Busy Times, Friends… Busy Times

I imagine you’ve been wondering what happened that I’ve been gone for a month… and if you haven’t, then shame on you.  It’s been a very busy month for me.  You should care.

I did some voice over work up in Toronto for a Ryerson University project which was really neat.  I’ve never done voice over work and I really enjoyed this little contribution to a project.  I guess that there are some ACTRA rules about getting a credit but I did the work just for the experience.  I’d certainly do it again.

I’ve also be preparing for my next singing competition.  I’m doing 5 classes, including a concert class.  This has been keeping me in the basement a lot since that’s where we have our rehearsal space.  But lots of work on staging and adding some dance to my performances.  I’m using this competition to practice for the Provincials which are coming up in June.  I’m so excited and so nervous to be competing at that level.  I’ll be singing Wonderin’ from Anne of Green Gables and Razzle Dazzle from Chicago for Provincials.  As I get closer to the competition, I’ll record some video and post it up.

I’ve missed a lot of jazz classes and I’m trying to get caught up.  Boy, those warm ups leave you sore when you’ve been away even just a few classes.

Well, that’s a quick note to get you all caught up.  What have you been doing to fill the void I’ve left?  Leave me a note.

Review: Into The Woods – Niagara Falls Musical Theatre Society

As you may know, I’m involved in a production of Sondheim’s Into the Woods right now.  To add some variety to our rehearsals, Roxanne our director had all of us go and see another (adult) production of the show.  I’ve got to say that I was generally quite impressed.

What I really liked:

• The Firehall Theatre is quite small and they managed to create quite a good set in a limited space.  They had at least 4 ways onto and off of stage which kept the show flowing and interesting.  Rapunzel’s tower rotated to become a really big tree which was cool.
• Little Red was played by a very creative actor who managed to portray a fun, saucy but very likable character.  She was able to express herself as a teen wanting to still have fun like a kids but also frustratingly wanting to be treated as an adult.
• The prince’s kissing with the baker’s wife in the woods was so funny.  I loved the song and the “what the hell” look from the baker’s wife when they went off stage to do something else.  (hee hee hee.  I know what they did!)
• The choreo and blocking was just great.  As I said earlier, the stage was really small and yet they kept almost 20 people from looking uncomfortable or squished during the big numbers.

I didn’t like so much:

• Jack’s solo – Giants in the Sky.  I’m biased since I’m playing this role in our production but I didn’t think that this Jack sang the song so well.  It was musically fine but I see the mood of the song as much bigger.  The song is about Jack’s first big life experience and he should come down the beanstalk a more changed person.

Overall, I think that the show was pretty great.  I didn’t mind spending 3 hours of my weekend watching it with a whole bunch of my friends.  I’ve never seen a show while I was working on the same piece so it gave all of us lots to think about as we develop our characters.  Time well spent.