When I first heard that I was required to be in Sweeney Todd I was very regretful. I was looking at the amount of time and effort I would be required to put forth and not looking at the rewards of the experience. It’s the pessimist inside me that opinion, but luckily with this outlook I am often pleasantly surprised.

            I concentrated on the rehearsals ’til nine o clock instead of the knowledge and experience (not to count CAS hours) I was accumulating. Looking back I realized that I learned a good deal of information. Not about performance or set, because I didn’t do anything but push the set on and off the stage. However, I learned the reward for hard work, that high school drama is retarded (I knew that already but this more like confirmed the already strong opinion), and that I wanted to be in a large-scale performance my last year in high school.

            Through out the majority of my high school career I have been a lazy worker and a “just work enough to scrape by” kind of person in school. Recently, I have seen this attitude leak into other aspects of my life (performance, social, sports… etc) and I am greatly disappointed in myself. Not being arrogant I know that I have potential to be very good at almost whatever I put my mind too, but the problem is the commitment and work I have to put in. Being in Sweeney Todd didn’t solve any of these problems, but it rather brought the problems to the fore-front of my mind. Working hard and being serious (especially in rehearsal) clearly shows when it becomes performance time and I hope that my past actions will not prevent me from securing a semi-major or major role in the upcoming performances in my school.

            Sweeney Todd showed me that making some sacrifices in horsing around can pay-off incredibly when the performance comes around and I realized that I would need to change my attitude and my persona to become a successful member of any performance. This is a new goal of mine and I will try my hardest to complete it.

My 9th grade year at Fort Myers was full of new friends, places and options. One of these options was who I wanted to be and what I wanted to pursue throughout my high school career. I chose to pursue theatre and now I find myself enrolled in HL theatre my senior year. Goal completed. The reason I mention my freshmen year is because I believe that I met a true dramaturg in that time.

            The thespian sponsor at this time was a man named Mr. Ben. I took a liking to him not because of the shared name (although that played a part in it I’m sure) but because of his enthusiasm for theatre and ability and effort to help others learn and develop skills related to theatre.

            I remember when he was directing the one act for the thespian troupe and how he helped me become more in character and show me what the play writer was attempting to portray. I played the part of a little kid on a date with this girl desperate to find a man and only running into horribly disastrous dates. The one-act was titled “Check, please.” We ended up getting a superior at regional’s and performing at states that year and I think a big reason for our success was the encouragement and knowledge that Mr. Ben provided us.

Mr. Ben was a boss, and still is I’m sure.

This short week in Theatre has been surprisingly rewarding. On Monday the class went into the auditorium and cantrary to what I thought, we did not work on building sets but learned about lighting and how the lights are set up. Unfortunatly we did not embark all the way up to the catwalk but rather brought the lights down to use by using the electronic wenches. Mr Koller then took us around to the dangling microphones and we unwound them and replaced them with some more powerful ones. We then made our way to the soundbooth where Mr Koller showed us how to use the soundboard and tested the microphones. I knew how to use the soundoard and the lightboard from my experience in doing the lights for “The Odd Couple.”

We then went back to the chorus room and we had about thirty minutes left of class and Mr Koller left me in charge of Improv games for the whole class. This made me feel pretty good actually. It showed  me that someone had noticed my leadership qualities and that my increase in effort had been recognized. I talked with the class and we did some of the short improve scearios like the week before. But after some failures, we decided to instead play birdie on a perch after that and Ian was my partner. After the first couple rounds it was just my group and two other groups. The narrator called out “perch on a birdie!” and Ian screwed up and we ended up losing the round. After that game wew had time left and played “signs.” This was fairly amusing and  took up the rest of the time in class. These small improv games increase the comfortablility of the class with each other and therefore improve the class’s performance as a whole. The class came together and next time I think that I will start a “mafia” game which should be amusing and helpful to the class.

This week in theatre was mostly practicing the small scenes we selected and helping out with the set in the auditorium. Through theatre class I unexpectedly learned how to use power tools and safely construct structures I couldn’t have built before taking the class. A very unexpected skill to acquire from a drama class.

My group consists of Sally< Julis and me. We are a pretty good group and Sally is a very committed worker and keeps all of us in line. I feel that I can learn a lot from Sally by observing her work ethic and the effort she puts in. Our skit is fairly humorous and is written by Neil Simon, the author of “The Odd Couple.” I was pleasantly surprised at the feedback our group recieved when we did a rough run-through of the section of the scene. I was very interested in what Mr Koller had to say about my part of the performance. I definatly agree with him about how I should be less angry at the start and try to make the play feel more real. He talked to all of us and gave us feedback about our acting skills. It was refreshing to hear great suggestions to all of the actors and as much as I like Mr Riis, he never does that. After our group a few more groups went and Mr Koller gave them good suggestions as well.

When all of the groups had performed and all the feedback was given, we still had time left in the period and Mr Koller decided to do a little improv. He selected me and Tyler to perform the first one and after some discussion with the class we decided in making me a 12 year old at the beach and Tyler the lifeguard. I did pretty well and didn’t find it very difficult at all to get in touch with my inner character of the 12 year old. Tyler did not do so well and he didn’t talk much at all.

This week in theatre class was very rewarding.

Who am I jealous of, why and how can I fix it?

