By: Genevieve Scholl

Four Extraordinary Roommates

So, you might think that living with roommates for about four months will be a challenge and something that you won’t be able to handle. However, from personal experience, I can tell you that isn’t the case. While it may be a challenge to get along with other people for that period of time, you can handle the new experience with a deep breath.

Remember to treat your roomies with respect, kindness, and equality and you will get along great with each other. Also, remember to share. While you don’t have to share everything with the others that are living in your “house”, you should try to share what you can when there is a need for something. For example, remember to split the cost of living products like garbage bags, food, and bathroom essentials. Also, don’t be nervous or self-conscious about meeting your new roommates. They are just human beings after all, just like you.

Fun Times

Hey Ebony here

May comes in 2days , so that mean school is almost over and there is so much to do in so little time. I hope people won’t get distracted from this on and off beautiful weather we’ve been getting. I’m pretty much focused because I have to be. I have two research papers, tons of homework, tests, and extra credit assignments all due before the 13th. One thing I’ve noticed about myself is that I work extremely well when under pressure. I always keep in mind that it will all pay off and I will be getting my degree. I am so proud of myself and my accomplishments. Everyone else should be proud of what they’ve accomplished as well, because some people do not have the opportunities that your blessed with.

“We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.”

Hey it’s Kiley! Today I’m going to write about the fantastic performance that Forum Players put on for Children’s Thearte. This performance was way back in late March, but with everything going on I didn’t make time to post this.

I came in thinking this was going to be a campy and mildly entertaining, but boy was I wrong. This show has changed the way I personally feel about children’s theatre.

I was excited to see some familiar faces that were also in the cast of Blood Brothers. These students must have great time management skills to be able to perform two shows. I will mention many students performing were not Theatre majors. Forum Players opens auditions to the community. It’s important to keep the arts alive and exposing the arts to community members offers support and maybe even future funding opportunities.

The set at a first glance was very interesting. It gave off an abstract vibe, which I really liked. The music in the preset was a good fit. Before watching a show I like to take it all in and observe my surroundings.  Norm Gayford, English professor/ director, gave a nice welcome. It’s nice to see a GCC professor set an example for non theatre students and make time to direct a show.

The modern dance intro in the beginning was captivating to the eye. I liked the way the acts effectively play off the bare stage. There were minimum set pieces and the actors at times were set pieces. This was a great example of how important every member of the ensemble is and why each actor must act as a team. One of my favorite moments was Jamie Hicks rapping. I thought it was spunky and cute. The sound effects and the “human forest” were fantastic. Each audience member hopefully came with an imagination.

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm
and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can
have if only we seek them with our eyes open.”

— Jawaharlal Nehru

Hey its Kiley- commenting about this crazy weather in upstate New York.

I don’t know about you, but this strange weather is killing my health. Every college student out there knows there is no time to get sick with the end of the semester right around the corner.With Easter and the month of May in our sights it’s easy to lose focus. Ever find yourself celebrating spring fever? You can smell it in the air with the potent scent of flowers. You can hear it with the sounds of birds chirping. Have you noticed the glimpse of green grass and yellow daffodils, the colors that swirl as the wind blows? The season’s transition from glum winter to perky spring should inspire you to be open to experience. Try to use this transitional period for the positive and try to be proactive in your life! So try to relax-take some vitamin c to be on the safe side and enjoy!

“Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and
to work and to play and to look up at the stars.”

— Henry Van Dyke

Hey it’s Kiley! I’m currently taking a popular cinema class. In this class at first I dreaded the western, but listen purple is the new pink, and the revisionist western is the silver lining of the western genre.

“The Western film genre often portrays the conquest of the wilderness and subordination of nature, in the name of civilization, or the confiscation of the territorial rights of the original inhabitants of the frontier. Specific settings include lonely isolated forts, ranch houses, the isolated homestead, the saloon, the jail, the small-town main street, or small frontier towns that are forming at the edges of civilization. Other iconic elements in westerns include the hanging tree, Stetsons and spurs, lassos and Colt .45’s,stagecoaches, gamblers, long-horned cattle and cattle drives, prostitutes (or madams) with a heart of gold, and more.”(Dirks, T. “Western Films.”)

