A Day in the Life Of… Ball State MT 2014

Wake-up! I wake up at 7:00 AM every Tuesday – shower, get dressed, and pack a bag for the day including clothes for Ballet and Jazz, music binders and notebooks. I grab some coffee and sneak out the door so I don’t wake my two roommates (also Musical Theatre girls) who have the luxury of sleeping only slightly later on this particular day.
(© Shawn Hickey)

Then it’s off to campus! I walk to school every morning because my apartment is only a few minute walk from the main theatre building. Indiana weather is crazy, so you never know what you’re waking up to – but the walk is short enough that the weather is never a problem!
(© Shawn Hickey)

On Tuesdays I work at 8 AM in the theatre main office. I work as a student office assistant helping out with whatever is going on in the department. This includes helping out at incoming freshman auditions, working at fundraiser events, and doing regular office work like making copies and answering e-mails. I also get to hang out with our amazing recruitment coordinator/most awesome person ever – Andrea Sadler!
(© Shawn Hickey)

After work it is off to 2 hours of Jazz 2! Here’s a picture of the Core Challenge part of our warm-up which we are working up to 6 minutes of planks straight through by the end of the semester. (That’s what we get for asking for challenging abs!) The class is typically a set warm-up (with some variation depending on the class that day), followed by technique exercises in the center, across the floor work, and ending with a combination that we work on for a few classes.
(© Shawn Hickey)

Next up is a quick trip to the practice room before Ballet. We have a good amount of practice rooms on campus, but managing to snag one in the middle of the day is always exciting.
(© Shawn Hickey)

Then it’s back to the dance studio for Ballet. We are evaluated and placed in appropriate levels of dance courses based on our work in previous dance classes, and often times people choose to retake classes because they have free time in their schedule. As a junior, you aren’t required to take ballet – but many of us do anyway to take more class! This Tuesday was a movie day, we watched and compared productions of Swan Lake from Russia in the 1960s and in 2011 to see the growth in technique. However, the class is normally a traditional Vaganova class with live piano accompaniment.
(© Shawn Hickey)

After Ballet we head to Singing Actor 2. Today we worked on pieces for our upcoming General Auditions for the Spring Semester shows. Our spring musical is Guys and Dolls, so we worked on audition cuts as well as helped some people choose between a few pieces they were looking at. Normally we work on whole songs in this class, but our regular professor, Beth Turcotte, is in NYC this week working on the NAMT reading of her musical The Circus in Winter!
(© Shawn Hickey)

After Singing Actor, I head home to work on some homework before meeting with my master class “practice partner,” acting 3 scene partner, and head to rehearsal! Each studio master class meets on different days and they all run differently. Mine meets on Wednesdays, so I use my free afternoons to catch up on work for later in the week!
(© Shawn Hickey)

Then it’s off to rehearsal. I’m currently rehearsing for A Christmas Carol which will open at the end of November – we just began rehearsal yesterday, so there wasn’t a lot to photograph! But, we are all really excited to start diving into our dialects and getting the process going.
(© Shawn Hickey)

After rehearsal, it’s home, a little more homework and sleep! Then up to do it all again in the morning.
(© Shawn Hickey)