Hopping Into the Director's Chair...

Ah. It seems as though I may have to direct my Fringe show myself this summer. I was hoping to just be producer and playwright, but things happen and I think I will have to direct as well. My first choice was keen to do it, but her life has become swamped with things and she doesn't think she can serve the project properly so she bowed out. I respect that. I know that I have had times in my life when life overwhelmed me and I was unable to do all the tasks I had to do as well as I would have liked. I wish I still had her on board though, because she is a rock star and I totally trust her with my script. I hope that I will have the ability to separate the two jobs in my head.

Better Get Focussed...

My final exam is coming up on Thursday of this week. I have done a bit of studying, but not all that I have planned. I am not really worried about it though. From the review I felt quite confident about what was expected of us. I need to review each of the 5 plays (I have reviewed 1.5 of them) and the terms for the course, but I only have the one final and I have all of Tuesday to study. I also will study on Wednesday because I can do some when Gibson is in Fun factory. I just hope I am not over-estimating my preparedness...

Charlie Brown auditions have come and gone. I did my best not to think too much about them and I am happy to hear that they cast it and it sounds well cast. I was happy to hear that Chris got in. Out of 15 guys, they cast 6 (4 leads, 2 ensemble) so that says something. I am being very cherry about it, because it was my decision not to audition, but man-o-man did I ever want to do that show! I am sure it will be a good show and I know there will always be other opportunities for me.

Happy Egg Day...

Tomorrow is Easter. We will be celebrating with family who I must admit are a bit more religious than we are. We have periodically talked to our children about Jesus and Christmas and Easter and what they are supposed to mean so that they might have an idea of why we have these celebrations, but we haven't done too much formal education with regards to religion. Now that they are getting older I am struggling with what to do about this. I feel like we live in a Christian culture (particularly with regards to our family culture), but although I feel spiritual, I am not religious. I wish there were ecumenical classes for kids so that I could put them in those, but I think even that would have more potential to be confusing. I just want to raise my kids to be good people without the shroud of religion to guide that. I also want them to respect that some people (like most of our family) are very religious and that it is okay that they are that way and that we are not. It's a challenge.

We shall eat chocolate eggs and have a nice ham dinner with lots of salads and it will all be fine. I was just thinking about this...

Spring Break... lifus interuptus...

Spring Break ends tonight. Tomorrow it is back to school, back to pre-school and back to activities. I enjoyed not having to drive around so much, but I really didn't find it much of a break for me. After picking up the same toys about 10 times in one week (note - more than once per day) I began to long for the school day. It also interfered with my accomplishing all my goals for the week. I did get some done. All requests for Rights have gone in and 2 are confirmed. Samuel French has received the other 3 requests but they say 2-4 weeks for review and approval. I am not worried about any of the requests, however, I do want it done so that the season can be announced and I can move onto the next phase of planning - budget!

I went to 2 plays this past week. DeathTrap at Walterdale and Roberto Zucco at Studio Theatre (U of A - The Timm's). Both had their strengths and weaknesses and they were two very different plays. As to DeathTrap, I enjoyed the evening. It was a bit slow to start, but once it got rolling I found it very engaging. Francie as the Dutch Psychic was a stand-out. I did wish for quicker scene changes as I found they caused the flow to start and stop, but it was Opening Night and usually those things get much faster as the run progresses. I worked box-office for the show last night and was very pleased to have only 10 tickets left as the house went in. Yay! Roberto Zucco was a completely different animal. You could tell the actors on stage were overall very strong (although not evenly so... some stood out as stronger than others - Blythe Haynes comes to mind), however, I really struggled with this one. The show is challenging in content and structure so it is hard for an audience to connect with it. I figure that is likely why there was no intermission in the 2 hour show. I think that if there was one a lot of the house would have left. It was violent and disconnected and strangely dispassionate. And I think that is exactly what the Director was going for. Not my cup of tea, but probably very appealing for some. I did love the set and the costuming and they used the set very well. There was also some tremendous physical movement, but all in all it was not something I would necessarily send anyone to.

Deadlines...

Tomorrow morning my group presents for Drama 103. I think we are in good shape. I am waiting for one of the group members to send me his designs for the PowerPoint presentation, but other than that I think we are good. Then I am on my own for the class and the final. I spent a lot of today getting last minute things done for this project. Assembling as much as I can of the project hand-in (it is huge) and running through the slides again in my head and adding to the backdrop until I had no more black paint left. I will be glad when it is done and handed in because I will keep adding things to it until it's out of my hands. Did I mention it is huge? I am more worried about the kid exchange in the morning because I need to get there earlyish to set up the projector and I have to get Oliver to the store but Mark has Rotary and he doesn't seem to want to be flexible with his schedule to help me out.

