#callandra olivia

[meandmypagancrew]

Tigers + the descriptions from the LA casting call

[katedites]

Riley Williams is asexual because I say so and she says happy pride! 🖤🤍💜

[dxntloseurhead]

by the way i still wanna know wtf is happening between cairo and annleigh in these scene like w h a t

[thingofnewyork]

One Perfect Moment, Bring it On: The Musical -> Riley, We Are The Tigers

[meandmypagancrew]

[meandmypagancrew]

We Are The Tigers - script breakdown

[katedites]

[katedites]

Anonymous said:

Maybe the tigers with non-pride flower crowns?

Please like/reblog and credit me if you’re going to use them!

[meandmypagancrew]

Make me choose: riley or annleigh (anonymous)

"I’m the best I’ve ever been! This is the only thing I- we ever wanted! This is everyone’s dream, not just mine.”

[meandmypagancrew]

93 days of female characters-

4/10 leading female characters -> Riley Williams, We Are The Tigers

[meandmypagancrew]

hey Katie! hope this isn’t too much of a bother but if you feel like answering - how did the LA Tigers characterizations most differ from the off-broadway portrayals? I know pretty much nothing about the earlier productions and wondered how certain facets of the characters changed/evolved (and I hope you’re doing well!!)

Hi, nonny! Sorry for the late response, I really wanted time to sit with the question until I felt confident that I was answering it in the most honest way I could. So let’s jump into it!

1. RIley

Callandra Olivia seemed more aware of everything than Lauren Zakrin. Like when Annleigh says “He came to propose!”, she still had the “Congratulations!”, and she started it almost as enthusiastically as Lauren, but midway through trailed off when she remembered Clark’s dead. It also felt a lot less pre-meditated. I continue to hold that she came up with the idea during Before the Breakdown to kill them, because you could just see it in her eyes. Also, Callandra was lovely and kind and passionate and... never got all of the words right. For example, in Wallflower one night she said “The type of high school girl who is rarely seen at parties with her pants off”. Also, she didn’t have a knife in the breakdown. 

2. Cairo

Wonu is wonderful, but Jade really seemed like she just... cared more? Which is interesting, because the script had more Cairo quips, but she just seemed to care more about the other girls. What comes to mind is the “God, I have done nothing with my life!” “You won a lot of dressage medals!” “I did!”. The way that line was delivered was very comforting. In my memory, Cairo even has an arm around Annleigh as she delivers it, and it wasn’t snarky at all. Cairo didn’t become the captain in LA, but it would have made so much sense with her characterization if she had. In LA, Annleigh also brought her the phone and she made the call to the police herself, which I really liked because it showed her stepping up and actively playing a part in getting things right.

3. Kate

Kate was not queercoded in LA. She wasn’t explicitly straight, but the idea that was in love with Chess didn’t even cross my mind until I saw Jenny in the role. I don’t have any specific examples of this, it just seemed less like she didn’t want Chess to leave because she was in love with her and more that she didn’t want her to leave because she had spent so long as her best friend that she didn’t know how to be herself without her.

4. Annleigh

Rachel King took things much more seriously than Kaitlyn Frank. The gesture of good will never killed anyone line was added into the workshop, so after LA but before Off-Broadway, which Rachel swooped in to save the day in, and where Kaitlyn is just so bright and sunny and whatnot, that is not the case with Rachel. Rachel said it with a completely straight face, and slowly nodded while she said ‘Jesus’, like she just really seemed to take her beliefs a lot more seriously than Kaitlyn.

5. Reese

The word that comes to mind for Gabi’s Reese is exhausted. Like, in Worst Team Ever, when Cairo stops her from entering, the line “I’m part of the team” wasn’t said with her head held high and drawing on some source of inner strength, or at least pretending to, it was more of a “We’re still going over this?”, like she actually said “C’mon, I’m part of the team.” Like she still desperately wanted to belong and fit in, but she had long since given up hope that she ever would. But also her Captain of the Team was just 10/10 god tier.

6. Eva

Eva did not make an appearance in act one of LA, which gave her a lot more distance from the events. She wasn’t a suspect, more just a bystander, which made her just 100% done with all of this nonsense. There were two lines that I felt describe this best that were cut- after Riley said “Do you really think I couldn’t replace you all with another ‘diversity scholarship’ in two seconds?” she interrupted to be like “I’m maaaaaybe a quarter Puerto Rican?” and after she plays back the confession, she was asked how long she was recording and she said “This whole time. Y’all are crazy.”

7. Chess

I actually was lucky enough to see two Chesses, Cait Fairbanks and swing Katie DeShan, and they had very different takes. Cait’s was closer to Celeste, but Katie. Oh, Katie. I could write an essay on Katie’s Chess. In all the different productions and casts I’ve seen, Katie isn’t just my favorite Chess, she’s my favorite performer from the show. She played Chess as very playful, and she smiled a lot... until Before the Breakdown, which was made so, so much sadder by the way her facade broke apart and you saw how truly deeply miserable she was and how she felt like there was nothing she could control. I had already seen the show twice by the time I saw her, and she just broken my heart so, so much even though you’d think I would be worn out because it was the third time I was seeing it in as many days,

8. Farrah

I was also lucky enough to see a second Farrah, but her characterization didn’t differ much so we don’t need to focus in one that. But up above, where I said Cairo was a lot more empathetic? Farrah was way less. I think the biggest thing for her was that the failed stunt didn’t exist, so there was no explanation for why she felt like the team wasn’t supporting her or that she would always be linked to what she already was and would never be anything better. Also, Cairo’s line Off-Broadway of “Is [Farrah] raiding Riley’s parents’ liquor cabinet again?” would actually have been based in truth if the line was there in LA because that was exactly what she was doing, she had found the alcohol in the house and was sitting on the kitchen floor, drinking it straight from the bottle.

9 & 10. Clark and Mattie

Did technically exist and that’s about all I can tell you about them because there wasn’t anything they did that stood out enough to stay with me still.

[dxntloseurhead]

today i learned that callandra olivia (LA riley) has played bonnie parker

[thingofnewyork]

Callandra Olivia as Riley in We Are The Tigers.

I don’t want to wonder who might I have been. I don’t want to wonder, I just want to win!

[thingofnewyork]

Watch me, I’ll go out fighting, winning, or die trying. Watch me, I’ll rise from the flames!

Happy closing to We Are The Tigers (October 10, 2015 - November 8, 2015), after an amazing run at the Hudson Backstage Theatre in Los Angeles.

[thingofnewyork]

We Are The Tigers sitzprobe + songs