DREAM needs a few more actors!

Remember how I'm going to play Helena in a reimagined version of A Midsummer Night's Dream? Well, according to StageSource we still need a few more actors for meaningful roles! If you are interested in being in a show with me that will have an intense month-long evening rehearsal process during August and several shows after, here's your chance! Here's what the posting stays:


Casting a few final roles in DREAM on Saturday July 7th. Please send headshot and resume to info@AtlantisPlaymakers.com for an appointment. Prep a short classical monologue. Roles available are:

Male - Demetrius, Oberon
Female - Titania
Either - Quince

Please note: we would love to see a Demetrius who is under 5'5" but will consider actors of all heights!

MORE INFO: http://www.atlantisplaymakers.com/
E-MAIL TO: info@AtlantisPlaymakers.com

Adviser meetings went well, projects set

Met with both my advisers this morning to nail down my projects for the semester, and I feel good about them. My playwrighting adviser is going to be Jami Brandli, who I've admired because of both how cool she seems and how young she is to have become a successful writer; she's got to be less than forty, and yet she's one of my teachers. And I've read some of her work, she's really good. I decided to be very frank about the stuff residency makes me struggle with, and she was very understanding, which I appreciated. I will in fact be working on Mrs. Hawking, which excites me. Jami is interested in plays that focus on women's narratives, so I think she will appreciate what I'm trying to do. I also have to write an eight to ten page essay on an aspect of the playwrighting craft that I struggle with. Not sure what that subject will be, but I think the focus on a weakness will teach and improve me a lot.

The other project I am going to do is some kind of comic. My adviser here is a really nice graphic novelist named John Rozum who is giving me a ton of freedom to experiment with the form, which is cool. I don't know what my plot is going to be yet, but I have decided I want niobien* to model for my main character, and I want blendedchaitea* to feature prominently as well. First of all, I think they are lovely girls who I would enjoy taking pictures of. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, I have seen that they are remarkably good at conveying information with just their expression and body language. I knew that about Carolyn from her awesome performance as the pantomime character in Merely Players, as well as when she modeled as Daphne the tree ballerina/wood nymph. But Rachel first struck me when she was a dancer in Charlotte's Nennivia movement piece. Though she never spoke, I was impressed by how she always got across just what she was thinking from her physical expression alone. So I think they will make excellent physical actors to represent characters in a medium where the visual is so important. I'm sure I'll need more people to play other characters, but I know I want to prominently feature those two.

A few days into residency

Residency underway. Not too bad so far. It's rather the way of this whole process that I alternate about every two hours between a feeling of energization for the craft and of despondency over how hard it is to make it as a playwright. Residency does not at all suit my temperament, as I harp on every time, but I'm trying to take the parts of it that do work for me away for my development. It does feel nice to be in school again, to walk down the street to class with a bite of breakfast in hand. Wish I could start every day that way.




We workshopped the first fifteen or so pages of the screenplay for The Tailor of Riddling Way, and I was pleased to find the response was quite positive, even enthusiastic. My classmates found Tom to be engaging and likable, they were intrigued by the mystery of Emma ordering the dress, and wanted to see what was going to happen-- three markers of a solid script right there. The largest issue it had was that my descriptions of the action were overly detailed and novelistic, which in the screenplay form is considered excessive and slows down the reading. That's the cinematographer's job, not mine. But I want a huge part of the theoretical movie's appeal to be, to use a term my cool teacher this semester latched onto, the dressmaking porn, the lush visuals of the couture garment making process. So my urge is to write all the details of that in. But it would make a reader feel bogged down, so I have to find a way to convey the notions without all that text.
As a side note, some other majors issues of the script, which I hope to revise at some point:

1. Alice needs to seem lonelier at the outset, so that it makes sense that Tom's entrance into her life makes her reach out and want to let him in

2. Officer Crier disappears from the middle of the script, and so must be woven in more consistently, since he's one of the three allies Tom makes by the end

3. The last scene needs to have something at stake in order to create tension. Tom has to have something to "pull out of the fire."

Now that I've had a bit of distance from the script, I'd like to work on this stuff.



Charmer in eyeliner

Today I was feeling sad and discouraged. Then I went out to see a play with a charming and attractive former costar who wore eyeliner just to please me. I feel better.

Thank you, friend. <3

Biweekly Theater Writing Challenge #15: No-Context Theater!

This installment of the Biweekly Theater Writing Challenge will involve a piece of No-Context Theater. Inspired by real life, only dramatic! Make of it what you will, and enjoy!

(Two young women sit on a bench, sucking down sodas. A young mother runs through, trying to wrangle her little daughter.)

MOTHER: Lolita! Lolita, get back here!

(The mother drags her daughter off. The girls looks at each other.)

JESS: Quinn. That girl. Her name!

QUINN: Did we hear that right? That couldn't possibly be her name.

JESS: You heard it!

QUINN: Who names their kid Lolita!? So she'll be a nymph when she... doesn't grow up?

JESS: Nymphet, Quinn, get it right.

