Auditions and Sydney

Alright so I lied about the updating in the next few days, so sue me! I got a bit distracted and then left for Sydney for mid-semester break. More on that in a moment. By a moment I mean a few paragraphs. And by a few paragraphs I mean a lot of paragraphs. This is going to be a hella long post.

I survived mid-semester exams (barely). Grades haven’t come in yet, but there are more interesting things to discuss.

Bugfest auditions were fantastic, to say the least. I met the other directors, and they were all really nice. I was pleasantly surprised. They mostly knew each other but were really welcoming, despite the fact that I have never even seen anything Underground has put on. I think the fact that I was completely as new as new could be to Underground helped put some people at ease during auditions if they were auditioning for the first time.

Two days of auditions, both had very good turnouts. Twenty-fiveish people both days, around half of which were guys! The vast majority of the casts were male, so that was a huge relief. There were discussions of threats of violence between directors prior to the first round of auditions.

We first handed out scripts to people we were interested in, and then sent them to practice then come in to show us. It was a bit disorganized. Six directors handing out scripts to different people, and then trying to mix up people. It didn’t work out quite the way we planned. After seeing everyone through we decided to take our scripts and just pull people aside to see them read. It went much faster when we were all running scenes at the same time.

I was absolutely blown away by how good everyone was. There was almost no one who wasn’t good for at least one part. It helps that the scripts are all very varied. Some of the readings did me no good at all to see as the characters are as different as can be. People who would have been terrible for my play were perfect for one of the other plays.

After each day of auditions we sat down and each wrote down a cast list if we had to cast after that day’s of auditions. We then wrote a second list if there were more people we were considering. After the second day we sat down and made final lists for callbacks. There was actually very little overlap of the lists. A people were contested, but we all had enough options that it was evident everyone was going to be pretty happy with their cast.

Callbacks rolled around and we decided to try and bring some order to it. We watched most people run through each of the scenes they were called back for. It was actually really really helpful. Seeing people in different roles certainly helped. One girl who I was calling back fit so perfectly into another role she was called back for that I didn’t even take notes when she was reading mine. She was already cast in my mind as someone else. The point was to not have one awesome play and five mediocre ones; it was to have six awesome ones.

Callbacks were intense. Switching people around to try and find the perfect combination. It was sort of terrifying and exhilarating. Trying to think of everything that goes into casting, it felt good. When I was walking there I felt as nervous as I ever felt when I was auditioning. I had three people for each of my roles, so I was going to be breaking some hearts.

I cast fairly quickly. My script has three people, female and male lead and a female supporting role. Only one of my guys was suitable for the role during callbacks, so it was mostly a matter of finding who was going to be playing with him. The supporting girl fell into place pretty easily. It wasn’t really a competition between the two girls who I saw read. The female lead was a bit trickier. One was out as she was crazy epic awesome in someone else’s play, so it came down to two girls.

Both would have been great for the role but as only one could actually be in it, I had to choose. So I did. I don’t really want to go into the reasoning behind it, but I’m happy with who I cast.

I was a little nervous because there was a mild conflict between another director and me over Tom, the guy who I wanted to cast. He saw Tom read for mine and admitted that he was great in the role. He had one more guy to read for the role and if he was good at all, he would concede Tom to me.

The guy was crazy epic great and had us rolling laughing. We all ended up happy! YAY!

I sent out emails to my cast and we all met up to iron out a rehearsal schedule. Performances are at the end of October, so we needed to get a-move on. Two practices a week until the shows. Even in the read through I couldn’t stop smiling. It’s such a great script and the people are so perfect. Just thinking about it makes me happy.

So that was two weeks ago. The next week (last week) was mid semester break!

I’ve been calling it spring break throughout the semester, and that is basically what it is. Its spring here, so that’s appropriate. A week off of classes, so it is even MORE like spring break in the States. Surprisingly enough most Australians don’t really go anywhere for their break. They head home or hang out around Brisbane. Thinking back, I generally don’t do anything special for spring break either, but a lot of people do. A week off of classes is a great time to go do that thing that you’ve been meaning to do. You know, at the place. With the person. Yeah, that thing.

