Des Moines, and Beyond

Hello all!

I just wanted to take this rare free evening to post a blog while I could. Unfortunately, I won't be able to put up pictures just yet because I'm not using my computer, but instead my host family's. But, never fear! I'll be sure to add them in! :) Also, before I forget, I want to give a shout out to all the cast parents and alumni and random readers of my blog. I've been hearing that my blog has become popular to some, and I want to thank you for your interest and you compliments I've been getting via my castmates. Thank you, and you're all welcome to leave comments!

Our show in Des Moines went off well. The stage was immense -- nearly as big as the one in Denver! The audience, too, was amazing! So full of energy, though I don't think as reactive as the one in we had in Denver -- but I do have a caveat to that! The more I think about it, the more I realize that the Denver show was a unique experience. There were SOOO many alumni in that audience, that I think we get spoiled by the immediate and overwhelming reaction. It's not that I think the audience in the other cities are less impressed or enjoy the show less...I just think they don't know what to expect. Perhaps kicked back in their seats a bit by our energy? And, of course, UWP alumni tend to be very passionate in the audience and reflect that in their applause. The Denver show was about half full of alumni while most other shows there are only a few handfuls. The one great thing about performing to so many who have never seen an UWP show is the opprotunity to set a precedent with them. Every time they think of UWP, they will think of OUR show! Sure, that adds a bit of pressure, but that's also exciting to think about! Anyway, as I was saying, the show went off well. My family drove 3.5 hours from Sioux City to see it and had great seats in the third row. From what they told me, they were impressed! Besides that though, it was good to see them all again -- it has been about six weeks! Strange to think that it'll be June until I see them (and Iowa) again!

After a speedy set strike, we all went home for the night to catch up on much needed sleep. My host mother was amazing and stopped by a McDonald's to let me eat some terribly-bad-for-you Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese and french fries. Mmmmm. Quite good! Saturday brought our free day/host family day, and Ultan and I slept in until about noon (which was AMAZING!). After that, our host family had a bunch of activities going on with their children so they dropped us off at a large mall in Des Moines, leaving us to meet up with a bunch of other UWP people. We met up with about 20 of them throughout the day, and went to two movies -- "Jumper" and "Fool's Gold." I enjoyed "Fool's Gold" a bit more than "Jumper" if only because the dialogue was much better done. Then again, a comedy doesn't have to do too much to have good dialogue. "Jumper" like most movies of its like has a great premise, but fails to deliver captivating characters, or engaging dialogue. Makes for a cheesy movie.

Today was a travel day, but since Muscatine, Iowa is only about three hours away, we spent the morning working on a public speaking workshop which was interesting. After a quick lunch, we were on the road. We did, however, have to say goodbye to another member of our cast -- Ellen, from Sweden, who has decided to leave for personal reasons. The cast was and still is completely in support of her and her decision, but we're going to miss her greatly. She makes the third person to leave our cast. Tim Floro, who was only with us for about a week in staging, and AJ, who because of medical reasons, had to leave us after the Maquoketa show. We also found out this week that the sponsor for our Acopoco destination has pulled out and we are no longer going to that city. All of the cast was equally disappointed to hear this. Overall, it has been a slightly depressing week. But, despite all of this, we are EXCITED to be in Muscatine. Vivia, the advanced team member in Muscatine, has rejoined us, and she has so much positive energy that cannot help but rub off on the cast. So we're excited and looking forward. Burlington, Wisconsin is coming up later this week, and I know the cast is looking forward to see AJ again, who will be coming to watch our show there. After that will be Chicago, a city that I personally cannot WAIT to see. Fun times!

Until my next post!

Dan

The Road Continues...

Hello all!

