Today-- work

Today is for getting things done. I have a number of writing projects that I need to buckle down on, and the good start I got yesterday makes me all the more keen to make a dent in them. I finished my Resonance characters and brought them to the meeting, and today I was struck with an idea for another that I can do for the next meeting. I wrote it just now, and I can cross off one of my three. Yay! Heh, I have a funny tendnecy to write one of my assignments immediately after the previous meeting and forget to do my other assignments until the day before the next one. *eye roll*

But now I shall move on to other things. I have a lot of stuff on my list right now, because idle hands are the devil's blah blah blah. My plan is to go home, cook myself a big tasty pot of cream of broccoli soup, and munch this warming brew all day while getting my writing done. My list as it currently stands:

- Work on The Stand
- Write at least 2 more sheets for Resonance by the next meeting on 12/12
- Finish going over my cut of Othello to give to aurora_knight* so that if her proposal goes through she can work with it over the break
- Work on putting together a script for a cabaret-style Shakespeare revue performance put on by a fictional Shakespeare troupe, because HTP seems interested in doing another side project this coming semester

A restful, if unproductive, Thanksgiving

I have been a bad blogger, not writing a single entry over my Thanksgiving break. But the break was so pleasantly low-key and relaxing I just didn't have the drive to do it. After the insanely busy three previous weeks I've had, doing nothing but hanging with my parents, cooking, eating, sleeping, and playing with the dog was all I wanted to do. It was very restful, though, so I hope I can proceed more energetically and productively from here. Merlin is a lovely dog, very gentle and sweet. He was a bit nervous when we first arrived, clutching his little armadillo baby and pacing around, but he calmed down quickly and became our friend. It was very good to have a dog around the house again.

Home, and the ritual of Thanksgiving, is much the same as it ever was-- there was something very comforting about the holiday being the exact same kind of nice as I remember it --except that my dad's beer brewing hobby has taken over large chunks of the space. The basement, which is finished and like another room of the house, was filled with huge cookpots and bags of grain and complicated rig used for boiling the water and transferring it from pot to pot. Werts in glass carboys sat in various locations around the house in plastic tubs with labels on them, covered by cardboard boxes to keep out the light. Dad has something like thirty gallons of beer going, and is really excited to talk about and show people what he's done.

As much as I enjoyed hanging around with the family, there were a number of things I meant to get done, and I didn't work on any of them. The first priority is getting the characters I owe for tonight's Resonance meeting written up. I've got two of my required three finished, but I'm not sure what to do about the last one. I also need to get cracking on The Stand. I got a few casting questionnaires back already, which pleases me immensely, and I hope that now that the holiday is over people will have time for them. But the upshot is I have a lot of writing to do, and I'm slightly annoyed with myself that I didn't use my time off more efficiently. Ah, well, nothing to do from here but go forward, and buckle down.

Travel plans, I hate them

So I am now kind of grouchy with my brother. We are supposed to be going home to Allentown for Thanksgiving tomorrow, which means we will be driving back together. The trouble is that tomorrow is the busiest travel day all year, and I want to leave as early as possible so as to not hit traffic and get stuck in it for hours and hours. The sensible thing to do, and the easiest on me, would be for him to come over and spend the night at Elsinore tonight, so we can just jump in the car in the early morning. But he's got to film a thing tonight and he hasn't gotten packed yet, so he says he doesn't want to. Which means in order for us to get on the road at an efficient time, I have to get up even earlier, drive into Somerville hopefully before rush hour, and pick his ass up before we can even start heading home. Makes things a heck of a lot harder on me. As if I didn't dislike traveling enough already, what with the severe propensity toward motion sickness. Grumble. Ah, well. In return for my allowing this, he has agreed to drive the whole way and not play his music loud so I can catch up on sleep. I guess that won't be so bad, and it will be worth it if we actually do manage to get home without getting trapped in traffic.

SLAW 2010 Report

Am now back from my lovely weekend of larping at SLAW. This was kind of my weekend of "games I am not sure about," since in an effort to expand my larping horizons I signed up for all games that were not to my typical inclining. By and large this tactic was a success, and I had a very good weekend overall.

Friday night Charlotte, April, and I all played in Martha Stewart's Guide to Interdimensional Summoning (and Basting a Turkey.) Fortunately Charlotte had reminded me just before the game that it actually took place at a party and not at a business conference like I originally assumed, so at the last minute I changed my costuming plan. I thought I looked quite nice, wearing my black asymmetric cocktail dress with my white gold anniversary necklace, the nearly-matching silver infinity earrings, silver pumps with the perfectly-matching silver bag, and my silver-gray pashmina over my shoulders. Though I had a good time in it, this game was not to my taste. It was a game purely about schmoozing, with most interactions conducted solely for their own sake, which is totally fine, I just tend to prefer a little bit more plot. I did end up bonding with the demon who had been my childhood imaginary friend, but I did it mostly as a favor to him-- he needed it and I didn't, which I think may have been a common thing about demons and humans in the game. Glad I tried the game, had a nice time, but it was not exactly what I was hoping for.

