#tamingshakespeare tech

And what, you wonder, is tech rehearsal for Theatre Under the Trees like…well, we borrow someone’s backyard, unload three carloads worth of stuff, put up the set, put on costumes, run the show, take off costumes, eat things you cook on a grill, put costumes back on, run the show again, break everything down, and reload it into three cars. Then I come home, notice I don’t have anything fun and semi-healthy to eat that can be dipped in milk, watch Flash friendly TV, and then Gayle goes to bed, I put on last.fm’s Radio FlashCatFlash and transfer pictures from my camera so I can e-mail them as promised to the York Dispatch’s Entertainment Editor. For the finish, I write a tersely worded costume notes e-mail to my costumer, who was the most disappointing part of the day.

It’s sad when the professional lets you down…no costumer at tech (and I asked politely aka begged) and thousands of questions. Gayle has been so busy coping with set, prop and spillover costume questions when I’m dealing with other questions that there really hasn’t been time for music. So we have two more rehearsals to see if we can work incidental music in, we’re ditching the keyboard and Gayle’s going to see if she can get enough up to speed on her clarinet that audiences will be able to hear “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate.”

Grump…but it was mostly a fun day in beautiful weather and lines flowed better the second time through. Costumes that were present and fit looked great. The 8-9 yr old troublemakers actually policed their own behavior after a glitch caused by overexcitement due to beach ball. I think that bodes well for the future (the self policing).

And I really need a producer + a stage manager + a full sized truck, but I have from the beginning. We will manage. It’s what you do when you tour. And Friday, we open and I find myself thinking I might start looking forward to it.

Oh, and wonder of wonders, I have cracked the big horrible awful Kate speech. You see, the thing is, it’s not a polemic about marriage or a declaration about the rights of womenkind. It’s notoriously tempermental Katherina ticking off her annoying little sister and Hortensio’s smug, witchy new wife. And with Bianca and the Widow’s reactions, you just get drawn into the scene instead of hurrying off your small children or thinking, gee philosophy of life is happening. And I am very happy about that.

And here’s a picture to commemorate the day — Petruchio, Kate and Grumio, after the wedding:

SHAKESPEARE + ANIMATION

Will be a trend, after we’re done with robots.

Chuck Jones, legendary Looney Tunes animator, is the subject of a short: “Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood” airing on TCM next week, Tuesday, March 24, 8 p.m. with newly animated sketches he did of his childhood.

PBS is bringing Sir Ian McKellan as King Lear on Wednesday, March 25 at 8 p.m. in most locations. McKellan’s amazing at nearly everything and one of my favorite people to watch as a talk show guest. And as I Google for a link, I am suddenly reminded he went trouserless in the storm scene, which is a bit better than I’d like to get know Sir Ian, but I’ll just look at his eyes if PBS even decided to run it.

One of the best McKellan movies I’ve seen is Gods and Monsters with Brendan Fraser and Lynn Redgrave. Excellent dramatization/fictionalization of the last days of James Whale, the director of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.

PING + 2

Well, when I have something to tell everyone — real or imagined– in my internet universe, it involves pinging it across four services, then adding it manually to the original movie blog and linkedin, although I should be able to ping to linkedin, but I don’t want to spend that much time at either site figuring it out. That’s a lot of pinging plus –not to mention the original upload to myToons and the I should do it soon upload to YouTube…it’s an internet broadband slogfest. I’ve given up the group e-mail at least, so that’s a little less typing.

And did I have anything else to say? Thanks to one of my Twitter follows, spent the evening listening to Blondfire/Astaire and the like on last.fm. One of my favorite songs was in French; must look into a film festival in Quebec (or perhaps Cannes — they have shorts); so much of what I turn out involves no dialogue, just music and comedy, so an international film festival might be the ticket.

Had too much to do this weekend, but finished SPCA holiday auction article and posted new animation so feeling of accomplishment and money eventually due in my bank account for the article. I also sent an e-mail of resignation to my editor. I’m giving up freelancing as of the beginning of the year(yes, breaking news, you heard it here after twitter).

