Oklahoma!: The Aftermath

Well, tomorrow, August 5, it will be one week since we closed with Gardendale Art's Council's summer production of Oklahoma!, a musical by Rogers and Hammerstein. In it, I portrayed the part of Ike Skidmore, a rancher. It always "feels funny" after you finish with a show. You have that weird void in your life that once was filled with hours of rehearsal and preparation each night leading up to a production and then afterwards, it "feels funny." Monday night was especially weird because I thought to myself, "Ok, so now what...what am I going to do now that I've got this free time on my hands?"

But life is back to normal now...as normal as it can be with school coming up, moving in to my new apartment in a couple of weeks, placement auditions for UAB Concert Choir, Chamber Choir, and auditions for UAB Opera, not to mention I'm about to start working a reduced schedule at Lakeshore Foundation (I'm only able to work on Saturdays there because of school this semester) and I'm about to start my other job at Starbucks in Vestavia Hills (I had to find a job that will supplement my income from Lakeshore so I can pay RENT and other things). I start training there on Monday.

Enough of that for now...

So I thought I'd write a little bit about my thoughts after Oklahoma!.

We began rehearsals in June and at first I didn't know quite what to expect. I was in a show with only a few friends in it that I've worked with in previous shows and alot of new people that I had never met before. Well, that soon changed. I don't know what it is about me, but people seem somewhat drawn to me. Not long after we began rehearsals had I began to make new friends, such as: James Whited, Melissa Shirley, Anna Mitchell, Monica Graham, Leah Jennings, and Lee Emond, just to name a few. I also rekindled some old friendships from previous times in my life (high school and other productions), such as: Carrie Couchman, Trent Loggins, Olivia Bannister, Courtney Parker, and Grant Bowen. So, rehearsals began and things started to progress. Lines were worked on first then we began to have music rehearsals, which I assisted our music director, Ginny Hughes, with. After all the rehearsing and all the preparation, it came time for production which was July 26-28, 2007. Production was held at the Gardendale Civic Center Complex's Exhibition Hall at 7 p.m. nightly.

On OPENING NIGHT (which by the way...IT'S BAD LUCK TO SAY GOOD LUCK ON OPENING NIGHT..."if you do, i tell you, it is certain by the curtain you are through..." <--a line from The Producers), SOMEONE ::ahem:: made the horrendous, TABOO, theatrical mistake of saying "GOOD LUCK." Needless to say, opening night wasn't as good as it could've been. We had sound issues all night...songs coming in at the wrong time, large gaps of silence where there should've been music, mic issues, ect. Other than those issues, opening night was a success. Heh, I actually had people come up to me afterwards each night and ask me for my autograph. Afterwards, we went to some place in Fultondale for a cast dinner.

The second night of production went alot smoother than opening night, although we still had some sound glitches. WE WERE SOLD OUT!!! It was a great performance, but the audience wasn't very responsive...er, they could've been more responsive. After that night's performance, James, Melissa, Courtney, Brad and myself went to Waffle House (or as some would call it Vavvle Hovse). Hilarities ensued...canabals!!

And on the third and last night of production, WE WERE SOLD OUT as well!!! In my opinion, the third night was the BEST night of production. We got to act out more on stage...TRENT fell!! That was hilarious...well, not at first, but then we all laughed about it. My accent was SOOO country that night...I mean, it was country because of the dialect used in the performance, but I made it extra southern that night. It was a very "funny" night. Lets just say, we all had a "feel funny" moment on stage the last night [this is one of those things that only people in the play would get...so just ignore it]. Afterwards, we ALL went to O'Charley's in Fultondale to celebrate [which was somewhat dissatisfying due to the restaurant's staff's unwillingness to cooperate with our reservations...it was frustrating].

All in all, this was a great thing that happened to me this summer. I have kept in contact with my new friends since Oklahoma and a few of us actually had a grand adventure last night. Actually, tonight Melissa, James, Trent, myself, and others are going to hang out again. FUN!!

Well, I had better wrap this up. I would like to accomplish some other things here at work today.

Later peeps!!

BE SURE TO LEAVE ME COMMENTS ABOUT THIS!!

;)