First Week of Summer Shakespeare

I finally got to start doing Shakespeare this week, and I am thrilled! The company is great, the classes are exciting, and the script is hilarious. Right now, we’re just working on The Deceived; the professional company has yet to arrive, so it’s just the students taking classes and rehearsing.

I met the rest of the Young Company at a little barbecue NDSF threw last Sunday before things really got started. We have 3 guys from Northwestern and one from Ball State who are actually in the show, plus a few others in the shop and stage managing. They all seem really talented and fun to work with; it should be a great summer.

On Monday, we started our classes with Movement, taught by a woman named Gulsh. We are learning Commedia dell’arte for the Young Company show. Commedia is a theatrical style that developed in Italy from improvised performances based around a stock set of archetypal characters. As Gulsh explained, the great thing about archetypes is that they transcend cultural boundaries and our universally recognizable. So far, the things we have worked on are having extremely high levels of energy and commitment, making strong entrances and exits, and building characters from the outside in, meaning focusing on the physicality of characters before their psychology. The class seems like it’s going to be challenging, but I think Gulsh is a good teacher, and she comes off as very excited to work with us. I know that the things I’m learning are going to stretch me as an actor, so this should be a fun process.

Yesterday, we started our other class, Voice. The voice teacher is the same one who was taught it the previous two years, so I already know a lot about the class. It’s going to be great to have it this year though while I’m working on my Spanish accent.

The schedule up until today has been classes in the morning from 9 til noon and rehearsal at night from 6 til 10. The time in the middle of the day is normally time off, but about once a week we have to come in either to work in the scene shop or to help with publicity. Once we get a little further with Commedia, we’ll also be able to use that time for one on one work with Gulsh. Due to the fact that we’re rehearsing an outdoor show and that the sun normally goes down between 9 and 10 at night, they’re changing the schedule a bit so that rehearsal will go from 3 in the afternoon til 9 in the evening.

At this point we haven’t gotten very far with the show. We’re blocking right now, and we’ve made it about halfway through the script. I’ve only did about a scene and a half yesterday. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me playing two characters who are both very distinct and both have the potential to be very funny. According to Gulsh, the nature of Commedia means we have to give 150% or we’ll look like idiots.

On a sidenote, I think it’s funny that I’ve been working for three days and I’ve already been told to watch about five different movies: The Big Lebowski, Enchanted, Marx Brothers movies, Buster Keaton, and Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther movies. Luckily I’ve already seen plenty of Pink Panther.

Hosting New Yorkers

My buddy Nate, who’s going to grad school at Columbia right now, stopped in to South Bend for a bit on Monday. It was really good to see him and his wife. I hadn’t talked to him very much since around Christmas.

On Monday, right after he got here, we headed up to campus and went to the DPAC so he could visit a couple of the Theatre Professors who are here for Summer Shakespeare. One of the professors noticed that I had lost some weight since the spring, which I felt good about until he told me it means I probably need to get resized for my costumes. We also stopped by the the scene shop to talk to the carpenters, and I got to see my buddy John who just got back from studying in France for the semester. After meeting up for dinner with some of Nate’s friends, we came back to the house and played Rock Band with John and his girlfriend. I was a little embarrassed because I didn’t have really much else to entertain them.

Today we had lunch with those same friends and then mostly hung out and talked while Nate’s wife went for a run. It was interesting to hear about what grad school is like for him. It sounds like his first year is going really well, and that he’s pretty happy. Talking with him definitely makes me excited about auditioning for grad school. I guess I’m not exactly sure if that’s what I’m going to do, but it seems likely.

In other news, I just got my schedule for the first three weeks of the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival. I’m going to be pretty busy. This year I’m playing two parts in the Young Company show. We are doing The Deceived, an Italian comedy that was source material for Twelfth Night, and I am playing a horny Spaniard and a stomach-thinking Servant. I’m in the Ensemble for the Mainstage, which is obviously Twelfth Night.

If you’re curious, here is the website for the ND Shakespeare Festival.

Back from Jersey

Well the weekend in Jersey was a lot of fun, and it was great to be able to spend time with Jane. With nothing going on here, I’ve really missed her.

