Bye Bye Birdie

This past week was the school musical. In case you haven't figured it out yet, we did "Bye Bye Birdie". It is my 7th period class. Tryouts to actually be in the class are in April every year, and then the class starts second semester. Three months ago in February, we had tryouts. I tried out for a girl named Ursula. She's a super hyper, crazy, hilarious girl who is the best friend of Kim MacAfee. Ursula is absolutely in love with Conrad Birdie. I don't have time to tell the story of Bye Bye Birdie, so I'll let you guys look it up on youtube or google it or something. Anyway, I tried out for Ursula. Even though I didn't get the part (I didn't expect to), I was absolutely thrilled to make call backs. To know that Ms. Swallow might even consider me for a main part was just amazing.

The main characters had to stay after school almost every day to get their blocking and start rehearsing every scene. It's a good thing I didn't get a main part because that would've totally messed with lacrosse (it's funny how I don't get to be in things I really wanted to, but it ends up being for the better. Like if I had made musical theater the year before or madrigals, I wouldn't be able to do a lot of the stuff I want to do). We've had choreography rehearsals every Monday during 7th period and going until about 4 pm to learn all of the dances. About three weeks ago, we went to the place where we would be performing for the first time. We usually perform at Rodgers Memorial Theater every year, but we couldn't this year because they're rebuilding it somewhere else. Our school stage was out of the question, it's so terrible. However, Bountiful Jr. High let us use their stage. They saved Swallow's life I think. So we got there and started rehearsing until about 5 or 6 each day. It used to take us three hours just to get through one of the acts. The set was a pain to get on and off and took up a lot of the time too.

Wednesday before last, we started staying after school until 9 pm. A bus would take us straight from 7th period to Bountiful every day and we were served dinner at 6. We soon got to the point where we could go through the whole musical two times a day and we started wearing our costumes and using mic's. It was tiring and my spiritual nourishment from seminary suffered from it because I fell asleep in seminary more than a couple of times. I would get home around 9:30 pm and I would still have to do my homework and chores. Last Monday was our final dress rehearsal before the show started. I straightened my hair for the musical, and we all got to wear tons of make up (the boys weren't happy).

On Tuesday we had our first show. It was the parent preview and our first time performing for more than ten people. It was really fun to go out there for the first song, Telephone Hour, and see all the people in the audience. I had to force myself not to stare at them and try to find people I knew. It was so weird hearing them actually clap and laugh. I didn't even know some parts were funny, and other parts I just heard so many times that it didn't even seem funny anymore so it was really cool hearing people react other than Ms. Swallow's hyena laugh.

Wednesday was really fun. We had such a good audience and they laughed at everything. Before each of our performances, the whole cast would go outside and someone would say a prayer and then we'd all do a cheer to get us pumped. The show went well, except for the fact that some of the mic's suck and keep on breaking off or making popping noises. They really irked us. On Thursday, the girl who played Kim MacAfee (Ashley Peterson) lost her voice. I thought her voice would just be a little raspy or something. No, raspy would've been great. When she sang her first solo, How Lovely to be a Woman, she could barely sing it. Her voice just sounded so bad, she couldn't hit most of the notes, her voice kept on breaking, and she sounded like she was trying not to cry. We didn't know what to do. All of us in the cast were in the hall outside of the stage, and most of us were just pacing with our hands over our mouths because we felt so bad for her but we didn't know what to do. Ashley kept on going, and she got a very loud applause at the end of her song. It totally downed our energy, and even though we did well with our singing and acting, we weren't very energetic because we were upset that Ashley was having trouble with her voice. During intermission, we all went outside and talked for a while and then we said another prayer. Us girls then went into our changing room and started singing our favorite song Be a Man from Mulan while this girl improvised it on the piano. We then performed our best second act, we had tons of energy and decided we weren't going to let anything get to us. During the show, a girl who plays Ursula had to sing her solo for her, and another girl sang her part in a song backstage. Her voice was a bit better Friday, and she sounded good on her solos. She just changed the notes and sang them down an octave or just talked them or changed the notes altogether to make it sound good with the music. We were so proud of her. A bunch of my friends and my family, my sister's boyfriend, Grandma Carol, and John, Marjorie, and Amanda all came. I was mad because the stupid mic's were being dumb again and the main guy's mic completely turned off during the second act so you could barely hear him during one of the best songs. Oh well. Saturday we had our two last shows, one at 3 pm and another at 7. Those two were our best performances. They switched the mic's around so the main guy's wasn't so glitchy. After the 3 pm show, they fed us food and I just stayed and hung out with the cast. Then we had our last performance which went really well. We had so much energy and we did such a great job. I had tons of fun. I was pretty sad when it was over. We then stayed until 10:30 taking down the set and cleaning up everything. We then went to one of the main character's (who happens to be the daughter of a former Miss America) house to hang out since our cast party wasn't until Monday. We had a fire outside and had s'mores and hot dogs without buns, played basketball, football, and later did truth or dare where I totally lost it and got hyper and did some really crazy stuff....

I'm sad the musical is over, but at the same time I'm excited to have my life back. It was fun, I just wish it could've lasted a little longer. It was super fun and I got an awesome jacket, a DVD, and a bunch of new friends from the show. I could've lived without having to go through the boys' changing room to get on stage and seeing my guy friends with no shirts or boxers though. I don't think they minded :) Now I'm working on getting the songs out of my head. Anyway, that's my story of Bye Bye Birdie. I congratulate anyone who actually read this whole thing. I just really enjoy typing and giving details, it takes me about 2-3 hours to write in my journal. Anyway, zai jian wo de peng you!