I Found Lisa´s Cabaret Pictures!

vocal warm ups at Bromelias with José Daniel, Fiona, Darío, Katherine, and me



teaching "Be Back Soon" to Fagin and his boys



during "Seasons of Love" at the Cabaret



during "Purpose" at the Cabaret before Katherine and I started dancing. "Oh look! Here´s a penny! It´s from the year I was born... almost..."



my personal favorite :) Darío and me during "Suddenly Seymour"



Katherine and me during "What is this Feeling?" It´s funny how easy it is to act like you hate someone you absolutely love...



some of the cast of Oliver! singing "Consider Yourself"

Life is a Cabaret, Old Chum!

Tuesday night was the long awaited Cabaret, "Cha-Zam!"

After rehearsal got out at about 4 (early so that everyone would have time to go home and go to the Cabaret), Katherine, Darío, and I headed over to the Monteverde Institute to set up the "auditorium" for the show. After a while we got dressed into nicer attire, and when Lisa arrived we warmed up by singing our various numbers and some other random songs we found in Darío´s Broadway sheet music book.

Slowly but surely an audience arrived. We opened the show with the entire cast of Oliver! singing the classic song "Consider Yourself" to give our audience a little taste of what the show would be like. Quite successful if it weren´t for the mosquito that bit Katherine and me during the song and the fact that Kaz was jabbing me in the back with his elbow. The rest of the show consisted of several different numbers including:

1. One of Anna´s original songs with her incredible voice and acoustic guitar
2. "2 AM" originally by Anna Nalick - A duet between Hannah and Anna again with the guitar
3. "Purpose" from Avenue Q - Performed by the incredibly talented Darío with his back up singers, Katherine, Lisa, and me doing some rather tricky harmonies. We got a shout out before he started the song :)
4. "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady - Performed by the queen of vibratto, Katherine.
5. "Astonishing" from Little Women - Performed by the belter extraordinaire, Hannah Richter
6. "There´s a Fine, Fine Line" from Avenue Q - Performed by the dancer who pretends to sing (me!)
7. A couple of songs by Darío´s friend Jackie and her guitarist friend
8. "Giants in the Sky" from Into the Woods - Performed by the one and only, Kaz Felix-Hawver
9. "All I Ask of You" from The Phantom of the Opera - Performed by my two loves, Katherine and Darío
10. "What is this Feeling?" from Wicked - Performed by the girls practically attached at the hip, if only our hips were at the same height from the ground, Katherine and me
11. "Suddenly Seymour" from Little Shop of Horrors - Performed by yours truly and Darío, the guy born to play all nerdy roles (Seymour, Princeton...)
12. "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas - Performed by the lovely young lady playing Nancy, the beautiful Fiona
13. "Seasons of Love" from Rent - Performed by Hannah, Anna, Kaz, Katherine, Darío, and me with all the solos divied up and harmonies nowhere near perfect, but still in the same chord :)

It was a very successful evening - we made over 50,000 colones! And to top it all off, I did not feel any nerves while singing in front of a crowd for the first time in my life. Maybe it´s because I´ve gotten to be very good friends with some of the people here, and while we were rehearsing for the cabaret they were all very supportive and helpful. That´s one thing I love about the people I have become close with here, particularly Lisa, Katherine, and Darío. Everyone is so supportive of each other and generous with their knowledge and talents.

Hannah and Anna left us last night, and after having a very fun night of salsa dancing and hanging out for the last time before their return to the States, we said our goodbyes. I have to admit that it wasn´t the most sorrowful of goodbyes, just because they weren´t here for very long and were not as immediately involved in my life here as most other people are, but as I walked away I began to think that in less than two weeks, I will have to say my goodbyes. But let´s leave that for ten days from now, shall we?

Home, Home on the... Mountain?

The next few posts are way late, but that is because my computer died. Straight up died. So, no pictures for a while (sorry, Aunt Judy!).

Monday morning the staff went horseback riding at a stable called Sabine´s Smiling Horses. The mother of one of the little girls who was in the first kids´program offered the staff a free trail ride. It was so much fun! Of course we´re in Monteverde, so this trail ride is not the slow walk through boring terrain that one would normally encounter in Texas... or pretty much anywhere else, for that matter. We were riding through ravines up and down mountains with the most gorgeous views I have ever seen. I think sometimes I take the scenery here for granted because I am starting to get used to seeing it every day. I will eventually have to post the pictures I took on this ride because they are breathtaking.

