What’s Wrong With Being Confident? (Well A Lot…)
Hey, guys!
There’s a saying in theater that goes “have confidence, but not overconfidence when performing.” Well, this week, I definitely had overconfidence.
Since dialogue was coming pretty naturally for the other scenes, I thought I could finish the whole musical this week easily. Unfortunately, I began to hit some roadblocks which really frustrated me.
Starting with the ballet/opera scene, I felt myself struggling to make the dialogue easy to say. I struggled to find the balance between making it long enough, so that kids won’t compare line sizes, but not too long that it’s confusing. I was also worried that I was starting to repeat words like “performing”, “the stage”, and “theater” too much, but I couldn’t think of other words. I also started forgetting about my objective of allowing parts in the script where the actors can have choices.
Overall, though, the ballet/opera scene went much smoother than the next as I at least knew the structure of the scene. The next scene really got me: the around the world scene. Since the characters have less in common since they are all from different backgrounds, I first found myself struggling to pick a setting for the scene. I then had no idea where I wanted the scene to go. I took a look at my synopsis, but I was still struggling to come up with dialogue. Nothing was coming to mind. I looked down at the clock, and a lot more time had passed than I had expected. All the problems with the previous scene seemed to become inflated. I knew that this would be the trickiest scene to write, but I really did not want to let it go. I persevered, and I got a full scene out that I am relatively pleased with, but I was so tired by the end of it.
After being very discouraged, I talked to Breona about my struggles. Turns out a lot of my worries didn’t have to be so big. More repetition is okay since it is a kids’ musical, and the message has to clearly come through for them. We found a setting for the around the world scene: the Fringe Festival in Edenborough! I don’t have to force too many choices or lines into the script, but I can add them where it feels natural. Modifications and different version can be made later.
In all honesty, I planned to have a rough draft of my script done much earlier. This process is very fun, but I can’t lie to you guys and say it isn’t stressful. However, it is always best to learn from one’s mistakes, and I will definitely get a rough script done over the next three or so days. I will then send it to my mentors for peer edits, which should hopefully be easy to fix. The hardest part is over; now I charge on.
There were some fun moments to write though! I’ll share some below.
Also, on the topic of theater, my last high school performance, Matilda Jr. at BASIS Mesa, is this week! A link for tickets can be found here: https://gofan.co/app/school/AZ88813. I’ll share details on how that process goes later.
Take seven till next post.
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