SNEAK PEAK: My Senior Cabaret/Recital

Okay all four people who read this blog, y’all are going to get a cool little sneak peak into my senior cabaret (Thursday, April 10, 2014 at 5:30 p.m. in the Recital Hall at Moody Music Building – pencil it in!). Oh yeah! I’m still in the programming stage, but I do have a few things picked out that are definite. I want to share some of my inspiration with you in this post. My recital will be pretty different from most senior recitals because it will be all cabaret rather than classical, but most importantly it will reflect me. All of the music I’m choosing is very personal to me which I adore! Some of it is new, some of it is old, so without further ado, here goes…

1.) “I Am Playing Me” from [title of show] by Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell

I sang the duet “Secondary Characters” from [t.o.s.] my junior year in a scenes program with UAOT. I absolutely loved it so I turned back to the show when I was looking at cabaret material. The title of this number caught my eye and I gave it a listen and was super stoked to learn it was a female solo for Heidi, the role I sang in “Secondary Characters.” I had never heard of it until a few weeks ago, but it will perfectly sum up my recital in that I literally am playing myself and it’s a funny shout-out to Over Dinner, a new musical we workshopped and premiered the music from this year with UAOT. I legitimately played myself in it because it was written expressly for our cast, pretty cool! This is the original cast recording.

2.) “Sing, but Don’t Tell” by Carner and Gregor

This song is a true cabaret piece in that it’s not from a musical, it’s a whole scene in and of itself about a singer who is in love with her accompanist. Sam Carner has a post about it in his blog in which he talks about an encounter he had with a singer who wondered what it would be like to be “played” by another musician. Hilarious. Hence, the inspiration behind this song. I’m singing this as a loving shout-out to my long-time collaborative pianist. We’ve been through hell and high water together and he’s been sort of a big brother figure to me during my time at UA. I’ve gotten comments about him in my comment sheets from various lady judges throughout the years at competitions so this song pokes fun at that. This recording is one of my absolute FAVORITES on YouTube because I think she has such great acting instincts. (Oh and she was a FRESHMAN at the time this was filmed. I’m sorry, but what?)

3.) “Before It’s Over” from Dogfight by Pasek and Paul

This song makes me weep! Dogfight is a movie from 1991 that was turned into a musical in 2012. It ran Off-Broadway last year. (Fun fact, Dogfight stars Lindsay Mendez and Derek Klena are the newest Elphaba and Fiyero in Broadway’s Wicked and they’re KILLIN’ it.) Mendez’s character, Rose sings this song in the show after her first date with Klena’s Eddie. It’s such a sweet song about taking full advantage of life and relationships before they end. I’m including Shoshana Bean’s version, even though it’s the concert version which isn’t the one I’m singing. I’m singing the show version, but I figured we might as well continue on the Wicked kick and get another killer former Elphaba in there.

Want more? Come and see me on April 10!

Covering “Hip-Hop and Black Politics,” Group-Style

I enjoy a group project about as much as I enjoy eating my own hair, let’s be real. I think journalism – as far as print goes – tends to be a lonely business because journalists do a lot of work on their own. Broadcast journalism, however, is a team effort. Everyone has a job to do and it’s imperative that everyone does that in order to produce one cohesive project.

For this particular JN 325 assignment, we had to do a two-camera shoot, live-tweet, and take still photos to make a news package. My group (Phoebe, Kristy, and Tyler) was sent out to cover Dr. Lester K. Spence’s talk, “Hip Hop and Black Politics.” This lecture was scheduled at 2 p.m. the Friday before the LSU game. I was honestly worried that no one would come to the event, despite the snappy CW preview, and we’d be stuck filming a speaker talking to four people.

Thrilling.

Luckily, the room began to fill at about 1:50 p.m. (Classic college student move.) and we began to take our places. Tyler shot wide, I shot close, Phoebe took to social media, and Kristy took still photos. The whole event lasted about an hour and a half with a question and answer portion, and my battery died about twenty minutes before the lecture ended. It was a bummer, but not detrimental to us because we had a second camera that we used as back-up. We left with way more footage than we needed for the minute and a half video.

Besides the battery debacle, our challenge was covering an event that didn’t have much of a central argument. He just chatted about a general theme. It was clearly geared towards a political scientist crowd so there was also a lot of jargon that I didn’t understand. This didn’t come as a surprise to me though because Dr. Spense is a political scientist. In 2011 he went on The Marc Steiner Show to talk politics. He seems like a very intelligent and inspired individual and this is certainly not my field of expertise so I expected there to be some things I didn’t understand.

Overall, our group dynamic has been working pretty well. I think we gel really well and I’m glad I’ve gotten to know my group better because we don’t have a ton of opportunity to hear people’s personalities in class.

One of the moments Spense referred to in his lecture. (I did understand that.)

