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2nd performance running strong. I think my mom's out in the audience so I'm excited that she's finally seeing what we've all worked on for so long. I feel like the witches have done pretty well so far. I'm proud of us. I don't know what else to write other than I'm really happy. "hi. the end." - brandon rios

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Opening night was an outstanding success!!! I'm so happy right now. In the words of the Brandon Rios: "im so wow." We all worked so hard to create this and it turned out beautifully. Yes, there were some hiccups here and there, but we powered through and did what we knew we could always do. All of the hype that was going on for the show made it a million times better. Everything was leading up to this point and I really feel like we fulfilled our goals. We told a lovely yet tragic story. We left the audience in awe. I couldn't be prouder of our entire cast and everybody involved. I love this. I love these people. I love theatre.

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Today went really really well in my opinion. Even though we haven't had a full seamless runthrough, I'm confident in our performances. We got really far today and did a lot that needed to be done. Everything with Sophie has gotten a lot better. The tension that was between all of us is pretty much gone. I think we're all just at the point where we know that drama and trying to fix eachother isn't going to make any kind of change anymore and that we need our chemistry in order to get what we want out of our performances. Whatever the reason is, I'm glad it's nothing to worry about anymore. I just want to focus in and energize for the show. These are the last few times we'll ever get to perform as the witches. It's unlikely that we'll ever get to play roles similar to these again, so I just want to make the best of it. I want us to be the best that we can be and I know we're capable of it. I'm getting all sentimental and stuff now but I'm really going to miss this role. I wouldn't have rather had any other role. It was a challenge and though there were MANY rough patches, I loved it.

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We finally got a full run through today (kinda not really?) and it feels pretty good. It was really frustrating though cause I kept on messing up. I had asked Katie beforehand how they changed Everybody Wants and I really really made sure I knew but when we went up there she hadn't told me the right thing which was really embarrassing. Like really embarrassing. Also, when we're doing the spell, the beats from backstage start to get off and then all the witches start to trail off and get confused. Frustrate.

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I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate not being at rehearsal. I felt so gross earlier it was probably best that I stayed home and didn't get anybody else sick. I'm feeling a lot better right now though. Honestly, if my mom was home, I'd ask her to drive me to school for the last five periods so I could go to rehearsal. I'm so mad at myself for letting myself get sick. I don't think I was sleeping or eating enough. I just don't want a repeat of Daniel Hand. That whole thing sucked so much. I really am feeling better though so hopefully after this weekend I'll be 100% good *knock on wood*
I just called my mom to ask her if I could go to the last 5 periods of school so I could go to rehearsal cause Sophie was willing to drive me and she said no. I understand why she doesn't want me to go but we only have a few rehearsals left and now I have to miss one of them. I'm so frustrated and upset I just want to go to rehearsal

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I just want to stop screwing everything up. The witch scenes were so rough today and yeah it is the first time we ran them on the stage but I just feel like such a failure. I just hope that we can run through the whole show tomorrow. It'll be a huge relief to have mics and everything.
I know this is really short. I'll probably continue writing this later when i have a clearer head.

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So you're probably going to hear this from Sophie eventually (or you already have), but things were very dramatic backstage today. We performed Scars Flown Proud, Tessellate, and Everybody Wants to Rule The World. These are all songs that the we worked on and drilled to sound better and they really really did sound good when we were working on them. They had improved so much and I actually felt good about the sound that we were going to put out there. Then we performed them all and I just felt sick to my stomach. All the work that we had done to make sure that Sophie was on the correct pitch and doing things correctly had vanished. It was as if we had never done anything. Katie and I kind of brushed it off until we got to Rule The World. For a while it has felt like she's trying to upstage us and when we were doing that song it was like the last straw for both of us. Also, she started way too high and we had a hard time singing as high as we ended up having to towards the end of the song. It wasn't like this was the first time it had happened, either. I knew that we should talk to her because our frustration had been going on for so long and we had given her time to try to work it out on her own and we had taken strides to guide her in the right direction and it just felt like our efforts weren't having any sort of effect. To put in blatantly, we were frustrated. We consulted a few trustworthy people (primarily Jacob) and we were advised to talk to her. We really felt like it needed to be done. We by no means were planning to humiliate her or demean her in any way, we just wanted to bring some attention to the situation given how much it had been bothering us for so long. We have a week until the show goes up and nothing had changed. We personally felt that it was in our best interest to discuss this with her. We pulled her aside to the dressing room so we could have some privacy and we just started telling her how we felt. We were trying so hard to be civil and mature and kind while still getting out point across. We made sure not to make it sound like we were attacking her or insulting her. I knew that as soon as we spoke to her she would shut down. That's exactly what we did. It was about a 20 minute thing and she only said a few things. These things were something along the lines of "I'm trying" and "You guys are asking for answers that I don't have" which frustrated me. All we wanted to do was discuss the issue and work it out but she refused to talk to us. We repeatedly said "You can talk to us, blah blah blah, is there anything we're doing that is affecting your process, do we need to change anything, is there anything that we can do to help" and I know this all sounds like blah blah blah yeah we were being nice whatever but we really were trying our best not to sound like we were attacking her. Eventually we gave up because she refused to talk to us, so we told her we loved her and that she can talk to us and then we left. We all kind of ignored that it happened for the rest of rehearsal, but Kaylee told me that on the car ride home, Sophie was freaking out. She was crying and yelling about how we had told her that she sounded like shiz (replace with cuss word) and that she's untalented and basically things like that. We didn't intend for her to take anything that we said that way. She's been extremely difficult to work with for the entirety of this show and I'm quite frankly sick of her freak outs and shutting down and fighting back.
Trust me D, I know you have so many things to worry and stress about right now. I don't want you to think that I'm trying to burden you with this. I don't want you to worry about it, unless it gets even more out of hand or you feel that you should, which I doubt. It's all drama that works itself out eventually. It's just what's on my mind and I needed to get it out.

