Soul Purpose

we start drama a little late today. dave came in, looking very somber, and in a crackly voice he told us how he had to take his leave from drama for a little bit. as he was saying his thing, the air was very heavy and silent of side chatter. with a heavy heart, dave finished, and left.

not sure what was wrong, but it was very sobering. kinda like when your captain falls in battle. you feel as if you need to rally to his side, not that you can really do anything.

after dave leaves, we do a little bit of sharing, but its all very light. nothing very deep or too troubling. we pray and get ready to do some exercises.

the first set of exercises we do is "be real". in be real, you want to do an everyday or simple task. the key is to not overact. we do a few of these, none of them are really that spectacular. none of them are really horrendous either though. the main issue was in the critiques. instead of critiquing the actual performance, people were criticizing the content, commenting about what "should" be there and what not. the point of be real isn't to do what is "common" but rather to do what they would do. of course it's not going to be perfect and not everyone will do it the same way.

the next set of exercises we attempted were some "statues". statues is an exercise where there are 2 people on stage. these 2 people are posed in a specifc position. then they are supposed to construct a scene based on these starting positions.

mike and i are the first to start. i start w/ my left hand on my throat, my right foot stepping on mike's left foot, and my right hand stuck out like i'm trying to block a bright light.

we start out, and it just goes nowhere fast. every bone that i throw out to mike he just stomps on and throws it out. as a result, we don't set the scene nor our characters. it was just terrible. we try again and the same thing happens.

some more people attempt statues, and its the same thing. plot lines are killed and ideas are just jumped upon. instead of working together, people were stepping on each other vying for dominance and control of the sketch. it was just terrible. i would have to say that it was worse than at rutgers.


sponsor dinner

after drama was over, we hung out at church a bit and then headed out to jean lee's house for the semi annual sponsor dinner.

todd and i get there first and start picking at the peppers, cookies, and chips. after about 20 min or so, david and jamie show up. we chat a bit as we wait for people to trickle in.

as dinner time approaches, a good number of people have yet to arrive. in the meantime, i sit w/ andy and talk about old school games from the good old days. then i chat w/ dave about paintball a bit and a bit about drama.

before i know it, the food is here. we're offered meatless baked ziti, sausage, chicken w/ mushrooms eggplant cheese and projuto, buffalo wings, fried stuffed mushrooms, and breadsticks.

after dinner, pastor tim sings a few songs. some people shared about their experience working w/ the youth thus far. afterwards, jamie handed out another book and raffled off some free t-shirts.

then it was time for dessert. jamie made this strawberry shortcake that was really good. rene make rice crispies and dream bars. the dream bars were really good. the only complaint was that they fell apart so easily. jean lee made this amazing mango jello. it was perfect, not too sweet.

as we ate dessert, we just stood around and chatted. i chatted w/ dan about movies and then about the state of cartoons. eventually, it was time to go.