QUINN: Oh, sorry I used the wrong word, I'm not an expert on the terminology of pedophilia.

JESS: Hey, maybe if more people were familiar the book, they'd know not to name their kid Lolita!

QUINN: Maybe that will save her. Maybe none of the kids will make fun of her because they don't recognize why it's awful.

JESS: Oh, come on, that's the one thing everybody knows about Lolita.

QUINN: So they'll torment her, but their mocking will be really uninformed.

JESS: Okay, how awesome would it be if kids started reading Nabokov just so they could properly make fun of her?

QUINN: Imagine the notes that will get left on her locker!

JESS: Light of my life!

QUINN: Fire of my loins!

JESS: My sin!

QUINN: My soul!

BOTH: Lolita!

(They snigger.)

QUINN: Jesus, Jess. We're quoting a pedophile to make fun of a little kid. We're pervs.

JESS: We're not pervs, we're English majors! And maybe in reading one great book to torment their classmate, they'll be inspired to read other great books so they can better mock other classmates.

QUINN: So ultimately society is improved.

JESS: I think so.

QUINN: That's awful.

JESS: Look at this tangle of thorns.

(QUINN stares.)

JESS: That's a quote too, stupid.

QUINN: Oh, shut up, light of my life.

JESS: You shut up, fire of my loins.

Overwhelmed

Tomorrow my residency week starts, which means the new semester will be on. I am a little nervous for having to be responsible for schoolwork again, especially since I've been feeling like I have too much work at my day job for the amount of time I have to devote to it. I'm only there for five hours a day because I want to make sure I have enough time to get homework done, but lately they'll given me several more sizeable responsibilities. I've been working on learning Open Air, a horrible project management program, and the other day I was sent to Connecticut to be trained on quote generation in Siebel. It's nice to be trusted, but it's getting to the point where I'm starting to have too much to get done in the time I can spend on it. I'm afraid of getting to the point where I start slipping, make my bosses think I'm not doing a good job anymore. The problem is lack of time. But I don't want to take on any more responsible hours while I still have schoolwork to worry about. I think it's time to talk to somebody about it, but I'm afraid that if I say I can't do what they want of me, they'll find somebody who can. It may not be my dream job, but I need something that will accomodate school for now.

Debut of the preppy plaid skirt!

Decided my newly sewn plaid skirt, while technically a mini, is no shorter than many other skirts I wear to work on a regular basis, so I couldn't resist making today its debut. I put a hook and eye at the top of the zipper, but otherwise it is unchanged from the other night. Ensemble, c'est tres chic, non?

I can't believe how well I did with the fit. It sits at my high hip so nicely. I was afraid it would ride up, like another stiff-fabric skirt I have, but it's sized so well that it just clings to the shape of my hips and stays exactly where I want it. Exactly the right amount of ease and everything. I'm sure this is due to the precision with which the sloper instructions have you use your measurements. Though I did alter the pattern by lowering it to hip height, which could have caused a problem, but I guess I was in fact able to logic it out. The instructions are so well designed, even with the myriad mistakes I made in the drafting process, that I would realize right away when I did something wrong because the elegant, logical structure would be obviously disrupted. I was very impressed.

I figure I'll test it with a day of wear and see if it needs anything, like a waistband or a lining. I'm inclined to think not, it's working so well as it is. Seems a little prone to wrinkling; though the fabric is a coarse woven cotton, it has kind of a linen-like feel. But I can sit and stand and move comfortably in it. It lays flat across my front and hugs my backside without clinging too much. The only thing I'm actively unsatisfied with at the moment is the inside is completely unfinished. My seam allowances are just kind of flapping around in there. Makes me wish I had a serger to just securely seal them all up. If I lined it that wouldn't be a problem anymore, but as I said, I worry a lining might make it too heavy, and I don't want to risk screwing it up with a process I've never attempted before. Yeah, yeah, practice makes perfect, but I actually like this garment. Maybe I should save the first try for something I don't care about. But that would mean deciding on some other way to finish the seams.

As with any successful project, now I want to make more things. Too bad I'm so busy today, or I'd spend the rest of the day messing with draping my dress form. I don't know much about draping, but I want to just pin stuff all over it and see what I get.

Daylilies, day 24

My daylilies are coming along!

The little wee one in the middle pot sadly seems to have failed. It must have been a bad bulb, as it never really got started and I treated it the same as the others. Ah, well. I can always put something else in its pot.
I can't wait till they start blooming. Older plants around town are in bloom, and I just think they're gorgeous. I want to have that on my back deck. Mine will be orange, I'm told, which I love, but when I was in Somerville this weekend I saw some lovely ones in red that made me long for pretty flowers.

They're probably not the same species as daylilies, but they're wonderful.

Queen Victoria on linden trees

So this video is currently my favorite thing ever. Maybe because I just did a Victorian show, but I think it's completely hilarious. If a little bit crude.

I made a preppy beige and burgundy skirt!

