As a sort of an update on the job front, I have managed to secure myself one more teaching gig for the fall, which I'm a little nervous about but ultimately should be lots of fun and hopefully lead to a great deal more opportunities. So that's good.
On a what-makes-me-a-truly-happy-person front" I've just finished up a week of rehearsal and performance of a first reading of my company's adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. And here's the kicker...I'm so friggin in love with Elizabeth Bennet. I mean truly who doesn't enjoy this story and look on Elizabeth as the heroin of all heroins...but I had no idea what reading those words would do to me. As I've officially stated to severally people, there is no way I am giving up this part and I have every intention of holding firm to it through it's full staging...and perhaps beyond...because I am entraced with it all. Lizzy (in our two night P&P by Mr. Donald Hardy) runs the gammet, she is snarky, witty, determined, happy, infuriated, mortified, and best of all, falls slowly and beautifully in love beyond her own control. I'm sorry but who wouldn't die to play this part? Who wouldn't die to do this show?
Well ok that's not such a hard one to answer. It is very simple and clear that the men who are most passionate and intrigued about this show are the gay ones. I'm not even making generalizations. It's the women and the gay men and the straight ones....well...it has its moments they say ....but overall I noticed a complete sense of "why do we care who Mr. Darcy marries?" which sort of makes my mind explode...how can you NOT care who Mr. Darcy marries? From my first hand expereience with my boyfriend for example I was holding out great hope. I mean I was mortified when I realized he had never read or even seen a film adaptation, but not surprised. (Same deal with Anne of Green Gables...what's up with that?) I had high hopes that he would be intrigued by the story, it's a comedy of manners and he loves Earnest...not the case...report in: romantic comedy, not compelling story, not enough conflict...etc. etc. I find this totally incomprehensible...but not inconsistent with other straight men's take on the classic work.
I can't help but thinking there has to be some sort of reason, what is it about Austen that atomatically turns off men of the hetro persuasion? It's not as if a good deal of the population doesn't find it enthralling, romantic sure but also witty and comparitivly well structured as these stories go. So I ask you, gentle reader, what is it about P&P that turns off men? It must be culturally manufactured because most gender constructs are but truely I find it baffling. How is it that something that women find so appealing is so utterly uninteresting to men? My righteous feminie side argues that the female author aspect has at least something to do with it...and once I follow that route I am forced to be furious by the shear neccisity that male authors, stories with male heros, are somehow more universal than anything written by a woman. A story with a female protagonist written by a woman is automatically too feminie for men to appreciate? understand? relate too? Of course these are questions that have bothered me for quite some time but having them so appear in my everday life is always maddening.
I understand that Elizabeth is the protagonist in P&P and that therefore it may be easier for females (and at least a certain percentage of gay men) to relate to. Most of the male characters have their share of faults but what is so wholly wrong with men aspiring to be like Bingley? Or even as manly and ultimatley modest and hero like as Darcy? Don't they get if there were more like that we would like them more?
I digress a little perhaps but I just felt that there must be other people who have noticed this particular phenomenum (I hope there is already some thesis written about this very subject) but I thought I would just get it out of my system, as I am sure to be obssessed with it for at least the next 6 months.
Pins.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Putting it Together
So I've just finished Summer Camp. 18 campers aged 7-11 performing Once Upon a Mattress (the gtk version....R&H's jr version short for Getting to Know you....that cracks me up). Anyway, it was a great group of kids and the show was very cute...had I had more than 4 weeks 4 days a week it could have been great and cute...but it was really cute none the less.
So that leaves me back at my search for work and meaning in life and theatre...this week I'm trying to take it easy...mostly because I'm exhausted but good things are coming my way anyway.
Tonight begins rehearsals for our one week speed workshop reading of my companies adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (by the phenominal Don Hardy). For one precious week I read Elizabeth Bennett...it's like the cherry on top of the rest of this year...Thomasina, Ophelia and Lizzy...it just doesn't get much better than that!
I also have a meeting tomorrow with some folks from OSA (Oakland School for the Arts) who are looking for a master class kinda teacher to do one day a week starting in the fall...I don't think I'm exactly what they want but they want to meet me so that's a good sign right? Pieceing things together...putting it together?
