Crazy busy!!

This week has been absolutely insane. First off, Once On This Island (OOTI) has been taking up all my spare time. At this point, my schedule consists of class, rehearsal, eating, and sleeping. I haven't had much time for anything else. But the show is coming along and it looks absolutely amazing. Originally, OOTI was a show that I was impartial about, maybe even not a favorite of mine, but what our director has done with it... it's unlike any other version of OOTI I've seen or heard about. We had our first rehearsal with the band today (it's just piano, and then we had the drummer and bass player come in), and it sounded so cool!!! I'm such a music geek. We made a joke out of it--you know you're a music major when you fangirl over a sitz-probe. Or, as our Jewish accompanist likes to joke, "If you need to relate to me what Christmas morning is like, you'd probably tell me it's like a sitz-probe".

We had Friday night off to go see the other show that Steinhardt is doing, Carousel. My first comment was that I didn't know we had so many skilled dancers! I kind of figured that because we were all music students, dance abilities came way last. But I was pleasantly surprised by the dance talent in my program. And again, like every time I see a program event, I got super excited and super proud of what people in my program can do. The skill level is simply unbelievable (yes I know, I'm geeking out again).

Classes have been pretty much the same as last semester, except for my Graphic Novel class. Not sure if I wrote about this already, but I'm thoroughly enjoying it. It's so interesting to read comics and discuss them in class and recitations; I never thought there was much to comics, but there's so much  you could talk about. There's aesthetics, style, genre, tone, the list goes on and on. And I'm also reading some classic, Golden Age comics like the early Fantastic Four and The Spirit and such. It's going to be a fun class!

Back to NYC we go!

First week back at school: check! I'd say this week went well, though it was long and stressful.

Started off with my birthday, which was cool. I got sung to a bunch of times in my various theater classes, and I passed out See's candy lollipops to my friends. They were a huuuge hit; people keep asking me if I've got any left. Sunday night I went to Max Brenner's with Elle which was easily one of my top favorite meals I've ever had. They're famous for their chocolate but the food was good too. I got really yummy mac 'n cheese. My birthday itself was pretty low-key, I spent most of the evening in rehearsal but I didn't mind, I usually spend my birthday in rehearsal for something anyway.

The majority of my classes are just the second half of a year long class, so there's really only two new classes this semester. I'm taking Advanced College Essay, and Expressive Cultures: The Graphic Novel. The first class is really just another freshman writing class, which I'm not a fan of, but I have to take it. The second class is easily my favorite class of the semester--we just spend the entire semester reading and analyzing comic books. What's better than that?! And it fulfills a GE requirement so it's not even a useless class. The professor is really cool, it's a lecture-based class but he's open to discussion whenever it arises. My recitation section is okay, the preceptor has a really heavy Indian accent so it's hard to understand her sometimes. But there are two guys who consider themselves very well versed in comic books so that'll be a good resource.

The majority of my week has been spent in rehearsals for Once on This Island, which is coming along really well. I'm so amazed by the talent in the show. And the director, Chris, is basically genius. Even though I'm not in the show, I pay attention to whenever he gives a big, impassioned speech about the show. I feel like I can learn from him even though he's not directing me... directly (hehe). The choreographer, Melissa, is a graduate of the Vocal Performance program so she knows a bunch of the juniors and seniors in the show. It got pretty confusing during the first couple of rehearsals so I told the cast members to call me Goldman. Sometimes they forget, but it usually works. Overall I really like working with this team. They definitely respect me and treat me as an equal which I appreciate. I don't feel like I'm just another student. Right now I don't have much to do but I know that once we get into the theater and start tech, it's going to be crazy.

Finals Stress, Tearful Saturday (Revamped), and Coming Home

This past week has proven to be quite eventful.

1. I had my first ever experience with college finals. And let me tell you, it definitely caught me off-guard a bit. For one, my finals experience is vastly different than that of my peers. Since most of my classes are music-based, the majority of my finals were performances of some sort. I only had one or two written finals that I had to sit down in class and take. I had a musicianship final that I feel very confident on (more so than the midterm), and I had a vocal production final. I had a final performance in both English Diction and Speech and Diction, and then my choir class was done about two weeks ago when we performed in a joint choir concert. And of course, I had auditions, which were kind of like a mid-year jury, to see how I've progressed throughout the semester.

