Two Different Worlds! Never Meant To Meet! (Clap)

Over the past three months, we all have worked for one goal: the musical production. It was a great experience for me to participate in this awesome musical and get to interact with others. I learned a lot such as a little bit of dancing along with singing, and emotion expressing (I am still not really good though). I also got to put some old person makeup which I don't think I will ever do it again. Compared to the last year's 25th Annual Spelling Bee, my role got much bigger and honestly it was a big pressure at first. However, with the support of other casts and teachers, I could manage it well and I think the show was truly successful and fantastic. I felt so good after the show was done and I heard some compliments from the audience in the hallway. Now I really like my character Tonton Julian and I already miss the costume I wore even though it was really worn out and bad looking.
The musical Once on this Island is a combination of The Little Mermaid and Romeo and Juliet that draws the love between a peasant and a grand homme. The character I played Tonton Julian is the father of Ti Moune, a peasant girl who seeks for her love. He loves his daughter so much and is willing to sacrifice himself that he goes on the journey to find the father of Daniel, a rich boy whom Ti Moune fell in love with. Sam (Mama Euralie) and I were an old couple and had Ti Moune (Julia) from the tree sent by the gods. Sam and I had to be like a real old couple, but I was very shy and felt awkward. I think it was a shame that I could not get into really much. If I had another chance, then perhaps I would make a change.
My favorite song in the musical is #8 Ti Moune which is trio song sung by Ti Moune, Mama Euralie, and Tonton Julian. Not because I sang the song but it actually sounded so beautiful, and many other casts chose that song as their favorite (also pit and stage crews). It shows the conflict within Ti Moune's family and I felt like I was really into the music while I was singing the song. Sam and I had to look each other to decide whether or not we were going to let Ti Moune go. At last, we decided to let her go and sing "Go and find your love. Go and swim the sea. You know where will be, Ti Moune." In addition, #5 Pray has always the best. It is dynamic, spectacle, and imposing: Movements are really big, and loud singing, and the fast-paced plot development. When everything is in one, it sounds really powerful and overwhelming.

Because I was one of the casts, I had to stay in the backstage for the majority of running time, which kept me from watching what was going on the stage especially Act 2. So I do not really know much about the Act 2 which is mostly about Daniel and Ti Moune. I will watch as soon as when the recording is available and I am really excited to watch how amazing we were. 

Oral Presentation : The Contrast Between a Peasant and a Grand Homme FIRST DRAFT

My Love My Love the peasant girl has many distinct features which can be transformed into various versions. One of its features I chose to show was the contrast between the rich and the poor. It is the major theme and the key factor that brought up all the conflicts in the book. Showing the contrast would show the corruption of the rich and the weakness of the poor. The difference in class level created the uncrossable love between a peasant girl Desiree and the rich boy Daniel. Just like Romeo and Juliet, the love is discouraged by both parents because of the blatant disparity. However, unlike Romeo and Juliet, the love between them does not last any longer as Daniel already had a fiancee who is also rich. I felt like this somehow tells the rich used the poor as their toy for a temporary tool. Thus, I tried to highlight on the contrast the most on my group assessment.
My group had four people. It was obvious not enough number of people to make scenes. So we decided to choose four crucial characters who are needed to show our main theme. As a result, Ti Moune and Daniel, obviously, and Tonton Julian and Gabriel Beauxhomme who are father of them were chosen. Our adaptation was more like the summary of whole plot than re-making. However, because my group was focusing on the contrast between the rich and the poor, we used several devices to exhibit it.
The most noticeable factor of our scene is the use of light. I had painted background which is divided by half. One half is the poor side which has huts and more trees, and the other half is the rich side which has hotel and modern building. We used light to spot on the place where the event is taking place, and used black-out to show there is nothing going on in that side. Also, we featured some musical devices which will help us effectively depict the class difference. On the poor side, characters play ukulele, while on the rich side, characters play piano and talk about the classical composers.
My role in the scene was Tonton Julian. He loves his daughter so much so he does not want to let her fall in such hopeless and dangerous love. He tries to be optimistic for the entire act not because he is actually a happy person but because he does not want his daughter to be depressed and he wants to guide her to the benign way. Even though he guides her, he does not force her to follow him. He respects his daughter's opinion with giving thoughtful advice. On the top of it, he trusts her and loves her. He dedicates himself to go on a long journey to the rich side to find Daniel's father, for he has to protect his daughter from potential threats. Getting into warm-hearted and loving father role was not an easy task for me since I have had no similar experience.
Once we had our scenes and role gotten down, the actual staging proceeded smoothly....
Through the scene making process, I grew up a lot as an actor. Firstly, I had to act father which was very unusual for me. I learned to put myself into the thing which I never experienced before. It is always really different when I actually act it out than when I just read on the book.

What I feel about my project

First of all, our group project is almost done. We only have the scene proposal without looking at the script tomorrow. We are expected to record it with all the props included after we thoroughly get this thing done. From the beginning to now, we have been working hard on our stagings such as script mostly and some other blockings. We gathered together in the library during the study hall several times and over the weekend, we worked on our script through google docs when we were in our rooms. 


As our topic is the contrast between the rich and the poor, we tried to focus on it as creative as possible. All the members of our group are musicians, so we took advantage of it by adding the scenes in which we play instruments. Ben who is on the rich side plays piano and I myself who is on the poor side play ukulele. They sound very different; piano sounds luxury and ukulele sounds a little bit indigenous. Thus, we hoped that playing piano and playing ukulele would show the contrasting background between the rich and the poor. Also, when the rich character talks to the poor character, he talks in a rude and disdainful manner which makes the poor be looked as victims. It shows how corrupt the rich in this book is and directly shows the difference in class. Lastly, by setting the tragic ending where Desiree dies by getting hit by a car and Daniel does not even give an attention to her, we tried to, again, show how corrupt the rich is and how weak the poor is in this book. 


We thought this interpretation would make audience view the novel in a new way because the original plot simply shows one naive girl's first love which ends sadly with the girl's death whereas our scene tries to depict the main cause of the tragic as the rich and to reveal the immorality of the rich rather than to show the love story. To do that, we had to focus on the contrast between two levels, and as a result, we are expecting the audience to see what we wanted to show. 

Personally, I feel something great because it is so far the longest scene I have ever done in class which is around 20 minutes. Therefore, I would say I succeeded in just by finishing making the short-film length movie.  Although it gave me a load of memorization along with the winter musical, I am actually having fun memorizing lines and directions, and also acting out the character I read in the book is very interesting too. However, it is challenging for me to get into the character for whole scene including when I am out of the stage. Also, I still feel a little awkward to stand middle of the stage and act. I am constantly being conscious of others, which I never have to do when I am on the stage as an actor.