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I really enjoyed what we did in Theatre Workshop today. We just sat in the dark and focused on breathing while D talked to us. It was really relaxing and it helped to clear my head. This is gonna sound really weird but I had just been wanting to hug the stage and I got to when we were stretching. I know that sounds crazy or whatever but it makes me really happy and I had been wanting to just sit and appreciate it.
We continued to build the set today and we are making amazing strides. I got to cut some wood and sweep up some wood shavings which was quite eventful. To be honest, cutting the wood was terrifying but fun at the same time. Also, the witches found some of our props for the spell. Everything is slowly but surely coming together :)
Once we actually started running things, I don't know exactly why I reacted to things the way that I did but things went a little downhill for me. Katie just kept on telling me that I was wrong and making me feel bad or stupid for it but I'm also pretty sensitive when it comes to that so it bothered me and made me really angry at myself. I'm so frustrated that I can't get myself to fall all the way down to the ground at the end of the first witch song. It's uncomfortable for me but I need to get out of my comfort zone if I want to get better. I know this fall isn't the biggest deal in the world but if I can't bring myself to fall to the ground how can I push myself any further than that? I just feel like I'm doing such a subpar job right now and I'm frustrating myself. When we did the opening witch song, it was so hard not to just think about all the work that we did that went to waste. It might have just been me and Katie who felt that it wasn't very good, but we spent all this time going through it phrase by phrase and note by note and it didn't seem to make any difference when we actually did it. I just want to sleep for longer than a few hours, get out of this mood that I'm in, hopefully do well on my PSAT, and get myself to push out of my comfort zone.

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We didn't do much actual rehearsal-wise today, but we got so much done. We started building the set and got a lot done with that, hung up the posters and did the showcase thing for advertisement, figured out the witch makeup, worked out a ton of costuming, and got some of our props. These are all things that either really needed to be done or started and I'm so happy that we did that today.
When our costumes come in and we get to put everything together it is going to be so. amazing. I know this show is going to make history at Huntley High School. This show is bigger and greater than anything ever done here and it's amazing to see it come together and even be a part of it. We're all so lucky to have this.
Also, I am 1000000000% sure this show is cursed.

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The final battle with Mac and Duff looks insane. I love it. It's crazy how large of an effect music can have on something. It almost makes it completely new. I couldn't stop watching that scene while we were running it today.
I want to go and record the witches singing our songs during rehearsal today, but it's probably not happening. Katie is off talking to Jacob and it looks pretty important so I don't want to interrupt the conversation, but I think it'll really help if we listen to ourselves. It's hard to tell what we need to fix when we can't actually hear ourselves. Maybe we won't end up doing it, I don't know. I just really think it would help. Wow, I complain on here so often. Obviously I'm not perfect, I just enjoy getting things done (at least most of the time) and it's frustrating when I'm in work mode and others aren't. Whatchyagonnado

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We started off the day by figuring out what we're going to try to use for the chant. There is a ton of animal insides and whatnot which will be interesting. I'm so excited for that scene. We also did a line-through, which went really well. I'm trying hard to get my voice loud enough but still sound right. I noticed during Theatre Workshop today that our harmonies for Mad World sounded a little weird, but that could just be me. I think I'm going to try to record it one time so we can listen and adjust. All the witches actually just agreed that we're going to do that with all of our songs so that we can critique ourselves and see what we need to fix.
We had a very interesting experience at Menard's today, but it was a fun field trip. At least we can get started on the set now. I've said this a million times but I'm. so. excited!!!

