Summer 2011, In Three Photos

Just playing with Blogger's new interface....

So what did I see this summer?

I saw many elephants...

I saw a Dalek...

and I found Elvis hiding inside an exhibit at the Field Museum of Natural History.  

I did a lot more, but they get labeled as "Stories That I Want To Tell But Are Too Angst-Ridden."  

So here's a quick bit on some of the fun things I did in the humid months.

I tried making a game out of spotting as many elephants as I could this summer, since "To The Elephant!" became our rallying cry on Twelfth Night.  It was the most random, ridiculous line from the play, and so of course it became my favorite.  

The Dalek is from WizardCon 2011, in Chicago.  First time I had attended something like that in twenty years.  It was a lot of fun, and I was able to indulge my recent obsession with Doctor Who a bit but I've realized that as nerdy as I think I am, I am only a nerd with a small 'n."  

Elvis lives amongst elephants, man-eating tigers, and a T-Rex named Sue.  I found him during a trip up to the Field with my buddy Drew and his two sons.  The beginning of my slow crawl out of the cave.  

Once More Unto the Breach

So... where was I?

Dublin, right. Finishing up the second week of my sabbatical, to sort things out. I've been back home now...what? Three weeks? Something like that?

It has been good to be back in my classroom. That was the hardest thing, being away from my guys. I know I could eventually leave teaching, but leaving a class in the midst of things...well, that's just not right. They survived without me for a couple of weeks, but in the end, they are my class, and I am their teacher.

So the question is begged: did I accomplish anything? Well, yes, some stuff. I got a lot of the Limelight business done. Schedules and summer planning and such. And I wrote a lot. But not nearly enough. I could have used another couple of weeks, but that would have been indulgent, and there was work to be done here. But yes, I got a lot done.

There is the other business as well. The Life Business. Did I straighten that out? Were there any grand revelations while I lived another life for a couple of weeks?

Probably not. If I realized anything, it's that I need to get more sleep and not eat crappy food. If anything else was discovered, it'll come in time, just like all great revelations do that spring from some grand wandering.

My spring break is next week, and of course I think about where I could go, but I'll spend the week at home, sleeping late and writing even later, and between all that I'll hopefully eat good food and take walks and spend a little time with some quality people.

There's been a whole lot of turmoil going on in my profession, in my state that I'm in, these past several weeks. Budgets are being slashed, people I know are being laid off, and hard decisions are being made all over. It's a longer story for another time, but it's one of those extreme situations that makes you want to either pull the ripcord or hunker down in the bunker.

I haven't decided which one is best. I'll either leap into the fray or take cover as the bombs sail by. And, of course, I'll let you know.

All These Will Be Worthless

That's the title of the play I'm attempting to write.

Limelight has a strong history of original works, and we've had a new play pretty much every year since we've been in business. As our 10th Anniversary nears, I wanted to make sure we had another original play for the summer 2010 season. Last year the Lumberjacks! team knocked one out of the park, and so that meant that it was my turn.

The last major play I wrote, Heroes and Villains, was about a group of friends that comes to realize that they all need to go their separate ways. It was also a bit of a response to the glut of mythic-hero-type stories that had become all the rage in the movies, on the tv, and even on the stage. I was a bit tired of stories about "destiny" and "chosen ones" and magic weapons or outlandish villains, and so I wrote a story about regular people following their own heroic journey.

So now I'm trying to write a new one, and it is again a reaction to the played-out stories that we're seemingly fixated on right now: the apocalyptic thriller. I want to try and write a story that doesn't end with the world blowing up, but instead offers a glimmer of hope about where we're going.

I met with a small team of actors throughout October and we started putting together a story. There were lots of ideas, including one involving a zombie-hunting Ronald Reagan, and if you can believe it, I have figured out a way to include that in the story.

It's about two sisters growing up at the end of the cold war, during two different stretches of time in the 1980s. It involves the Berlin Wall as well, but I haven't quite figured out how to pull that part off. There's also a character named Ryan Ortega, and I think I'm starting to figure out what to do with him.

I made sure to read Tom Stoppard's Rock 'N Roll before I really got going with it, since that play concerns wall-and-cold war themes as well. Thankfully they're very different in story and scope.

So now here I am on a brief sabbatical, and it's time to get this thing written. We were originally going to be performing this thing in March, but due to the lack of writing time in my life, and the fact that we want to do it right, we're moving it to the summer schedule. It'll get more exposure and more effort there anyway.

