Shabbat/Sunday – Day 135/136
December 13, 2012
Shabbat was another day of sleep mixed in with Glee gigs, including the Winter Holiday Concert featuring such numbers as O Magnum Mysterium, a Christian religion piece, and Maoz Tzur, a traditional Chanukah piece. Unfortunately, whilst it was all recorded, the videos aren’t available to the public and thus I can’t post them here! Motzei Shabbat after the concert I started working for what was bound to be a super stressful week. Exams and my two final projects!
Sunday was spent almost entirely on my Ruby on Rails project which is now almost ready to go live. The basic idea is that people at Penn aren’t always so open to meeting new people and so my website is designed to encourage interaction. It does so through a simple interface by which people sign up for coffee dates with each other using their UPenn email and when to meet.
The evening however was something that I had been looking forward to for a great period of time; the Glee Penn/Dance semi formal. My date was the lovely Stephanie Li of choral society fame and though I had to wait a little past time for her to prepare herself, it was certainly worth the extra few minutes as she and I had such an enjoyable time that evening. First was dinner with the newmen and some of the sophomore’s. It was a BYO which left a certain PGC member unable to behave responsibly and so Steph, I and his date set to helping him out.
Steph and I
Following that PGC and PD had booked a bar for the rest of the evening and for once, I felt really comfortable in a social situation, given that I was close friends with the vast majority of people there. Steph I believe had an excellent time too, and when it finished at around 1AM I was somewhat disappointed, despite knowing I needed the sleep before my exams week!
Sunday/Monday – Day 129/130
December 6, 2012
Before I proceed with today’s post, I have to make a little advertisement for the campaign to save The Butterfly Club, the dearest performance venue to me in Melbourne. It’s a small cabaret outfit with retro style that supports upcoming actors and has kickstarted the careers of the likes of Sammy J and Tim Minchin. Take a look here and here to see what I’m on about, and, if you’re reading this from Melbourne, check out the place and if you like it, please help save it!
Sunday I woke up sick. No surprises there. With finals coming up though, there was no time to dawdle, it was straight to work! The majority of the day was spent split between my various subjects as they all had bits and pieces that needed doing. Probably the one I most enjoyed was starting my final project for my algorithms class.
Monday began another ramp up in load, as my various exams and homeworks drew closer. Nothing special here, just another day packed with work. However, in the evening PGC began the process for trialling directors for the upcoming spring show, with the club. Rehearsal was thus more lively than normal and we engaged in theatre sports and dance alongside our staple singing.
Following that was a usual choral society rehearsal, that ran, as usual, too late and as usual, left me a little drained. However I didn’t let it get to me as I had been graciously allotted by a Miss Stephanie Li, one half hour of her time, in which we were to play and sing through some of my sheet music. Half an hour quickly turned into an hour and a half and, were it not for work and sheer exhaustion, it likely would’ve turned into much longer.
Saturday/Shabbat – Day 100
November 13, 2012
I have now been away from home one hundred days. It’s a big number and home has never seemed further away.
The morning was all rehearsal for our matinee show, with a call at 10AM to get into costume. Today’s show was fantastic despite a less than packed audience, they were almost as lively as we were, with a number of alumni and Penn students coming out to support us.
Of note in our performances were guest showings from the Penn Glee Club Band, now it’s own separate entity. Teddy, above and below, is the lead singer for most of their numbers. Also see the scene below with some of my token Australian lines and a brief appearance by Jon Diamond (apparently he looks like Jack from Will and Grace).
The afternoon only left us one hour free before another Glee event, the GCGC (Glee Club Graduate Glub) formal reception. This was open again, to the many glee alumni who had come to see our show and, their families. In this reception rosettes (badges for the blazer) were presented to three individuals who had served the Glee Club for many years and in various means. Thomas amongst them (his parents were very proud). In addition we sung a few number in full force, current members and alumni together and this in my opinion, was the best I’ve ever heard the chorus.
Our evening performance was completely sold out! It was also incredibly high energy and gave us all the greatest feeling on it’s completion.
Some of our big numbers included a modern setting of the Dies Irae text from the Requiem. This is a new favorite of the members.
However my personal favorite number was an Aaron Dale (of OC Times arranging fame) arrangement of Go The Distance from Disney’s Hercules. A beautiful upbeat barbershop song with an incredible tag.
My personal moment to shine was in Baba Yetu, seen in the second half of the below video. And though I’m out of frame, I am proudly singing the swahili verse along with a small select group of others who managed the text and notes to audition standard. The first song is the Glee Club Anthem, “Afterglow” which all Glee Alumni in the audience are invited to sing with us.
The crowd favorite of the evening would have to have been “Run Freedom Run”, the PGC choreographed number, which as seen below had us literally on the edge of our seats.
It would also be remiss of me not to include a sampling of the offerings that Penn Dance brought to our show. However, Thomas’ dad who recorded these videos, neglected to film them as his son didn’t appear in non Glee numbers. My apologies to PD. Thus instead I have posted the finale in which they appear.
After all that, there was the cast party with PD and PGC combined. It wasn’t bad, however PD and PGC as per usual had some troubles integrating, and in my opinion PD was a little cliquey and brought a few too many outsiders to the party, which left a number of clubbers disappointed (aside from those who were just looking PD up and down).
I managed to get to bed at around 3AM, which was problematic as Sunday I was to be up early…