Summertime & the Livin' is THEATRICAL!

Hello friends who actually enjoy reading what I have to say!
I haven't posted for a long while because I've been a busy bee. After my study abroad class in the Netherlands ended, I headed straight to good ol' Spencer, IA and started my internship at the Spencer Community Theatre. I must say, I LOVE it here. If I could do this full-time, I think I would take that offer. I teach classes during the day and at night have play rehearsals.

Billy serenades Cindy and "Rick Rolls" the audience with "Never Gonna Give You Up"

The first show we  did was "Back to the 80's, the Totally Awesome Musical." I gotta say, it was "totally awesome!" I was the stage manager for the production and had "The Time of My Life" calling fun cues like fog... GO... Mirror Ball... GO... & Mr. Miyagi Voice over...GO!!!
The play was like a stereotypical high school sitcom. There was your nerd character, Feargal, who sang "Video Killed the Radio Star" and evidently helped Bill Gates/ "Gatesy" invent the internet! There was also a Star Wars dream sequence. Yup, Yoda mask and all! So, you know that we had a blast with this show!

Me leading some of the 80's kids in the Spencer Flag Fest Day Parade! Yes Ronald, wanted in on the pic. :)

And the Curtain Closes

The semester is winding down. Finals are upon us (word has spread that someone has even passed out in the library computer lab). And as everything must close for summer adventures to ensue, so must my Theatre Simpson Adventures. Last week we had our end of the year awards banquet. We ate good food, danced to some classic rock (my fave), said goodbye to the seniors, and celebrated all of our accomplishments from this year.

This blog is going to be short, sweet and to the point. Next week I'm going to Holland and Belgium for a MayTerm class. I may blog about that, and some of it might be theatre related. But I have a new camera that's ready to make this blog look pretty with pictures so until then, good by Theatre Simpson. See you next year.

Celebrating Over 50 Years of American Theatre

Tomorrow is the opening of another Theatre Simpson production. Festival 2011 is put on by all Simpson College students. It is student directed, stage managed, and designed. Tonight as a way to wrap up the first ever Simpson Symposium Day, a preview of this weekend's performances will be given.

Tomorrow night a respondent from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival will come and review the performance. Since the theme of the Festival is about student written plays by the Kennedy Center for the performing arts. It will be interesting to see how the respondent will think of it. 

The plays that will be performed are Fall From Grace by Jason Martin—a powerful, highly theatrical dreamscape that considers what goes through one’s mind when he’s hanging suspended by a single rope, having fallen off the third highest peak in Alaska.


The second play is Bunnies by Michael Obrien—an hilarious fictional riff on how Hugh Heffner MAY have gotten the idea to start Playboy magazine. 


Both plays are award winning plays and have been performed at the Kennedy Center. These two shows will be performed Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoon.

I Want To Run Away & Join the Circus

After being busy weekend after weekend, I found myself lost yesterday because I actually had some time on my hands. Two of my friends felt the same way and we saw that Cirque Du Soleil was having a show that night in at the Wells Fargo Arena. Of course we jumped at the chance to see it!

Heather and Sammi had both seen Cirque before but this was my first time. It was fantastic! There are many different types of Cirque shows but the one that we saw was called Dralion. It was a salute to Eastern philosophy, it even included a dragon dance! My favorite acts were the clowns, the sash dancer people, the acrobatic jump ropers, the juggler, and the gal who can balance on one hand and then move her body into weird positions. I can't believe the talent all of these people had.

Also being the theatre lighting geek I am, I would like to give props to the girls who had to shimmy up the most wobbly ladders and sit in a rigged catwalks during the whole performance (intermission and all). The whole performance is about 2 hours long, so for them to sit through the whole thing while keeping their heads in the game to be spot lights without having a bathroom break is awesome! You go girls!

I would also like to give props to the clowns. One of them was planted in the audience and acted like an audience member. I almost felt cheated when I found out that he was a member of their company, but it just proves what a good actor he is. He acted just like a normal guy without any acting experience who was forced onstage, until toward the end of the show when he started doing fancy flips.

