Harry Williams

The lights blinding your eyes, your heart visibly beating in your chest, the adrenaline pumping - yes, it was audition time this past weekend. This past weekend, I auditioned for the February production of Little Women at Peoria Players Theatre. As I was sitting there during auditions, I realized what the American Idol judges must feel like. Person after person gets up on stage and tries to catch the director’s eye as they show what they can do.

I’ve been performing all of my life, since the age of 3, and it’s funny how you still get nervous every time you audition or perform. Granted, it’s MUCH better now, as I’m usually well prepared by the time I get up in front of people. But, you still get that nervous, tense feeling as your body knows a performance is coming up. The trick is to channel that energy into the performance, and use it to actually help you perform.

Anyway, I auditioned on Sunday afternoon, and then was called back on Sunday night to sing one of the solos for the part and to read some of the lines. Later on, the email was sent out - and, I made it! I will be playing the part of Theodore Lawrence III, also known as Laurie, the lead guy in the show. Yes, it’s the story about a girl named Jo, and a boy named Laurie. Maybe names were different back in 1868.

This will be a really neat show for me to be a part of, since all of us read the book as kids. The show is a musical, and it opened on Broadway in 2005. The story follows the classic Louisa May Alcott story, and the music was written by Jason Howland with lyrics by Mindi Dickstein.

The complete cast list for Little Women is:

Jo March - Jennifer Gordon
Marmee - Barb Couri
Laurie - Harry Williams
Meg - Rebecca Meyer
Amy - Hope Grandon
Beth - Stephanie Meyer
Professor Bhaer - Dave Schick
Mr. Brooke - Bruce Colligan
Aunt March - Pat White
Mr. Laurence - Bruce White
Mrs. Kirk - Sarah Robins
Hag - Mary Keltner
Troll - Carole Rogers
Rodrigo - Joseph Pluth
Braxton - Andrew Werner
Clarissa - Andrea Williams
Clarissa’s sister - Katie Meyer
Knight - Charles Brown

If you haven’t heard of the Little Women story, check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Women

And for more information about the musical, check out:

http://www.littlewomenonbroadway.com

Just to give you the heads up, Little Women performances will run at Peoria Players Theatre from February 1 - 10, 2008.

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If you want to know what my family is like, just watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding. We’re not like that to a ‘T,’ but we’re pretty darn close. When that movie first came out, we went with my mom and several of her cousins and their families. It was a blast, and it was a good thing that there weren’t many other people in the theater because my family was pretty loud (watch the movie - you’ll understand). What can I say - we’re just an exciting family, and know how to have a lot of fun.

This past Saturday, I helped my cousin and her husband move into their new house. It was fun for me, since I got to hang out with a couple of my cousins as we moved them. It’s even funnier because my cousin’s mother (my aunt) reminds me of the mother from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, so we’re always cracking up when she’s around. Moving is also fun because it’s a challenge playing “Tetris” as my cousin put it, trying to efficiently pack the truck to fit as much as possible, while keeping things safe during the move.

When the dust had settled in the new home, most of their things were safely in it, and just needed to be moved to their proper places. It was finally starting to look like a home by the end of the day when the doorbell rang. My cousin went to answer her door, and it was the neighbor across the street. She was really nice as she welcomed my cousin to the neighborhood, and had brought over a welcoming gift.

They chatted for a few minutes, and when my cousin came back in the house, nobody could believe their eyes. In her hands was a freshly baked bundt cake! There was no flower in the middle (that would have been TOO perfect), but it was a bundt cake nevertheless. What were the odds of THAT happening?! Oopa!

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A couple of weeks ago, my now-16 year old sister Mary received a cell phone from my parents. Since she’s becoming more involved in activities and classes, they thought it best she have a phone. To her and the younger 2 sisters, it’s the coolest thing to have a phone. It’s a new expression of freedom, a sign that she’s more of an adult now, etc.

But the funny thing is that she barely uses it as a phone. She currently uses it more as a camera instead of a phone. And of course, the first thing she did was to put a picture of Zac Efron as the wallpaper on her phone. All 3 of my youngest sisters are crazy about “Zacky Honey” as they call him. And Mary’s birthday last week reflected this as she received CD’s, calendars, and cards all featuring Zac.

Mary loves her Zac cell phone wallpaper, so I decided to give her a nice surprise during her birthday week. One night, I was at my parents house alone. I was in the kitchen pouring myself a drink when I noticed that Mary had forgotten her phone on the counter. Well, of course I couldn’t resist, so I opened it up and started snapping pictures, until I finally captured the perfect pose. Have you ever tried taking a picture of yourself with a cell phone. It’s pretty difficult! Getting the right picture DID take awhile, but what are brothers for?

