Well it's been months since I posted, but nothing much has happened in that time. Well...that's a lie, a lot happened. I started my senior year of high school, attended my last homecoming dance, made my college and major choice, and I performed in my last musical ever. I know, a lot of lasts, but also some exciting firsts! To answer the inevitable questions about college, I am attending the University of Northern Iowa next year. I plan to major in Marketing (advertising and digital media emphasis) and minor in business communications. As of right now I would love to do advertising or copywriting for broadway shows or theater in general once I graduate. So far, senior year has been tons of fun but also bittersweet. My classes are pretty fun (except for physics), school spirit is high, and I am wanting to treasure every moment. This year for our musical, we did the 80s classic we all love: Footloose. I love that movie so I was pretty excited. Auditions were as usual, dance a little, sing a little (we all know I can't sing but here I am), and read a scene or two. I knew I wasn't going to get a lead or featured character so I set my sights on making the dancing chorus. Several years of dance came in handy and I was cast as a featured dancer in the dancing chorus. We started out rehearsals in early September and got familiar with the music and we choreographed dance numbers on Saturday's. Everything was going well, a little slow, but pretty well. About halfway into the 10 weeks of rehearsals, I was offered another part in the show. I was really surprised, but super excited to have another part. The part did come with a caveat: I had to do the entire scene on roller skates. I was now playing Betty Blast, the owner of the 50s diner where Ren works and where Ariel and her friends hang out. Thankfully I didn't go rolling straight into the orchestra pit, and no bones were broken. I had the cutest dress, a nice large bump in my hair, and some snazzy white and pink roller skates. All in all, rehearsals were pretty good, but tech week was a bit stressful because of last minute choreography changes, and tricky song lyrics. I was just happy to get to be singing and dancing with my friends and hey, I got to practice my skating as well! Show week was stressful, exciting, and nerve wracking all at the same time. We had state volleyball, state football (playing for the state title tonight), community service day, and the shows all in the same week. Much to our shock we SOLD OUT ALL THREE SHOWS! Our director (she's awesome) told us that hasn't happened since our school did Les Miserables in 2009! We had to turn enough people away at the doors that we could have added another show, but administration said no. It's fine, I'm not salty at all (jk yes I am). The shows all went amazing, and I was able to stop on my skates every night but the last. When our final bows came, and the seniors stayed onstage to give all the different directors flowers and a gift, I felt the tears coming. As we greeted people in the hallway after, I was crying a little knowing this could very well be my last show. I'm hoping to be cast in Macbeth in the spring but you never know. All in all, it was a phenomenal show with an insanely talented cast, and I am so grateful to have been a part of it! Now onto speech season! Catch me in choral reading and readers theater! Xx Nicole
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Long time no post, but trust me it's for good reasons. Between working at the pool, helping with theater camp, going on a service trip, and being in a show, it's been a little hard to remember to update this blog recently. That leads us into the topic of this post: the childrens theater show I was in. At the end of the school year, I auditioned for my high schools summer production of Gnomeo and Juliet (super cute movie, go watch it.) I was just excited to be with my friends and was fully expecting to be cast as a minor character or an extra. Much to my surprise, I was cast as Juliet! My sister Cara was ironcally cast as Tybalt, which made for some interesting rehearsals. Two of my good friends were cast as my characters dad and best friend, so that was tons of fun as well! We started rehearsals in early June, and practiced off and on until mid July, when theater camp started. I helped out as an acting and improv counselor for the camp, and also joined in for musical theater and stage combat stations. All the kids that came to theater camp were given roles in the show as supporting characters or extra gnomes in the red and blue yards. We practiced with the campers for an hour every day and it was so much fun watching the kids get involved with the show, and go from scared to confident onstage in just a week. We performed four shows total, two a day over a weekend. The kids were great and I had so much fun interacting with them and the rest of the cast. The only part that wasn't as much fun, was falling off a big tower multiple times a day. We had an amazing set built, and my tower was made so the top portion fell apart when it was rammed into. I had some pretty nasty bruises and a couple scrapes to flaunt, and Gnomeo and I even broke a part of the tower when we landed on it during one show! All in all I fulfilled my goal of having a mic in a school production, met some awesome campers, and had a ton of fun performing! Looking forward, i'm hoping for a great senior year in the theater and speech departments! Xx Nicole Here are some great life lessons I've learned from some of my favorite musical songs.
