“The Greatest Show” | Up with People Week 5

Title Reference: The Greatest Show from The Greatest Showman

What a crazy week this has been! We finally were able to go through an entire show and put it on for two different audiences! It is very satisfying to think about how far we’ve come since arrival day. Besides one musical I did in middle school (which is a whole other story that I’ll save for another time), this is the only time I’ve worked on a production of this scale. It may just be the hardest I’ve pushed myself in terms of performance ever - but the outcome is totally worth it!

I’ve had so much fun getting closer to my cast mates and really developing some true friendships. It’s also been such a great experience to explore other areas of my musical ability besides playing horn! I’ve done so much singing over the past month and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much I actually enjoy it. For the longest time, I have known that I had an acceptable singing voice but have never been trained and never worked to make it better. This whole experience has helped me embrace my voice and actually put effort towards developing my voice. It’ll be a tough journey, just like the one I’ve had with the horn, but I’m looking forward to what this semester will teach me and how I can further apply it once this experience is over!

While it was a great week overall, it wasn’t all peachy. There has been a bug going around throughout the cast (and also my entire host family got sick). I thought I had avoided it but the day before our first show, I got sick! I used to never get sick, but once I started teaching in the schools that all totally went away. It honestly made performing our debut show (which was a dress rehearsal) very difficult since it takes a lot of physical and vocal exertion. I started to feel self conscious about how I sounded and how I felt, but I managed to push through and put on the best show I could. Unfortunately though, the day of our second show my voice was almost completely gone. I could barely speak, let alone sing, and all my voice solos had to be spread throughout to other cast or staff members. It wasn’t until the day I couldn’t really sing on stage that I realized how much fun I was having doing it! Now, I’m mostly over my cold and am working super hard to make sure that I am back to health before our next show this coming Wednesday!

We also had our first strike, which is another term for tearing down the stage and equipment. For those of you who don’t know, Up with People travels with and uses all of its own equipment including building a stage at each venue, and also bringing other things like lights, video screens, costumes, and microphones. After each show, we are tasked with breaking everything down and getting it into the trucks so they can travel to the next city on the road. As a tradition, before each strike we dance on stage to a song of the staff’s choice. Our strike song is 24K Magic by Bruno Mars which I LOVE! Striking is so much work but it was definitely a good experience to learn more about the technical demands of our performances.

The other sad thing about this week is that I have to leave my first host family. Staying with them throughout these past 5 weeks has been so much fun and I’m so grateful for the generosity and kindness they showed to my roommate and I throughout our stay. Leaving them makes me think of the quote “Goodbyes are not forever, are not the end; it simply means I’ll miss you until we meet again,” I truly do hope I can come visit them when I am in the Denver area again! Today, I am moving to my new host family in Lafayette, Colorado and while it is bittersweet, I am very excited to meet them!

Thanks for reading this week’s post! It was overwhelmingly about the show, but now that we’ll be on the road I’ll have more specific experiences to talk about! Also, I hope you enjoy the photos for this week. A nice host dad from our cast took some photos during the show - thanks Ken Connors for the amazing pictures! See you all next week :) Peace.