I just noticed I haven't been posting much lately (save for the Feminist Theories responses, which are, as you guessed, coursework). That's because any writing time I've had, I've been working on my script.

It's called "It Adds Up" and it's my senior project. Well, part of it. The other part is to direct it. It's a 10-minute play I wrote almost a year ago that I'm developing into a one-act (30-50 minutes). You can read a little bit more about it in the senior profile I posted earlier this week and in the blog I'm keeping as the reflection part of the project.

Here are some parts of the script. Some I think of as done, others as draft. Let me know what you think!

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Last night I opened the Amazing & Disgusting Talent Show at the Amazing & Disgusting Party held at Antioch's Student Union. My lovely assistant Dylan introduced me, and I introduced myself by saying that Jennifer Saunders once called me a "fledgling contortionist", and that this was my public debut.

Photos. (Click for a bigger one.) (In the second picture you can see Dylan my lovely assistant and Amber my lovely friend.)



Thanks. Dylan for being my lovely assistant. kissmolnar for the tights and shorts; they came in handy after all. Bali for taking the photos. The Coney Island Circus Sideshow for general inspiration. Josh for saying, "That was sick! I just watched you and kept saying, 'That girl needs help!'" ("Amazing" was the general response otherwise.)

Registered for classes today:

Theatre 462 - Senior Project In Theatre

Theatre 396 - The Comic Duo: Theory & Practice (Joint Independent Study with my comedy partner)

Women's Studies 301 - Feminist Theories

SSC 262 - Social Psychology

This term I will:

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from "Inside The Live Reptile Tent: The Twilight World Of The Carnival Midway" by Bruce Caron (text) & Jeff Brouws (photos)

"[Sideshow freaks'] lives were tracked with the same ardor that fans would later show for Hollywood's own freaks: its movie stars. For it takes a parellel heroic to live with either deformity or celebrity in an age of advanced conformity.[...] The freak show's spectacle of human diversity- from physical deformity to ethnographic titillation- fed a voyeuristic hunger in the assembled crowd[...] raised on a daily diet of God-fearing normality."

*

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I imagine people who act or direct regularly and connections they make with other actors or directors. As a mostly backstage worker in the past- there's a connection but it's different, it's much less- I don't know- visceral. Do these connections last? Or do they fade away and become awkward nostalgia, like so many personal connections do with time and distance? How depressing. I am never moving again. Well, eventually.

Do these connections bleed something into us internally, forever effecting our character, our personality, or at least our social self, our perspective? What will my connections from this show become? Will they morph into something else? Can friendships such as these last? Can spiritual siblinghood endure? Does it want to? Do I want it to? How much more cryptic and annoying can I be with this endless stream of questions? Should I rename my blog to indicate said endless steam of questions? Would that inspire me to think of answers? Or just more questions?

The only thing that's really been going on with me lately is theatre. Theatre, theatre, and more theatre. Pity, because now that I've actually got a bit of a holiday, it's the last bloody thing I want to think about. So, really, what else can I say but that?

It's not that I'm sick of it, mind you. It's just exhausting. It's the people thing, mainly. (Plus the theory thing, but that's another post entirely.) I'm too much of an introvert. I disappear a lot. To recharge. I've been used to being able to disappear whenever I wanted to. It's one freedom I always made sure I had. But now... It's still there, I suppose, just not so readily accessible. And even when I leave, my mind doesn't. It's the last thing I want to think about, yet it's the only thing I can think about. Theatre. And people. Theatre, people, and more people.

The weekend before last saw me as the lead role of "Spinning Into Butter" by Rebecca Gilman. (They're making a movie out of it; Sarah Jessica Parker will play my role; I don't know how I feel about that; well actually I do but since it's not nice I won't say it.) Then the Open Stage Variety Show and particularly a sketch that me and Jill as The Pathological Upstagers performed took over the following week. Plus there's a plan for an additional Open Stage event, the last week of class, in another space on campus, as a collaboration between the theatre (well, me) and the Dean of Students and Wellness departments. The show I'm stage-managing is in full-swing-mode. And tomorrow I'm meeting with a fellow student who's putting on The Vagina Monologues next term; I'm directing it. And I must start thinking more about my senior project soon. My advisor returns from Africa next week, we're supposedly having a meeting about it.

So yea. Theatre.

from "Artaud, Grotowski, Brook, Me", a paper for Directing Seminar:

In studying these directors and their philosophies on theatre in class, and in particular during the research for this paper, I have begun to develop my own ideas and ideals and ideology about directing. Though, the only chance I have had to apply them is as one half of The Pathological Upstagers, a comedy duo which features as the other half fellow theatre student Jill Summerville. I feel that, in the creation and execution of our sketches traces of Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski, and Peter Brook have crept through. These traces may have been invisible influences (as many claim: what theatre is not inspired by them?), but by learning about their respective philosophies I have come to understand how they influence and also to allow them to inspire quite directly, using their techniques more intentionally.

