Thursday Think Tank With Hung: Madness Is In. So is everyone.

The crew had just finished Dying Goat today when I suddenly realized I forgot to bring a camera to record rehearsal’s warm-up. For the fourth time. And people say third time’s a charm.

“Now think of something that happened today that you want to forget.” Mr. Howard, who was co-leading the warm-up with Tom today, spoke calmly. I dropped dead inside. There was no way I could forget that I forgot something four times in a row. The image of our beloved Heather growing two horns and stirring the inferno cauldron with a red trident, while bursting out the most diabolical laugh ever known to mankind, crossed my mind and sent a shiver down my spine.

The next thing I knew, we were sitting down as Mr. Howard switched to story-time mode and told us the story of how his best friend, Seymour, and he carried themselves through a musical that, as Mr. Howard argued, really sucked. It was my first session ever of Inspiring Thoughts With Mr. Howard. The story was short, but it was the conclusion he made from the story that got me thinking. So pardon me as I now fast-forward to approximately three minutes later.

“Thousands of high schools across the country are making spring shows. So if you think about it, really what we are doing here doesn’t matter,” confessed Mr. Howard, “What we do doesn’t matter. What matters here is how we do it.”

It’s just like the new Mtn Dew commercial with Lil Wayne, only a helluva lot better. As such, it sent a shiver down my spine again, but this time it was a different kind of shiver. It was a kind of shiver that excites the particles within my body, that engraves onto my mind, vague as it may be, a work ethics ideal that, hopefully ten years from now, can still keep me in the hearts of the people I have been having the privilege to work with for the past month, and them in me. After all, when we say we miss a certain place, we are, in reality, only missing the people that make that place our home. And I am sure as hell starting to miss Berkshire. We have two weeks left until the first play. No more Thursdays off. Madness is officially in. But that’s OK, because so is everyone.

Anyway, for the rest of the day, my two lovely fellow cast members, Christiena and Kay, and I worked with Mr. Howard on the Canadian Rapping Scene in !Artistic Inspiration and the beginning of the Gargoyle scene. I still struggled with projection and diction, but overall everything had a way of working themselves out. The Canadian scene, in fact, has inspired me to make a public compliment to Heather that, you guessed it, rhymes. Here we go.

Hey Heather, it’s true,
That I did imagine you
Growing horns, groping trident, stirring a devil stew.
And yeah it’s true
I imagine that laugh you do
As the most diabolical sound human kind ever knew.
It crossed my mind, sent shivers down my spine,
But it only lasted for a second twenty-nine.
‘Cause your character design,
Is top of the line,
Everyone wants to sit with you,
‘Cause you’re real fine.

That’s all I have so far. I’m sorry but I do have some work to do. But before I go any further, allow me to say that the last two lines are inside jokes between Heather and I.

Now that I have made a compliment for Heather that rhymes, hopefully I am still alive by the next sunshine. But seriously though, Heather, I will have the video up by tomorrow.

Cause that is how I do.

Stay awesome, global citizen.

by Hung Hoang, '13