"There's More To Life Than Perfect Hair, Man!"

Y'all. IT HAPPENED! I had my first encounter with a Times Square heckler! It was exciting, kind of like a rite of passage for NYC. What was better than that? I was asked for direction 3 times this morning, and I knew where to tell people to go. I FINALLY GET IT! #proudtemporaryNYCresident I can't believe that 2 weeks is over, and Week 3 starts tomorrow morning. I have to keep using my time wisely! I'm positive I exhausted this weekend for all it was worth because I saw 3 Broadway shows, walked through Central Park (Again! I can't get enough of it!), worked out, did homework, and saw friends both old and new! It's alright Mom, I can sleep when I'm not in the city that doesn't sleep! Here's the breakdown!

Friday: I start the morning with Ballet. Joy...and yes, I'm being sarcastic. At least, that's the mindset I had going into it. We begin exercises that focus on balancing on the ball of one of your feet while the other is in a special ballet position at your knee. This is called passe releve which is the basic position for a pirouette. I've never been able to do them well, and definitely not with good form. But for some reason I was determined to actually get this. I'm here to learn, and though I'm not the largest fan of ballet, I know that it's something I need to work on. I do the exercises to the best of my ability leading up to practicing pirouettes and my teacher said I did a REALLY nice one. FINALLY! Then we start to get into pirouette practice, and I can't do it. WHAT?! This is frustrating. I'm not giving up that easily though, so I ask my teacher to help me adjust and I show her what I think I should be doing. When I show her, what happens but I do what she said a great pirouette. And it was, nearly perfect form and the right energy and momentum. I try again after my teacher leaves, and I do it again! I'm so thrilled I go for a double and successfully do that as well! Now, those are the only three that I can do all class...and we try for a little while longer. But that's OK because I did something I've never been able to do before! GROWTH! Proof right there! Ballet is still not my favorite dance...but I'm a little more open minded about despising it so much. Jazz is next, and our normal teacher is out to judge some national Jazz competition, so we have a substitute. She's CUTE, and she has an even cooler story. She tells us that she feels bad that she doesn't know our normal combination, but she has something fun to teach us. She is going to teach us the opening chorus number of Evita with the Broadway choreography...why? Because she's currently in the cast. This takes a second to sink in. This woman is currently performing in a BROADWAY show. And she's going to teach us the Broadway choreography. I'd say today is looking like a good day. I talk to her after we have a blast learning her combination, and she invites a couple of us to the matinee tomorrow and then she'll take us backstage. No big deal. That's buzzing through my mind as I go to lunch and then venture into Musical Scene Study and Audition Technique. I cannot stress enough how PROUD I am to be performing with such talented people. Group 4 has some of the best performers I have been blessed enough to be in the presence of in a long time, and some of them are YOUNGER than me. I gotta get workin' to get better even more than I am now! I know I'm growing, but I'm so motivated and hungry to grow even more than I think I can this summer. I have the resources to be the best performer I can be, so why not use them? After class, I rush home, grab a quick shower, and run to Times Square to meet Grace because we have tickets to Once tonight! The show is incredible. The music, the blocking, the performers, the story, etc. It's clear why they won the Tony! And the cast is so incredibly nice in person! Elizabeth A. Davis, the Tony-nominee who is also a Baylor Theatre alum, was so happy to meet us at Stage Door and she spent a good 20 minutes talking to Grace and I after she signed autographs! She's the nicest person and I'm so proud to go to the same school that she has gone to! #SICEM To end the night, Grace and I adventure even more uptown and go to Serendipity to grab some of the famous frozen hot chocolate just like in the movie. The cold dessert was a much welcomed change from the blazing heat! Today and tomorrow are scorchers! 100 degrees and up with some crazy humidity! Once we leave Serendipity at 1:30AM, I drag myself home to get some much needed rest.

Saturday: I wake up a little bit early to go to the box office so I can get good seats to Evita! Two friends, Nicole and Kate, and I go to the Box Office and get 8th row ORCHESTRA seats for Evita...in the center. I'd say we are in for a great day. Then I find out that CYNTHIA BOOKER is in town! She's a close friend from Baylor who graduated in May and is exceeding expectations at a competitive theatre festival called the Williamstown Theatre Festival! I meet her in Times Square and we head to Central Park to hang out and grab snow cones. It's incredibly hot, but it's so good to see Cynthia! Plus, I found a dollar on the ground. How can you not be in a good mood when you find a dollar on the ground?! We end up seeing the Time Warner Center, Lincoln Center, the Met, and Julliard! It's just like in the movies, only in the movies it's not 102 degrees. Like I said in earlier posts...people don't always believe in air conditioning in NYC...and it was over 100 degrees with humidity...I think that's enough said. I head back to Evita and see an awesome show! Then we go to stage door and meet our substitute jazz teacher and she takes us backstage.