I got in around 7 on Friday night. There was a little bit of delay because of rain, but most of the trouble that was causing was further north, so I was only pushed back by half an hour. Jane’s mom and brother were at the Baccalaureate Mass that night so Jane and I just got to relax and watch Frasier. We ordered Chinese food, because Jane swears up and down that the Chinese in Jersey is better than the stuff in South Bend. An astronomical accomplishment. It was nice to just hang out for a bit, and not get thrown immediately into the family festivities that would follow.

Saturday was the big graduation. Chester, Jane’s brother, had a much nicer ceremony than I did because he had a class of only about 60 guys. I don’t mean having a class that’s a fifth the size of mine makes the ceremony better because it’s shorter so much as it makes the ceremony nicer because you have other options for venues aside from a hockey arena. Chester’s ceremony actually took place in a very pretty little church near the high school.

After the graduation, we went to the party at the Hilton where, apparently, Jane had held her sweet sixteen party. I got to meet a whole slough of friends and relatives that I hadn’t met at Thanksgiving, and luckily for me I thought, the one’s I had met at Thanksgiving were very nice to me. There were probably 70 people at this party, so it was quite the event. The party included a killer dinner, featuring delicious ravioli, and a pretty solid DJ. I wasn’t too sure about breaking out the dance moves for the Baker family, but I think it went over pretty well, and there are actually few times I can get Jane to dance with me for very long, so I was glad that she was up for it this time.

We stayed over at the hotel that night and the next day had a poolside lunch before coming back home. Jane and I had both spaced on swimsuits, so we were only able to put our legs in the water, but it was a gorgeous day, so it was still nice. The highlight of the afternoon seemed to be the man who flashed everyone at the pool in a failed attempt to change from his swimwear (boxers) to his shorts.

When we came back to Jane’s house we did more Chinese for dinner and watched Airplane, then afterwards we played Disney Scene It and then Scrabble with her mom and aunt. It was a pretty wild night.

This morning was my last day there. Jane actually had a test in one of her classes, so she had to go to school. I went with her and was just going to hang out in the library and finish Fool until she was done, but unfortunately I was thrown out of said library long before Jane’s test was over. They claimed that the Library didn’t open until 8, but seeing as it was 7:59 when they kicked me out, I think they could just tell I was up to no good.

Once the test was over, and we got back home, we didn’t have time for much more than lunch and heading to the airport for my return trip.

Overall the trip was a great time, but it was a bummer leaving Jane and coming back to an empty house. I kept getting asked whether I thought Jane’s family was crazier than mine, but I don’t think that her family really had a shot at that. Not in one weekend at least.

Speaking of which I should probably go; I have someone who I need to wish Happy Birthday!

Move Accomplished

I rented a pick up truck from Uhaul on Tuesday, and got a couple of friends to help me haul everything the treacherous nine blocks between my old house and my new house. And by “everything,” I mean three trips worth of stuff. Sounds a little ridiculous right? I think we could have made it in two trips, except for the fact that you really can’t leave anything in the house. I had a bunch of random chairs from Othello that I could have lived without, but of course, I’m sure we’ll use them in the new place.

I spent most of Wednesday cleaning, but I had to take a break to walk downtown and get them to keep the water on in the new place. I’ve had a lot of walking to do since school got out. I think the walk was about 30 minutes, which I don’t think is a terribly long amount of time to get downtown. The drawback is that coming this way has me an extra half hour away from the grocery store and the bank I use, but that isn’t the end of the world either. On the way back from the water office, I noticed a Catholic church probably only ten minutes or so from the house, so I’ll probably go there, at least over the summer.

Today, Thursday, I had the final walkthrough at my old place. I was really stressed about that, probably from a less than ideal experience when we moved out of our rental in Alaska, but it ended up being really simple and low stress. The guy even gave me a ride back over to my new place. On the way he was jokingly giving me a hard time about getting a house from a different landlord, but when I pointed out where my stop was, he said “I didn’t even know this was a student house.” So I think he gets it now.

The new place is pretty sweet. We have four bedrooms, all on the second floor, along with one tiny bathroom. That’s really the big drawback; we’ll have to see how that works out. The first floor is all hard wood. Well, hard wood looking, I’m not sure if it’s legitimate or not, but it passed the sock sliding test that Jane requested. We have a large entry way connecting to a living room area with bay windows connecting to a dining room type area and then a gorgeous kitchen. I’m really excited because this house has a garbage disposal. Not to mention about three time the counter space of the other place. We have porches on the front and back of the house, with a decent sized backyard that’s fully fenced in. Now I just need to get a croquet set! The basement of the house is creepy as hell, but that comes standard with these places; if nothing else, it’s big.