No Treats for You: North Dakota Women Gives Out Halloween “Fat Letters”

This caught my eye last week. WAFF-AL posted a story on Facebook about a North Dakota woman who was planning on giving out “fat letters” to trick-or-treaters she thought were “morbidly obese.” This perhaps well-meaning, but callous public servant launched herself and her now infamous letter on to talk radio in Fargo, North Dakota and lo and behold, the story grabbed national attention.

My favorite headline is CNN’s, “Halloween grinch to replace candy with fat notes?” Brilliant.

Obviously, there is a lot wrong with this scenario. Publicly shaming children in front of their peers will do a lot more damage than good. It’s impossible to judge how healthy someone is or is not just by looking at them. Young kids are so vulnerable to criticism, especially from strangers. Cheryl’s letters are just hurtful.

I wanted to write about this after Halloween because I wanted to see if she really went through with it. I SCOURED the internet to try and see if she actually went through with it or if it was just a prank. It took me a long time, but I found a story on Twitter (of course) that pointed me in what I think is the right direction.

The letter a North Dakota was planning to give out on Halloween

 

On Halloween, ABC Action News posted a story about similar radio pranks. It suggests that this incident was simply a prank. It’s kind of frightening considering how many people chimed in on this issue. No major online site has posted a follow up on this story though which leads me to believe it was just a prank. The radio station never released “Cheryl’s” last name which raised eyebrows of listeners.

Regardless, I think it brought up a few important issues. Healthy living is important, but so is sucking it up and having a little bit of holiday spirit, if not for yourself, then for others.

“WWYW” Moment & The Closing of Campbell Barracks

“Where were you when?” moments. We all have them. My grandparent’s WWYW moments include: Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and John F. Kennedy’s assassination. My parents remember the day John Lennon was shot and the day the Challenger fell from the sky. Our moments differ. My clearest and most vivid WWYW moment is September 11, 2001.

Unlike most of my friends in the States, I was not sitting in my 4th grade classroom. I was at home. Home for my family was Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg, Germany. It was my little brother’s 7th birthday. My mom was watching TV in our living room and told me one of the Twin Towers had been hit. I was confused. I didn’t even know what the Twin Towers were, although I quickly found out. (We spent the majority of my childhood overseas in Germany. For years I knew way more about European history than I did American.) Soon after that we got the news about the Pentagon. Military bases were forever changed.

Our quad was on the very edge of Campbell Barracks. My bedroom window looked out on to one of the gates that divided the American side from the German side of town. After 9/11 we had armed guards at the gate every day checking IDs and cars. They rotated times, but we got to know the soldiers. We even brought them food during Thanksgiving. I don’t think I fully grasped why they were there until years later, but I knew felt safe with them there.

Our quad was at the first intersection in this photo, first on the left.

Last week I got an e-mail from my dad with perhaps one of the saddest things I’ve seen in a long time, the closing of Campbell Barracks. On September 6, 2013 Campbell Barracks closed its doors for the last time and was returned to the Germans. This wasn’t a surprise. It was announced in 2010, but it still felt like a huge blow. Just listen to the residents in the NY Times video above. To people who lived there it feels like home is gone. It brings on a myriad of emotions for me. As a senior in college, it feels like a permanent closing of my childhood. This base will always be a part of one of my major WWYW moments and although it sounds dramatic, but it’s devastating to know it’s gone.

(Post #2 for JN 325)

The President’s High Wire Act

(Post #1 for JN 325)

The conflict in Syria that has been slowly burning for the past two years has exploded into international news recently due to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad allegedly using poison gas to kill 1,500 of his own people a little over two weeks ago. President Obama has since called for military action against Syria, citing their use of chemical weapons being over the “red line.” The President turned the decision to Congress who will be voting as early as Wednesday, according to the latest news from U.S.A. Today on what action the U.S. should take in Syria.

Photo by Kristoffer Tripplaar from thedailybeast.com

The President’s decision is one that confuses people and simultaneously makes sense. Obviously a President gassing his own people is cause for serious concern, but Americans are also extremely worried and agitated by the idea of getting involved in another Middle Eastern quagmire of violence. An article from CNN this morning quoted the President comparing the situation in Syria to WWII.

“The people of Europe are certainly familiar with what happens when the international community finds excuses not to act,” said President Obama.

On Sunday, U.S.A. Today released a poll of Congressional members whose votes have started to come in. As per usual, President Obama is facing a lot of resistance in the House. According to the poll’s findings, Democrats and Republicans alike have been voting not to take military action. This decision to enter into military action, which many are firmly referring to as “war,” runs contradictory for a president whose campaign promise at the beginning of his presidency was to get the U.S. out of conflicts in the Middle East (Afghanistan and Iraq).

Some unusual and conflicted supporters have been coming to Obama’s aid. One in particular is Senator John McCain who although supportive of intervention in Syria, has spoken out against the President’s handling of this issue. He even warned of a presidential impeachment in a recent radio interview.