Not only did
1. I get an offer to direct a what I hope will be hysterical version of Moliere’s The Miser in the spring, which will push my Taming of The Shrew preparation up to February or so as now May will be presenting the Miser month, not find and dust off my small but necessary pile of Shakespeare essentials month, but

2. there’s also the completed first draft of a really cool mystery I wrote this summer while under the influence of the Hardy Boys, Chet Gecko (who is Chet Gecko? read Give My Regrets to Broadway and laugh, laugh, laugh) and the nieces and nephews. I’m disappointed that I haven’t found the time to type it into the computer — an essential part of the transformation process. I don’t feel guilty or that I’ve been procrastinating as I have had legitimate distractions, I’m just disappointed. I’d like to see how the next draft turns out, especially as I might be dumping a character — still undecided. Hence need for a newer, better version of the story…and updating my laptop so I can work without the distraction of internet access(yes, you.) And then,

3. well, I tend to obsess and put everything else on hold while doing something and freelancing is neither an effective nor lucrative use of my time — not that lucrative is a make or break point(if I had an accountant he or she would have been sobbing for years; if I had an agent, well, he or she’d probably be making a decent living — creating I can do, selling not so much).

Right, plus there’s my fiendish plan for PROJECT PYE, which I think met with Calvin approval and finishing Jabberwocky (anyone know how you say that en francais?) and the myToons and website redesign.

At the moment, I need a good book and a week off…this may just be possible; keep your fingers crossed. Immediately, I am going to dash off some quick TV reviews and then curl up with LAST Saturday’s FT weekend…or a Chet Gecko (good late night reading).

DROMIO’S WORLD TOUR

Shakespeare’s gift to any actor playing Dromio (from The Comedy Of Errors, Act III, sc. ii, thanks to The Literature Network)

“ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
Why, how now, Dromio! where runn’st thou so fast?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man?
am I myself?

ANTIPHOLUS
Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.

DROMIO
I am an ass, I am a woman’s man and besides myself.

ANTIPHOLUS
What woman’s man? and how besides thyself? besides thyself?

DROMIO
Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one
that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.

ANTIPHOLUS
What claim lays she to thee?

DROMIO
Marry sir, such claim as you would lay to your
horse; and she would have me as a beast: not that, I
being a beast, she would have me; but that she,
being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.

ANTIPHOLUSOF SYRACUSE
What is she?

DROMIO
A very reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may
not speak of without he say ‘Sir-reverence.’ I have
but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a
wondrous fat marriage.

ANTIPHOLUS
How dost thou mean a fat marriage?

DROMIO
Marry, sir, she’s the kitchen wench and all grease;
and I know not what use to put her to but to make a
lamp of her and run from her by her own light. I
warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn a
Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday,
she’ll burn a week longer than the whole world.

ANTIPHOLUS
What complexion is she of?

DROMIO
Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing half so
clean kept: for why, she sweats; a man may go over
shoes in the grime of it.

ANTIPHOLUS
That’s a fault that water will mend.

DROMIO
No, sir, ’tis in grain; Noah’s flood could not do it.

ANTIPHOLUS
What’s her name?

DROMIO
Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that’s
an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from
hip to hip.

ANTIPHOLUS
Then she bears some breadth?

DROMIO
No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip:
she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out
countries in her.

ANTIPHOLUS
In what part of her body stands Ireland?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Marry, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs.

ANTIPHOLUS
Where Scotland?

DROMIO
I found it by the barrenness; hard in the palm of the hand.

ANTIPHOLUS
Where France?

DROMIO
In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war
against her heir.

ANTIPHOLUS
Where England?

DROMIO
I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no
whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin,
by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.

ANTIPHOLUS
Where Spain?

DROMIO
Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath.

ANTIPHOLUS
Where America, the Indies?

DROMIO
Oh, sir, upon her nose all o’er embellished with
rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich
aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole
armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose.

ANTIPHOLUS
Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Oh, sir, I did not look so low.”

ALTUCHER OUTCHARMS AQUILA’S COMEDY(PLUS PIE)

Well, the rough draft started off differently, but it’s been a hectic week starting last Friday, too many days with lunch at 4 p.m., no time to read the day before’s paper and then a Clif Bar (chocolate chip) at 7, and then not bad, but wrong Shakespeare this afternoon (more later), so I stretched out on the couch and turned directly to the Tuesday(delivered on Wednesday) Wealth page of my Financial Times to read James Altucher’s column. And there he was, charming and funny and not at all excessively like anything (especially not anything like the soon to be mentioned Comedy of Groin Kicking Horrors). It made me wonder if I had a budget that could stretch to $27.95 for the buying of his new book, The Forever Portfolio. His chapter titles intrigued and amused me, especially “Bloody Marys, Dividends and the San Francisco Earthquake” and “Bubble 2.0: Women’s Legs and Tatoos.” Yes, mark me down as susceptible to mentions of women’s legs; he later mentions chocolate. I also like his stated goal to help his readers worry less. I could worry less.

