So I have many very good friends that mean a lot to me. First we have Amy Rowland, she is pretty much my best friend in college and I don’t know what I would have done without her. She is extremely talented at singing, dancing, and acting and I know she is going to end up on Broadway. Then there is Thomas McCoy, he is also my bf and I don’t know what I would do without him either. He is an amazing singer and he sounds just like those crazy church singers on the CDs who are crazy good. Then we have Kyra Gemberling, she is a hot mess girl but I love her to death. She is one of my best good friends from High School and she always will be. She is crazy funny and has a signature laugh that anyone can recognize from a mile away. Then there is OLIVIA STOFIRA!!! She is my other best good friend from High School. I know I can tell her anything about me and she will never judge me! We are both so similar since we got to college it is crazy. I love her and her high soprano voice when she calls my name like “CHAAASSE MCCALLL” I can hear it in my head right now. I LOVE MY FRIENDS! :D:D

I just needed a title that would catch people’s attention. I am neither team Jacob or Edward, they both suck. I am team HARRY POTTER!!! Twilight in my opinion, is a little more on the sucky side. Harry Potter is so intricate and so complicated to explain. I can explain Twilight in about 15 seconds. Book 1: Girl Love Vampire. Book 2: Girl Kinda like Wolf. Book 3: Girl can’t choose between Wolf or Vampire. Book 4: Girl Choose Vampire and have baby, Wolf fall in love with baby(weird) and there is a big hype about battle that doesn’t happen. Now Harry Potter is a different story. It would take ten blogs to explain it because it is just that amazing. I have read all seven books about four times, but I have read the first 6 even more than that. Harry Potter is the first major chapter book that I started reading on my own. I remember my Mom reading me the first book, but then I couldn’t wait to read what happened next that I started taking the book and reading it secretly. Harry Potter is the reason why I fell in love with reading. So after I had finished all the books that were out, I had to read something else! I picked up a book to read, and it sucked. Why wasn’t it written like Harry Potter? How come the story isn’t as complicated as Harry Potter? Why wasn’t it as AMAZING as Harry Potter? Well I have learned something over the years after reading countless books, nothing will ever be as amazing as HARRY POTTER! J

So! Before I knew it, I was in the back of the cop car on my way to jail, or so I thought. They took me to a security holding area for the public bus system called CATS. So they searched me, took my phone and wallet and coins out of my pockets, and made me sit on the benches. So I don’t remember much while I was waiting, besides the fact that “Can’t be Tamed” by Miley Cyrus was stuck in my head. I think it was a sign………anyway. The cop comes back, and says that he has “reviewed the tape” that had caught me crossing the light rail tracks. He had decided that I had “lingered” too long on the tracks and they were officially arresting me and I was going to jail(My friends told me that the cops and just told me they were taking me down to the station to get a citation). So this new didn’t really shock me cause I thought I was already going to jail. They put me back in the car, and drove me to the jail. So I had to wait in line to get asked all these questions about allergies and diseases and stuff I might have had. So then they put me in the cell. It wasn’t the kind of cell you see on TV with the bars and open air, oh no, this is a closed room. Can you imagine an unclean room with drunks, druggies, homeless people, and just plain dirty people, along with the smell of a toilet that never gets clean, all in one smell? No I don’t think you can imagine, haha. So I could go on and on about little details about what happened, but eventually I was free. Luckily I had a friend working there and was able to get me out without having to pay the $250 bond. I was in jail from 2:00am, until about 8:30am. It was quite the experience. Oh and I got arrested again 5 days before school started because my Lawyer screwed up and didn’t go to the court date, so I got arrested for “failure to appear at court” same process all over again. Ohhhhhhh my life. I just……love it! No Lie J

So this past summer was probably one of the worst of my life. My car broke down so many times it eventually couldn’t come to college with me, phone was in my pocket when I went swimming, I was part of a car chase(and the care was coming after ME)lost my debit card, and that’s about it. Oh, did I mention I got arrested and went to jail twice? Oh yes, it happened. It was a late night, about 1:30am, and me and my friends had just gotten done clubbing. It was the first time I had ever gone and I was excited and it ended up being a lot of fun. But the whole night got ruined, obviously. My friends and I rode the light rail train into downtown Charlotte, so we needed to ride it back to get back to our car and go home. So we were under the impression that the light rail was open 24/7, but the schedule at the train stop said it stopped at 1:10. So just to be sure that the schedule we were looking at was correct, I decided to go to the other side of the tracks and see if there was another schedule to look at and see if it really did close at 1:10. Well instead of going AAAALLLLLL the way around the tracks where the road was, I just jumped down onto the tracks, jumped over the fence, didn’t see any schedule thing that would helped, and I jumped back over the fence to where my friends were. About 15 minutes later, a security cop comes out of nowhere and starts questioning me. He asks me if I had been drinking, how old I was, what I had been doing that night, and then he asked me to see my license. By that time, two more cops and come out of nowhere and was just standing there. The next thing I know I am hearing the words “put your hands behind your back”, and the cop was looking at ME. My friends told me my face went pale. I could not believe it. I was going to jail? I never thought it would happen to me. Want to know what happened in jail? Go to part 2. J

