Aronil

For the past couple of days, I’ve been a little up tight.. ever since Thursday to be precise. It’s already bad enough that I have been rushing to and fro all over the place for not just rehearsals and interview and in between meeting a possible client… There will be at least one minor thing which will just cause my days to go even more topsy turvy.

On Friday, I had met up with Colin (and i’m still sorrryyyyyyy) to rehearse our piece “A Late Lunch” (ALL) for the stage performance called “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” this coming September. The piece in general is about the relationship between a father and daughter… I’ll just end it at that.

The wonderful thing I love about the scripts i’m working with here, is that there is tons of layering for the characters. A few weeks back, i was just scraping the surface of the characters i had to play (as the rest of the gang i would gather). As the weeks progress though, we are getting deeper with the characters we need to empathise with.

The past few rehearsals, i usually choose not to draw much on emotional feelings cause well - i didn’t know if it would be a appropriate or not, or would it look too much or something - so i just ran through the lines, just trying to gather what i can most about the character. On Friday and even today (both Footstool Players rehearsal dates) I drew on a string which i didn’t want to bring out at first.

The piece ALL ended up with me breaking down - just enough for my character. What i was quite surprised with was when i just allow the emotions to come out, i got a better understanding of the character. Usually when we rehearse, Colin will ask whether i have any new thoughts on my character.. Most of the time I have answered no, nothing new to me yet… However, unearthing the feelings, brought a new sense of ‘aha’, like why is my character saying this and it gives a better thought process as well. Personally… i didn’t want to get in touch with emotions just yet…. i know i can but, just my worry that one i may get depressed about it or two.. i will lose the emotion later on. Cause hey! Bare in mind we have to do this continuously for a few nights. Wahhhh cham laaa. lol.

I am thoroughly enjoying my rehearsal process, albeit a bit short at the moment. Even more so now that we will be on a break for a quite a bit before the next rehearsal. We’ll make time for one another ^_^  Gosh… life is busy.. entertaining… sobering and just well.. sigh… it’s moment like these i cherish a lot. Performing and the hard work just puts a smile on my face..despite all the stress it may give sometimes. Let’s see how much deeper we can go in uncovering the layers.

I’m having a ball of a time doing double rehearsals. Hahaha but I have to make a huge thank you out to Colin for working his magic around the busy schedules of us who are now involved with Footstool Players for this end of the year coming performance “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”.

What’s it about? This time Crazy Little Thing Called Love, will be a bout a bunch of short skits performed by 7 of us actors, regarding topics that are about love or at least relationships between people. It focuses a lot on the communication levels between new couples, steady couples and family members…

Anyway here’s what we look like while practicing for the show heh.

Here we have Colin and Soon Wei doing their piece. I won’t say which one :P But it was farney!!!

Soon Wei trying to act like all so serious and macho.

Colin given tips to Soon Wei on how he can be campy and macho at the same time.

Jon Tan busy directing the two to reproduce a reenactment of “8 Simple Rules… for Dating My Teenage Daughter”

This is the nearly completed result. Nearly…. actually far from it haha. Still a long way more to go.

Ok Ok… I have been terribly lazy on updating with the Ismail Rehearsals. So now I’m going to write about it.

It’s currently a BLAST right now. It’s so much fun, even though it’s been rather physical for the past 6 rehearsal dates. The first day of Ismail’s rehearsals was a reading, where everyone just sat around and went through the script once, so that we understood what the show was about. We aren’t suppose to be looking at what the message we are suppose to convey until I think the following week, which would mean only in rehearsal day number 4 we actually discuss about the script. Discussion for the script is for us all (The ensemble mostly) to find a common ground and see if we all feel the same way about the text, about the man Ismail.

Ismail the man that we are presenting, is about Tunku Dr Ismail - which unfortunately most of us only know as Taman Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI) the one near One Utama. The story revolves around his life as not a politician but rather a man who in my opinion had a mountain of things to consider at that period. This was after all during the time that Malaysia had just received her independence and after the horrendous event of May 13 - a time which not many Malaysians would not like to go back to or even remember. The play is very compelling and quite timely with the end of our elections and the countries new results.

