Duality

This is just a reminder, but starting this Friday, I will be appearing on stage again for the first time in five years. The THIRDeYE Theatre Festival is a yearly production of three student written pieces. We will be playing this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th (with a matinee on Sunday), and next Friday and Saturday the 9th and 10th.

“UC Davis’ venue for new work written, directed, acted, produced and designed by students, presents three works chosen from scripts submitted last spring: Dissident by Drama major Tyler Katz, directed by Michael Ortiz, in which an artist’s search for self reveals more than he bargained for; Language Barrier by Drama major Syche Hamilton, directed by Matt Welch, in which a father struggles to accept his daughters’ sexuality; and Vespucci by English major Kaelan Smith, directed by Bryan Bachar, a political drama that questions our power to create change. Jade McCutcheon is the festival’s Artistic Director.”

Tickets are only 9 dollars for students, and while it may be a bit of a drive for some of you, it would mean a lot to me if you could come. I am playing Tom Vespucci in the play Vespucci. It’s been a lot of work over the past three months, but well worth it. Anyway, here you can find out all the information you might need, or feel free to leave a comment, or IM me or E-mail me or whatever. If you’ve got my number, you could even call me. It should be an enjoyable evening, and I hope you can all make it.

As I write this, it’s about 1AM and I’ve got to be up in several hours. I should have gone to bed hours ago, but for some reason, I couldn’t sleep. And as much as I know that I should keep trying to sleep, I thought of this and realized that I couldn’t put it off any longer. So here goes…

The easiest way to explain my absence? Umm…I was dead. Yes, that’s it. I died. It was all very sad. Lovely funeral, though. But as I got to heaven, I spoke with the big guy and apparently there was a mix up. Big paper jam at the filing office. Turns out it wasn’t my time after all. So they decided to send me back. And because I was buried with my cell phone I was able to call the undertaker and they exhumed me.

…not buying it? Damn. Well, long story is I’ve been busy as all hell. Sort-of. The big announcement that I meant to have made over a month ago is essentially what’s been keeping me busy. I’m in a play. Now for some of you, that may not seem like a big deal, but it actually means a lot. Mainly, the fact that I haven’t performed on stage in over five years. So this is essentially my big comeback. The story I was going to tell is too long to repeat now, but the short version goes something like this.

As a theatre major, you are required to participate in many different areas of the theatre before you can graduate. Of them all, I had three left. 2 crew positions (ie, sound op, light op, spot op, etc) and one acting. Back in early September, several announcements were made regarding upcoming auditions for the departments Fall shows. I contemplated for a while on whether I should act this quarter or just crew, and decided that I would crew. Fast forward to the first day of school, and there’s an announcement made in one of my classes stating “We need more male actors. There will be open auditions later today. You don’t need a monologue.” And after some time, I decided “What the heck. I might as well give it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?” So after school, I went to the theatre and cold-read (ie, read a script for the first time, sans memorization) a scene. I didn’t think much of it, but lo-and-behold the next day I got an email saying I was called back for three of the four shows!

Quite excited, but rather nervous, I returned the next day for callbacks. And for one show, again the day after for a second call back. Then, several heart wrenching days later (it’s amazing how nervous I was. Especially since this wasn’t even something I had planned on doing) I got the email that changed my life…well, no, maybe thats a bit of an exaggeration. I got the email that changed my quarter! (Much better)

So, these days my life is filled with either one of two things. School or Rehearsal. (oh, and let’s not forget my new job) For example, on Mondays and Wednesdays, I’m at school from 9AM-6PM and then have rehearsal from 6PM-10PM. And as fun as 13-hour days can be, there’s only so many you can take before you decide to cut out all but the essentials from your life. Not to say that writing here isn’t important to me, but there’s only so much I can do. And if I ever do have some free time, I tend to space out and participate in various activities that don’t require me to think, ie TV or games.

However, over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about a few things Quad once told me. The biggest point of them being that I don’t need to write novels here. I can just write quick entires that let people know what’s going on with my life. And while Quad hasn’t been bugging me lately to write more (bless him) I feel like I should. Obviously, giant month long pauses between posts just wont do. I wouldn’t blame you if you stopped coming. Somehow I’ve always felt that quick entries were like cheating. And while that’s not always a bad thing, I need to get over it and realize that not everything has to be in thesis-form.