Maquoketa has come and gone, leaving us smack-dab in the middle of Iowa and its capital – Des Moines. We arrived in the early evening of Monday after a seven hour drive from Maquoketa. This traditionally three hour drive turned into the seven hour monotony because of the terrible winter storm that ran through the eastern half of Iowa the day before – our show day in Maquoketa. That story will come later. There were times on our drive to Des Moines that our bus was at a full stop on the interstate because of the traffic. As we drove along, we saw dozens of trucks, cars, and SUVs rolled, stuck, and discombobulated in the interstate median. I learned later that over a hundred vehicles were thrown off the road between Maquoketa and Des Moines, resulting in four deaths. Crazy! I do have to admit that the extra down time on the bus was a welcome turn of events, even if it was uncomfortable for me. Time that is unblocked and unscripted is something ALWAYS welcome, I think. We arrived just in time to be welcomed by the mayor of Des Moines and receive an official proclamation from him. After that, we met up with our host family’s and headed towards their homes. I was lucky enough to be roomed with Ultan Courtney from Ireland again. I was his roommate in Maquoketa, but he’s definitely one of those people you want to be around a lot. He’s got so much energy!

Okay, for those who love continuity, I’m going to mess with your sense of direction. I’m going to backtrack to Maquoketa and finish that story before I continue on with Des Moines – sound cool? Because I don’t want to hear that I didn’t give you fair warning. If memory serves, my last entry about Maquoketa talked about my arrival there, so I’ll pick up there. The first day in Maquoketa was a CI day (community involvement), but I was on the sign-out list for performing arts/dance, so I was stuck in the local community center working on different songs, which made for a disappointing and long day. But, the next day brought our first host day on the road – an opportunity to sleep in…YES! :) Unfortunately the night before we were up until about 3 a.m., which negated much of the sleeping in. Our host family took myself, Ultan, and Mark (from England) bowling in a local alley, which was an experience for my foreign roommates. We met up with another host family, which were hosting three girls from our cast, and we all bowled together. After bowling and playing pool for a couple hours, we went to the girls’ host family’s place and hung out until three, sipping on orange julius’ and chatting. It was a great time. Saturday, our free day, followed and we spent most of it relaxing about the house. I played PS2 with my host brother, Jacob – mostly playing Star Wars: Battlefront 1 and 2, which I had been craving a bit of for a while. In the evening, another host family who lived two houses down came over and we all hung out, watching T.V. and playing cards. Fun times. Sunday, show day in Maquoketa, was highlighted by the terrible weather moving through the area. It started off by raining on the area all morning, which turned instantly to a wet ice on anything with snow on it. Most back roads had not been cleared of all the snow, so those turned instantly to impassable ice – stranding a few of our castmates in their host family’s homes until later in the day. After about noon, snow started falling, making travel a bit more manageable, but cutting down on visibility. As a result of the weather, our audience wasn’t near as big as it could have been. The auditorium holds about 850 people, and I don’t think it was half full. BUT, the people who were there were an amazing audience. It was great! AND, most (if not all) of the audience were first-time viewers of the show – what a way to make an impression! :) We had a great time, and everyone seemed to be impressed with the show. The next morning we said our goodbyes and left for Des Moines, which leads me back to what I was saying above.

