Drama Camp Days Three And Four [June Adventures Part Two] ~ In Which We Have Vocal Intensives And I Name Various Inanimate Objects (As One Does)

Welcome ladies and gents to June Adventures Part Two! I’m sorry it took so long for me to write this. But here we are, part two, full of as many crazy stories as the last part (if not more).

Also, I just wanted to say, I got rubber bands the other day for my braces and WOW are they not fun. How do people survive with these things???? I’m so glad I didn’t get them before Drama Camp happened because WOW that would have been a miserable month.

Okay, I’ll stop rambling now and start the post. Off we go!

Where we last saw our heroes, they’d just received the cast list and were excited about vocal intensives, which would take place Thursday and Friday. Auditions and other such chaos had just taken place and the rest of the week was sure to be just as crazy. Let’s review our characters — and their characters — shall we?

Me: Lady Larken
Chloe: The Minstrel
Anna: Lady-in-Waiting
Eden: Lady-in-Waiting
Emma: Rowena
Jordan: The Jester
Caden: Prince Dauntless the Drab
Emily: Queen Aggravain
Evan: Sir Harry
Lucy: Lady-in-Waiting
Brileigh: Princess #12/Lady-in-Waiting
Ethan: The Wizard
Bryson: The Silent King
Nevaeh: Princess Winnifred
Valerie: Lucille

* For the vast majority of the first day, we only referred to each other by our character names. And of course we celebrated the part each person got, as they were all well-deserved and aptly cast.

Actually, I still refer to most of the cast by their characters’ names. Especially Nevaeh. *waves to Nevaeh*

* Something you will see throughout all of these posts is a ridiculous amount of stuff just. . . . happening. There were a lot of random and surprising mishaps this year for whatever reason. Anyways, something happened that resulted in Cheryl, our director, and Emma, her daughter, being out during the vocal intensives. We were all pretty disappointed, especially because it was the first real day of rehearsals, but hey, the show must go on.

* Because of scheduling conflicts with the theater, half of our rehearsals took place at the church across the street, where Jonathan is the music minister (and where my family used to go to church. It’s pretty nostalgic getting to work in the music room, where I’ve had many a choir rehearsal). Unfortunately, whenever we did scene work, we had to do it on the stage in the sanctuary which is MUCH smaller than the stage at the theater, especially because there’s a piano and choir loft that take up 2/3 of the stage. We made it work though.

* There were a lot of the songs in the show with “All” parts, so we went over several of those with Jonathan. After listening the CD upwards of a thousand times, me and my sisters were quite the experts, but hey, a little practice is always nice. After finishing with us, Jonathan sent us out with Cheryl’s co-director, Jeremy. Jeremy is amazing. We stan Jeremy. Anyways, everyone (including Jeremy) went out to the sanctuary to work on staging, while Nevaeh and Caden stayed back with Jonathan to work on some of their solo parts.

* In the sanctuary, everyone highlighted their scripts (except those who already had the night before aka me) with Jeremy talking about random things in the background. After everyone finished, Jeremy told us to get on the stage. We all picked a random place to stand, and then he made us close our eyes. We took a moment to get into character, and then Jeremy watched us improv a scene. It was fun! I love doing improv! I’m terrible at keeping a straight face, but I love it nonetheless.

The scene we improv-ed took place during a ball thrown by the queen (aka Emily). The ladies-in-waiting stood around and chatted, the king said hello to guests, and the queen stood in a corner and sulked as only the queen could do. This was my first time really getting into character, and I enjoyed getting to know Lady Larken. I walked around the queen’s ball, greeting guests and thanking them for coming. Suddenly, to my Lady Larken’s astonishment, I looked over to see Evan Sir Harry, Larken’s lover, on one knee in front of the queen!

“Harry!” I said, over the din of knights and ladies chatting. “Why are you proposing to the queen?! I thought you loved me!”

Harry jumped to his feet. “Well, I was just, I was, I mean, I was greeting the queen!” he stuttered.

I shook my head. “By proposing to her? She’s MARRIED!”

Harry was visibly embarrassed. “Well, okay, how was I supposed to greet her?”

“By BOWING, maybe??” I retorted, demonstrating by bending at the waist. Harry started to say something, but I called the king over. “Your majesty, did you see what Sir Harry did?” When the king shook his head, I explained, “He was trying to propose to your wife!” The king may not have been able to speak, but you could see the shock on his face. Meanwhile the queen didn’t move, rolling her eyes at us ridiculous peasants.