Since it's largely a story about females, I wanted to have a woman's voice come through, so I've got a girl writing some original music for it as well. It's not a musical, though; I imagine she'll play stuff in-between scenes or occasionally pop up on stage, like the troubadour on Gilmore Girls.

Wrote a complete outline of the show will listening to some trad in a pub last night. Much of my administrative work is caught up for the time being, so there's nothing left to do but write. Here goes...

June 29th Revisited

Have you ever thought about goodbyes? Ever been disappointed by how one went? Ever wished you could do one over, make it really special, really one for the books?

This is a story of a goodbye.

I went back to teaching fifth grade a couple of years ago, and the class was filled with strong personalities, as we say in the profession. The less polite way is to say that it was filled with a few jerky kids.

Not that I wouldn't be the first one to stand up for each and every one of them, when it counted. But they were a rough group at times.

There was a student that was a bit different. She was quiet and funny and nervous and had a hard time getting her homework done. But she was Austin, and she had Maddie by her side (thanks to my artful seating arrangements), and she got through the year.

She was scheduled to move to Texas at the end of the summer. At the last minute, at my prodding, she showed up at summer auditions and wound up with the lead in Harriet the Spy. (Just so you know, I didn't cast it, but was overjoyed when Mal made her decision.)

Austin was a great Harriet, and perfectly captured that fragile thing that you need in a good Harriet M. Welsch. I was exceptionally proud of her.

Last day came, and she was leaving for Texas the next day. The kids had a pizza party while we tore down sets. Everyone left, and Austin and I said a brief goodbye over the sound of the drills and hammers.

Got busy taking apart something, a bit sad that we weren't able to have that proper farewell that should come with someone that you're close to. I know some people aren't good at goodbyes, and maybe she was one of them. I probably try and make them too monumental, too orchestrated.

Mal suddenly says, "Hey Austin!" and I turn and she's coming back in, with this awkward shuffling walk, arms out, tears streaming down her face.

This is the hard part to write about. It was very emotional, but it played out in front of everyone, like it was a story that needed to be told. A big hug, declarations like "you were the best teacher I ever had," "I don't want to go, " stuff like that. Like I said, it's hard to write about, and it's taken me over a year to put it in words. The last thing I want to do is make myself out to be this awesome teacher dude who inspires the masses, blah blah blah. That's not why I'm writing this.

If you know me fairly well, or if you read this thing a while back, then you're familiar with my father-abandonment-anger issues, etc. etc. etc. No need to dredge that business up, but needless to say, it left me with an unwillingless to get married and start a family.

That moment with Austin changed me, a lot. She was one of the first students I had where the parents were around my age. A strange enough thing to realize for a guy who still feels like he's in his early 20s. Holy shit, I could have a kid around this age!

Anyway, I guess I came to some sort of conclusion that I didn't need to be afraid of that whole being-a-father business anymore. I guess I realized that it might be something I might be okay at. Later that fall, I talked about this with my sister one night at a bar in Indianapolis, but I think this is the first time I've written about it.

I think about Austin a lot, and I miss her a ton, and one day maybe I'll track her down and thank her for deciding to come back into the stage that day, to say a proper goodbye. It wrecked me, but it was one of the most important days of my life.

I Document Things

Now begins my great effort to start blogging again on a semi-regular basis. My creative energies have been involved with Limelight's current season, which leaves me little to no time for things like blogging, but that's gonna change. Another trip looms, and there's nothing I enjoy more than writing on the road.

I owe everyone a few late stories before I leave, though, and those will roll out in the next few days. Until then, here's a small sample of what I've been doing with my time this summer. In addition to directing a pair of youth shows based on Beverly Cleary novels, I've been documenting the process of Limelight putting up its first original musical. Here's one of four Production Diaries I've made so far:

Lumberjacks: The Musical! "Trust Me" from Brian Fauth on Vimeo.

Lumberjacks started off as an inside joke between some of the directors, and last summer I finally said to them: "You should write this." And a year later, here we are.

It's been another great season for us, although I'm utterly spent and wrecked as we approach the end. We're getting better and better at what we do, but it leaves little time to relax, and so I'm this horrible mess of stress and bloat and junk food.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming travels, especially the first leg: hiking in northern Wales, although I'm sure I'll be huffing and puffing for a while, until I get used to it all. There are plans to see friends and blogger friends and places I've never been to before, and this time I've got a travel companion.

