Look what I found before cleaning off the counter. My sister wouldn't let me wipe it off for a whole day, until I came in with my computer and took a picture with my web cam. I don't have my own camera yet. We were all saying this looked like a long horn bull, and though I hated leaving the counter dirty for that long, I was happy to oblige Haley who wanted me to put this on my blog.  

My Holland

  Holland was founded in 1847 by Albertus Christian Van Raalte. The city was destroyed by fire in 1871. Since the fire, Holland has rebuilt itself to be one of the best places to live and retire in America. The Biggest thing we look forward to every year as a city is Tulip-Time.  Nearly 1,400 Hollanders participate in the Klompen dancing and the festival itself brings more than 10 million dollars in from tourists. Each year we are flooded with almost half a million tourists pouring in to see the tulips planted all over Holland. Ever year 470,000 bulbs are planted and it takes 14 full time and 20 part time city workers 3,000 hours in October to plant the tulips. The Tulip-Time parade consists of all the school bands in the area, close to 20, Klompen dancers ( a dutch dress costs close to $150) the Governor of Michigan and much more. Throughout the years, Tulip Time has received many global and national awards. Tulip Time has been recognized as one of the 'Top 20' events in the world by the International Festival and Events Association and  has also been in the Top 100 events for North America by the American Bus Association. Amazingly enough there is a $50 fine for picking tulips around town! And while you watch the dancing you need to watch your head, cause the shoes (made of poplar wood right here in Holland) will occasionally fly off someones foot. 

  This year Jeff Daniels is coming to our town, and many more people like Michel W. Smith and Amy Grant. Last year we had  President Obama come and that really helped put us on the map. Before that, we had President Bush stop in where he ate at our famous local ice cream shop.  As our mayor said, “Having the president of the United States coming to our community is something that doesn’t happen very often and is a tremendous honor.” 

Home Sweet Bed

   I have the privilege of sleeping in the same room as my two little sisters, no not the older little sisters, the little little sisters and they have this problem of moving. You may think that I'm being impractical right now but I assure you that I am not. We have this metal bunk bed that we sleep on, I get the top and the girls get the bottom futon, and no matter how lightly you push it, move on it or even breathe on it, it will let out this awful metallic groan. The bed is always slightly slanted and the noise is agonizing to listen to. So when I get in bed hoping in vain that the girls actually listened to my mom when she said no talking and go to sleep, I hear whispering and giggling and slapping and crying until I go insane. Then I have to lean halfway over the bed and try to calmly tell them to be good obedient little girls while the blood rushes to my head and makes me feel like I'm going to flip over the side. After that theres approximately three minutes before the whispers slowly increase to a full fledged fight or laughing contest and I have to do my blood-rushing acrobatic discipline all over again. The whole time this is going on our bed is making its regular complaints at our every move and after half an hour of "Good night both of you!" , "NO more talking!" and " Olivia, don't touch Tabitha again or I'll..." I finally hear... nothing.

