Perspectus

It always feels appropriate to pause a moment and sum up the year behind or in some otherwise to reflect on what has been. (Watching POTC:DMC is optional, mais naturallement!) So, I thought for my own edification, memory not being what it might be, I'd jot down those things that I learned in 2007, in no particular order.

Playing piano in front of others (Seven Ages, Guys and Dolls, Much Ado About Nothing, Bye Bye Birdie)

Boal's Image Theatre and English Process Drama from Emerson College classes. Yay for movement theatre! Huzzah!

How to crochet and make up my own patterns.

How to use the train and T system into and in Boston.

How to use an iPod. (Because I own one! Yay!) And that they're worn a LOT in Boston.

What a mocha tastes like and why my constitution can't take one.

That when I'm burnt out, I can rely on the good folk of our Gaudete community to make all well: to rally the troops, to direct, choreograph, construct, and pray.

That people in positions of power are not to be trusted. That good will and common sense do not always prevail. That years of proof are not always enough. That when money is concerned, it's best to keep an even more diligent paper trail and to be constantly signing and counter signing.

That I can survive injustice.

How to make a powerpoint presentation...that really rocks.

That I really am a good student. And that anyone can survive anything if taken one semester at a time. Even if there is a lot of middle to get through some days.

That if a class is really good, one can wake up at the unreasonable hour of 6 a.m. to catch the early train.

That I don't really have a play in my head until I have its music in my head.

That I can control my singing technique better in the evening than the morning. But that most people don't mind it when I have to fake my way via technique in the morning. And that flat hard palates are my friend.

How the U.S. court system works. And that it seems to be made up mostly of hard seats and looooooong mornings.

That a room can be cleaned if not taken as a whole but in small parts. Tiny goals accomplished are more effective than big goals too daunting to begin.

That giving up your old life can be painful, but that giving up symbols of your old life stop hurting after a week or so.

That grad school is really not like undergrad. And that living out in Marlborough makes it more difficult to bring the differences together.

That it's really nice to have a car with a CD player and great gas mileage. However, it therefore takes a concentrated effort of the will to turn off the pre-recorded music and pray or write new music. But mostly it's really nice to have a car that I know will make it long distances and back.

Sweeney Todd is not as frightening as I had thought. But it's a hard sell outside of theatre crazed folks.

Thirty is not too terribly old.

Sometimes floods in basements can be Godsends. Magnificat and Catholic Answers on-line are also Godsends.

Shakespeare really ought to be played with a very close audience-to-actors distance. Procenium is not the way to go for good old Will.

It's worth it to buy tickets to the So You Think You Can Dance tour. But remember to drink tea with honey beforehand!

I am capable of writing songs that use more than four chords. In fact, I can get downright complicated in my music yet still sound melodic. And that is nice.

It is possible to have a job in theatre that gets left in theatre and doesn't consume one's life.

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I'll write for now. Spent a bit of today with Jules watching season 3 of Buffy while knitting and crocheting (oh, how domestic of us!), sang at Vigil mass, napped, and watched The Princess and the Pirate (great old Bob Hope movie) with the family as we waited in the New Year. Yesterday, I spent some time in the Borders' Cafe figuring out how each of the other princes of the other Twelve Kingdoms were taken by Emourtha (I forget how I spelled it) and how I think I'll be able to weave them into the book form of Tamerin and Isllel. Anywho, praise God! Happy New Year! And close to Happy Epiphany!

Mood: Bon, merci
Music: POTC:DMC, natch
Thought: So let's see what this year brings....

I'd forgotten how grrrsome

Finding a play can be. Or at least, finding a play scene can be. Booooooo, unexpected scheduling of doom! So, being almost-OCD, I've been thinking of what scenes I'd like to do for my directing class this upcoming semester, and I've been leaning towards just condensing Antigone into 20/30 minutes, but I reread Antigone last night and I'm all like: "The only scene I'd want to do is Haemon/Creon and I want to work with female actors - booooooooooo!"

So I think, "Well, what else could I do that's like a Greek play? I could do the Anouilh version of Antigone - a distinct possibility, still, but must get said copy first. I could do Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral...except I've already done a scene from that. When I do that again, I want to do the whole play. I could do Medea, Phaedra...Salome! No no no...."

And then I think, "Well, do I really want to go dark or am I going dark because it's grad students and I can push them more? But do I want to go dark? Perhaps I want to do Wallace's Will - light, fluffy, with a dash of thoughtfulness. Mrwrm. Then I have to write said play. Wilde, perhaps. Something from his oeuvre. Moliere? Maybe? But do I want to go light, fluffy, silly? Hrm...yaaaarsh, I should like to do a sweet comedy. I mean, I'm revving up for Romeo and Juliet, I just mentally redirected Sweeney Todd, perhaps I need something breezy and airy...."

