New Day Dawning
Phew! I have managed to emerge, unscathed, from the past month or so of school/Town Crier/life in general, and I suppose those of you who have discovered my new blog and are checking it in hopes of an update (aka Bruce) deserve some kind of summary of the past few weeks. So, here you are:
The main event which has prevented me from updating sooner has been the Town Crier Speaks Festival of student-written one-acts, for which I was the Artistic Director, meaning I oversaw advertising, visited rehearsals, recruited and trained a tech crew, solicited, printed, and posted posters, ordered t-shirts, made programs, alerted the school newspaper, ran cue-to-cue, watched dress rehearsals, taped the performances, and did what I could to encourage the many fabulous actors, directors, and technicians involved in the process. The shows came off fantastically--each of them was very well-done, with strong acting and skilled directing. Friday and Saturday night we sold out and had people packed in the back of the house standing up to watch. We had an avant garde theatre piece which was particularly ground-breaking in terms of the type of theatre done on campus, even our most hilarious plays had some sort of import or at some point made you stop and think, and basically the whole process was a remarkably successful one. I definitely believe it was the best Town Crier Speaks Festival so far, and I was incredibly satisfied. And, although I did hit this weird sickness that seemed to demand I sleep 11 hours a day in order to avoid weird headaches, general achyness, and dizzy spells, I pretty much had the energy and ability to enjoy the performances, which is more than I can say for last year's festival. All in all, a wild success.
In addition to Town Crier, there has of course been school, which has been going very well as well. I'm really enjoying all of my classes, and the reading is always interesting. Assignments have been mercifully notoverly demanding, although I'm hitting a wall in terms of paper-writing, which I am really just pretty much done with, mentally, for the time being. I wish I could just learn the material without having to ramble on for pages about it. You might elevate an eyebrow at my expression of contempt for rambling, especially given what you are currently perusing, and to a certain extent I am in agreement with your skepticism. I think I'm just ready to be finished with obligatory assignments. Hence, my current decision to take a year or two off after graduation before entering grad school or teaching or whatever my next trajectory turns out to be, in order to pursue the writing of some of the screenplays, novels, plays, articles, and books that have been floating around in my head, but trapped, deprived of the free time in which to escape via pen or computer into the world at large. To that end, I've applied to a writing residency in Washington for two months isolated in a cabin in the woods sometime post-graduation, and am hoping to apply to a few more as well to provide the time, solitude, and inspiration necessary to release these pent-up ideas. I'm also pondering other methods of lending structure to this time of freedom to which I am looking forward with appreciation and anticipation, feeling that I have spent far too many years in a kind of frantic perpetual motion which I will be glad to slow or stop for a period of time, before I whirl completely off the surface of the planet and drift into deepest space.
Anything else? Hm, I've seen several plays, including Don Quixote, which was ok, and Vincent in Brixton, which was fabulous. I've met with a few people currently participating in the Teach For America program in order to get an idea of their experiences. I've met with my new Core Group (aka Bible study), which has coalesced this year much to my delight, and which seems to consist of a number of delightfully different and dedicated women really interested in gaining some knowledge of/closeness to God in the process.
And this past weekend, lengthened slightly thanks to the slightly stingy Monday off known here as "Fall Break," I flew down to Dallas to visit my sister Allie at college, which was a wonderful experience. My dad and Pam met us down there as well, and we saw the town and the campus, watched Allie take pictures for her photography project, met many of her friends, saw her new and wonderfully decorated abode, played many fun games including Racko, Taboo, Scattegories, and Apples to Apples, stayed up until 5 or 6 each morning, and generally had a lovely time. I also got to go to four of Allie's classes with her. It was really great to spend time with her, especially since we didn't have much time together over the past summer, and to experience a weekend's worth of her life in Texas.
That's about all for now, but I will try to update this blog more often. Life should be a bit less crazy now with Town Crier over and no other theatre events to speaks of until Senior Theatre Festival next spring. So, check back soon for more updates, Bruce! (And anyone else who might have stumbled in here as well...)
