Mallory – arts, ink.

Going Outside Your Comfort Zone

February 2, 2020February 2, 2020 Mallory Leave a comment

This month has been filled with lots of exciting memories, most of which came from trying something I never thought I’d want to do. I’ve been hearing the phrase “do something that scares you everyday” a lot lately, and I’ve actually trying incorporating the meaning behind it into my life more.

I don’t think doing something that scares you everyday is good for one’s mental health. So instead I’ve simply been trying to be more outgoing. This has meant starting conversations instead of waiting for someone else to speak first, sending emails that the answers to might not be what I want to hear, and more. The biggest example of this this month is that I actually joined a sorority!

Growing up I honestly didn’t understand the point of sororities. I though they sounded pretty weird. But when I got to Michigan I slowly realized that I wasn’t really making social connections as fast as I’d hoped. That’s when I started seriously thinking about joining one.

Recruitment was quite the journey, and though it definitely scared me, it was totally worth it. I’ve ended up surrounded by a great group of young women that immediately welcomed me and I can see support everyone in the group. I’m only a few days into being a new member, but I can already tell this is one of the best decisions I’ve made in a very long time. And it all came from me stepping out of my comfort zone and trying something new!

I’m Just Trying To Be The Best Fish Mom I Can Be

January 27, 2020January 27, 2020 Mallory Leave a comment

When I got back to campus after winter break, I was so excited to see my fish again. My friend had taken care of Queenie and Mad Eye Moody (yes my two beta fish are named after characters in the Harry Potter franchise) for the two weeks because she lived in state. I picked them up from my friends dorm room the night I got back, and felt glad to have them back in their spot in my room.

I added more fresh water into their containers, but then as the semester classes started I got too busy to switch it again a week later like I was supposed to. Instead, I didn’t switch out their water again until yesterday. Now my fish are happily swimming in fresh water, but I’m left floundering.

The semester has been great so far. I’m still enjoying my classes, I don’t have that much work, and yet for some reason I’ve been feeling overwhelmed. I had the time to switch out the fish water earlier, but I never had the energy to do it. I don’t have much homework and yet I keep mixing it up and doing it at the wrong time.

Luckily, I’m starting to pull myself back into the swing of getting things done. This is mostly due to the fact that so far this semester I’ve become even closer with one of my friends. We’ve started working out together which has increased my motivation, and we’ve loved having Disney movie nights to de-stress together. Plus she’s a great person to talk to. Here’s a random fact she told me: humans are somewhat closely related to fish, and we actually have gills early on in our development before birth.

This fact doesn’t really relate to me taking care of my fish, and I haven’t checked to see if it’s true, it’s just fun and about fish like this blog post is this week. Anyways, hopefully I’ll get more used to the different setup of this semester soon, and be as happy as my fish are in their clean water.

Good Morning Semester 2!

January 12, 2020January 12, 2020 Mallory Leave a comment

This month marks the beginning of a new year, new decade, and a new semester!

After a rejuvenating and fun winter break, I’m so excited for my new schedule of classes. This semester I’m taking 18 credits (wish me luck!) on all different topics. After taking all theatre courses last semester, I’m seriously looking forward to taking some more academic classes to balance it out.

Also this semester I have my earliest class yet, at 8:30 in the morning. Not quite as bad as an 8am, however it’s on central and I live on north so I have to leave my dorm well in advance. Not only is it my earliest, but it’s also my largest thus far, as a prerequisite class for a major.

While the class sounds pretty interesting, because it’s so early in the day I’ll likely fall asleep in it at least once or twice. I never try to, it’s just something that I can’t help when I’m tired. Unfortunately it happened on my first day of this class already. I was sitting close to the front of the auditorium, right in the center, so there’s no way the professor didn’t see me accidentally falling asleep. Way to make a bad impression!

Oh well! Guess we’ll have to wait and see how I do with the early classes this upcoming first full week of semester 2!

The Backstage Experience Part 2

November 25, 2019November 25, 2019 Mallory Leave a comment

This past week was the tech week of the fourth show I’ve done crew for this semester. That means that for four weeks I spent basically everyday from 6pm-12:30am in rehearsals backstage during a performance.

