"Meet Me" on the Weekend!

Bad news, guys!

For some reason my card reader doesn't really work anymore, so I can't share with you the photos from my fun-filled Friday night.
Hopefully I can get it to work soon, otherwise my blog will be pretty bare- and I have pie-themed pictures I want to share!

Friday was opening night for Meet Me in St. Louis and I really enjoyed myself! My high school theater was very low-key, as was the college's program nearby, so it was something of a shock to see how nicely a school theater could pull together a musical without being flawed. Besides the cast doing an immaculate job, the show itself is just too cute to handle. If you haven't seen it you definitely should!

I'm going to attempt snagging some photos of the set for you all, just because, once again, the set is completely awesome.
I want to say it's awful, as in "Full of Awe", but unfortunately English doesn't work that way.

It's very strange, and I'm mostly blaming the fact that Christmas Break is right around the corner, but I am so impatient these days. I find myself tip-tapping my toes before it's time to go to bed so I can rush over to the next day, and so on and so on.
Like I said, I'm blaming the hours and hours of delicious sleep waiting for me once I'm back in Kentucky.

Plus I'm super excited to get into shenanigans with these fellas:

That's my stepdad Ben on the left, me in the middle, and Truchi (the BoyFran) on the right.
What a FunBunch.

Also! Please don't think I've forgotten that special post I promised. It'll be up this week!

Hope you all have had a great, great weekend! Mine was pretty great.

love, rudi

Collected Stories

Hey everybody!

I can't remember if I told you, but for the past few weeks I've been assistant stage managing a show in the Warehouse Theater called Collected Stories.

We open tonight! Everyone should come! The show starts at 7:30 and we run through Saturday night. If you're a Stephens girl, tickets are $6, and if you're not one of those lucky few they cost $8.

I'm super proud of this show! No promises on pictures of the set until after the show- you'll just have to come and see it yourself!

Here's the set of our last show, All My Sons, just to feed your theater hungry eyes!

Gorgeous, ain't she? One of our apprentices, Brandon P.T. Davis, did the set design and Emily Swanson designed the lights. I think they both did a marvelous job!

I hope you all get a chance to come see Collected Stories! I'm very proud of the cast and crew- I can honestly say I'm a big fan of the show.

See you there!

love, rudi

All My Sons!

Guess what I've been doing?!

Not Sleeping!!

Yaaaaaaaay Theater!

I have four pieces of really cool news.

1) I've discovered that I really, really like tuna salad sandwiches. With lettuce. I saw a girlfriend of mine eating one a week or two ago and it looked so delicious, even though for my entire life I just knew I hated tuna fish. I had to try one.

So I did. And I loved it. And today I felt the need to check online to see if I'm at risk of mercury poisoning because I eat it for every meal. It's totally a random little slice of my life, but I really want you all to know how Stamper, our cafeteria, has totally changed my life.

Also this is what we had for dessert today:

Caramel Apple Milktinis. We call them milktinis because they're like milkshakes, but way fancier.

Cause look: they're in fancy cups!

The amount of delicious in those things is incomprehensible. Inexplicable. In-my-tummy-able.

Ohhh Stamper. I love thee so.

2) I went online the other day to apply to be an ordained priest (just cause I can), and I ended up signing up to be a soldier's pen pal instead. I'm totally excited! I don't have any family or friends that are overseas right now (although one of my good friends is going soon) and I'm nervous and excited to see what kinds of conversations arise. I got my soldier's info today- his name is Todd. It might be totally fun, it might be really sad and scary. Either way it's something new. Wish me luck.

3) I somehow acquired the role of assistant stage manager for the Warehouse Theater's production of Collected Stories! I admit I'm a bit intimidated, even though I know the job isn't the most difficult one in the world. I've just never done it before, but I've always wanted to. These days I've been asking myself a lot of questions about what I want to do, and where in the theater world I think I belong. It's so surprising that I find myself gravitating to the technical side of things, the building, directing, arranging side, when I've always thought I was just an actress. I'm interested to see where this experience leads me!

4) And four! Tomorrow (Friday) is opening night for All My Sons and it's gonna be GREEEAAAAATTTT!!!!!

I'm saying that from a technical view, anyway. I've helped build the set, and though I've heard from more than five sources that the show itself is top notch, I can personally vouch that it's gonna look awesome.

Wanna little sneak peak? I snuck my camera in to shop today just for you guys!

This, for those of you who are unfortunate not to know her, is the lovely and talented Heather Hillhouse, the technical director here at Stephens. I'm currently trying to convince her to fill out the proper paperwork to become a Captain of a ship, so when I get married she can perform the ceremony, and then she can drive us away into the Caribbean on her gigantic wooden, piratical boat.