Several weeks ago I saw the musical Legally Blonde. It was one of the shows touring through GPAC. I had never really heard any of the music, but I absolutely love the movie. The movie is just so much fun and I love Reese Witherspoon also, she does such a fantastic job in that role. I had heard how awesome the musical was from all my friends who had seen it. I was sitting in my seat(more towards the back of course) waiting for the music to start for the overture. When that was over, the opening number “Ohmigod” started, and it was nothing but high energy, fun, and laughs until the very end of the show. The music is so upbeat and fun and just so much different than the traditional music in musicals that it was hard to not get up in your seat and start groovin’ along. All of the leads were fantastic, they all had amazing voices. The dance breaks were so cool as well. They did so much considering they had so little props and space on the stage. It may not be Broadway, but it’s one of those shows that makes you feel like you are in NYC.

This past Tuesday I attended my friend Sean’s Senior recital. It is requirement for a musical theatre major to have a recital to show case the work they have done the past four years. He sang about 10 pieces that he had learned and worked on over the years. He did a duet with Thomas McCoy, and did a trio with Thomas and Nicci Jerico. He also did a dance solo because dancing is probably his strongest  suit out of singing, dancing, and acting. I thoroughly enjoyed the concert. Sean is my friend and he did an awesome job considering how it came together the night of and the incident that had happened the night before. He had a very funny theme throughout his recital. The opening line of the opening song was “What do you do with a B.M. in music?” and the last song was called “I Wish I could Go Back to College”. The fact that he added a duet and a couple of trios into his recital made it that much more enjoyable. Sean will be graduating in December, and I will miss him dearly! But I do wish him the best out there in the real world!

It is a requirement for my freshman seminar class, and part of the Living Learning Community, to do this blog. I think it has been an interesting experience. It has been a lot of stress on me to get this done for my grade in freshman seminar. Honestly, I thought it was going to be pretty fun doing these blogs, but then I had no time for them and it became more of a burden than fun. I am so busy all the time with back to back classes, rehearsals for my show, and having a social life, that I don’t have time for blogs and the community program in general. Music majors are crazy, especially me since i do so much more outside of the music department. And as for twitter, I think it’s an even bigger waste of time in my opinion. I never really figured out how to use it, and even if I did, there is this little thing I like to call Facebook. I know twitter is different, it just like updating a status on Facebook. If you want to talk to somebody like you would want to through twitter, just leave a message on somebody’s wall. There is only so many things that twitter can do anyway. Some people tweet a lot(sometimes too much), and honestly I just don’t really enough to know about everybody’s little detail of their life. I know one of the blog assignments was to tweet with somebody in my profession and ask them questions. Well I still don’t know how to work twitter, and how am I suppose to know that the person I am trying to talk to knows how to use it too? I think the blogs have been okay, but Twitter? Ehhhh….. not so much.

For as long as I stay at UNC Pembroke, I want to try and make a name for myself in Moore Hall. I have trying to be the best I can be at what I do and make an example out of myself. I want to be the sectional leader in my choirs for starters. I didn’t have the title, but I was pretty much the leader of my choir back in high school at North West School of the Arts. It kinda sucks to have worked so hard to get there, then be back at the bottom at college. But I really want to prove my worth to my teachers that I can be a leader and get things done. I also play the piano for some classes, and I am going to take private piano classes next semester. I have already established myself as the “student accompanist” because of my sight reading skills. If someone puts some music in front of me that they need to sing along to while I play, I can do almost anything. Maybe in the years to come I can get paid to accompany students for performances or even rehearsal time. I also have been trying to make a name for myself in the community. I have accompanied at several churches in Robeson county this semester so far. I have already been referred to by the churches I have played at to other churches who need a pianist for a Sunday. I am hoping that all of these different experiences will help me stand out when I put them on a resume. I may not have any special internships with big companies, but I know that over the course of my college(and high school) career that I will have many people who will give me recommendations that will surely help me stand out among the other job applicants.

