Well, it’s that time of the semester where you are entering the long haul, where even though a break is so near in sight, the days begin to go by slower and slower… and your pile of work keeps getting higher and higher. The fact that it has been more than 3 weeks since my last post should go to show just how much I’ve had going on. I wish I had taken more chances to blog, but regardless, I’ll recap. Right after we got back from NYC, She Stoops rehearsals kicked into high gear. We only had a few weeks coming back from break before our tech rehearsals began. The show has officially closed its run and now looking back on it two days after closing, I am immensely happy about the entire experience. This show has been a very intense process, but has become probably the most rewarding theatrical process I have had to date. I committed myself completely to the role of George Hastings and found both internal and external motivation for my emotions and objectives. After having a few actor conferences with Helen, the director, I became even more confident because she reassured me that she could easily see the hard work I was doing and that my character kept evolving incredibly throughout the process.

There are a lot of underclassmen in this production and that made me feel as if, as a Junior, I should set a good example for acting professionally in this department, and I think it came through and I hope I was a good role model for them. As a cast we have all become very very close, in part because we have spent hours upon hours together for basically the past month and a half. Marlowe is played by Cameron Doucette, who is a freshman that I didn’t know very well before this production, but I feel very close to him now because we found a place in our relationship to help take our characters to the level of care for each other that they have. The same concept worked with Emma, who plays my romantic love interest, Constance Neville. I obviously don’t have these intense feelings for her in real life, but we met each other in the middle and giving each other strong emotions to work with and helped the other to get to the right place. Our audiences were all great, and as always some hooted and hollered and others soaked it in more silently (typically on a Sunday matinee), but it was altogether a truly enlightening experience.

Of course there were certain rehearsals where I felt that I made a huge amount of progress and others where I sort of sifted through the process, but there are moments I will never forget where I could feel the sensitivity and emotion of the character take over me and that is where I knew I understood Hastings and no matter what I would feel him at least somewhat from that point on. After these moments I knew I could take myself there; that it was just a matter of focus and strength in character. Rehearsals consumed my free time, but I managed to still keep up with my school work. Being busy usually helps me to get my work done because if I am always free then I feel I can put things off because my free time is unlimited. When I feel my free time is limited, I am motivated to get work done at every chance I get. So luckily, I never have an abundance of free time so I should always be a motivated student!

So to conclude: my feelings about closing this run of She Stoops. I am going along the lines of- be happy the opportunity happened instead of being sad that it ended. I am so glad I got this opportunity and have taken so much from the experience, that yes I miss performing the show, but I know I will always take with me what I have acquired and use it in my upcoming acting endeavors and even other endeavors as well.