Our first day in Des Moines was spent working with our beneficiary for our show on Friday – Kids Against Hunger. This organization packages meals specially formulated for malnourished children and then ships them to countries in need. Each package we make is the equivalent of six meals. We had about a hundred people working with the organization from about 8 a.m. to 6:30 at night. Our goal was to package 200,000 meals – a lofty goal. By the end of the day, we packaged 251,600 meals – and absolutely impressive feat! It was amazing! Though I have to admit that I was dreaming of dried vegetables and rice all night long. Wednesday brought a trip to the Pioneer Hy-Bred Seed Company where we were able to visit many of the scientists that work there and also talk to many of the people who work there. I have to admit that I found the entire tour interesting. They had a bean plant in a glass case in the lobby that was part of a plot that produced 154 bushels/acre – a good average would 54 bushels/acre! The plant was literally covered with bean pods…it was unbelievable! After the Pioneer campus tour, the cast had an afternoon to hang out and roller skate in a local rink. I, unfortunately, had to do a mini-show performance at a Des Moines mall for promotions for the show. While the few of us had fun, it was something else I didn’t get to do with the rest of the cast. We returned back to our base of operations in Des Moines only to find out that we were to get the evening to hang out and have a dance/karaoke event – sort of a lazy, social evening. However, much akin to earlier in the day, I had work on some stuff and was unable to participate. We finished the evening at about nine and went back home, where I continued to work on my project until about midnight. Sidenote – my project was a news presentation for the cast on Thursday morning. The bad thing about Up with People sometimes is that you are so busy doing stuff that it becomes hard to keep up with news going on outside of the program. So, a few people are in charge of presenting some news to the cast and one of those persons happen to be me. Since I got selected for the position, I haven’t had any time to work on this presentation and finally I just told my host family that I had to work on it and forego any socialization. But I got it done and it went off well! Today brought another CI day, and I was involved with the Stand for Peace project again, this time working with an 8th grade class. I was surprised at the amount of intelligent questions they all had. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think they were stupid or anything, but I sort of had a level of expectation after working with two 6th grade classes in Lincoln, Nebraska, and I was surprised at the level of advancement between the two school years. It was a noticeable difference. After the school project in the morning, we put on another mini-show for the school in the afternoon. It. Was. A. Blast. Before the show, we were all dancing with the students while we waited to get the show started. Then we did the show, and they all seemed to have a blast. And then after, they all rushed us and started dancing with us again, climbing up on the stage and such, wanting us to sign autographs, etc. It was SO much fun! Ah!

Tomorrow is set to bring our Des Moines performance in the Civic Center. The center holds about 2,500 people, and I’ve been told that the stage is big and beautiful – I’m definitely looking forward to it. Also, my family is trekking down from Sioux City to the show, and it will be great to see all them again after the past six weeks – its sort of hard to imagine that its only been that long. It seems like FOREVER, really! After Friday’s show, we’re set to have a host family day on Saturday, in which we’re definitely going to sleep in and we may possibly also see “Jumper.” We’ll see how it goes! We take off from Des Moines on Sunday afternoon and we’ll arrive in Muscatine, Iowa, in the evening. After a few days, we’ll continue on to Burlington, Wisconsin. Should be good!

Until my next post!

Dan

First Week on the Road

Hello all!


It’s been a busy past few days. We’ve been traveling around so much that its seems like we’re trying to make up for the LACK of traveling we’ve been doing the past four weeks! We left Denver on Monday morning, bright and early, leaving our teary-eyed host families behind for the promise of a great adventure ahead on the road. We drove for about eight hours on the road to Lincoln, Nebraska, where we arrived at a local church and parish center for our city arrival meeting and orientation. Along the way, we made two stops, the last of which was in Kearney, Nebraska. I have to admit it was nice being in a town whose name I knew. The stops were about fifteen minutes – and not a minute later! If we were late to get back onto the buses, we might as well wave at the bus as it drives by because it will not stop. Some of this learn this the hard way on the trip to Maquoketa, but that’s a story for later. After some going back and forth in the Lincoln arrival building, I finally figured out that I was to be roomed with Ren-Horng Wang for Taiwan/USA, one of the guys I had been riding the bus with during our Denver orientation. Together we met our new host family, Les and Paula Schultz. We grabbed our luggage and made the short drive back to their home. There we had a great Midwestern meal of roast beef and potatoes with carrots. It. Was. Great. Ah! :)

We spent the few days in Lincoln – sadly only two full days. The first full day we spent doing the "Stand for Peace" program in some local elementary and middle schools. I spent the morning and afternoon with two different 6th grade classes. In the morning I was with a class from Lux Middle School, and in the afternoon I was with a class from Scott Middle School. It was an exciting time, though a bit challenging to do. It was the first time for me to actually do this program, so a bit of trial and error was in order. But, overall, I think it went well. I was with Eilis from Georgia/Maryland/Ireland, and Carolina from Sweden. We each took different sections of the presentation, which made it easier to do.

