Opening weekend of our play, The Dining Room was fantastic. I’ve had an amazing time working with great actors and our visionary director, Stacie Primeau. Richard Nester, Margarete Overend, Christopher Haynes, Liz Unruh, Xander Warrender and Natalie Iggulden have all taught me a lot over the past few weeks.
Here are a couple of photos from the show. Lots more to come.
Hello all, I haven’t updated my website since school started so I finally got some free time and decided it was high time to update my blog. To start off for all who don’t know, I go to Laura Secord Secondary School in St. Chatharines, ON. It’s an amazing school with a special arts program that I’m in for Musical Theatre. Since I’ve been her,e I’ve gotten quite involved in all that happens at my new school. I joined Concert Choir, Jazz Choir, GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) and was part of my school’s drama night. Our choir preformed with Robert Pilon, who played the Phantom of the Opera. We performed in Toronto at the St. Lawrence Center for the Arts to benefit Sheena’s Place, which is a organization in Toronto helping people with eating disorders. It was an inspiring concert with great performers. Our choir practices start at 7:10 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus we have two and a half hours after school practices leading up to performances. After our choir performance, our school had a drama trip to Toronto for an Improv training and we went to see the musical Matilda.
Me in front of ED Mirfish Theatre
Me getting ready to see the show.
Matilda was the most amazing show I’d ever seen! I enjoyed it so much! The ensemble was amazing; great dancing and acting from all of the actors.
The day after Matilda was our school’s Drama Night. It was the first drama performance I have done at my new school and I was very excited. The show went off without a hitch! It was an amazing time I’ll never forget.
For awhile, things were calm at school so I started a side project with my best friend, Jessica. We are writing a Steven Universe fan fiction, using the same world but different characters. Jessica is a very talented writer, who writes tons of fan fictions. Recently, we were watching Steven Universe we decided we should co-write a fan fiction and a week later we made the characters and developed the plot and now we’re writing non-stop. The tittle of the fan fiction is, “Crystal Chaos,” and is published on archiveofourown.org/works/8677564/chapters/19893790 and fanfiction.net/s/12250817/1/Crystal-Chaos just click on the links and search Crystal Chaos and read our fan fiction!! You can also follow Jessica’s fan fiction account Twitter @burning_behind for updates on all her works including our Steven Universe fan fiction. Please follow.
The other day we had a Comedia dell’arte which was very interesting. It is a Italian form of comedic acting where you wear masks that cover half of your face and assume the characters those masks represent. It also has an improve side which involves making jokes about politics and sex. The work shop was eye opening and introduced me to a different side of acting. After the workshop, we saw a show put on by the acting company who gave us the workshop. It was a play called, “Fools Gold” which tells the story of a father signing a contract with “Count Viagra” that requires his daughter to marry the Count for a thousand gold pieces. The story unfolds that his daughter, Isabelle, is in love with another and is very reluctant in marrying Viagra. In the end it all works out, Isabelle marries her true love and her father still keeps his gold. The show involved audience participation. We help certain characters make decisions in the story and at one point one of the main characters leaped into the audience, crawled over our seats and sat upon a girl in the third row. That’s what we say at Secord, “it’s just another day”. Over all, I loved the show and would watch it again anytime. Coming up? Laura Secord’s having a Christmas concert on Tuesday, December 13th. If you want to see an amazing show full of young talent, please come out and show your support. So that’s all that’s new with me. I promise more blog updates will be made in the future, more frequently. Thanks to all my supporters and please check in regularly for new content.
After a summer of rehearsals, it was great to get Little Shop of Horrors into performances. We ran 6 shows during September and every show was sold out. It was a really great experience to play in a small, intimate venue and to be sometimes right in the audience. I’ve never been singing and literally brushing shoulders with the audience – it was great, intimidating and personal in a new way for me. Our cast was great. They really welcomed me and made me feel like part of a really creative family. I’m grateful to the producers, Rob and Dina, and to Brian Vogt, the director, for taking a chance and casting me. I’m the youngest person they’ve ever had in one of their shows and I hope they felt that I put in the hard work and dedication to live up to their expectations. Apart from playing with puppets as a kid, I haven’t done any puppetry. My main role was as the puppeteer for 3 of the 4 on-stage versions of Audrey 2. It was a real challenge to follow the on-stage actions of the live characters when I was either wedged under a counter with my hand in little Audrey or stuffed into a giant, hot flower pot as medium sized Audrey. Then getting to sync my puppet actions to someone else singing Audrey 2’s lines was a whole other level of acting. I loved it. I learned so much from everyone and our reviews were excellent.