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We ran our scenes in the PAC today. There's a choir concert tomorrow, so the risers were on stage and the witches got to stand up on them. I can't even express how empowering it felt to have that height. I don't typically have that feeling because I'm a very short and pretty wimpy person so having that powerful feeling was so awesome. Also, I absolutely love the transition after the coronation. It's insanely seamless and satisfying.
Problems with Sophie continue, but we're used to it at this point. We're trying our best to work with it, but pretty much every day at the end of rehearsal everyone forgets about it. It's just frustrating in the moment when we're trying to work and collaborate.
We continued to work on the spell and waltz today. We ran it through without stopping and it felt really good. I had my lines down which was nice since we hadn't run it in a while. The actual spell part went pretty well for being the first time with all of the added on stuff. I feel like we just need to keep on running it so we can get into the physicality and the rhythm of it all. Today was the first day that I truly felt strong. And I don't mean that as in I've never felt it before, but I really felt strong and powerful on stage today. I really felt like I was doing something that had an effect and that I was in control. Being in the PAC and having the apparitions definitely helped. Today was a good day :)

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We ran acts one and two today. I seriously can't believe how quickly the show is coming up. It's insane how quickly this is coming.
Ava did an absolutely AMAZING job on the apparitions. They're so chilling and cool.
I'm so excited to get into the PAC. I just love when things finally begin to come together and the tech is such a large part of this show so I feel like it'll add even more to the beauty we already have. To be honest, I really don't like working at the study hall room. I'm not even sure why, it just isn't a very comfortable spot to me. Comfort isn't what matters though, so I've been able to just ignore that.
We just missed our Everybody Wants to Rule the World cue which was our own fault. We were just confused because we had never run it in sequence before and it has been a few weeks since we actually run it fully, which was in the stairwell. It also kinda sucked cause part of the reason we missed it was because we were outside running that exact song. While we were singing it, we heard the music and ran into the room. I know we should have known better and that's our fault. We hadn't ever practiced it in the study hall room, but it was easily adjustable. Honestly, that stuff upset me but Sophie made it a huge deal. Freaking out about things and pouting like children isn't going to get us anywhere. We just need to move on and be ready to get it right next time, and that's what I plan on doing.

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So far we haven't done too much at rehearsal, but I'm SO happy that w'ere going to start rehearsing in class. I just really enjoy rehearsal environments, especially in the PAC, so I think this is going to be really great. We did a run through of Act 1 today and it went pretty well for the witches. I really like Tessellate in general. The song and the dance work well in my opinion. I'm excited to get everything else up and running.
We have so little time left it's crazy. When I look at the calendar, I can hardly believe it. So far, this process has seemed to fly by. I don't want it to end

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I don't even know if this is for sure or if it's even in any kind of consideration, but I really really really don't like the color thing that Josh is doing for the makeup. I don't even want him to do our makeup. Sure he's capable and everything, but I don't feel like his ideas and what he wants is what we all want. I feel like the color thing is too much like the fairies from Sleeping Beauty. We ruled out the bright colors like that in the beginning. I don't understand why they're being brought back. I don't want to look cheesy and dumb. I'm sorry, I sound like a complete brat and there is no real excuse for that, I just don't want to look cheesy. I feel really bad because I feel like all the witches were very pushy today. I know it's really frustrating and we were a little rude. I'm sorry for that.

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Today, we added some more complexity to the waltz. D wants us to try out not touching at all. Katie and I tried it and it wasn't too difficult, so I think it'll work. Also, we changed it so that Macbeth is leading instead of the witches. Instead of Macbeth spinning us out, we "push" him to the next place he needs to be, whether that be on the ground or into another witch's arms.
We took pictures today and it was SOOOOO FUN. Doing some of the scenes on stage really made it come to life I guess. Everything felt real. The pictures I've seen, particularly of Mac and Lady Mac, look absolutely incredible. I can't wait for tech week to come around and all of this stuff to finally come together, but I also don't want it to be over.

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The scenes in Theatre Workshop have been really difficult to work out with everybody being in several scenes. Having to share actors is extremely difficult. I love Katie's scene so much, but I'm a little concerned for Josh's scene. Sometimes he doesn't seem like he wants to put in the effort, which I understand, but we have to get it done at some point. Jacob and I really need to work on the fighting in our scene. I don't want it to look tacky, so we have to work it out.
In rehearsal, we ran a lot of the witch stuff and I finally got off book!!! It was my first time really having to memorize Shakespeare, so I'm really excited. I know I don't have too many lines, but it's still exciting. We also ran through all of our songs individually and it was weird so see how quickly we were able to get through them. It always seemed like we had a lot more, so I guess that we're growing. yayyyyy

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It's homecoming fridayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy we aren't going to the game today mainly because the tailgate was cancelled and it's going to rain. Instead, Kaylee, Sophie, Jason, and I are going to get our nails done for the dance tomorrow. Jason isn't getting his nails done. He's getting his gbf on. Kaylee hurt her ankle and I'm honestly really worried about it. I hope that it's something minor and that she's okay within a few days. I genuinely believe that this show is cursed. Katie's migraines have been terrible, Kaylee hurt her ankle, Ben's been sick, Jayden broke a bone, and drama has been through the roof. Luckily the drama hasn't been as distracting lately because it's hasn't been going on as much, but I'm still a firm believer that this show is seriously cursed. Also, I haven't actually sat in to watch a rehearsal in a while and I forgot how awesome it is to see a show come together. We may still have a bit to go, but this show is so beautiful and tragic and I love it. The energy is a little negative sometimes, but I also feel like I felt that it was like that at my own fault. Whenever my friend group has a lot of stuff going on, everything just feels very negative. Not to mention this is a very tragic show so that doesn't help. Also, they worked on Banquo's death today and it is absolutely devastating.