Pre column read, I actually checked yesterday at my alternate office to see if they had it in, but it was an order at the info desk item and my order at the info desk limit is $10 or so. Next stop, library. I did casually mention to Gayle that I might not mind it for Christmas after reading Mr. Altucher’s charming and non annoying self promotion, but we had also talked the previous day about how a DVD we both like might be the best Christmas choice this year, since what I actually want is $699 on sale animation software, after the usual Rolls Royce Silver Ghost (yes, a pre Top Gear urge…I would write Christmas lists starting with that on the blackboards in high school, if I remember correctly) and the DVDs I bought Gayle last year are still unopened.

Right, wrong, not bad Shakespeare by the Aquila Theatre Company(the NY Times apparently disagrees; that’s probably why we don’t meet on Tuesdays or Wednesday or even Sundays anymore). I had previously seen and admired their Julius Caesar and King Lear and regretted missing their Avengers themed(TV series, not comic book)Much Ado.

Great voices, but their Dromio was more a physical comedian than a verbal and the Dromio humor is so much about wordplay. I think– actually, I know “Comedy of Errors” can get laughs without merely resorting to broadly physical groin (or groan) centric humor. The second half unravelled, there were extraneous burkhas — if they wear them outside once so a strip tease can happen, make sure they wear them again, especially when addressing the Duke — and torture (we must,of course, be timely) and yes, Act V is a nightmare to do — trust me on this, I once hit an old man on the head with a spear to get him out of the way of the rest of the actors, but I’ve learned since then — it got the biggest laugh of the show and depressed me about audiences for years — but when you have an excellent Adriana, don’t make her sprint through her last long speech just to get it over with, if you haven’t been gradually increasing her franticness and word per second rate — or speed up Antipholus just to get to your big solution to the one actor per set of twins. Especially not after you’ve padded the last two acts which should just zoom by (we did the whole play in 80 minutes one year; I didn’t mean to, it just happened and it worked) by turning the Dr. Pinch scene into the Turkish hokey pokey and spending 3-5 minutes on harem girls. The Harvey Fiersteinesque version of Luce/Nell and the Courtesan worked and was extremely entertaining, Balthasar was a small gem of gravity, but on the whole, Shakespeare is funny enough that people shouldn’t be laughing just at swords zipping their way out of trousers. I liked the Oriental carpet defining their set and the lighting effects to emphasize “spooky.” Like I said, not a bad performance, just something that read wrong to me…

As mentioned before, I think “The Comedy of Errors” is the third funniest play in the English language(I am willing to read other nominees; please suggest). I believe the humor works better if you see some non frantic character and relationship building between the actors. What Shakespeare does best is create these wonderful INDIVIDUALS. They interact; they are not stereotypes; they can be played by actors of nearly any race, gender or temperment, as long as the actor gives him or her self over to the script. I always tell my actors that Shakespeare has given them everything they need in their script. He even writes down a lot of the blocking. If he says “knock thy pate,’ well, then yes, please hit someone on the head. But nowhere does he say have the short sighted awkward spinsterish Luciana wriggle out of a burkha after her sister nearly peels herself out of both burkha and dress. He also doesn’t say insert shiny sword in pants, walk in straight legged half circles awkwardly and then, if you’re Dromio, pull shiny sword out and grab your groin like you’ve cut something I don’t really want to hear about off. And, if you’re going to take that angle of approach, at least have Dromio bleed a little (or a gusher), darn it.

Did I mention I liked the lighting? Right, time to stop ranting and on the morrow, watch something directed by Kenneth Branagh. I long to travel to a theatre and see a Shakespearean play that will impress me. Yes, aggravating me is also inspirational; I now have an excellent idea for the backstage Romeo and Juliet movie I’ve been wanting to write, but I want to go to a theatre and be wowed by the acting and wooed by the language.