Oh, my God, guys, I made a skirt! A skirt for which I drafted the pattern myself! And it fits me great and came together nicely despite the fact that I'm still new to a lot of these techniques!

I sized it to fit to my hips instead of my waist, so I didn't have to worry about darts. And I was careful about where my seamlines fell so that the fit was on. I love how it flares out just a little to hug the shape of my hips.

I inserted my very first invisible zipper, which went in okay. Not perfect, I wish I'd gotten the edges closer together, it gaps as the skirt stretches with me as you can see, but it looks pretty presentable. The sloper instructions tells you how to make a waistband, but it looks so nice as it is. The only thing that it might help is the slightly messy top edge where the zipper ends. I may skip the waistband, but I should probably sew in a hook and eye at least.

I even managed to match the lines of the plaid to itself pretty well! At least the horizontal lines. But it doesn't look too weird.

This fabric started life as a valance curtain I got at the thrift store, so I used the finished edges it already had for the waist and hem of the skirt. That happened to work out cleanly, I thought I was at least going to have to make a new hem. The other thing the instructions recommend is a lining, which I may also eschew. It fits so nicely as it, a lining would make it heavier. Also, I've never lined anything before, so maybe I don't want to risk messing up the skirt.

It probably needs a few finishing touches, but I'm really happy with it. I'd like to wear it tomorrow, though it might be a little short for the office. Still, it's so preppy and chic, and my legs have been looking so long and toned lately, it might be a shame not to. ;-)

Gritty Reboots of Great 90s Cartoons dream!

Oh, oh, awesome dreams last night! This is especially cool because I never remember good dreams! Usually only the bad, insecurity-needling ones where my loved ones reject me and horrible things happen! But last night was apparently all about a cavalcade of Gritty Reboots of Great 90s Cartoons! Or maybe more like Gritty Sequels and/or Prequels of Great 90s Cartoons!

One of them was a Gummi Bears prequel show, about when the bears were dying off and being forced into hiding because of the moving in of humans. The bears were kind of like a renegade resistance element trying to figure out how to deal. The main character was a female bear who I think my brain parsed as a young Grammi Gummi, but she didn't look like her, she was a gray bear instead of brown. The other was was like a sequel to Gargoyles, with a mysterious time traveling visitor who looked like Elisa Maza used the Phoenix Gate to bring characters to a space station in the future. I don't remember as much about that one, but I remember my mind being blown.

So awesome. God, I miss the Disney Afternoon. Kids' cartoons were so much better in the 90s. Aw, man. If only it'd also had, like, Steampunk TaleSpin, this would have been the Best Dream Ever.

Getting over that popped button

I popped another button on a pair of jeans the other day. Promptly collapsed into a self-hating mess that I had to dig myself out of before I could be a functional human being again. In order to make that happen, had to think through some things to get myself out of that headspace.

When I was in undergrad, this is pretty typical of how I dressed every day. Jeans (size zero Lucky's) and a shirt short enough to show at least a little bit of midriff. My stomach, obsessed over constantly by me, was one of my best features, and I liked to show it off.

Now I have a day job, in an office with a professional dress code. It's frequent I'll go weeks at a time without wearing jeans, because it would mean going through a whole second set of clothes after work. I don't always want to generate that much laundry. And the whole bare midriff thing in the professional world certainly does not give off a vibe of "take me seriously." But I've also done it less because I've put on weight. I am ever so slightly too big for my old jeans, and while it's mostly okay, I wore them tight enough already that I don't exactly have a lot of growing room. And I hate the muffin top look, the look of being squishy. I am less enthused to show off a midriff that is less lovely than it was before.

I know I'm being melodramatic. I'm still small enough that I still get referred to as "the skinny one" and have people marvel at how child's-sized my clothes are. But I've been thin enough in the past to model underwear. To have those jeans fit like someone painted them on me. And going from that to popping buttons is depressing like I can't express. I look at pictures of my old body, remember how my pants used to fit, and can't help but feel like things have gone a little wrong.

But you know, the more I get hung up on my literal size, the less that size becomes associated with how good I actually look. Which is what I really care about, of course. Yes, I probably have a little bit too much attachment to that little zero on the tag in my dress, but I really just like having nice narrow waist to allow my decidedly non-childbearing hips to seem somewhat full by contrast, and smooth muscle on my tummy. Yeah, well-defined abdominals someday would be nice-- I have a kidney and a liver in near-mint condition if someone would like to trade --but I will settle. And even a little heavier, I need to focus on the evidence of my eyes. Something that can't be quantified in inches or pounds. And you know what? I'm still looking pretty good.

And yeah, I'm looking to drop a little of the extra weight. I'm already working to tone back up. But giving myself a complex about it is not going to help me feel better about my body. Which is what I really want.

Choreography with Charlotte and Carolyn!