I started with this quote to pursue the objective or goal of proving what a classic western is and its overall detailed essence in film stylistically.  This quote explains the “classic” western far better than I could. The “classic” western is an uncomplicated morality story between the forces of good and the forces of bad, such as in “High Noon”. This films “hero”, Gary Cooper, goes against the values of the traditional hero and creates an American value foil. This character in the midst of a heated battle is abandoned by his town and left to return order by his own.

The typical starry eyed view of the western is you have your hero, a sheriff maybe or perhaps a cowboy, who stands for wholesome apple pie-lay- it- on-thick society. He stands for fairness, justice, and courage. The poster boy is, John Wayne, the man who always gets a victory in the final scene. He is one of the most important and popular figures that brought this genre into prominence. The face-off against the hero is the villain, “savage” Indians, sometimes a group of greed filled men who’ll stop at nothing to get what they want. Villains represent bad in society and pose a threat to order in these frontier towns. The hero and the villain have the central conflict that makes up the majority of the movie, ending in a shootout, with the good guy riding off into the sunset. A viewer may think classic westerns are an unrealistic, optimistic reflection of cookie cutter American society during the times of these films. People wanted to see good triumph over evil as a way to escape their daily lives, even though we all know that doesn’t always happen in real life. People are plagued by magical and positive thinking. It’s the pull of individualistic and morally conscience society of America. This is what made westerns popular during the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s.

What defines a “classic” western to me is the inevitable shootout at the end of every western. It embodies all of the things people love and loathe about westerns. It’s climactic showdown between forces of good and evil, with a simple, violent conclusion, followed by the obligatory “happy” ending. No matter what happens during the previous hundred minutes or so, you know someone is going to get shot and killed at the end, almost always being a bad guy. Those who love this genre embrace these conventions, while those who hate this genre are bored by this “formula”.

It’s just another sign of the times, as our beloved classics evolve and change with society. The western genre is no exception. In fact, due to the seemingly strict convections of the western, you could argue that it has undergone the most radical change of any genre. The movies that have changed our perspective of how we look at westerns are called “revisionist” westerns or “anti-westerns”. I dig the term revisionist, as I think an anti-western is a subgroup or kind of revisionist western. To me: an anti-western is an un-western story in a western setting, whereas a revisionist is taking the formulaic conventions we all know and  love, but change them to fit the ideas and sensibilities of those involved in making the film, primarily the writer and director. An Example of a revisionist western is “The Wild Bunch” by Sam Peckinpah, which we viewed briefly in class.

The biggest difference I’ve found between classic and revisionist westerns is the overall tone of the films. Classic westerns, for the most part, are an incorrect romanticized view of the old west. Revisionist westerns are harsh, realistic, dirty, violent, bloody, and depending on the director, more stylized. They showed how brutal the west really was. People would shoot each other, to settle conflict, sometimes for no reason at all. This was the way people were back then. It was not necessarily as good a time to be alive as classic westerns would make it seem.

The hero in westerns has changed so much over the years, which the term has almost become ironic. The heroes in “The Wild Bunch” are ruthless outlaws, who are just as calculating as the villains hired to find and kill them. Clint Eastwood’s, “Unforgiven”, completely demythologized the hero and villain roles. He showed what life was like after the gun for a gunslinger and how helpless they were without it, thereby making the Eastwood character sympathetic; who we are told was a violent, mean, and nasty man in his youth. He took the sheriff role, commonly the hero or at least a good guy in the classic west and made him the evil villain.

By changing the conventions of the hero and villain, revisionist westerns had a much greater complexity and therefore more interesting focus. Bad guys are almost always more interesting than good guys. Not to mention, there tend to be many more “cool” moments when all the characters are badasses.

Another feature I like about revisionist westerns is the tendency to end on a “sour” or depending on your emotional attachment to the characters, a sad ending. The possibility of the “good “guys getting killed makes the movie more interesting, the showdown more exciting, and the conclusion more satisfying in many respects. It goes along with the more authentic and realistic tones of these westerns and adds a great deal of credibility to them. If the “wild bunch” had survived somehow, that would completely contradict the realistic effect Peckinpah was going for. By taking the movie to its natural conclusion, it enhances the movie as a whole, since the last impression you have of a movie is its ending. You don’t want people leaving the theatres saying, “Yeah, the Wild Bunch was good until the cop out, “Hollywood “ending. That lessens the impact the movie is supposed to make upon you and lessens itself in doing so.