Saturday morning I drove Charlotte and Ryan in early so that they could play in their morning games. I had nothing in that slot, so I decided to go cruise a nearby thrift store. It was a very nice, well-organized Goodwill, and there were lots of stuff to choose from. Unfortunately most of the things that caught my eye weren't in my size, but I find it amusing how often even in the thrift stores my eye is drawn to items from Express. Very frequently I see something I like the cut and styling of among lots of random pieces on the rack, and when I check the tag, Express is the maker with surprising frequency. I ended up taking home a fantastic black sweater with a drapey fold-over collar, two dressy knee-length skirts, one with an orange and white cloudy pattern and the other with swirls in various shades of red, and the neatest thing of all, a low-sided oval pan with a copper bottom and a stainless steel interior. It needs polishing, but this pan that looks just like it is selling for hundreds of dollars, and I snagged this one for four. Score! I'm not sure what you would call such a thing-- it's oval kind of like a gratin pan but only has one long handle, and the sides are too low for a saute pan --but I look forward to shining it up and cooking with it, which will promptly require shining it again. :-)

Pleased with my haul, I returned to WPI to grab lunch and get into costume for The Sound of Drums. I wasn't sure if it was going to be my cup of tea, and I was fairly certain I would like Two Hours in London, but natbudin* had highly recommended it and I trust the man's judgment. So, in the spirit of the Try New Games weekend, I went for it. My costume wasn't terrible, but it was weaker than my usual standard. Despite playing a sixty-plus-year-old, I did end up wearing my brown tribal-looking bikini with my brown pashmina tied around my waist like a skirt, and Charlotte kindly lent me her huge patterned green scarf to wrap around my shoulders. This mostly concealed all the decidedly-not-sixty-year-old body in the bikini, and I made some attempt to paint age makeup on my face, but I didn't white my hair and overall looked pretty much like the vain twenty-something I am. Also, I think I lost my brown and white headband scarf at the gamespace afterward, which I am annoyed with myself about.

But the game itself was excellent. The world is very full and well-thought-out. I loved my character and was incredibly busy throughout the whole game. I also had great interactions with Susan, who was my brilliant-but-mad younger sister, and Ryan, who was the troubled outsider with the haunting in his soul. I even got to use my badass spiritual strength to beat up a fallen god! It was awesome. The culture they built, with its ways and its norms that were so different and unusual, was really well-made. There was one small instance of "Christianity as the great bogeyman of non-mainstream living" that irked me, but otherwise I thought they did a really nice job of establishing the foreign people. There was also lots of interesting story told, which pretty much makes any game for me. Overall, I think this was my favorite larp of the weekend, and the one I was most glad that I took a chance on. Congrats to Tory and Lily for making it!

Saturday night was Clarence. By this point I was really dragging, energy-wise. This weekend marks the third week in a row of little sleep and poor eating, and I think I am reaching my limit. Luckily for me, Clarence is a game that is impossible to screw up, and I was playing an AGM so I could afford to be reactive rather than active. Fortunately, others were doing a fantastic job of pushing the game along. This run was blackbagged and carried off over the shoulder by electric_d_monk*, whose portrayal of the fanatically German-nationalist GM Bucher drove the events by sheer force of personality. By the end of the run, we had vampires passing on their nationalities as well as their vampirism, resulting in bronzite*'s General and rigel*'s Carmilla being determined to be genetically perfect Aryans who of course must then go on to spawn the Master Race. With the use of the time accelerator to hasten their growth, soon we had six little Ubermensches prancing about named after the Von Trapp children singing songs from The Sound of Music. And naturally, these unstoppable German supermen went on to take over the world and some surrounding planets, leaving Brewer as Kaiser of the Earth and Mars. It was a typically insane run, but the birth of the Master Race, I think, was a uniquely amusing touch.

"Allow me to explain zee rules of Der Kriegspiel."

Sunday lightgamer* was nice enough to let me ride over with him and twilighttremolo*. I was signed up for In the Jungle that day, the final game of the sort I wasn't sure what I'd think of. But I like the work of emp42ress* and simplewordsmith*, so I wanted to see what it was like. My costume was like most of my others this weekend was a little half-assed, since I tend not to keep worn-out clothes around, but I settled on an outfit that when my parents last saw me in it told me I looked like a bum. I figured that would work. It is a game about hobos, a pure conversation exercise where we do nothing more than talk to each other in character. The game was at bare minimum cast, but it was a good one, including myself, natbudin*, rigel*, nyren*, beholdsa*, and electric_d_monk*. Being in it with such good larpers helped a lot, keeping the converstion interesting and helping ease some of the awkwardness I was feeling about just having to spitball. Not something I'm certain I want to do again any time soon, but I enjoyed the experiment in this instance and I'm glad I decided to give it a try.

Now I am exhausted. I have been going at a breakneck pace for the last three weeks and I simply can't go any more. I have been kind of hoping that if I have one day where I sleep really well and eat properly it will fix my weariness and the mess my digestive system has been in, but I think I need a more consistent effort to really fix things up. Wednesday I will be going home for Thanksgiving with my brother, and I'm hoping to reset myself over that break with healthy eating and enough rest. I have things I need to get done in the near future, such as writing more Resonance characters and getting out the casting questionnaire for The Stand, but as cool as my activites have been, I think my body needs a bit more of a break before it will feel back to normal again.

Official Festival bid invitation

Hello, lovely larp community!

