Holli Rausch

Well, I’ve had three rehearsals so far this week for my Freshman Showcase. By the way, I’m directing a Freshman Showcase this year. All of the scripts were written by our new technical director, the one I’m directing is called The Great Diversion. My actors are Jamie Grimes and Molly Weeldreyer. I’m pretty excited about the way things are going. They were on the stage yesterday, and really got into it and that is good news. There’s a kiss written in the script, so we’ll probably discuss that towards the end of next week. We only have 3.5 weeks of rehearsal before we perform…so that is very scary. Especially since Molly is in two plays. She has twice the work in an insanely small amount of time. I’ve got faith in them though. Yippee.

What’s the play about? Let’s just say it involves Zombies….and brains. Don’t believe me? Well, you’ll have to come and see for yourself. Oct 11 and 12 in the Underground, time is TBA.

I’m going home this weekend for the first time since May. Don’t worry – I have seen my family since May, I have just not been home. There’s a difference. Miles and David are joining me. I’m going to see West Sioux play football, and play it well. Please don’t rain.

Well we did a lot. We didn’t do it all, but we did a lot. We woke up early most days and didn’t get enough sleep most nights. This led to a lot of extremeness. I’m not sure how to write this post, so [when all else fails] I’ll make a list.

• Best thing we did that we paid for: Rent on Broadway. It was really super good and makes me wish I could sing.
• Favorite picture: The one you see to the right. I took it from Liberty Island, of the lower Manhattan skyline.
• Biggest regret: Not going to the Seinfeld restaurant (62 block walk). Miles and I should have just gotten a taxi and gone. But our only opportunity was when we were super tired and everyone else was going to rest at the hotel. So we decided to rest instead.
• Best thing we did that we didn’t pay for: Walking around Times Square at night.
• Fastest sight-seeing: Horse and carriage ride through Central Park.
• Favorite thing I did at Mass: Lit a candle for the first time. Well, I’ve lit a candle before. But not in a Cathedral or anything. Lit a candle for the first time…
• Craziest New Yorker: The guy we kept seeing everywhere in lower Manhattan who was listening to N*Sync or Backstreet Boys. He’d look at Cari and then tone-deafly sing/scream-whisper a word or two from the song.
• Phrase that was most over-used: “Forget about it!”

Find all of my NYC pictures here.

Anniversary
Miles and I celebrated our three month anniversary (that’s a quarter of a year) on Tuesday. We ate at China Moon and sat by the door. It was like negative 100 degress outside, and 500 people came in to the restaurant too. Miles picked the table. We then went to play practice. Miles made me the picture on the right, using Photoshop, for a gift. I gave him a little ring thing that some bathroom stalls have around the toilet paper dispencer pole. Apparently he collects them. He was overjoyed about it.

Fond Memories of Okoboji
I was looking at a bulletin board today and saw a poster that advertised for Lake Okoboji United Methodist Camp and Retreat Center. That is my previous place of summer employment! I was in complete shock! There were three phone number stubs missing too, so I wonder who was interested from DSU. Anyway, I thought it was pretty stinkin’ cool.

Spring Production
The spring play has been drastically changed. Adrienne Boese is doing a monologue, Fifteen Minutes. Then our play, The Actor’s Nightmare, is being performed. We’ll have an intermission and concessions, and then Comedy Bytes will perform. Comedy Bytes is also having a few late night performances, of just the comedy troupe without the other one-acts. It should be a really good production. I think Comedy Bytes being hooked on to the other two in the early show will bring a lot more to those shows than would normally go. At the Dakota Prairie Playhouse, April 7, 10, 11 at 7:00 and April 8 at 2:00 are all three peformances. Also at the Dakota Prairie Playhouse, April 7 and 10 at 10:00 are Comedy Bytes only performances. Also, on April 8 at 9:00 is a Comedy Bytes jam session, where anyone can come and just do some improvisation games with us for a good time. I’m pretty excited about it all. Come and see it and laugh hard!

School
In Literature, we’re watching Mel Gibson’s Hamlet. I’m really excited about this because I wanted to rent it (I saw it in high school) and possibly buy it off eBay or something later on. So at least I’m getting my fill, for now. In Photography, we were to use Photoshop and enlarge or shrink yourself into a photograph and make it look as real as you can. I think I did a pretty decent job, especially if you compare it to David’s work.

Weekend Plans
Good times are to come this weekend as Miles, David, Bryce, Lindsey, Chris, and I travel to Fargo to visit Tony. Look at all those hyperlinks! Pretty exciting times to come soon, I hope it doesn’t suck as much as my visit to Marshall last month. I’m sure it won’t. Plus, Tony’s way cool. And so is Fargo…… :)

At the Senate meeting Wednesday, I announced my plans for not running for another year. It felt nice to get it out there so they know. I think a couple expected me to be running for an office, but….they were wrong. That night I had a floor program which was a movie night. We watched Elizabethtown. Well, I didn’t really. I was in the room, but I had so much writing to do for two classes that I did that instead of watch the movie. So I can’t give a review on it. There were 6 girls from my floor in the room…which is what I expected. I would have to say it was even successful…which is sad for less than 1/5 of my floor participating.

Miles and I rented Love Actually and Multiplicity last night. I had not given Love Actually a fair chance when I first watched it two summers ago. I only gave it 10 minutes and I wasn’t in the right mood for a romantic movie. Miles really liked it when he saw it, so I gave it another go. Turns out, I really enjoyed the movie. And I was glad that I saw it, technically for the first time, with him. He has never seen Multiplicity, and I thought it was very funny. Especially the 4th Michael Keaton character. We’ll watch that sometime between now and Thursday.

I received my Comedy Bytes embroidered shirt today; it looks awesome! I’m pretty excited. It’s a blue and black bowling shirt, with my name embroidered on the left side above the pocket, “Comedy Bytes Improv” embroidered on the right sleeve, and DSU’s logo on the left sleeve. Miles and I put ours on and we instantly felt professional. Miles described the moment as, “I feel like we know what we’re doing.” Which is funny…because with improv, we rarely know what we’re doing…! Anyway, thanks to Dr. Knowlton, we will look good onstage.

The casting was announced today for the two spring plays. Miles was cast in the role I expected him to be, which is a good fit. I was cast in both plays, as characters I didn’t audition as. But Sue knows me pretty well and how I act, or nact as some would say. So I trust her judgement. I’m a little disappointed I was cast in both productions, just because my time for rehearsing is so limited…but I’ll be OK. It’s only for one month. And March should be my least busiest month.

I will be updating my bulletin board this weekend, so hopefully I’ll get a picture taken before my next post. Sorry this one doesn’t have any eyecandy along with it.