I’m a fan of the western genre, much more so of the revisionist style then classic. While I like many things about classic westerns, as a whole they are less interesting to me. I prefer the visceral impact of The Wild Bunch or whoever Clint Eastwood plays in films, over John Wayne playing a sheriff and shooting indeans.

In Blood Brothers I was double casted as Mrs. Johnstone and as an ensemble role as Donna Marie. I will start by saying movement plays a large part in the musical genre. The dance skill level varied in this production. There was clearly two different dance techniques ensemble or pedestrian and a soloist interpretive dancer- that I would describe as modern dance.

The ensemble’s role in dance was more of a pedestrian, “hey I could do this”- type of dance. Its purpose to the musical is to give the audience a “music is life” eavesdropping on the daily happenings of these characters. Movement is an extension of each one of the ensemble characters and this aides in the characterization of these characters. When the audience watches a show they want to experience the show and to experience one must use their five senses. The most common of these senses used typically is seeing and hearing. Therefore the correct expression of movement is very important. In American culture there is more of an emphasis on expression in voice and articulation, but in Asian cultures body language is far more important. Therefore a performer must be highly aware of their voice and movement.

Now let’s look at the specifics. In the first full company number Marilyn Monroe (Mrs. Johnstone and Company) this type of dance is pedestrian and upbeat dance. For Mrs. Johnstone it was important to not let the movement distract from the song because the song was story-like revealing plot and characterization. Learning the dance with the ensemble was trial and error. It took patience and lots of cleaning up in order to get the true vision of the chorographer correct.

In the musical number My Child which included Mrs. Johnstone and Mrs. Lyons, this took time to flawlessly flow acting, song, and dance. The interpretation took time to mold into something real and not just a “cutesy bootsey” number. In Easy Terms – (Mrs. Johnstone and Company) this had a pedestrian feel and it was important to have intention and precise geese like movement. Steps must be the same style and instinct in the ensemble. It is also important to not pull focus from the main character. The ensemble’s purpose is to add visually to the scene, but not distract.

The narrator songs included a soloist dancer. This dancer was significantly more advanced than the other cast members. Her job was to effectively communicate the songs message through movement. She embodied a devil, a gypsy, a girl in love (partner dance), someone left heartbroken.  I felt she was extremely successful. She embodied each message through movement and it flowed nicely.

In Kids’ Game – (Linda, Mickey and Ensemble) our purpose was to effectively embody children. This dance was the most exhausting. The thing about kids is they have a never ending energy and this was difficult to replicate. We did several acting activities to prepare for this venture. For example, picking three adjectives the described your child and telling a joke in this character. The dance steps were high energy and it was vital to keep energy flowing.

In Bright New Day – (Mrs. Johnstone and Company) this was also a high energy number. This had to hit with a bang because this ended the first act. It was difficult at first to switch from Mrs. Johnstones part to Donna Maire because that dance and song were equal high energy. Marilyn Monroe 2 I just had to focus being Mrs. Johnstone. The only obstacle I encountered was dancing with different types of people and timing. This also has an average Joe party like feel.

In Miss Jones – (Mr Lyons, Miss Jones and Company) this reminded me of those cute 50’s girl groups dances.  It’s all about simple steps instinct with one another. It was important to keep energy up and attitude. We struggled with the ability to dance and sing at the same time. With the help of rehearsal and muscle memory this got problem disappeared.

Light Romance – (Mrs. Johnstone , Linda, Eddie) this was an interesting simple dance interpretation of a flowering love triangle immerging right in front of the audiences very eyes. I thought this was very appropriate and the movement added to the musical number.

I have gained knowledge from these long nights of sweat and tears, during this production process. I have mastered the style and steps involved in this production and have triumphed in-spite of obstacles I have faced.From a sickness a week before opening night, exudative pharyngitis, to frustration to pure exhaustion. In the end it was all worth it.   Movement is the silver lining of a musical. It adds a touch of magic to a musical number.