My name is Phoebe Roberts. As you may know, this next April 8th-10th I will be chairing LARPERCALIA: Festival of the Larps 2011, Brandeis University’s very own free larp convention. This will be our sixth annual event in Waltham, MA, and we want every year to keep getting better. In an effort to get the schedule set down early, I hereby invite anyone who’s interested to submit bids for games they would like to run at our Festival this spring. From now until January we will be accepting bids, and hope to be able to present a relatively finalized con schedule by the beginning of that month.

If you’re interested in running something, please fill out the bid form on the Festival website. If you have any questions about Festival, whether you’d like to run something or just what it’s like to attend, don’t hesitate to e-mail me and I’d be happy to answer anything you want to know.

Here’s to another great Festival, and looking forward to seeing you all in April!

Your loving con chair,
Phoebe

The Stand has filled!

Hooray, The Stand has filled! And not only filled, but with lots of lovely friends and great larpers I am very honored are willing to devote a slot at Intercon to playing my little game. I promise to do my best to make it worth your while. And totally not precast everyone I know... ;-)

SLAW is this weekend, and I totally spaced on costuming for it until last night. So I spent a half-hour before bed digging in my closet and drawers trying to pull stuff together. Martha Stewart should be easy enough; it takes place at a business conference and my character is human, so business attire should suffice. I'm planning on using my red blazer over my white wrap blouse and my black suit skirt. Tights and plain black heels will finish it off nicely.

The Sound of Drums proved a lot tougher. It's a tribal game where we're supposed to dress as if we made our garments out of the things we could gather or hunt, and I was pretty much at a loss. Then I found the brown bikini I wore as Bast, and dug out some of my more earth-toned scarves and pashminas. My first instinct would be to just wear the bikini with the large brown pashmina tied at my hips like a sarong, which would be vaguely in the milieu, but my character is an old woman and I think dressing like that would look way too young. I guess I could white my hair and thrown something else over my shoulders with that to age it up a bit, but it's not perfect. The other alternative is to wrap the brown pashmina around myself like an appropriately crude dress, tying two corners of it behind my neck and then something around my waist as a belt. Not sure what shoes I would use; maybe I'd just go barefoot.

Clarence it probably doesn't matter what I wear, but I'd like to think of something halfway appropriate. I'm playing an AGM, so perhaps "street clothes" appropriate to the period would work. I could wear the long black skirt I bought for the Labor Wars with a nice button-up blouse over it, maybe with the lace shawl over my shoulders.

In the Jungle I guess I need to look like a street kid. I think for that I'll go with ripped jeans, my oldest tennis shoes, and my rattiest sweatshirt, probably the white hoodie at this point. I don't tend to keep my worn-out clothes, except for one set to use for working in like during tech week, so my options will probably be limited on what looks appropriate for this part.

I guess all that's not bad for not thinking about costuming until two nights before.

To Think of Nothing statistical analysis

For my own edification I have analyzed the amount of lines, the frequency of lines, and the amount of stage time each character in To Think of Nothing has to compare the reality to my perception.

"Lines spoken" means the number of sentenses spoken. "Occasions speaking" means the number of times a character speaks before another character speaks instead. "Pages onstage" means the number of pages in the script between the character's entrance and exit. "Line density" means how many lines a character speaks, on average, on each occasion they speak.

There are a total of 702 lines spoken in the play. They are spoken on 339 occasions. The play is 18 pages long.

AGLAEA:

31 lines spoken
24 occasions speaking
17 pages onstage

31/702 lines = 4.42% of lines in the play
24/339 occasions = speaks on 7.08% of all occasions of speech in the play

17/18 pages = present onstage for 94.44% of the play
31/17 = 1.82 lines spoken per page onstage
24/17 = 1.41 occasions of speech per page onstage

31/24 = line density of 1.29 lines spoken per occasion of speech

EUPHROSYNE:

45 lines spoken
29 occasions speaking
17 pages onstage

45/702 lines = 6.41% of lines in the play
29/339 occasions = speaks on 8.55% of all occasions of speech in the play
17/18 pages = present onstage for 94.44% of the play

45/17 = 2.65 lines spoken per page onstage
29/17 = 1.71 occasions of speech per page onstage

45/29 = line density of 1.55 lines spoken per occasion of speech

THALIA:

45 lines spoken
32 occasions speaking
17.25 pages onstage

45/702 lines = 6.41% of lines in the play
32/339 occasions = speaks on 9.44% of all occasions of speech in the play
17.25/18 pages = present onstage for 95.83% of the play

45/17.25 = 2.61 lines spoken per page onstage
32/17.25 = 1.86 occasions of speech per page onstage

45/32 = line density of 1.41 lines spoken per occasion of speech

PALAMON:

71 lines spoken
31 occasions speaking
14.75 pages onstage

71/702 lines = 10.11% of lines in the play
31/339 occasions = speaks on 9.14% of all occasions of speech in the play
13.33/18 pages = present onstage for 74.06% of the play

71/13.33 = 5.33 lines spoken per page onstage
31/13.33 = 2.33 occasions of speech per page onstage

71/31 = line density of 2.29 lines spoken per occasion of speech

ANDROMEDA:

76 lines spoken
35 occasions speaking
17.75 pages onstage

76/702 lines = 10.83% of lines in the play
35/339 occasions = speaks on 10.32% of all occasions of speech in the play
17.75/18 pages = present onstage for 98.61% of the play