The best part of the ride was that Katherine and I are relatively experienced riders. Believe it or not, I still remember a ton from when I used to ride back in the day. Our guide realized this early on and told us that any time we wanted we could hang back and go at our own pace. This was very exciting for us because it meant that if we hung back, we had to gallop to catch up to everyone else. After a while, it stopped being all about having fun for ourselves and more about being a competition between our horses. We could not get them to trot anymore because the slightest kick would spring them into a race against each other! It was hilarious, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

News about the Cabaret to come... Great success!

Preparation

Friday and Saturday were insane rehearsals. We had a goal of teaching all choreography and blocking by Satuday, and I think we achieved that goal. I´m still a little frustrated, though, because I´m still having to scream out formation changes and transitions in dances. We´ve been rehearsing some of these dances for weeks, and I still have to clap out timing. It´s not even that difficult, either. Everything is on a down beat! For the last week I have been finalizing formations and choreography, and I feel like it´s really unnecessary and a waste of time to spend at least half an hour every rehearsal cleaning up the same sections. It´s very frustrating to teach the same corrections over and over and over again. Hopefully this week everything will just click. That´s generally how musical theatre works in my experience. Everything feels like a wreck and then one rehearsal very close to the show everything just falls into place. I cannot wait for that day to come!

Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day! The sun was out all day and it was warm and it didn´t rain at all! I can´t remember the last rain-free day I had here. Because of the lovely weather, I was in a great mood during rehearsals on Saturday. But something else put me in a great mood, too - I received a letter from one of my closest friends from Santa Clara, Jack Wagner! I got so excited when I saw Jack´s very distinctive penmanship on the front of the envelope (those of you who know Jack know exactly what I am talking about). So I had four pages of perfectly organized updates on the life and tales of Jack Wagner. During my breaks from rehearsal I got to sit down, relax, and begin to write my response to him. As happy as it made me to hear from him, it also made me rather nostalgic for SCU! Two months until I´m reunited with all my Broncos!

After rehearsal on Saturday Katherine, Dario, Hannah, Anna, Lisa, and I stayed back to work on some Cabaret things. Earlier in the day, Dario and I had put together a run order for the show, so at least now we know exactly how the show is going to pan out. After running through a few of the numbers we´ve already learned, we started working on the group number that is going to open the show. We decided on "Louder than Words" from Jonathan Larson´s Tick, Tick... BOOM! I am so excited - this is one of my favorite songs of all time. Usually it is performed by two men and a woman, but we have four women and one man, so the balance is a little different, but it still sounds gorgeous. Hannah wrote in all the harmonies for us and divided up all the solos among the five of us. It has a really cool sound because of the way she has people fading in and out of all the verses. I cannot wait to perform this song!

Saturday was also Anna´s birthday, so that night she, Hannah, Katherine, Laila, and I went out for a girls´ night to celebrate. Unfortunately, though, Katherine and I couldn´t make it past 11:30... We´ve been working really hard! I don´t know how I´m going to handle to college night lifestyle again when I get back to SCU in September.

This week begins our pre-tech run through extravaganza. I am feeling an odd mixture of excitement and terror. It will be great to see all of our work come together as one production and see where the show is, but I´m terrified to see how it looks because I know we will have a lot of cleaning and work to do. I´m going to try my best not to yell out formation changes and timing during the run throughs, but I don´t know if they will even be able to get through the dances without my screams from the audience. But at least they will find out for themselves exactly how much work they need to put into this show. I am totally not prepared for this!

I'm Singing in the Rain...

Yesterday morning began at my old haunt Chunche's for some fried plantains, coffee, and internet. Much to my surprise, shortly after I arrived, so did Kaz! We spent the morning in Chunche's hanging out and talking about life while simultaneously trying to stifle laughter and distance ourselves as much as possible from the gringo walrus at the table next to us. He honestly said to the woman who works here, "INTERNET NO WORKO!" I've never seen a Tico give a dirtier look before. What was really strange about this was that his wife spoke very competent Spanish, and yet he took it upon himself to yell nonsensical Spanglish (if that) at the nicest woman in the world. I hate gringos.

After that we took a taxi to Bromelias (we really didn't want to walk) and picked up Katherine, Dario, and Lisa along the way! We got to the venue and had rehearsal which went pretty well in spite of the rain, especially now that I know that Bromelias has amazing wifi and that I can go up to the cafe on my breaks and use it! This means that I was finally able to Skype with one Meghan Louise Horowitz! It was very exciting. So great to see the lovely face of a good friend I miss dearly. The best part of the day was the last rehearsal and our post-rehearsal Cabaret rehearsal. My last rehearsal was with Dario to choreograph some of his solo sections, which was so much fun. About a week or two ago, he actually got down on his knees and begged me to work in some tap dancing for him. So yesterday I taught him the tap section. He's so excited, and it's super adorable. I think he'll do well with it once he gets his speed up.