The main event which has prevented me from updating sooner has been the Town Crier Speaks Festival of student-written one-acts, for which I was the Artistic Director, meaning I oversaw advertising, visited rehearsals, recruited and trained a tech crew, solicited, printed, and posted posters, ordered t-shirts, made programs, alerted the school newspaper, ran cue-to-cue, watched dress rehearsals, taped the performances, and did what I could to encourage the many fabulous actors, directors, and technicians involved in the process. The shows came off fantastically--each of them was very well-done, with strong acting and skilled directing. Friday and Saturday night we sold out and had people packed in the back of the house standing up to watch. We had an avant garde theatre piece which was particularly ground-breaking in terms of the type of theatre done on campus, even our most hilarious plays had some sort of import or at some point made you stop and think, and basically the whole process was a remarkably successful one. I definitely believe it was the best Town Crier Speaks Festival so far, and I was incredibly satisfied. And, although I did hit this weird sickness that seemed to demand I sleep 11 hours a day in order to avoid weird headaches, general achyness, and dizzy spells, I pretty much had the energy and ability to enjoy the performances, which is more than I can say for last year's festival. All in all, a wild success.
In addition to Town Crier, there has of course been school, which has been going very well as well. I'm really enjoying all of my classes, and the reading is always interesting. Assignments have been mercifully notoverly demanding, although I'm hitting a wall in terms of paper-writing, which I am really just pretty much done with, mentally, for the time being. I wish I could just learn the material without having to ramble on for pages about it. You might elevate an eyebrow at my expression of contempt for rambling, especially given what you are currently perusing, and to a certain extent I am in agreement with your skepticism. I think I'm just ready to be finished with obligatory assignments. Hence, my current decision to take a year or two off after graduation before entering grad school or teaching or whatever my next trajectory turns out to be, in order to pursue the writing of some of the screenplays, novels, plays, articles, and books that have been floating around in my head, but trapped, deprived of the free time in which to escape via pen or computer into the world at large. To that end, I've applied to a writing residency in Washington for two months isolated in a cabin in the woods sometime post-graduation, and am hoping to apply to a few more as well to provide the time, solitude, and inspiration necessary to release these pent-up ideas. I'm also pondering other methods of lending structure to this time of freedom to which I am looking forward with appreciation and anticipation, feeling that I have spent far too many years in a kind of frantic perpetual motion which I will be glad to slow or stop for a period of time, before I whirl completely off the surface of the planet and drift into deepest space.
Anything else? Hm, I've seen several plays, including Don Quixote, which was ok, and Vincent in Brixton, which was fabulous. I've met with a few people currently participating in the Teach For America program in order to get an idea of their experiences. I've met with my new Core Group (aka Bible study), which has coalesced this year much to my delight, and which seems to consist of a number of delightfully different and dedicated women really interested in gaining some knowledge of/closeness to God in the process.
And this past weekend, lengthened slightly thanks to the slightly stingy Monday off known here as "Fall Break," I flew down to Dallas to visit my sister Allie at college, which was a wonderful experience. My dad and Pam met us down there as well, and we saw the town and the campus, watched Allie take pictures for her photography project, met many of her friends, saw her new and wonderfully decorated abode, played many fun games including Racko, Taboo, Scattegories, and Apples to Apples, stayed up until 5 or 6 each morning, and generally had a lovely time. I also got to go to four of Allie's classes with her. It was really great to spend time with her, especially since we didn't have much time together over the past summer, and to experience a weekend's worth of her life in Texas.
That's about all for now, but I will try to update this blog more often. Life should be a bit less crazy now with Town Crier over and no other theatre events to speaks of until Senior Theatre Festival next spring. So, check back soon for more updates, Bruce! (And anyone else who might have stumbled in here as well...)
posted by the Everyday Anthropologist at 12:20 PM
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