All in all, I feel that I now need to see all of the shows. Cirque Du Soleil is like pokemon. You gotta see/catch em' all!

Another Opening Another Show

Today is the last showing of Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice presented by Sarah Ruhl.
It's been a great run so far. The first night Brad Dell, one of the director's from Iowa State's theatre program came and reviewed our performance. One of his comments was that he wished that he could have sat in on production meetings and see the whole process that led up to the performances, because every aspect is just so fluid. The set, lighting, props, sound, and acting each are amazing but together the show as a whole takes the audience on an emotional journey.

Since my job as Dramaturge has been completed, I have been working on the front of house crew as a part of audience services. It's kind of neat being out with the audience. I get to see their reactions after the show. Some people have told me- Good show! That was intense. Wonderful! Interesting. as they left the theatre.

The play revolves around the relationship of a father and daughter. My family came to the show yesterday and I was excited to see my dad's reaction to the show. I was hoping that he would bawl like a baby. If he can cry during war movies, he can sure as heck cry at something as emotional as this play. He didn't. My mom did. My brother said that he was bored, but then again he's an angsty teenage boy who thinks that he's a stud. My dad overanalyzed the play and thought that the play was about how the Greeks thought about death. As it's stated in the program, this play is only based on a Greek myth. My mom, on the other hand, was caught up in the emotions the characters were feeling.

Summer Jobs!

After searching for jobs at Midwest Theatre Auditions, I finally found the perfect job for me in my home town! Over this spring break I had a job interview at the Spencer Community Theatre for the position of the Children's Theatre Director and Education Intern. With this job I get to direct two children's theatre shows and stage manage the third. I also get to teach various theatre classes to children. This will be wonderful! I get the experience and everything to build a resume', but don't have to pay the extra money for housing, food, and laundry!

The Spencer Community Theatre is offering three internships the Tech Director's Assistant, The Musical Director, and the one I got. :) I was pumped to find out that my best friend, Elizabeth Taylor (not THE Elizabeth Taylor. This one's much more wonderful) will be working at SCT too! She got the Technical Internship, so she will be building sets and I will help the children act on them.

Another cool thing about this summer is that one of my housemates here at the performing arts theme house is going to live with me for the summer. One of my Simpson best friends, Heather Powers, will be starring in three shows at the Treasure Village Children's Theatre in Spirit Lake, Iowa (about 15-20 minutes from my house). It's a wonderful family-owned theatre and also doubles as a mini golf course. I've worked there for three summers in the past, but since last summer I've been having new theatrical adventures.

The Cast of Rumplestiltskin (2009) 

Date Auction and Creating the Underworld

Thursday night was the Date Auction Underground. Simpson Students played host to perspective students. The perspectives toured the campus, attended acting classes, auditioned, and attended a rehearsal of Simpson's spring production of "Eurydice." Once they were finished with that, they headed to the Underground.

The girls of the Performing Arts Theme House host a Date Auction to raise money for the AIDS project of Central Iowa while releasing their "wild" side. :)

About $100 was raised for this charity. Songs were sung, skits were performed, and thanks to the Holy Grounds Coffee Shop, the first 15 people at the Underground got a free cup of coffee.

Saturday was filled with another full day of theatre. From 9am-5pm, Theatre Simpson students built a new world for audiences to enjoy. The lighting crew hung all of the lights needed for the show without the designer being available for consulting. This show is sure to be a spectacle, especially with the help of guest lighting designer, Jason Amato, from Austin, Texas. Based on the Greek myth of Orpheus, this play will take you on an emotional journey. Though it is based upon a Greek myth, the playwright Sarah Ruhl specifically states in the script that it should not be read as one. Come see Eurydice!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZyRn14IrZ4&feature=player_embedded

Meet Me In St. Louis

This past weekend I went to St. Louis, MO to participate in the technical interviews at the Midwestern Theatre Auditions or MWTA's. This event is similar to the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. (I blogged about that event in January). At this event there were employers for different theatre and opera companies from all throughout the midwest (some came from even further).