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Katie and I didn't do much at rehearsal today cause we weren't needed for anything and Sophie wasn't there. One thing though is that there has been SO MUCH LESS DRAMA. This week so far has been so so so nice because everybody's been super chill. It's been awesome. I really hope this lasts.
I'm extremely excited for my scene with Jacob. We started to block it out today and I'm having a bit of trouble personally because I have the continuous issue of knowing how I want something to sound, but I can't quite get it out that way. We have a ton of awesome ideas that we just need to work out and organize. Once we have it worked out and clean up, I think it can be super awesome.

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The parade was such a fun time!!!! Kaylee and I were convicts together and Nadia, as a police officer, arrested us, which I thought was adorable. The homecoming parade is always so much fun. I love just going out and having a fun time with everyone. Sophie, Katie, and I were planning on singing some of our witch songs whenever we stopped and the guys fought, but we only stopped like one time and it wasn't for a very long time so we didn't get to. In hindsight, we could've just sang anyway, but it was pretty hectic so I don't think we would've bothered if we had thought of that then. I don't mind though. It was so much fun. It was pretty cold out but definitely not as bad as last year. It didn't bother me at all. I wish things like this happened more often cause I really enjoy them. It'd be so awesome if the fun school spirit that goes on during homecoming was kept throughout the whole year.
Also, Jacob and I came up with some super awesome ideas for our scene, so I'm totally looking forward to it. I really enjoy working with Jacob. He's 100% willing to put everything into the work and make it great. I'm glad I'm able to have him in my cast.

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We didn't do much for actual rehearsal today but we built the float and chose our costumes for the parade tomorrow.
Josh and I finally figured out what we want to do with his scene. We decided that his character cheated on me and the war discussion is a metaphor for our relationship. At the end, he realizes that I have everything he wants and he proposes to me. The only reason I agree to it is because he'll take me to Germany, which is where my family comes from. Our sock puppets are the discussions that we're having with eachother in our heads, but don't actually have. Then, at the end, we ignore all the issues and get married.
yeah - katie

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We've finally selected the song for when Macbeth and Banquo first encountered the witches. It's called Tessellate by alt-J and I love it. I think it fits really well and has just the perfect sound/tone. It's one of those songs that make me feel right when I listen. I'm so happy with this song :) We created some pretty cool harmonies but I need to quiet down. I never realize how loud I'm being until I listen to it on a video. We need a balance so we can hear Katie's harmony and Sophie's melody.
Rehearsal seemed to go by really fast today but I had a lot of fun. The PAC is just a really lovely place to be. It feels like home.
The guys tried on their kilts today and it was quite eventful. It was weird how well some guys could pull them off

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For the witches, today wasn't a very eventful day during rehearsal. We just ran through some of our songs and helped Sophie work through some things that she was having trouble with. We did that for most of the rehearsal and the rest was spent kinda just hanging out. Drama at rehearsals has been beyond insane and not to mention distracting. There's just always something going on.
I really enjoyed our breakfast during first hour today. It was really fun to just hang out and relax for a bit. We were assigned our casts for our scenes and I got who I asked for, which was Jacob. I'm a little worried because Jacob isn't super happy with me right now, but I know he'll still work with me. My scene is the May 25th one and it's about an author and an "Old Friend" and I'm not quite sure what I want to make out of it yet, but I have a few ideas going.

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The witches finally got into more detail about our past today. We made a lot of decisions about who we are so that we can use that to find out what they really want out of this entire ordeal. Here are some of the ideas we had:
-- The witches are ageless. We were never born, we were made. We felt this to be the most fitting because putting an age on us made us feel too human and mortal.
-- We are fallen angels. We are demons and followers of Satan, and over time our power has grown stronger and stronger so we no longer rely just on him for our power. Now, since we have grown as demons relying on eachother, we need eachother to have any sort of strength or power. This is why we are always together, but we lose our energy when carrying out difficult tasks.
-- We spend our time roaming the earth looking for entertainment. I know this sounds really lame, but we know everything that is going to happen so we seek the most interesting stories and mess with them.
-- We go after Macbeth because he is weak. The festering frustration about his weakness inside him catches our eye. The goodness in him is something that we want to demolish so his path can be made with the most destruction possible.
-- Our "home" is the forest. We go there when we're not physically present, but we are always psychologically present in the show.