My buddy Eric was itching to finally see a bit of Europe, and with airfare so cheap, we bought tickets barely a week after I returned from Ireland last spring. We leave Monday, August 3rd, right after Lumberjacks closes, and will return on Tuesday the 18th. Work pretty much starts the next day for me. So much for lounging around the house this summer.

Eric will not be known as Eric on here, though, to avoid embarrassing Google Search results in the future (he's a fellow teacher.) Plus, my good friend Duder is also an Eric, so there's that problem as well. I've been trying to come up with something interesting, a la "Stephen Katz" of Bill Bryson's travel books. I have a vague goal of writing something substantial while on this trip, and so I need a good name.

I was watching Don't Look Back a couple of weeks ago, the documentary film about Bob Dylan's 1965 tour of England, and I was struck by how much Eric looks like Dylan's road manager, Bobby Neuwirth. (Okay, maybe he doesn't look a whole lot like him, but the idea is right. Much of the film features Dylan and Neuwirth joking around as they travel around English cities.)

So if I wind up talking about wandering around Europe with a guy named Bobby Neuwirth, or some variation on that, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Solitary Man/Busy Man

Blogging shall return in one week. I promise. I've been deep into Limelight business, which, of course, consumes my entire life.

Meanwhile, here's another picture of Linus from the Death March story I haven't finished. It's his birthday today and he's waiting for Part Two to finally come out.


Celebrated Duder's birthday last week as well, along with some other marvelous times spent with his crew. Those stories will have to wait as well.

Now back to Klickitat Street...

The No-Hit Wonders

We were supposed to plan something, something for a spring arts festival, for the community.

My head wasn't really in theatre at the moment; too busy thinking about tech and teaching. See what the others can do, I said.

Guys writing Lumberjacks agreed to put something together. Staff meeting on Sunday woke me up and reminded me that the season's about to start. Better get in the game.

The town's still a small town, and the art's council is a small town art's council. Grande dame of the local community theatre, a few painters, lots of retirees in the audience. Type of thing I never had much use for, but we're almost ten years on now, and we need to get seats filled this summer if we're going to make budget.

Classical guitarists play some 16th century lute music in the lobby of the village hall while people drink free coffee and look around as the people file in late. Little by little more and more of my team arrive, standing in the back, waiting.

Short break comes and we huddle outside, going over the routine and figuring out how to play it just right. We walk back in to watch tweens doing interpretive dance to "Son of a Preacher Man" and I wonder just how bizarre and uncomfortable this night could get.

They introduce me first, getting title and company wrong. Limelight ain't about me, so I ask everyone to come stand with me, and I try and figure out what to say.

I can be charming in front of an audience when I want to be, and I can wax eloquent if I need to. But this wasn't the time to do that. Let the other guys impress. So I talk a bit about how we've been around for almost ten years, but a lot of people don't know about us, since most of our productions are greasy kid's-stuff.

"We're the no-hit wonders," I explain, remembering something I heard Jeff Tweedy of Wilco say one time when he was opening up for REM. There's an uneasiness to the way I'm speaking, a slight tension and simmering anger. These people never get what you're about, they never get this type of stuff. They always want the easy, the predictable.

"Smash 'em over the heads with awesomeness" I told the crew before we got out there. We've seen the rest of this stuff a dozen times over, but it's time we show them something new.

I hem and haw a bit more, talk about the time I wrote a play about a grocery store. And one about The Godfather done by 13-year olds. I'm the opening act, and I do what opening acts always have to do: politely entertain long enough so that the audience can't wait for the main act to start.

After the awkward gyrations of Sparkle Motion and being lulled incoherent by the other performers, the Lumberjacks crew comes out loose, funny, and charming as hell. There's some improv, some music and song, and a dissection of the Lumberjack style.

Brems closes with this great speech about how Limelight and Lumberjacks comes right out of this community, completely home-grown, and how everyone needs to rattle their neighbor's windows to get 'em to come see it. Afterwards we get no less than three offers of help and support and preview opportunities.

The night closes with Toastmasters and some poem about not judging the person who sits next to you at church, but all I'm thinking about is the group of people standing in the back, hungry, starving, desperate to shake this place up and smash a few windows all in the name of doing something original. They are my guys, and I love them more than anything.