In order to participate in this event, I had to send in an application in November to be considered for auditioning. My technical application went through, but the acting time slots filled up in October, which is the month you can start sending in your information, so they fill up quickly.

I went on this journey with two Simpson theatre majors: Emily Ledger and Kelsey Swanson (aka Kswans). Emily had an audition session in the first half which started 8:30AM. Kswans and I didn't have our interview session until 2:00 so we explored St. Louis! We drove everywhere. We even somehow ended up in East St. Louis which is supposed to be a bad area, which I believe is true since we saw a stop sign that had bullet holes in it. After I took about 30,000 pictures of the arch and the St. Louis Cardinals Stadium we headed back to the University.

I interviewed with every theatre company there. The two of them really liked me, so I hope I hear back from them soon. Kswans had an interview with the Ford Theatre from Washington D.C. (where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated). The interviewer told her that she wished she could hire Kswans right then and there. That would be an awesome place to work.

Now we're back on campus and working hard on two shows at once. This Saturday, the Theatre Simpson company will be working from 9am - 5pm having a work call setting up the set, lighting, sound props and everything else for the next production of Eurydice and this will be my next blog topic. Stay tuned.

Simpson Students Show Their Skill and the Audience Doesn't

West of E Street, the 2011 winners, play the crowd.

On weekends it seems that the Simpson campus is usually barren. The parking lots are empty with students heading home or on other off-campus adventures. The opposite happened this weekend because the popular spectacle that is Simpson’s Got Talent reeled in the masses.

            The talent this year consisted of eight musical acts and one entertaining dance number. Most of the performers sang their hearts out, but their acts ranged from songs from musicals to classic rock to pop and everything in between. One of the two acts that didn’t consist of vocals still rocked the audience. Senior Kevin Rice wowed the crowed with his acting and piano expertise. The other non-singers were Sam Elsner and Braden Everding who did a dance and lip-synch act to Grease that John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John would guffaw at. The performance that got the crowd to their feet was the rocking band of West of E Street. Their rock and roll got the audience jamming along and this is what won them first place.

            Even though students flocked to this event to support their friends and peers, one could say that their overall attitude toward the show left a negative effect. Audience etiquette lesson #1: If you’re feeling antsy before the show starts, do something to prepare yourself for the performance. Walk around. Go to the bathroom. Get a drink of water. Do NOT go to the balcony section just to shake the tree that grows in the BSC and watch the leaves fall on the audience below and laugh at their disgusted reactions. It’s not fun for those who do get “rained” on and even less fun for those who have to clean it up. Lesson #2: I realize that you are at this event to cheer on your friends, but we are all here to cheer on all Simpson students. Therefore don’t talk while someone is performing. It is distracting to the performer and all in all rude. Lesson #3: Drunken behavior is never smiled upon. Drunken public behavior at a school function is worse. It not only makes the person doing the idiotic act look foolish but also shines the school in a bad light. Student Body President Macy Koch tweeted that she saw students “humping, smacking air asses, and taking shots during ‘To God be the Glory.’” This sort of behavior should not be tolerated.

            Though this did happen it is something that we can take away and use to learn from for next year. Then with the combined powers of  talented people and positive attitudes, the future performances of Simpson’s Got Talent will always end with a bang.

Vocal Repression

Did you know that with each year you're alive, your voice is taught to go against it's natural structure? As people grow up, society trains people's voices to behave in a certain manner, yet this manner adds tension to your voice and in the end, harms it. When people scream at a football game, their voices go hoarse. Yet, babies can cry for hours upon hours without anything happening to them.

