Aronil

I have a story to tell…

At Ismail rehearsals, we will sometimes begin our session with some breathing exercises. Now the thing with our breathing exercises is that it follows some ‘yoga’ techniques which requires us to get on our knees. Hence it can be a bit painful on the knees and ankles. This becomes rather uncomfortable and obviously the best way to keep them from hurting is to either use a pillow or a blanket, to give some cushioning to the floor.

In KLPAC there are three big pillows and since there are only three we have to really rush to be the first to reach any one of these pillows. There are a certain THREE PEOPLE i fight with for this pillow - whom i shall identify later. I have come to accept that sometimes I can’t get the pillow, but this time I saw one of the big pillows left unguarded, next to the bags.

Here I am… I found the pillow and the most obvious thing to do is to grab it quickly before the person who left it alone sees. With eyes deadlock on my target, I grab it with all my might and sink my finger nails into the soft cushiony thingie called…. cushion….i can’t think of a word, k? But it’s the BIG PILLOW!!!

See my happy face! I was so happy that it was left unguarded i didn’t realised a small tiny problem. As i get ready to run off with my prize possession… something held me back. Click on it to view a bigger picture and see if you can spot my problem…

As i pulled it towards me, by giving it a good yankidy yank. This is what happened.

I got stuck..

Why?

The fella actually PINNED the big pillow to his bag!!!!! Talk about wanting to make sure no one steals your stuff while you are away. Sniff sniff, as I pulled the pillow, i felt it weighed down. When i turned to look, i saw a humongous pin attached to the pillow and the bag….

What i can’t have the pillow???

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Wait… breathe…

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I cry okay!

I shall now reveal who are the people i fight with for the BIG PILLOW!

**hongky accent** The peeepel hor I fight fight with for the beeg Pillow hor… is that short haired person at the back who looks like got no lip (fang: don’t hate me ), Minli - my blogging event buddy and finally that dark thing there that you cannot see except for his teeth (don’t hate me even more for that ) LAX!!!! **end of hongky accent**

That fellow hor (oh wait still got sumore) he is one funny funny funny dude and he makes rehearsals a lot more alive. Hahahhaha while I don’t forgive him for taking the pillow and kacauing us a lot.. I still think he’s cool. Hah!! See!! I’m still such a nice person!

Lesson here.. come earlier… earlier.. like super super early and save the pillow and when you are done… hide it!

Ismail Rehearsals have been on for about three weeks now and not too long ago, I got an email from my Colin Kirton asking if I would be keen to come on board as another acting person for Footstool Players. Of course I screamed yes! lol. I’m pretty excited to be working with them

I’ve just finished Ismail rehearsal and my feet are now sore, but all worth while hehe. I need to update on the Ismail blog too.. oops.

I got lost heading up to Subang Jaya Gospel Centre…again sigh. Colin was nice enough to meet me at the Shell station nearby. Unfortunately and rather embarrassingly he saw me make an illegal U-turn, which was not at all what I had intended. It was dark and I couldn’t see the no entry sign…HONEST!!!!

Usually FsP will have about only 4 people to act a number of the short plays but this year they have 7 people on board. The people involved with this years Foootstool Players are Colin Kirton, Jonathan Tan, Sean Lau, Adrene Wong, Ee Soon Wei, Ann Choo and myself. I didn’t manage to take picture for the first rehearsal, but nevermind.. I have pics anyway lol. From the Footstool Players website.

(L-R) Colin Kirton, John, Adrene, Sean, Soon Wei and Ann. Not forgetting Rudy the stage manager, who is also the person who set up SJGC. But no pic

Oh and if the Soon Wei looks familiar (which was probably why i was cracking my head the whole time), go on to this site by Brylcreem Soh Hem Sem.

What do you think? Lol.

Footstool Players rehearsals will be up in Subang which is sooo da far, but ah yes the sacrifices one makes in order for ones passion. This is the first time I’m having double rehearsals for two big shows( they are both big IMO, so agree with me - and they are equally important to give it one’s best.

Footstoolplayers even more so because other than the times when I hung with the Christian Fellowship in UM. This will be my other chance to serve God in this field. Performances visually shown to people are powerful mediums to voice out messages, or values. Of course you can’t implant values directly to people, but if you can get them thinking about it. That’s a great start.

So Thank The Lord, I’m finally able to come on board and work with other Christians who also share the same interest in the performing arts as I. God is seriously GOOD!

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