After rehearsal with Dario, we headed upstairs to rehearse for the Cabaret with Katherine, Hannah, Anna, and Kaz. It was incredibly fun to sit around a piano with good friends and do what we all love. Katherine and Dario are singing "All I Ask of You" from Phantom of the Opera, Katherine and I are singing "What is this Feeling?" from Wicked, Dario and I are singing "Suddenly Seymour" from Little Shop of Horrors, and Hannah and Dario are singing "Written in the Stars" from Aida. We're all also doing various solo songs and Anna is performing some of her original songs. It's going to be a really great show, and it's been super fun for all of us. Patricia, the woman who owns Bromelias, wants us to basically do our Cabaret during her open mic night next Thursday! Can I please do this for the rest of my life?

A Real Update on Life...

So, nothing much has happened in the past day. We got completely soaked and flooded in the storm yesterday - probably the worst one I´ve seen here! But this post is not going to have a whole lot to do with Santa Elena or FCCMT.

I think my blog has opened up a new Pandora´s box of technology for my parents and relatives. Skype was one thing, but blogging is a whole new adventure for them. Not only are they following my blog, but they´ve also discovered Zeke´s and Zeb´s for their respective adventures in Germany and Bhutan. But in following Zeke´s blog, they found Liza Starr´s blog (a friend of Zeke´s who I don´t even know). She is on a biking trip across the U.S., so of course they are following her, too! Not to mention they have sent all of our links to at least one (probably more) of my aunts who is now following all this, too. I feel like I need to make my blog more entertaining now that I know so many people are reading it! But I was skyping with my mother this morning, and we discussed all this. She enjoys hearing our takes on all these exotic places and unique experiences we´re all having. And hey, this way I don´t have to send a thousand e-mails every week!

So, keep reading to find out what´s up with me and if you want the links to any of the other blogs I´ve mentioned let me know - I enjoy reading them!

More Pictures!

After dinner in Puntarenas!



On the beach the morning we left!



The water was warm! Unlike in NorCal...



Katherine, Darío, and me working the kids´ program the first week... UGH! They look cute in pictures, but trust me, it´s all a hoax!



I quite like this picture! Right before we performed at the community arts festival.



Most of the staff (minus Michelle) and quazi-staff (Darío).

Picture Update!

This is part of the path from my house to town... not kidding about the unnamed dirt roads!



This is the main street in Santa Elena... all of it.



This is just on the outside of the town looking up the world´s most terrible hill.



This is José Daniel. I am obsessed with him. He is Darío´s 9-year-old little brother. He is playing Oliver. I want to kidnap him.



These are my friends Katherine and Darío! I love them. It was early the morning of our performance at the community arts festival.



Katherine´s and my first night out on the town!



We made it to the beach in Puntarenas! Excitement!



I love ceviche! This picture is for all those who remember Pablo in Costa Maya.



This picture is for all those who understand the phrase "Piragua, piragua! New block of ice. Piragua!"

Patience Wearing Thin

I forgot one thing from my last post - when dogs wander in and out of rehearsals daily.

The last couple of rehearsals have just been ridiculous. So many of the kids are starting to get attitudes and are getting comfortable with us and therefore think they can sass us and argue with us when we´re just trying to do our jobs. It´s getting rather frustrating. However, we are officially done with the Salón Parroquial which means I don´t have to deal with snarky clergy folk any longer! We have moved rehearsals into the actual space, which is both exciting and infuriating. It´s great to actually feel like we´re in a theater and doing a show, but the space is absolutely terrible. I mean, it´s nice for a concert amphitheatre, but very difficult to adapt for a musical. There are no wings, and the space is very small. The whole thing is domed so we can´t use all the space because the ceiling is so low at the back. It´s very frustrating, but it has great acoustics! Oh, and there´s no pit.

Last night we went out again to the same place we went last weekend. It was so much fun! We ended up going with Katherine´s host sister and three of her friends from the States who are also staying in their house. Plus, we ran into Laila and her random friends that she manages to meet in the most unexpected places, so it was fun to hang out with her outside of rehearsal and work! But apparently Katherine and I cannot escape the curse of running into our students at bars! Kaz, who is 14, was there! It was a ridiculous evening, but very fun.

Today was a very long day. It was our first rehearsal in the theater, and things just weren´t exactly going as planned, so it was a little frustrating for all who were involved. But tomorrow Laila, Katherine, and I are heading to Puntarenas to go to the beach! It shall be a whole bunch of fun and a very nice adventure!

You Know You´re in Monteverde When...