This semester I'm taking an acting class that focuses on fixing these habits. Through different and strenuous breathing exercises, my class and I have been first finding our habits and have been working on correcting them. One of my habits is that when I speak, I don't always use my natural voice. I tend to speak in an upper register when my natural voice is lower. Most women have this habit. Other habits happen because social norms teach children when to be quiet, to stifle yawns and sighs, and more. 

So far the exercises have been pretty exhausting at least three students have had to stop in the middle of class because they have feelings of nausea and dizziness. We just have to tell ourselves the old saying: No pain. No gain. I have 21 years of vocal habits to correct.  

Update Into Meghan's Theatrical World

Design work on Eurydice keeps getting further along, yet Theatre Simpson is already getting ready for their final project of the year. The list of design positions for Festival 2011 has been announced. This festival is directed by the seniors and is entirely student lead. Two actors from this production are nominated for the Irene Ryan Scholarship like the other shows and all design work are up for possible awards at next years Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.

With this said, I would like to congratulate the newly announced design team for Festival 2011.

	Festival of Short Plays--2011
	"John F. Kennedy Center/Performing Arts"
	Production Leadership (current as of 1-28-11)
Falling From Grace				Bunnies
Director--Tiffany Flory				Director--Emily Ledger
Stage Manager--Eliz Hewitt				Stage Manager--Shelby Burgus
	Producer--			Tom Woldt
	Production Stage Manager--			Meghan Vosberg
	Lighting Designer--			Kelsey Swanson
	Scenic Designer--			Cassandra Ring
	Student Technical Director--			Paul Privitera
	Costume Designer--			Lindsey Oetken
	Makeup/Hair Designer--			Natalie Hining
	Props Designer/Master--			Samantha Aaron
	Sound Designer--			Heather Powers

New Semester, New Seats, and Underground!

The new seats!

The old seats. Goodbye green seats!

It's the third day back on campus since our busy week at ACTF and we're helping our friends in the Simpson Music Department get ready for their spring opera, Albert Herring. Even though we're jealous that they get to use the new version of Pote Theatre before we do for "Eurydice." The new red, purple, and, gold seats and red carpet are much more sophisticated looking than the old green ones that looked fit for a miniature golf course.

In other news, the Underground is back this friday and is Star Wars themed! Dress as your favorite character and win a prize. Made up characters are also welcome. Sith or Jedi all are welcome. The Underground is a once a month caberet-style line up of performances sponsored by the Performing Arts Theme House of Simpson College, the longest running theme house of Simpson College. Come to Camp Lounge at 9:30pm and bring your spare change. All donations will go to the AIDS Project of Northern Iowa. Come have fun, geek out, and help a good cause.
http://JessIrvinPhotos.zenfolio.com/p9696917/e32cb84d0 (Click on the link to see a preview of what the Underground has in store. Star Wars skits are go!) See you there. 

More amusing than mangos

Today the business has finally started slowing down. I saw three plays today.
Once On This Island
Richard III
Godspell

The first one I saw was called Once On This Island. It was absolutely adorable. It was a musical that made the audience clap along and feel an emotional attachment to every character. It was by far my favorite play I saw today. It was put on by Highland Community College. The plot revolves around a young island peasant woman named Ti Moune. As a little girl she was saved from a flood by the water god, Agwe. She then goes on a journey that follow the universal theme of life not always being fair and that the only hope a person can have is the power of love and forgiveness. It is a healing power. My title for this particular blog is actually a quote by the earth goddess who is quite witty. The only thing that turned me off about the show was some of the lighting cues. The actors didn't always make it to their light, so they were acting in the dark and hard to see.  The reason for this bungle is most likely because the crew hung the lights in this new space and not their original stage. Yet, you think that this wouldn't be a problem because they still rehearse before performing for the 1,500 people at this festival. But all in all, it's a touching performance that has the audience on their feet begging for more.