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Today was another emotional day in Workshop. We had a "funeral" for Bijan and Justin. I prepared myself by imagining my aunt's death, which was enough to get me to tear up. Once the music started and everyone began sobbing, I was kind of distracted. A lot of the sobs I heard just sounded fake and like they were simply doing what they were assigned to do rather than connecting. I'm not sure who the people were, but it just distracted me. I know it bothered some others too. I spent about the first half of the song trying to get myself to turn around as if I was turning around to see the body of my aunt, which I never actually got to see because her body was donated to science. Once I finally did turn around, I didn't see my aunt. I saw my mom and my dad. I'm not sure why because they're both still alive, but that's what came to my mind. I respond to things like that with a complete wall of emotions, but I found myself holding it back because I didn't want to sound almost melodramatic like some other people. I started to walk towards "my mother" and I wanted to give her my watch because it belongs to her mom, but I didn't feel comfortable crouching down next to her. Josh S eventually walked in front of me and crouched down in front of her, and I immediately thought of my brother. My brother is my best friend in the whole world and imagining him having to go through the pain of losing our parents is unbearable. At this point, I was crying but I continued to hold back. I've discovered that I cope with sad/depressing things with that wall of emotion that typically comes out with a lot of tears or yelling. Later on (like months later) I have so much time to think about it and dwell on it. It takes me a really long period of time to truly comprehend what happened. I still haven't fully comprehended that fact that my aunt is gone. I still feel like she's coming over whenever my cousins do, I still feel like she'll be at the family parties, I still feel like she's gonna call me or my mom any second. I don't feel like she's gone. I miss her a lot. Connecting that emotion with the hypothetical of losing my parents really help me find what I was looking for, but at the end of class when Ben said that everything looked really fake, honestly I was offended and I'm sure some other people were too. Of course he is 100% entitled to his opinions but it really sucks to hear that putting yourself in a darker place to do this isn't enough for it to seem real. And yes in a way this is hypocritical because I agree that some people looked/sounded fake, but I know my emotions weren't fake. They might have looked that way, but I personally know that mine weren't. I don't know about anyone else because I was really in my own world. I kind of isolated myself and shut out everyone else in the room other than Justin, Bijan, and Josh towards the end. There is the very good possibility that he's correct and my emotions did look very false, but I just wish he hadn't said it so harshly.

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Today, we created the witch's spell. We go from the song Dangerous at the beginning of D's Act II and use that rhythm to get the beat for the chant. We found different layers to add to this chant, creating an extremely powerful and eerie ending when Macbeth walks in. I've realized that I use that word in this a lot, but that's how I feel the witches are. It gets really frustrating  because whenever Katie and I try to come up with ideas, Sophie seems to get so mad at us. Today, she was just being so childish. I try my best to remain chill but it's difficult. We do everything that we can do include her ideas because we know that all of our inputs equally matter, but it doesn't seem like she feels that way. I'm not sure what to do about it cause no matter what she gets angry or upset.

Theatre Workshop was very emotional today. That is all.

Whenever Macbeth drinks the potion and starts to go crazy, he honestly scares the crap out of me. I'm not sure how to react as the witch, but I'm sure she's unaffected since she knew it would happen. The first time he did it, I actually jumped.

I went right from rehearsal to Marlowe to audition kids for dance. This is what they have to say to you even though half of them don't know you

liiike you're awesome and I'm glad i have any kind of association with you -Laney
you're awesome -Madeline
hi this is presley -Presley
i like cheese -Fiona
buy a song on itunes -camryn
sure -dianna
hELLO -keely
hi! -Donna
smh -Clare

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SOPHIE GOT HER PUNISHMENT TAKEN AWAY YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY

I can't possibly express how thankful I am to have her fully back in this, but also how grateful I am of how Bijan's handled this. She's been so mature and gracious throughout all of this. All the witches are so unbelievably thankful for her. I just wanna give her a hug. :)
We finally got the chance to show D what we did with Scars Flown Proud. I'm really proud of it so I'm happy we got the chance to show her. All of the stuff for the show is really starting to come along so I'm really loving it.

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We had a field day for rehearsal today and it was so much fun. We played so many fun games and I really felt like we all bonded so much. We really needed what we did today. I feel so much better about the relationship the entire cast has now. I'm praying that this carries into our regular rehearsals. Today was a day of games and bonding, which was just so fun. I loved it so much :)

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Katie says she isn't happy with this show, which sucks. I partially feel like it's my fault but I'm like 99% sure I didn't do anything wrong. She says that this show has too much negative energy for her liking, which I understand because that's her taste. In some ways, I understand where she's coming from. The cast seems to just consist of cliques and I don't want it to be that way. I just wish that we were a family and that Katie was happy with this.
The issue with people not wanting to get work done just continues. The amount of times that I've said something along the lines of "alright what do you guys wanna run?" or "I really feel like we should work on this because [insert reasoning]" and I've gotten silence as an answer is infuriating. I understand we have quite a bit of time to work on it, but before we know it it'll we'll be performing so it's better now than never. It's so annoying that we just sit here and do nothing while we could be working.