But THEN I think, "Will breezy and airy be the way to go? Again, Emily, you are taking this class to work with older actors to learn how to work with older actors and you can do breezy in your sleep! Any age can do breezy! DO YOU WANT TO DO BREEZY!??!?!?!"

And we are right back at square one. Le sigh. So instead, I will sort papers. And talk to Julie about costume design for Tamerin and Isllel. And let the question of scenes percolate in my brain.

Mood: I go back to school January 22nd? What the...? What am I supposed to do with myself?
Music: Ambient noises
Thought: Actually, Alina's all about putting in sound effects to R&J and, in listening to the movie yesterday, I was very aware of all that the Foley artists had to do and became increasingly impressed with the power of sound.

Oh, and did I mention

That I'm writing writing writing the Twelve Kingdoms Tamerin and Isllel like nobody's business! Huzzah! 18,924 words at present with three more major sections...and this is just the outline! Yippeeeeeeeee!

Mood: Mervellieux
Music: Piano renditions of "Nights in White Satin" because for some reason I just had to have them the other day. Huh.
Thought: Of course, now, I'm feeling all Sable Valentine-y. No! No! Stay strong! One novel at a time! *squeeeeee*

Second Sweeney

So, Jules and I got up earlyish this morning and jogged over to the movie theatre where a) every parent and their child were congregating while b) movie ticket personnel dragged their fingers but c) the woman in front of us gave me two "get six dollars off a movie ticket" coupon for that theatre! We went in to see Sweeney Todd (second and last in theatres for me, first for Jules), which I think went well for Jules right up to the last image (where the good folks' story lines were not resolved). And I realized, again, and more completely, while watching the movie and examining details of it that I'd missed the first time round, that I really am a directing fool.



That is to say, I simply kept watching this or that shot, or these or those choices and saying, "Oh, if you'd only just pushed this!" or "Can't you hear your own pre-recorded voice? Play up this expression!" or "Long shot, long shot! SMASH CUT, sillies!" or "Now, if we'd reblocked it this way and kept that in and added this and filmed it like that it would have said this..." all of which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the film. (Although I don't plan to see it again in theatres...Enchanted on the other hand...!) I did enjoy the film. It's just that there's so much more that could have been done, so much more grace that could have been pulled from it. I love many of the choices Burton made - including almost all of his musical cuts and scene additions - and I love the way Depp's hands are always restless on the hilts of his razors and I love Toby as a little boy and I looooooooooooooove the opening crazy-rush-through-London-a-la-Moulin-Rouge!-CGI-goodness - but there's more, more, more to be done.

*huffhuffsigh*

As it is, I gots me a copy, a good translation of Antigone by Sophocles and am thinking about directing a 20/30 minute version of it, hopefully with only three people. Antigone, Ismene & Haemon. I&H would alterate taking turns being Creon, Guards, Chorus, etc. Antigone would remain herself. I don't know if it would work, but it seems to be forming in my mind. We'll see.

I'm no good at relaxing. After Todd Jules and I went to B&N to look at books that included interior illustration and to jot down those publishers. Jules also got the Writer's Digest guide for illustrators and artists, since she (*gulp!*) is done gone matriculated this spring.

It's odd...everything still feels very...foreign to me. I am here, in my home, with people I know but I feel very foreign. Not necessarily to them, but to my life. I am musical director, but not director. I am a (sometime) substitute teacher, but not a teacher. I am a student, but I do not live at school. I am a daughter but I feel rarely at home. I am a colleague, but to whom; a friend, but to whom; a name and person, known and unknown. I am also writing rather overdramatically - and yet there is a truth underlying the hyperbole.

Cardinal Neumann's prayer sustains me. "He may take away my friends/But He knows what He is about/Therefore I will trust Him." Oh, for Colonel Brandon: "Give me an occupation, or I shall run presently mad." Yet, not an occupation, so much as a vocation. Or again with St. Augustine, "My heart is restless until it rests in You." Hrm. Daily prayer, I think. Yes.

Mood: Pensive
Music: Oh, that Kingdom of Heaven (is it?) movie with Orlando Bloom that was so horrible on film but so glorious on CD.
Thought: Amusement is Julie thinking the jazzy-Narcissus song was for use in the Snow Queen! Silly Julie, kicks are for trids.
Goodness is: Afternoons together.

On the second day of Christmas...

No turtledoves, thank Heavens - but a perfect 4.0 in all my classes! (How in the...?) So praise God!

Thank God as well for the opportunity to sing at Christmas Eve mass and to sing again (duet) with Jules the next morning on Christmas day.

Thank God for being able to write again (I'm 2K short of novella-length for Tamerin and Isllel which has been looooooooong in the waiting) and which, I think, is going to expand easily into novel-length. So I'll have something to send out and get myself back into publishing, which will be nice.

Thank God as well for Julies who bring one out to get sweaters and jeans that a) fit and b) are not worn through. Huzzah!