Sound Opinion

Aside from being under the weather, there's a show this week with the theatre group. I've got another member of the company directing this one, but I come in from time to time to help and advise. He's a teacher, like me, and knows how to work with kids, but he's still learning how to put a show together on his own.

Most of my tech crew is away at school right now, so this week I've had to teach myself how to hook up our sound equipment. I usually have other guys do it for me, but I know the basics. There's the mixing board, some xlr cable, an amplifier, some other cable with a strange blue circle around the end. And then there's Elliot, who I call in an emergency.

Sometimes, though, you gotta figure something out for yourself, and after 10 years or so of having other guys take care of the tech side of things, I'm having fun figuring it out for myself. It take me a few tries, but Liz and I got it figured out both nights. (Liz is an old Limelight veteran, in for the long haul.)

Well, we mostly got it figured out. Now, even the best of us at Limelight have needed a pass or two to get the mics and the speakers all running properly, and we all range in age from late teens to late thirties. It's not the best equipment, and every six months we have to pull it out of storage and try to remember how it all gets set up. But we figure it out, eventuall.

And then there's the new crew.

There's this new kid, whom I'll call Elliot 3.0. We also have an Elliot 2.0, who's a whiz on the light board. He's 12, by the way.

Elliot 3.0 is a 4th grader, who apparently has his own DJ business already. He's been following me around the past couple of nights, blowing off his acting duties, wanting to help solve our sound problems. I've been politely brushing him away, letting him know that I'll show him how it all works, just as soon as I figure it out myself.

Well, twice tonight he pointed out that the emperor has no clothes, and that he's got a better head for it than me. Firstly, he noticed an important knob on the mixer that controlled the input sound for the laptop I was trying to hook up. Then, after I thought I had everything up and running, even though no sound was coming out of the floor mics, he walked up to me and said, "the phantom power switch is off."

Now, to my credit, I think I taught him how phantom power works last night, so I get some credit for that. But still.

It would be very easy for me to sputter and tell the kid to fuck off, but I gave him a high-five and made him the tech supervisor for the weekend. And he's barely 10 years old.

It's a brave new world out there, and most of us are dinosaurs crumbling into dust.

A Quick Wrap-Up of Summer, Now in Photoform!

Right. Time to get back to work. Summer's done.

Heroes and Villains

Well, I don't have words to describe what I've been through lately.

I haven't been blogging much for the past year, because I've been busy with Heroes and Villains, Limelight administrative duties, and teaching, of course.

Finally put the finishing touches on the show. The show about college, and friends, and family, and fathers, and heroes and villains. And stuff from my life, and from other lives, and stuff I made up.

We opened tonight.

For the outsider, it's very hard to describe all of the emotions that I've experienced throughout this season. And to write about them would seem to cheapen them, somehow.

That seems strange, considering how I've written about such personal stuff on this thing over the years. But what has happened lately, I'd like to keep to myself. For now.

I will say this: all of the hard work, all of the stress, and late nights, and time spent away from friends and family, was worth it. And I hope they understand.

What I've become wrapped up in isn't just some hobby, or vanity project, or an excuse to go play with the kids.

It's something much, much more.

This is an adventure.

May Thoughts

The school year is almost finished.

This was an important, and busy, year for me.

I did a lot with theatre. You can read about that here.

I taught fifth grade again. That was good. A new building, a new staff, a new group of kids. They kicked my ass at times, with their different ways. New type of kids that I've never seen before. Fought and bickered amongst themselves, Alpha males and gentle girls. But we did great things this year, and it was a good year, the first in a long time.

Almost done with the play. Moving in to the new headquarters for Limelight has distracted me a bit, but it's just about there. Just some bits in the corners that need to be filled in.

Casting starts soon. Many of the roles are already decided, since the kids from the beginning are still around, or have returned, for the end. One person remains tricky. And another... another is yet to be filled. But it will all work out.

Running around like a crazed animal these days, hopping from classroom to meeting to auditions to another meeting. A three-day weekend arrives tomorrow, but I will get little rest. Too much to get done, before the school year ends.

And through it all, I want to get back to that green and pleasant country. To The Dubliners and the pubs and the trains and the new towns and the familiar towns. To the green and to some rest and to the place I always go back to, am always drawn to.

The conditions of the world seem likely to prevent this, though. Prices: fuel prices and plane tickets and falling dollars. I just don't know how to make it work this year.