76/17.75 = 4.28 lines spoken per page onstage
35/17.75 = 1.97 occasions of speech per page onstage

76/35 = line density of 2.17 lines spoken per occasion of speech

SELENE:

85 lines spoken
37 occasions speaking
14.75 pages onstage

85/702 lines = 12.12% of lines in the play
37/339 occasions = speaks on 10.91% of all occasions of speech in the play
14.75/18 pages = present onstage for 81.94% of the play

85/14.75 = 5.76 lines spoken per page onstage
37/14.75 = 2.51 occasions of speech per page onstage

85/37 = line density of 2.30 lines spoken per occasion of speech

DAMON:

115 lines spoken
50 occasions speaking
14.75 pages onstage

115/702 lines = 16.38% of lines in the play
50/339 occasions = speaks on 14.75% of all occasions of speech in the play

14.75/18 pages = present onstage for 81.94% of the play
115/14.75 = 7.80 lines spoken per page onstage
50/14.75 = 3.39 occasions of speech per page onstage

115/50 = line density of 2.30 lines spoken per occasion of speech

CASSANDER:

234 lines spoken
101 occasions speaking
18 pages onstage

234/702 lines = 33.33% of lines in the play
101/339 occasions = speaks on 29.79% of all occasions of speech in the play
18/18 pages - present onstage for 100.00% of the play

234/18 = 13.00 lines spoken per page onstage
101/18 = 5.61 occasions of speech per page onstage

234/101 = line density of 2.31 lines spoken per occasion of speech

...

Wow. The first thing I noticed is that the distribution of lines was a lot less even than I perceived it to be. I feel like when you're watching or reading it, it feels much more balanced and every character is just as involved as every other character. I'm glad it feels that way, even if it isn't. I knew Cassander spoke more than anyone else, but speaking a full third of the lines in the play? Whoa. He and Damon are the most verbose characters in the play, and I love how even though Palamon has the shortest amount of stage time, he speaks more lines than characters who spend more time onstage, and his line density is just as high as those others-- when he's onstage, he is often the center of attention. :-)

It also goes to show that part size is not a good indicator of importance. Every character is pretty much equally important to the story, and yet they are not equal in amount of lines they speak or number of occasions on which they speak them. I firmly believe this, especially with Shakespeare.

This is probably not interesting to anyone but me, but I find it fascinating to examine.

Getting going on larps



Wrote my first Resonance character yesterday. I feel like I came up with a clever way to represent the concept I chose from the concept list, so I'm pretty pleased with it. My one concern is I'm uncertain whether or not the sheet contains a little more information than is supposed to be revealed at the part of the game when this sheet would be read. I guess I'll find out at the next meeting. I need to write at least two more before then. They're short sheets, so once I have an idea there's no problem, but I need to have sufficiently clever character ideas before I can get started.

I just noticed two more people signed up for The Stand! That brings us up to six men and one woman. I am very pleased by the presence of the names I recognize. Final round of signups for Intercon go live tonight. That means you can sign up for as many remaining games as you want. I am finished signing up for things, as I am already playing two and then GMing too, but I will be interested to see and hear what other people do. Resonance filled up first round (wow, yay!) but I'm excited to see who's going to end up going for The Stand. I think it won't have any trouble filling once things open. Jared thinks he's going to be one of them, so he can help me GM it at Festival.

Which reminds me. I will be making an official announcement about this soon, but I'll give early warning to all of you that I have decided I would like to have a schedule up for Festival of the Larps by the first week or so of January. That means between now and then you should be sending in your game bids through the Festival website. Over the next month and a half I will be assembling the team to evaluate bids, which gives you all plenty of time and yet still gets the schedule up way in advance. So think about your bids, and get them before January!

First Resonance meeting

For the first time in days, today I woke feeling somewhat refreshed. I don't know if I actually slept better or if I'm finally catching back up, but it's good to not get up feeling almost as exhausted as I was when I went to sleep. Still, I plan on taking it easy today. My only responsibility is to see that Jared gets to the airport okay. It was a lovely visit, and so nice to have him around for the show. I'm very pleased with how well we used our time together, him being helpful and supportive when I had to be at the show, and spending quality time together when I didn't. He even helped me with all the chores I neglected in favor of build and rehearsals this past week, so now I am almost caught back up. With any luck he will be back again soon, so I am in a fairly positive mood.

Had my first meeting with the Resonance team last night. I was given the whole rundown of the game and how it works, and I am very impressed with the concept. It was described by emp42ress* as a "choose-your-own-character amnesia game," which means that we won't know what kinds of characters will end up being in the game until the players choose them, and then "remember" more and more about who they are as they make their choices. And in addition to being experimental, it's going to be intense-- the storyline is a real emotional wringer. As always, I am honored to be asked to work with them-- they are such talented larp writers, and they encourage me to expand my horizons into nontraditional, experimental styles that I probably would not have attempted on my own. The writing process for this game is different than any previous one, so I'm excited to try my hand at it and see how I do.