2. Tearful Saturday continues, though this time it was Tearful Saturday Night. An email was sent out to everyone in the program, with the cast lists for all of the spring Steinhardt shows, both program and NYU Players Club. I auditioned for four shows, and was not cast in any of them. While it sucks that I won't be performing at all next semester, I'm looking at this as an opportunity to audition for a capella, and to hopefully branch out into the rest of the NYU community to find something else to occupy my time.

3. I'M FLYING HOME TOMORROW!!!! It has been altogether too long since I've been home, and I'm so looking forward to seeing my family and my friends and eating In n Out and Maru Ichi and Le Boulanger and Jamba Juice's oatmeal. I swear, only half of my coming home excitement is food-based. The rest is people-based, I promise. Because I wasn't cast in any Steinhardt shows, this means I'll be able to stay home until shortly before spring term starts on my birthday, of all days. Not sure when I'm flying back yet, but I know I'll be home for over a month, at least. And I think this is a well-needed break. I'm definitely going to miss my NYU friends, especially my best friend Elle, but I'm glad to be going home.

SNOW!! And Auditions

This morning I woke up and went to the dance call portion of my audition for the Steinhardt spring shows. Came home, did some work, and around 4 my roommate came home and made a comment about it snowing outside. I looked out the window and sure enough, it was snowing!! I'm not ashamed to admit that I opened the window (well, as far open as it'll go) and sat by the window for a solid half hour watching the snow fall. And then I got cold so I closed the window, but I still sat by and watched the snowflakes. It was so cool to see the cars and trees (as many trees as there are in New York City) covered in snow. And then later when I left to get a sandwich for dinner, it smelled fresh and it felt kind of like I was walking around in Tahoe or something. Definitely had a dorky grin on my face. I know all my friends will probably make fun of me for being so excited about snow, of all things, but it's so exciting to live in a city where it actually snows! I don't have to drive four to six hours to see snow, it's right outside my building!

In other news, I'm done with three fourths of my auditions for the spring semester. My dance audition for Once on This Island went fairly well, the dance was not what I was expecting. It was set to "We Dance" and I guess I was expecting something more jazzy but it was more hip hop. The choreographer's name is Melissa, which is cool. When they called my name to go up, she was like "My name is Melissa too!". My singing audition went extremely well, I think. After I sang the director said I had a really pretty voice, and when he asked if I was studying musical theater or classical and I said I was musical theater, he said "Well good, we need more voices like yours". They canceled callbacks for OOTI and I don't find out anything until either Friday or Saturday. This morning was my dance call for Carousel, and it actually went surprisingly well. They split it up into girls first for an hour and a half, and then guys, and I was in the first big chunk of girls to go. I think I was one of two freshman in that entire group of at least 25 girls. It turns out that I already knew the combination the choreographer was teaching us because it's my ballet teacher, MK, and she taught the dance to us last week in ballet, saying it was just some combination she wanted to teach us. When we went to perform the combo, I was in the second to last group. After we were done, my friend Kaitlyn (she's a junior) said that I did a really good job and that I looked great out there, which was really nice of her to say. So now I've just got my audition on Wednesday at 7:05, and then if I get any callbacks those are Thursday and Friday I think, and then I found out either Friday or Saturday what I've been cast in, if anything. Fingers crossed!

Thanksgiving in Albany, and Audition Stress

This year, I had the great fortune to spend Thanksgiving in Albany with my best friend, Elle. We left Tuesday night and I got back Saturday, so it was definitely a full vacation (with waaaaay too much food). I spent a lot of time just hanging out with her family, who are all very nice and sweet. She has three older sisters, and I was "roommates" with her closest sister Brittany for the couple of days I spent there. Her grandmothers, aunt, and uncle were also there, so it was a very full house.