The Day My Grandma Cried

   My Grandma is strong. Whenever I look at her she is doing something for somebody to the best of her ability, whether its feeding the family, playing with the grandchildren, sewing something up or grabbing the broom and whipping the filth out of her house after one of the many parties she holds. She has always put on a brave face in any situation and come out stronger and faster than anyone else involved. I admired her for that. But I will never forget the day that my strong grandma cried. The day started like all the others, slowly, happily and calmly. My grandpa was making his famous bread in the kitchen while grandma bustled around the table dishing out steaming hot eggs and warm Jersey bagels toped with cream cheese and butter. The kitchen table was heaped with every breakfast food imaginable with a couple desserts from the previous night thrown in. Sprawled in chairs all around the feast was my family, aunts and uncles, cousins and sisters, some slowly waking up to the smell of coffee and others diving into the food. It was another normal day at my grandparents. That day my aunt who normally took the 45 min train ride into New York City for work, called in sick and curled herself on the couch in front of the TV. Every thing was peaceful and lazy, nothing out of the ordinary. I continued through my day playing and eating, eating and playing. Then everything changed. Everything. My aunt screamed from in the parlor sending all of us running from our respective places. Grandpa bolted from the stove, Uncles from the basement and Grandma from her room all of us meeting in a large crowd behind my aunt our eyes glued to the TV. There was the most horrifying scene I ever thought possible. There was one of  the tall beacons of the NY skyline up in smoke. Before I could say anything, my wrist was grabbed by my dad as he ran towards our car. Everything was a blur. I remember looking in the back seat and seeing my brother fumbling with his seatbelt as dad pelted out of the drive way and down the road. With in seconds we were trudging through the sand half tripping half running towards the beach. Then I saw it. The building that I had grown up watching flicker its lights across the bay was on fire, the smoke it caused reaching up into the sky like a dark cloud. I could smell the smoke as the wind shifted it over the water and I felt my eyes smart as the gray vapor made its way over to me. Then with out warning a speck the size of a lima bean came into view and to my horror headed straight towards the second building. I could tell by its shape what it was, and I could also tell by the effect it had on the building that it did not miss it. The second building erupted into fire and smoke sending more smells and sounds across the bay. I watched as little objects fell down the side of the building. They weren't on fire, and they were not gray like stone or any other material you would expect coming from a burning building. I looked at them and then at Dad. "What are those?" I asked, realizing from his face that I didn't want to know the answer.
 " Those are people," he said grimly, "trying to escape."
  Right then and there the horror hit me full force. Not two days earlier I had taken a shopping trip with my aunt to New York City, running through all the major shopping malls and finally taking a tour through the tallest buildings in Manhattan known as the Twin Towers. Now I stood watching them fall, suprisingly fast I found out later, but at the time so glacially slow and dreadfully long. My body felt numb as I turned and stumbled back to the car. When we got home all was quiet as every one was either crying or spending time alone behind closed doors the shock of what had happened shattering the happy life we were living not 2 hours before. I went into the kitchen and saw no one but Grandma, her old apron held in fist fulls by her aging hands. Walking over I slipped my arms around her to give her a hug and looked into her eyes where I saw the first tear I had ever seen sloshing over the rim. I had seen my grandma cry, I had watched the Twin Towers fall, and I had witnessed one of the saddest days in our hometown and all of our great nation. I will never forget that day, seared into my memory like the hot metal that fell from the buildings... the day my grandma cried.

StageDoor Manor

  I want you to close your eyes and imagine a place where every one loves theater.  A place where children singing at the top of their lungs down the hallways to “Guys and Dolls” and “Wicked” is a normal site. Where the sacrifice of sucking on garlic all day to save your throat for rehearsals is excepted as necessary and where you live, breath, talk, learn and even sleep theatre. If you truly look at yourself as a dedicated and true actor, this place I've just described to you probably made your heart race, your pulse quicken and sent your hands reaching out to clasp at this fairy tale world. But what if I told you that it wasn't a fairy tale, that you could go and have every thing that I just told you about? Well, if you are ages 8 to 18, there is a place hidden away in Loch Sheldrake in NY about 2 hours from the Big Apple, that is devoted to the things that I have just painted to you.  Many people are just sad that the place is only for teens and not adults.
The Summer Camp Stagedoor Manor was founded in 1975 by Carl and Elsie Samuleson a couple determined to invent a theatre friendly camp for children.  Their daughter Cindy now runs the camp. Samuleson says that “ Every place they (the kids) turn, every body knows what they are talking about. When they go around singing, people don't look at them and go, “Why are you doing that?” All involved are doing the same thing you are.  At the beginning of each summer (the summer is split up into 3, 21 day sections) the campers have auditions and the camping directors take two days to cast for the shows.  Then the young actors have 19 days of rehearsals to prepare for the end show. The camp puts on 36 full scale shows by the end of the summer making it a staggering 12 productions per splint.  A regular day at stagedoor consists of up to three rehearsals a day interspersed with classes and recreation. Up to 270 campers now come every session with 155 camp directors, faculty and chaperons.

