stayin' alive

Wow. Just wow. This last week has been so exhausting, but it has also been so much fun! I actually had more fun staying up until eleven with all of my fellow play members than I did when we only stayed until 5:30. (What's sad is I remember when that seemed like forever -- like I had no time to get my homework done.)

But it's done. I'm finished and free to go fill my week with whatever extra activities that suit my fancy. I am so incredibly tired and a little emotionally wiped out, but I really wish it could have lasted for a little longer. It was a lot of work to go into for only two and a half of a performance.

Here's a bit of a recap of what I've been up too, just in case you ever want to be dissuaded from participating in a play. Seriously, it's going to sound bad, but I had a lot of fun!

Monday -- First run through with costumes. This was really cool! Although it was a pain to get in and out of costume, I never really had to change. It made me appreciate the real life nuns out there that have to make a habit (no pun intended) of wearing this outfit all the time. I actually really liked it!

Tuesday -- Believe it or not, it wasn't too hard to get up today, but I was hard to focus in class. I ended up only hitting two people and losing my temper almost seven times. To be honest, knowing my personality with no sleep, this wasn't such a bad day. The practice lasted until 12:30, so my parents instructed me to sleep in from Seminary.

Wednesday -- Slept in. Boy that helped! I've been really good with waking up for Seminary, so this felt really wrong, but I feel like my body needed it a LOT. Today was our first performance. We put on the play for all of the students at the high school and some from the eighth grade. I can't even explain how amazing it felt to be in front of people. I was shaking so badly when I started out, but once I calmed my nerves I had a great time. To hear my peers applaud me -- wow. They laughed and cheered as I went through all of my funny nunny parts. This was almost my favorite audience. It was so cool to launch my debut as a singer and actress to an unsuspecting crowd. Great.

We also took pictures of the performance for the year book and it was SUPER entertaining. Imagine the play, but Mr. Beattie screaming stop every couple of seconds in order to get a great picture. It was really hard for me to freeze, because I have to consciously focus on my angry face or else it will turn into the cheesiest grin.

Thursday -- It was really fun to go to school today. Every one that was at the matinee was so supportive of me. They commented on everything from Annalise's wig to how they didn't know I could sing. I tried to keep a small head, but it was hard... They insisted on inflating my ego beyond the point of no return. I ate the compliments up, and by the end of the day, I had a perfect cordial response to each comment. Ie. I didn't know you could sing -- I hard knew I could myself.

We had our first performance in front of the public and it was GREAT. Everything seemed to be going perfect and Mr. Beattie said that he felt like crying because we did such a great job. It had so much energy, and I could physically feel the difference compared to any of the rehearsals we did. Today was the day Katie and I got the most flowers. Our parents got us each a dozen roses and they are beautifully on display at our house.

Curtain call was also a great experience. I started to feel like my smile muscles were busted, but we got a standing ovation which made the cheesy grin become more natural. Wow. I could only look forward to what would happen the next day.

Friday -- The worst day sleep wise. I was exhausted beyond the point of functioning, but I still came to school and tried my hardest not to collapse. After school, I meant to come home and take a nap, but I got wrapped up in catching up with my school work. Bad idea.

Once Katie and I got to school, I was already pretty apparent to me that everyone was just as exhausted as I. We were all feeling just a bit off. As we went on stage, the audience hardly reacted to anything we were doing because we just weren't feeling it. We attempted to re-energize, but it was just before the end of the first act that we started to recover.

Just at intermission as we were preparing for the wedding scene, the power started to flicker on and off. And then there was black. Everyone started freaking out about our theaters little blue ghost, but I was only worried that something had happened that could damage my family. It ended up just being a power outage, but we couldn't get back on stage for another three hours. In consequence, Mr. Beattie asked us to take off our costumes and just go home. It was kind of depressing, but really I think it was for the better. At least we would have a chance to redeem ourselves the next day.

For a bit of an after party we went to the Star Restaurant in St. Robert for a late night dinner. We ended the night practically doing the musical over again for the staff there as we sung our songs at the top of our lungs. It was certainly memorable, and I felt like bawling the whole time. I can't quite put my finger on the reason why... It was just touching. We got home at around eleven and didn't wake up until 9:30 the next day.

Saturday -- Today was a lot of FUN! Our last performance was ten times better than the Thursday one and I had a lot of people I knew from church and my family come up to see the show. It kind of made my day to be honest. I got to see my best old friend Stevie (who I haven't really talked to since a couple of years ago) and my Aunt L was able to come with her family. I also appreciated the Fowers coming! They were so funny after the play and it was good to see a familiar face in the crowd of hundreds that had come to see us (we almost had a full house).

The performance ... wow. It was incredible. I only was in a tiny part, but I could tell it was just there. We really put in our all and made the last show count. Once again, I felt like crying as I watched the curtain close for the last time, but I buried my emotions because I could already see a bunch of people losing it.

After everyone left, we began to strike the set. Basically, that means we got to take apart everything we had been working on for four months and put it away like nothing happened. It was reaaaaaaaaaaaally emotional for Katie, because she never gets to see these people again, so I had to spend some time comforting her, but the rest of time was spent hard at work. We ended up staying with about 10 other people until 2:30 in the morning, which was insane, but I liked it. It was really sad taking down the abbey wall, because then it hit me that I am going to have to do something with my life now. I really don't have any clue how to function.

As I went home, I just sat in my bed and thought. Was this experience something that I would want to relive again? Probably not for the rest of my life, but I truly was grateful for all of the memories and friends that I gained. Get ready blog world! Now that I have nothing to do, there is bound to be an influx of posts rather soon!