Close of Winter's Tale

Finally Winter's Tale has done. I couldn't be happier with how the process went. I remember Caesar's tech week going very well, but this for Winter's Tale was even better, due to a confluence of lucky circumstances, an abundance of technically skilled people, and the strong sense of camaraderie that has enabled everyone to work so well together. This is certainly one of the best-looking shows we've ever had. The set is gorgeous, the costumes are strong, the lights are more beautiful and complex than anything we've had before, and we worked better together than we have on build for any other show. Even our strike went beautifully.

 Our actors were amazing. Plesser is fantastic, bringing humanity and soul to his character, growing in nuance with every show. To se him working to build a performance unlike anything he's done before was fascinating. Gigi has this beautiful quiet dignity that she brings to roles, a refusal to be compromised and to cave in to adversity. Her firm, upright stillness makes an excellent counterpoint to everything else that happens onstage, giving her an unassailable serenity that draws the eye. Emma's sweetness as Perdita makes me glad to have her in the club. Lenny is unbelievable, funny and fascinating as Autolycus and easily the most fun part of the show. She and Jenna as Clown, who was clever and hilarious, really stole the show. Chris brought warmth and charm to Florizel. Nicole's Paulina was skillful, intense, and powerfully captured the eye. Nati rose admirably to the challenge of his difficult character. And of course, for pure facility as an actress, none of us equal Caitlin. She is so natural, so believable, so talented that she makes it look effortless. Her voice is powerful and conveys so much, her body is held so exactly, her movement is so dynamic and illustrative. To see her filling the stage while so many of the rest of us struggle to keep from physically stagnating leaves me in awe. She is the best of us in so many ways, and I admire her so much.

Now I am extraordinarily tired. I am incredibly happy with how things went, but now I need to crash and recharge. Congratulations to Steph, who has done such an amazing job bringing everything together, and now is inducted into the sacred society of HTP directors.

Signups for Intercon K so far

I have a lot to get done today, so I must be quick. I just wanted to mention that I signed up for Clockwork Cafe at Intercon for the first round and for Snaf U in the second. Clockwork is a Brit game, and not only do those fill fast but also I don't get a chance to play anywhere except Intercon, so I'm very happy about that. I chose Snaf because it's a Brandeis classic that has run a million times and I haven't played it yet, so I didn't want to miss it again, who knows when it'll run next? My Saturday afternoon and evening slots are taken up anyway by GMing The Stand and Resonance, so by the second round my morning slot was all that was left to decide. I think that will be all for me this year. One of these cons, I'm actually going to manage a light schedule.

Jared signed up first for Clockwork Cafe as well, which pleases me because he's never played a Brit game before, and it'll be nice to have a game together. His second choice was Never, Never Again because it sounds cool and he likes the work of Andy Kirschbaum. He'll have to tell me how it is; it really does sound cool. (I have to write that Peter Pan-themed game at some point.) He hasn't decided what to do third; at the moment I think The Stand is his first choice, but I'd be okay with him waiting to play it locally.

Heh. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard or seen on my LJ Friends page "I want to play in the Stand but I'll probably wait for third round/Festival," I would have already paid for my hotel room this year. :-D Thanks for the interest, guys. Waiting until Festival is totally cool with me, but at this point it looks like it'll have to be the all-Stand Festival in order to accomodate everyone. ;-)

Day two of Winter's Tale build

We have a set! I arrived at a little after 1PM yesterday to help, and sadly found that besides Bernie and Plesser only a handful of others had shown up to help. We were a wee bit disappointed in the cast and crew for that, but there was nothing for it except to get to work. The framework of the set was already in place, so the next job was to attach the fronting to all the platforms. That is always a harder job than I expect it to be; it requires somebody to know how to use the router and the jigsaw, neither of which I do, and a lot of careful inching to get the pieces to fit just right. Our small but intrepid band finally got the whole thing put together as more people showed up, who were promptly ordered to attack it with rollers and black paint. It's always remarkable how fast things like this can go when they are swarmed by a large group, so that was finished in short order.

Unfortunately, since the paint got put on later than we'd hoped, the first run on the stage was delayed by having to wait for it to dry. The run went well, for all that there was a ton of starting and stopping to figure out how to adapt our blocking to the stage. The possibilities and limitations of platforms for an actor's physicality are, for me at least, near impossible to internalize without actually working on the set. Fortunately we seem to be properly utilizing the space, and I look forward to tonight's run, which will be expected to go as smoothly as we can make it. I will have to do a mental shift away from my build mentality and get my focus back on acting again.

I am endeavoring to become as theatrically omni-competent as possible. Not only does it make me more useful as a member of the cast and crew, I feel I improve as a director the more I absorb about how shows are put together. It pleases me immensely to look at this set and see how much of the process I contributed to. I built frames, I put on tops, I attached legs, I anchored things together, I affixed fronting, and I was also one of the detail painters working under the director of the lovely Miss Liz Baessler, who served as our scenic charge. It's a very satisfying feeling, to know one is capable, and that if need be I can accomplish so many necessary theatrical tasks under my own power. I also like that people trust me to get so many jobs done right.