 The popularity of the camp has gone up since several alumni actors and actresses have come out of the camping experience. Robert Downey Jr., Mandy Moore, Natalie Portman, and Lea Michele are among the many who have made it big.  The camp is now usually crawling with casting directors and agents looking for new faces and natural talent.  Due to this, the price of the camp has sky rocketed and now its a little harder to get into it then it was when it was first opened. Now its a staggering $6,000 for a single session.  But despite the price and the location a now famous contemporary play write from Sheldrake, Jonathan Sherman states, “ My experience at Stagedoor Manor was, simply put, life changing.  It was the first place out side of the actual house I grew up in where I felt at home in the world.  Popularity wasn’t based on cosmetic appearances or athletic abilities or bank accounts or anything but talent and humor and intelligence... So I pretty much blame Stagedoor and Sondheim for most of the good things in my life!”      -Sara Furmato

1776

  Last time we ran through Delaware and Pennsylvania we stopped into Philadelphia and checked out the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. We happily discovered that the passes to the Hall were free and upon finding them, we followed the long tour into the Historic building. I thought, like many before me probably had, that if I jammed my fingers into the smallest space in the tiniest crack that maybe, just maybe I could touch a part of the wood that hadn't been marred by passer-bys and still had the touch of our great founding fathers. I knew it couldn't be possible, but somewhere deep down inside I still held on to the thought and hope. The architecture was breath taking and amazingly intricate and even though most of the visible furniture in the place were not authentic, the whole thing had me fascinated. We spent most of our time in the front hall, near the front door, and if any body reading this has seen the musical 1776 then you'll probably remember the stairs that the actors in the movie danced down. My dad did. He put Haley on look out for the Ranger, jumped the red rope at the bottom of the stairs and started to sing and dance to the musical. When his look-out announced that the Ranger was coming, he quickly exited the stairs just as the Ranger came over and told us the story about how the movie makers of 1776 wanted to use the stairs for the show. After a long and hard verbal battle they finally got what they wanted, filming the song "But, Mr. Adams" on the actual steps of Independence Hall.  While our little history lesson was going on, my little sister Tabitha had become an instant hit and model for some foreign photographers. She was walking and posing and generally making them laugh and snap their shutters. Walking over to the stair railing she rolled herself into it and smiled causing even more shutters to clatter. Then when she tried to roll back out, she couldn't, her little body caught between the curling banister and stiff spokes. Trying not to laugh at her horrified face it took several moments for Vince and I to push her out. The photographing audience clapped quietly as we left the building, Tabitha saying a sweet good bye to all of them. I will always remember that day, the amazing history and Tabitha's entanglement with the banister.

Waterford What?!

  The other day while talking to a friend I was informed that the Times Square ball is a geodesic dome built of 2, 468 Waterford crystal triangles that cost several million dollars! And here I thought it was just a ball that dropped. On our most recent trip to NYC we stopped in to see the ball, and we were actually able to touch it and get pictures next to it. They had it sitting in the visitors center surrounded by mirrors and LED screens flashing the history of New York. You literally had to squint around the room and hold on to the red ropes running along the walls just to make sure you didn't run into anyone there. Now that I know how much the ball costs, I can better understand all the security around the area. As my friend pointed out, you wouldn't want it stolen and you wouldn't want a bomb in there. Like that Times Square car bomb that had every body evacuated from the streets and several theatre's. Luckily they were able to stop the bomb before anything happened, but it goes to show that we can never be too careful. 


                                                                       

Vincent and Rachel in front of the Ball

Theatre Walls -a school article

A name here and another scribbled there, a date and then a title, and then a blue hand-print made with paint. Dozens and dozens of people have walked the small cramped backstage of Holland Civic Theatre, their foot steps causing the threadbare brown carpet to curl at the edges despite the duck tape. The sweaty hands of the hurried actors as they hurry off stage and into the dressing room have made the purple curtain hanging on the thin metal pole to fade and tear. Nevertheless I find the worn walls plastered with the names of actors and friends to be the most fascinating to notice. Its the one place that all actors unite to write their names to be remembered. To be seen by those coming and going. It gives our theatre a feeling of intimacy whether or not some like to admit to it and causes all of us to either stop and read or grab a pen and add our own to the pile of graffiti.