Yesterday I went to the Gosman dance studio with Charlotte and Carolyn and had a great time working on the Avengers-themed dance piece idea. I had all these ideas, images of what the dance would look like as I listened to the music, but I was having a hard time figuring out how to externalize those images into something physical. Charlotte and Carolyn were amazing with that. I'd tell them "blah blah random thing I was thinking for this section," and they'd be like, "Oh, what about this?" and bust out some really cool moves that worked both in a practical sense and the idea I was trying to get at. It was a blast, and they are super-creative. They worked together on Charlotte's independent study in dance, and did an amazing job, and they were just as amazing here.

We worked on I'm Alive by Shinedown, which I decided that the arrogant tone could only be suited to Iron Man. I thought it might be fun to have the song show that character bullying the Bruce Banner character into stepping up, getting involved in the hero game. I thought Carolyn would make the cutest Iron Man dancer, and I've already got some great ideas for her costume. But between the three of us-- mostly me babbling semi-coherently, and the two of them translating it into dance --we worked out the first forty-five seconds of the song! And it's good stuff, too. I'm incredibly pleased. We need to work out when we can do it again, because I am feeling incredibly energized to work on this.

Red rose, white rose

Red rose from Moriarty, white rose from Holmes. God, I miss that show.

Oh, hey, a role!

The morning before the first Saturday Holmes show, I went to an audition in a tiny theater in Burlington for a production called DREAM, a slightly redited and reimagined version of Midsummer. I was not really feeling it at the time, I was still a little off from the previous night's migraine, but I already had an appointment, so I went. My default female Shakespearean audition monologue these days happens to be Helena's "how happy some o'er other some must be." I know some consider it gauche to try out with a piece from the show at hand. It has the possibility to come off as angling for a particular role, which I know kind of irks me as a director. If you want to be something in particular, just ask me to consider you for it, okay? Don't try to sneak it in like you want me to think it's my idea. Don't try to manipulate me; I'm the director, I manipulate you. Anyway. I had no brain to prepare anything else, so in with Helena I went. I actually thought I did pretty well, considering I wasn't feeling my best, and promptly forgot about it because of Sherlock consuming my brain.

Got an e-mail a few days later from the director saying she liked my audition and hoped to use me, but that she needed to work out the age ranges of the couples. I was slightly surprised by that-- I was just paired romantically with men older than me in Holmes and that worked fine, and as for younger, well, how much younger could you get than me and still be going to auditions without your mom to drive you? So I didn't hear anything for a while-- again, too consumed by Holmes to much care --until on a whim last night I shot the director an e-mail wondering if she'd made any progress on the cast. I got the response this morning, and discovered that she has asked me to play of all characters Helena, the very part I auditioned with.

I was pleased to accept. It's a good part and a fun one. I never expected and I to share a role! I look forward to being a needy, histrionic mess. And the director asked me not to cut my hair this summer so they can make it look really big and create the illusion of height. She did ask me on my way out of the audition how tall I was, a relevant question for a Helena, and admittedly at five-four I am not quite the "tall personage" called for in the script. Physically I am more a short, dark Hermia-type. And here I was looking forward to chopping it all off in a fit of pique. Apparently I am fated to elaborate product-laden updos in the service of theater. I hope I look like a rock star from the 80s. It'll help give me the whole crazy ex vibe. I imagine the whole experience will be quite different from my last turn in Midsummer, where I spent most of my time crawling around like a forest critter and watching people while they slept.

You may recall that creepy thing sneaking up on Bottom, played to perfection by , is me as Puck several years ago. And hey, guess this whole "Phoebe playing women" thing is catching on! This makes cisgendered role number three for me, and only my second Shakespearean woman after Cordelia.

The rehearsal schedule is short and intense, basically running for the month of August. We are to come with already off-book and go, just like we did with To Think of Nothing. That suits me, as I'll get a little over a month to relax and not worry where my next theater fix is coming from. The performances should be at the end of the month or just after.
All that remains, I am told, is to find me a Demetrius. Apparently they don't have one yet. The director said she wants someone short-- whether that means "short for a man" or "shorter than you, Phoebe" I'm not sure --and to send anyone her way who might want to try out. She's going to be hearing people on July 7th, probably at the same little theater in Burlington where I auditioned, so if any of you vertically efficient gentlemen wish to have the experience of me with huge hair clinging to your leg, I can hook you up with the details.

Staving off the post-show crash with physical activity

Aaaaaand here's that emotional crash I was expecting from the show being over. I had a lovely evening last night with Steph and Jenn, but this morning I woke up with a longing for rehearsal. I've been trying to stave it off with physical activity apparently. It's a strategy that's helped in the past with low points. When I'm sad I want to lay around and do nothing, so getting on a schedule of things I have to do, such as going to work out, helps me immensely.

I was really looking forward to being able to go to ballet class two times a week again, but it turns out that they're going on hiatus for the summer except for a two-week intensive that looked interesting but is pretty far out of my budget. But I've resolved that I'm going to try to dance, at least a little, every day on my own. I've messed around in the the dance studio in the Brandeis gym every day so far this week. Practicing ballet, trying to figure out some choreography. I will be meeting Charlotte this weekend to brainstorm, so I want to have a few thoughts in my head and my tendons loose enough to do stuff!