It is also payday tomorrow and Mark didn't bring the hours sheet home on Saturday so I had to do that tonight. I am pretty fast at it now so that's alright. I got it done.

Tomorrow is also my self-imposed deadline for changes to Zachary and the Storytelling Stones. I haven't had much time to 'write in my head' on it so I am not sure what I will do with it tomorrow, after the presentation... I will take a look and see what happens.

Today I got a call from the director of the Staged Reading I am dramaturging. She is swamped so she asked if I could do her scheduling or find a stage manager to do it, or else she would have to drop the project. I said 'no problem'. I will have to look at that tomorrow...

Oh, I still need to match up Assistant Directors with Directors for next season at Walterdale. I have already had one director tell me they already asked someone (despite my email stating I would be doing that) so I better get on it before they all do that. It would be really annoying. I will do that tomorrow, or maybe Wednesday...

Overlap...

Busy getting ready for the final project in Drama 103. We have our big final rehearsal tomorrow and I am trying to make sure I have my things ready. I was Director for the project, by I also put together the slides for our projections and build the backdrop as well. I have been painting the edges of the drop so that it doesn't just look like a tea-dyed bed sheet. I hope the painting looks okay. There is no time to fix it. Of course, we can always do the *if we had unlimited budget...* thing in the talk back portion. I have been most disappointed by the talk back components of the presentations we have seen thus far. Only one of the groups really seemed prepared and cohesive with regards to production and discussion of concept. All of the productions had positive elements, but I strained to figure out why they made the choices they made. I hope we are clear.

I also took time to go to see A Year of Winter at Shadow Theatre last night. I ran in to friends which was nice since I had gone solo. One of them was the playwright. It was an intriguing show. I was involved in a Playwrighting Lab where this was one of the scripts so I had read two previous drafts so I was very excited to see it on it's feet and to see what had changed. I liked the major changes and I think it is a much stronger piece than I initially read (I liked it then, too, but I think it's even better now) I did spend some time wondering what the experience would be like for someone who did not have my knowledge of the relationships between the characters straight off the top. If you see it, let me know how it played out for you. It is a play I would love to discuss more...

Tonight I am off to The Rocky Horror Show at the Catalyst. It is one of my least favorite plays, but some great young friends of mine are putting it on, so I am going to support them and see what they have done. I admit, I am scarred by seeing a particularly bad production of this show. I am hoping this one will redeem the play for me.

Two Plays in One Day - Lucky Me!

Yesterday I got to go to two theatrical events. It was a good day. It wasn't stressful. It wasn't even pre-planned, so that was really nice.

First I went to a workshop of Hwy63: the Fort Mac Play. I will tell you honestly, as a long-time resident of Fort McMurray there is no way I would ever be completely objective about this piece. I did try very hard to be so. It was also a workshop, so it is still in development so I think it hasn't quite found it's groove or purpose. Right now the whole environmental thing is very prominent in the script. An oft repeated phrase, "What's your agenda?" (something the playwrights were asked frequently when they went up there) was interesting, because I certainly found an agenda in the script. I was also disappointed when I recognized people I knew and I felt they were slightly mocking in their portrayal of them. Now, I did stick around and talk to one of the playwrights and she was very interested in what I had to say. I felt she was sincere in her response to me and she respected where I was coming from and she also said she was glad I shared my comments with her. I am glad for that. I do not want to dictate what someone else's play will be, but this is a topic close to my heart and I felt I should say something.

I also went to Doubt at the Citadel. The Production value was up the wazoo. Gorgeous set, costumes, lighting, etc... all you would except from the Citadel for decoration and atmosphere. I was very Impressed with Karen Robinson (the boy's mother, Mrs. Muller). She was a stand out. Lally Cadeaux (Sr. Aloysius) was very good, and John Ullyat (Fr. Flynn) was also quite good although he is so charismatic and charming that it is hard to truly doubt him. The weak link in the show was Clarice Eckford (Sr. James). I just found her performance to be flat and pre-planned. Nothing seemed organic with her performance and her voice was so one-dimensional. I have talked to others about this show and they seem to agree with me on it. I enjoyed the show overall, but I felt it could be better. The script also has a few false notes, but you are pretty much stuck with that.