1. Coffee is cheaper than water
2. You can set your watch by the afternoon storm
3. Clouds seep into your bedroom
4. Everyone uses usted, qué chiva, and tranquilo all the time
5. You walk everywhere down unnamed dirt roads
6. The houses don´t have numbers... the people who work at the post office just know where everyone lives
7. Everything is up a hill
8. You don´t know where the local movie theater is
9. The priest´s house is the biggest in the entire town and in the most convenient location
10. You are so incredibly happy because this is an amazing place!

Happy Feet

The last couple of days have been insane. We've been working hard with the kids' program, which has been going infinitely better than last week, and even harder with the senior cast. Things are finally starting to get memorized and solidified, and most of the characters are beginning to develop further, which is so great to watch. I think the staff is also starting to fall into a nice rhythm. I feel like people know better where we all fit in and how we can all work together to make this program and this show the best it can possibly be. I am feeling much more positive about how this is working out than I did four days ago.

Dario and Hannah have been working on a Cabaret to raise money for Far Corners and to give people some more performance opportunities while we're here. I'm pretty nervous about it, but I think it will be good for me to sing in public. Plus, Hannah's working on songs for everyone, and she has convinced Katherine, Anna, and me to let her teach us how to belt. Wish me luck!

Yesterday was extremely long. We had the little ones all day, so by 4:00 (my time to work with them...) they were very restless. We have some very attitude-ish kids in there, too. I don't particularly like kids with attitudes, and I don't put up with those attitudes very well, but we managed to get some work done.

For the first time in my life I made a kid cry yesterday. But he is 13, and he kind of deserved it. He and his 11 year old cousin each act about three years younger than you actually are, and the 13-year-old has the biggest attitude I've probably ever encountered. He's a know-it-all, pretentious kid that I just don't mesh well with. So yesterday during my rehearsal they were being extremely disruptive, and after asking them to stop about four times, I looked at the older one and said, "Come on, knock it off. Come on, dude, you're 13." And it made him cry. So when they younger one kept bugging him after that I yelled at him and sent him to the other side of the room. Am I turning into the mean staff member at Far Corners?

Last night was movie night, which actually turned out to be a lot of fun! I sat in the back with Katherine, Laila, Dario and a bunch of other older people. The younger ones got the vote to watch Happy Feet, however, so most of the movie-watching experience was just mocking for us. Not a bad night for those of you who know how much I love to mock terrible movies! Then a whole bunch of us walked back to town together, and as per usual, almost died by getting run over by cars and motorcycles.

On the subject of "happy feet," Dario has begged me to include some soft shoe during "Pick a Pocket or Two" for him as Fagin. Done.

Addition from Last Night's Post

So, I hate to admit this, but this story is just too funny not to share. After rehearsal last night Katherine and I were really stressed and needing to talk, so we went to the bar we went to this weekend to sit down and relax. Now, in Costa Rica, you might expect to run into one of your student's parents in a bar or one of the older kids who got in without having their ID checked, but of course Katherine and I would run into our 9-year-old student! We were sitting at a table when out of the corner of my eye, I see Leo, the boy playing Nipper in Oliver!, waving very shyly at us and looking completely stunned to see us in a bar. Now that's comedy!

New Additions

Let´s start with last night...

Katherine and I walked down to Lisa and Michelle´s house to help make dinner for our new arrivals, Hannah and Anna. We hung out and put a movie on and made pasta, chicken, roasted potatoes (my doing!), and improvised cookies from random ingredients we found around the kitchen. Of course, Katherine and I headed that one up. They actually didn´t turn out half bad.

Then Hannah, Anna, Lisa, and Laila arrived from the long trip from San José. The seven of us sat around the table and got to know each other while exhanging ideas about the program and kind of cluing Hannah and Anna in on the way things work. After dinner, Katherine and I walked Hannah and Anna back to their house (the terrible walk we did after movie night) and then went our separate ways for the evening.

Today the work week began. The children´s progam actually went much, much better than it did at all last week. The kids this week are much more receptive to trying new things and breaking out off their shells, so we were able to do more with them in a shorter amount of time, which was really nice for us. I have a feeling this group of kids will be much more fulfilling.

The senior cast rehearsal was alright. I think everyone is starting to feel the stress that has accumulated from last week and we´re all getting close to our breaking points. Hopefully we´ll find our rhythm again and be able to get through this week in one piece. It´s going to be very interesting integrating two new staff members into our dynamic. I feel like last week the staff really started to work perfectly together. We´re all definitely on the same page and I think I figured out some of the other people I´m working with that I wasn´t so sure of at the beginning. Now I feel like we´re starting from scratch, which is not a good feeling to have in the middle of a project. We all have our designated jobs and assignments and now we have to divide those up all over again and still maintain order and give people assignments their comfortable with while taking away assignments people are willing to let go of. I´m really anxious and also extremely nervous to see how the rest of this week pans out. Please cross your fingers for me.