I've also been going once a week to this little gym place in Waltham for a session with a trainer. It's a pretty intense circuit workout, where you alternate between equal periods of weights and cardio with a one-minute break in between each period for one hour. I hate it considerably less than I would have expected to. Mostly it's been challenging but not insurmountable, which is nice. It's really made my physical strengths and weaknesses stand out to me. My back is a little weak, it tends to get sore and tired quickly when it's engaged. And anything involving my arms is real work. I didn't even realize how noodly they were because I think both my arms and back look pretty good, but apparently there's nothing really there. Is it wrong that I kind of like their waifishness? Whatever. My ab strength, however, impressed even my trainer. My abs are apparently considerably above the fitness level of the rest of my body and I can breeze through most of the recommended exercises for my level at twice the reps. Gee, guess that's what happens when you're that fixated on one particular part of your body. If only I could get rid of the layer of bleh over them so the word could SEE how good they are. ;-) Alas, I continue to dream.

I do think it's helping. Periodically we have to max out on pushups, the wall sit, and the plank, and each time I've managed to do better than my previous time, so at least I'm getting stronger. I'd really like to be losing weight, but my eating habits have been so terrible lately, as they always tend to become as show dates approach, so I'll have to buckle back down. I noticed last night that my thighs are firmer than they've been in quite some time, which is nice. Unfortunately my knee tendons still twang during certain exercises. *Sigh* The hips of a contortionist and the knees of an old lady, as I've discovered in ballet. Is this really all the same body? I think ballet may be very slowly, very slightly helping with that, though, so if I manage to do the dancing and the accompanying stretching ever day like I plan, maybe I'll see real progress. It's a shame that since I'm getting stronger, I won't be going to ballet class. I was just grumbling about how as soon as we get to the hard stuff by the end of class, I'm almost out of energy and never dance as well.

My legs are hideous with about eight zillion bug bites that I got at the cast party-- and I've never managed to do a show without getting bruised --but at least they're getting toned.

Happy birthday, Captain America

Today is Chris Evans's birthday. Though in general I'm not big on birthdays, I'm willing to celebrate any day that this much gorgeous came into the world.

Put it out of your head

Bah. Brooding today over some things. Things I think I get, but wish I were sure I had a handle on. Trouble is, it's the sort of thing I can't really get an answer about. There's no end to it besides the satisfaction of my own curiosity; the answer would serve no one, perhaps even cause trouble. But I hate not being sure of what I perceive, of what I think the deal is. Operating off one's head canon can be fun when writing terrible fan fic, but we all know what happens when we make such assumptions in real life.

Again, it doesn't really matter one way or the other. I should just quit worrying about it, but I am not good at putting things out of my head. I am obsessive by nature, it's a huge part of what makes me a geek, so just quitting thinking about something is very tough for me. I dislike being uncertain. Especially on the off-chance that it helps me determine how to proceed.

A gorgeous contradiction

Whenever new people discover my blog, I get anxious about my content. Should I hold off on the silly nonsense for a while and only post, say, polished writings or serious intellectual musing, so as to convince the new readers that I have worthwhile things to say?

But fuck it, this is who I am. My brain gets eaten by larps, I rant about silly pop culture phenomenons, and I drool over pretty boys. Especially the pretty Avengers boys. Which I want to do right now.

I read a Penny and Aggie comic from a few years ago doing a who's who strip of the large cast of characters. They made a point of explaining how, of the two main sought-after male characters in the strip, one is even hotter because he realizes how masculine he is, and the other is even hotter because he doesn't realize how feminine he is. The strip acknowledges how bizarre this contradiction is. And yet, still true. It makes me think of one of my favorite things about some of my favorite Avengers. Tony and Steve are both fabulous, but in a way they make each other more delicious in their contrast, like the salty and sweet in a chocolate-covered pretzel.

You see, Tony is arrogant, splashy, slutty, a smoking hottie and he knows it. Which makes him even more attractive.



Steve is modest, quiet, a little-self conscious, a smoking hottie and he doesn't even know it. Which ALSO makes him even more attractive.



Yeah, I don't know how that works either. But, oh, how it does. How ever how it does. And I'm not ashamed to think that.

...This entry was friends-only for a while. Thought it best not to overwhelm the newcomers right away. ;-)

"A fitting way to toast a Juliette"

God, I love the Holmes cast. They have this wonderful tendency to go off on long group e-mail chains that meander hilariously from topic to topic. The most recent one was started by our adorable messenger boy/Swiss maid, Juliette, announcing that she got through the English final some of us had been quizzing her for in the green room. This led to all sorts of responses on knowledge and grammar that spanned several languages. Not being fluent enough in anything to contribute well myself, this was the response I devised, which played to my particular strengths:

I've been afraid to toss my hat in too;
I have no words in other tongues like you.
But count my beats and see just what I've got,
As someone who has given English thought.
Perhaps iambs will make, in perfect set,
A fitting way to toast a Juliette.

