Statement on lack of updates

I am updating. Hold onto your hats.

I believe the reason I have not been updating with the same frequency as last semester is simple. I felt the need, while I was in London, to bridge the gap... literal and otherwise, I suppose. I felt this semester like I was living my own life-- certainly the reverse of my feelings whilst abroad. My posts this semester weren't even posts so much, but simply sharing what I had been working on in class.

There will be no more class. Ever. Or if not ever, at least not for a while. I have graduated college, and trying to deal with that fact is more surreal than any ten experiences I had in London. School is done.

Announcement of odd, yet cool news

In the strangest of strange news comes the following:

Tuesday, first ever professional audition
Thursday, first ever professional callback
Friday, cast in my first ever professional theatre gig

I have been cast in a 10 day workshop (at New York Theatre Workshop, oddly enough) of Will Power's play The Seven. It is a hip-hop version of The Seven Against Thebes, ye olde Sophocles play.

FAQ:

Q: So, are you the token white guy?
A: I have no idea, having not met the rest of the cast yet. It is not an unreasonable guess, however.

Q: Did they cast you as comedic relief because your rapping sucks so much?
A: Again, not out of the realm of possibility.

Q: Is it true that they asked you to prepare a song to be sung at callbacks, that you prepared and then sang for the panel "Part of That World" from Disney's The Little Mermaid?
A: That is true. Prompting Will Power, at the end, to stand up and say "You are The Man!" (emphasis his)

As much as I mock the cheese-factor of my years in the Brighter Side Singers (for the uninitiated, this was my high school show choir complete with sequined vests and all), I can't overstate some of the benefits gained from same. For instance, in the dance portion of the audition I didn't miss a step. Not one. This has nothing to do with my innate dance prowess, methinks: this has to do entirely with dance reps of like Baby Face over and over until I thought I'd pull my hair out. I would have been hopeless, otherwise-- as hopeless as I was on my very first day of BSS camp.

And in a strange turn of events, whoever would have thunk that writing and performing in all those lame BSS Ninja Rap sequences would have honed the skills necessary for my first professional show? Amazing. Amazing.

And, additionally, as if I needed to mention it, who would have done thunk that after raging against acting for four years of college that I would be acting again less than two weeks after graduation?

As you can plainly see, I am excited about this.

Near-death experience
My backpack got caught between the moving handrail of an escalator and the wall, wedging itself in there and pulling my shoulders back sharply, causing me to have to run backwards up the still moving escalator while trying to free myself. I was reaching for my knife to cut myself free (sounds like an absurd reaction, I know, but I was panicking) but I turned sharply and managed to dislodge it. Scary stuff.

Aborted attempt at voicing my frustration with the tourism at the World Trade Center site

Perhaps another day. Too fed up right now.

Weird, anticlimactic ending to post:

Well...