Jeremy interrupted our lively conversation by introducing a new character to the mix, one who wasn’t even the script: the dastardly SIR CHAMBERLIN *bum bum bum* (played by him, of course). Sir Chamberlin *bum bum bum* had visited the court before. He was from a neighboring kingdom and was not especially liked by our royal court, particularly Harry and Larken. That was because he was seeking Larken’s hand in marriage. Larken had told him a thousand times that she and Harry were a thing, but some men just don’t listen. *insert eyeroll here* He kept flirting with Larken, who very awkwardly try to escape the situation. Harry just watched.

He’s a stand-up guy, that Harry. SMH.

* After lunch, Jonathan did more solo work with Nevaeh and Caden, but I got to stay back with them as I sang a bit with Caden (three words. Literally three words) and had a whole song with Nevaeh. ‘Twas fun. We had some laughs. (But when do we not??)

* After we were done, everyone came back and we did more work on the “All” parts. We made it through 9 out of 13 songs, which is lowkey impressive for the first day. I mean, they’re not called “vocal intensives” for nothin’!

* Random story from one of our breaks: me, Emily, and Nevaeh were just hanging out and chatting, and somehow we got onto the topic of rats (literally don’t even ask), and Emily asked Nevaeh what she would do if a rat ran across the stage while she was singing. Nevaeh made a face and said, “I’ma be out, bro. Bye! Y’all can deal with that by yourselves! Although Winnifred would probably befriend the rat.” (She didn’t exactly look thrilled with the fact that her character would befriend a whole rat.)

“Yeah,” I agreed, “she would probably adopt the rat and call him Monty.”

Emily looked at me. “I admire your ability to just name random inanimate objects.”

I was flattered. “Why thank you!” Of course, both of us overlooked the fact that rats aren’t exactly inanimate, but it’s the thought that counts.

Evan, who was sitting to my left and listening to our conversation, turned off his phone and held it in front of me. “Name my phone.”

I studied it for a moment, then promptly replied, “Bill.” (What? The phone had Bill vibes!)

Evan, if you’re reading this, don’t forget. Your phone is Bill.

Vocal Intensives ~ Day Two

* Day Two was even more intense than day one, if you can believe it! Whereas day one was more focused on group work, Jonathan did a lot more solo work on day two. But, by the end of the day, we had the music more or less down! (Not well, but we had it.) And there’s something satisfying about singing through the whole soundtrack at the end of vocal intensives. ‘Tis nice.

* Jonathan abandoned us had a doctor’s appointment at 10:30, so we spent about an hour in the sanctuary working on ✨ blocking! ✨ It took awhile (probably longer than necessary) but we got the first song and scene mostly staged. I stand in the same spot the whole time, so obviously I wasn’t the one who made the whole process take an hour. Kidding, kidding!

* We took a short break to wait for Jonathan, as he still wasn’t back yet. The door opened and we were all expecting Jonathan to walk in, but instead, Emma came around the corner! We were all very excited to see her, as we’d missed her a lot yesterday and she got several hugs.

* When Jonathan FINALLY came back *pauses to cast a joking glare at Jonathan* we worked on, you guessed it, MUSIC!! Emma caught on fast, despite missing the entire first day. I was proud of her.

* Lunch always had a chaotic air to it (that’s a lie, everything had a chaotic air to it) but boy, was this lunch wild. A bunch of us sat around in the corner and ate and chatted. Bryson stood nearby and ate, and Nevaeh and Emma made fun of his lunch. It was all in good spirit, but I mean, the man brought an entire bag of Fritos Scoops and nothing else. What was he expecting?

In a similar vein, Emma, Nevaeh, and Emily were horrified by the sandwiches me and Chloe were eating. Although, everyone’s horrified when they find out I like this, so. I mean, we were eating a classic (though unpopular) Southern treat! What’s so wrong with banana-mayonnaise sandwiches? They taste almost exactly like banana-peanut butter sandwiches, with a slight tangy flavor depending on how much mayonnaise you use. Don’t bash it. Try it first. Then come back and tell me how you feel about it. *glares at Emma, Nevaeh, and Emily*

In other chaotic lunchtime news, Jordan straight-up took a nap in the sanctuary on a pew (how was that comfortable??) and one of the guys that ended up quitting later on committed a big no-no and left without permission to get a pizza.