On Wednesday, we spent the entire day prepping the stage for the show, doing dance workshops, and also vocal prep. The first thing that I noticed about the theatre we were set to perform in was that it was significantly smaller than the Buell. Don’t get me wrong – I knew that we were being spoiled by the Buell, but it still surprised me by its size. Definitely small. In fact, for most of the numbers, we had to split the cast in half for the show, having only half the numbers come on the stage on any given song. Only on a few songs did we have the ENTIRE cast on the stage at the same time, as opposed to the Buell performance where EVERYONE was on the stage for nearly every number. We spent the afternoon rehearsing these changes and the show in general. After that run-through, we had some dinner (Runza), and did our own preparation for the show before Green Room. After Green Room, we made our way into the crowd of people swarming into the O’Donnell Auditorium, and I happened to catch a glance of my grandparents and a couple of my aunts in the lobby. I was able to talk with them throughout the pre-show, intermission, and post-show, and it was GREAT to see them. It really gave me a boost of energy for the show, especially when I could look out on the stage and see them staring back. Overall, I thought the show went well, though I do know that it wasn’t up to my performance at the Buell. I just think not having practiced those dances for so long and then picking them back up a couple hours before the show really dulled the once sharp edge I had on them. But, I’ll take that experience and learn from it.

After the show, I spent the entire evening (about two and a half hours) striking the set and restoring the auditorium to the way we found it, which included replacing the front row of seats that had been removed so the front stage lights could be set up. That was a fun task. Or not. :) We finished at about midnight, and then I spent the next couple hours packing my stuff up again for the morning’s trip to Maquoketa, Iowa. We departed at around 8:30 a.m., and the bus ride was scheduled for about nine hours. But by the time we reached Iowa City, we were making great time, so we stopped at the large mall there and spent an hour meandering around, shopping and eating and such. This is, of course, where some of us learned to be on time for the bus the hard way. Four of my castmates did NOT make it back to the bus on time and were subsequently left at the mall. The staff was kind and graciously picked them up in the vans that follow closely behind the buses, but in any normal circumstance they would have been left to their own means of finding a way back to the cast. All said and done, it was slightly funny.
We arrived at a Comfort Inn for our arrival meeting, only to be greeted by mountains of snow that had been pushed away not long before our arrival. I was told that it had snowed 11 out of the past 13 days in Maquoketa, the big dump happening last Wednesday – 15 inches! We soon met our host families, and our roommates, getting a chance to get to know both. I’m now rooming with one of the staff members, Marc, from England, and also a castmate, Ultan, from Ireland. Both men are energetic and swell chaps (can you tell their language is rubbing off on me?) My new host family, too, are great people. My host mom’s name is Susanna, and she has a twelve-year-old son whose name is Jacob, and a 19-month-old daughter named Carly. All of them are great people to be around. They have made us all feel like kings or czars or someone else supremely important. It’s been great so far. Our family is good friends with another host family, so we’re already planning some joint activities on our host family day on Saturday. Should be a good time, and I can’t wait! If only for the idea of a free day! Sleep in – haha!!
We have a show coming up in Maquoketa on Sunday afternoon that will be amazing to put on. I guess that not many people in this town have heard of Up with People, so we have so many people that we have a chance to impress, which is an exciting prospect. I can’t wait to show them what we’ve got!

Until my next post!


Dan

Our First Show!

Hello all!

My final week in Denver has finally come and gone. The ultimate goal of the past four weeks has as well – our performance in the Temple Buell Theatre. In short – it was an amazing performance and experience. Many of the people I talked to about the show had nothing but praise for the show. But perhaps I should start at the beginning of the week to adequately explain how great it was to hear this.