A Cañitas Adventure

My second entry in one day! I think I´m getting the hang of this thing.

Today was a much more full day than I had initially expected. At around 10, I went by Katherine´s house so we could walk down to the house where Lisa and Michelle are staying to have our staff meeting. We had our meeting, ate lunch, hung out a little bit, and enjoyed being away from the center of town. Lisa and Michelle are staying in Beth, a music teacher´s, house which is out in the absolute middle of nowhere. If I thought Cemeterio (the part of town I´m staying in) was rural, I had no idea what I was talking about. At around 2, Katherine and I had planned to meet Darío at Tina´s house, the house that Laila has been staying in. Laila, however, went to San José for the weekend, so we went over to the house so that Katherine and Darío could play Tina´s cello. Yeah, I have no idea. We also looked through music books to get ideas for the Cabaret Darío is planning with Hannah together. That was super fun. I love hanging out with theatre people who get super excited over every song they love.

While those two played with the cello, I made Katherine lunch. It was really fun to cook, but I don´t like unfamiliar kitchens. And this house was even more secluded than Beth´s house (we had to walk a barely beaten path through the woods to get there), so it didn´t exactly have the best appliances. But nonetheless, I enjoyed myself and Katherine enjoyed her pasta. After all that, the three of us wound up just sitting around the kitchen table talking about life and theatre and Costa Rica and what this experience means to all of us. It´s really fun because all three of us come from very different backgrounds and have had very different experiences, yet we all feel the same way about theatre and have similar views on what art can do for people and a community like Monteverde. It was a really nice conversation that I´m glad we got to have together. However, it started getting dark and raining, so it was time to leave.

We walked through the woods again to Darío´s family farm where his grandfather (Don Juan Castro) and grandmother live. They were adorable! They were both incredibly sweet and welcoming, and they have a really cute little dog named Taquito. We´re very good friends now. Over time some of his other relatives meandered over to the house, so we got to meet a few aunts as well.

Now it´s back home for dinner with the family and preparations for a very exciting day with Darío and Katherine tomorrow!

An Improvised Night

Friday was the last day of the first week of the children’s program. And I could not be more excited. It was really starting to bum me out because the kids all hated dancing except for two, Greyka and Elan, who are both adorable and through the camp have become very good friends. But other than those two, I had to force kids to dance, which is something I've never wanted to do. For me, dance was always something I wanted to do. I don't recall ever having to be forced. I know that throughout my life and my dancing career I have missed out on a lot of things to continue dancing, but that was always okay with me because I was happy to dance. It makes me sad that I wasn't able to give these kids the same spark of passion I had at their age. However, on Monday I get a new group, so who knows what they will bring to the mix. And honestly, that little bit of sadness always goes away as soon as the senior cast gets to rehearsal. I'm so incredibly proud of them.

I have now finished teaching the three really big dance numbers, which is very exciting. I need to figure out formations and exactly how all these people are going to fit on the tiny Bromelias Amphitheater stage, but that will all happen next Saturday when we have our first rehearsal in the space--that will be a fun day! With this cast I'm mostly impressed not necessarily with the amount of talent there is, of which there is a lot, but rather with the determination with which the cast tackles the choreography I give. Rather than giving up when they get frustrated, the ask me to go over things over and over again and honestly want to get the steps perfect. It's turning out to be quite a fulfilling job for me!

After rehearsal we had planned for an improv night up at the CEC (the private bilingual school that a lot of the participants attend). I was really excited to head up this night because it's been a while since I've done improv, and I quite miss my Celeryheads. We did some Three-Character Scenes and some Hold That Thought. I also taught Elevator and Forward and Reverse for some interstitial action. It was really fun even though not a whole lot of people showed up. We as a staff really need to start getting our act together for these extra cast bonding things. We never seem to have them planned in time to tell the cast and get them to show up. Something to work on.

After improv night, Katherine and I suddenly realized that we had been in Costa Rica for over two weeks (16 days, to be exact) and had gone to bed before 10 almost every night. Most nights before 9. Ticos are early sleepers and early risers. It's a very different sleeping schedule from what I'm used to. So we walked around Santa Elena for a while and realized we weren't going to find much to do until we saw a group of stumbling Gringos and remembered that we had passed a pretty cool looking bar on the way down from the CEC. So we walked back up that direction and went in. We spent a couple hours there talking and dancing--our first official night out in Costa Rica! Even with all this fun and excitement, though, I was still in bed by about 11:45.

I think we'll get used to Monteverde/Santa Elena and figure out how to have some extracurricular fun. We just need our Tico guide to be able to come out with us! Supposedly that will be the case tonight.