Anyway I suppose I should start my conserted search for a full time job again starting next week sometime...along we going back to my fabulous pre-schoolers who are probably taller and talk more now and I'll freak out...a month for little kids is an amazing amount of time.
And through all this and figuring things out...I've had this nagging thing in the back of my mind. I really had fun with Summer Camp this year...and working with kids who had never been onstage before and had little to no experience with theatre made me feel important. Like I was actually teaching them something that would help them...I mean obviously that's the point but on that point is something really really important. I feel I'm tetering on the edge of figuring out what make change. I sometimes feel guilty because I feel like what I'm doing doesn't make change, but the more I do this the more it feels like it matters and so this might not read like it makes sense...but I'm seeing things start to make a little more sense in the bigger picture I guess is what I mean.
Pins.
So that leaves me back at my search for work and meaning in life and theatre...this week I'm trying to take it easy...mostly because I'm exhausted but good things are coming my way anyway.
Tonight begins rehearsals for our one week speed workshop reading of my companies adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (by the phenominal Don Hardy). For one precious week I read Elizabeth Bennett...it's like the cherry on top of the rest of this year...Thomasina, Ophelia and Lizzy...it just doesn't get much better than that!
I also have a meeting tomorrow with some folks from OSA (Oakland School for the Arts) who are looking for a master class kinda teacher to do one day a week starting in the fall...I don't think I'm exactly what they want but they want to meet me so that's a good sign right? Pieceing things together...putting it together?
Anyway I suppose I should start my conserted search for a full time job again starting next week sometime...along we going back to my fabulous pre-schoolers who are probably taller and talk more now and I'll freak out...a month for little kids is an amazing amount of time.
And through all this and figuring things out...I've had this nagging thing in the back of my mind. I really had fun with Summer Camp this year...and working with kids who had never been onstage before and had little to no experience with theatre made me feel important. Like I was actually teaching them something that would help them...I mean obviously that's the point but on that point is something really really important. I feel I'm tetering on the edge of figuring out what make change. I sometimes feel guilty because I feel like what I'm doing doesn't make change, but the more I do this the more it feels like it matters and so this might not read like it makes sense...but I'm seeing things start to make a little more sense in the bigger picture I guess is what I mean.
Pins.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Dear Friend,
Why are letters so awesome?
I forced Evan to write letters to me when we started dating because I insisted that someday all our emails would be lost and even if they weren't I could never keep them in a romantically perfumed box. So I have a romantically perfumed box with our love letters in them...that I hope my grandchildren will find.
But getting entirely to the point. I spent today at the Library of Congress...not finding out quite as much about Trude as I would like but still getting some gems. Mostly from Joshua Logan's papers. He saved several letters from Trude. They make me feel more attached, because I feel so much like her in so many ways...at least I write letters like her :)
I don't think the Library of Congress will much mind if I reprint my favorite here...it's a letter she sent to Josh on November 8, 1954 just after Fanny opened (their second show working together) :
Dear Josh,
Thank you so much for that wonderful basket a la francais. It touched and cheered me up (I had the opening night blues and didn’t go!)
I shall drink a toast to you no less affectionate than Panisse to his wife. There are never enough words to express what working with you means to me. (I have no gift for words) and so instead, I send you an affectionate hug and kiss. How I wish you could rest now-
All my love to Tom and Nedda
Fondly,
Trude
That's just a short one...none of them were very long but there were all very sweet. Holding them in my hand was amazing. It moves me deeply. As do letters in general.
Pins.
I forced Evan to write letters to me when we started dating because I insisted that someday all our emails would be lost and even if they weren't I could never keep them in a romantically perfumed box. So I have a romantically perfumed box with our love letters in them...that I hope my grandchildren will find.