When he came back and we found out what he’d done, we had a lot of questions.

“You left??”

“Did you get in trouble?”

“What did Jeremy say?”

“Where did you even go???”

“I went to Domino’s,” he replied.

“Did you eat a whole pizza??” I asked in astonishment.

“Yeah,” he shrugged.

“Was it a large?” Emily asked.

“Yeah,” he shrugged again.

“WHAT??!!” we shrieked.

“WHERE DID IT GO???” Emma asked, gesturing to his skinny figure.

He shrugged yet again. “I dunno.”

So yeah. That was a thing that happened.

* After lunch, me, Nevaeh, and Emma worked with Jonathan on the song we sing together. Not much came out of that besides a lot of unnecessary giggles, a slightly exasperated Jonathan, and Emma’s new nickname for him: Johnny-Than-Than.

In our defense, he 100% signed up for this when he agreed to help Cheryl.

* Evan had abandoned us left for a doctor’s appointment ages ago and he still wasn’t back, so when it was time to work on our duet, it was just me. But, Ethan, Evan’s understudy, came in and sang for him. My part in that song was pretty high, but I love singing high and I have a range that surprises even me so it was a lot of fun! But of course, since I am a glutton for punishment, I requested to sing a note two steps higher than what was written. For anyone who understands such jargon, I went from singing an E♭5 to a G5 (translation: high). And I had to hold it out for seven measures with only a quick little breath before (translation: long and difficult). Despite my attempts to torture myself, I still really enjoyed performing that song. ‘Twas fun.

* After Jonathan finished with me, he sent me out to the sanctuary where everyone else was going over lines (except Ethan and Emily, as it was their turn to work with Jonathan). I sat on one of the pews and jumped right in with them! Jeremy was in charge and we know that when Jeremy is in charge, things get a little weird. The voices he did when he read the lines of the actors that were out were just *chef’s kiss* top-notch. That was our first time doing a table-read (well, pew-read) and it was very fun! Nevaeh sat on me a lot.

*moves on without elaborating*

* After the day was over, my voice was quite tired. But it was definitely worth it. I’d say vocal intensives was a success! We had the music down and started work on blocking and lines. Y’know, amidst all the other randomness that happened.

Well, it took ages to come out, but I hope y’all enjoyed part two of the June Adventures series! I certainly enjoyed reminiscing and laughing at all the nonsense we got up to. The next post in this series will be about week two, Drama Camp days five through eight (if I can fit it all into one post. I may need to stretch it out. We’ll see).

I hope y’all enjoyed this post, and I shall see you in the next one!

Toodles!

🎵 Lovelight by Citizens 🎵

Drama Camp Days One and Two [June Adventures Part One] ~ In Which I am Reunited With Previous Cast Members, We Have Auditions, and I Win “Zip Zap Zowie”

HIIII GUYS IT’S THE LONG-AWAITED DRAMA CAMP POST!!!!!! Or at least the first one. Who knows how many parts this series is going to have? Probably a lot. I have much stories to share.

Before we begin, I just want to make sure everyone understands exactly what Drama Camp entails. Basically, it’s a four week-long program that takes place every June. It’s hosted by my local theater and kids from all over the city participate. It’s not the kind of camp where you actually stay in cabins or whatever. Every Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Fridays), we drive to the theater and have rehearsal from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM, and then we go home. It’s exhausting and demanding but SO much fun. Thankfully, they give us weekends off to recuperate from the previous week’s work before they throw us back in the following week. Drama Camp is available to anyone under 19 that wants to participate. I think the youngest cast member the program has ever had was six years old. We get a variety of people.

Drama Camp was started in 2019 by one of our homeschool co-op friends, and, since she knew that I liked to act, she texted my mom about it. Me and my oldest sister took part in the first show. I had SO much fun and realized how much went into a show that wasn’t a church program (as that was all I’d been in prior to Drama Camp). The next year was 2020 and we all know what happened then. BUT, the next year, three weeks before June, we got an email that Drama Camp was going to happen again! The show was intentionally smaller to avoid risk of sickness which meant a smaller cast, but it was still loads of fun. And this year, we did a full-size show again!