Tonight--Katherine, Dario, and Erin take Santa Elena by storm.

The Costa Rican Witch Project

Wednesday was a pretty normal day. Nothing particularly exciting happened during the kids' program or rehearsal with the senior cast. It was exhausting as usual and the kids drove us nuts while we got very excited about the main cast. Nothing out of the ordinary.

The fun came that night. We have movie nights with the cast and whoever else wants to come really every Wednesday night during rehearsals for the show. However, because of some mix-ups with planning, we ended up having movie night at the house that Lisa and Michelle are staying at, which is about a 30 minute walk down a very steep hill on the side of a mountain from where I am currently living. Not to mention that it's Santa Elena so all the roads are dirt and because of all the rain that dirt is actually mud. So at around 6 I met up with Katherine, Michelle, Laila, and Andrey (the guy playing our villain, Bill Sikes) to walk down to the house. That went pretty well. We got kind of muddy and wet from the rain, but overall we had a good time.

When we got to the house there were already a lot of people there (we were late) and there was food and general merriment to be had all around. We watched "Little Shop of Horrors" which many people enjoyed. However, if you ask me, Ellen Greene looks and sounds like a goat and the movie ending sucks in comparison to the musical ending. Just sayin'.

When the movie was over and we were all getting ready to leave it was about 9 PM, and because we were out in a very, very rural area, it was pretty much pitch black. All of the younger kids managed to pile into a car, but Katherine, Andrey, and three other girls, Felicia, Denise, and Jessica, decided to walk. We had a flashlight, albeit not a very good one, and we had each other, but it was quite a spooky experience. Andrey kept trying to tell us all these scary stories and legends about the woods around Santa Elena to scare us, but he was outnumbered gender-wise and eventually gave it up. I really wish I had a video of the six of us freaking out at every little sound or movement in the trees. And to make matters worse, I saw a frog walking down to the house, so I was terrified that I would see another one, for which Andrey gave me a lot of grief. It took us about 40 minutes to make it back to the neighborhood where Katherine, Andrey, and I all live, and by the time I got back, my legs were absolutely covered in mud, as were my flip flops, and I was drenched from the rain and the fog (I'm pretty sure we were in a cloud for some of the walk).

Now it's off to an even scarier adventure--day 4 of the children's program.

Round Two

I think my body is very confused with my work and sleeping schedule. I have to be at work at 8:30 every morning, but I like to leave the house by 7:30 so I can check e-mail and update this thing. I work until between 5:30 and 6:30, then go home and spend time with my host family and get some more work done in preparation for the next day. However, everyone goes to sleep around 8:00, and I can understand why! I’m exhausted by that time and usually stay up later to take advantage of some alone time to get work done and take care of personal things. But I’m still in bed by at least 9:30 every night! Oftentimes earlier! My body clock is generally very confused. Especially since I get so much sleep and am yet still very tired almost all the time. I guess that explains why coffee is one of Costa Rica’s main industries, eh?

The coffee here truly is amazing, by the way.

Well, the children’s program was infinitely better as far as behavior goes, and for that I am truly grateful. We did a few different exercises today that the kids really liked and got excited about, so that also helped with participation. It really helps to lay down ground rules with kids—somehow that didn’t occur to us until the second day of camp. I think we’re all used to working with kids who are older and know at least fundamentally what is expected of them. I know I’m definitely used to working with kids who are not primarily in my care, so they have their teacher’s rules to follow which I can also enforce. So it never really occurred to me to lay down the law of the FCCMT children’s program. This morning we had them all sit in a circle and come up with their own rules, which I think made them easier to enforce because the kids thought of them themselves and wrote them down on a big poster which we made them sign by tracing their handprints across the bottom of the page. We were even able to tie in the language issue by having everyone translate the rules they came up with to the best of the ability and write their rules in both languages so everyone could understand and learn a little vocab. I think it was quite a successful exercise. They were not, however, particularly enthused with the dancing. They were doing very well with all the preliminary exercises before I started actually teaching choreography, and then they completely lost interest. It was a pretty similar situation for the singing portion of the day. These are the two most important sections of the day for us! We need them to sing and dance “Food, Glorious Food” in the show in August! But participation was definitely better during the rest of the day, so hopefully that will eventually translate to singing and dancing as well.

