Wednesday/Thursday – Day 104/Day 105
November 16, 2012
The slog continues. Today I made up the remainder of my workshop hours and unfortunately spilled a can of paint over my runners (sneakers), destroying them in the process. I managed to make it to algorithms this morning, but by this point the combination of coding, solving and singing was really taking its toll. Though my voice was slowly coming back, every day my eyes drooped a little more and I was a little less attentive in class.
Tonight’s rehearsal was much the same as the previous nights, though this time we entered into act two and I was even given a little more of a role with a cameo as the prison guard in a few scenes.
Thursday was the day of the show and, thankfully my voice was back. As I’m writing this a week later I admit that I can hardly remember the day, only to say nothing of note really occurred, the usual classes with a just in time submission of some physics work and more struggles with my code.
Finally tonight the show opened and, as per usual, I was running about like a mad man, performing transition and, occasionally delivering a few lines. However, the show also gave me the opportunity to bond a little more with the other cast and crew members, culminating in a pleasant dinner after the show in which I got to talk in depth to Lauren and Anais amongst others.
I needed my sleep tonight more than ever and thankfully, I received it!
Friday – Day 99
November 12, 2012
Friday was a large buildup to the performance and as a result I hardly payed attention in classes. Even when my singing lesson hit, I was both too exhausted and too pumped up to really focus well. Despite this, Brian noted that my singing was coming along well and I too felt I had been making good progress since coming to Penn, particularly in practicing on breathing from my diaphragm.
The evenings performance was just about sold out, with the theatre full to the brim. Our numbers were well received and I even managed to catch Shabbat dinner!
Our show opened with Footloose a combined dance number:
I’m not sure which night the video is from and this greatly affect how strong my dancing is, in addition in the videos I’ll be posting I’m rather hard to spot. However, the show still looks great, even without yours truly.
Glee’s next number was a piece I truly love by American composer Randall Thompson who has always had close ties with the Glee Club. The piece is titled: “The Last Words of David”
After the show and dinner I headed straight to sleep for a huge day of performances on the morrow.
More videos to come!
Wednesday/Thursday – Day 97/98
Today was back to the usual grind and it was harder than usual after such a long break! The work suddenly piled up again, with assignments coming in from all fronts. To top it off, by this point I was low on sleep, and had been trying to spend as much time with Dad as possible. I barely scraped through my classes today, thoroughly distracted and on my phone for much of them. I only barely made it through the goodbye, and this further stole away my focus.
The evening brought another onslaught of rehearsal and the announcement that the show had been postponed till Friday to allow us time to prepare and tech the show, which despite the hurricane, was coming together quite well. In addition, we were to add a matinee show to our offerings, and hope that the theater would fill up despite the late announcement.
Another part of my day was walk-shifting on Locust Walk, handing out flyers with such slogans as “You think my accent is awesome? Not as awesome as the Penn Glee Club Fall Show” and “Kiss me kangaroo and pickle me ginger – this is something mate, that you don’t want to miss”. Exploiting my accent turned out to be highly profitable and I managed to turn over one hundred flyers in thirty minutes. A record.
Rehearsal tonight ran again very late, with more chances to get close to everyone and enjoy the music and dance. Vanessa Lam, our stage manager and a wonderful, short, Canadian girl was having a hard time keep it all together as madness converged on the theatre, setting us all on edge.
Again, another late night of work followed and very little sleep.
Thursday was much the same, but by this point hell week was really starting to hit me. Physics and Operating Systems, my two harder classes, we both today, and I almost slept right through them. I pushed through some of my remaining work due Friday and slept an hour during the day before again, hitting the rehearsal block at 6. With Dad gone, rehearsals were even harder as I had no good excuse to take me away from the action (not that I so much regretted it). Our performance was improving radically and some of our songs were really getting to the point of excellence. Even our few dance numbers combined with Penn Dance had reached an acceptable level of performance.
Finally, at 1:03, I returned to my room, talked deliriously to Mum and Esther, a close friend back home, and got to sleep around 3:30.