I set the new, beautiful picture as the phone background and went about my business. When Mary got home that night, I was in the kitchen reading the paper. She rushed over to her phone, saying how she couldn’t believe how she forgot it. As she opened it up to see if she had missed any calls, I could barely keep from smiling. But the scream as she noticed the different picture was priceless and well worth the effort. I thought it was a good replacement, but she apparently differed in opinion as she quickly swapped it back to “Honey.” Oh well…I had at least performed my required brotherly duty of harassing my sisters.

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I just read an article that George Lucas may have a TV series in the works. According to the article, it won’t have anything to do with the existing Star Wars characters, but will feature new characters in the Star Wars Universe.

Check out the article here.

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When I was younger, my parents, like many good parents, liked to tell me “no” to things. Being the curious kid that I was, I would usually ask “why?”. The reason I hated the most was “because I said so.” To me, that never made sense, nor did it satisfy my curiosity. The second worst reason (to me) was “because we don’t want to set a precedent for your sisters.” I hated that reason too. What’s a precedent, I used to wonder? I’m my own person, and the oldest…just tell them “no” if my sisters ask! It wasn’t until recently that I really understood the precedent problem, and why my parents were worried about it.  I also realized that my parents’ position on that had officially changed.

My 3 younger sisters, or the “second generation” as we call them, get away with murder compared to us older 4 children. It’s funny to see how much parents mellow out in the course of raising their children. I’ve seen this in multiple large families. Parents are usually really tough on the older children, and by the time they get to the youngest couple children, they’re letting them do whatever. We always joke that by the time my youngest sister is 16, my dad will pull into the driveway with a bright, new Corvette for her.

Anyway, my sister Mary (the 5th child in our family) just had her “sweet 16″ (according to her) birthday this past week. And I mean week. She had a total of 4 birthday parties (lunches, dinners, and parties) on different days of the week to commemorate this blessed event (in her eyes). It was amazing. We just kept celebrating, and celebrating, and celebrating.

It was actually fun (what week-long party isn’t?), but I think it wore my parents out. Also, my dad didn’t realize the damage that had been done. It hit him near the end of the celebration week as he overheard my youngest 2 sisters talking about what kind of 16th birthday parties THEY are going to have. I finally understood what my parents were trying to tell me all of those years with the “precedent” thing.

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I received an email from American Family Association, which keeps me updated on some of the insanity that goes on in this country. This one, I couldn’t believe (read the full article here):

According to U.S. Representative Marilyn Musgrave, our nation’s legislators are now prohibited from using references to God in certificates of authenticity accompanying flags flown over the Capitol and bought by constituents. Such references include: “under God” in the pledge, “God bless you,” or “in the year of our Lord, 2007.” Never before has this official prohibition been leveled.

Architect of the Capitol Steven Ayers said he has removed the words because reference to God and the Lord may offend some Americans. He now prohibits them from being placed on official documents such as flag certificates.

Musgrave was astonished when she flew a flag over the U.S. Capitol building as a tribute to a senior citizen, and the accompanying certificate she received was edited with all religious references removed.

The congresswoman was more astounded when, upon further investigation, she discovered the certificate was censored by order of The Architect of the Capitol, an unelected very low-level official who manages the flag office.

Responding to a request for a flag flown over the United States Capitol in honor of a World War II veteran’s 81st birthday, the congresswoman ordered the flag and a certificate to state: “This flag was flown for Mr. John Doe on the occasion of his 81st birthday, the eleventh day of July, in the year of our Lord, 2007. Thank you, Grandpa, for showing me what it is to be a true patriot — to love God, family, and country. We love you!”

When the flag and certificate came back from the flag office, each reference to the Lord and God were removed. A group of lawmakers confronted architect Stephen Ayers seeking to find where he had the authority to restrict their freedom of speech and religious expression. Ayers refused to give the lawmakers a clear justification of his authority to delete the religious references. For more information: click here (Washington Times).

“May offend some Americans?” Give me a break! Anything that anyone does offends SOMEONE in this country. The plurality of this country is what makes it so great because everyone is free to believe as they wish. If mentioning God or Lord offends someone, then tough luck! This country was built on a Christian foundation. People in government and the extremist groups keep tending to forget that.