I'm absurdly pleased with it. Not a bad little bit of verse, eh? Makes that grueling semester of iambic pentameter worth it.

Perfect straw-rasp-black-blueberry pie!

For the cast party yesterday I offered to bring a pie. I wasn't sure what kind of pie, but I'm good at them and let's face it, what kind of weirdo doesn't like pie? Dad suggested berry might be appropriate for the beginning of summer, so I gathered the supplies to make my lattice-topped straw-rasp-black-blue, the showiest pie in my repetoire.

The one thing I was concerned about was that the last few pies I've made have come out a little bit burnt on the top. Not sure what the problem is. It never happens to my mom when she bakes it, because everything she makes is always better, so she had no insight. I didn't want to bring an ugly pie to the party, so I was determined to fix the problem with this one. I made the pie as usual, rolling out the bottom crust to lay in the pan, then filling with the mixture of berries, cornstarch, a little bit of sugar, and a splash of Chambord. Even unfinished as it was, it looked delightful.

The instructions said to bake it at 450 for forty minutes. I popped it in and set the timer for twenty. Then I went about making the top crust. The lattice is so pretty and festive-looking, and it's a lot easier to do than it looks. You roll out the top crust like you normally would, then you slice it into long strips. You lay five of them parallel across the pie, then lift up every other one to lay five more across perpendicular, so that they weave in and out of each other. The effect is lovely and sure to impress.

After twenty minutes, I gingerly pulled the pie and laid it on a cooling rack. Working carefully so as not to burn myself, I laid out the lattice and then brushed it with egg wash so that it would brown. Then I put it back in for the remaining twenty. I confess I kept peeking at it, which you're not supposed to do, but I wanted to stay on top of whether or not it was burning. But to my pleasure, my trick worked, and the crust came out golden rather than black. Here is the lovely finished product.

It went over very well at the cast party and got a lot of compliments. I was especially happy with how many people noticed and enjoyed the fact that it is meant to be a slightly tart pie, with only three-quarters of a cup of sugar for a ten-inch pastry so the tanginess of the berries comes out. It's the best pie I've made in ages, and it came out so well I know I'll have to make more to enjoy this summer. Pie is, after all, the very best form of food.

Study in graphic novels next semester

Just got an email from one of the administrators at my school about my interdisciplinary study. Today she is going to be talking to a professor about being my adviser in my secondary study for the semester, which is going to be about the writing and creating of graphic novels! Last semester I attended a seminar on them during the residency, which alerted me to the fact that they would be an option for my IS. I thought that sounded great, so now I'm going for it. I'm a huge fan of the comic book form, so this is going to be really interesting.

The thing is, I will likely be expected to also provide images to go along with my script, given what a huge part of the medium they are. I can't draw well enough to support a whole comic, but it occurred to me that I might be able to use photographs. I could cast people I knew as the characters and have them model for the shots I would need. I really really like this idea, and I think it would be a lot of fun to do. I don't have an idea for what my piece would be about yet, but it would probably have to be realistic, set in the modern day, to faciliate the kinds of pictures I would be able to take. I have some ideas about the people I'd like to use as models, but of course I'd have to come up with a story first and see who fits the characters that emerge. The idea really excites me, so hopefully I'll come up with something good.

Close of Sherlock

Sherlock Holmes closed to great fanfare and not a little bit of sadness this weekend. I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but I was so happy and proud to be in this show, and I loved this cast. The cast party was nice too, with lots of good conversations, if bittersweet. The process and the people were so great, and now it's ending and we won't see each other all the time. I'll have to fill the time with a new project, but the thought makes me feel bereft.

I am worn, though. Too much staying up late, too much unhealthy eating. Today I am going to take a scaldingly hot bath and soak until I'm a wrinkly tomato. Then I may just cut off all my hair in frustration. I am so tired of starched updos packed full of pins that doesn't even feel like hair when you finally take it down. I imagine I will have a few days of prostration due to exhaustion where I don't feel much of anything except grateful for the chance to rest, but then will go into prostration due to mopeyness over the show ending. Getting into this play helped me out of a growing melancholy, so I hope I can keep that positivity going.

Last weekend of Sherlock

Final weekend of Sherlock Holmes performances begin tonight. In an effort to ward off any more debilitating ill health episodes, I am working to stay calm and hydrated. I mean, it's very unlikely that I'll get another migraine, this week has been weary but way less stressful than the last, but I really don't want to deal with that again.

My parents are coming up to see the show tonight and tomorrow. I'm really happy they can make it. They're even bringing my brother and his girlfriend on Saturday. They missed Merely Players due to scheduling issues, and I haven't acted in a show in a couple of years now, so that's special for me.

Also, yesterday I got to see Erik Potter, Tom Heller, and Lily Hwang, in town for their fifth-year Brandeis reunion. They made a campfire in Sachar Woods and invited me to hang out with them there last night. It was wonderful to see them again, after all that time. Erik actually lives around here anyway, so I need to make an effort to see him more.

