A chance to read.

Nearly a month has passed, and I'm only just getting around to posting on this blog once again.

I think that since the one act play business has come and gone, I've been freed up to work on the other dozen projects that I'd put off.

The Shakespeare festival has me running full steam already, and the kids are looking for my attention. Illness has continued to make its rounds through the family, only delaying all the other projects once again.

My birthday has come and gone. My daughter tells me that in four more years I can order from the Senior's menu at Perkins. Not to worry, I'll get back at her... I'm chaperoning at her next dance!

School board and library board keep moving along, looking for more of my attention.

But what do I look forward to the most? Just sitting down and getting the chance to read.

A music video that even I enjoyed.

As those who know me are aware, I am not a fan of music videos -- and never have been, even though I can remember when MTV first went on the air (egads, am I really that old?).

Once in a very great while I am pointed to a video that I "should" watch for whatever reason, and even rarer I have enjoyed that particular video. Below is one such video.

I laughed and laughed, and was impressed with the choreography. Further more, despite that static position of the camera, i never got bored with what they were doing.

Enjoy.

Where to start.

So much to post, where do I start?

First, I had my first School Board meeting, in which I was sworn in, signed on to two committees, and made a bunch of motions and/or seconds to motions.

Got my first call from a community member complaining about something in the schools.

There are some things going on with my summer job which I can't discuss at the moment, but it has me reading and responding to emails a lot lately. In about ten days I fly to Connecticut for meetings.

I direct the local high school's one act play for the Minnesota State high School League's One Act Play Contest. We've been rehearsing since October, and were planning to do the challenging show, No Exit, by Jean-Paul Sartre. My cast was phenomenal and I really think that they were college-quality. Then, on January 5, I had to let my lead actress know that she could not perform in the show, due to her violating the law. It was a crushing blow for the rest of my cast who decided that they really couldn't perform that show with the understudy. The relationships are key to the show, and to put someone new in, someone that they didn't trust, quite frankly, would be likely reheasing a completely new show, and it's such a difficult show, that we wouldn't have the ability to do it "right."

So I gave the cast three choices: 1)Do No Exit with the understudy going on; 2) do no show at all; 3) do a completely new show in two weeks.

Well, they didn't want to give up, and wanted to do a new show. I went home, did not sleep that night, as I read through every book of plays that I own (and it's a few), trying to find plays that I thought we could do. I brought five plays to my cast, I gave them what I considered to be the positives and negatives to each of them, and then they shared them and read them over the course of a weekend. On Monday, January 8, we met after school and decided on a play... Cannibals, by Heather Dundas. We read it aloud about four times, with different people reading different roles, and at the end of the "rehearsal" period, I announced what the cast would be. We had our first rehearsal January 9. There was no rehearsal on the weekend of the 13th-14th, for various reasons, and the 15th turned out to be a snow day and though some kids showed up at school at 3:30, most did not , so we could not rehearse.

And so, after only eight rehearsals (and much stress on my part, trying to piece together something that resembled a set, some costumes, props, sound effects, and lead in and exit music), we had our sub-region competition on Saturday, January 20.

Although I firmly believe in the talent of my cast, and I had seen each moment of the play done exceedingly well, I had not seen it all together well. And I actually feel that our performance on Saturday the 20th was not our finest.

And yet...



...we took home the sub-section champion trophy (by winning it).

IE7...? NO! DON'T!

Like the fool that I often can be, I clicked the little pop-up from Microsoft asking if I wanted to upgrade my Internet Exlporer to IE7. Sure. Why not.

After two days of a new look, which took a little getting used to, I had other programs that stopped working. I went to reload the other programs, and then I couldn't use Internet Explorer at all. I still had internet access, but I didn't have a program that allowed me to see anything on the internet.

The problem, I read, using my kids' computer, was a little file called "ieframe.dll". I tried downloading a different version of that to a flashdrive and installing it on my computer, but that didn't work at all.

I'm back, and the fix was too easy. So easy I couldn't figure it out (use the "uninstall programs" utility to uninstall "Windows Internet Explorer" and it automatically rolls it back to the previous version).

After chatting with a few people, they all said, "Oh, I heard you shouldn't upload that new version yet."

Well obviously I hadn't heard that!

But now you have.

Theatre and high school.

My friend Kootch directs theatre at the high school where he teaches. He's been doing it for a very long time and he really seems to enjoy it. Bravo.

I'm only in my 3rd year directing the one act play for competition at our local high school, and I am totally frustrated.

In my first two years I have had to replaced a main character each year, shortly before performance time, for different reasons. This year I swore that I'd go with a small cast so that I wouldn't have to deal with such problems. I only have three main speaking roles, and the cast was well assembled, if I do say so myself. The three work very well together and I've been very excited by the acting work they've put together.

There was some initial concern about one of the actors maintaining passing grades in all her classes, but she's sworn that she'll keep the grades up.

Then, last night, I got hit with other news.... One of the performers was arrested on a felony charge ... hit and run with a school bus, driving without a license, driving through a school bus stop signal.

So far it's all heresay, but I have a meeting this afternoon to discuss the consequences.

This, Kootch, is why I'm thinking of not doing high school one act any more. I'll stick to writing 'em. Dealing with this kind of crap every year really sucks.

