Hello everyone, I hope you’re having a lovely morning/afternoon/evening! This past weekend was my school’s spring musical, Annie! We had our opening night on Friday, April 23rd, along with an afternoon matinee, and an evening show on Saturday, April 24th. I thought it’d be fun to write a little ‘day in the life’ in today’s ‘special’ post. I’ll be showing you what Saturday looked like for me; two shows with a fun little break in between. It’s a little easier to actually show folks what happened, so… I made a vlog! In this post, I’ll write down a little recap of what happened in my day, along with a video to show you (about 30 minutes long) of that weekend’s happenings. Now, before I talk/write your ears off, let’s get on with it!

A Day in the Life!

I woke up around 9:00 am and did some work for a few hours until 11:00, when I did my makeup and hair. It ended up taking my sister, Briana, and me about 50 minutes to do our hair and makeup, probably because we wasted a ton of time fooling around. Once I did my hair and makeup, I just chilled for the rest of the time until we had to leave. We arrived at school around 12:40 (10 minutes past our call time, oopsie). I quickly got dressed into my costume, set everything up for my fast costume changes, and got mic’d. In the dressing room, my sister, Briana, was unintentionally gathering followers to join us in talking about Bobby. Bobby is a baby doll that Briana and I based on Robert the haunted doll, and we like to fool around with it. In fact, I even got a short video of Bobby showing off his moves and popping off for the camera.

We were called down to the music room, and the whole cast gathered together. ‘The squad’ a.k.a. Briana, me, and two of our friends, Adrianna and Nathan (Susek), started stacking our feet together as we waited for the stage crew to join us. Eventually, they arrived, and the stage crew manager (also one of our teachers) led us all in prayer, and we left to go perform!

The performance itself was pretty good! I accidentally yanked off a part of a locket I was wearing, but as soon as I got offstage, I ran to fix it again. My mom and her friend came to watch, and I, along with Briana and my little brothers, was able to go talk with them for a bit. Shortly after, the cast had to change into our normal clothes and meet in one of the lower-hall classrooms to get our food. I ate some fruit, two chicken strips, and some peach tea.

‘The squad’ ate by one of the playgrounds, and soon about five other people joined us. We started making some fun TikToks and shared lots of laughter during our free time. Soon, however, it was time for dessert! One of the cast moms brought two double-decker cookie cakes with pictures from the musical on them. I ate a piece that had myself on it, which was odd, but the cake tasted really good, so I didn’t really care. We were going to go back outside, but it had started raining, so Briana, Adrianna, and I, along with another friend, went up to the hallway near our dressing room to eat our cookie cake. We sat on the floor in the dark and talked for a bit, only to learn that we had to get ready momentarily.

Here are some of my favorite photos that I took as well as pictures of my costumes.

1. Annie’s orphanage outfit
2. The iconic red dress
3. Annie’s ‘casual’ dress
4. A selfie I took of my makeup and my outfit
5. A ‘squad’ picture I took with some of the cast and crew members during our chill time
6. A selfie with my cookie cake piece of myself

Once we were dressed and prepped for the show again, the cast gathered in the music room once more. There, we were joined by the stage crew and, since I had cried on opening night, the stage crew manager put up his hand jokingly before his speech, trying not to make me cry again. However, just as we were getting ready to leave the room and get to our places, the tears came. Man, senior year is full of goodbyes… I hate goodbyes. I waited with a few other cast members in the hallway outside of the stage, still crying a bit. One of my friends joked with me that I couldn’t start crying now; that’s for after the show. Oh, my bad, let me just stop the tears real quick. For the past shows and rehearsals, Briana and I would dance to the orchestra as they played the overture as a way to vibe and as a way to eliminate any nerves or anxieties. I filmed our last vibe session and was super excited to begin this final show. My mom, older sister, and two youngest siblings came to watch this show, and I spotted them almost immediately once I went onstage.

During the performance, I was pretty okay. I didn’t start crying until closer to the end of the show. I had just left the stage, my character ran off crying, and suddenly I found myself tearing up. Luckily, when I went on stage again, I had to sing a sad little song, so at least I was sort of in character, right? I struggled through the song; in fact, my voice was breaking, and I was choking up. The sound operator had to turn up my mic because I was losing it. As I slumped on the couch, I felt tears almost fall.

I was able to recompose myself to finish that last, long scene of the show. However, once it ended, as we were singing the last song and striking our finishing pose, I felt the tears coming again. As soon as the curtain closed, I began crying again, but we had to leave the stage to start the curtain call. As everyone else ran out and bowed, I was bawling my eyes out silently; good thing I was the last bow. I was still crying as I ran out to bow, but hopefully, I didn’t look too terrible. I don’t remember exactly when, but soon after that, my littlest brother ran from the audience and climbed up on the stage to give me a hug. I heard after the show that that was when a lot of other people—audience members and castmates—started crying.

Once the curtain closed after the curtain call, I think I somehow managed to start crying even harder. The same friend who was joking with me earlier said that now I could start crying as if I hadn’t been crying for the past five minutes or so. I received many nice hugs, including one from the previously mentioned friend, and went down to the auditorium to talk to the audience members. There were some other folks crying, too, which was sort of reassuring; at least I wasn’t the only one. Eventually, we went home after many more congratulations and hugs, and I sat in my room for a while, finding pictures from past musicals and making a little timeline memorial for all the past stage productions I had been in.

After nine years of going to that school, performing in eight musicals and four Shakespeare productions there, I took my final bow. I will certainly miss it, from the rehearsals all the way to opening night and hanging out between shows. I will certainly miss it. Fourth grade me always thought I had more time, but at least I stole the show…

Video Log!