Well...Hello Senior Year

Well, that was the longest hiatus in the world.

 

Ah, senior year...oh the terror, oh the joy, oh the life.

 

After coming home from two amazing weeks in Cali for an intensive at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in West Hollywood, I allowed myself one night at home to check out a FABULOUS production of West Side Story with MSU MT alum Kyle Dean Massey as Tony and Natalie Cortez (A Chorus Line revival) as Anita!  Telling her about my time as Maggie this past spring she told me that I looked like a Maggie, and my heart instantly melted.  Major fangirl moment right there.

 

 



Then it's back to school, and to work week.  Though not a lot of people would think so otherwise, I liked getting back to good ol' SpringVegas early.  After three years, I've really begun to think of this town as my second home.  I just love the atmosphere, I love walking everywhere, and I really badly missed all of my school chums, the SLT gang, and my sisters.

However, this recruitment around posed some problems.  Screamed WAY too loud during Day 1a/1b parties and shot my voice by Saturday night.  And guess who had to sing during Preference Day?

Yup.

In the middle of "For Good" for the final time, right at THE most epic part of the song, "And none of it seems to matter any moo-ah-oo-ah-oore,"...blargh.  Had to go on vocal rest the rest of the week.  I owe that day to my sisters for all of the words of support and for my girl Jess who helped carry me through the song.

 

My sweet little Sky.

 

Trick I learned from Mama Miller during A Chorus Line.  Helps the blood get flowing regularly again.  I was standing and walking stairs for 7 HOURS. 

 

Skit Day wear.

 

Sky's first Pref Day, my last.

 

Me and the awesome Jess!

 

Seniors.  2014.

 

Shoes are off.  Hallelujah!

 

How do I feel about my last formal recruitment?  I felt sad, but I also felt liberated.  It's stressful trying to go through this on top of the first week of school.  You find yourself forgetting about your homework at times and then remembering it at the last minute.  And being in a Shakespeare class, I really got to stay on top of my game. 

 

So to keep myself pumped for what I have to do, I always play this song to make me happy.  :)

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJIpp2Jj8AQ

Until we chat again,

Liz

Life With The Roomies!

Roommates bring all sorts of interesting things to your day.

:)

That has definitely been the truth in my case.  I started with four.  J-Mac, Bay, Karr, and Nat.  Bay left though after The Odd Couple finished its run.  She did great and she was a total sweetie.  Before she left though, I shared a room with Karr and Nat.  Unfortunately, Nat's bed wasn't in tip-top shape when we came.  Then we recieved the news that the bed had been fixed!  Hooray!  But not for long...

One hot night after working The Odd Couple, our friend Tommy Boy comes to hang out in our room.  After everyone professes our love for Tangled, Nat, who is probably a bigger Disney Princess than I am, gets out her super-cute stuffed Maximus that her boyfriend gave her and we agreed to do a smoulder picture for fun.  Here comes the smoulder...

Tommy Boy, Princess Nat (w/Maximus), and Me.

Anyhow, we're still believing all is well with Nat's bed, so Tommy Boy decides to do a relaxing fall and expecting to get a bounce back.  Didn't happen.  CREAK-CRACK!  Loud screaming ensues as we discover that once again, the bed has been broken.

Fail.

Poor Nat.  So she moves her mattress next to the broken wire and stays there for the night.  However, this allows her to put her creative skills to work, and after I come home from working the show one night, I walk in to this...

The Fort.  Or as I liked to call it, The Princess Fort, due to the blanket on the front.

The bed frame was tipped over to create a little cave-like setting over the mattress and decorated with blankets over the side.  It proved to be very handy for a movie night.  Karr hadn't seen Despicable Me yet so we thought it would be fun if we had a viewing of it after rehearsal.  It was quite crowded in our little room: Me, Nat, Karr, Tony, Joshie, Tommy Boy, and Nicky with our next-door neighbor Lady Katie entering about 20 minutes in.

Fart Gun!

But what ensued the first weekend of the rainstorms was probably the craziest time out of all of the times.  A group of us are in watching "The Woman In Black" with the lights flickering on and off throughout the entire movie.  Afterwards, the apartment complex goes on a generator but we still decide to rent another movie.  So we get "The Devil Inside" which was kind of a cheap run-by-the-mill horror film, but the scariest part was this.  The film talks about how a demon can transfer from one person to the next.  Well, the demon at that point went into the body of a priest and at the point, he was doing an immersion Baptism on a baby, and at that point, the possesed priest holds the baby under the water and the camera zooms up on him and begins to shake and THAT'S when the TV flicked off.  Everybody in the room went absolutely NUTS.  We were literally thinking that the Woman in Black was behind it.  Fortunately, we got to finish the rest of the movie.  But that night went down in history and we joked that we need to watch bad horror movies during thunderstorms all of the time!