Head cold.

Just what, exactly, is a head cold? How is different from any other kind of cold?

Whatever it is, I think I've got one. Dripping nose, achiness in the upper back, and sinus headache that is driving me batty. And of course, sleep does not come easily under these circumstances.

I did, however, have a really good rehearsal this afternoon. Ran through the show twice. The first time sucked, but after the notes, the second time was really good. I'm worried about the actor's reaching their peak before tournament time. Fortunately I'll be losing one lead for about three days the weekend before competition. I think this will be a very good thing.

New Year.

Best wishes, everyone, for a wonderful 2007.

A good rehearsal helps.

I've not been greatly thrilled with the One Act Play that I'm directing this year. In part because I'm not crazy about the script, in part because it's a bit depressing, and in part because rehearsals haven't been going real well.

But finally, we had a good rehearsal.

The kids managed to run through the entire show in 31 minutes (the first time they've ever done it in less than 45 minutes!) and completely off book. Energy was high and we even managed to work through some notes.

All of this goes a long way in improving my attitude toward rehearsals.

Say, hey.

I got together with a few friends from the high school days last night. It was good to see some old, but still familiar faces. At least one I hadn't seen in about 29 years.

While some of us stood around in the lobby of Perkins restaurant at 2:00am, I thought "how familiar this is ... a bunch of us hanging out, late." But at the same time, I wondered, "When did we get old?"

When DID we get old?

A page to insult you.

If you've ever had a ken to be insulted by the best, try the link below. this will take you to a page which will insult you with a Shakespearen insult. Click the link there and be insulted again.

http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Shaker/index.html

There's a Theatre Museum?

I read this morning a web artictle from the U.K.'s paper The Stage about a fight to keep a Theatre Museum open. My first reaction was, "There's a Theatre Museum?"

Well of course there is. There's a museum for just about everything. But the fact that I couldn't immediately think of what or where it is, suggests why it is no surprise that they are planning to close in 2007. You would think that a museum to something fairly specific such as theatre would do some kind of advertising in theatre periodicals.

Now, I subscribe to at least four theatre magazines and I've never seen anything about this museum. Being in the U.K. I wouldn't have been able to pay it a visit, but I'd at least be aware of it and have it in the back of my mind for any hoped-for trips.

The fight to save the museum has got some pretty big name support. If you're interested in reading the article and/or signing the petition to save the museum, you can read The Stage article by clicking the link here: http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/15052/industry-heavyweights-unite-to-save-theatre

There is a link on that page to the petition.

JT at Christmas.

I've been hearing many of the songs on James Taylor's new Christmas album getting lots of radio play lately. I've really liked what I've been hearing and can't wait to pick up a copy of the disc.

You can listen and watch a video of one song on Amazon.com by clicking the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/655:654/002-2842960-6893669

Pimp my Nutcracker.

Sometimes I think it's kind of fun that the internet is so chock-full of crap simply because "it's there" and because there are so many people who have nothing better to do.

I'm not sure where I saw this or how I came across it, but for some very odd reason I find a small bit of pleasure playing "pimp my Nutcracker" at: pimpmynutcracker.com

Blogger beta.

I'm logging in to the blog by way of their new "Blogger beta." I have to sign in using their link with gmail.

I don't have a problem with this, but I'm not sure I like the look of this yet ... the dashboard and other back-end features. Is anyone else using the new log-in format?

Star Trek.

TV Land is having a Star Trek marathon.

It's funny... I own every Star Trek episode (from the original series) in some fashion (DVD, Video Tape, Laser Disc, etc) and I don't watch them too often. But if it's on television, I'll likely watch it over just about anything else. Why?

International Shakespeare...finally.

For those of you who may be interested, I finally posted my thoughts on the Shakespeare performances I attened at the Lit Moon World Shakespeare Festival in Santa Barbara, CA last month. You can find it by clicking on "my complete profile" and then clicking "My Theatre Journal."

It was a lot of fun, with some great work being done in Eastern Europe.

A classy kind of thievery.

The idea of art theft seems like something of movie fiction, and a high class sort of crime. But I can't halp but wonder what sort of persons buys stolen art? It's not as though you could display it publicly, and if you can't show off what you own, what joy do you get from it?

The recent theft(s) of Munsch's The Scream, have been noteworthy, and in today's New York Sun comes notice of a Goya painting stolen while enroute from one museum to another.

As an art lover, and someone who has spent more money than I should (or even could) for original works of art, I don't understand art theft.

But don't believe everything you see on TV...

I received a note from the local high school principal congratulating me on my win for the school board seat. After seeing the news on television last night, with me listed as the loser, I settled in to the idea that I had not won.

But... according to the Minnesota Secretary of State's web site, I won by 10 votes.

Election update.

According to one of the local television stations, I did not win my bid for school board member. I lost by seven votes to the candidate nearest to me.

Election Day.

I voted today. Did you?

Actually, not only did I vote, but I brought my 11 year old daughter with me. I figured that she's at the right age to bring along. Training a future voter, is how I think of it. She gets to see that there's nothing difficult to it. She sees me participating.

Hopefully, then, not only did I vote todaty, but I've helped to keep the voting process alive for at least another generation.