The King Stag

As you may know I was recently in a production of the play "the King Stag" at my school. We've been working on the play since September, and I must say it is nice to finally put it on. The play was in the "comedia del arte" style which involves makes and being very over the top. This might seem easy, but I can say one thing for sure, it uses up a ton of energy. "The King Stag" is the story of king Deramo and his search to find a wife, on the way dealing with the plots of prime minister Tataglia. I played Truffaldino the court bird catcher in love with Smeraldina, the obnoxious country girl, who doesn't necessarily love him back (yes i played a guy, again).
Every year I do a blog post after the play, and I thought that this year I'd show you all that went on before the play (tec week) rather than just the finished product.
Day 1 and 2:
Throughout all of the rehearsals we had been practicing in the Eurhythmy room. On the first day of tec week, I finally got to see the place where we'd be doing the show, the new gym.

Day 3:
Happy Birthday Eve! How are you celebrating? By staying at school till 9 pm! Yay.... Again, we had lots of standing around. I got to see my make-up for the first time! It was really bright and fun, it took quite a long time to apply though.

Day 4:
We had our first "dress rehearsal." I put it in quotations because we didn't actually get through the whole play, just the first half and only some of us were in costume and makeup. My voice was acting a little weird, almost as though it was going to disappear. We got to see My's makeup for the first time, doesn't she look lovely?

Day 5:
I wake up to find, I've lost my voice. It's opening night and I've lost my voice. What awful timing. My and I painting all the last minute masks and props and got into costume and makeup. Kim (our assistant director) and I decided that she would "dub" my voice for that nights show and hopefully I would get it back by the next day. The show went well, with only a few mess-ups. It was hard to move my mouth at the right time that Kim was speaking. She did a great job, after all she had never read the part before and didn't mess up once.

Day 6:
My voice began to come back, by the time of the first show on Saturday I was able to talk again my voice was just several octaves lower. I suppose it was perfect since my character was a guy. It was so nice to be able to actually say my lines again!

After the first show we all went to California Pizza Kitchen, which has become a tradition. We weren't aloud to take our make-up off between shows since it takes so long to put on, thus people who walked by us, most have thought we were part of the circus or something.
The Saturday night show was definitely the best out of the four. We had an amazing crowd and so much energy. backstage we were all running around like mad people.


Day 7:
Our final show. It went well, not the best, but still good! We were all exhausted, sleeping backstage until our scene. My had a fever and most people were coming down with colds. After the show we had to "strike the set" which is always a little sad and lots of work.

In all it was a fun experience, although lots of work. It was nice working with some talented actors like Julian who play Tartaglia. Although the play wasn't one I necessary wanted to do, I still really liked my part. Even though it was no where as big a production as Pippin, it was still stressful and a ton of work. I don't feel that anyone in the play was ever to keen on the play itself. And to be honest I think that's the difference between a good and amazing play. The love for the play.
All I can say is, I'm rather happy it is over. Yes I will miss it a bit, but not that much. It was fun, and I'll smile looking back at it.
I wonder what we'll do next year.

Pictures by Andrew Neuhart, Martina Turner and Ms. Meyer.