The set looks very good now, especially since all the small visual imperfections in the structures are masked by the paint. Painting went very late, but for the most part it was fun because there was music playing and lots of people laughing and singing. Seeing Plesser dancing around after all the long day's work he had put in made me happy in my belly. Not to mention how happy everything was making Steph. :-) Also, when I was painting on the vines over the cobblestone pattern on the set, I was ridiculously pleased with myself for this dual-wielding brush technique I developed. In my dominant hand I held a thicker brush laden with the lighter green base color, and used it to apply most of the vine's shape. In my off hand I had a narrower brush with a watered-down darker green color, and traced over the lines of the light green. Then I went over it again with the thick brush in my dominant hand, using it to blend the two colors together. Though my left hand is by no means as adept as my right, the tracing work was simple enough that I could manage with it, and having a brush in each hand made the application and blending of the two colors go faster. I wonder if any artists work like this regularly. I was absurdly proud of myself for coming up with it.

This afternoon will be all about lights, lights, lights. Focus is the only major job remaining, and I for one am praying that things go smoothly. As I've mentioned, lighting is the one aspect of the theater I feel like I don't know anything about, and I have spent two twelve-plus hour days in the theater, so I am hoping there are enough other people who can be useful in this that I can relax a little bit. I'd like to take a shower and maybe a little nap. Focus always seems to go painfully slowly for me; I remember the one for Caesar seeming to take forever, though I don't remember what the hold up was. This time we have one of the most ambitious lighting plots we've ever had, including DMX-controlled color scrollers. :-) Very fancy! I'm incredibly proud of Bernie for that. There has been a DMX machine in the Shapiro Theater for ages, but it's been sitting unused because nobody could figure out how to get it running. Well, Bernie has been fiddling with it and got it to work. Ha! Good for him. :-)

So we're in very good shape for this point. I am tired but not exhausted as I have been on other builds, and with any luck by the end of today all technical elements of this show will be set and ready to go. Steph, your baby is about to be born. Here's hoping that the rest of this day sees a shower. a nap, and a light plot!

Day one of Winter's Tale build

Build for Winter's Tale has officially begun. We were very fortunate this time around, in that the show in the theater before us was a dance piece that did not have a set that needed striking. I saw the performance, it was pretty and fun. It also meant we had a nice early call of 4PM to get in there and get to work.

As Plesser said, "I'm a big fan of tech week." I love the collaborative aspect of everyone working together, contributing their effort and various skills to help build the show. I also like the chance to make things that I don't normally I get to do. I enjoy making all kinds of things, and where else do I get a chance to put together pieces of wood into useful structures using power tools? I was pleased by the wide variety of tasks I participated in yesterday, including platform-building with screw guns, hemming costume pieces, and cutting gels for the bottom set of cyc lights. I like when my theater experience gets to run the gammut like that; I feel like I'm contributing and learning more and more of the process of building theater.

We got a good chunk done yesterday. While there was no previous show's set that needed to come down, we needed to do a total light strike. I'm always impressed by the people who know their lighting stuff well enough to work on them. I'd always deferred to those with more experience and knowledge then myself, figuring I'd be more useful elsewhere. Helping Charlotte cut out those gels was the first lighting task I'd ever participated in. Perhaps someday I'll have to make a point of actually learning more about it, though I don't want to hold up the process during tech week. Hang was completely finished by the end of the night, and today we hope to get focus done as well.

We also made fantastic progress on build. This is the most structurally complex design (excepting one, but that was our only unsafe set to date :-P) we've ever had, with platforms stacked on top of each other in irregular ways requiring legs of different lengths even within one frame. Plesser is our master carpenter, and he's really doing a phenomenal job and has learned a lot about building a set and leading a build crew. He's working so hard that I'm hoping he doesn't wear himself out. But thanks to his efforts and those of our merry band, everything is built and anchored to the stage. Today will be painting and fronting, something I plan to help with once I can get over to the theater.

I'm proud of Bernie as well. He's seeing to it that people learn how to do these technical tasks for themselves, and doing more in the leadership capacity. He's organized things very well, even working out blueprints of Jenna's set design in a drafting program that also allowed him to make the plot for the lights. He's doing a wonderful job as a leader, and I am pleased and proud.

I'm also proud of Steph. She has done so much planning and worked so hard, and she's now seeing it all come together. I have really admired how organized she was, and how much thought an effort she put into the planning of the show, all the while working to respect and honor her actors and crew. I am hoping she is pleased with the final product; she deserves to have the show of her dreams.

And finally, Jared will be coming up to see the show! For a while he thought he wouldn't be able to make it, but at the last minute he got a flight and he will be here for the weekend. I wish I'd had a bit more notice to plan things; since this is tech week I'm afraid I'm going to be obligated for a lot of that time, and I want us to actually be able to spend some time together. Maybe he'll be willing to help out. We'll see what I can figure out in a couple of days' time.

Glad that something's easy

I like cooking for so many reasons. I like that, since everybody in the world needs to eat, it's one of the few arts that all people can enjoy and appreciate. I like that it helps me remember eating is one of the great joys in life and not a constant assault on my figure. I like how it takes care of people, expresses your love for them, and makes them feel good. But it's also because it's the first thing in ages that as soon as I started trying to learn it, I was good at it. I picked it up with pretty much effortless ease, and got fairly skilled at it in very short order.

In the last several years, everything seems to be very hard for me. Everything requires so much work for me these days that I often feel dull and incompetent, like if I were smarter this wouldn't be so difficult for me. Especially since I came to college, I came to really understand what it meant to be the pretty one in most groups, not the smart one. I spend a lot of time wondering why things that are so tough for me aren't for so many other people.