That should be a decent crash course of everything you need to know. Hopefully the rest of this post should make sense!

NOW ON TO THE CHAOS!!!!

Drama Camp always starts on a Tuesday, and the first two days are workshops, with auditions on the second day. After that, we have full rehearsals up until our performance! This post is going to cover the workshops and auditions. So without further ado, let us begin!

May 31st [Day One — Workshops]:

* We arrived at the theater at 9:00 AM, bright and early, but the front door was locked, so we waited. Two girls, Emma (the director’s daughter) and Jordan (one of her friends), came around and told us to go in through the back door. Emma and Jordan were in last year’s production and it was great to see them again! I gave Emma a hug because some stuff went down last year (let’s just say there was a lot of offstage drama last year that wasn’t resolved until a couple of months ago) and told her her hair smelled good. She gave me a sarcastic response. She hasn’t changed at all since last year. But I love her!

* Since we were there so early, we got to see most people come in. There were a bunch of familiar faces, and a decent amount of new faces, too! A couple of the people that were there the first couple of days ended up dropping out of the cast because they were busy or they got sick or they just didn’t want to be a part of the show, but it wasn’t anyone I cared about. I’M JUST KIDDING WOW THAT SOUNDED REALLY BAD GAH!!! We actually lost a lot of good talent. But we pulled together at the end and an understudy got to shine, so that was cool.

Anyway, the final cast ended up being:

Me (me)
Chloe (my sister, 13)
Anna (my other sister, 11)
Eden (my other other sister, 9)
Emma (of course)
Jordan (also of course)
Caden (was there the first year)
Emily (was also there the first year)
Evan (was there last year for our Godspell production, played Jesus)
Lucy (new)
Brileigh (also new)
Ethan (also also new)
Bryson (also also also new)
Nevaeh (new, but we met her in the parking lot before we went inside)
Valerie (new but came to see last year’s show)

I really enjoyed this year’s cast. They were all wonderful, and so so talented! I’m hoping to see all of them next year.

* When we made a circle at the beginning it was almost perfect, and I was worried about us. (It’s a known fact that theater kids DO NOT know how to make circles.) Fortunately, all the circles after that were quite imperfect, so I guess it was just a one time thing.

* To break the ice, Cheryl made us introduce ourselves by an animal, so hi, I’m Mia the moose.

* After introductions of the people and the program and all that jazz, Cheryl had us do an acting exercise. We split into two lines, and one person from each line came forward and did a little part. My line’s part was a 90-year-old and we said, “How are you doin’, sweetheart?” and the other line’s part was a toddler and they said, “Do you have any gum?” I was across from Ethan, so we come forward and I say my part and play the part and Ethan’s playing his part, AND THEN he says his line in his NORMAL VOICE (which is quite deep) and everyone just lost it. It was amazing.

* After that chaos, we did an exercise that consisted of two characters talking about shoes. It was supposed to be a workshop of voice inflection and mood and all that jazz, and it was fun. The kicker was that I was barefoot. I was wearing no shoes. So what shoes were we talking about? Who even knows?

* GUYS OKAY LISTEN UP BECAUSE THIS WAS THE ABSOLUTE HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY

OKAY SO, THERE’S THIS GAME CALLED “ZIP ZAP ZOWIE” THAT CHERYL AND EMMA LOVE. EMMA ALMOST ALWAYS WINS AND WHEN SHE DOESN’T, CHERYL WINS. TO PLAY, YOU HOLD YOUR HANDS IN A PRAYER POSITION IN FRONT OF YOU. SOMEONE STARTS BY SAYING “ZIP” AND MAKING EYE CONTACT AND POINTING AT SOMEONE. THAT PERSON THEN SAYS “ZAP” AND POINTS TO SOMEONE ELSE AND THAT SOMEONE ELSE SAYS “ZOWIE” AND POINTS TO ANOTHER SOMEONE. AND YOU JUST GO AROUND LIKE THAT UNTIL SOMEONE SAYS THE WRONG THING OR HESITATES. THEN THAT PERSON STEPS OUT OF THE CIRCLE AND GAMEPLAY CONTINUES.