I thought that some of my roommates were coming in this week, but I haven’t really heard much from any of them, so that was clearly a miscommunication. Hopefully they’re not planning on coming in this weekend, because I have the only keys right now, and I won’t be here suckas!

I’m going to New Jersey to see Jane tomorrow. Technically I’m going for her brother’s high school graduation, but I’m much more excited to see her. It should be a really fun trip; I’ve missed her a lot.

And on a COMPLETELY unrelated note:

I rented Throne of Blood, which is Akira Kurosawa’s take on Macbeth, and it’s making me strongly consider dressing as a samurai for Halloween, because it’s probably the only way I could ever sport one of those cool flags. Of course that’s only the plan if for another year in a row I don’t have the bod to get away with dressing as Atlas.

Recent Updates

Right when the Mariners were about to come back to beat the Giants, my computer picked up a nasty a virus that decided it was going to take over. Of course, this occured just past midnight, so there really wasn’t anything I could do about it until the morning. I spent literally all of Saturday at the library chatting with HP support trying to get this thing back up and running; I ended up having to run a System Restore, a process with which I am sadly very familiar.

My computer comes up with a major issue on a pretty consistent 6 month schedule. I got lucky last time; over Christmas break, it picked up this cool new trick where, as fas as I can tell at random intervals, my screen would turn a solid color. Normally it would black out, put I also saw different shades of blue, purple and yellow, which I can only assume were indicators of my computers mood. Now the reason I say that I got lucky, was because this issue was very isolated; it only affected the visuals. Jane and I nicknamed it “going blind,” because everything else kept working, my music would keep playing, and I found out I could even still send IMs if I that window had been open. A quick restart would fix the screen and it ended up being only a minor inconvenience.

Well this time my computer’s biohazardous clock apparently had to make up for lost time, because I had to restore everything to factory settings in order to get control back. So now I’m busy reinstalling, reformating, and updating every application I had before the roll back.

Aside from the fact that the Mariners went on to win that game, there are three positives of this situation:

1) As far as I can tell I didn’t lose data. My papers, spreadsheets and music are still here.

2)  I got a brand-new 30 day “trial” of Scrabble that came when I first got the laptop.

3) My computer no longer goes blind.

In unrelated news, Pandora, the site I use for internet radio has just this week changed their limitations on how many songs can be skipped while listening. This sneaky little change reduces the number of skips I get 12 fold. That’s a pretty big restriction to go unannouced. I’d go into more detail, but I know that Pandora is going to win this battle. It’s just a bummer.

To answer the obvious question: Yes, this is the most eventful information I have to share at the moment.

Senior

Grades came out yesterday, and they were much better than I was expecting. This must be one of my best semesters grade wise, so that feels good. I want them to be even higher next semester though, so I’m really going to need to work hard. I’m pretty sure I’m taking 18 credits again; at least that’s where I’ll start. Depending on how things go, especially French, I might have to drop down to 15.

Job hunt is under way, but no news to speak of yet.

I decided that I have 6 months to try and write my script. I’m hoping to get a lot of work started on it in the summer, but it has to be finalized by December. More details on that to come. I’ve written two scripts in 24 hours, so hopefully 6 months will be long enough to put something together.

Nothing Doing

Summer’s off to a slow start.

I spent most of yesterday cleaning up around the house and such. I went up to the bookstore hoping that I could pick up my Quantum book early, but that place was a mess. They’re restocking everything they bought back at the end of the semester, but apparently that didn’t include the book I need.

Tonight should be fun; some friends of mine are putting together a kickball game at midnight. Then, tomorrow officially starts the job hunt.

Summer

It’s official: I had the last of my finals this morning at 10:30, and I am done with Spring 09.

So far, I haven’t nailed down all of my plans for the summer. I do know that I’ll be staying in South Bend the whole time, save for a trip out to Jersey in early June. I’m hoping to teach myself a little quantum, teach myself a little French, and maybe write a script also. Seems like I’ve got a lot going on for having nothing planned.