I like cooking in part because it's nice to have one thing in my life that isn't a slog and a struggle. It's nice to just be good at something.

Brain blah

Feeling unfocused and uncomfortable today. I didn't sleep well last night, my body is tense and knotted from the cold, and my stomach is all out of whack. The rainy weather is not helping me. Cannot really manage a detailed coherent entry today, so here are the broad strokes.

Signed up for Clockwork Cafe for first pick at Intercon. Surprised it didn't fill yet. The Stand has exactly one signup, and while I wasn't expecting many in the first round, I was surprised to see that one singup was natbudin*. I figured all my local friends would wait for it to run around here. I'm shocked but grateful. Thanks, Nat! Though I feel in all fairness I should let you know I'm probably going to run it at this coming Festival, if in that case you want to use your signup for something else.

Having such a hard time focusing amid all the busy that I haven't worked on The Stand in a couple of weeks. Really need to get my ass on that. Certainly want to validate Nat's willingness to devote a slot to it at Intercon. ;-)

Stars of Al-Ashtara happens this Saturday. I am excited, but my brain has had trouble getting through the character sheet. I will have to make sure I sufficiently absorb the content by the end of the day tomorrow.

Stupid fogged-up brain can't remember what I did with my wallet. Hope to God's it's just out of place in my room. Heh, whenever I can't find my wallet it tends to be in its proper drawer in my desk, which I never think to look in because I assume I would never be responsible enough to put it there.

Despite everything, however, had an awesome rehearsal tonight. Got to see a lot of scenes I'd never seen before, and I am pleased and impressed. I felt pretty on my game, which surprised the hell out of me, given how I was feeling about everything else today. We're about to go into tech week this Sunday, and I think we're in damn good shape for it. We even got to load in our wood today, giving the shop a good cleaning in the process. Tomorrow I hear they got permission to start getting boards cut. This is awesome, because this means a lot will be gotten out of the way early. The show before us is a dance performance which doesn't have a set, so we'll only have to strike the lights and not the stage as well.

I am going to be ridiculously busy over the coming week. But I am always happy to have these sorts of things in my life, so I guess I can't complain.

Musing on planning curtain call

One of my favorite small pleasures that comes with directing is getting to put together the curtain call. It's akin to a little piece of decadent candy for me; small, not terribly important, but immensely delicious and satisfying. Curtain call exists pretty much solely as a reward for the actors, their moment to be acknowledged for their hard work. I also like using it as a way of deconstructing the relationships in the show, composing it in such a way as to display to the sharp-eyed audience member how the character relate to the plot and to each other. And while I guess I put entirely too much thought into it, but as I said, doing it just so gives me a great deal of pleasure.

Here is my theory of how curtain calls are best organized. There are two factors to consider, order and grouping. Order is the procession in which the actors appear, with the most important characters emerging later than the others. As an actor, I've always found it's really an honor to emerging in the last three waves of bows, with the coveted final one the most ego-boosting of all. If (n) is the number of waves of bowing, the most significant characters tend to appear in waves (n), (n-1), and (n-2). I firmly believe that the most significant deciding factor on where to place people is how much influence they have over the course of the plot. Role size I do feel is a factor to consider, but I find it much less important than plot significance. I would rather a smaller character come out later if they matter more to the story-- or if they are a particularly notable part, like Mercutio or Palamon --than strictly gauge by how many lines they have, or by how much time they spend onstage.

Groupings, as in, what combination of people come out at what time, I feel should be determined by character-relatedness, the similarity of the service they provide to the plot. Obviously characters who feature together and are roughly the same size parts should come out to bow together. But that also means that if they're doing the same kind of thing for the story, even if they don't interact much onstage, grouping them together makes sense. For example, if there are two parallel figures who both provide support to the main characters but don't deal much with each other, I like to have them come out together. Opposites-- such as Edgar and Edmond in Lear-- also make sense.

Let's use the curtain call of Romeo and Juliet as an example. I thought having Frances as Tybalt and myself as Paris come out together and fairly early made sense. Even though our characters don't have much to do with each other onstage, we served the same plot purpose-- immediate antagonism --and our roles were about the same size. By contrast, I felt like instead of having the Nurse come out alone in position (n-1) and Friar Lawrence come out alone at (n-3), they should have both come out together at (n-1)-- again, they had the same plot purpose of facilitating the efforts of the two leads, and had about the same time spent onstage. Sacrificing the solo bow I believe would have been worth both of them moved up to acknowledge their significance by the order.

The solo bow is a bit tricky. Normally I only give it to the most important characters (as in, the primary support comes out at wave (n-1) alone, and then the lead comes out at position (n) alone) but it's also a way to acknowledge the uniqueness of a supporting role. I find it appropriate for the fan favorite in a show, such as Palamon in To Think of Nothing, to get a moment for the audience to express their particular appreciation. Sometimes a compromise can be made status-wise by having certain character come out earlier, but alone. The solo bow is kind of an honor, so sometimes you can balance acknowledgement of two different groups' significance by having the earlier wave contain just one person bowing by himself, and the later wave come out with a group. This is what I did with Horatio; he appeared earlier in the order than Laertes and Ophelia, but he got the honor of bowing by himself. And sometimes you just have a character who doesn't go with anyone else in the show, and simply doesn't make sense in any grouping with anyone else.