SO WE WERE PLAYING AND BEFORE LONG, THERE WERE THREE PEOPLE IN THE CIRCLE, ME, EMMA, AND JORDAN. JORDAN DIDN’T LIKE THE IDEA OF COMPETING AGAINST EMMA ONE-ON-ONE (THE LESS PEOPLE THERE ARE, THE HARDER, AND ONE-ON-ONE IS AN INSANE CHALLENGE) AND THE NERVES GOT TO HER. AND SUDDENLY IT WAS JUST ME AND EMMA. EMMA. THE CHAMPION OF THE GAME. I WAS TERRIFIED.

OVER A YEAR AGO, I CAME UP WITH A POTENTIAL STRATEGY TO HELP YOU WIN IN ONE-ON-ONE ZIP ZAP ZOWIE AND I’D NEVER HAD THE CHANCE TO TEST IT UNTIL THAT DAY. MY HEART WAS ABSOLUTELY POUNDING. I WAS TERRIFIED.

EMMA STARTED AND I PUT MY PLAN INTO ACTION. INSTEAD OF PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT SHE WAS SAYING, I TUNED HER OUT AND FOCUSED ON SAYING “ZAP ZIP ZOWIE” OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I WAS IN THE ZONE GUYS. I FELT IT. I COULD HEAR HER VOICE BUT I COULDN’T HEAR WHAT SHE WAS SAYING. I COULD SENSE EVERYONE WATCHING BUT I COULDN’T FEEL THEIR STARES. I WAS CONSUMED IN MY ZIP ZAP ZOWIE-ING.

AND THEN EMMA FALTERED.

I WAS IN SHOCK. I LEGITIMATELY COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. IT FELT LIKE A DREAM. AND THEN EMMA WAS SCREAMING AND CHERYL WAS CHEERING AND I REALIZED.

I WON.

I BEAT THE ZIP ZAP ZOWIE QUEEN.

Y’ALL, THE HIGH I GOT FROM THAT. . . . IT WAS SOMETHIN’ ELSE, LEMME TELL YA.

SO YEAH, THAT’S THAT.

ARE Y’ALL PROUD OF ME?

* After that glorious moment, we did a read-through of half the script and goodness gracious half the cast could not read I was concerned. But I guess we can’t all have the homeschool blessing. *flips fabulous homeschooled hair*

* We did some small group work, just to practice playing off of each other, and I was in a group with Brileigh, Emily, and Bryson. Our scene was kind of short, so we mostly just chatted. Bryson played the silent king, and he did pretty good. I figured it’d be fun if he actually got cast as the king. Anyways, we were on break and most of us were hovering around the piano, and I just hear someone calling my name, and I look in the wings and Bryson is sitting in a tall chair and he just goes, “Now I’m really a king, I have a throne and everything!” He’s great. I love him.

* I mentioned we were all hovering around the piano and that was because Evan was going to serenade us! He played a piece by Bach (I don’t know what it’s called) and also Solfeggietto (by Bach) which was *chef’s kiss*. And Emma played the chords to a song and sang, but I didn’t know the words, so I just kind of hummed harmony and then Evan hummed bass and we had a little jam session. IT WAS THE BESTTTT!!! I love having musical friends. I always walk away from a jam session happy. And when we were done, Bryson kept reiterating how great it was. Definitely a highlight.

* When our small groups performed, the people who weren’t onstage gave positive feedback. Well, when they were giving feedback to our group, Jordan and Emma could not stop gushing over this little shrug that Bryson did. After the fact, he and I were talking and he was just like, “I didn’t even realize I did it; it was just subconscious.” I didn’t see The Shrug^TM, but those who did see claimed it touched their soul. Bryson credited our vocal director, Jonathan’s, shoulder exercises from earlier. Everyone was begging Bryson to do the shrug again, but he decided to play it coy and said, “You’ll just have to wait until I’m cast as the king.” So he decided to torture us.

* JORDAN’S MOM BROUGHT DONUTS ‘NUFF SAID

* Before rehearsal started, when we were still waiting for everyone to arrive, several of us got into a conversation about books, and that’s how me and Nevaeh (nuh – VAY – uh) became friends. Okay, well technically, we were introduced to her in the parking lot when we first arrived, but we BONDED over books, and that’s the next best thing. And I am telling you this because Nevaeh will be a prominent character throughout the rest of this series. SHE IS IMPORTANT. REMEMBER HER.