Maybe it's time to take a year off, sure. But where else is there to go? Where else is there, but the place that seems so decided, so permanent. The long brown path that is right there, so close, but for the impossibility of it all.

Pogue Mahone

Tomorrow I get to spend the night with The Pogues.

And I'll get to hang with the man some call Duder, whom I have not seen in some time.

Because I'm busier than Uncle's Night in a whore house.

I didn't make up that line. I think David Lynch did.

But yeah, I'm busy. Was dating this cool girl, but I don't even have the time to be a proper Dating Man. Too much to do.

The play, it's all about the play....


A quick aside:

Please America, don't pick Hillary Clinton. I don't think she's a ball-busting bitch, but I just want to move this country forward. I fear that electing Senator Clinton will be an acquiescence to Machine Politics and another decade of divisional politics.

And I don't want to see the presidents listed as Bush Clinton Bush Clinton in my textbooks. It's a bit too War of the Roses.

Someone else used that phrase, but I can't remember. So credit to whomever.


Been thinking about summer. About theatre, and travel. I'm looking forward to both, of course.

Check the tickets to Dublin about once a week, and get my heart broken a bit every time. So very, very expensive this year. What happened? Fuel prices? Falling dollar?

While it has been expensive, it has always been worth it. A week or so in Dublin, Galway, or Sligo. Trains and pints and some good friends. Budget tells me that it isn't a good idea to go this summer, but I keep holding out for the financial miracle.


I like Irish things.

Hanratty

If you want an explanation for this picture, then click here to read about Limelight's day with The House Theatre.

Actually, the post doesn't really explain what the hell she's doing with that sign. Accepting my dare, I suppose.

Happy Near Year, everyone.

Little White Dogs

Thanksgiving approaches, and that means only one thing for me: a few days off.

Obviously I'm looking forward to family and food; these things are important to me, and will always be important to me. But I'll get a few days off from work, and that will indeed be something to give thanks for, because there's a lot I have to get done.

Those stupid online grad classes I signed up for back in April? Yeah, I didn't get to those this summer, and time is running out, so I need to finally buckle down and get them finished.

The remount of the radio production of It's a Wonderful Life is going on right now, quite swimmingly, but it takes up a bit of the ole free time as well. (November 29th and 30th, folks, if you have a hankering to see the show. I even get to be Uncle Billy this year, because seriously, is there a better part for me than the lovable alcoholic uncle?


And then there's Heroes and Villains. I think I may have found a writing partner, which should be quite interesting and enjoyable. Plus a collaborator on some short films that I want to create for the show, which should add an additional layer of awesomeness to the show. More on that as it develops.

Instead of just writing about why I have no time to do things such as blogging, and commenting on other peoples' blogs (Bicyclemark! I miss you, man!), I should give you a story. So here goes:

Last Saturday I woke up with a horrible fever. 101 degrees, couldn't even get out of bed. Called around, trying to find someone who could bring me some necessary items for my sick bed (7-Up, French bread, Simpsons DVDs, etc.), and eventually made it downstairs to the couch. I probably should have gone to the doctor right then and there, as it turned out to be strep throat, but I didn't even have the energy for the short drive to the doctor's office up the road from my house.

So I was sitting on the couch, watching one of the several episodes of The War that I had recorded, when I hear a knock at my door. Now, I don't normally get many unannounced visitors at my place, but this was the third knock at my door that day. (One other being two very nice middle-aged women who undoubtedly wanted to save me from the horrors of the Planned Parenthood clinic recently opened up the road.)

There was a Chinese woman at my door, cradling a small, white dog in her arms. She is my neighbor. She doesn't speak much English, but tried as best as she could to explain that her dog was sick and that she needed to go to the hospital, and since she didn't have a car, could I drive her and her sick dog to the animal hospital?

Now, I would love to say that this story ends with me driving a scared Chinese woman to the nearest veterinary office, where I heroically sit with her in the outer office while her little white dog is examined. That would be a good ending to the story, and had situations been a bit different, maybe that's how it would have happened.

But I'm standing at the front door, unwashed, unshaved, in an old bathrobe and my head dizzy with fever, and all I can get out is, "I don't know.....I......I don't know if I can help. I'm sick, too."

She apologizes for bothering me and goes to another neighbor's house for help.