My main activity lately seems to be gametracking the Mariners. I’m in the middle of the fourth inning in a game against Minnesota and it’s already looking ugly. It’s nice to see they’re getting all of the losses for the season out of the way early so that the end can be more fun. I think the Irish used the same technique a couple of years back…

New Business: VPI

The Gender Relations Center has started a Violence Prevention Initiative(VPI) this year that has put together several events throughout the semester.

The goals of VPI are to:

1) raise awareness about violence in the local community,
2) increase understanding about global violence,
3) promote the healing of survivors of violence,
4) raise funds for local non-profit agencies invested in violence prevention and service to survivors, and
5) serve as a flagship for violence prevention at other Catholic colleges and universities.

I am a member of on a subcommittee within VPI responsible for planning a VPI festival that we are going to have at the end of the year.  What that means for me is weekly meetings at the GRC with the rest of my committee to brainstorm, plan, and organize for the festival. Right now, I’m not really able to give away any more information, but hopefully the festival will turn out to be a great event.

Other events VPI has put together include a dinner featuring a panel of students and faculty to discuss sexual assault, and a writing workshop for writers to explore issues of gender and violence.

The Trip to Riley

The seven of us left South Bend at 6AM in one of the University’s nicest vans to perform at the Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis. Google Maps was right; the trip only took us about 3 hours, which gave us a lot of time to kill between about 9:30 and our 11 o’clock start time. Luckily we had a few things we had to do to prepare for putting the performance in a space that we hadn’t rehearsed in.

Riley Atrium

Now this picture to the left from the Riley website is actually a great shot of the space we were working in, but as I know from experience, it’s a little difficult to interpret what you’re actually seeing. The door in the center looks like the original facade before an expansion. We weren’t sure if this was the actually the case or not, it might have only seemed like that to us because we’re used to seeing that in the stadium. To the upper left are twin glass elevators; at one point we caught a guy glued to the glass watching our show. I don’t think he knew we saw him. To the upper right you can see balconies on the second and third floors. As the woman from Riley explained to us, some of the kids aren’t allowed to leave their floors, but they were still able to watch us from up there. As you can see from the floor space shown, there really isn’t any good open performance space; the narrow part in the lower right is actually a wheelchair ramp.All the floor space you see in the picture we used as “backstage” to enter and exit from, and we performed in some relatively open space in front of that. There was a smaller triangular space on the other side of the ramp that worked pretty well for an “offstage” so we managed to utilize as much of the space we had to work with as we could. The key element of space that you can’t see in the picture is the fountain that went around two sides of the room, and added such wonderful back noise to the already challenging acoustics.

Our audience was probably about 30, but we also caught the attention of a lot of the staff walking by. Most of the kids were in the under 10 age bracket and had a staff member hanging out with them. A couple of them were in wheelchairs but for the most part they were all mobile and active. A couple of them approached us after the performance to say hi or take a picture with us. They seemed to relly like the performance, not so much the plot or the characters, as much as the fact that a bunch of people in cowboy hats were talking to them, they didn’t seem to know what was going on but they all had smiles on their faces. A lot of laughing at us more than laughing with us.

The fan favorite part of the show was by far the entrance of Buster the Evil Pig. At one point, Buster is trying to count to six, but gets hung up trying to remember what comes after three, and this kid right in front held up four fingers, hoping to jog the pigs memory. My other favorite reaction was from a very little boy, also in the front, who watched the whole show with mild interest, but during one of my lines about “Giant radioactive ants eating and smashing everything in their path and making strange noises from their antennae like AWOOOOGAH! AWOOOOGAH!” he went nuts and got super excited. It was pretty adorable. One of the most bizarre reactions wasn’t from one of the kids at all. About a third of the way through the show, this rando wandered right through the middle of our show and up the ramp, then, noticing one of the props that I had left up there, waved over the woman working there. She wanted to make sure that the staff was aware of the giant red tubes of plastic dynamite that had been so cleverly concealed in the middle of the wheelchair ramp. Luckily the staff was more amused by the woman than concerned about anything s. he wanted to draw their attention to. We couldn’t understand how she walked right through the middle of us without figuring out there was a play going on.

Overall, it was great experience, even though it felt over and done with pretty quickly. I only wish that the acoustics could have been better, but it didn’t seem to effect what our audience thought of the show, so maybe it was for the best.