#yap2018

The pressure in on and the nerves are kicking in! Even though we’ve felt it since day 1, the finish line is so much closer. Yesterday was the hardest day for me, creatively. There were ideas in my head, but for some reason I couldn’t put on paper. It was a combination of tiredness and the pressure Aaron and I were putting on ourselves.

Today, we made our way to the warehouse from noon to 3 pm. There was no wasting time. We went straight to accomplishing our tasks. Aaron and I revisited the script from the night before and added some more scenes to strengthen our story and characters. Thanks to Steve’s advice, we could create more relatability with our characters and give them all purpose. Until about 6 pm we were scripting out our scenes. Although there were still weak parts of the script, we wanted to pitch it to Steve to make sure we were going the right direction. We were happy to not hear any drastic flaws with our script, but it was nowhere close to being ready.

Aaron and I decided to split up to accomplish more. I took the notes that Steve gave us and revised the script. Now, it was about piecing everything together. Most of the songs and raps were ready. Celeste did a very good job of infecting my brain with the songs she wrote, which is a good sign. The goal was to get the script done and printed by 9:30 and for the first time we came close to hitting that goal! Unfortunately, we put too much faith into Kinkos for printing our script and that delayed our process.

Steve helped us out greatly by sitting in as a director and as an audience. We went through all the scenes with blocking, while editing the script. By doing this, we all had a better understanding of the story and were rapidly filling in the plot holes we had before. We spent a couple hours doing this and by 5 am we weren’t even halfway done, but Steve decided we’d call it a night, since we had another long day ahead.

In the creative world, feedback is probably the most crucial thing to becoming better and the worst thing to do is take it personally or not seek that advice. While we went through the script with Steve, I learned a lot. He mentioned a lot of things that I’ve heard before and new things that I’d never thought about. Although almost every line of the dialogue written was adjusted, I wasn’t discouraged by it because the intentions of the scene remained. By the end of the session, we had the same story, but with a different approach that I liked a lot more.

This is the last blog I am writing for YAP and it’s very nostalgic. The thought of all of this being over in a few days leaves me with a multitude of emotions. It has been a roller coaster getting to the story we have now, but it’s been worth it. I can’t wait for the audience to experience our story and for the YAP cast to see our hard work come to life. For two weeks, we’ve made this warehouse our home, our office, and our playground. It is going to feel so weird to go back to our normal lives and to have a normal sleep schedule. I forgot how life was when I didn’t see Aaron, Celeste, and Katie every day. We’ve learned so much as a group and I know our inside jokes will live on as well as our friendship outside of the warehouse. Things probably won’t kick in until we take our final bow, so I will brace myself for that. I’m beyond grateful for the experience I’ve had at the Young Artist Project.

On  Monday morning I decided to leave the warehouse at about 3:30 in the morning. I drove home feeling excited about getting  into my bed,  scooching my fiancé over and petting my dog. What I came home to was a little different. Every night I come home my dog will run into the living room and expect cuddles.  Not this morning. I came into the room hearing retching noises. Over the course of the next 15 minutes my dog threw up 4 times. I knew something was wrong, so even though I had already been up for about 18 hours. We got into the car and took my dog o the dog hospital.

We stayed a long time, the doctor gave her anti-nausea medicine and put water under her skin for hydration. The had a big bubble under her skin. She looked like the hunch back of Notre dame. So although I was really looking forward to my bed, I ended up seeing the sunrise that morning for the second time that week. We got home at 7:00 I texted the group and let the know about my situation and then went to sleep. My dog went to the doctor the next day. She has a stomach bug that is effecting her lungs. She will be okay but will be a bunch of different medications.

This dog situation effected the next day, and will effect the whole week because I usually take Maddie to day care while im at the ware house, but since she is so sick she’s cannot go to day care, my fiancé and I are getting inventive with how I can still pull off 16 hour days without leaving Maddie for more than a couple hours. I ended up getting to the warehouse on Tuesday at around 5:00pm.

When I arrived we practiced the harmonies for “Loans Loans, Loans” then we blocked the movement for that song, we changed the blocking for “1777 Sycamore”, and rearranged the blocking for the introductory scene. All of this was in preparation for a meeting with Steve that should have been at 8pm but we didn’t do until 9:00pm. We performed all we had for Steve, and did a read through. Steve gave us really helpful advice which the writers went full steam ahead with.

Fast forward a few hours, I went to check in on Aaron and Chalisa, our writers, I realized they were struggling. Aaron said something a little silly and we laughed at him, to which he responded, “Give me a break it’s 4 in the morning.” Even though it was only 11pm. I tried to help them, but I am not a writer. It was only when Steve came in and gave us direction did we Start making more substantial progress. God bless those two. I realized what a slow process writing can be today. Sitting in on their work made my head want to explode. I was scared too when things weren’t going quickly.

They ended up getting a lot done though. While they worked through the outline of the plot. I made a prop list, pulled things from upstairs and around the warehouse. At around 2 o’clock in the morning Aaron said again “woah, y’all common its 4 in the morning.” And we all laughed. But sure enough, time passed,  eventually it was  4 in the morning. Then 5, and 6. Until Chalisa and I looked out the dock over our 4 cars and watched the sunrise.