 

It's December, and I started this post in July.  Life has been very busy since then.  School.  New Sisters.  Shows.  My 21st Birthday.  Wisdom Teeth...but I will not go into major detail on that, it was pretty unpleasant.  I am the epitome of a super-sporadic blogger.

 

Lots of Love,

 

Liz <3

Beautiful Colorado, Slimy Creatures, Scottish Accents, and Sore Feet

When I said my posts were going to be sporadic, I meant it!

Anyway, I'll cut to the chase!  First off, Prometheus for me was.......

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AWESOME!!!! :D

Even though there were a few minor flaws with a few things, I loved it.  It is not a direct prequel to the Alien films as it is going off on some of its own things, but there are many references to the original film that made Ridley Scott a sci-fi genius.  The film also ties an interesting theology concept into things as the protagonist, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace, a fantastic rising actress from Sweden) has a strong belief in God and she believes that going out into space and finding the super-beings called "Engineers" will get her closer to meeting her Maker. 

Well, that obviously doesn't go as planned.  Probably advised to by the ageing corporate giant Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce, in some very interesting make-up), the stoic android David 8 (Michael Fassbender) implements a black substance he finds at an old underground temple into the drink of Shaw's boyfriend, scientist Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green, I'll explain more about him later...).  This causes Charlie to begin to feel a little feverish but that doesn't stop him from sleeping with Shaw that night (a part which had me screaming inside, NO DON'T DO IT!!!  SHE'LL GET INFECTED!!!).  The next morning, he's incredibly worse and is banned from coming back on the ship in the midst of a storm.  The physical changes that are taking place, we can easily tell that Charlie is turning into an Engineer.  Against Shaw's protesting, Charlie lets the corporation sponsor Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) set him on fire. 

Shaw later wakes up from a medical room where David informs her that she appears to be three months pregnant.  Shaw revealed that she was infertile and said it wasn't possible because they had only slept together the night before.  However, when David tells her that this is "not an ordinary fetus," she finally realizes the worst.  And the creature inside her is causing her great pain.  Escaping her captors who want to take her back for scientific study, Shaw escapes to a medical pod where she programs it to remove the creature from her body.  In probably the most horifying scene in the movie, a sweating, screaming Shaw WATCHES as the surgical tools cut her open and remove the creature from her womb, which similarily looks like a squid.  The squid is flailing around the med-pod, Shaw is still screaming, blood is EVERYWHERE, and we see the tools put staples all over her stomach.  YEECH!!  I already have twisted, weird dreams about giving birth whenever I sleep on my back.  This gave me another good reason to sleep on my stomach, and it was the sole reason why I slept with the light on that night.  If I ever have the chance to meet Noomi Rapace, I have the mind to personally tell her that! 

Majorly shot up with adrenaline, Shaw then proceeds to WALK out of the med-pod to a room where the captain of the ship, Weyland, David, and Vickers are all waiting.  Weyland wanted Shaw to find the Engineers so that he can try to find a way to restore his youth.  Shaw warns them about going back, but they refuse to believe her.  Of course, through some particular event that caused them to think very poorly of humans, the Engineers want them destroyed.  A ship begins to leave but the brave captain and a few others crash the vessel Prometheus into the ship causing it to fall.  Vickers is also killed in this encounter.  Shaw finds the old lifeboat where the med-pod had been and sees that her squid child has grown VERY rapidly.  So much so, it is twice the size of an Engineer left on board.  Like the face-huggers in typical Alien fashion, the squid grips itself around the face of the Engineer, which later on produces an early version of the Alien...EEEEEEEEPP!  Shaw finds David and despite all that she had gone through, she still retains her faith and they steal one of the Engineers' ships and they go off to search where they had come from.  I know it may probably never happen, but I'd like to think that out of some weird circumstance, Shaw becomes Ripley's mother.  Kind of lame, I know, but I like to think about it.  The probable title of the sequel to Prometheus is going to be Paradise.  Way to be ironic Ridley Scott.

Noomi Rapace as Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (L) and Sigourney Weaver as Lt. Ellen Ripley (And Jonesy the cat!) (R).  I'm not going out on a limb here am I?

Tim, Al, me, and Emmy.  Brought my Entertainment Weekly magazine for good measure. :)

A little fun bit, so me and my pals Emmy, Al, and Tim were supposed to go to a regular 3D showing of the film, but when the time rolled around, nothing was happening.  We ended up getting promoted to the IMAX 3D showing without any extra charge!  (I wanted to do the IMAX showing in the first place so I was estatic about it.)  Inonically, "Starships, were meant to flyyyyy" was heard on the radio in the car ride home and I had a twisted eerie feeling the rest of the way home.

Oh, and about Logan Marshall-Green.