But getting entirely to the point. I spent today at the Library of Congress...not finding out quite as much about Trude as I would like but still getting some gems. Mostly from Joshua Logan's papers. He saved several letters from Trude. They make me feel more attached, because I feel so much like her in so many ways...at least I write letters like her :)
I don't think the Library of Congress will much mind if I reprint my favorite here...it's a letter she sent to Josh on November 8, 1954 just after Fanny opened (their second show working together) :
Dear Josh,
Thank you so much for that wonderful basket a la francais. It touched and cheered me up (I had the opening night blues and didn’t go!)
I shall drink a toast to you no less affectionate than Panisse to his wife. There are never enough words to express what working with you means to me. (I have no gift for words) and so instead, I send you an affectionate hug and kiss. How I wish you could rest now-
All my love to Tom and Nedda
Fondly,
Trude
That's just a short one...none of them were very long but there were all very sweet. Holding them in my hand was amazing. It moves me deeply. As do letters in general.
Pins.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
But I cannot choose but weep
While I am off to Washington D.C. tomorrow in hopes of digging through Fritz Loewe's letters stashed away at the Library of Congress I don't think I have the heart to think about research today.
We're back to soul searching I suppose. I found myself in tears last night. (And this was after I used quite a few onstage for my final performance of Ophelia). And it's not like I don't understand the process. In fact I was thinking about it yesterday. Theatre kids, even seasoned ones, have a difficult time closing shows, tend to hang onto the moment and the important people attached to it and I think it's because they understand deeply the emotional implication of the "life" cycle of doing a show, to put it simply. There is nothing more organic than a good creative show. The collaboration of working with people to create a process, something on a page that literally comes to life. It is born and grows. You put it in front of an audience and it breathes life. And then the day comes when it must close (and everything must close someday ,,,Phantom..take a hint). And when it does I think it's usless to ignore the mourning process. I think children, who feel things so intensly and understand the pain of loss without ignoring it, might cry when a show closes. I did when I was eight.
And then I did again last night. I won't bore you with too many gritty details but it did make me feel like a child again. And I felt slightly justified because it was really a release from the last two shows I worked on (essentially most of the same cast came straight from Arcadia into Hamlet...try that brain fucker sometime). But there are maybe little things. Like my Hamlet, who is a remarkably talented young man who knows Hamlet better than some of my professors, who proclaims he may not go on stage again (I respect spending time with God but at the cost of theatre? I'm not that kind of girl.) Or maybe it is the end of the season. Spring might bring birth but it also is rife with closure (and allergies I might add) and therefore has never been an entirly satisfying time for me. I don't like when good things end. Maybe a little bit steams from the thrill of playing Ophelia, something I most likely will never do again...and honestly after this expereience I don't know that I would want to do it again. But mostly I just feel like a child again...emotionally anyway...letting it all come out without much matter for who sees me do it, or reads this I suppose.
And it comes from this individual deaths that we experience every few months that actors begin to learn to store up their emotional strife, and bottle it for the next appearance onstage. Sometime my bottle spills I'm not gonna lie. And if it spills at the end of this beautiful season I don't mind so much. The last five months have reminded me of who I am.
So I find solace and happiness, a) in the library doing research b) writing c) being onstage d) singing really loudly. Too bad no one will pay me to do any of those things :) It's strange to be twenty-five and still figuring out who I am, but then again, I am grateful that at least I know this much. And I am grateful I have had the oppurtunity to do it all at least once really well. Thank you.
Pins.
We're back to soul searching I suppose. I found myself in tears last night. (And this was after I used quite a few onstage for my final performance of Ophelia). And it's not like I don't understand the process. In fact I was thinking about it yesterday. Theatre kids, even seasoned ones, have a difficult time closing shows, tend to hang onto the moment and the important people attached to it and I think it's because they understand deeply the emotional implication of the "life" cycle of doing a show, to put it simply. There is nothing more organic than a good creative show. The collaboration of working with people to create a process, something on a page that literally comes to life. It is born and grows. You put it in front of an audience and it breathes life. And then the day comes when it must close (and everything must close someday ,,,Phantom..take a hint). And when it does I think it's usless to ignore the mourning process. I think children, who feel things so intensly and understand the pain of loss without ignoring it, might cry when a show closes. I did when I was eight.