MEET THE CAST OF THE YOUNG ARTIST PROJECT 2018

Katie Kelly

Age: 23

In case you’re unsure of what The Young Artist Project is and the pressure behind it check out this video from The 2016 Young Artist Project and take a look!

A cast of young artists are selected from a hundreds of applicants. They have just 14 days to create an original, riveting cross-disciplinary performance that is the exciting culmination of intense process for the performers, giving audiences the rare opportunity to not only see a fantastic collection of entertainment, but to get a firsthand glimpse of some of the brightest stars of tomorrow.

Meet the Cast of the 2018 Young Artist Project!

Celeste Butler

Age: 21

Day 4 was very productive and organized. Writing out our goals in the morning helped us visualize where we wanted to be by the end of the day. We started our morning by putting our multiple characters through an Eleven Step story structure test to make sure they were each dealing with conflict. By doing so, we realized that we had to go back to the drawing board for most of our characters’ journey since it wasn’t clear what the intentions of each scene were. It was daunting, but when we fleshed it out everything came to fruition.

Today moved more fluidly because we didn’t have differences to decide. Having our 4 individual storylines fit into one overall plot gave each of us each an opportunity to take control of our own characters and put a piece of ourselves into it. What I like about this collaborative effort is that, in the end, there is someone with the final say. We now have characters we love and could all resonate with. Key to our productivity today was breaking off into small groups to accomplish different tasks. For example, I’d collaborate with Aaron on his story structure, while Katie and Celeste would be working on a song. Later, I’d help Celeste with her story while Katie and Aaron continued on theirs. This rotation had us steadily accomplishing our tasks and the road we were taking our story was finally clear.

Personally, my favorite part of the day was at 5:30 pm when we went on our field trip to Denny’s. We spent about two hours there and it was very much needed for me. For the past 4 days, I felt like I haven’t been contributing to society since we are in the warehouse for more than 14 hours a day. Going out to eat and talking to each other in a different environment was really fun and relaxing.

Our next rehearsal will certainly be more about creating music. We’ve written two songs already and they’ve managed to become stuck in my head like an ear worm, but that is also a good sign. We will also need to focus on creating our script. I come from a screenwriting background and it is very fascinating to see how it compares to Aaron’s playwriting format. Essentially, the scripts are all trying to accomplish the same thing, but there are details that are specific to a stage performance rather than something on screen that I learned how to write differently. Everyone has something to contribute in every step of the process and it is always a great experience to learn from others.

Meet the Cast of 2018 Young Artist Project

Aaron Cruz

Age: 20

Aaron is going to be starting his junior year at Cal State Fullerton in the Fall. Previously a musical theatre performance major, he has decided to switch to playwriting after finding incomparable joy in creating his first original musical called “Tinderella,” which was put on at CSUF’s BA showcase series this past semester. Aaron is a self-taught musician/composer and playwright who spends most of his free time reading books and taking online lessons about music and writing to further his skills. When not sitting in front of his piano, he likes to play volleyball, perform slam poems, and spit some dope freestyles with his boys. Having come to America from the Philippines when he was 6 years old, Aaron strives to accomplish his biggest dreams of:

1. Helping his mom start her own Filipino restaurant

2. Have lunch with Lin-Manuel Miranda at said restaurant.

Today we got a lot done.  We finished our opening number, blocked the opening number, finished the second scene, started writing a new song, Finished writing multiple scenes, and made great headway on a few other songs. Pretty Impressive list! I know though that lots of this work was continued from previous days. We are finally starting to see a bit of the fruits of our labor.

 We all started writing our scripts and songs individually at first. I got the concept and a lot of the research done. I started to write my song and until I felt like it was okay, but then I showed it to Aaron and his feedback was so valuable. He gave me really solid strong notes that was going to make my emotional arch much better. However, it was quite difficult for me to take his notes, even though I knew he was right. I felt sad about having to let go of parts of my song, I had to give myself a minute I felt like I was mourning a loss. I copied and pasted my scratched songs into a different word document, then when I found something better to write it was easier for me to let it go. After I created a concept and outline of where I wanted the script to go I worked with Celeste to create the melody. She really helped take my idea and make it a great song.  I am really grateful for both Aaron and Celeste for collaborating with me to take my concept to the next level.

Today is the first day where our fatigue started to hit us pretty hard. Aaron and I left both got headaches. I legit felt like I was gonna die, so I left at around midnight. After I got home I realized that art is about humanity there is no way I am going to create art if I push myself to the point where I don’t feel like a human anymore. Its only day three, if we art going to continue producing art on this level I need to take care of myself. So tomorrow I am going to actually like make lunch for myself and not just eat the random food that is there so I can be my best self.

Every single one of us is growing and learning  everyday. We are all really dedicated to the show. Personally, I have never made art with this much intensity or volume in my life.  I am proud of what we have accomplished I think our show is shaping up to be something great. We have a long way to go, but we are getting there.