This has been a very tough semester for me. With 19 hours, my family responsibilities, moving my son out and being in two shows, I have been overwhelmed. The only way I have survived it is by sticking to the plan of not looking too far ahead. I did projects as they came up and tried to study each day, but it didn’t always work out due to rehearsals and shop hours, etc. But the theatre mantra of living in the moment kept me sane. Whenever I forgot that is when I crashed and burned.
Last week I was singing in my voice lesson and got a little too much “in the moment!” I really listened to the words of “Climb Every Mountain” and started crying. I couldn’t stop! Poor Natalie (my voice teacher)!! But to have come so far (and I was exhausted!) and to sing about a dream that will take everything you have to give, was just too much! This was a foreshadowing of this week though!
If I was exhausted last week, this week should have killed me! Final exams including a faux-hawk with green and turquoise feathers in my hair to play a rock star, the presentation of a scene I directed, an eleven page long scene to perform in Acting (turn of the century so no more faux-hawk!), a presentation of my prop project, singing juries and 2 written exams. No other major has such a variety for finals and I wouldn’t want it any other way, but it is tiring to say the least! Thank goodness the ballet final was last week!
Yesterday I had to do the scene and although I have worked my butt off for the past week, to the detriment of other classes, one week for me is not long enough. Oh, don’t get me wrong- my partner Ashley and I have rehearsed every Monday and Friday since it was assigned to us. We are not procrastinators! But I purposely did not work outside of rehearsal to learn my lines until after Heartbreak House. I really don’t know why- I learned my Pablo Cruise lines at the same time as Heartbreak and never had a slip up. But I convinced myself my old brain could not hold both Heartbreak and Hedda so I waited. And then I had a week to learn my lines. Some had stuck in my brain organically from all of the rehearsals but not enough. So I worked and worked, all along thinking of all of the studying I needed to do. Well finally, yesterday, we had our last rehearsal right before the “exam” time. The first time through I dropped a line. The next time through I really screwed it up and I could feel the panic rising inside of me. My stage fright is better but I have to be fully prepared to get into the moment and forget the audience or what I am actually doing- pretending to be someone else. I have to know it well enough that it is now a part of me and I can “become” that new person and forget everything else for that short amount of time. I was not there with this scene. And I could not speak. Every time I tried, I got choked up and finally the tears started. And the tears really weren’t for me! Don’t get me wrong, I did not want to embarrass myself, especially in front of this particular class, but I was so afraid for Ashley. She had been a great partner, gotten off book early and here I was about to ruin her grade! She was calming and gracious and before long it was time for class.
Now I have to say, the first two times I did my monologue in front of this class, earlier this semester, I was awful. I didn’t feel confident with the words and the class in general freaked me out. But I have used this monologue in my movement class all semester so I know it now. I have done it twice for my movement class, once as a cat (yeah, you read that correctly- a cat) and another time with different efforts- a term I don’t have time to explain here. As part of our final today we had to do our monologue one last time.
Between my melt down and class I had five minutes to myself, so I prayed- the entire five minutes. Not for me but for Ashley, that I didn’t wreck her performance or her grade. And then I walked into class feeling like I was walking into a firing squad! I did my monologue and it actually felt ok- no shaking hands, no knocking knees, no nervous pause. I knew it and I did it! Then the scenes began and I was not really wanting to volunteer. About half way through the scenes, Ashley said to me, “Do you want to get it over with?” so I said “Yes” and lo and behold, we did it. I tried to block out the other people in the room and the voice in my head telling me I could not do this, and I just did it. I can’t tell you how good or bad it was. It was an out of body experience. I can’t tell you if I dropped lines or not, but I am sure I did and Ashley kept right on going, so that the scene made sense. And then it was over as quickly as it began.
Then I had my theatre history final, which I had studied minimally for because I had spent every waking moment working on Hedda Gabler lines. I had decided that doing something in front of people that involved another person was more of a priority than something that just affected me, privately. I had studied some, but I was mostly walking in with the knowledge I had gained over the course of the semester, not what I had crammed in the last few hours. And isn’t that really a better measure of what you have actually learned? And isn’t that why I came back to school? To actually learn, not cram in facts to pass a test and then forget it all just as quickly? So I walked in, again like facing a firing squad but ready to see if I had actually retained anything. And again, I don’t think I set any records but I think I passed and I realized how much I had learned, and what I had not and needed to look at again at a later date.
So now I have one final exam and my jury left. One of the reasons I came to school was to get over my fear of singing in public. And although I still get nervous, compared to the faux-hawk and my scene for acting, singing these songs is a breeze. Kind of like having someone stomp on your foot to help you get over a headache! It hasn’t happened like I expected but I guess, mission accomplished!
And then I will have only two more semesters until I graduate! I am taking chemistry this summer and except for those four weeks and one week of jury duty in May, I plan to rest- I need it, I deserve it!