Here’s a couple of puppet shots:
It’s not easy being green… and stuffed into a giant plant pot.
Do you think that this is my good side? Man, I had to sit still a lot in this show.
I am performing in a Cabaret show put on by Something-Something Productions and Cork’s Eatery. There are only 2 shows and they are coming up fast. Be sure to get your tickets. I put the event page link below. Hope to see you all there.
I’m so excited to tell everyone about my current project. I’m working with Something Something Productions, a theatre group out of Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON, to put on Little Shop of Horrors in September. We’ve got a super cast and I’m pumped to be a part of it. The tickets are already starting to fly off the shelf, so be sure to get them while you can. I’ll be posting more as our rehearsals move along. But, I’ve got to say the music is already tight. You’ve got to come see it.
At the end of June, I finally graduated from elementary school. It’s been a great couple of years at Forestview school, but I am so ready to move on to high school. I won the drama award – for the most and bestest dramatic person in the whole grade. Yay, me!! Here are some photos of the day. Oh yeah, I’m now at summer school getting past the pesky, mandatory phys. ed credit so I can dedicate my studies to theatre come fall.
This is it. The big moment.
Mrs. Kiemele, one of my favourite music teachers and I.
Here I am with my nanny and grandpa.
Who won the drama medal? Me, glorious, me.
My mom, dad and I after my graduation.
Here is a video of me performing at the Gala Showcase of the Niagara Musical Theatre and Voice Competition in May. Thanks to my amazing singing teacher, Lisa Brillon, I got my first sweep of all the categories I competed in. Hope you enjoy the song and dance.
Wow. I can’t believe that I haven’t written anything in 3 months. After Alice in Wonderland, I had to immerse myself in getting caught up at school and with all of my other stuff. Here is a short review to get you all caught up.
School: Everything is great. I auditioned to attend Laura Secord High School which is the only arts high school in our area. I’m excited to say that I got accepted so I’ll be starting grade 9 there in the fall. This summer I’m planning to take my mandatory phys. ed credit at summer school so I can focus on the good stuff in September.
Acting: I’ve been back and forth to Toronto for auditions a bunch of times in the past few weeks. I just had one yesterday for a kids movie of the week. My fingers are crossed but I did have a great feeling coming out of the audition. We started shooting The Telltale Kindred and have most of episode one shot. We’ve run into a couple of scheduling challenges but are working to get more in the can. The cast is great and we have tons of fun on set. I haven’t auditioned for any theatre in the last little while due to my commitment to this project.
Singing: It’s music festival season and I’ve been working up my repertoire to get ready. My teacher, Lisa Brillon, is demanding and a total perfectionist when it comes to diction so I’ve been slaving away on my songs. All of her beatings have paid off because I was in 2 festivals last week – Stamford Kiwanis Music Festival and the St. Catharines Kiwanis Music Festival. I was in 4 classes and won first in 3 of them. I got second in the last and it was a 1 point difference between 2nd and 1st. I was recommended to the provincial level music festival from Stamford. This is the 2nd year in a row to go to the provincials and I am so pleased with that result. I also won a cash scholarship from Stamford so I can do a little shopping. I’ll be competing in the Niagara Musical Theatre and Voice competition in a few weeks. Stay tuned for updates.
Dance: I’ve been working on tap, ballet and jazz this year. Our end of the year recital is coming up and I’ll post some photos from it – even though they have me wearing a fuchsia vest in one of the numbers. I’ll say one thing, I’m a lot more flexible than this time last year. Proud to say that I can stand on one foot and put the other foot behind my back and touch my head. The move to Broadway Lights dance studio has been great.
That’s all for now. I promise to write more often.
Milo Boccinfuso 