Its A Small World

   Every Friday of the school year I babysit for a lady who teaches science at a school once a week. This has gone on for 3 years, and I've slowly gone through all her kids, each year one of them leaves my babysitting duties to move on to school. Now I 'm on her youngest and enjoying every minute with the cutie. We like to run out side when its warm, read books and play hide and seek. They have a house behind them, their yards divided by a chain link fence, and the neighbors notorious dog that I've been told about that likes to bite strangers when they go over to the fence. His name, I was informed, was Blue. While chatting with my employer, she mentioned that the lady who lived behind her house was named Mrs. X,  and I realized that it was the same Mrs.X that had directed the teen summer musical at the Civic theatre that I had been in. What a small world!! And then every thing started to fall into place, the location of her house, the name of their dog her 8 year old daughter talked nonstop about and the car that was identical to the one I had seen Mrs. X driving. The recognition that came was weirdly overwhelming. For 3 years every week I had been staring at the back of a friends house without even knowing it. I had seen a dog with out knowing it was "the" Blue.

 The next time I saw Mrs. X I told her of the connection, and she was just as surprised as I was. I went over to her daughter and sat down. 

 "Hey, hows your dog doing?" I asked.

 She shrugged,  "Ok I guess."

 I was laughing deep down. She didnt know that I worked right behind her house. " Is Blue a very good dog?"

 Nodding emphatically, she answered yes. I raised an eyebrow, " Are you sure?"

 Her nodding came to a slow stop and her cheeks flushed, "OK, well, I guess he did bite someone...our next door neighbor. But thats all!" she insisted.

 I let out my laugh and told her I knew already. She looked at me quizzically. How did I know? Then I started to describe her back yard, things I could only know if I had seen it. Her eyes grew wide.

 "How did you know that!!?" she demanded.

 Then her mom came and ruined my fun by telling her that I babysat in the house behind them. We all laughed at the coincidence, and they gave me an invitation to give them a holler next time I come around.

Mr. William Hoffmann Jr. - a school article

 

I slid into the seat across the beat-up folding table from Mr.Bill and placed my notebook and pen down. I was here to conduct my first interview and was hoping Bill would be a good icebreaker. I knew that he had a lot of experience as an actor and many other things related to the theatre. He now sat across from me sorting out plastic changeable sign letters
for the Theatre’s reader board out front waiting for me to pop the first question. It was always a joke backstage among the teens that he was working with, that he was born on stage... little did I know that we weren't that far off in our assumption. At age 6 Bill played in his first role as an elf in The Elves and the Shoe Maker. He fell in love with acting and all the attention and appreciation that the audience willingly give. From there he went on to bigger stuff, acting in High School and Dance school.He told me that his mom was very supportive to his love for acting, but his Dad was more of the Sporty guy, so Bill went into some sports to please him. When I asked him who helped him with his dream of getting better at the art of acting, he told me he was lucky to have a great drama teacher in High School, and that when he joined in a dance class he learned a lot about the stage and the professionalism that is used. So I asked Bill what he felt on Stage when he gets up there. With this question, he placed the letters he was working with down, leaned back and fazed out. A smile played around his lips as he thought about the question. Then he looked at me feigned alarm and said, “Terror!” After my initial disbelief then laughing it off, he re-answered the question and produced a smile, “ I feel good energy.” He then went on to give me a lesson in how you can have good energy and stress. That there is such a thing as good stress and bad stress, you just have to have the right one.  Many times, he said, you can get too tense with the character that you are playing. You might be worrying too much or trying to hard. Well this is a perfect example of the wrong kind of stress. He told me that the best roles he played were ones that he relaxed in and allowed himself to come out and play the role. Give it your all in auditions but dont allow your self to worry too much. Just be your self, that way you can focus on the character and not the outcome. Come prepared though for the show you are auditioning for. Maybe listen to the music if its a musical and research the show before you get onstage for your cold read.
     Bill went to Wayne State University then Oakland University getting a degree in the preforming arts. From there he tried Dinner Theatre, which is exactly what it sounds like Theatre while you eat dinner, but the pay is not all that great.   Bill told me a story about something that happened to him on stage and it taught him  one of the most important things about acting. Always stay in character. One day during a production of Arsenic and Old Lace he was supposed to look into the window seat that the old ladies dumped the “dead” bodies in and pretend to see a dead person. It was supposed to be empty, but some stage crew wanted to make him laugh, so they had one of the stage hands curl up into a ball in the box, making faces and trying to do any thing to make him laugh. Bill had to look in at the man, keep a straight face, look out into the audience like he had just seen a dead man, and then look back in the box. He knew there was some one waiting there to try and make him laugh, but he had to do it. He learned that you always have to stay in character at all times no matter what happens or who tries to make you laugh.
 After a while he dropped out of theatre for the Marine Corps, and after that he got what his Dad would call a “real” job of Automobile design. Because of his experience at his job he was able to use that knowledge to build great sets for theatre. After that he got back into acting and I wanted to know what his favorite play had been. I expected Him to say some thing big and fun that he had done, but he surprised me by saying that his favorite was whatever play he was in at the time.This made me feel better and I told him that I always thought I was fickle because my favorite play changed so often with whatever play I was in. He assured me that it was normal to have that opinion. He said it was because of how much we put into our shows. All the energy and thoughts. He did make two exceptions though. The most interesting character he played was Macduff in Macbeth, and the most challenging part was when he was Abraham Lincoln in 3rd grade and he had to memorize the Gettysburg Address.Speaking about memorization , he said the way he memorizes his lines is by highlighting his script, (how many times have we heard that before?) and recording his dialog and then listening to it. His inspiration for acting came from his sisters who both went on to become professional dancers and, because of his great focus on stage, the famous mime Marcel Marceau.
    “If you could tell a young actor one thing, what would it be?” I asked.
He answered positively and firmly, “ I would tell then to always be humble. The last thing that a director or anyone involved wants to deal with is someone who doesn't care, or is very proud and hard to handle.” he also said to always look on the bright side. Your not going to get every part you audition for but that wont be the end of the world. He said he always looks at not getting a part as meaning that there is something better coming and that maybe the part that he wanted wasn't what he was meant to do at the time.
     So in closing be humble, do your best in everything and remember to look on the bright side.