I have a theory that I've gotten used to a certain (very low) standard of dorm food in college, so when I had Thanksgiving dinner, I had the worst stomach ache ever because I wasn't used to having such rich, high quality food. I told myself I'd get a little bit of everything but because there was sooo much food my plate was overflowing! The food was absolutely amazing; I loved this acorn squash that they made with maple syrup, it was super sweet and yummy. And I actually really enjoyed the brussel sprouts that Elle's sister Meredith made, which is odd because I don't usually like brussel sprouts. 

When we weren't hanging out with Elle's family and her super adorable dog Bear, we hung out a lot with her friends from high school. It was neat to get to meet them all and to see how Elle interacted with her high school friends as opposed to her NYU friends. I have to say, Elle seemed to act the same way with them as with me, but our friend Sam (who went to high school with Elle and who lives on the second floor of our building) was a lot more outgoing and talkative with his high school friends. Funny how some people change.

I really liked meeting all of Elle's friends, and hearing some old stories about her from high school and whatnot. Like me, she had a few distinctive groups of friends, and I think I liked her musical theater friends a bit better, or at least I got along with them better because even though I didn't know them, we had a lot in common that we could talk about. It was kind of cool to compare musical experiences and to talk about shows we've all done. One girl Alisa talked about coming to the city and visiting us at some point soon, which would actually be really fun!

Auditions are coming up this week. I have a dance audition on Thursday and then on Friday is my vocal audition for Once on This Island, and callbacks are on Saturday. Sunday is dance call for the rest of the Steinhardt spring musicals, and my formal audition for Carousel and the other shows is on Wednesday. I only have to sing at most one full "legit" song and one 16-bar cut of a more contemporary song. It's not a very formal affair, nothing much to worry about from what I've heard, but it's my first NYU audition so of course I'm nervous. The cast lists for everything comes out on either Saturday or Sunday of next week, so either the 14th or the 15th. 

Coldest Day of the Year....?

According to someone famous, today was supposedly the coldest day of the year. I think I can pretty much agree with that person because it was so. Frigging. COLD!!!!! I wore a long sleeved shirt, a sweater, a peacoat, a scarf, gloves, a beanie, tall boots, jeans, and I was still cold. I couldn't feel my face or my thighs. To be quite honest, I wasn't sure I had a face because it was so frozen. I wasn't out and about much today, just walked to and from lunch, a couple of senior recitals, and then dinner. The senior recitals were absolutely amazing. I saw my friends Rose and Stephen, who were absolutely phenomenal. I'd never been to any kind of senior recital before so this was a neat experience because I got to see how the format works and everything. Basically the first half is composed of three "sets", each with three or so songs (I say or so because you can sing a cut from the song, you don't have to sing the entire thing). You have to sing both classical and MT sets, but because both of my friends were MT, they sang one classical set and then two MT sets. Then the second half is a character study, which is actually really cool. Basically, you choose a character from a show and do a very abbreviated version of the show with a few other people. Rose did her character study on Nellie Forbush from South Pacific, and Stephen did Billy Crocker from Anything Goes. It's such a cool idea because you basically get to star in any show of your choosing for like twenty five minutes or so. It was also cool because other people get to be a part of it, other people from the program. I'm excited for the point where my older friend's are doing senior recitals and ask me to help them out.

New Student Cabaret

This past weekend was New Student Cabaret, which was such an amazing experience. Everyone in my program is so ridiculously talented and I'm so honored to know them all and to be able to perform with them. All three of our performances were packed, which was also super exciting. My voice teacher came on Friday night and sent me an email afterward that said I did a fantastic job and that he was very proud of me. Prof Heldman and Bill Wesbrooks were also there, which was just a little bit intimidating. Bill Wesbrooks is the program director so he's a pretty big deal. Caleb told me that after the show Bill couldn't stop raving about me and about how great he thought I was. Saturday all of my VP friends came to support us, because they're all also in another show right now. It was really nice of them to come and support our class. A bunch of upperclassman (and some random people who I don't know) came up to me and said how great of a job I did was I thought was really nice, because I didn't know half of the people who were there.

Overall this was a really exciting experience and I'm glad I got to be a part of it. I'm trying to upload the video of my performance but our internet is being extremely faulty so I'm sorry if I can't get the video to you as fast as you'd like it. I'm pretty sure one of my classmates' family recorded one of the performances in its entirety and once that's up I'll post a link to it.