too many male parts, or I know them because Martin Luther did them. High school theatre fails at life. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
10:33 am	Just got back from my meeting with Dr. Jensen. He is very nice and also very tall, and he is doing wonderful things for the school - it's the second day and it's already got a whole different atmosphere. I approve wholeheartedly. No decision has been made yet - I have to send him my theatrical resume and some references - but I'm pretty hopeful about it. Mr Eisman did say he'd recommend me, and I went to talk to Mrs. Tinsen afterward, about which more later. And I have a couple of other options as well. So, cons? Well, Dr Jensen admits that he knows absolutely nothing about theatre. He was all "So what makes you think that you are qualified to do this?" and I was like "Because I have done it four times?" and we had that same exchange four or five times, I swear. It's like he thinks that there is some Huge Major Difference between our little summer project and the fall drama, and I really wish I'd said, yeah, there is: fall drama will be easier. I never get to focus solely on directing for summer drama because I have no budget, I have very few people helping coordinate the tech, my actors think it's totally okay to skip out on rehearsal, and I have no publicity. The fall drama might be a much more serious endeavour, career-wise, but I'd also get a hell of a lot more help. Plus, more rehearsal time. Always a good thing. Pros? He said we can definitely do summer drama next year, without even any prompting from me. He asked if I'd like to be involved in the musical, which makes me think he's got to think I'm doing the drama, because why ask about next semester when this semester isn't even set yet? He really liked my play idea, and he also said that he is not going to be as uptight about what material we're allowed to stage as the administration has been in the past, which opens up whole new avenues. So after I finished talking to him, I waited around until class let out and went to go talk to Mrs Tinsen. Sign #3: Kim Justus was in her class that just let out. I had just decided that I should email Kim to see if her mother could be a reference for me. So I got Mrs Justus's number, no fuss at all. Then it turned out Mrs Tinsen didn't have a class that hour, so we talked for a good fifteen minutes about stuff. She is very pleased with all the changes - she doesn't always agree with Dr Jensen, but he actually engages with her, and he's okayed some of her ideas that the old administration kept shooting down. And he wants the women of the faculty to give chapels or devotions or something of the sort, which was not allowed under the old board because Dr Buck was a sexist pig, apparently. Which is something I didn't know, and I am so happy they've sorted it out. So Mrs Tinsen said she's rooting for me, and she will give me a good recommendation when she talks to Dr Jensen. So that's at least two good recommendations, and I just hope Mr Miller, good old number three, doesn't still hold a grudge for how loud we were that first year :P So that was my morning. Sickness update: throat still sore, and now Mom has caught it. Still sneezing a bit. I'm not sure if the insomnia is a product of the illness or the anxiety, but I haven't been sleeping much the last couple of days, and I'm starting to burn out. Fortunately, my stomachache has eased a lot now that I've eaten and gotten the interview taken care of! So I think probably I am not dying. Thank goodness. (5 Comments |Comment on this)