Times are hard for dreamers- Amélie: Stay positive and chase your dreams no matter what people say. Defying Gravity- Wicked: Step out of your comfort zone or you'll never grow or gain new experiences. Breathe- In the Heights: Take a step back, take a breath, and power through. Wait For It- Hamilton: Good things come to those who wait, and all things happen for a reason. Those You've Known- Spring Awakening: Keep those you love close, and honor their memories. You Will Be Found- Dear Evan Hansen: Someone will always be there to help you in the hard times. Find them. Do You Hear the People Sing- Les Mis: Stand firm and defend what you believe in. Ok those were some real life lessons, so now here's a few funny ones. :) Preparations- Great Comet of 1812: You can't marry someone you just met. Especially if they're betrothed. Down Once More- Phantom of the Opera: Don't kidnap someone and force them to marry you to save their boyfriend. It's frowned upon. Another National Anthem- Assassins: Please don't shoot someone just to get famous because it never ends well. Im sure I missed some good ones, but musicals can truly teach great life lessons and they keep me going through rough times. Xx Nicole WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD After several blog posts, and lots of thinking, I've decided it's high time I recapped my New York trip. I went over spring break with the Xavier Drama club and we were there March 13-16. It was without a doubt the best trip I've ever taken, and being in my dream destination with some of my best friends was more fun than I ever could have hoped for. I'll do a day by day recap of what we did, what shows we saw, and what weird or unfortunate thing happened to us that day. Monday: I woke up, looked out the window, and immediately cursed to myself. It had snowed and was still snowing fairly hard. Fortunately we got to the airport around 5:30 am and boarded our flight on time. We then sat on the plane for two hours while they de-iced the plane, which put us behind schedule. Thankfully, at the Detroit airport they were able to hold the plane for us. We barely made it onto our next flight to New York and im pretty sure the other passengers hated us by that point. We got to New York and hopped off the plane and onto the bus to go to our hotel. That's when we met Steve aka the best tour guide ever. We got to the Row NYC hotel which was two blocks away form Times Square (this was a huge lifesaver), but they didn't have our rooms ready, so we had to drag our bags along to find something to eat. We wound up across the street at Shake Shack, and then went back to the hotel. I shared a room with my sister Cara and friends Camryn and Isabelle, and oh my lord it was the size of a shoebox. Four girls, zero counter space, tiny closet. Not a great combination, but we made it work. Kind of. After we got settled, we were free to explore Times Square by ourselves, so we headed out. At this point it hadn't snowed in New York and it was actually pretty nice out. We first went to the Richard Rogers theater to take pics cause we are Hamilton trash, then we walked all over Times Square and hit up the Disney store, Hershey's store, M&M world, and other stores until it was time to go back to the hotel to get ready for the evening. We didn't eat dinner because we ate lunch late, so we started getting ready. We got all dressed up and headed around the corner to the majestic theater to see Phantom of the Opera. It was an amazing show and I'm so glad it was my first Broadway show. To quote cam "I want to sit by you to see how a theater nerd acts during her first Broadway show." Cam and I basically cried the entire show and were shook for weeks after. Tbh we are still shook. The guy next to cam unfortunately was not as into the show as we were because he somehow slept the entire time. After the show we went to Ben and Jerry's for ice cream, then back to the hotel. We went to bed dreading what we'd wake up to, because they were predicting a crap ton of snow. Tuesday: We got up bright and early at 5 am because we were scheduled to go to the today show at 6. We got up, turned on the news and subsequently rolled our eyes. New York City was in a state of emergency because of the blizzard. Was that going to stop us? Oh heck no. We got our butts moving and bundled up to head out. It was freezing and we were literally the only people in Times Square besides the workers who were snowblowing the sidewalks. It was actually super pretty and I felt like I was in a snow globe! We got coffee and breakfast at Rockefeller center and then headed to the today show. It was basically snowing straight ice at that point, so we lasted all of five minutes outside before we headed back to Rockefeller center. The ice rink really wasn't that impressive after all. It was about 7 am and we didn't have anything to do, so we all split up and my group grabbed my friends GoPro and headed out to look at theaters. We went to almost every theater in the vicinity of Times Square and got some hilarious footage of people slipping, posing outside theaters, and being goofs in general. We wanted to see if we could get an impromptu tour of the Phantom theater, but we forgot that it was literally 7:30 in the morning and we were the only people outside. We went back to the hotel to dry out and warm up, so we played some cards against humanity and crammed