After about an hour break for lunch, we took bus to a theatre in downtown Ames to see Richard III. In a blunt conclusion: Richard's a prick, but don't worry I'll do a better summary. The story was about poor deformed Richard III, unloved and not next in line as an heir to the thrown. His lust for power then drives him to murder, even of his two preteen nephews who were in line before him. UMD, Duluth took a classic Shakespearean piece and set it in a non-traditional setting. I was turned off to this play, because it seemed too familiar to Simpson's production last year of Henry 5 (also by Shakespeare). Both plays were set in a post-apoptalyptic state. Scaffolding made up the set and punk music was used for transitions. The only thing that really impressed me was the lighting. There was a scrim set in the background and whenever someone died in the play, the scrim lit up and you could see blood splattering in the background. It made those people who were in midday nap mode sit up in their seats.


Godspell was performed by Johnson County Community College of Overland Park, Kansas. The set was utterly amazing. The band for this musical was onstage disguised as other characters. A giant rusty pickup truck was the band was set up. A trap-set was in the truck's bed and a keyboard was set up where the engine would normally be. The best part was that the conductor actually acted. He came out as a drunken bum who sleeps in the rusty pickup. He even carried a liquor bottle, but of course, he straightened his act when he conducted. The cast was a talented singing bunch and quite smart. Most of their lines were improvised and kept by the director. It was a laughing riot.

Simpson theatre students: Meghan Vosberg (Me!), Samantha Aaron, and Heather Powers strike a pose with the gods from "Once On This Island."

Spawn of Thespis

Team Simpson (AKA Team Gold with Team Ram Rod!) With our powers combined... we are... Team Gold Rod!

Day two in the land of Ames. The announcement for the finals of stage crew showdown was today. The main competition revolved around set shifting. Simpson College became allies with Team Ram Rod from North Dakota. (Their mascot was in lederhosen.)

Team Simpson (AKA Team Gold) Members: Ethan Newman, Paul Privitera, Natalie Hining, and Kelsey Swanson

Sadly the proud Simpson team will not be going on. But we do have a representative going onward to Semifinals for the Irene Ryan scholarship. Congrats to Tiffany Flory and her scene partner Erin Tracy. You girls rock!

And now I must hit the hay. I have an audition tomorrow morning at 8am and I will be the first out of over 200 people to audition for the entire day. Good morning! My name is Meghan Vosberg and this is your wake up call as I rap in your face.

Welcome to Ames

The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for Region 5 is underway! It's been awesome so far. And before I start listing it's awesomeness, I would like to thank Simpson College for letting us use the big bus so our company all rode together instead of taking separate (not so peppy) vans.

And now to the awesomeness. Simpson College is well represented this year. At the opening ceremony, the festival president announced the outstanding merit awards. Awards went to:
-Last year's cast of Spring Awakening (Outstanding acting in an ensemble)
-Cassie Ring (Assistant Set Designer for The Learned Ladies)
-Kennedy Horton (Hair and Make-up Designer for The Learned Ladies)

Congrats Simpson!

                         (Simpson's rowdy group cheering their faces off at Stage Crew Showdown!)


After that everyone raced over to Iowa State's Fisher Theatre to watch Stage Crew Showdown. For those who don't know what that is, it's a competition for those company members who work backstage. The contest for tonight was a relay race of hanging drops and lights. Judging went by who was the fastest and the most accurate, but for those in the crowd it was about who could scream and cheer for their team the loudest. But I shouldn't write too much since it is after midnight and I have an audition in the morning at 9:00 AM. I shall fill you in later. Til then!

Kothurnos

Kothurnos-
(Greek) High shoes worn by tragic actors to increase their stature.

My first blog is up and running. I had the hardest time trying to find a title. I knew that I wanted to write about theatre since the Blank Performing Arts Center at Simpson College is where I end up spending the majority of my time. I even Googled different theatrical terms, thus finding the random Greek term listed above. Theatre is my passion. So, don't worry. There will be plenty to blog about. Get ready for my adventures I will be spending all next week (January 17th-21st) in Ames, Iowa for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. There will be competitions, plays, auditioning, interviewing, and meeting some of the most interesting people ever. Stay tuned.