There are so many different things that contribute into putting on a musical. First you need money to buy the rights to perform the show, money to buy sets, to buy fabric and materials for costumes, to buy set pieces, to hire help if needed. Of course it is not all about the money, but it is definitely vital to putting on a show with sets and costumes that will catch the audience’s eye. There are so many other things that are needed to put on a musical, like creativity and leadership. The director who is putting on a musical needs a vision, a vision that the director will do almost anything to make come true.

The director has to get the license to actually put a musical on stage legally. Colleges and High School’s and Community Theatre’s have to get the license to any musical they want to put on. Directors can just go online and pick a musical, but it is not that easy. Companies and schools have to think about how much money they can spend on sets and costumes depending on the show. Some shows require very elaborate costumes and sets, others can be fairly simple. Most companies and schools know what show they are going to do way ahead of time because they have to think long and hard of what they are capable of doing.

One thing that I feel all directors need is trust. Trust in themselves, and trust in their stage manager, crew, actors, costumers, co-directors. Directors need to know that they can tell somebody what needs to be done and they can do it right without being asked twice. Most of the time, the directors can’t keep their heads on straight, and it gets worse and worse the closer it is to opening night.

A very vital part of putting on a show is auditions. I have never been a part of deciding who would be in the cast and who would not, but I can imagine that it would be very difficult. Sometimes it might even be easy, depending on how many people auditioned, or how many talented people showed up. One thing I have heard from the people that I have auditioned for, whether  for a school show, community theatre, or college audition, they always want the person who is auditioning to do well. They want to hear an amazing voice that will just blow them away, or a monologue that will make them weep. The person audition may not always think it, but the people auditioning them are on their side 100% of the way.

Another big factor that companies and directors need to think about is the music. How hard is the music? Sometimes the music can be too hard for the orchestra to play. That is why there is a musical director. They become familiar with the music and decide the caliber of difficulty so they can determine which instrumentalists need to be professional. But of course, if they have the money, the can hire a completely professional orchestra.

After all the decisions have been made about what show to do, who is in the crew, who is in the cast and in the orchestra, it is time to start rehearsing. The cast usually does a full read of the script the first rehearsal and then starts working on music. Eventually they will start working on scene and choreography (if the show requires). The main scene work that needs to get worked on is the blocking. Blocking is a stage direction, such as when actor comes on stage or crosses in front of another actor, or when the ac tor is suppose to sit down. Usually stage directions are written in the script, but some directors have their own creative twists to them. There is also blocking in dance, like where to stand while dancing. Eventually this all comes together and you have a show…almost.

While the cast is dancing, singing, and acting, the orchestra is working on the music separately. After many rehearsals between the cast and the orchestra, they get together to run through all the music. This is called a sitzprobe. This is a very important process because this is when the directors figure out many things. Like getting the music and the actors lines in sync to make smooth transitions into the next song or scene. Sometimes it can be before the song starts, or even during the song when actors are speaking over the music.

In my experience doing musicals at my high school, the costumers work even harder and longer than the cast and orchestra does. They have to come up with design patterns and ideas and make it all from scratch. The musical usually has a general theme and the costumers at least have an idea of what to design, but it is still very difficult. They also have to measure everyone in the cast to make sure the costumes fit, and they have to have a different costume for every scene. Sometimes costumes for the ensemble members are repeated throughout the show, but that is still a lot of people and costumes. The costumers are also the people who help do quick changes for actors who have to be in a different costume for a scene in a very short period of time, and they fix every major and minor costume crisis.

It still blows my mind when I am a part of a musical and I see it go from absolutely nothing to a breath-taking spectacle. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of man hours go into putting on a full-length production of a musical. Most of the audience has no idea what kind of work and creativity go into making a musical, and if they did, they would be even more amazed by the process than by the performance.

This blog is about whether or not I am making a difference on campus or even the classrooms I am in. I don’t know if I am necessarily making a difference with the entire campus, but I do believe I am making a difference in the music department. My major is musical theatre, and the program is not very strong. My friends Amy, Jay, and I all came from the same high school and we are all doing the same major. We were hoping to give the musical theatre department a reason to be here, and maybe even get more people attracted to the musical theatre program so we can grow. I already feel that my friends and I have made an impact. I am friends with everybody in the program and they have seen what my friends and I can do and they want to get better and try harder. I think we have given the program hope so it can continue to grow. I also feel I have made an impact more personally than my other friends because I play the piano as well as sing. I have helped in the weekly masterclass that my voice teacher makes her students attend once a week, I have helped in one of my musical theatre classes playing the piano because the pianist is only part time. Next semester I might even play in the pit for the yearly musical. I believe I haven’t been able to make the impact that LCC had planned for me to do on the entire campus, but I think my personal impact on the music department is just as good.