I think it’s interesting to watch some of the younger ones in the senior cast as compared to some of the ones who are the same age in the children’s program. For example, José Daniel is the boy playing Oliver for us and he is only nine years old. He’s so great. He works really hard and even though he’s not perfect, he tries with all his might. It’s actually quite adorable. Every time I start teaching choreography he stands about four inches behind me the entire time and refuses to switch lines when I try to bring some of the people in the back up front. He says he can’t learn unless he’s right behind me. It’s very cute. But there are girls his age and even older in the children’s program who I would say are not as mature as Daniel is—aren’t girls supposed to be something like three years more mature than boys? The same goes for a couple of the other kids, but I know Daniel best and can make the best comparison with him as an example. However, there are some boys who are older than the kids in the children’s program who act so much more immature. One boy is thirteen, but you would probably never guess it. He never seems to be able to focus on what we’re doing at a given moment and put all his energy into it or not complain, backtalk, or make a joke out of the exercise. It honestly really frustrates me when people, especially kids who are old enough to behave themselves, don’t take what their doing seriously. I definitely had that issue with this kid today.

Otherwise, rehearsal with the senior cast went very well today. We did a little more of the same thing as we did yesterday with focus games and cast bonding type exercises, singing, and dancing before we broke for individual rehearsals for singing and blocking. During these couple of hours, I generally park myself near Lisa’s piano so I can listen in on all the vocal rehearsals and mark helpful things down in my vocal score from which I do all my choreography. It’s so exciting to hear the music finally coming together after just imagining it from sheet music for the last few weeks while I worked on choreography. On a slight tangent, I am so proud of myself for this show—I’m actually choreographing dances ahead of time (like, weeks!) instead of winging it, and I’m even writing my choreography down according to measures in the sheet music! Not only is this practice making my teaching much more organized, but it is also helping me learn to read sheet music better, which is a skill I could definitely use some practice with.

This summer is nothing like I thought it would be. I don’t really know what I expected. I don’t think I had a whole lot of expectations going into this process because I had such little time to build up my expectations. But I certainly don’t think I expected to learn so much. I’m doing a lot more singing than I had originally thought (Lisa needs someone to help the altos learn harmonies—it’s kind of difficult to lead a group in a harmony with very little musical experience), I’m learning a lot about choreography just through experiential learning, and most specifically I’m learning a lot more about the production side of theatre, particularly non-profit theatre. I always knew it took a lot of work and connections, but now that I’m actually the one doing everything I’m starting to understand better just how much my former directors and choreographers had to do behind the scenes, not to mention the work they have to do with kids to help them develop as performers and artists. So, even though they probably are not reading this blog, this is a huge cosmic “thank you” and “wow, you’re amazing” to all the directors I’ve worked with in my young life for making my theatre and dance experiences possible and for sculpting me into the passionate performer I am today.

Let the Rehearsals Begin!

Yesterday (Monday) was the first day of the children's program and official rehearsals for Oliver! It was truly an exhausting day. It began at 8:30 AM as I was supposed to open the rehearsal space. Slowly but surely all the kids began to arrive while Michelle, Katherine, and I tried desperately to get some of the younger kids who arrived early to come out of their shells and play a few games with us. It didn't exactly work, but hopefully that will get better as the days go on. Honestly, these kids are exhausting. We have a few that get easily distracted and thus distract the rest. Not to mention we have an age range of 3 to about 10, maybe 11 or 12. It is extremely difficult to design a theatre program for this large of an age range with kids. Whenever the younger kids seemed to be catching on and enjoying themselves, the older ones were bored out of their minds. And when the older ones we really into it, the younger ones had absolutely no idea what was going on. And of course to make matters worse, we are teaching bilingually, and we have some kids who don't speak and English as well as some who don't speak any Spanish whatsoever. So this means we are translating every single sentence we say, including when we are teaching them "Food, Glorious Food" from the show. I hope things go better today, but I have a feeling this program is going to be exhausting and frustrating no matter what we do!

After that minor catastrophe we began our official rehearsals for Oliver! with our senior cast. I felt infinitely better about this part of the day. Some of the cast members still don't seem to quite understand the attendance and tardiness policies we came up with, but I am hoping they get used to it or else they're going to be owing us a whole lotta tech work outside of rehearsal (which I don't think we'd really mind so much if it weren't for the inconvenience during actual rehearsals)! As usual, we started with some stretching, a few focus games (space stuff!), and vocal warm ups to get ready to sing. Lisa taught "Consider Yourself" Part III, which actually sounded pretty nice. They'll have to get used to singing harmonies and singing loudly so that all the parts are equally represented, but I am confident that Lisa will drill it into them! Then I took over with dance. I think it went pretty well, even if many members of the cast do not agree. They just need practice! And for those of you who have worked with me as a choreographer/dance captain, y'all know that I will make them do things over and over and over again until I am satisfied. :)

The last two hours of rehearsal are reserved for individual things (i.e. blocking rehearsals, solo songs, smaller dance numbers, etc.). So I got some work done during that time, and when Dario was finished singing we got in touch with a bunch of press people. It was actually very successful - far more successful than when I tried to do it myself! It seems like a lot of people are interested in FCCMT and our mission and our show this year, so hopefully we'll get some publicity! It's all becoming very real and very exciting.