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We continued to work on Mad World today. D decided to change it so that Banquo is singing one of the verses and it adds so much to connection between him and Macbeth. I got a little frustrated because it's been pretty difficult to sing the words to the song and waltz with Macbeth at the same time mainly because we're just getting started. Also, the instrumental of the song is a different key than the regular one, and since I have a higher voice range it's a little difficult for me. I've been working to build my lower range so it'll be easier. Luckily it's not too much lower so it won't be super difficult like Everybody Wants to Rule The World. I wish I could sing as low as Katie, Sophie, and Bijan. Earlier in rehearsal, we were all teaching Mad World to Bijan and at first Sophie seemed to be having a really hard time. She seemed really distracted and almost pouty which made things weird for me and Katie. Eventually, Sophie told us that she's really content with everything mainly because she gets to perform closing night. I was so relieved when she told me that. It's really hard to see Sophie sad like how she's been, and seeing that burst of happiness was just so refreshing. Things seem to be going in the right path :)

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Today was "cruddy" (Jason's words) to say the least. The reasons are obvious so I won't go into detail. For me, rehearsal mainly consisted of consoling Sophie, discussing the situation with Jason and Katie, and teaching the witch songs to Bijan. I definitely didn't see being in this place at the beginning of this process. Katie and I are doing everything we can to get Bijan up to date, but I'm worried about Sophie. I'm not sure where she's going to go from here. I know that she needs to work this out for herself, but it'll be really difficult to work and get Bijan caught up if she's pouting, which I can definitely see happening. We're gonna have to just ignore her if she does do that. I'm also really concerned for when we run the rest of the witch scenes. I can definitely see her getting upset while we do that.
Other than that situation, we figured out some really angelic and eerie harmonies for Mad World. We plan to add more tomorrow and teach what we have to Sophie. I can't wait to run that scene again so that we can show them to D.

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We got kicked out of the study hall room today. It's kinda sad to know that we don't have a set rehearsal area, but oh no if the football players didn't have a place to practice what ever shall we do???
I don't know what it is but I'm just very annoyed today. Everyone brings all of their drama and personal stuff to rehearsal and it's really annoying. I don't think there's a single day where everyone seems to be 100% involved because everyone is so caught up in the drama. Sadly I don't even think I can even say that myself. I would like to say I do, but I don't want to sound like an idiot if I'm wrong. I wish the people I'm working with were enthusiastic about everything. It's really hard to do stuff when everyone would rather be sleeping or sitting around doing nothing.
We created something so beautiful today. I couldn't possibly be happier with it. All the witches and Banquo waltz with Macbeth as if he's "dancing with the devil" and it's eerie, elegant, creepy, and almost heartbreaking. I can't possibly put into words how amazing it feels to be a first-hand part of such a strong theatrical moment such as this. I'm gonna try memorizing the song and lines for this scene tonight because I'm extremely excited about this

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My head is killing me right now, but luckily I'm not actually called to rehearsal so I don't have to do anything. Right now, Sophie and I are looking for a song for the witches to sing. I like the song Hunger of the Pine by alt-J (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kLpH6AXL8M) Listen to the last minute or so. The end of it has a really cool mixture of different melodies that all fit together so I think it'd be really cool. Again, I'm in the situation where I want to get work done but nobody feels like it so I'm left to do it on my own, which is hard when we're supposed to be performing this as a group. I'm just going to continue listening to songs to see what can possibly work.
I performed my monologue in class today. I felt okay about it, but I think I definitely could have done better. I felt like I hit the connection, so I didn't feel too bad about it. Justin said he really liked it which made me super happy. I honestly wish I had gotten a little bit more criticism I guess. I want to grow, but I was happy that D pointed out the problem I have with making some kind of noise when I'm trying to get something out while performing. I've noticed before that I had this issue, but I'm glad that I'm gonna get to work to fix it. I just want to focus on growing this year.
Today, I talked with Sophie, Kaylee, and Katie about Fuddy Meers/Grease. Huntley is at it again with the conflicts. Obviously it's not anyone's fault, it just sucks. A lot. I want to get as much experience, learn, and grow as much as possible, but it's really difficult to do that when things conflict. I have wanted to play Sandy in Grease ever since my mom and I watched the movie when I was younger, but I might not even get that role. This sounds really awful and selfish, but I only want to be in that show if I play Sandy. I feel bad for saying that, but it's how I feel. My conflict is that I really think that getting to work with D for another show can REALLY help me to grow as an actor (if I even get cast. It's a small cast and we have so many talented actors here, so the likeliness isn't too great but I want to try).

