Opening Day!
Opening Day!
Blogger: Alisa Ross
Today made everything we have been working for feel so much more real! It was the opening of our show and everyone was anxious to promote our hard work. We started by waking up early to get into hair, makeup, and costume. In the final minutes the living room of our airbnb was FILLED with people reciting their lines and running scenes. Pre-show jitters were there! On the way to our venue, which isn't too far from our airbnb and is right next to the beautiful Royal Mile, we all handed out flyers and found creative ways to introduce and market our show.
We all went into a dressing room and mentally prepared to perform, reminding ourselves why we love theatre and practicing deep breathing. We went backstage and saw our audience slowly fill in. When it was time to go on, doing the show felt like home. Laughs, sweet moments, and our final bows filled the air with pride and gratitude. Afterwards, we got to walk back in our costumes and prepare for the rest of the day.
After getting dressed and grabbing a bite to eat, we headed to a venue to watch another teen production called Dear Chuck. It was a modern piece on the struggles of being a teenager and finding who you are that resonated with many people in the audience. It was so cool to see another High School perform!
However, we weren't done, we headed to the National Museum of Scotland and did a scavenger hunt to learn about Scotland and its impact on history. It was certaintly an interesting change of pace and the musuem was full of incredible artifacts and information!
Our next outing was the scariest of all, we went to Darkfield's Arcade experience, which was an immersive experience. We all went into a small black room that was filled with arcade machines, put on headphones, and shuddered as it went pitch black. We could only hear what was playing in our headphones and needed to locate a button, token tray, and token slot. We could press the button to say yes or not press it to say no. Our story depended on our choices and we all sat with snacks in the sunlight afterwards to discuss our different stories.
That wasn't all! We went to dinner all together and walked to ANOTHER Darkfield experience. We all chose different experiences. I for one chose the "Visitors" experience with Abe, who plays Niko in Pandora: A Tragicomoic Greek Romp. We sat across from each other with noise-cancelling headphones in the darkness and experienced 25 minutes of insights as to why the dead feel such discomfort in the world of the living. Again, we all discussed our differing experiences and were shocked to hear about the different prompts. I'll say ours was the scariest!
Our final activity of our busy day was to see one of the funniest shows I've ever seen. We saw Avenue Q which was filled with comedic musical numbers and fun dialogue. We absolutely lost it. Coming back to the airbnb after this day was a relief so we could get some rest for our next show, but still, we had an incredible fun filled day that left us with so many memories on just day three. Now for 5 more shows!