Our week started off in the Temple Events Center, an old temple in downtown Denver which we used in interim until we could get into the Temple Buell Theatre. We spent the first day listening to a few speeches and items, ranging from the Up with People experience to our travels through Mexico and the United States. I’m especially excited for our travels through Mexico. From what our coordinators have said, Viva la Gente (as Up with People is known in Mexico) is a VERY big deal in Mexico. There has been a representative from Mexico in EVERY cast of Up with People. Viva la Gente is a household name, as are the songs. We also got a rundown of the places we’re going to visit, and what they will have to offer from a travel perspective. It looks amazing! Every one of the cities is STEEPED in history and culture. It should be an exciting experience.

On Tuesday we worked through the entire show piece by piece, working on vocals, dance, and blocking (though only slightly for the latter because of the limitations we had at our location). It was a long, but productive day. Wednesday brought our arrival at the Temple Buell Theatre – a gorgeous and amazing facility. All week long, we had to use the backstage entrance to the building, which made us feel like rock stars. We had dressing rooms that have been used by casts of Broadway plays, city orchestras, and the like. All along the backstage walls of the building were paintings of all the shows that have graced the Buell’s stage. At the end of the week, our own painting was right next to all of the rest, with our signatures all across it. The Buell Theatre is one of the premier venues in all of Colorado, if not THE premier venue. It holds over 2,000 people and has amazing acoustics. (I don’t think I can say amazing enough).

Friday held our official dress rehearsal show, where we invite our host family to see what we have to offer. It also gives us a chance to run through the show in front of a crowd that is not part of our show staff. It went well! We really stepped our game, according to the staff. Going into Saturday, we didn’t have much sleep, but we were still feeling energized from the night before. We started the morning off by meeting the FOUNDER of Up with People. He spoke to us for about an hour, and I found it amazing to listen to his story of seeing a need and fulfilling it. He said the 1960’s were full of young people who had so much passion for something (mostly against The Man – the establishment). Most of the passion resulted in negative forms, and UWP founder decided that there should be another way to harness this energy. He held a conference to discuss possibilities, with the 1,200 young people who showed up. Out of the conference came Up with People. Amazing.

We spent the rest of the afternoon doing a stop-and-go rehearsal, running through the show but stopping to correct things as we went. It went well. Finally, dinner came – Dominoes pizza. Yum. I spent a good twenty minutes centering myself before I went into Green Room, which is our pre-show meeting place and talk. Andrew, our sound technician, gave us a great speech that reminded us why we were there – why the Up with People show was there. Up with People’s motto is that we can change the world for the better. That is the message we’re trying to convey with our show, but its so easy to forget in the every day functions and learnings of orientation/staging. We ended Green Room and went out into the house, meeting and greeting people who had taken time to see our show. A friend of mine, also, decided to come down from Rapid City to see the show, but I wasn’t able to find her until intermission. (Donna, thanks again for braving a flat tire and ticketing cops to see my show! You’re amazing!) :) Soon the show started and there was a palpable feeling of adrenaline and anticipation. This was the moment we had been waiting for for the past four weeks. This was the culmination of our staging process – getting to stand in front of over 2,000 people (a full house) and convey our message, as well as shine the light on local heroes of Denver. I think our excitement showed, but the show kicked off with a power greater than the dress rehearsal. It was fantastic. It was intense. It was powerful. By the end of Saturday night, I was sore and I was tired, but I was on a high so great that it was hard to get sleep for a while. Such a unique experience that I get to be a part of for the next four months.

Today, my host family and I spent time together, traveling to Boulder to have brunch and enjoy each other’s company for the last time. After that, we picked up a few things that Kristian and I needed before we hit the road, and then came back home. We had dinner, and exchanged gifts of appreciation for each other. No tears yet, but I have no doubt that tomorrow will be soggy. Tomorrow officially marks the beginning of our travels across the world to bring the message of Up with People and I confess myself excited. It is going to be an amazing experience and here I stand on the edge of it, knowing that it will be amazing but having no clue how it will be that. And interesting prospect.

Until my next post!

Dan

One More Week in Denver

Hello all!