Anyway, I’m not sure how much of this makes sense (it’s close to 1:45 now) but I think what I’m trying to say is that I want to start posting quick items, but I didn’t feel like it was right to do so until I’d explained my hiatus. So now with this out of the way, I can feel free to indulge the lazy writer within me.

Oh, and if anyone will be in town (or lives close enough by and doesn’t mind the drive) I will be in Vespucci, which is part of the THIRDeYE Theatre Festival. We will be performing Friday-Sunday December 2-4 and Friday-Saturday December 9- 10 at 8:00 p.m. except for Sunday at 2 p.m. It’s really good show and I encourage anyone who like the theatre to come. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask.

It’s good to be back!!

Well…interview (singular), to be exact. I’m gonna combine several things into this post that slightly relate to each other, but are things that I think are awesome. And yeah, its a bit more ‘personal digging’ and whatnot, but bear with me.

In high school, I always knew that there was one place I could go to and be myself. I didn’t have to worry about people judging me and I didn’t have to worry about whether or not I ‘looked cool.’ For me, that place was the theatre. I loved the theatre. I love the theatre. After high school, though, I dropped out of the theatre scene almost entirely. I went to college and studied to become a Computer Science Engineer. But despite how much I loved computers and really wanted to learn how to program, I just never felt like I belonged among the other engineers. I never felt like I was accepted. And after two years, I dropped out.

A year went by and I decided to return to school. But this time, I was going to do what my heart had been telling me to do all along. Theatre! So I returned and joined the Theatre department. I took several theatre classes my first quarter, and while I did meet some new people and get to do a bit of acting, all in all, I never got the feeling like I did in high school. And the fact that the next two quarters (and two summer sessions) were almost theatre-free didn’t really help things.

However, this quarter started about two weeks ago and through a series of coincidences and a risk or two, it’s turned out to be the best quarter ever! In a later post I’ll be explaining one of the biggest factors, but the other one is the fact that I know people in my classes now. This may sound like a trivial thing, but in all my classes so far, I’ve known like one or two other people in them, tops. But this time, I’ve got four classes and for the most the same group of people in each one. That, to me, makes all the difference in the world. Being able to sit in a class and joke with someone makes them all the more bearable (not that they’re that hard to sit through to begin with, but it definitely gives me another reason for going to class).

And my time outside of class has also changed. Now I can walk up and down the halls and see people I recognize. Somehow these past two weeks have changed me in such a wonderful way. I’m meeting new people and I’m actually being outgoing, and talkative, instead of my usual shy self. It’s awesome! I really get the feeling that I’m back in high school with all my old friends. I’m finally becoming hyper again! School has no longer become something I need to do. It’s turning into something I want to do.

I know I skipped a lot of things, but as long as the gist is there, I think you’ll get it. Anyway, to tie it into the second thing I was going to talk about, today I had a job interview at Gamestop. For the past 5 months or so, I’ve been stopping by Gamestop every week and asking them if they have any job openings. And while the answer was always “not now, but we’ll be hiring for Christmas time” I kept going. If for no other reason than they might eventually get so tired of me asking that they would give me a job. However, last week I went in and was told that the hiring for Christmas has started and I scheduled an interview time.

Today was the interview and I have to say that it went GREAT! If I didn’t have such a crappy ass schedule right now I could almost guarantee that I got the job, but since I do have a really busy schedule, we’ll have to wait until Friday or so to find out. “But what does this have to do with theatre,” you’re probably asking. Well, I felt that because of how open and loose and confident I’ve become over the last few weeks, I was able to have a REALLY great interview. Because I’ve been taking so many risks lately, and saying things I usually don’t say, It’s like I’m a different person. And i think that really showed in the interview. I was completely relaxed and I was even joking around with him and everything, it was awesome.

Anyway, long post, I know, but just a taste of what I’ve been up to lately. I’ve still got about 4 or 5 topics I want to post about, but for now this will have to suffice.

I think my inner child has been waiting 5 years for this moment and now, the spotlight’s finally back on him. Wheee!!!