June 1st [Day Two — Workshops + Auditions]

I’m just going to say this: Day two was chaos. I’m not going to share everything that happened out of respect for the privacy of my friends, but I will say, a LOT more happened than what I wrote here.

* We did more small group work that morning, and our group ended up doing the same scene as Group 2 (Evan, Nevaeh, Emma, and another girl who ended up quitting), which was funny. They did better, but they were more organized. It was fun, though. We got a lot of good feedback.

* Whenever we did vocal warmups, Jonathan had us stand around the piano, and we all had accidentally designated spots. Me, Jordan, and Emma always stood along the back of the piano, Chloe and Nevaeh to my left, Brileigh to my right, and everyone fanning out from there.

(Also, side note, I’ve been under Jonathan’s teaching for several years. He’s always been the vocal director for Drama Camp, but he’s also the music minister at the church across the street from the theater. My family used to attend that church, and even after we changed churches, I still participated in the youth choir for several years, until we started attending a church with evening church. Anyways, because I’ve been under Jonathan for so long, I have his vocal exercises memorized backwards and forwards, even at what point in the exercise he has us change vowels [e.g. starting out by singing “doo” and then changing to “dah” and then “dee” and then back to “doo”]. If I ever need to warm myself up for singing, I’ve got myself covered. [I’ll probably still hear everything in Jonathan’s voice though LOL])

* We had a break and after we came back, there was a sporadic “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” sing-along. ‘Twas fun. I was Dolores.

* During lunch, while we were sitting in the lobby, I heard someone playing the piano in the auditorium, so I went up to investigate. It was Bryson! He was trying to figure out the tune to a song, so I just hung of the piano while he did that. I felt like Lucy from “Peanuts” XD (Also, this is probably obvious, but the piano is a lot harder to play when you’re looking at it over the back. Everything’s upside-down!) After Bryson finished, I figured out the chords to some Pirates of the Caribbean songs and we had fun with that.

Now. Auditions. The rollercoaster. I hope y’all are ready. (I definitely wasn’t.)

* I went into the bathroom to make sure my hair looked alright (vain, I know, but I fixed it without a mirror and I had to be sure), and I found Nevaeh and another girl, Hailey (she quit), in the bathroom. I didn’t pay any attention to them at first, but I quickly came to realize that dear, sweet Nevaeh was freaking out about auditions and Hailey was trying to calm her nerves. We prayed together and I think that helped Nevaeh a lot. After our prayer, we continued talking about cats and stuff and Nevaeh practiced a little. I honestly don’t know what she was worried about, she absolutely killed her audition. We could hear her singing from the lobby. It was gorgeous.

* Brileigh summoned us out of the bathroom because something happened to someone and we went out to investigate. Unfortunately, another something happened to the same someone, which resulted in Cheryl being called in and she sent us out of the lobby so she could be alone with the someone. (All of that was redacted out of respect for the someone’s privacy.) Most everyone went into the bathrooms, but me, Hailey, and Bryson panicked and went into the auditorium. The something happened in the middle of one group’s auditions, and they were just standing awkwardly on the stage. The judges weren’t talking. The three of us sat in the house completely silently. Guys. It was miserable. We were all worried about the someone and NO ONE was saying anything. If any of y’all like to read, you’ve surely seen the phrase, “The tension was so thick, you could have cut it with a knife.” NEVER has that statement felt so TRUE!! So yes, out of all that, I learned that writers do not exaggerate when they talk about tension.

Fortunately, we didn’t have to sit in there for more than five minutes before Cheryl called us back in. We went and got everyone out of the bathrooms. Everyone was understandably a little shaken up, so we just sat in quiet groups and chatted (mostly about auditions with a little bit of Harry Potter thrown in). Thankfully, there were no more negative incidents (well, other than Emma getting chased by a spider and Bryson skooshing it), and the third group out of four went in to audition.