ten people in one tiny room. After that, we headed out to meet the rest of the group at Radio City music hall for a tour. The tour was great and we got to go onstage which apparently is rare, saw behind the stage, saw practice rooms, and al the lounges and we even met a rockette! After that we were all super crazy hangry so we were on a desperate hunt for a food place that was open and not too crowded. Then the heavens opened and I'm pretty sure Jesus himself pointed us in the direction of Carve pizza. It was right by our hotel, and my god it was the best pizza I have had in my entire life. No joke, the slices were as big as my torso. After that, we went shopping at a drama bookstore and the Hamilton store, and generally walked around in the cold and snow and ice until it was time to go shower, nap, do makeup on a squirming friend, and get ready for dinner. We had dinner at Dallas BBQ as a whole group and then we went to the Gershwin theater to see Wicked. We were super nervous that they'd cancel the show, but they didn't and it was amazing as well! (I'd already seen it though). Isabelle and I cried through the second act and it was so beautiful. My friend Jaden got a flying monkey to wave back at us as well during the show! Then some people went to Dave and Busters to play games, but my friends and I went back to get ready for bed. Wednesday: We woke up, got ready and headed to Ellen's Stardust Diner. The diner is a performance restaurant and oh my god it was so much fun! The staff sings songs and performs as you eat and wait for your food. They were all amazing and sang show tunes the whole time. They sang songs from grease, Hamilton, lion king, beauty and the beast, and a lot of other shows and movies! After Ellen's, we went for a tour of the New Amsterdam theater. The theater is super old and beautiful, and we got to go onstage and in the wings to see the trapdoors and effects they use in Aladdin, and we got to play with props and try on costumes from past Broadway shows there. There was stuff from Mary Poppins, Little Mermaid, Newsies, and Lion King amongst others. We also learned about Olive the ghost who haunts the theater. She's pretty chill. Shoutout to you olive! After that we had lunch at carve again cause it's really that amazing! After lunch we went shopping again because I needed a Phantom shirt, and then we headed back to the hotel for a bit. We went to a clinic with a Broadway actress at Pearl studios after that, and then hopped on the subway. The subway was kind of scary but also fun at the same time. We went to ground zero and went through the 9/11 museum which was so powerful and cool, and then rushed back onto the subway to get back to the hotel. We changed super fast and went to Mama Sbarro for a buffet dinner as a group. We then went back to the New Amsterdam theater and saw Aladdin. The flying carpet was surreal and amazing and yes I cried during A Whole New World. Then we went back to the hotel and packed until 1 am when we couldn't keep our eyes open. There was also a ton of fire trucks and ambulances outside out hotel and we couldn't figure out what happened. Thursday: We got up once again at the crack of dawn and got back on the subway to go to battery park. From battery park we got onto a ferry to go to Liberty Island. We got off the boat and went to see the Statue of Liberty. It was so beautiful and breathtaking, but OH MY GOSH IT WAS FREEZING COLD. I was literally the coldest I had ever been in my entire life. After taking pictures and buying my parents some magnets, we got back on the ferry and headed to Ellis Island. Ellis island was beautiful and the museum part was very informational. Isabelle Cam and I wanted to look at the wall of immigrants names, but there was caution tape blocking the sidewalk. We went out back anyways and got such amazing pictures of the skyline. After hopping more caution tape, we got back on the ferry to go back to the mainland. After we got off, we went onto Wall Street, and saw the bull and fearless girl statues. We took some "questionable" pictures with the bull, then went to look at the New York Stock Exchange. We saw the building where George Washington was sworn in, and then at Isabelle, Cara, and I's request, we went to Trinity church. We didn't find the national treasure in the basement,, but we did get to see the graveyard and payed Alexander and Eliza Hamilton our respects. After that we went to a deli for lunch, then went back to ground zero. There we spent a little bit of time at the memorial pools and it was so heartbreaking to see all the names, and the flowers white roses signify a deceased persons birthday, and the red carnations are placed there by grieving families. We got back on the subway, and headed back to the hotel to collect our bags and say goodbye to Times Square. We drove away in the bus right through Times Square and last grand central station. It was sad to go, but I was ready to sleep in my own bed. We got to the airport, said goodbye to Steve, and got on the plane. We had a layover in Minneapolis where we got some true Midwestern goodness in the form of Chick-Fil-A. We got back to Cedar Rapids around 9:45, and said goodbye to eachother then went home to sleep at last. NYC was the trip of a lifetime, and I am so grateful to my parents for allowing me to go. I had such amazing experiences and can't wait to go back. Maybe I'll