And now Jules is here to bother me and...ta!

Mood: Joyeux!
Music: Julie's exterior interior monologue
Thought: Julie will work in retail FOREVER (if she keeps tickling me)

Things Like This

Warm the proverbial cockles of my heart. It's interviews like these that remind me what I love about directing, love about working with actors, love about collaborators who become friends. Yay!


Mood: Boo to slushy snow
Music: Mental Johnny Depp singing "Johanna" from guess what musical?
Happy Birthday to: Peter! 17 - good golly!

Silence and the Snow

I love the first blizzard of the winter. Even driving back when it gets down to creeping along to exits, even shifting into lower gear and praying to God that you can make it to your house on unploughed streets, even having final exam/projects (to which one has been looking forward) cancelled and the whole state in a state of state emergency...

I love the first blizzard of the winter.

It's the fact that I'm made to stop. That everything is quiet. That everyone goes home. That everything just comes to a gradual stillness while we wait for the storm to pass. It's that time when the snow drifts, undisturbed, footprint-less, twilight-lit through the trees. It's that time when it first starts snowing and the drafts of snow not yet stuck to the ground swirl beneath car tires reminding you that you're driving over water in another fairy form. It's the explosion, like hyperdrive, like space-stars as the snow and you collide. It's the advance of hazy whiteness, broken only by a sudden grey expanse of restless water, or a line of stalwart black branches.

I love the first blizzard of the winter.

I sleep more. I pick up books. I flip to a good section and then think: well, why not begin at the beginning and read it all right through? I cozy up in bed. I make friends with the blankets. We sit down all together for laughter and a meal. We think of lighting candles. We take out old movies and card games and board games. We live in the same room - some sleeping, some typing, some making cookies, some thinking, some hugging someone else.

I love the first blizzard of the winter.

I do not love my father's JOB, State Street, which is making Dad stay overnight in a hotel. But I am grateful for his every day heroism. And I am sad that our presentations are cancelled, because I was finally courageous enough to show them. But I am grateful for my class. I am grateful that I drove in today so that I could stay through Bob's farewell to us that felt oh so right and reminded me of what flashes of greatness can be found at Emerson. I am grateful for holiday cheer, for crazy Christmas trees, for presents drawn on paper.

I love. I do love. I try to love.

Amen. Alleluia! And thank You! You know what You are about.

Mood: Reflective
Music: "Comptine d'une autre ete" which I have missed oh-so-much!
Thought: Hmmmm, about that early sleep...!

Glory Glory Hallelujah

I have finished, I have finished, I have finished. My project presentation for tonight's class that is. And I think it's super-duper and hopefully it will, in the words of Captain Carrot: "Prod buttock." Anywho, regardless, it is done.

The project/paper is, I think, going to be my senior thesis. Currently it's called "Liminal Mimesis" with a subtitle of "Embracing Theatrical Mimesis..." yada yada yada. Thereby satisfying the requirements of Academia which demand that 1) the title be full of huge, multisyllabic and obscure verbage and 2) the subtitle should be no better and much longer.

If I had my druthers, I'd call it, "Agape" or something much more to the point. But "hey, we should love each other to Heaven!" isn't really the title that my audience can hear right now, so we put it in gobbelty-gook so they can nod their heads wisely and think that I've come up with something truly unique.

As Professor Digory would say: "It's all in Plato! All in Plato! Goodness! What do they teach them at these schools?"

Tee hee hee. OK, well to be fair, the paper is about a specific way of loving each other in to the Kingdom of Heaven that hasn't really been studied, although it's certainly been done. In a nutshell, what I'm proposing is that far from fearing that our actors might take on their characters in real life, we should give our actors the tools they need to examine themselves and their character and make conscious choices about what they wish to emulate. That's still a lot of words.

But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.

Mood: Rushed
Music: Mental mishmash
Thought: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh! The stress! The streeeeeess!

Birdie Beautiful!

Had my first real rehearsal (a double, natch) today for Birdie and...woot! Can these kids sing! In harmony! In tight harmony! In tight chromatic harmony! And roll with the punches of new arrangements! Yay! And can really dig into a character to play a song - while singing well! And can start working on dynamics immediately! Huzzah!

It's goooooooooood to be in theatre again.

Mood: Well, I just spent the past two and a half hours with Mom going over rehearsals and other theatrical/philosophical/theological thoughts - so, very well, thanks!
Music: "Foolish Games" from the Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk playlist
Thought: Tea may be on the horizon for my throat. Sigh.

Tomorrow/Today

Is the first rehearsal for Bye, Bye Birdie and I am flutterfly-nervous.

Mood: Blaugh! *breathebreathebreathe*
Music: Strangely "Across the Universe" - although it's been "The Telephone Hour" for the past several hours.
Thought: Yay for "Rosie" being written in my cheat-sheet book in the right key! Yay for reading chords!