In Acting III, Jim has been having us find a song and a gesture that fits our monologues. After much thought I had decided to use "Totally Fucked" from Spring Awakening because it's so full of angst and anger and frustration, which suits my monologue pretty well. What we do is we lay down on the floor in front of the class, and sing it quietly and get up, build the song and use the gesture and launch into our monologue.

Well, I laid down and started whispering it, and I could kind of feel it. Then I stood up. And there was such a flurry of emotion, I honestly don't know how to describe this, except that it was a lot more than I was prepared to feel, and that it really scared me for a moment. I walked around and was nearly crying by the time I started my monologue. It went really well until the end when I screwed up a line. Jim told me after class that what I did was the precise thing he wanted everyone to do and that I examplified this exercise perfectly. It felt nice to hear it, but the fact that I went first and couldn't even shake off the thunderstorm of emotion going on inside of me until after I had begun to walk home was just very weird. It was surreal to me to have such tumultuous feeling, especially without warning; I haven't felt that angry and desperate in years. Literally, years.

On the other hand, it was very cool that the exercise affected me so much. I think I'm going to try and apply it to my acting in the future when I have trouble tapping into an emotion.

I just need to make sure it doesn't reach that point again. The point where I'm frightened by myself.

• I am reading Angel City by Sam Shepard.
• I am reading How to Stop Acting by Harold Guskin, who taught Kevin Kline.
• I just finished my report on Nathan Lane's acting process for tomorrow.
• I made a huge list of books to check out from the library, mainly for my research project on farce. The outline and bibliography is due Monday at 9:00.
• I'm checking out Cyrano de Bergerac.
• I'm checking out The Three Sisters by Chekhov.
• I'm randomly making copies of monologues that I do not need.
• I'm starting research on the Greek plays tonight.
• I'm working on lines for the Greek plays tonight.
• Rehearsals start on MONDAY.
• I need to figure out how I'm going to do my Halloween costume without spending a whole lot of money. Hard to do when you need some sort of bustier, it turns out.
• I just made up a tentative schedule for next semester, and I'm taking 18 hours: the maximum amount before overloading. Five of those hours are Gen. Eds. One is for Music. That's 12 hours of theatre. Yessss.

You know what makes all of this even worse?

Even though I don't need to do almost all of it... if I want to do it at all, I NEED to do it before Monday. Because after Monday, every weekday is going to allow me two hours between class and rehearsal, and however long I stay up after rehearsals are over at 10:00 or so. I'll be cherishing my weekends too much to want to do any of this then. How sucky.

The good news is that there is at least one weekend to look forward to a guaranteed break: I'm going home October 13, which means free food, no cleaning, no stressing, seeing people I'm not entirely sick of... sigh. I can almost taste the relaxation now.

You know what's really sad?

My shoulders tensed up really bad while I was typing this. I'm going to listen to the soothing sounds of David Ford now. Maybe he'll relax me.

So lately I've been addicted to the new musical Curtains, which is the show for with David Hyde Pierce won the Tony for Best Male Performance in a Musical this year. There's this song on here that is so SWEET and amazing called "I Miss the Music." Actually, all of the songs are amazing because it's Kander & Ebb. They wrote Cabaret and Chicago, among many other musicals. I want to do this musical someday.

Gilligan's Island is hell. Even if it IS a great show. That's all I'll say about that particular show.

Summer Theatre has me all frazzled. I'm done with it. My brain has checked out. Yet we're going to be working harder for the next two days than we've worked the entire summer. Just because our effing boss threw a tantrum and some boxes onto the ground. I feel like summer theatre has made me dirty. Not bad kind of dirty. Just... I don't know. I need to get out and freshen up.

So last night, I cried. Really hard. Partially because I finished Harry Potter and there were some tragedies in that kickass-amazing book. But mostly because I realized that there are so many people leaving within the next three weeks. I'm JUST NOW getting to know them, and they're all leaving. Josh might stick around for a bit, but only because he doesn't know where he's going. I have a feeling he's going to take over Kyle's job after Kyle leaves. Kim will be here for one more year. But other than them... everyone's gone. Erin, Cara, Gabe, Mychal... gone. It only just hit me last night, I suppose. But I cried so hard. I don't know when I'll see them again.

I'm hoping to get a job at Family Video instead of working in the costume shop. I feel bad because I did tell Amanda I would work for her... but I NEEEEED money. And the costume shop is not a job you want to have if you need money. I'm paying $300 a month for rent... it's not going to cut it. But the problem is that there are only like, two people she'll have next year: Tricia and Cassie. And I'm the best seamstress out of the three of us, easily. Tricia's good at handsewing and whatnot, Cassie is an amazing crew head, and I'm good at sewing overall. But I need money more than I think Amanda needs me. And I'll be volunteering for the shop anyway. It wouldn't bother me if I hadn't already told her I'd work for her. But I thought I'd be fine when I did tell her.

I don't know. It just sucks.

Last night was AMAZING. It was SUCH a good performance, with an absolutely FANTASTIC audience!

Honestly, few things feel better than having several of your peers whom you respect and admire tell you that you stole the show. Not just "Hey, you did a good job." But something that has so much more meaning to it. Also, having a gay friend of yours say he won't date guys, or girls, just you. Though I don't quite know what that makes me.

I'm so sad tonight's the last performance. I feel so depressed that I won't get to act until school starts again. And even so, whose to say I'll get to act at all? But if I don't, I won't lie, I'll get angry and melancholy and have low self-esteem about my acting abilities because there will be so few people left next semester.

I just want to be in Little Shop of Horrors so badly. I'd love to play Audrey, but really, being an urchin would also be amazing. They have to have so much personality and they're onstage almost the entire time. Any part would be fun.

My mumma and Mitch and Alaina are coming to see the show tonight! Woot!