He was doing this thing on Twitter to where if we tweeted a picture of our ticket stub to him, he would follow back.  And he meant it! :D  EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!  Not to mention the fact he is incredibly attractive.

;)

Cool poster!

So Colorado, may I say, BREATHTAKING!

Rocky Mountains

A cool old style movie theatre in Estes Park, that happened to be playing Prometheus.

The Lord makes beautiful things.  Not only was this breathtaking, but I literally couldn't breathe up here, since the cold wind blew so fast!

Spruce Tree House at Mesa Verde.  Built by Pueblo Indians close to 900 years ago.

Daddy and Me on the Durango/Silverton Train.

Yes we were that high...YIKES!

A view of the town of Silverton.

Dead trees going up Pike's Peak.

"THE HILLS ARE ALIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!" Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Plaque at the top of Pike's Peak.  Katherine Lee Bates wrote "America The Beautiful" while on the mountain.

Another plaque.



Another plaque.

There are a WHOLE lot of other pictures, but I have so much time to write this blog...but I will add another thing.  Got to meet my former deputy sheriff cousin Steve-O for lunch and what does clumsy me do, drop her iced tea and some of it gets into the pasta.  Very embarrassing considering the fact that I closed my eyes when it happened.  However, he got me to joking about it later on which made me feel better.  I only get to see him every few years, and this time it was us coming to him which made it even more fun.

Next, I got to see Brave with eight of my 42nd Street cast members and another schoolmate.  It's very different than any of the previous Disney/Pixar fare.  I'm thinking that the trailers might have misled a little bit about the main jist of the story, but it's still very nicely done.  One of the central themes is the relationship between a mother and daughter, Princess Merida (Kelly MacDonald) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson).  Merida has a strong rift with her mom because she's more interested in archery, rock climbing, and horse-back riding and not necessarily wanting to perform the prim and proper duties of a princess, including an arranged marraige.  Elinor loves Merida dearly, but is not-so-keen on her stubbornness about tradition.  There are moments in the film that pull the heartstrings and I was missing my mom dearly, but I wasn't alone; I had grown men crying (my cast members) crying on both sides with me.  Afterwards, everyone was so hyped up that we were all speaking in Scottish accents for a couple of hours after the movie, just silly things like "Oh watcha doin' darlin'", "Oh the music's nice", "Look at my phone laddie", and our two favorites "Feast your eyes," and "Change your fate."

"Get out your tap shoes Francis!"  JULIAN MARSH IS DOIN' A SHOW!"

:)

42 Street has arrived...and so have the pains and blisters in my feet.  My cast mates have proclaimed that this show is the Chorus Line of tap, and rightfully so, since it makes up a major part of the dancing.  It also produces this, as I made the mistake of wearing new character tap shoes without socks.

No pain no gain!  Same applies to dancers as well as football players!

I'm lovin' it and I'm lovin' life!

Sigining off,

Sincerely,

Liz

Aliens, Aliens, Aliens, Aliens, and Stuff Inbetween.

Ah yes!

I am ready for my second post!  Well, for quite a while I have had an aching curiosity for seeing this film:

Prometheus, the new "quasi-prequel" to the Alien franchise from Ridley Scott who directed the original film back in 1979.  However, there was a little voice in my head that was telling me, "Proceed With Caution" meaning, "I don't think you should see this until you've seen the original source material," so for four nights in a row I viewed each of the Alien films consecutively, to get myself prepared for the next film that was soon to come.  (I skipped over the Alien Vs. Predator films because from word of my mother, they were pretty stupid.)

Alien (1979)

In space, no one can hear you scream.
Quite the perfect tagline for this space terror story.  The crew of the Nostromo receives a mysterious message from a seemingly deserted planet.  But once on there, they discover a spacecraft which contains a deadly secret that begins to attack the crew one by one.  Very suspenseful, I jumped about twice (Mom jumped a little higher I'd have to say) great acting and great characterization, especially with Lt. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver).  She's right up there with Lisbeth Salander on one of the most incredible female characters ever.

8/10

Aliens (1986)

Unlike the first film, this one is directed by James Cameron, who would later direct Sigourney Weaver in Avatar Ripley has been in the cryo-freeze for 57 years and she wakes up to a completely different atmosphere.  She returns to the planet where she found the Aliens with a military crew, where they find the remains of a destroyed human colony, the only survivor being a young girl who seems to know the severity of the alien attacks as much as Ripley.  But this time, the Aliens are coming back with a vengeance, and the climatic scene where the Ripley walks into the depth of the Alien Queen.  Lived up to the suspensefulness of the first film and felt like an awesome roller-coaster ride.

