A Snazzy Title

Greetings from Tampa!

I’m in Tampa right now at the Florida State Thespian Festival and I am PO’d. I am writing this after performing our ensemble scene but I will get to that.

I took two workshops today, both about playwriting. The first one was a little wacky because the lady running it didn’t have us practice writing or tell us about the industry, but she did have us release each of our chakras. Before we could release our chakras, we had to find our hidden impulses by lying on the ground and thinking about memories. My hidden impulse was to leave, but not before making the class into a joke. The lady called people up to share, and as they shared they had to sway and rotate in place. It would start off with “I am __ years old. I do this. I see that. I feel this.” All in the present tense. The first two people tell stories about literally the worst moments in their entire lives. I told something a lil less dramatic:

I’m 17. I’m at the Florida State Thespian Festival in Tampa. I am excited for the workshops, especially the improv one. Elliott, JP and I go to a workshop. We have fun. I perform a scene about a sock filled with butter. I leave and I see my friend Annie from work. She and I hug. I see my friends leaving and I am running after them. Running. Running. I know that if I’m not with a buddy I will be in trouble with Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter has a beard that’s pretty crazy. I see my friends going on an escalator in the distance. I run to catch up but another group is about to cut me off. I leap onto the escalator but my ankle buckles and I fall. I try to be strong. There are pretty girls all around. I use inner strength to not cry (for the girls). Elliott’s mom is the chaperone. “Are you okay?” “I’m fine.” I’m not fine. I am sweating profusely. I keep my arms down to hide pit stains. I hobble off of the escalator and walk out onto the terrace. I watch Elliott practice his monologues. I want an ibuprofen. Mr. Carter arrives on the scene. He asks if I need to call my parents. “I’m fine.” I’m not fine. The thespian dance is that night but I avoid it. I go home. I go to the hospital. The doctor gives me a brace. I wear the brace for a week. “Eh.” 2 months later I am in theater class. I am doing an ensemble scene with Jomari. Jomari is pretty. Jomari has a website called Jomari.com. We perform a scene from Twilight. Rounds of applause. I go back to my seat and trip and sprain my ankle again.

The next workshop was all about creating podcasts because they have such a far reach. A non-traditional playwriting workshop because it had nothing to do with writing. I told the guy that my co-Vice President, Julia Schmidt, was Ira Glass’s cousin. Thanks for letting me name drop Ira, Julia.  Then I got up and had to tell my story.

So our ensemble scene. Carter has us run it twice an hour before we performed, and he gave us some really constructive notes. It got progressively better. Like it was master craft level of performance. So we all make it into the room on time, unlike when we were missing Chloe at districts right when we were about to perform. I slated, “Hello! We are Freid & Co.” It went great. We had to move a table and two chairs to the center of the room, and later in the scene, I’d have to physically flip the table and then Julia would put it back. We made sure it wasn’t too heavy. It SEEMED STURDY. So we start this scene and it’s going great, but then James does some blocking where he jumps up on a table and walks to the end. Well, this rickety ass table started to tilt over, and the end near me gradually rose up in the air. I had a line, but also saw James about to fall on his ass, so I slammed my hand on the rising end of the table to keep it from falling, and I delivered my line without acknowledging my heroics. We finished the scene, which ends with my gay lover pulling a gun (plastic grapes in this scene) and shooting blanks at everyone. Funny right?! Uniquely comedic?! A bit absurd?! YEAH! All of these were decisions made on purpose. We get our results and they give us an ‘excellent’ for not grounding the scene in reality. I disagreed with this choice and the language I use was colorful to describe how I felt.

The rest of the night was drab. I ate dinner, I saw a play, I went to bed. It turns out WiFi is $13 a night, though, so like EFF THAT!!!! I get a bed to myself which is definitely one of the best parts of this entire trip.