I used my break to go see Sydney. My parents coincided their visit to Australia and we met in the airport. They spent a week in New Zealand before meeting me there, and absolutely loved it. Apparently it is much prettier than Australia, which is sometimes hard to imagine. I can’t wait to see it (have I mentioned that after exams I’m going to be trekking around New Zealand for a few weeks? I honestly can’t remember…but I am).

We got in at around five and had hugs. They commented on my hair (I have bangs now!) and we lugged our luggage out to grab a cab. Piling in, we headed to the hotel and chattered about various things. What we were going to do, what they had done, how quizzes went.

After checking into the hotel, we went to find somewhere to eat. They had been served dinner on the plane, but I had not. A Hungry Jack’s sandwich for a late lunch was wearing thin, so we walked down a street near our hotel that looked promising. We found this cool little restaurant that had fantastic lasagna.

I guess I didn’t realize how much cooler Sydney is in comparison to Brisbane. I had brought some pants and jackets for my parents to take with them, and I actually ended up wearing some of them.

Dad only had one full day in Sydney before he had to fly back to Chicago to go to a meeting in a day (ha ha jetlagged meeting!) so we decided to book a tour to go see the Blue Mountains.

Basically the Blue Mountains are these beautiful mountains (go figure, eh?) about an hour from Sydney. The tour we booked also stopped at an animal park to pet koalas and took us up to see the Three Sisters (a set of three lovely rocks surrounded by trees and beauty and height and nature-y stuff) and gave us a boomerang demonstration! Exciting, no?

First stop was the animal park. I got a few good pictures of animals we saw after my camera battery died. We also saw another emu and it demolished Dad’s ice cream cone of kangaroo food. They all laughed when I said that emus were terrifying. It’s the truth. Their huge beaks are right at eye pecking height and they have the glint of bloodlust in their emu eyes.

OK not really but they are ugly lookin’ birds and when they eat they peck hard, and I have no doubts that they could take off a finger without a second emu thought.

I later fed it when it was sitting down. Much more manageable.

The weirdest thing that happened the entire day (possibly my trip so far) was at the animal park. When I was feeding a wallaby, a Japanese man came up and said something along the lines of “You take picture?” I assumed that he wanted me to take a picture of him with his friends in front of the cute marsupials. Silly me, no. He wanted a picture WITH me. He and his friend stood on either side and smiled and I suprisedly smiled too.

Weird.

After the animal park we all got little koala souvenirs that had a little vest which said “Featherdale”, the name of the park. We stopped in a random park to do a boomerang demonstration. Yes this was really horrifyingly touristy. But, yes, I got off the bus to watch anyway.

The bus driver explained what makes a good returning boomerang, which was very helpful. I later bought one and it seems to be pretty awesome so far. Haven’t tried it yet, but I intend to upon returning to Purdue. It is now on a flight home with my mummy.

The driver threw it quite a few times and missed catching it every time. I chuckled at his expense, I must confess.

Off we went again, and headed up into the Blue Mountains to see the Three Sisters. (I’ll post pictures to go along with this eventually, maybe tomorrow morning; we went over internet quota again L). It was windy and cold and beautiful, but mostly cold.

In the Blue Mountains, looking down from the top, it’s as if the trees go on forever. All you see is rolling hills (mountains really, but you are so high everything looks small), absolutely covered in trees. It goes on for so long it simply fades into the sky.

After the overhead view, we headed below the treetops to the tree bottoms. There is a series of wooden paths all below the overview that lets you walk through the forest. To get down we rode the world’s steepest railway. The seats were literally diagonal so that you would be sitting straight as you descended. When it started they played the Indiana Jones theme song and I giggled.

A few cool trees later, we stopped at the site for the Sydney Olympic Games. There were pillars that had the names of all the volunteers on them so we found the Helmers (two of them!) and the Fulton’s (my mom’s maiden name) (there were like eight of them!) and took pictures and got a ferry ride home. The Sydney lights were lovely floating by.

For dinner I had roo steak. In case you’re keeping track at home, yes I ate kangaroo hours after petting one. It was delicious.

Dad headed out early to catch his flight, and Mom and I hit the Botanical Gardens. Bigger than the ones in Brisbane, apparently they don’t compare to the ones in Christchurch. There were hundreds of flying foxes sleeping in the trees, and we later got to see them fly. They’re pretty big suckers. Walking down by the Harbor with the sun shining off of the Opera House was magical. The Harbor is so clear; grass grows at the bottom of it. How crazy is that?