8/10

Alien 3 (1992)

The third film in the series and one of the first directed by David Fincher (acclaimed director of Fight Club, The Social Network, and one of my all-time favorites, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo).  Ripley is the only survivor of a spaceship crash on a penal planet with only men prisoners.  Soon after the bodies begin to pile up, Ripley discovers that she has been impregnated with an Alien Queen and makes the ultimate sacrifice to save the human race. Though it still has a huge amount of Ripley's greatness and a sense of adventure, the whole feel with the penal colony was pretty awkward and it just didn't sit that well with me for some reason.  Overall, it's still a good movie.

7/10

Alien: Resurrection (1997)

The last film in the series, and definitely the most disgusting movie I have ever seen.  Set 200 years after the last film, scientists have cloned Ripley and the Alien Queen embryo that was growing inside of her when she died.  This new Ripley has an empathetic connection with the Aliens and enhanced super-strength, acid blood, and sort of a sick demeanor.  A group of smugglers including the android Call (Winona Ryder) take Ripley and convince her to get to kill the Alien Queen and make sure none of the descendants can come to Earth.  This film was fairly flat.  Mainly because I didn't like the reinvention of Ripley to being a little psychotic and twisted because of her Alien DNA in her and also because the film was just gross, plain GROSS both dealing with slime and guts, and sick twisted minds of some of the humans in this film.  Definitely bleh!

5/10

Well, aliens haven't been the only things going on in my life.  Sucker that I am for musical things, I viewed the season finale of Glee which pertained things that made me laugh, made me angry, and made me choke up.  The season, though uneven, was still overall, very well done and I will state this, if I can be able to blend in with that crowd of New Yorkers like Rachel did in the last scene, I wouldn't have another worry in my life.

Next, na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na BATMAAAAAAN!  I had the chance to attend the Tumbler Tour for The Dark Knight Rises which isn't in theatres until next month, but they are giving the country an advanced look at two of the major vehicles that are used in the film, the tumbler and the bat-pod.  My heart was racing the entire time.  I have never been this excited for a superhero movie in a long time (sorry Avengers, you were fun though)!

(Anne Hathaway rode this!!!!)  :-)

"This isn't a car..."

Next, Dance Moms: Miami finale filled with angry teachers, and screaming mamas!  The small group at Stars gets the edition of Mia Diaz in the season finale.  Mia is one of the most incredible ten-year-old dancers I have ever seen in my life and her YouTube videos are always outstanding.  However, since they have "Moms" in the title, they of course have to focus on the drama of the moms, which to me honestly is, "Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah."  I just watch for the dancing and at least for this,  I prefer teachers Victor Smalley and Angel Armas way over Abby Lee Miller from the original Dance Moms.  Not that I dislike the original, but Victor and Angel relate the kids on a more personal level and still tell each kid how valuable they are to the group.  Abby shows huge favoritism to one of her students and it was incredibly obvious in the last episode of that season where her star dancer, Maddie, forgets her solo and she cries for her, but she didn't cry at all for any of the other kids when they forgot theirs.  Abby and co. return next week.  Looking forward to it, but still cringing at the fact that I have to hear Abby's crazy voice again.

Lucas's extensions are to die for.  And people thought I was super flexible at nine!

Finally, Hatfields and McCoys on History Channel is so awesome!  I'm not necessarily into Civil War Era stories but this account of the real-life feud that happened between 1863 and 1891 is very engaging and eye-grabbing, and speaking of eye-grabbing...

The boy in the back left playing Tolbert McCoy, yes please.  He's Sam Reid who also played the role of the Earl of Essex in Anonymous.  Couldn't take my eyes off of him the entire time.  Kind of sad that he got killed tonight though.  :(

Well that's all for now folks!  See ya real soon!

Liz

Well, hello!

This is my first blog post on my first full day of summer vacation.  Sophomore year of college.  Holy Moly, I cannot believe that I am HALFWAY DONE WITH COLLEGE!  It's both a scary and an insanely awesome feeling.  Two more years of homework (although as an actor, I will ALWAYS have homework, quote from my amazing professor Stacy Parker Joyce), but it's also two more years until I pack up and depart for the Big Apple to truly establish myself as a starving artist.  When I was a freshman, I didn't think Acting IV was possible, and now I'm sitting here watching Sahara still contemplating, "Wow, I'm finished with this class and it's awesome!"  Kind of tearful as I was packing up things in the Gamma Phi house, but "Goodbye" is only temporary for I'll be back for 42nd Street in a few weeks!  I need to work on getting the Broadway Body for the show!  I'm so excited I'm tapping!  Only one still awake and I need to set up my couch bed right now.  My actual bedroom looks like the beginning of "Hoarders" since all of my stuff is there.  And then we have to do some MAJOR cleaning up since my cousin's family is coming up to the house for a few days.  I might loose my mind, pull out some hair; that's how bad the mess is.  Oh well, going to take charge!

Goodnight Blogging World,

Liz

P.S. I am LOVING the hat Penelope Cruz is wearing in Sahara right now!