My brother, Zach Stivers. He is a nicer person than I am. He is more intelligent than myself and is able to fall in love. I respect and admire him because he is such a nice guy and can be friends with just about anyone. Also, I am jeaous that he is in college and has the freedom that is not given to me, this is understandlable however, since he is older than me. I have ben trying to be nicer as of late and will continue to try with renewed vigor to help try to purge my jealousy of his niceness. I can not increase my intelligence to match his but I will try harder in everything I do and that will hopefully make up for the difference in smarts. I can not do anything personally to gain the freedom that Zach has but I can just show some patience and wait tell I enroll in college. As for love, I don’t think that I should push that because that is not what love is, I will just have to hope and pray that one day I will find love or better yet, love will find me.

This week in theatre has been quite relaxing, we did not perform any peices this week and just did some casual rehearsals of the short play pieces. We also helped Mr Riis and Mr Koller construct the set for “Sweeney Todd” The stationary set reminds me of the set for Pippin which makes me sad and happy at the same time. The good memories really are great to think about. Wild Bill, playing signs, and falling through the ceiling all will hold a part in my memory until the day I die and it makes me sad that, that part of my life is coming to a close as I approach the end of my senoir year. It’s hard for me to admit but I’m really sad to be leaving all my friends and my school. I have grown comfortable with the homely environment of FMHS and just thinking of leaving almost makes me teary-eyed.

I have often thought about what my high school career would have been like if I had not been involved with any of the school’s musical. I have come to the conclusion that I don’t regret being involved with the drama and chorus department, the small amount of ridicule that comes along with it does not bother me.

Back to building sets, I was surprised by being thrust into a leadership position during the set building and in general for my life right now. As a youngwer brother I have always had someone to follow and follow I did. My brother has always been an inspiration for me and he is the reason that I got involved with drama in the first place and he is much more caring than I think I will ever be. Being a leader this year is a pleasant surprise and I am beggining to get use to the responsibility that I did not use to have.

Surprising how a few relaxing theatre classes can make someone think all that, but they did haha.

I was not accepted when I wore what I thought was a great outfit. It showed me the true nature of humanity that I was persecuted because of something so trivial as choice in clothing. So what if I didnt match so well, should I be made fun of for that? No.

I felt good when I was leaving my house in my grren shirt and gold polo but then my self confidence was just crushed and crushed again unti lI was nothing more than a shell with my soul hiding behind my cruel comments back to my insulters. I will never try to make a statement again by wearing something different. From now on I will keep trying to “blend” with society instead of forging my own path. Thank you persecutors and especially Shaunna Lazarro for bullying me and reducing me to a self-conscious liitle boy. I will never try to be myself again. I looked forward to this project so I could have a good reason to wear something that made me feel pretty, but now I know that was a mistake. I would write more but my tears have made my keyboard to slick to wirte without typo’s. Thanks agian everyone for showing me the true world.

This past week in theatre has been the beggining process for a few different projects. Mr Koller instructed us to form into groups of two or three and select a piece to perform to the class. My partners are Sajeed (also falsly known as Samer) and Chandler. Sajeed impressed me with his theatrical flair and good use of verbal projection and intonation in his last piece. He was also very clever in his writing of the piece to keep the audience in the dark until the very end.

We ended up selecting the beggining to the play “Lights Out” and I liked it because our group is much more apt at performing a comedic piece instead of a dramatic piece. Sajeed just looks funny most of the time so it is hard to take him serious. I am unaware if Chandler can act well so I was hesitant to choose a part that would require her to perform a very difficult role and cry or get very angry. This last week was a two day week and because we are just starting our projects I do not have very much to reflect about. I hope that we can all memorize and perform our skit and do our best, thats all a dramaturg can ever wish for.

This week in theatre was invigorating and I am extremely glad that I was a part of the mind-expanding work that took place throughout the week. We listened to some monologues and it gave me fresh sense on different methods that perform a monologue. There were people that addressed the audience directly and this made the piece much more intimate, and should be used to connect with the audience in dramatic pieces. Another way to perform a monologue is to talk to an imaginary person on stage, this retains the fourth wall and makes the monologue seem more real. This technique is most effective when the play is a realism piece.

In the next class we explored the theatre and showed the Juniors the different parts of the auditorium. I knew most of it but I was impressed by the cleanliness of the auditorium and it will help with the speed of construction and the noise backstage during performance. With more room the set will be more easily stored and therefore will reduce noise. Also we arranged the curtains to gain perspective on the stage and create more entrances. I am going to use this technique in my IPP because it makes the stage look differently than the usual stage. This made me start thinking about different small methods of arranging the stage to change the accepted look of the stage, and I am going to experiment on different methods to change the stage during my IPP.

I am far behind on my RI and need to get started. I planned on selecting a play this week but never got around to it. I definatly need to this coming week.

We performed our sound of silence piece and we did rather well. We made the audience laugh the most out of every group. The oark bench scene wroked out the best because it was funny to see the contradictory thoughts. Unfortunatly we did not make the class cry at all and they only applauded once. It was nice to work in a group and collaborate with fellow dramaturgs to create and perform a piece of theatre. My group was with Nicole Minott and Ian Gallogly. I wanted to make Ian a pig because he looks like one, I figured that would be funny and everyone would understand but I didnt suggest it thinking it would be too mean.

In class we are working on creating and performing our own monologue piece. I presented last thursaday and wrote my monologue about a stroy from my freshman year. It was really interesting but it didnt follow the guidelines very well at all. I think that because the monologue didnt fall into the right category that I will score low. In retrospect I wish I had invented a fictional character and showcased my acting talent a little better. I hope that the juniors don’t think I am not creative because I used a real story. I might write a new monologue and perform it for the class.