even live and work there one day! Xx Nicole Thus far in my life I've been in 5 shows that are so very very different from eachother. I've done 4 school shows and 1 community show. I've learned a lot from each show and made some pretty great memories with all of them. Along with acting, I'm on speech team as well for group and individual. It's basically competitive acting and it's the most fun I've ever had in an activity (speech contests can get pretty weird). I truly found my people through speech and drama. Wizard of Oz: I played Inky, the wicked witches evil cat (we did the book version of the show), and it was a summer children's theater at school. It was a lot of fun but I had some pretty bruised knees after crawling for four shows. Chicago: This was my first school musical, and I was ensemble/reporter. I'm not a great singer but I still love doing musicals even if I have a small part, it's fun to be a part of such an iconic show. Diary of Anne Frank: This was my community show, and I was fortunate enough to play Anne Frank. This was the experience of a lifetime and I loved every moment of it. Anne was a difficult character to play and I struggled to get into character sometimes because the things I was saying were so emotional it was hard to wrap my mind around it. I also fell on the set during dress rehearsal and have two lovely scars on my knees and one on my foot to remember the show by! Toy Story: For my second children's theater, I was stage crew/ army man. I never intended to be onstage in this but I wound up chasing woody through the audience. It was super fun and I got a fake gun as well. Bring it On: This was my second musical, and I was a Jackson Cheerleader. I was a flyer for the cheer squad and let me tell you, it's hard to sing while you're up in the air with a fog machine doing "cheer face" and are trying to catch your breath from all the dancing you've been doing. Luckily I had a great stunt group and they never let me fall. Speech: freshman year I did improv, sophomore year I was a witch in choral reading and a teacher in mime, and junior year I did improv and was Marie Leroux in Is He Dead (one act play). I love doing school shows, speech, and community shows, and I hope to continue these through my senior year. Who knows, maybe I'll even do shows in college! Xx Nicole Everyone's heard of Hamilton. If you haven't, then you've probably been in a coma or living under a literal rock, because it's a rap musical about the Alexander Hamilton founding father and it won 11 Tony awards last year. Hamilton is still a raging success, and has shows running in New York, Chicago, and a tour that is running in San Francisco right now. Any HamilFan knows that tickets are outrageously expensive and next to impossible to get, and the shows sell out in seconds as soon as a new block of tickets are released. Now here's the real question: how in the heck did I get to see Hamilton if tickets are impossible to get? I saw Hamilton on February 8, 2017 in Chicago, with some family members, and let me tell you I cried my way through act 2. Now when tickets went on sale for Chicago in June of 2016, my mom and I were bound and determined to get tickets the day they went on sale. So there we were, calendars out and marked, poised on two separate computers, hitting refresh every five seconds until the site went live. As soon as we got logged in, selected tickets, and hit check out, the site froze and we were faced with the spinning circles of death. After waiting for an absurd amount of time, the site kicked us back into the queue. We decided to try for tickets with obstructed views in hope of getting five together, but no luck there either. After around three hours of waiting on the website, we decided to try the phone lines. I was immediately put on hold and was on hold for probably an hour before I got through. They had no tickets left for any of the dates we wanted, so we accepted defeat. We figured we would just see it when it went on tour or something. I was pretty bummed, not just because I didn't get tickets, but because I had wasted a whole morning and early afternoon. That evening, I went to work and tried not to be too mopey about it, and thankfully I got to come home early. When I got home my mom asked me "so do you want to know what happened while you were at work?" I really didn't, but I said yes anyways. "Your aunt Lisa called and asked if anyone here would be interested in four Hamilton tickets." No joke, I'm pretty sure I had a heart attack in the spot. I thought she was joking, but then I started freaking out. Long story short, my aunt had been able to get tickets for us and for my aunt and cousin, and my dad bought a ticket a few days before the show. Seeing Hamilton was amazing and we got almost all of the original Chicago cast at our performance! My cousin Katie and I cried for probably a good 15 minutes after the show was over, and went through two packs of tissues. my tips for getting Hamilton tickets: 1. Have a super awesome aunt 2. If #1 is not applicable, then try stubhub or ticketmaster 3. Hover over your computer and move fast when new blocks of tickets go on sale 4. Go to the actual theaters and wait in cancellation lines to see if anyone gave up tickets 5. Enter the ticket lotteries at the theaters and pray like mad that you get picked Xx Nicole Me, Katie, Cara, and Erin at Hamilton in Chicago.
