Sam Szerif

I've been meaning to start a series like this for awhile where I share my thoughts on local theatrical productions! I've been a part of community theatre since 2017 and love being in the cast, crew, and audience alike. Getting to know these amazingly talented actors and watch them perform their hearts out is truly a pleasure and I wanted to start documenting that as much as possible.

Since I'm just doing this for fun, I'll only be using character names instead of actor names just in case they would prefer not to have their names out there. I'm also not the best writer haha - I'm not really looking to make these "thoughtful thought pieces". I think these are just going to be a little ramble of excitement for local theatre and the things I liked in shows. 🖤

First show I'm going to highlight is Jekyll & Hyde from the Star Royale Theatre in Pompton Lakes, NJ!

I'm a bit of a theatre noob (...extremely in fact) so there are so many shows, actors, and songs that I just don't know that fellow thespians know inside and out. As a result, I have never seen nor heard of Jekyll & Hyde and I was super excited to enter the audience without any information. This show was creepy, heartfelt, suspenseful, and funny. I really enjoyed it!

-spoilers ahead-

The symbolism in Dr. Jekyll's "double character" was done so well! In the very first scene he stood behind two frame-looking set pieces that showed "2 sides of him". The light design for every time Mr. Hyde came out was so on point and it really added to that creepy vibe that let the audience know what was coming. I found myself feeling unsettled every time the light changed (in a good way) and was fascinated with the "inner demon" concept.

The songs were beautiful and the singing was hauntingly beautiful and operatic and I feel like I could listen to Lucy & Emma sing duets all day. My favorite character was definitely John Utterson. He just wanted to have Jekyll's back but couldn't allow him to hurt others any longer. I really felt the respect he had for his dear friend. "His Work and Nothing More" had to be my favorite song. And everyone's accents were SO GOOD!

Jekyll dueting with himself in "The Confrontation" could not have been easy and going from one character type to another in a split second while maintaining his projecting was very cool to watch. The lighting hitting him in the "half red / half white" was dope af.

I'm feeling inspired to read "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" which is the book that the musical was adapted from. We are in the spoopy season so why not continue the spoops? 🎃

I'm so excited to have finally launched my personal portfolio!

For the past few years, I felt that my website didn't reflect my current goals, projects, and skills. I finally dove deep and gave it the update it deserves.

Happy 2022! I started my year with a case of COVID. The holidays were very isolated but we managed to still have fun with it! As a result, we took our Christmas stuff down super later since we celebrated with family a bit later than usual. This month was off to a rocky start but I'm grateful that we are okay and can move forward with the new year! Here is what I'm currently working on / doing this month:

Currently Reading Haunting of Hill House – I LOVE the show, so I'm excited to get through the book as well! I'm also reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Seems like I'm on a Shirley Jackson kick.

Currently Watching This Is Us – I know we are on the final chapter but I am a little bit behind. I JUST finished the season 5 finale so Im feeling prepped (or as prepped as you can be) for the This Is Us series finale 🥺

Currently Playing Banjo Kazooie on the SWITCH – This is one of my all time favorite video games and to have on my switch is a dream come true. I have an N64 but the switch is just so versatile and I can play from under the covers or on the go and I'M JUST EXCITED OKAY.

Currently Working On So since I'm getting married, the answer to this will basically be "wedding" every month until it happens; however, that's no fun. I'll try to keep the wedding content in its own posts. So what I will say for this month INSTEAD is that I am working on improving my Cricut game! I really want to get more proficient with vinyl transfers to T-Shirts as well as making stickers and decals.

I feel like I have been attempting to restart a blog for the past few years. I tried many different hosts and methods but I kept coming back to Tumblr. Blogging on Tumblr was the most successful I ever was with keeping up with posting. Looks like I tried reinventing the wheel for no reason. 

Anyway, hello again. My plan for this blog is to post about art, mental health, video games, and just general life update things.