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Today was a really rough day. I was just really anxious for various reasons, but that wasn't until later in the day after Theatre Workshop. (Quick question, which is correct for what context - theater and theatre? It's always confused me.) I just feel like I've been doing a lot of things wrong and I'm creating my own personal hell with my mistakes. Everyone just seems upset with me and I wish I knew why. I don't want this to get too "therapist-y" because I know that's not the assignment, but it's difficult sometimes to get through rehearsals feeling like somebody is always mad at me and I can't seem figure out why.
Anyway, there was no rehearsal for me today, so I was able to go home and work on homework and whatnot. In Workshop, we continued to watch people's monologues and they were all really beneficial in showing what to do and what not to do. Brandon's was beautiful. He was so invested and in possession of his character and it was amazing to watch. Jason's hit me really hard. It started out slowly and to be completely honest I was a little worried for him, but then he snapped and it left me speechless. I'm so impressed with him and how much he's grown.
I'm gonna continue working on my monologue tonight. I really want to get it just right for my performance.

Update: It's now 10:42 and I've worked on my monologue a bit more. I have this feeling where I know I have the energy and what I want out of this in my body, but I feel like I can't get it out. I'm not sure why. I connect to this piece in so many ways, but for some reason I feel some kind of mental barrier between me and getting this piece across just the way I want it to. I've stared at myself in the mirror and figured out exactly what I think my character is feeling, I've laid down staring at my ceiling thinking about what she sees and what she's hearing, but I still just feel disconnected. I've connected this to Juilliard, maybe my future self not making it to what I wanted but being proud of myself for all the work I've done to get there. My favorite part about the piece is when the mother is involved. Based on what I see, the character not just looks up to but absolutely idolizes and adores her mom. I look up to my mom so so so much. She's the strongest woman I know, even if she doesn't appear to be that way. I think my character looks at her mom in a very similar way, but I think part of my problem is really looking at the differences  between the character and I. I've always known to look for parallels and ways that you can find yourself in your character, but I'm beginning to think that I make each character me and I don't want that. It's not fair to the message trying to be sent out. I want to see what I'm capable of and I'm willing to work for it, I'm just not quite sure how to do that yet. I know I'll learn that in Theatre Workshop. I aspire to be a presentational actress. I need to be somebody else, not just me.
Sorry this was so long, I've just been thinking a lot tonight.

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Here's what we've created for the vocals of Everybody Wants to Rule the World. We created the blocking for it which I LOVE. In the beginning, we all walk in towards him from different spots of the stage on our first lines. Then, we crouch down by him and sing a few lines to him, but he can't see us. Then, we all move to different spots on a stairwell and when he passes by we make some sort of contact with him, which completely exhausts us. I know that I need to work on showing my exhaustion. I messed up a few times on the song because I was focusing on what I was physically doing.
For my monologue, I finally got to work with D and she changed my audience, which I actually like much better. I feel like I'm a lot less "yell-y", but when I am yelling, I feel like it has more power than before. Tonight, I need to work out when I'm angry and when I'm not. I also need to identify the exact situation and exactly why I'm so upset that I feel the need to tell this story to my audience.

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I really enjoyed watching the monologues in class today. It was so interesting to see how much a small motive or need can affect the entire piece. I feel that the motive for my monologue is to prove that I have the knowledge and capability to create something for myself and I don't need somebody to baby me along the way. It also helps that the beautiful moment of my piece is really easy to point out. My line is "I want to free beauty, free hope" and I really love it. The witches haven't been doing too much at rehearsals for Mac lately, but it's fun watching scenes get blocked and put together. I want to get started trying to learn more songs, but we're all a little unsure on what we should actually be learning. Hopefully we can figure it out soon so we can get started again.

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In Theater Workshop today, we did a really lovely exercise. We anonymously wrote on a piece of paper something that we find beautiful in the world and put that piece of paper into the center of our circle. Then, we all grabbed a paper (that wasn't ours) from the pile and described the ones that we picked. I picked something along the lines of "when the sun hits white sheets perfectly" and I really loved this one. Whoever wrote it, I strongly agree with him or her (I'm guessing it's a her because there were hearts in place of dots on each i). It was very easy for me to visualize and describe it, but I still really enjoyed it. The point of the exercise was so that we can find little bits of beauty in our monologues. It might not be the conventional type of beauty, it can be anything. It's essential to identify what the character sees as beautiful and express that through the monologue. I also really enjoyed hearing what everyone else saw as beautiful, but looking back on it I wish that I had put something else. I wrote about how I love seeing the stars on a night drive and watching the street lights passing by in a constant rhythm, which is true, but nothing is more beautiful to me than seeing my mother truly happy. She was working two jobs for all summer because we've been having some difficulty, and she finally got a promotion at one of them so she was able to quit the other. She's finally home with us and we get to be with her all the time, which is something that I know makes her happy. That is more beautiful to me than anything else in the world. My character in my monologue looks up to her mom for her desire to put color into the world and to show that beauty can grow where it wants to, so I'm able to create a parallel with that.