In my 17 years of life I've had some pretty awesome experiences. I've been blessed with a family that supports the arts and my parents enjoy taking us to shows, museums, galleries, and the occasional concert. We go to musicals and plays around the community fairly often, but we go to bigger shows as well. I've been lucky enough to see several national tours of huge and popular shows, and this year I got to go to New York and saw three Broadway shows. Shows I've seen on tour are Lion King, Wicked, Kinky Boots, Gentlemans guide to Love and Murder, Once, Stomp, Book of Mormon, and Hamilton. I saw most of those tours at the Civic Center in Des Moines, but I saw Book of Mormon at Hancher auditorium at the University of Iowa, and I saw Hamilton at the PrivateBank theater in Chicago. The shows I saw on Broadway were Phantom of the Opera, Wicked (just as good as the first time I saw it), and Aladdin. I saw the Broadway shows with some of my best friends and basically cried my eyes out at all of them. I loved almost all of the shows I've seen, but my favorites have to be Hamilton and Phantom of the Opera. Playbills and theaters from the Broadway shows.
Xx Nicole As a theater nerd, I can be found rambling about Broadway shows to my family and friends almost 24/7. I decided to turn the tables and have them tell me about their favorite shows for a change. I asked my two sisters and two of my close friends. Left to right Cara- Hamilton Isabelle- Wicked Erin- Legally Blonde Camryn- Phantom of the Opera Xx Nicole As far as my acting career goes, it's not much of one. I didn't start performing in real theatrical shows until high school. I've done theater camps since elementary school, and I danced for 8 years, so I had performed before in skits and recitals, but never in a play or musical. In the theater world, I'm a newbie. I've only done four school shows, and one local show outside my school. Even with only five shows currently under my belt, I've learned some things and had some great experiences as well as challenges. These are the top things I've learned so far while acting:
If you go to a play or a musical of any sort, chances are you'll get a program. That program tells you who's in the show, what the show is about, and often includes cast biographies. These bios are short little snippets that most commonly outline what shows the actor has previously been in, includes basic information about them, and thanks a bunch of people for their support. As an actor and theater nerd myself, I love reading bios wether I'm at a Broadway show or a high school play, because I love to see how far actors have come and see where they started out. Most people skim the bios or don't read the program at all, but if you have time before your show starts, take a look and take the time to learn about the people you see onstage. They have amazing stories to tell on and offstage. No ones character or personality can truly be encompassed in just a short paragraph, but actors dedicate their time and effort to their art and a bio in a program is a small piece that shows the insane amount of time and dedication that it takes to make an show great and an actor well rounded. The bios are also a small but meaningful way to publicly thank the people that have helped the actors get to where they are, wether that be the directors, fellow cast members, parents, or friends. It takes a village to create a show and it takes a lot of support to be an actor. So next time you're at a performance, take time to read the biographies (read them all, not just the leads) and appreciate the hard work and dedication of the actors you see onstage.
Xx Nicole |
AuthorNicole Hassenstab is from Cedar Rapids IA, although she'd prefer to be in NYC right now. Archives
November 2017
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