Another week down, another one closer to our opening performance! It is crazy (and a bit nerve-wracking) to think that we will be performing in front of over 2,000 people in SIX days, in one of the biggest and coolest theatres in Denver. Whew! Honestly, though, I’m excited to get this first show underneath my, and cast’s, belt. It’s exciting to think about the show, which is slightly strange since that was the one thing I wasn’t looking forward to in this experience. But, it is looking amazing, and it’ll be great performing it for real for once and not just for our staff.

This week has been full of preparation for the show. Plenty of blocking, cast movement, and cast vocals. Beyond that, microphone groups (or mike groups) have been picked and they’ve begun working on their notes. I’ve been placed in the mike group, so I’ve been right there with them trying to learn all the tenor lines for the songs. As a mike person, you have to know all the songs for a couple different reasons: 1) in case someone gets sick/injured/etc. and you have to step into their spot for the show to go on; and 2) the different parts in the show are constantly changing. One moment you could be on mike groups for a song and then you could be on a different song. It’s all about versatility.

Beyond mike groups, I’ve been refining and learning more dance moves for the few remaining songs. None have them have been too challenging, but I did have to do a dance workshop yesterday for “Step into the World,” which was kind of a challenging dance, but nothing terrible. We worked on it for about three hours and I had the steps down by the end. Now I’ve just got to be able to DO them on time. Besides that, though, we’ve run through the show a few different times, the last being with costumes. Thankfully I didn’t have to worry about that aspect on Thursday, but who knows if that’ll stay the same?

On Friday, the cast had a CI day (community impact), and there were many different options available to the cast. Some groups worked with homeless people at different centers, others packaged food again for needy families, and some others visited a center for people with mental health problems. However, there were some students that had to remain behind to work on a few things: lead dance, band, and mike vocals. I was part of the mike groups, so I didn’t get to go out with the rest of the cast. There were about thirty of us that had to remain behind and work on different aspects of the show. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy I got to work on vocals – God knows I needed to get the different parts down and I was really able to do that Friday, but I was a bit disappointed with missing out on a CI. But, we haven’t even begun to travel yet and there will be plenty of CIs along the way. We did, however, still all go out to eat together again at the end of Friday. About 12 of us made it to the Hard Rock Cafe, and we has some amazing food. I, myself, had some BBQ brisket which was delicious. We had a great time, and got a chance to really hang out with each other in an unstructured setting. Some of the others went to a place called "Johnny Rockets," a 50's themed fast food place. About 27 of them went, and as soon as they walked in, they heard the song "Twist." Of course, someone jumped up and started to dance to it. Soon the ENTIRE group of them were up dancing away in this tiny fast food place along the 16th Street Mall. They even had the staff of the place dancing away. People were walking by the restaurant and stopping to look through the window at all the crazy people dancing in a fast food place. It was a good time, I hear.

With the end of this week came the last day at our beloved Sherman Center, the place we’ve been staging at for the past three weeks. It is strange to think that the next time I step into the building (if ever) I will be an alum of the Up with People program. I’m not really sure where the past three weeks have gone. The first week seemed to drag by, but now every day seems to kick itself into high gear, speeding by faster than I can appreciate it. In another week, the cast will be LEAVING Denver and our host families that have graciously allowed us into their homes for the past four weeks. It’s going to be a sad going away. I’ve REALLY enjoyed my host family, and I feel I’ve started to find a place here, but now we’re going to be picking up and moving again. It’s exciting to get on the road, but it’s sad to leave all the friendships here in Denver. But I suppose we’ll all have to get used to it because that is what our lives will be highlighted by for the next five months.

Today, our host family is having a small Superbowl party, and I think Kristian is a bit excited to see this one-of-a-kind American event. While it’s not an official holiday in the United States, it might as well be. Beyond that, I’m hoping that another Manning can ruin Brady’s hopes for a Superbowl win. While I appreciate the talent and skill of the New England Patriots, they’ve still won it four times in the past seven years. Time for a new champion.

Until my next post!

Dan