(no subject)
Okay, I’ve been needing to blog for a while and I’m going to blog about 3 very very very different points. What I did this weekend was perform in Much Ado About Nothing, participate in a peace march, and volunteered with my Youth Group at our Indian Dinner to help raise money for our trip to San Jose this summer. I found that these three things had one collective theme:
Ensembles
Ms. Laitta’s definition of ensemble is “A group of people working together to achieve a common goal” and really that was the necessary thing to make all of these projects successful. This isn’t really what I want to blog about, but I felt an intense sense of community this weekend and it was really touching.
Now, just for updates.
Much Ado About Nothing: It went fantastic! It was way too much fun. The evening audience was a lot better than the afternoon audience. The evening audience actually got the jokes and laughed (hurrah!) They did laugh a little too much, because in my scene where I ask Benedick to kill Claudio, a lady was cracking up! They were a very genuine audience too, when I was wandering around looking for my parents people came up to me and rather than saying “You were great!” they actually pointed out parts of my performance that they enjoyed! A guy actually came up to me and began to discuss my Hamlet soliloquy with me, and his wife kept talking about her favourite comedic lines from Much Ado. It was a really cool experience (and fun to switch to two drastically different Shakespearean characters)
Now, for my thoughts of this war/the peace march.
There is something that I’ve really begun to notice that people have been thinking since this war began, and with the whole immigration thing. I believe that people feel that the life of a foreigner is somehow worth less than the life of an American. It is a disgusting notion, and once you believe that, it is a slippery slope. The Nazi’s were able to do what they did by saying that the people that they were killing were somehow less than human. And, as Ms. Fougnies pointed out, it’s how people can make fun of the mentally retarded. They somehow decide that “those people” are worth less than us. At least 60,000 Iraqis (At least! They don’t even have a sure number. It just shows that the media and government don’t care about the Iraqi people) have died in this war, and about 3,000 American soldiers have been killed. I’m trying to get people to understand that WE ARE WORTH NO MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE. Which (sorta) brings me into this whole immigration point. There is a 13 year old Mexican girl who wants to be in the US, I’m a 13 year old girl who is in the US. But I only am because I was born here. So why do I get to be here and she doesn’t? It doesn’t make sense to me.
This is a totally different point, but it’s something that has been bothering me a lot. Why is a woman suddenly unattractive once she hits (or looks) a certain age? Now, I can’t speak for any other countries but I know in America it’s something that I keep seeing. Saying the words “You look so young” is pretty much saying “You look gorgeous” in this country, and it pisses me off! And it’s a complete double standard as George Clooney is still considered a hottie (which he is, I’ll totally admit) But I cannot name one older female star who is still considered a sex symbol. My mother said Diane Keaton, but if you polled 100 guys on the street 90 of them would say that she isn’t hot or sexy. Cute, pretty MAYBE, but not hot. Now do the same with George Clooney or another one of these “Fine wine, they get better as they age” guys and 90 of 100 women would say that they are totally sexy! It makes me so angry, angrier than anything else because woman are only smarter, wiser, and funnier as they age. Why isn’t that equated with beauty in the way that it should be? Anyway, I have a loooong list of women over 45 that are fucking sexy, and I’m proud to admit it. (I won’t give you the full list, but the shortened one is Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, Patti LuPone, Barbara Streisand, and Hillary Clinton) I cannot wait to hit 50, but I guess that’s just me.
(Less than 20 days until I see Patti again! Yesss!)
I'm going to start on "Here I Am" from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels this week with Beth (my vocal teacher, in case you didn't know) and I'm excited, it's a great song! And we're working on Magic to Do in Musical Theatre, it's the only non-baker's wife Schwartz song that I love! I loooves that song.
Ensembles
Ms. Laitta’s definition of ensemble is “A group of people working together to achieve a common goal” and really that was the necessary thing to make all of these projects successful. This isn’t really what I want to blog about, but I felt an intense sense of community this weekend and it was really touching.
Now, just for updates.
Much Ado About Nothing: It went fantastic! It was way too much fun. The evening audience was a lot better than the afternoon audience. The evening audience actually got the jokes and laughed (hurrah!) They did laugh a little too much, because in my scene where I ask Benedick to kill Claudio, a lady was cracking up! They were a very genuine audience too, when I was wandering around looking for my parents people came up to me and rather than saying “You were great!” they actually pointed out parts of my performance that they enjoyed! A guy actually came up to me and began to discuss my Hamlet soliloquy with me, and his wife kept talking about her favourite comedic lines from Much Ado. It was a really cool experience (and fun to switch to two drastically different Shakespearean characters)
Now, for my thoughts of this war/the peace march.
There is something that I’ve really begun to notice that people have been thinking since this war began, and with the whole immigration thing. I believe that people feel that the life of a foreigner is somehow worth less than the life of an American. It is a disgusting notion, and once you believe that, it is a slippery slope. The Nazi’s were able to do what they did by saying that the people that they were killing were somehow less than human. And, as Ms. Fougnies pointed out, it’s how people can make fun of the mentally retarded. They somehow decide that “those people” are worth less than us. At least 60,000 Iraqis (At least! They don’t even have a sure number. It just shows that the media and government don’t care about the Iraqi people) have died in this war, and about 3,000 American soldiers have been killed. I’m trying to get people to understand that WE ARE WORTH NO MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE. Which (sorta) brings me into this whole immigration point. There is a 13 year old Mexican girl who wants to be in the US, I’m a 13 year old girl who is in the US. But I only am because I was born here. So why do I get to be here and she doesn’t? It doesn’t make sense to me.
This is a totally different point, but it’s something that has been bothering me a lot. Why is a woman suddenly unattractive once she hits (or looks) a certain age? Now, I can’t speak for any other countries but I know in America it’s something that I keep seeing. Saying the words “You look so young” is pretty much saying “You look gorgeous” in this country, and it pisses me off! And it’s a complete double standard as George Clooney is still considered a hottie (which he is, I’ll totally admit) But I cannot name one older female star who is still considered a sex symbol. My mother said Diane Keaton, but if you polled 100 guys on the street 90 of them would say that she isn’t hot or sexy. Cute, pretty MAYBE, but not hot. Now do the same with George Clooney or another one of these “Fine wine, they get better as they age” guys and 90 of 100 women would say that they are totally sexy! It makes me so angry, angrier than anything else because woman are only smarter, wiser, and funnier as they age. Why isn’t that equated with beauty in the way that it should be? Anyway, I have a loooong list of women over 45 that are fucking sexy, and I’m proud to admit it. (I won’t give you the full list, but the shortened one is Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, Patti LuPone, Barbara Streisand, and Hillary Clinton) I cannot wait to hit 50, but I guess that’s just me.
(Less than 20 days until I see Patti again! Yesss!)
I'm going to start on "Here I Am" from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels this week with Beth (my vocal teacher, in case you didn't know) and I'm excited, it's a great song! And we're working on Magic to Do in Musical Theatre, it's the only non-baker's wife Schwartz song that I love! I loooves that song.