And then I did again last night. I won't bore you with too many gritty details but it did make me feel like a child again. And I felt slightly justified because it was really a release from the last two shows I worked on (essentially most of the same cast came straight from Arcadia into Hamlet...try that brain fucker sometime). But there are maybe little things. Like my Hamlet, who is a remarkably talented young man who knows Hamlet better than some of my professors, who proclaims he may not go on stage again (I respect spending time with God but at the cost of theatre? I'm not that kind of girl.) Or maybe it is the end of the season. Spring might bring birth but it also is rife with closure (and allergies I might add) and therefore has never been an entirly satisfying time for me. I don't like when good things end. Maybe a little bit steams from the thrill of playing Ophelia, something I most likely will never do again...and honestly after this expereience I don't know that I would want to do it again. But mostly I just feel like a child again...emotionally anyway...letting it all come out without much matter for who sees me do it, or reads this I suppose.
And it comes from this individual deaths that we experience every few months that actors begin to learn to store up their emotional strife, and bottle it for the next appearance onstage. Sometime my bottle spills I'm not gonna lie. And if it spills at the end of this beautiful season I don't mind so much. The last five months have reminded me of who I am.
So I find solace and happiness, a) in the library doing research b) writing c) being onstage d) singing really loudly. Too bad no one will pay me to do any of those things :) It's strange to be twenty-five and still figuring out who I am, but then again, I am grateful that at least I know this much. And I am grateful I have had the oppurtunity to do it all at least once really well. Thank you.
Pins.
Monday, May 24, 2010
We Know What We Are But Know Not What We May Be
Well I supose I should begin with a Trude update:
The Sound of Her Music: Musical Arranger Trude Rittmann's Life and Work, has officially been accepted by the Graduate Office at SFSU and I guess will be available in their library starting in the fall...I actually have no idea if that is true but I do know that it is currently being bound and all that. One hundred pages and I don't even feel like I've begun to do her justice. Exploring two ballets, two choral numbers and a couple of moments of underscoring doesn't even come close to expressing the sweeping talent and body of work. I'm really not joking when I talk about making it a book, but I'm also kidding myself to think that I will have the time or resources to really do it any justice any time soon. I guess it's ok to be 25 and already have a lifelong goal, something you feel you have to finish before you die...it just makes things feel more urgent already.
The reason I'm not settling in to write the book is that I would like to get a job in order to make some money in order to get off my parents payroll and therefore have some greater sense of independence (not to mention get married and have a family etc. etc.) So I'm searching for jobs...maybe not as hard as I should be. But the problem is there is nothing quite like sitting in the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center and doing research all day. And then talking to someone like Bruce who understood me. And then coming home and writing it all down at Peet's. I'm not at the stage in my life where anybody is going to pay me to do that. And I understand. So I'm taking the CBEST and applying for teaching jobs, and editing jobs, and anything that I can see that remotely relates to theatre.
But I have this other problem. I'm falling in love with acting again. We had a falling out. I made the decision not to pursue it as a profession, and I still stand by that. But being a part of a company that feeds my soul, and being onstage in delicious roles. It's all too much. I love it too much. And so I desperately want to find jobs that understand this and can work with this "addiction" as it were. But who knows what I will find.
At the TBA conference one speaker talked about finding your personal mission statement. Or at least that's how I interpreted it. So I jotted some notes in my journal about feeding my theatrical desire, my desire to write about theatre, and spending plenty of time with my loved ones (specifically that really patient man I share a house with).
Anyway it's all really complicated...as life should be. If it wasn't I'm pretty sure I would spontaneously combust.
Bustibility, bustibility combustibili-
Pins.
The Sound of Her Music: Musical Arranger Trude Rittmann's Life and Work, has officially been accepted by the Graduate Office at SFSU and I guess will be available in their library starting in the fall...I actually have no idea if that is true but I do know that it is currently being bound and all that. One hundred pages and I don't even feel like I've begun to do her justice. Exploring two ballets, two choral numbers and a couple of moments of underscoring doesn't even come close to expressing the sweeping talent and body of work. I'm really not joking when I talk about making it a book, but I'm also kidding myself to think that I will have the time or resources to really do it any justice any time soon. I guess it's ok to be 25 and already have a lifelong goal, something you feel you have to finish before you die...it just makes things feel more urgent already.