What was different about this one was the energy. I was on costume crew for Musket’s production of the show BARE. BARE is a show I already knew and loved, compared to the other three shows I’ve worked on this semester. Plus all the people involved were so dedicated an excited that it made me extremely happy to be there. BARE was the first show I’ve worked on in college that I’ve felt 100% invested in.

With the other three I just made sure everything with costumes happened correctly, and answered questions/ fixed things if they broke. While I still did that for BARE, there was the added fact that I really cared about the show itself. It made me more invested in the changes and overall process because I knew the story and the the importance of telling it. It was the first time I actually felt the opening night energy and closing show sadness when working on a show here, and that really showed me a lot.

Some of my favorite moments from working on this show were when a quick change (There were many in this show!) would go right and all of us on costume crew would be so excited and proud giving high fives and cheering silently!

If you didn’t get to see BARE you really missed out on some incredible performances by both cast and backstage crew in making the show come together!

A Reminder

November 17, 2019November 25, 2019 Mallory 2 Comments

On Friday evening I had the pleasure of seeing Teac Damsa’s Production of Loch Na Heala (Swan Lake). If you haven’t heard of it, it is and Irish take on the tale of swan lake, with an Irish myth and a true story also mixed into the plot. It was presented by UMS in the Power Center for two nights only, this past Friday and Saturday.

I was encouraged to go see it for one of my classes and I am so glad I did. I managed to get one of only 2 student tickets left for Friday night, which was exciting. Going into the theatre I only knew that it was a take on swan lake and that it had good reviews. But what I actually saw was much different than expected.

For probably the first half of the 75 minute show, I thought I was going to leave the theatre with a sense of disappointment in not liking it. It started in such a strange way, that I’m still not sure what it was supposed to mean. But perhaps that was point.

But as the show continued, things began to click. It turns out that the show deals greatly with themes of abuse and mental illness, and is very raw in its portrayal of each. The sparse set and small cast, many playing multiple personas, was to the shows advantage. It allowed you to hone in on those themes, and to truly see the beautiful dances performed by the cast.

Though the themes were quite dark, it managed to end with an incredible scene of catharsis. At the end of the show, the audience immediately stood up without a pause for a standing ovation, and clapped for so long that the cast had to come back out on stage three times to bow before it died down and people started to leave.

As I left, I couldn’t stop thinking about the show. It was beautiful, haunting, at times disturbing, but mainly it was something different and unique. It wasn’t some American tour of a famous broadway show. It was a work of passion for these dancers and choreographers and they were able to create something that people of all ages and backgrounds seemed to love, despite the themes that are still hardly talked about in today’s society.

That is what this is a reminder of. If you have a story, you can tell it your own way. People will listen. People will care.

Theatre can do this for some people.

And this is the kind of theatre I want to create as a theatre artist.

The Backstage Experience

November 10, 2019November 10, 2019 Mallory Leave a comment

You would think backstage work in theatre would be energetic and fun, and it usually is from my experience. But for the past week my backstage work has consisted of doing laundry.

It’s been load after load, monotonously putting in the performers clothes. I’m working on the opera, La Boheme, and since hardly anyone changes costume during the acts, the only thing I have to do is get everyone’s laundry from the past act in intermission and put it in the washer.

And then we wait for it to finish, and wait for it to finish in the dryer. In between I get to work on homework though! Or today I’m writing this in one of the breaks.

It sound’s like it would be quite a boring way to spend 5 hours each night for the last 8 days. But it’s actually been quite the opposite. It’s been a really good experience. I’ve gotten to know the other 5 members of wardrobe crew pretty well, through listening to Beyoncé, ordering pizza’s backstage at the end of the night, learning about the magic of coconut water, having conversations about how our academics are different and more.

Most of them are in the vocal performance department, so it has been really cool getting to meet so many people in that program that I wouldn’t have ever interacted without doing this.

I’m really glad I decided to try things again. Last time I was on a wardrobe crew I hardly enjoyed it and I thought I wouldn’t want to do it anymore. This time around however, it has been a really good experience that I honestly greatly enjoyed. Even though it’s only laundry it has turned out to be the typical fun backstage experience. Maybe I just had to look at it with a new mindset. Whatever it was, now I’m looking forward to doing this more times in the future. Though maybe on a show that has more fast paced changes and activities. For now, it’s back to doing the laundry!