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We did a line through of act 1 today and it actually made me see the sequence of the scenes and where everything is. It was actually really helpful. It's weird how something that may seem so tedious is actually really useful. We had to run it about 5 times, which got extremely boring. It would have been hard to actually do much anyway without D there. In theater workshop today, I continued to work on memorizing my monologue, which I really like. I think I finally have it memorized, but I'm concerned about the first few sentences. My gut is telling me that the emotion is angry and frustrated, but I'm not sure if it's just frustration instead of anger. I don't know if I'm being too "yell-y" with it. I feel really strongly about the content, so I'm afraid that I'm letting my emotions get the best of me. I need to focus on what the character is feeling, not me.

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For the Coronation scene, our blocking with Macbeth is really powerful and creepy I love it so much!!! We start up on the set as individual lights come up on us one by one, then we come down and stand by Macbeth. Once he goes down to get his crown, we follow him. At the end, we bow down to him. When we're all standing by him and he starts to walk down, I think I want to put my hand on his back and do a slight push as if to say "Go, fulfill your destiny", but I'm gonna try to experiment. I'm not sure if the witches not doing anything and just watching or if messing with him would be more powerful. Altogether, the Coronation scene looks amazing from what I can tell. I can see Ben experimenting with different emotions and ways to carry out his character, which is really interesting to me. I'd like to try that out with future characters along with this one. I also wish that we could finally work on the end of the blocking with Jayden, but something always seems to end up happening so we can't.

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Katie and I are very frustrated right now. We learned a song last year for the witches' spell in choir class called "The Witch's Trio". We mastered it because we had to sing it just about every day. It's so eerie and creepy because it includes dissonance which gives a very uncomfortable feel, which is what I feel the witches should be able to do. I feel that Sophie is very very very capable of learning at least a small portion of this. It was perfect for us to be able to sing it now, but Sophie is completely unwilling to even try to learn it. We would totally be willing to work with her and teach it to her and master it because we have plenty of time. Katie and I feel that it would be so amazing if we could sing this song, but Sophie thinks that we're trying to "get rid of her speaking part and keep ours" which is not at all what we're trying to do. We want to do this simply because we feel that it would support the creepy strength that the witches have, not to keep her parts out. We would do it as a trio, not as a duet between me and Katie. She continually says that she signed up for a play and that there's too much singing for her taste, but she knew from the get-go that the witches were going to be singing. It seems like she just is unwilling to put in the effort it takes to make the witches as creepy and amazing as possibly because she's not willing to go a little out of her comfort zone. Obviously Katie and I can't force her into anything, but it's extremely frustrating. We understand that we are in fact a group and that her voice should matter, but I feel that in this case she should take into consideration the overall outcome that this song could have. She seemed to be upset not because she didn't think it would benefit all of us as a trio, but because she individually doesn't have the energy or desire to learn or perform the song.  We just wish that she would at least be willing to try to learn it and put some effort into creating something truly awesome.

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I know she can't help it, but it's really frustrating when Katie isn't at rehearsal. The witches can't get much done as a trio without her. Jason and I had a misunderstanding the whole day which has been really stressful and a little distracting, but we're okay now. I love him. Also, somebody told me that the witches' songs don't sound too great. I appreciate constructive criticism, but it kinda sucked to hear that from a peer. Sophie and I were upset, but we're gonna work to make them amazing.

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Some of my close friends have been acting different lately and it's really difficult to be productive at rehearsals because of it. Sometimes when I'm trying to get things done, the person I should be working with doesn't have the energy and I don't want to force them into doing something they won't put their energy into. Also, I wish that I could help them so they can feel better and we can be more productive, but I have no idea how to effectively help. I think my witch voice is starting to come along, but I would like to work on my facials in order to look more creepy and mischievous I guess. I still need to work to figure out exactly who I am as a witch.

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Working on stuff without Katie there has been really difficult, but Sophie and I worked this out for our first song. We're trying to add on more for Scars Flown Proud so that we can play around with dead Jayden a little bit more. We ended up not adding this part because it sounded kind of funny with everything else we had. Instead, we added a few other lyrics of the same song but my favorite part is the round that we do.

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Chillin in the PAC with the love of my life during the beginning of the year theatre party. It was really fun meeting some new people who are in other theater classes and getting closer to them. I love having times like this to get closer to my castmates and newer people. It's amazing to see how many people are becoming more and more interested in theater. Jayden almost ripped my arm off during Red Rover which was pretty fantastic (not)

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Running the opening witch scene - we worked on creating the witches' story, voices, and motives. We ended up changing it so that Sophie and I are entering from the audience which I think is SO COOL. I need to work on not sounding so much like a tiny 16 year old girl. I also realized that I need to focus a lot on my goal as a witch. This is something I need to work out with my fellow witches. It's also really difficult to sing while crawling like this because we can't get a whole lot of air supply.

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The beginning works of Just For Now - hoping we can fit this into the show somewhere. We think that this would be really cool to add in for when we first see Macbeth and Banquo, but we're trying out different songs and playing around with it. The witches have a really set idea of what we want. We also added a beat to this that sounded like a war drum for the "A drum, a drum, Macbeth doth come" line. We think it sounds really, really cool.