In an Itchy Costume and Wearing Stage-Makeup

Being behind the scenes of a musical is complicated. It can be fun, boring, monotonous, or bothersome and there will always be some who are doing nothing, and those who are running for their lives to get on stage. In my case, it’s mostly boring. Being an extra in a musical is harder than it looks. I’m always attempting to put expression on, but it’s much more difficult when your character doesn’t have any backstory and is crammed into tiny corners and expected to dance. However, when it all comes together on stage, it seems worth all of the boring, extra hours of sitting/standing and doing nothing. It’s refreshing to see some of the scenes that I’m not in be perfected, and it seems worth it to work my way up from being a slightly useless extra to having a part, someday.

Moreover, the costumes and stage-makeup make things almost unbearable at times. The inability to even rub my nose at times drives me half-insane and the itchy feathers don’t help. After half an hour of pains-taking stage-makeup and painful bobby-pins securely keeping my hair in place, I go to CYT and carefully eat my home-made meal as everyone else puts on their makeup. After I eat, I wiggle out of my everyday clothes and carefully squeeze into my costume and put another costume on over the original one. After this, since I still have about ten minutes of spare time, I realize that I’ve forgotten my kindle (once again) and have to borrow some paper and a pencil from a friend to ease my easily-provoked boredom.

Finally, I’m out on stage. I run as quietly as I can up the stairs with everyone else, and scurry out of the wings with the rest of the crowd. After the first song, I remove myself from the glaring lights and down to the changing rooms, only to realize that I’m on for the next song; and I’m late. Giving up on it, figuring that they can live without me, I carefully lift my outer costume off and put a hat on for my next time on stage. I’m constantly moving so that others can reach their bins which have necessary articles in them, so my drawing goes slowly and I don’t accomplish much except for the fact that I’ve managed to get my mind off mind-controlling boredom, for a few minutes.

But despite the itchy costumes and unbearable makeup, being in a musical is worth it just to be on a stage and in front of other humans is worth it. And in case you’re interested, here’s the link to buy tickets the Seussical the Musical! Buy the tickets under my name (Emily Smith) and be quick! There’s not much time left!

http://www.cytsantacruz.org/shows/

what happened behind the scenes

Dickens lived in the 1800s. He was born in Landport, Portsea, England on February 7, 1812.  He had seven siblings and at age 11 was taken out of school to work at a factory.  He was paid six shillings a week. When his father and the rest of his family were thrown in jail, Charles was left in the city, alone.

After situations improved, he went back to school; then became an office boy, then a freelance reporter, and then an author. He published The Pickwick Papers in 1837 and gained immediate fame.

After publishing many other books, he married Catherine Hegarth. He had ten children when they split up. Sadly, he died of a stroke on June 8, 1870.  The books that he wrote were mostly about poor people’s situations. Dickens is very sarcastic in his books and he shows people’s situations without them coated in sugar and honey.

In Oliver Twist Dickens shows how children were treated in the poorhouse.  Careless and hard-hearted women accidently smothered children when making beds, they scalded them to death when they washed clothes, and the children were almost never washed. They were clothed in the thinnest clothing, beaten and starved. Oliver asks for another tiny bowlful of soup as he was still starving when in the poorhouse, and would’ve been hanged for it if not for a very narrow escape.

The rich people spoke of the poor as though they were whining, overfed dogs. They closed their eyes to the people dying on the sides of the streets and it didn’t even cross their minds that they should maybe help.

Certainly, people were left to starve in the streets, but at least some of them were given jobs!  Some boys could be chimney sweeps, so that they could get stuck in the chimney and have the fire lit while they were still inside. They were only smothered by the smoke or had the bottoms of their feet burned so they couldn’t walk properly for the rest of their lives, but who cares?  They’re replicable! Well, so thought their privileged abusers.

People were often put in prison for no reason. The judge casually assumed that a person who happened to be passing by the scene was guilty, and had them thrown in a cell without a proper trial.

Charles Dickens was one of the only people who wrote about the poor. He lived his books (quite literally) so he could really tell what was going on behind the scenes.

Life

Hello, Person!

Today, I will be talking about life.  A lot of people don’t appreciate life as it is.  I once (well, maybe about a week ago on a youtube video with Seananners) heard that to really enjoy life, you have to work for it.  And I(might) know what you’re thinking.  Well, maybe I don’t but anyway!  Sometimes, maybe on lazy Sundays when the weather is almost uncomfortably warm, you think about thinking of taking your rabbit, dog, or fish on a walk.  But then you begin to make a pretense of getting up, and all of your muscles and toes groan in protest and you sink back, defeated, onto the warm and fluffy couch.  Not so, fellow gerbils!

  You know how there are some times when you force yourself to do something?  They aren’t that often, but you know the feeling afterward.  You are either thinking, ‘Wow, I’m so awesome!’ or ‘Wow, I’m not doing that any time soon.’  You just have to take that risk that you’re going to regret doing it.  Also, doing things you dislike immensely grows you.  Once, I got up early (well, early for me which is about 8:30 a.m.) and I forced myself to get up…and then I went back to bed; I really need to work on my getting up schedule.  But most other times, I’m very happy that I did something like that.  So, basically, life isn’t all about watching Doctor Who or playing Civilization V.  Or maybe playing five hours of Battlefield III straight.  It’s about getting up early and NOT going back to bed!

  Thanks for reading, please post your thoughts in the comments below, and as always, have a great day! J

the little breeze

Hi, Everyone! I would love to know your thoughts, so please comment below and tell me what you'd like me to blog about.

I recently wrote a personification about the breeze. I wasn't going to publish it, but a good friend of mine persuaded me to do so.  In case you don't know, a personification is something that you write about (like a tree or anything really) and make it into a person. At least, you give it characteristics like a person.  You can make a conversation between a computer and its desk if you want!  Anything to give something human characteristics.  Here's my personification:

The breeze is a little girl.  She dances and plays with the sun. Jumping and spinning, she teases the papers that were carelessly left about. Her hair is as white as the dove as it flies and down at her feet it twirls. Her eyes are as blue as the midday sky, and they glisten and gleam like stars. Her dress is as green as the fields at the time when the sun rose for its first morning light. She leaps and flies with her races with time and she laughs at the people below.  It is heard at far above the trees and carried by the birds alone. Or else it is heard at the rocks in the sea, and then it is heard by none.

Tell me what you think of it!  It'd be nice to know how people like it.  Thanks for reading, and have a nice day.