And with that lovely image I leave you.

Au Revoir, my loves. Au Revoir!

love, rudi

Fall Break

I'm so ashamed to never have enough photos for you all! My camera is such a breakable thing that I'm always nervous it's going to fall crashing to the ground, so I hardly ever take it with me on adventures.

This is something I'm going to seriously begin improving on, because for one, fall is gorgeous, and two, I've been so artistically stumped these days that I need to start taking photos again, not just to document what's going on for the blog, but for me.

But let me switch gears and clue you all in on what's been going on this past week. So much seems to have happened! I might just list everything off, and you can elaborate on the details in your head. Use your imagination!

On Monday we had Open Mic night, which I completely love attending. There's a lot of singing and guitars, but the usual jive was mixed up a bit by a really great rap song about cannibalism, and also a particularly blush worthy storytelling session by my pals Olivia and Kathleen.

Also last week was mid terms, and somehow I managed, despite having a huge list of stuff to do glaring at me for two weeks straight, getting everything done with relatively low stress- and also somehow getting them done well. I think I might be a miracle worker.

I spent Thursday night watching as my friend Alex create a dance to this song. It was breathtaking, I can't even tell you. I really wish I could have seen it performed at Citizen Jane.

And then he taught me a dance to this song, and I was literally breathless. Ohhh Asthma is so much fun!

This weekend has been particularly painful. Despite it being fall break, I spent most of Friday in the shop working on the set for All My Sons (which you ALL need to go see when it opens this week!) and then Saturday we had auditions for Meet me in St. Louis! It was obnoxiously hard for me to capture the dance- especially since I've never danced before. I guess that's why I'm not here for musicial theater! Needless to say I didn't get a callback, so I was free today (Sunday) to lazily clean my room, listen to Pandora for six hours straight, and put this huge post online!

Which, totally thanks for reading this whole thing. It really was particularly gigantic.

Have a beautiful week.

love, rudi

Sometimes the days go by so slow, but this week has zipped by in a timely and very pleasurable manner- I'm so ready for the weekend to be here again! But more than the weekend, I'm craving a nap.

Ohhhh buddy, am I so craving a nap.

But let me tell you about my way fun Monday! (I know, it's strange but those two words 'fun' and 'Monday can coexist!)

Unfortunately I don't have any photos, but I went to a Trampled by Turtles concert Monday night and had the time of my life! It's been a long, long time since I've heard bluegrass music so well played, and I'm not even sure if I've ever seen or heard such an amazing fiddle player. Even if you're not into bluegrass music (which is way different from country, by the way) it's impossible to deny that these guys have mad skills. I danced my feet to death, and I spent the entire two hours smiling ear to ear.

Isn't middle-of-the-week fun often so much more satisfying than weekend fun?

Yes, it totally is, which is why you should go see Five Women Wearing the Same Dress at the Warehouse Theater this week- it's really funny!

Or go this weekend, either way. I was just trying to make a smooth transition.

And speaking of theater!

(another good if not forced transition, no?)

Look at what I did to myself during shop yesterday.

Sanding is oh-so-much fun. I was completely covered with dust from sanding some columns. At least everyone else got to laugh. I just contracted a bad case of white lung.

But despite making a huge mess out of myself, I love shop so much. The set we're making for All My Sons should turn out pretty awesome, and I had a really great time tonight laughing and joking around with everyone. We had night shop, so we were working until ten or so, but the never ending rounds of giggles made staying up late and working hard completely worth it.

And did I mention shop is a really great workout? I think I might actually acquire that famous 'bikini body' I keep hearing about by the time spring rolls around.

That's assuming, of course, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners aren't as delicious as they usually are. We'll talk about that later...

love, rudi

First Impression

I have a big day today everyone!

Yesterday I had my first theater audition! It was scary! It was exciting!

And look!!

I got called back!!

I was so nervous because I've only done one or two serious auditions before, and naturally I was panicking because this was my first time introducing myself to the director, who is also a theater teacher here. Not to mention it was my first college audition in general. I just knew I was going to completely bomb it- forget my lines or get tongue tied or pull some ridiculous Three Stooges-like prat fall upon introducing myself.

But apparently things went smoothly! I went to my callbacks today, had tons of fun reading scenes, and finally took a big, satisfied deep breath to congratulate myself on simply surviving.

Now I need to survive writing two more pages for my six page essay! Yaaay college!!

love, rudi