If only I weren't feeling so tired. All week I have felt draggy, despite taking naps and going to bed early. Not sure what's wrong, though I know it's been going on since the show ended last weekend. I've even been eating right and exercising a lot. I'm used to bouncing back pretty quickly, but whatever this is, it's lingered. I guess I'll just have to push through.

Mom in the 80s

My dad randomly sent me this picture last night. It's of my mom from approximately thirty years ago, judging by the styling.



God, even with giant 80s hair, she's beautiful. <3

Emotionally unsatisfied by The Hunger Games

Finally saw The Hunger Games last night. It was all right, not badly made, but I had a lot of the same problems with it that I did with the book. I only read the first one, and I was not terribly motivated to read the next ones. The character of Katniss doesn't have much dimension to her besides her steely determination to get through whatever it is she's up against-- survive, really, I guess --and I was really disappointed by how little the story treats with the issue of how horrible it is to be forced to participate in the violence. I feel like the notion of how terrible the violent child-on-child murder for entertainment is gets lost by how both the book and the movie just... graphically provide the terrible violent child-on-child murder for our entertainment. They kind of just handwave the horribleness-- yeah, yeah, this shit's bad, we're much more concerned with finding out how Katniss gets through this struggle and making sure all the right people (ie, the people we have not been led to sympathize with) died. I found it very emotionally unsatisfying that the heroine just sort of... plays the game. Everyone just plays the game. Nobody tries to resist being forced to participate in such a disgusting ritual; they just kind of focus on getting through it alive. No analysis is made, no attempt to strive for a higher moral truth. And nobody ever attempts to deal with the emotional consequences of playing the game-- you killed other kids! For somebody's entertainment! For no reason! And you never tried to resist it, or find some other way out! You're never going to think about it, you're never going to experience the repercussions to your soul? Well, no matter, all the right people die! Except for the ones we like, which we mourn without thought for the, "Well, what did you expect? That's the game!" aspect of their deaths. It's sad because we lost them, but not at all because of the fact that, good or bad, these children are being put through something ABOMINABLE. We liked the cute, angelic little Rue girl, and that big blond boy from District 1, despite being a horribly warped child raised to be a killing machine, we're glad Katniss ices. Again, no thought for the horribleness of being in the situation-- we just kill the baddies and cry for the goodies. A very immature way to approach the situation. The one nod to it was the previous champion Haymitch is now an embittered alcoholic, ostensibly driven to it by the trauma of the experience, but it's never directly referenced.

On the plus side, when did Lenny Kravitz get so hot? Damn, sir. Must be I like him better without the afro. And the gold eyeshadow. Man, did he rock the gold eyeshadow.

Rewriting Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure

As much as I've enjoyed being in Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, I think I mentioned that I had problems with the structure of the script. Even ignoring how I honestly don't believe Holmes as Doyle wrote him is capable of falling in love with anyone, and therefore would never cast his admiration for Irene Adler as romantic in any way, I think that even taking that for granted as the play does have a number of inconsistencies that irk me from a writer's standpoint. As I read it I couldn't help but think if I tried to hand in this piece for schoolwork, my teacher would get on my case for every single one of them.

The biggest issue I take is the idea that Irene Adler is set up as this powerful intellect and a remarkable, mold-breaking woman of considerable personal independence... and yet she bounces from man to man within a very short span of time. I guess you could say that allowing herself romantic freedom is a sign of that independence-- which is how I chose to interpret it in my performance --but it all happens so quickly that it reduces the value of her affection, I think, for it to change and move so quickly. Also it reduces her personal value to that of a romantic conquest for the male characters around her. It's not the most feminist portrayal of a character who is supposed to represent the true value women can have.

But okay, I do get that the way the author Stephen Dietz mashed the stories together, it's kind of necessary for the three romantic connections to exist in order for that story to happen. Two are actually from A Scandal in Bohemia, and then he wanted to connect her with Sherlock Holmes. Fair enough, if that's the direction he has to go in. But there's a big problem even in that. Irene is presented as almost as smart as Holmes-- she's able to see through his disguise and thwart his scheme. But then this small-time con man James Larabee is able to so completely pull the wool over his eyes as to convince her he's a gentleman, and make her fall in love with him? I don't buy it. I don't buy that he could trick her when a much more formidable man could not, and I also don't buy that she would go for him. I mean, I know that contrary to popular literary portrayal, love is not logical, you do not get Love to be vended in exchange for ten tokens of Worthiness, but I still don't think Larabee-- who is portrayed later in the play as something of a chump --could sufficiently appeal to her to make her want to spend her life with him.

So how to fix that? How to keep that structure while making it more believable that it could happen that way at all? I pondered this when I couldn't sleep last Wednesday night after a conversation with Chris, our gallant Sherlock Holmes, and I think I know what I would do. I would move the Larabee character out of the position of conning Irene and put Moriarty in his place. I would make Moriarty the one who took on the persona of Godfrey Norton in order to charm Irene and get the photograph from her.