There I’ve ranted. And now I’m late for a date with pie(pizza) and iPie (iCarly’s webbiest Wednesdays).

FT WEEKEND ROUNDUP

Well, Sarah Hemming keeps me from being totally isolated from the theatre world with another interview with an American playwright, Adriano Shaplin who has written the historical drama The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Apparently, Shaplin got his job by taking the side against Shakespeare (“millstone around the neck of British culture”) in a debate with RSC artistic director Michael Boyd.

Not only did the byline(I become ever fonder of the Hemming profile and review style) and Shakespeare reference catch my eye (remember, it’s not a true lonelypond experience if Shakespeare isn’t mentioned once a week or so and Shaplin and I would probably be on opposite sides of a debate — in an article dated October 5, 2005 reviewing the debate Shaplin is quoted as blaming the Shakespeare industry for “necrophilia”. I say shouldn’t the foundation of a house or a theatre be able to stand up to the centuries — read Terry Pratchett’s The Fifth Elephant for a good funny take on how to keep your grandfather’s axe sharp), but Shaplin’s theory on how to write historical drama ties in with mine on how to direct/write it. Sort of. I remember doing the Importance of being Earnest (the second funniest comedy in existence, after Michael Frayn’s Noises Off and before Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors) and having a fellow director be surprised at the speed at which it proceeded. Too many period pieces are dusty — actors and directors often seem to think the past meant stately and measured and really all it means is “NOW” but then, whatever the date was.

For writing my period mystery, In The Bleak December I read a few of my favorite books set around the post civil war period(Persuasion, of course, and you’d be surprised at how much of Jekyll and Hyde Stevenson leaves to you) and went from there, trying not to get too many obvious details wrong (no, Wyoming is not yet a state) and yet trying not to flower up the language enough that it sounded fakey and put me to sleep — of course, I’m not quite sure that my experiment with Homeric epithets worked, depends on which reader you ask.

Which makes a nice segue to the Slow Lane, Harry Eyres’ column, an ode (without such formal structure) to oxymorons. Rhetorical devices are a wonder, bitter-sweet or sweet-bitter is such a melancholy yet lovely tang to any taste and Eyres is as always a read that makes me glad I took Latin (the textbooks of which are where I copy rhetorical devices from for my casts as they are nowhere to be found in the actual English and Shakespeare reference books and what about a simple glossary with pronunciation so I don’t have to lug my OED to every rehearsal.)

Off topic again, so let’s talk about food. Travel article, Peru and the lovely headline: “After Machu Picchu, try tacu tacu”. How about before? After Samatha Brown’s dual exploration of Peru, Machu Picchu (always on Gayle’s list) and Cusco have made my list, but the tacu tacu reference has induced a craving that will have to be settled by travelling across town to El Serrano, sitting down, and having them mix shredded chicken in with mine. We have discovered when you get it to go, they forget the fiery, sinus clearing green sauce — or the beans. So to lunch sometime and dreams of green mountains, stone history and fiery green tinted food.

And now I’m going to try to sleep and dream of something else.

BOOKS, READ AND HALF WRITTEN

Actually curled up with a book last night instead of hunching over the half light of my computer screen — actually, it’s 20 inches of incandescent shiny iMac glow, but half light sounds better, or at least gives a better visual. Decided to really try the Peter Drucker book, Adventures of a Bystander. It’s a collection of essays — episodes really, full of people he knew, ranging from his elementary school teachers to Freud and the upper management at GM in the 40’s. Drucker thinks and analyzes and remembers and parses life lessons with both astringency and warmth. It’s a good combination for me — bracing analysis plus a genuine enjoyment of the people Drucker has met and the situations he has experienced. His chapter on teaching and two of the women who inspired him to be curious and passionate about even dull subjects — although they never managed to improve his handwriting — reminded me how much I love reading Montaigne. The best essayists have a gift for mixing the personal with their philosophies. I’m looking forward to finishing the Drucker book; one of my favorite things about essays is you can read them in any order and even if you only have time for a few. And I’m going to see if I can find my Montaigne — I have one edition with illustrations by Salvador Dali – that’s a little mind blowing — and another with the translation that Shakespeare would have read. Bookman’s Alley in Evanston was the perfect environment for serendipity back when I rambled through it regularly.