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"Salt, sweat, noise, smell: the theatre that's not in the theatre, the theatre on carts, on wagons, on trestles, audiences standing, drinking, sitting round tables, audiences joining in, answering back: theatre in back rooms, upstairs rooms, barns: the one-night stands, the torn sheet pinned up across the hall, the battered screen to conceal the quick chnages- that one generic term, theatre, covered all this and the sparkling chandeliers too."
- -Peter Brook, "The Rough Theatre"

"When Brecht talks of actors understanding their function, he never imagined that all could be achieved by analysis and discussion. The theatre is not the classroom.... The quality of the work done in any rehearsal comes entirely from the creativity of the working climate- and creativity cannot be brought into being by explanations... Brecht recognized this and in his last years he surprised his associates by saying that the theatre must be naive. With this word he was not reneging his life's work: he was pointing out that the action of putting together a play is always a form of playing, that watching a play is playing: he spoke disconcertingly of elegance and entertainment. It is not by chance that in many languages the word for a play and to play is the same."
- -Peter Brook, "The Rough Theatre"

"The function of the image, as Gogol said, is to express life itself, not ideas or arguments about life."
- -Andrey Tarkovsky, "Sculpting In Time"

"Works of art are, as it were, formed by organic process; whether good or bad, they are living organisms with their own circulatory system which must not be disturbed."
- -Andrey Tarkovsky, "Sculpting In Time"

"Open Stage Variety Show opens"
by Rob Calvert
Antioch Record, October 14, 2005

The Open Stage Variety Show, brainchild of student Vanessa the Curator, opened for its first show Friday night. Essentially a talent show in which any form of written, visual, or performance art is free to take the stage, the Open Stage Variety Show was created to include more kinds of art than similar events at Antioch.

"I like to think of it as a kind of open mic night, only better, because with an open mic you just have literature or poetry and maybe some music. But this is music, dance- which is why we want it in the theatre, more open space for dance- we're probably going to have video showings, theatre, improv, anything that can happen on stage," Vanessa said.

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( the full online half of the interview )

Calling All Performers & Actors! Writers & Poets!
Dancers & Movers! Filmmakers & Video-Makers!
Artists Of Any Other Description That Can Be Staged!

The Antioch Open Stage Variety Show

A brand-new performance series devoted to the display of any form of art or entertainment (that can be staged or projected) in any stage of development.

To sign up for an evening or finding out more information, contact Vanessa the Curator. Or, come early on the evening of the show (no later than 7:30) and catch one of our open slots.

Join us at 8pm on Friday, October 7 & 21, November 4 & 18, December 2.
Antioch Area Theatre, Corry Street, Yellow Springs, OH, 45387 (go to site for map)

I registered for classes today. 19 credits.

THEA340: Directing Seminar: John Fleming
THEA310: Approaches To Acting II: Sheila Ramsey
THEA349: Rehearsal & Performance II: Sheila Ramsey
THEA200: Theatre Participation: which will involve teach-assisting Autoperformance, taught by my advisor, Louise Smith
SSC245: Personality: Chris Smith (no relation)
Weight Training

And as usual, I'm doing Work Study in the theatre. My official title this term is Assistant Technical Director. Spiffy! It probably won't change much of what I actually do, it's more just recognition of my abilities. Which is nice.

I will be using many of my Work Study hours to run an open mic night in the Experimental Theatre, every other Friday starting in October. I'll be posting the specifics once I've drafted up actual press materials. But if you're interested in helping out with it, let me know!

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Last night I tech'd (though, technically, there wasn't much tech) Dixon Place's Veteran Series which featured Andy Horwitz (who's running for mayor) and Greg Walloch (who isn't but maybe should be running for mayor).

They were both great to work with, amazingly talented, and, above all, most importantly, to me anyway, funny as hell!

On behalf of the Queer-In-Theory Mostly-Asexual-In-Practice Ladies Auxiliary, I endorse Andy For Mayor!



Read Andy's account of the night (more pictures).
Greg's got a blog, too.

Last year I stage-managed a show for Theater Et Al. I use the term stage-manage loosely. I was basically a glorified stage-hand, running a few cues during the show, maintaining the performance space, and other general pre- and post-show things.

Right now I'm working at Dixon Place, where I'm running full shows single-handedly several times a week, designing the tech, setting up rehearsal schedules, working with artists, maintaining the performance spaces, selling tickets, running the bar, doing office work, computer work... etc. My title is tech intern.

Theatres are random.

(Both places, by the way, I highly recommend checking out if you're in the NYC area.)

Much of the work I’ve done in the theatre this term (and many other terms) falls into the category of thankless and tedious. I can get enthusiastic about things that people dread. And even when other people do it, it’s often half-assed and with a negative attitude. Not that I’m don’t fall prey to such behavior patterns. But, for the most part, I do the job happy and well because I feel happy and well about what I’m doing.

For a number of reasons. One being, I know how much others don’t want to do the job, and how much it needs to get done, and I’m not one of those self-absorbed theatre people that doesn’t care about any other aspect of the theater than what I myself am doing. I see it all. Big Picture kind of thing. The vital importance of all theater work, however degrading or “low skill” (a term which is deeply offensive and classist, but I won’t go into that right now).

The other reason is: I like it! I honestly like doing a lot of the tedious/thankless grunt work. For me, any involvement in theatre is usually enough to make me happy. Being involved in a creative process- even if it’s just padding and paving the way for others’ creativity- really does it for me. When I’m in the zone- which I usually am when I’m doing theatre- there’s no other place I’d rather be.

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