I bet that idea surprises some of you. But hear me out. I swear it's not because of my slight crush on the actor playing him. ;-) Despite the fact that Moriarty appears (barely) in like two stories, he is at least stated to be Holmes' arch nemesis, as formidable a criminal as Holmes is a detective. In this play in particular, Holmes and Moriarty are very much set up as two sides of the same coin. I would believe that, if a man like Sherlock Holmes would attract Irene, a man as similar to him as James Moriarty is would make sense to also win her heart. That consistency in there makes Irene's string of romantic entanglements a little less unbelievable to me. Also, by making the two of them literally romantic rivals in that they are both serious contenders for the same remarkable woman's affection, the dichotomy between them is strongly underscored.

Also, I like the idea that you could have Holmes trying to figure out where Moriarty is in all this, how he has the intelligence he has and how he has managed to gather data on Holmes's own involvement. It would make for a pretty cool reveal when he learns that it's all because Moriarty is right there in the thick of it the whole time, aware of Irene's activity because he is seeing it with his own eyes, even influencing it because of the hold he's gotten over her. Keep in mind, Holmes and Moriarty have never actually met, so they wouldn't know each other by sight, so the audience could even see Moriarty posing as Norton and never realize who he is until he dramatically reveals it.

The one thing you would lose in this schema is the admittedly pretty cool idea that Moriarty never directly involves himself in his criminal activities, which is what makes him so difficult to catch and convict. That is a one of the few things you can genuinely point to in what little literature exists on him that is an intrinsic part of his character. But I would sacrifice that just this one time in trade for all the other cool things that arise from placing Moriarty in that role.

It would change a lot about the rest of the show, for certain. I would probably cut the character of Madge the maid and just have Larabee and Prince as Moriarty's henchmen. Making the overall scheme work again would necessitate some rewriting. But I like the idea that once his identity is revealed, Moriarty can mock Holmes for having won the woman that Holmes has come to love, and taunt Irene for her womanish weakness at being so easily taken in. It makes things more personal, and more believable given the nature of the characters.

Ah, well. It's kind of a pointless exercise. But it has certainly preoccupied me. And given the fact that I'm trying to write a reasonable Holmesian mystery adventure in Mrs. Hawking, this could be useful for me. I still need to work out exactly what's going on in that show. I just need to not turn Mrs. Hawking into a rewrite of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure.

The fairest of them all

Kindly given to me by bronzite*:



Damn straight. <3

"You never know what you can do until you have to."

My mother says that a lot. "You never know what you can do until you have to." As someone who in the last few years has had to deal with a lot of things she never had to before, she would know better than most. Of course, I personally think it's just her modest way of brushing off my wonder at how tough she is. But especially for those of us who aren't quite so strong in normal circumstances, what comes out when it matters can surprise you.

We had a great first weekend of Sherlock Holmes performances. Thanks so much to all you wonderful friends who came to see it. But Friday was far and away the toughest night for me to get through, and I'll tell you why. I had a to do list made up of all the things I had to accomplish before my 6:30 call and I was making good progress by around 3:30 when I noticed as I spoke to Steph that I could only see about half of her face. A halo was developing in my right eye, which for me is always the first sign of an onset of a migraine. Three hours before call on opening night, and I was coming down with a migraine. Of all the rotten luck.

Steph kindly made me some tea while I took some Excedrin and tried to plan. One thing was certain, I had to be at the show, and I was not going to screw up my performance of the best role I've had in years. So I slugged the tea and tried to sleep it off, but I woke up about an hour later with my head pounding and my guts rolling. I found my phone and texted Bernie-- "help". He works over at Brandeis so he could get over in just a few minutes. "I know you," he said. "If you're asking for help, you must be in trouble."

He was wonderful, bringing me water and cool washcloths and rubbing my forehead, but I was in bad shape. I threw up five times, could hardly sit up. Bernie called Matt, my director, to warn him that I was sick. By the time six rolled around and it was time to leave, he said that he would drive me. I was nauseous the whole way, but managed to make it without incident. Word of my migraine spread fast, and the rest of the cast and crew was wonderful, sympathetic and encouraging and trying to be helpful. I laid sadly on the green room couch and threw up about five more times. Some of my fellows told me later that they didn't know how I was going to manage to go on. But at a half-hour to places, I dragged myself up, put on my makeup, and made myself appear a reasonable facsimile of an upright, prepared actor.

And I got through. I didn't even screw up any of the myriad costume changes I had to make, thanks in large part to my lovely dresser Stephanie. I'm told the scene where I am pale and distressed from being a prisoner inside my house for several days looked unusually realistic, but largely my performance was where it was supposed to be. I'm very proud of myself for bearing up. And I'm extremely grateful to my concerned and supportive cast and crew, and of course to Bernie, who was a prince, and without whom I never would have made it.

Hopefully next weekend will begin more auspiciously. My parents and brother are coming, as well as some more lovely people. I will do my best to take better care of myself so I am not forced to work through this again. But it's nice to know that I can be a tough little bastard when I need to.