Thanks to Sally of McGraw-Hill UK, I am working my way through “A Sense of Urgency” by John Kotter(and yes, I am susceptible to being cheered by getting a gift book in the mail), which impressed me in its FT review by Stefan Stern. The review is posted on my Opportunity Door, along with some ideas for next year’s Animation Magazine pitch party.

I am hoping the book would help with the focusing problem I seem to have about PROJECT PYE, which according to my blog on the subject, I’ve been wrestling with since August 18, 2006. It’s a great story — much of the trouble is all the other things I do, the other stories I want to tell, a lack of help, and an abundance of visuals. And I just really want to sit down and get the darn thing done. I think Calvin (one of the Lonely Ponders and my cohort in all things Gullible and Twitchy) doesn’t ever believe it will get done. I kept throwing so many possibilites at him that he just started to duck, I think.

While the Kotter book has a GREAT idea — be urgent, not hasty and avoid complacency at all costs, the style of the book doesn’t suit me; it’s very academic, I think, and I spent most of my college years in Northwestern’s gloriously tri towered library, wandering the Lakefill and writing poetry or in the few classes with professors I respected. My reading choices were Dante and Spencer and Shakespeare and Machiavelli and Lao Tsu and Hobbes and DeQuincey and Donne and Horace so modern business writing seems to stutter along without much style. I am finding “Urgency” goes a little better as I continue along but Drucker suits me so much better. People have names and problems are real and one or two words aren’t hammered at you as if there will be a quiz. And you are left to your own devices, conclusions and whatever list of bullet points or size of brain map you care to draw on your own.

Well, I guess we’ll leave the writing I found this morning while looking for a new notebook for reporting for another day…there are so many half started stories that get tangled up in other stories or left for other projects or just get lost. Even if “A Sense of Urgency” proves useful, I fear that I have already heard the only piece of advice that works and it comes from a character a person of sense might hesitate to take advice from, Lady MacBeth:

“Screw your courage to the sticking place.”

That’s what it’s really about. That’s the only thing equired: COURAGE. Nike’s “Just Do it” may be simplistic, but it is priceless advice. “Coraggio, bully monster, coraggio!” as Stephano says in the Tempest.

*Open free directing sample: The full Lady MacBeth phrase is this: We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail.’ Which makes me think is that the but is not the usual conjunctive but (there’s a phrase that sounds like a disease), but the adverb which acc. to wikipedia and Merriam means merely or only. And this fascination with the right phrase/meaning/inflection is why I spend many of my summers directing Shakespeare. Close free directing sample*

One of the best things about Drucker’s book for me is that he didn’t make the obvious choices or walk where expected. He followed the things that interested him and here I am, looking at his name on the cover of a book and learning from his successes. That encourages me. And as I reread this last sentence, I’m saying hmmm, look encourage — I recognize part of that, I bet it shares the same root: (and answers.com agrees: “[Middle English corage, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *corāticum, from Latin cor, heart.]” Close word lover sample*

*open directing and word lover postscript — as I think over this, it comes to me that while courage is the essential quality required, the verb and the action — screw, do, dare –are what turns intent and whatever qualities you bring to it into success. Close directing and word lover postscript*

A MOVIE AND A PLAY (+ TANGENT STREAM LINK FEST)

Sarah Hemming reviews are a good and bad thing — they give me a view of the edge of what’s happening theatrically and make me maybe want to go see plays (A Disappearing Number) about things like math that I might not be initially inclined to consider, but as these events are usually happening in London, it’s a hard craving to get.

Watched two of the rentals — Prairie Home Companion was elegiac and slow. Actors off stage aren’t always that interesting and combine that with Altman’s loose actor improvisational character building
tendencies and a Guy Noir who hadn’t any zing (and I love Kevin Kline in comedies– as should anyone who has seem “A Fish Called Wanda”) and it just never clicked. So we switched to “Taking Five” which was a hoot, a great fun romp that made very little sense, couldn’t really ever happen and yet was just fun to watch develop (I loved the peacock costume). The Click Five acted very well for a band and excellent performances were turned in by Alona Tal and Daniella Monet. Have had “Just the Girl” in my head for days now; sadly last.fm doesn’t have that one so I’ll have to dig out my Click Five CD (yes, I have a Click Five CD) and “scrobble” it. (NOTE: Ah, there is the YouTube video version, click on previous link) What exactly is the etymology of scrobbling…Googlesearch, here I click. last.fm might have made it up. Here’s a blog post referencing scrobble and the urban dictionary.