* During that audition, absolute chaos ensued in the lobby. Bryson started reading us a children’s book and then there was a myriad of random and chaotic jokes and then Brileigh started attacking Ethan and was WINNING (keep in mind that Brileigh is 10 and barely taller than my waist, and Ethan is, like, 5′ 10″, and can bench 200 pounds), and their battle ended with Ethan on the floor cowering in fear. It’s like I told my friend, thespians be crazy. When Group 3’s audition ended, we rushed to return everything to normal so they wouldn’t suspect anything. Although, we were pretty loud, they probably heard us even though the doors were closed. To this day, I still don’t think they know exactly what went on while they were auditioning. Unless they’re reading this blog post, which in that case. . . . hey guys! You didn’t miss much. 🙂

* After that, it was my group’s turn to have our auditions. I actually felt pretty good during my audition! I was confident and bubbly, and I enjoyed it, which is definitely not how I usually am. I’m always riddled with anxiety during auditions. I think it’s because everyone else was panicking about their own auditions and I was so busy trying to calm their nerves, I didn’t have time for nerves of my own. I guess my anxiety has the “mom-friend override” XD Anyways, I auditioned first because none of the others in my group felt comfortable going first.

I guess I should explain how auditions work. Basically, we’re split up into groups of four or five. Each person in the group chooses a scene from the script to audition with, and they read the lines for the biggest character in the scene. The others in the group read for the supporting characters. It just gives the judges an idea of how you act and play off of your fellow actors. Then, the person auditioning sings one of the songs we learned during the first day. (Jonathan teaches us two of the simpler songs in the script, and we can choose the one that we’re more comfortable in to sing so the judges can get a feel for our voice.) After that, another person in the group auditions and we keep going until everyone’s done!

I auditioned for Princess Winnifred the Woebegone, the lead. When I was researching the show before camp, I decided that I might like to be either Winnifred or Lady Larken, a lesser part, but still pretty prominent in the show. But, as I was reading the script the night before, I absolutely fell in love with Winnifred’s character. I wanted to be her so bad! I actually had a lot of fun performing my scene, and I think I did good on the singing. I was a little tense, but everybody’s tense during auditions. Emily went after me and she auditioned for the villain, Queen Aggravain. Then, it was Brileigh, who auditioned for Lady Larken, and finally Bryson, who auditioned for the Silent King. Everyone did beautifully on their auditions (at least in my opinion) and I was excited to see what part they would get!

And then, we went home and waited five hours for the cast list to come out.

It was worth the wait.

Me: Lady Larken
Chloe: The Minstrel (part narrator, part character)
Anna: Lady-in-Waiting (background character)
Eden: Lady-in-Waiting (background character)
Emma: Rowena (a lady-in-waiting, but more important)
Jordan: The Jester (part narrator, part character, besties with the Minstrel)
Caden: Prince Dauntless the Drab (the main guy character)
Emily: Queen Aggravain (y’know, the character she auditioned for!)
Evan: Sir Harry (Larken’s lover)
Lucy: Lady-in-Waiting (background character)
Brileigh: Princess #12/Lady-in-Waiting (she had a little part at the beginning of the show and played a lady-in-waiting for the rest)
Ethan: The Wizard (Queen Aggravain’s right hand man)
Bryson: The Silent King (the part he auditioned for!)
Nevaeh: Princess Winnifred (100% deserved, too)
Valerie: Lucille (a lady-in-waiting, but more important, like Rowena)

Cheryl also cast understudies this year, which she’d never done before. I thought that was pretty cool. I didn’t understudy for anyone, but Emma was my understudy and I thought that was cool as well. It’s actually a really good thing Cheryl cast understudies this year because, aside from lots of people being out during rehearsals, the girl who was actually cast as Lucille ended up quitting and Valerie was her understudy! So Valerie got the chance to shine onstage.

I was disappointed I didn’t get the part of Winnifred, but I was okay with my role. And as rehearsal went on, I actually really came to like playing Larken! It was a way different role than I played and such a fun challenge! I had to play a character that was delicate and graceful and desperately in love (all things that I am not. Well, besides the last one LOL) and it was SO FUN exploring the deep recesses of myself to bring her to life.

(Actually, the thing I was most excited about when I first found out I was going to play Larken was getting to yell at Evan in the middle of the show XD Sorry Evan! I still love ya!)

So yeah! That’s a decent summary of the first two days of Drama Camp! I hope y’all enjoyed! The next post will be about the last two days of week one and the chaos that ensued during vocal intensives. (You will quickly learn that all of these posts are about chaos ensuing. There are different genres of chaos that ensued, but chaos always ensued. *nods*)

That’s all I’ve got to say. Bye y’all!

🎵 Higher Ground by Imagine Dragons (their new album is 🔥🔥🔥 guys!!) 🎵