johm.rocks!

Howdy folks I'm back and better than ever here to info dump the shit out of this fucking website!

Last we spoke was pre-Season 3 as we call it around here, and oh boy was it a fun one.

Well, not really. It was actually incredibly depressing for most of it! Gbeke and I were pretty much dying for the entirity of the first half of the season and there really wasn't much progress being made. We ended up having two one-acts go on this semester!

It was... certainly a time!

I wasn't really involved with the first show so I cannot exactly comment on it, but I can comment on our second show, The Giver! The Giver was absolutely 100% a trainwreck from start-to-finish. Most people in here are already pretty aware of a lot of the drama regarding it so I won't waste any time recounting that. But for the sake of me looking back at this every few months, (which is the true point of this website anyways,) I will say that The Giver brought me a very healthy mix of horrific frustrations and joys! I have made many friends this semester and become closer with others I had not spent as much time with.

So what do you have to say? Not really much. Today I was approved to produce The Laramie Project for our production next semester! This show came to me about halfway through the semester through what I can only call the gentle guiding of the universe. I was sitting in my room late one evening and randomly got this urge to start researching shows. It had been a while since I read plays as often as I used to, so I was slugging on through the mud of various websites trying to find something that I thought was a good fit for our organization. I've always been very big on ensemble shows for our org as I believe it's ideal for keeping people as engaged as possible. If everyone is on-stage all the time/has equal screen time, they'll care more about the show and be more willing to invite others and just be excited about the show in general.

Irrelevant, anyways I ran into this show randomly while scrolling reddit and was pulled in very quickly by the premise of an "interview-style" play. The Laramie Project has about 8-10 people play about 80 characters, portraying the real interviews of different people by the Tectonic Theatre Group, alongside some monologues from the theatre group. It sounded like quite the challenge and in my post-nightingales-slightly-depressive-state I thought that would be what I needed. It seemed like a low budget production that we could make work within our stupid small room we are in.

And then I decided to push it, as per usual
I don't exactly remember if I had this idea, or if I was inspired by something I read online, or where it came from. But by the time I called Storm to tell him about my idea and how I wanted to pitch it to the officer team, I had already come up with the idea of it being a play performed outside. Time will tell if this was a good idea or not, praying to God, Allah, and whoever I can for the weather to be good that weekend!

Eventually, we got to where we are today. As of last week I actually pre-emptively begun my third readthrough and have started to begin my notes on blocking for some of the bigger scenes, minor script adjustments because im a crazy person, and beginnings of character analysis. The character analysis side of this is going to be such a treat for our actors. With some characters only having a tiny monologue, there is so much room for them to establish what exactly their characters will be within their our creativity. I am thrilled to see what they make of this opportunity, and even more thrilled to see what kind of talent we have auditioning next semester.

What else has changed since the Nightingales post? Well it's a little funny to look back at some things I said, such as
"Ultimately I know that no matter what I do, I will eventually want to return to theater in some way. I tried to run from it, but it always returns. I’m sure someday soon I’ll be back there in the way that I desire."
Among others, their ass really thought they'd be stepping back from theatre LMAOOOOOO
It's very nice to see that I was right though, I am returning to it in the way that I desire for one last hurrah before exploding into the sun. Optimism truly was my path, she really knew what she was on about.


A real good time to mention how important the love and support of my friends is. Obviously I would not have made it this far without them being here for me. I had a wonderful talk with someone today about Laramie/the club as a whole and how much thought I love putting into tiny things like this. It may not matter that much in the grand scheme of my entire life but at this moment it gives me so much purpose.
I feel like that's really the whole point of my life honestly. I love coming up with new tasks for the sake of giving myself purpose. Once Laramie is done, I'll probably go find something else I didn't think I was that great at and try and get better at it as well. Can you believe there was a time when I thought that I wasn't really meant to be involved in theatre?
The joy in my life comes from finding those things I'm not very good at and trying to be something more. I love the pursuit of something more. The universe experiences so much through me, so I must feed it with unique and exciting adventures.

More to come

1. John/Joan