The reason I'm not settling in to write the book is that I would like to get a job in order to make some money in order to get off my parents payroll and therefore have some greater sense of independence (not to mention get married and have a family etc. etc.) So I'm searching for jobs...maybe not as hard as I should be. But the problem is there is nothing quite like sitting in the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center and doing research all day. And then talking to someone like Bruce who understood me. And then coming home and writing it all down at Peet's. I'm not at the stage in my life where anybody is going to pay me to do that. And I understand. So I'm taking the CBEST and applying for teaching jobs, and editing jobs, and anything that I can see that remotely relates to theatre.
But I have this other problem. I'm falling in love with acting again. We had a falling out. I made the decision not to pursue it as a profession, and I still stand by that. But being a part of a company that feeds my soul, and being onstage in delicious roles. It's all too much. I love it too much. And so I desperately want to find jobs that understand this and can work with this "addiction" as it were. But who knows what I will find.
At the TBA conference one speaker talked about finding your personal mission statement. Or at least that's how I interpreted it. So I jotted some notes in my journal about feeding my theatrical desire, my desire to write about theatre, and spending plenty of time with my loved ones (specifically that really patient man I share a house with).
Anyway it's all really complicated...as life should be. If it wasn't I'm pretty sure I would spontaneously combust.
Bustibility, bustibility combustibili-
Pins.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Incredible!
I found a quote today (which I can't believe I haven't read up until this point) that made me remember why I'm doing this. From No Intermissions: the life of Agnes de Mille by Carol Easton:
According to Trude Rittman, rehearsal pianist on Brigadoon, “Aland and Fritz didn’t trust Agnes. They though, ‘She is so much involved in the balletic aspects, she doesn’t have the whole show in mind.’ On every show, it was always a struggle for her. Rarely did she get what she needed-not just for herself but fro costumes, for whatever she needed for her dance! We used to say that we had to be doubly as good as men in order to make it in the male-dominated theatrical world. It was marvelous that we had each other to exchange our private jokes and comments about all these men for whom we worked. We used to talk about how ridiculous Lerner and Loewe sometimes were with their women. Incredible! Fighting over girls, fighting over divorced women. Always a crisis. They loved each other, couldn’t work with anyone else, but then they hated each other. Agnes was very often much stronger than these two men together. She would fight for her rights, and the creative aspects of certain things. They always felt. ‘She’s going overboard and ruining our show! It’s not her show, it’s our show!’ Nobody won; they compromised.”
Can we take a moment to thank Trude for so beautifully put into one sentence the impetus behind why I'm doing this and why no one knows about her... "We used to say that we had to be doubly as good as men in order to make it in the male-dominated theatrical world." There it is right there. I couldn't have put it better myself. Here she is, being totally brilliant, literally picking up these strands of music and filling them out into the reason we love these shows, and she had to work twice as hard just to make that happen. Think what she would have been doing if women weren't always forced to prove themselves. In the words of Trude Rittmann and John Adams both, "Incredible!"
Pins.
According to Trude Rittman, rehearsal pianist on Brigadoon, “Aland and Fritz didn’t trust Agnes. They though, ‘She is so much involved in the balletic aspects, she doesn’t have the whole show in mind.’ On every show, it was always a struggle for her. Rarely did she get what she needed-not just for herself but fro costumes, for whatever she needed for her dance! We used to say that we had to be doubly as good as men in order to make it in the male-dominated theatrical world. It was marvelous that we had each other to exchange our private jokes and comments about all these men for whom we worked. We used to talk about how ridiculous Lerner and Loewe sometimes were with their women. Incredible! Fighting over girls, fighting over divorced women. Always a crisis. They loved each other, couldn’t work with anyone else, but then they hated each other. Agnes was very often much stronger than these two men together. She would fight for her rights, and the creative aspects of certain things. They always felt. ‘She’s going overboard and ruining our show! It’s not her show, it’s our show!’ Nobody won; they compromised.”