I mean, God’s name has been on our money since day 1, and His name has been part of our calendar system for about 1500 years. It drives me nuts when I go to a museum and see years represented as B.C.E. (Before Common Era) or C.E. (instead of B.C. & A.D.) It’s all part of this trend to neutralize everything and offend nobody. Well, in trying not to offend anyone, they sure are offending many Christian people, which totally negates their argument.

This backwards thinking is actually kind of funny when you think about it. Try not to offend a few people, and in the process, actually end up offending tons of people. I also think it’s kind of funny how the whole scientific movement is trying desperately to switch to the B.C.E. & C.E. designations to “not offend anyone” and take God’s name out of it. Well, there are still 2 designations, one for before SOMETHING and one for after. I wonder what event marks the turning point from one to the other? What (or should I say “WHO”) began this “Common Era?” ;-D

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As you probably noticed, I finished the redesign of my site to make it a little more personalized. Let me know what you think!

Also, I’ve finished getting my gallery software configured, and I put up the pictures from the Williams Golf Trip. Just click on the “Photos” link at the top of this page to visit it. They turned out pretty good, I think. Unfortunately, I was too busy golfing (go figure!) to get many pictures, so most of the pictures are from the groups that I golfed with. Enjoy!

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I’ve been taking voice lessons from a teacher at Western Illinois University for about a year now. He is a master of the art of singing, teaching the whole range of singing from pure classical singing to his specialty of musical theatre belt technique. Every lesson is a lot of fun as we do different kinds of exercises and “games”, exploring different techniques and styles of singing. As he has said “In what other kind of job can you get paid to play games with students all day?” So, our lessons consist of playing “games” of vocal exercises, singing through my songs, and learning about all sorts of things.

He has really helped me with two things (besides obviously the vocal technique) - my acting skills and selling the songs. I’m preparing for a couple of auditions coming up, and so in my lesson a couple of days ago, he had me sing my audition songs for him. Let me tell you, it’s the most nerve wracking thing (besides the audition itself) to stand in front of your voice teacher full-on and sing with his undivided attention on you. It’s much easier when he’s busy playing the piano or something else while you’re singing, but to have him watching you the whole time is unnerving. But it’s awesome preparation for the auditions because that’s exactly what happens in an audition. And that’s where I discovered my “ism” - my “harryism” to be exact.

There I was - standing there, singing my song, trying to think of all of the good technique tips he has been giving me, and feeling awkward because I hadn’t really thought of selling the song much. Selling the song is about convincing my audience that I’m not Harry anymore - I’m the character in the play singing about something, and it’s about convincing them to believe in what I’m singing about. When I was finished, he smiled and told me good job. The song had sounded really good, he said, and I had incorporated a lot of the vocal techniques he had been teaching me. BUT - he had discovered my “ism”.

He explained. An “ism” is what you unconsciously do - an action - when you’re not thinking about it. My “harryism” (since it was MY “ism”), he told me, was the action of throwing my arms out to the sides, palms forward, and then quickly drawing them back in. Throughout the song, he said, I had done this same exact action 5 times.

My first reaction was “That’s ridiculous! I didn’t do that!” But as I began to think about it I began remembering parts of the song where I HAD done that action, really without thinking or consciously knowing it. He told me that the perfect way to find a person’s “ism” was to have them stand in front of you and sing a song that they haven’t totally prepared for yet. The “ism” will work it’s way into the performance since it’s their “comfort action”, what they default to when they don’t know what else to do.

My voice teacher then spent the rest of the lesson purging my audition song of the “harryisms”. The first step in getting rid of the “ism” is to become aware of it, he said. And then, you just have to consciously substitute other actions into the song that help you act out and sell the song. This was pretty challenging, but he’s a master as pulling me out of my bad habits and helping me to substitute good ones in their place.

As I was thinking about this on the way home, I thought about how applicable this whole concept is to normal life. How many “harryisms” do I have that I’m not aware of, not just in performing, but it normal life? I’ve been noticing lately that I do certain things when I’m just standing somewhere, folding my arms a certain way, standing a particular way, doing something with my hands. When I’m teaching at Bradley (which is a kind of performance), what are my “isms” there? Not all “isms” are bad, since as humans, the only way to survive our hectic days is to rely on and cultivate habits. But, in an audition or performance, an “ism” is bad because it suggests the person doesn’t know what they’re doing.

I think that everyone should at least become aware of their “isms” so that they know how they come across to other people. I literally had no idea I was doing my “harryisms”! But now, after this past lesson, I’m happy to say that by audition time, my songs will be completely “harryism” free. This is good food for thought for everyone, though, something we really don’t think about.

Ask yourself: What’s your “ism”?

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