-Sara Furmato

Strike - a school article

    
What actor doesn't know about the work day most affectionately called Strike? The one day that every one knows exactly where you are and what your doing. Strike is basically taking everything off the stage, cleaning up the backstage, purging the make-up room and clearing out the horribly stinky lockers. Usually no one likes to do this so we have to tackle people to the ground as they try to head out the door and shove a broom into their hands. Most of the time there is only one working power drill, the rest sputtering on the side lines with the last bit of juice in them and the only real contractor in the whole building is usually stuck with making sure no one hurts themselves or the stage. Everybody fights for the job of kitchen clean-up because of the extra food that you find, but the least favorite job of everyone there is the bathrooms. No one like cleaning the bathroom. At our theatre the bathroom doubles as a lavatory, paint storage and dressing room. Not to mention the large gaping whole in the cement wall that you can see nothing but darkness in. They call it Georges home, the theatres  very own ghost that lives downstairs. While every one bored with sitting backstage for hours at a time like to gather into circles and whisper away with ghost stories, I find my time alone downstairs an enjoyable interval away  from all the hustle and bustle. But at the end of the day, every body walking out of the theatre on tired legs and shutting doors with sore hands, we feel good about our work. We smile to ourselves at the thoughts of goof offs and mess ups of the past day, at the jokes and laughter that helped us through the work and the great time that we will be able to remember for a while to come. Strike is more than about cleaning and work, its about doing it with friends and having a good time.

Oh You Special People

You guys get to read some of the school projects that I have been working on. My dad wants me to post the articles that I wrote and hopefully you will enjoy them, but I hold no responsibility if you fall asleep while reading.
I will however make sure to make a distinction between my personal thoughts and school articles.  Thanks for reading!

Singing In the Rain

    I ran across this performance and thought it was awesome! I mean water on stage!! Thats crazy. Through-out watching it though, the little stage manager part of my brain kept thinking, "That would be me cleaning it all up!" But still this is soooo cool and they did great mashing the songs together!