Last night I rediscovered "Once On This Island" - I so miss my Casa theatre kids! In fact, I am currently listening to the soundtrack. Until Katherine and I broke out into "We Dance" last night, I hadn't thought about this show for a long time, and I had forgotten just how incredible the music is! I would love to choreograph this show - heck, I'd love to be in this show again! Who's up for a revival? :)

As of today, I have been in Costa Rica for two weeks. It's strange, sometimes it feels like much long, while at other times it seems like I just got here. I think it's a result of having done so much in such a short period of time because I've accomplished so much in just a couple weeks, but I also haven't had any time to catch my breath so it feels very short. I am very much enjoying the Tico lifestyle, though. Everyone is very relaxed and not too tied to any schedule or too preoccupied about commitments. Of course this is very problematic for FCCMT's purposes, as we need people to show up to rehearsal and to do so on time, but in a general cultural sense, I quite like the relaxed nature of everyone here. Not to mention everyone is very friendly! I feel like I say this constantly, but people here are really nice! And even if they don't like you, they'll pretend just to make life easier. The kind of national motto is "Pura Vida," which literally means "Pure Life." It means to just let life be good and pure and enjoy what you're doing. Not a bad national motto, if you ask me.

A Costa Rican 4th of July

Sunday is typically our day off work, so Katherine and I decided to take advantage of the free time by celebrating the 4th of July, even if we aren´t exactly patriots or currently residing in the U.S.

We met today and decided to try and recreate the 4th of July, Costa Rican style. So we went to the super and each bought a beer (it´s legal, we´re both 18! And honestly, what´s more American than a Costa Rican beer on the 4th?) and went on a search for fireworks. There are absolutely no fireworks or sparklers or anything of the explosive nature to be found in Santa Elena. So, we settled for buying a lighter to at least have something semi-dangerous and flammable. That´s the American way, right? After partaking in both of our purchases we went to a very touristy restaurant and order a pizza and lemonade--the local hot dog stand was closed! We laughed at the other American tourists who couldn´t speak a word of Spanish and were rather grateful not to be associated with them.

I can successfully say that we have not done anything super-touristy since we´ve been here. I´ve actually not been pegged as a tourist. People here are very happy so speak Spanish with me and don´t automatically assume that just because I´m not Tico I don´t speak the local language. It´s actually really nice because I´m getting more practice with my Spanish and getting a true taste of the local culture. On top of that, this is a teeny, tiny town. So a lot of people are already starting to recognize me from seeing me walking everywhere. Some people even recognize Katherine from when she was here with FCCMT last year--I think that´s pretty cool!

It strikes me as kind of odd how much I am enjoying this small town lifestyle. Usually I am more inclined to enjoy bigger cities with lots to do and explore and the more busy, hurried lifestyle. But I´m really enjoying my time in Santa Elena and the fact that I can walk anywhere and that when I´m with my friend Darío (a local) he almost always sees someone he knows well enough to run up to and hug and have a quick conversation with. It´s a very friendly atmosphere, which I´m starting to grow accustomed to. In fact, the only rude people I´ve run into have been people who work for the church!

Here´s a little about my experience thus far with FCCMT:

I think Far Corners is amazing. We have already discovered a lot of raw, unrefined, undiscovered talent that otherwise may never have surfaced. There´s this one kid, Andrey, for example, who is 17 and goes to the local public high school (el colegio, for further reference). One day a few of us were up there trying to recruit kids to come audition for the show. Musical theatre is not common here at all, so it´s a little difficult to get older kids to want to participate. Andrey stopped by our table and started talking to me. He told me he was a salsa and merengue dancer but had never had to act or sing before. I told him to come audition just to see what it was like--plus, we really needed older guys! So, he came out to auditions. As expected, he was a great dancer, but he also is a really naturally talented actor and singer! Of course he needs a little refining, but it´s insane to see a person with so much raw talent to work with and to imagine the possibilities after we get to work with him over the next five weeks. And he´s not even the only one like this! He´s probably just the most dramatic example. All of these kids have something special that hasn´t yet been discovered, and I am so happy to be able to watch and help them grow as performers and hopefully as people, as well. This is definitely a unique experience that I am extremely grateful for.

Um...

Well, I spent about half an hour writing an entry to make my blog up to date on everything since I just started it 12 days into my adventure. But it didn´t save. So you guys don´t get to be caught up.