LET IT BE KNOWN, THAT ON THIS SEVENTH DAY OF JULY IN THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND AND TWELVE, KEVIN WILSON STEPPED ONTO HIS FIRST BROADWAY STAGE.

And it was everything I wanted it to be. It's not quite like you would imagine when you see an actor in a movie step onto a stage and they look out into the audience. It was so much more than that. I'm determined. This is sure not to be the last time I step center stage on Broadway. It can't be. I need to do everything I can to get on a professional stage. It's my dream! Not necessarily Broadway, but some well known professional stage in this country. It's so strange that we are taught as kids to follow our dreams and our passions no matter how crazy or out of reach they feel, but dreams never really seem like they are possible. We are holding onto them for that "someday" when we will achieve them. That's why they are called dreams. Sometimes being a professional performer seems so out of reach, especially with all of those people that tell me I'm getting a degree in waiting tables which I know is nowhere close to true. But more and more this summer it seems like I can do it. Being on that stage, being in this program, being in NYC. It seems possible. It seems more tangible than it used to seem. I'll get off my soapbox now.

After I come back down to the real world, we head across the street to enter the ticket lottery for Ghost, which is based of of the Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze movie. I actually WIN the lottery, so we get front row center tickets for $25 bucks! While we wait for the show to start, we look for a place to eat in Times Square. We get stopped in our tracks by a heckler for some sketchy-looking comedy club that supposedly is the "best in the city." That's interesting, because every other heckler said the same thing! Interesting! He isn't taking no for an answer, but i'm not a fool, so we eventually shake him and one of his buddies calls after me, "There's more to life than perfect hair, man!" which I ignore. I'll take that as him saying, "I'm desperate to get people to come to my weird comedy club. Oh, and you have really nice hair. No, you have perfect hair." Thank for the compliment Times Square heckler! It was funny and got the three of us laughing, so it was an interesting encounter! We see Ghost, and as cheesy and predicable as the plot was, the illusions/special effects and the music were INCREDIBLE. Some people hate Ghost, but I really enjoyed it! The two stars of the show could really belt out those songs, and it was impressive from the center of the front row. I finally get home and get in bed. Living the NYC life is exhausting, but completely unforgettable!

Sunday: I allow myself to sleep in a little and recover for Week 3 because I don't have any more weekend days to do so! Sunday is low-key with a morning workout, 3PM rehearsal for my acting scene with Jenn (who is great to work with because we really broke the scene down today), and a phone call home! It's great to catch up with the family! My internet is down at my place, so I head to Starbucks and indulge a little in a cold coffee because it's another HOT day. I use the free wifi to do homework and research for the upcoming week. Tess Jonas, a friend who is a member of Group 4 at CAP (and no, no relation to "the Brothers" for anyone who caught that reference), invites me to dinner in Union Square! It was really nice getting one-on-one time with her to get to know her a little more! We talk about all the normal "get to know each other" information and then walk around Union Square for a while. There's so much culture there, and it was a blast getting to know Tess! She's wonderful! I'm getting closer and closer to these amazing people! As I walk home, I call Patrick just to catch up because he is about to take a trip and I'm not sure how much I'll be able to talk to him for a while! As for the rest of the night, it's just been relaxing a bit and doing homework in preparation for tomorrow! I'm excited to keep working and really motivated to not get overwhelmed with the amount of new material we are going to get this week! Week 3 is where we get new stuff, but have to keep working on our old material...so there's a possibility that I'll need to be working on 6-8 songs at once! That's a little stressful/chaotic...but I know I'm capable of it! Here's to a blessed week for everyone!

PS: It's my wonderful mother's birthday tomorrow, July 9th! I'm bummed that I can't be there to celebrate her, but I'll make it up to her when I get back in August! Everyone send her some happy thoughts because she is the BEST and deserves a day that is as exceptional as she is on a regular basis. I love you, Mom!