Anyways that on the side. Rehearsals Day 2,3,4,5 and 6 have been all about movement. After day 2 it was wonderful pain on the thighs… and I just realised that the ache i had for the past week is now gone! Yay! Back to normal, which means.. i can go and torture my muscles again.

Me stretching it out.

Me trying to focus on the pain that is to come soon.

Min Li and I cracking up.. over something which I completely forgot. Lol. All the pictures from the rehearsal are courtesy of dear Nick Dorian.

Like I said pain in the thighs, led to me stretching my mouth like so to hide the ache. Bah!

Day 5 was fun and here are the perks when you have stuff going on in KLPAC. Complimentary tickets to watch stage shows! We had warm ups for about an hour on Day 5, then Faridah gave us a surprise of distributing tickets to watch ‘Good People’. Whoopee!! Now for some pictures for us just before the show hehe.

Ticks for the show.

Nick, Aris Kadir (Ismail’s Dance Choreographer), Min Li, Lax (Ismail’s Dance Captain) and Me.

You know how one hates being left out from a funny pic? Well i decided to be too smart. Me and Min Li were suppose to do a funny face, but I kinda felt it’ll be funnier to make sure she was making one hehe. And the dude in the middle is Dean.. Poor fell was stuck in between to nutcases haha.

Me, Min Li and Lee Ching. Lee Ching is one seriously cute gurl. This girl has Tourette and while some may think this is a disorder but really i think it has made this girl really even more adorable in our company. Read about her on her blog here.

I just love this picture. It’s so kewt! Nicole Ann Thomas, Min Li and Me. Standing in front of Pentas 2 entrance before the show started. Yeah we are all in our rehearsal workout clothes. Hahha.

I love doing what I do

Ok I’m terribly sleepy and tired right now. but head on here, to read about day two first. Before I give my version of it

Rehearsal Day 2

Yesterday was the first day of rehearsal for Ismail Woo hoo!!! Yes I’m terribly excited.

By the way you can join us on our The Facebook Group.

Picture courtesy of the actual blog site of Ismail The Last Days.

Now on to the story.

Making my way to klpac was pretty much another tense thing just like the audition, maybe not as bad but still my thoughts were just about preparing for what was to come as I didn’t know what to expect and didn’t even know what the story of the play was about.

I was about 20 minutes early to rehearsal time which started at 7.30pm sharp. And when i say sharp I mean Sharp sharp sharp that you can slice your hand off and it can still be reattached to your body because it is so sharp! Ok that was way exaggerated but, punctuality is a must for this. Which will be great discipline for me and also as a person raised in a country where time is always taken for granted and on other occasions I will end up being late.

So here we have it ladies and gentlemen: The Script of Ismail in my hands.. or on my table anyway.

Heading into the rehearsal I was delighted to see old friends and new ones that I will finally get to work with in this production. Some of them were from the past classes I took at KLPac like the Practical Aesthetics Class and The Acting for Beginners Class. It was really a joy to see them all and even some well known faces in the performing arts circle. In fact it’s a real BLESSING to even be in this. I can’t begin to even say how happy i am to be among the few to be involved with this. (Those who have been involved before, say all you want on the pain I shall be in, I’m ready!)

At the same time though, there will be a number of pain, heartache, disappointment and frustration along with it. At first I was a bit nervous even scared about the first day of rehearsals and this is my friend Min Li also shares the same feelings as me. It’s expected that there will be some hard times. On my end I felt anxious about the whole thing…I don’t know maybe it’s because I want it badly. Maybe it’s because I know it’s a possible stepping stone to a better career. I’m not fully sure.

But I do know that I’m going to work my butt off for this. I’ll go in for rehearsals super early just to get ready. Not for sucking up - no - as some may see. No rather, it’s to build my mentality that I need to prepare for the roles as part of the ensemble.

Everyone plays a part in this show, and what I love so much was how Joe as the director gave a very deep insight for us to look at this play. Not just in the script but us as actors and how we should see ourselves worth in this production. I was very appreciative of that.

The entire rehearsal process will be documented and made into a video wheeee also by my friend Alexander. So it’ll be nice to see what goes on behind the scenes of this production. Nick Dorian, Fang and I have also started a blog site for the production, which we will up date every once in a while.

You can view that here: Ismail The Last Days.

This is what happens when you have avid bloggers in the midst. :P