Can we take a moment to thank Trude for so beautifully put into one sentence the impetus behind why I'm doing this and why no one knows about her... "We used to say that we had to be doubly as good as men in order to make it in the male-dominated theatrical world." There it is right there. I couldn't have put it better myself. Here she is, being totally brilliant, literally picking up these strands of music and filling them out into the reason we love these shows, and she had to work twice as hard just to make that happen. Think what she would have been doing if women weren't always forced to prove themselves. In the words of Trude Rittmann and John Adams both, "Incredible!"
Pins.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
There's gotta be something better than this...
Woho! So I have got 3 chapters and 30 pages...if there was a good way of posting them I would but that's a lot of reading for anyway to do...
I'm writing out of frustration for a totally different reason now. My thesis proper is going very well. So far chapter one is a little rough (it is this vast overview that I feel needs to be trimmed). Chapter 2 is everything I know about her early life (her niece's email address bounced back so that's not a whole lot) and the ballet (which I could write a lot more about but honestly I'm not that knowledgeable in that area anyway). Chapter 3 could probably go on for days but I've ended it for now. It's an overview of musical theatre in the golden age, specifically all the various types of composers and what they do. The really cool thing is for vocal and dance arrangers I have these long lists that Trude compiled for a lecture or something so I know have this incredibly defined description of both of those roles with examples etc. I'm pretty proud.
So that's not what I'm worried about. What I'm struck with now is Trude! The One Woman Show. I've thought about this for some time and now that I have this weekly assigment in my "playcrafting and dramaturgy" class to creat an adaptation from a non-fiction source and describe it in a page and then give a sample of the script. So it's not like I even have to come up with the whole thing. And as soon as I got this assignment I knew that was what I wanted to do...but I can't think of how...that's much more difficult. I thought at first it should just be her..but I think that would miss out on stuff...and I still like the idea of having a pianist be symbolize the composers and play and the dancers doing bits of choreography and also symbolizing the choregraphers...but then I need a through line and I thought it would be fun to put me as the narrator...but now I just feel dumb. That is all. So I'll probably turn something dumb in and I feel dumb about that obviously...but I don't know if she's meant to be a show folks...that's all I'm saying. Oy.
The things I like most right now is a kind of overture that is a medoly of parts of scores she was responsible for...starting with Small House and ending with the big beautiful vocals at the end of Camelot.
Anyway.
Pins.
Pins.
I'm writing out of frustration for a totally different reason now. My thesis proper is going very well. So far chapter one is a little rough (it is this vast overview that I feel needs to be trimmed). Chapter 2 is everything I know about her early life (her niece's email address bounced back so that's not a whole lot) and the ballet (which I could write a lot more about but honestly I'm not that knowledgeable in that area anyway). Chapter 3 could probably go on for days but I've ended it for now. It's an overview of musical theatre in the golden age, specifically all the various types of composers and what they do. The really cool thing is for vocal and dance arrangers I have these long lists that Trude compiled for a lecture or something so I know have this incredibly defined description of both of those roles with examples etc. I'm pretty proud.
So that's not what I'm worried about. What I'm struck with now is Trude! The One Woman Show. I've thought about this for some time and now that I have this weekly assigment in my "playcrafting and dramaturgy" class to creat an adaptation from a non-fiction source and describe it in a page and then give a sample of the script. So it's not like I even have to come up with the whole thing. And as soon as I got this assignment I knew that was what I wanted to do...but I can't think of how...that's much more difficult. I thought at first it should just be her..but I think that would miss out on stuff...and I still like the idea of having a pianist be symbolize the composers and play and the dancers doing bits of choreography and also symbolizing the choregraphers...but then I need a through line and I thought it would be fun to put me as the narrator...but now I just feel dumb. That is all. So I'll probably turn something dumb in and I feel dumb about that obviously...but I don't know if she's meant to be a show folks...that's all I'm saying. Oy.
The things I like most right now is a kind of overture that is a medoly of parts of scores she was responsible for...starting with Small House and ending with the big beautiful vocals at the end of Camelot.
Anyway.
Pins.
Pins.
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