We stopped by the Opera House to take pictures and buy tickets to a show. We ended up getting tickets to not one, but TWO shows. On called Mikado is an operetta and the other, called Billy Twinkle: Requiem for a Golden Boy, is a marionette one man show. By signing up for a tour of the Opera House we ended up saving something like two hundred dollars on the Mikado tickets.

After soaking up the Opera House ambiance, we headed to the harbor and went on a cruise around it. The cruise took us around the Harbor and through the suburbs of Sydney. There are some crazy ridiculous expensive houses there. Eighty million crazy expensive. I’m sure the view is pretty and all, but eighty million dollars?! Yeesh.

I also got a picture of the house where the party scene in Australia (the movie) was filmed! Our tour guide had an Aussie sense of humor and commented that there are two reasons to see the movie Australia. One, Hugh Jackman. Two, Hugh Jackman takes his shirt off.

Mom and I stole a bunch of cookies (aka biscuits) from the cruise. Shh, don’t tell. Ill gotten sweets always taste the best.

On Tuesday Mom and I decided to get in some Sydney shopping. It was surprisingly difficult to find affordable places. If we wanted designer clothes, there were shops a-plenty, but kind of cheap, affordable twenty year old clothes were severely lacking. It was a little disappointing, but window shopping was actually kind of fun.

In Sydney there are so many jewelry shops. Opals seem to be the specialty around here, but the stores were certainly not limited. If you wanted gold, silver, watches, necklaces, vintage, new, anything it could be found. Looking at all of the pretty, shiny, expensive trinkets in the stores was beautiful. Mom and I bought necklaces at one store! Hers is a green oval opal, very pretty, and very Mommy looking. Mine is a much smaller (Laura-sized! (Aka cheap college student sized)), sort of clear opal. When it lies on different backdrops, it changes color. On my skin it is a pretty purple pink. Pretty snazzy, eh?

That night we went and saw Mikado, an operetta. It was pretty good, although the main character made the entire show. He is one of those actors who steals every scene he is in. He walked on stage, and instantly the entire audience was entranced with what he had to say or do and everyone else became…uninteresting.

Fast forward to the next day, we went to the aquarium. It was pretty freakin awesome. The Frommers Australia book highly recommended it, and it was well deserved. They had lots of coral and cool fish and some of the pictures I got are breathtaking. There were two huge tanks that you could actually walk through. The first had dugongs (manatees!) and the second had sharks and sting rays. They would swim over the tunnel you could walk through or under your feet or along side. It was magical, staring at a dugong floating by and listening to the classical music playing in the background.

That night we were planning on going to the Observatory. They do night tours and you can look at the stars and it is apparently quite lovely. The problem is they require reservations and we were too late to get in. Instead we went and saw Fame. Not too bad, if you were wondering.

On our last full day in Sydney Mom and I went to a huge market called Paddy’s Market. It was a huge building filled with row after row of stalls hawking their wares. There were hats, jewelry, clothes, electronics, Australian tourist crap, and on and on. My personal favorite was the stall that had nothing but socks.

We didn’t end up buying anything, but it was fun to look at. After a while it became overwhelming. It was endless. Rows and rows of crap.

That night we went to see Billy Twinkle. I’d never seen a marionette show before and was relieved that they weren’t creepy (much). I actually liked it better than Mikado. The puppet master (I don’t remember his real name, sorry!) played a cruise ship puppeteer who was going through a mid life crisis. He shushes an audience member and gets fired. The beginning was pretty weird because he tries to kill himself but gets possessed by the man who taught him how to make puppets who can’t go to rest until Billy retires a puppet representing him. He speaks to Billy in the form of a bunny hand puppet! They then go through Billy’s past and relive key moments in his life via puppets.

I thought it was a nice blend of humor and serious. Each of the scenes had a key moment that was what made it pivotal in a man’s life. Mom liked Mikado more, but Billy Twinkle was much more my speed. I love interesting characters, and Billy Twinkle was certainly interesting.

It was a rather nice end to the trip. The next morning we had time for breakfast (waffles!) and then headed off to the airport. I’m glad to be back in Brisbane, it’s like slipping into a comfortable pair of shoes again.

Anyway, classes start up tomorrow again. Baaaaaaah

Six pages in word, whew. Props to whoever read this all.