For HTP, I designed the curtain call for both of the shows I directed, plus King Lear. I only sort of remember what I did with Lear; anyone who wants to remind me is welcome. It was remarkably difficult to design a curtain call for To Think of Nothing because everybody was pretty much just as important to the piece as everyone else. Hell, everyone being constructs of Cassander's brain, everyone literally IS the main character! So I couldn't use my normal formula there. What I settled on was that it would reflect the depth to which each character penetrated Cassander's thoughts. Which meant that even though Damon and Selene are respectively the second- and third-largest parts in the show (at least by line count), I decided they should be the first to come out.

As a side note, I have always been a fan of the "call out"-- when the actor or actors who came out in the previous wave remain just slightly to the side of center stage and make a gesture to "call out" the next wave and sort of present them to the audience as they take their bow. I have used it in the three prior HTP curtain calls I organized, specifically with the last two waves to emerge, with Claudius calling out Hamlet, Cordelia calling out Lear, and Andromeda calling out Cassander. I like it as a concept because it acknowledges the way actors and characters need each other for their plots to be interesting and their performances to be strong. It highlights the fact that Claudius and Hamlet, for example, need each other for the conflict to be meaningful, and the way Frances and Jared used each other's performance to make their own better. The call out allows Claudius to show his gratitude to Hamlet for that, and keeping Claudius present during Hamlet's bow acknowledges his own contribution. It's a moment where the actors actually get to demonstrate out of character, "And we thank each other for working together." I have never actually used it except between solo bows for the last two characters, as a sort of tribute to the lead and to the primary support, but I can imagine other contexts for it as well. Perhaps between a group that is strongly connected to another group, but who's contribution to the show as a whole is of a different nature.

Maybe I am unnecessary overcomplicating things, but I really enjoy thinking about this stuff. It's fun for me. :-)

The Winter's Tale - Official Show Invitation

With less than two weeks to go, it is time to officially invite everyone to...

THE WINTER'S TALE
by William Shakespeare

Hold Thy Peace's Fall 2010 Show

Directed by Stephanie Karol
Produced by Walter Simons-Rose and Kiernan Bagge
Stage Managed by Walker Stern
Technical Directed by Bernie Gabin

In the Carl J. Shapiro Theater at Brandeis University
November 11th-13th at 8PM
November 14th at 2PM

Admission is free, and dontations are gladly accepted.

Come see me exit pursued by bear. ;-)

The busy marches on

Feeling much better after a good night's sleep last night. I still need a long hot shower and enough mental wherewithal to put an actual outfit together before I'll feel totally normal again. I look like a complete schlub today; will have to change later in the day when I have the brain to do it. Didn't have time or energy yesterday to finish cleaning the kitchen, but I am resolved to finish it today. My bedroom could also use straightening up; whenever I get very busy, the less I attend to things like putting stuff away properly, so the place is uncomfortably out of order.

So with Halloween and the Wrathskeller now behind me, Winter's Tale becomes my primary focus. Despite having finished up with several major activities, my schedule remains packed. I'm trying to keep myself busy; it staves off the gloomies, don't you know. ;-) As of now, less than a week away from the beginning of tech week, I am feeling pretty good about the show and my part in it; despite some kinks with how difficult it can be to get a large group of people scheduled to be in the same place at the same time, the scenes I've gotten to watch are very sharp. We did Act III and the first scene of Act IV yesterday, and at first I didn't really feel on my game due to tiredness, but with a few times through I actually felt like I nailed it. The one thing I really want to work on is my upset when I'm leaving the baby in Bohemia and it starts to storm. I never really felt like I hit on the right level of emotion; I always feel a wee bit flat. I shall have to practice that before we run it again.

Fortunately there is no rehearsal for me tonight. My dad is in town on business, so I will be having dinner with him and Casey. After lunch with bronzite, which I am looking forward to since I have not seen much of him lately, I am hoping to get my chores accomplished, and then spend the evening with the family.

Halloween: success!

Halloween was a smashing success, filled with good friends and delicious food. I was cooking literally all day with the gracious help of katiescarlett29*, and produced five tasty fall-themed dishes-- pear and parsnip puree, squash soup, cornbread, gingerbread, and pumpkin pie --in addition to a spiral-sliced ham that was even more delicious than I hoped it would be. The costumes were also fantastic, highlights including in_water_writ* and 1takejohnny's Harley Quinn and the Joker, morethings5* as Dexter Morgan, electric_d_monk* in the full regalia of a Victorian countess, marigumi* and Matt as Hit-Girl and Kickass, and a Princess Bride-themed group that culiminated in lightgamer*-as-Inigo and nennivian*-as-Rugen's climactic duel to the death. Honorable mention goes to Plesser, in Scooby-Doo-themed scrubs, as Nurse Not-a-Slut (Even on Halloween), RN. And special thanks to nennivian* for decorating the living room. :-)

But now I am well-contented, but ridiculously tired. I was up late straightening up afterward, and had to get up for work this morning. Now I am seriously dragging. I would love to get a nap in this afternoon, but today I have errands to run, family obligations, and rehearsal in the evening, so I may just have to soldier on.