And the rest of my sentences are just turning to goop to wash away in the rain outside; maybe I’ll reedit on the morrow. Very tired day; a little unfocused after vacation. So I’m going to go downstairs, do no math, drink my tea, and then bring Gayle upstairs to fall asleep to the fourth episode of “The Middleman” on my iPod. What else is Monday night for.

And yes, I’m back…guess the time. I’ll make a note..winner gets sketch, DVD or something. Watched The Middleman, fun, review to come…alas, I think it was the last unreviewed episode so now I’ll have to get my comic book guys to order me the graphic novels…there’s so few new cool comic books to order anymore; Friends of Lulu (I spent two years on their Board of Directors) New York List was lamenting DC ending the Minx imprint of graphic novels. I liked the art and the ideas; bought a couple; Clubbing had great art but predictable story, never could bring myself to buy the Plain Janes, but I really enjoyed (Click Five note: “Catch Your Wave” that’s actually the peppy pop blender that caught my ear) ReGifters, tale of love, family and hapkido with a Korean American heroine. Very nice story. Had been thinking about trying the New York Four but never saw it in the store to flip through.

last.fm just rolled “just the girl” when I typed in Click Five…the telepathic powers of the internet – hey telepathetic is a cool word…hmmm, poser telepath who can’t get a happy thought anywhere — can’t get a date is too often done — hmmmmm…maybe time to write that sci fi book…or go back to short stories…HAT HAIR in telepathetic, there we go…

I was going to expand on my “Taking Five” review before I got distracted by a tangent stream. Good collection of characters, nicely done by director Andrew Waller, script that didn’t hit any of the predictable roadblocks I expected (now listening to McFly, too peppy, skipping, Busted kind of fun — “She Wants To Be Like Me” I like a sense of humor. I hope it’s a sense of humor.) It’s nice to see a movie where it’s just sort of a fun scenic trip into someone else’s world — not too demanding and very entertaining. Good band movies are like that — “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Help,”; good bad band movies are like that although I can’t think of one at the moment…hmmmm…well, I suppose Help and the first season of the Monkees fits in that category; Purple Rain is a category all to itself; Quadrophenia falls into the good bad category I think — we watched it for mod inspiration (also for mod inspiration Scooter Girl, a comic by Chynna Clugston-Major — we need more Blue Monday) for the second revisit of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and ended up with Rolling Stones records which had to be cut because the Mendelsohn and clarinet fairy line was too strong and we couldn’t switch back and forth without slowing down the pace. For the punk rock “Taming” we’re considering for next summer, Gayle’s excited at the thought of iPod assisted DJing.

And the Shakespeare reference makes this vintage late night lonelypond rambling. Hope you’ve enjoyed your visit.

THEATRE THOUGHTS

Sarah Hemming article about American playwright Tarrell Alvin McCraney. He discusses how theatre is best when you are describing the scene for the audience, letting them create the setting in their imagination, which is one of the reasons I think that Shakespeare is still so vibrant today — he shows us the storm, whether weather or emotion.

McCraney also touches on the there is only 1(or 3 or 6 — everyone has an individual eponymous corollary of this theory) story…it is the individual approach that matters. I’m going to have to look up a McCraney play; he actually seems to have concrete sensible ideas about writing.

MIDSUMMER LULLABY

Shakespeare wrote a lullaby(For Titania, Midsummer)but can’t find Mendelsson’s music recorded anywhere online; should ask Gayle; fun words.  Forget the link, here’s the darn words — from bartleby.com:

 

97. Lullaby

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

YOU spotted snakes with double tongue,   Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen; Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong;   Come not near our fairy queen.         Philomel, with melody,       Sing in our sweet lullaby; Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!           Never harm,           Nor spell nor charm,       Come our lovely lady nigh;       So, good night, with lullaby.   Weaving spiders, come not here;   Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence! Beetles black, approach not near;   Worm nor snail, do no offence.         Philomel, with melody,       Sing in our sweet lullaby; Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!           Never harm,           Nor spell nor charm,       Come our lovely lady nigh;       So, good night, with lullaby.