ella's blog

      Honestly, I never really use Facebook. The way the app works has always kind of confused me. I never understood the layout or the way it works. But marketing on Facebook does have a huge impact on getting a product out there. After reading this chapter, I'm starting to think I should become a little more familiar with Facebook. Especially with the career I plan on going into, I can market myself and find opportunities through this app. A large part of musical theatre is basically being your own business. You have to make yourself the product and market it, so directors want to get to know and cast you.      While my goal is to be able to market myself on Facebook, I can still use the tools and tips about marketing from the textbook. It is important to have a profile picture and cover photo, both of which are probably outdated though. I should probably go change them. Also, a call to action button is important. And once I have my website set up, I woul...

       This weekend, I performed in the show I've been working on the last couple weeks. Il  Tragicomico Equivoco was such an amazing experience. I never think I'm all that funny, but I made the audience laugh. People even came up to me after the show to tell me they thought I did good or they thought I was hilarious. I even have a new nickname, "Scary Foose." My character in the show was a bit of a trickster, only cared about themself and slowly became more sadistic as the rehearsal process went on. Our director really enjoyed physical comedy, and I ended up doing a lot of slapstick/stage combat. The funny thing is that I am the complete opposite of that in person.       While I am so grateful for the show and my experience, the rehearsal process was physically and mentally draining. We had rehearsal every Monday through Friday from six to ten every day for two weeks. The last two rehearsals were six to ten thirty. Plus weekend rehearsals. W...

 While being on social media is a very important part of marketing, having a marketing strategy is also very important if you want to succeed. A social media marketing plan is a "living document" according to the textbook. It helps keep goals straight and has the actions needed to help complete the goals.  The first step in this process is to identify a target market and create personas with the key traits a company wants to target. Step two is conducting a social media audit.  This also includes social listening, a S.W.O.T. analysis and a competitive assessment. Social media listening monitors the internet to see what is said about a specific brand. S.W.O.T. analysis is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Plus, a spreadsheet would help with competitive assessment. Step three is to establish goals, objectives and metrics. Every single goal has to have S.M.A.R.T. goals, objectives and metrics. S.M.A.R.T. stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, ...

     For the next two weeks, we have a guest director for a dance show called Inlet . It is a contemporary style of dance that defies boundaries and focuses on an individual dancer's body, not what traditional dance styles have taught.    Dance technique can be very specific and doesn't always take into account that not all bodies work and move the same. I'm not in the dance show because I couldn't audition because of Commedia. But Bill, the director and choreographer of the show who is from Inlet Dance Company, has been teaching some of our Jazz III classes.      Apparently, the basis of all movement in this style comes from moving the pelvis. We did exercises criss-cross applesauce on the ground that focused on moving our pelvis forward and back, side to side, and up and down. Then we added leg movements by spreading legs out on the floor and moving our pelvis up, then to the side. It is incredibly interesting, and my hip-flexors are very sore....

      This week, for Principles of Social media, we had to make a podcast interviewing a social media expert. When I first heard this I thought it should be pretty easy. And I immediately thought about my best friend, Kayleigh Jarkowsky. She is a student here at ONU and took Principles of Social Media last year. She has used her skills to become the social media assistant in her sorority. She is really enjoying it and I decided to interview her about what she does in her sorority. If you'd like to listen to her side of the story, here is the link to my first ever podcast episode! It's pretty cool so go check it out.       This week has been a little crazy. I've been in rehearsal from six to ten every night of the week until the performances next weekend. I was out of town last weekend at my cousins wedding and went straight into rehearsals. I didn't even have time to get ahead of my homework. But I found some time to get together with my friend a...

     As I said in my blog last week, Commedia rehearsals start this week. Last night was our first rehearsal for Il Tragicomico Equivoco,  which is the name of the production we will be putting on. Commedia is a form of Italian theatre using mainly body language. Our faces will be covered with masks representing a certain character and each character has very certain, very over-exaggerated body language and movement.       I have only had one rehearsal so far and my body is exhausted and very sore. We started off the rehearsal by meeting Fabrizio, our Italian director and master of the art of commedia. He sat us down and talked about Commedia, himself and asked us some questions. Then we started on some exercises to make us trust each other, get more comfortable in the space, to follow our impulses and to stay calm. We stood in a circle and threw a tennis ball to each other and focused on our intentions while throwing. Then we switched to one hand...

 Blogs can be a great way to find information, they are actually pretty common, and according to the textbook Essentials of Social Media Marketing , 77% of people who use the internet read blogs. While I'm not too familiar with reading a lot of blogs, I do enjoy watching vlogs. One of my friends from high school even used to make them, that we would all watch, and sometimes even be in. She called them tech week vlogs, because she would film the entire week of tech week during a show. Tech week is the last week of rehearsals before a performance, when all the extra elements are incorporated in. It was always fun to watch them, and then see yourself on the vlog!       Podcasts are another form of media I'm more familiar with than blogs. Podcasts have revolutionized the way people get new types of information. You can get information on politics, health and diet, advice, listen to interviews, true crime and so much more. I always enjoyed listening to true crime pod...

     We're only on day two this week and things have already been crazy! Auditions for ONU's The Holiday Spectacular are this week, and the first round of them were tonight. Since I am a Musical Theatre major I have to audition for every performance. My audition slot was from 7:45pm to 7:48pm tonight. They're so short because we only sing a thirty-two bar cut of a song, which is about a minute and a half. I sang a cut of "Santa Baby" , one of the songs featured in Holiday. (We call it Holiday for short instead of saying a way longer name.) There is a group of dancers/singers called the Santa Babies in the show, and I would love to be a part of that group. I think my audition went pretty well! Some people got callbacks for a couple specific roles, but this time it seemed like the majority of us didn't. Plus, there is a dance call tomorrow, which will also help determine who will be who. Basically, during a dance call, we will get together in groups and learn a ...

     It's still hard for me to believe that I'm a sophomore this year, but here we are! I had my first week of classes and I cannot wait to see what they have in store for me throughout the semester. I'm a Musical Theatre major, with a Dance and Arts Administration minor and all of my arts classes are in full gear.       In my Acting II class, we jumped right in. The class is two hours long, so we went over the syllabus and then started doing an exercise called "Repetition." It is a two person exercise and someone points out something about their partners clothes, appearance, etc. Then you repeat that observation back and forth, "you have a red shirt," "I have a red shirt." This exercise does evolve into pointing out movement and behavior, and then into pointing out emotions. It has helped me feel so many genuine emotions by just repeating things over and over again with my partner. Because when you're repeating something for five minutes, ...