I stand there for a minute, trying to process what had happened. I feel horrible, not just from the fact that I'm sick with the strep, but that I wasn't able to help this woman. It had happened all so sudden, I didn't know what to do.

After a minute or so I come to my senses, and decide that I'll get dressed and drive her to the vet despite my ill health. I throw on some clothes, flipping through the yellow pages as I pull my coat on, and walk out the door, looking for the scared Chinese woman with her little white dog.

I knock, and ring the doorbell, and hear the other 3-4 little white dogs she owns, barking and yipping on the other side of the door. No answer. I look up the road, wondering if she's going door-to-door, like the middle-aged women from this morning, but I don't see her anywhere.

Eventually I go back inside and collapse on the couch, where I resume my combination of sleeping and watching of WW2 documentaries.

Later that night there is another knock at my door, and it is my Chinese neighbor, letting me know that she made it to the vet's office, and that her dog was being taken care of. She apologizes again for bothering me, and I try my best to apologize as well, all the while wishing that I could have helped her, or else that the whole thing had just never happened.

As I close the door and return, once again, to the sick bed that is my living room couch, I think about my inability to help the Chinese woman. How much of my reluctance had to do with the fact that I was, truthfully, very ill, and how much did it have to do with the fact that those goddamn dogs always crap on my lawn.

I guess I'll never know.

The Life of Brian

THE LIFE OF BRIAN

(AN UPDATE)

A week or so ago I was in the city and got the chance to see The Darjeeling Limited, followed by a Q & A with Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman afterwards.

Got a chance to meet up with The Griffin after a long separation, and that was probably the highlight of the night. Yeah, I loves me some Anderson films, and I enjoyed Darjeeling immensely, but I've known Joe for a long time, and it was really great to spend a few hours with him, catching up.

He was part of my acting company for a long time, and helped define what Limelight was to be when we were first starting out. Not many guys get to play John Proctor, Professor Bhaer, Thorin Oakenshield, Michael Corleone, and Lysander from A Midsummer Night's Dream by the time they're 15 years old.

Joe's back living in Illinois after a couple of years in Ohio. He's living in the city and going to film school, and I'm pretty much in high-jealousy mode for his lifestyle. Perhaps I shall live through him vicariously.

Meanwhile, all is quiet on the western suburban front. I work, trying to stop my students from growing up to be assholes. It seems like that's my mission these days: to make sure at least a few kids don't grow up to be ignorant Americans.

If that offends a few people, I don't mind. There is something seriously wrong with the way things have gone 'round here, and I genuinely fear for the future of this nation.

Aside from my alarmist fears, I'm enjoying my new surroundings. We have the dedication ceremony this weekend for the new school, and I even get to make a short speech. Tabula rasa seems to be the overriding theme of my brief remarks.

I've thought about signing up for NaNoWriMo, and just writing a play in a month instead of a novel. But then I realized that I have to direct a play, do report cards, conduct parent-teacher conferences, and celebrate Thanksgiving during November.

The play is going well, though, at least in my head. I tend to pull over to the side of the road a lot lately, as ideas pop into my head. Because I am old, and have much to ponder in this life of mine, I have to write everything down now, lest I forget it.


So while things are fine here in Brian-land, I desperately need some kind of getaway. A week or so where I can clear my head and just do some proper writing. And since my free time is so limited, I've thought about using some of my holiday time to travel somewhere. Find a quiet place, bring the laptop, a decent bottle of whiskey (shout-out to Donal there), maybe a pack of smokes for the hell of it, and nothing else.

Anyone got a quiet cabin in the woods for rent?

UK LTC DIY Mashup

Elimare gives a shout-out to Limelight while visiting Wales.

You just earned yourself a lifetime supply of free tickets to all our shows.

$2 Guinness

Pulled some ham steaks out of the freezer that had been in there far too long, and after perusing through the cupboards, found nothing interesting to eat. Hadn't I just gone to the new fresh market store with all the produce and vegetables and tasty red wine?

Man cannot live on pears and mushrooms and vino alone, so I decided to head down to the pub and drink $2 Guinness and watch the Cub game for a bit.

I have a local pub. It's the only decent bar within my corner of the suburban retail sprawl I dwell in, unless you like to hang out in the bar area of TGI Friday's or enjoy spending your Friday evenings in the mega-bars that surround me.

Okay, that's what I actually did Friday, but I prefer the smaller, independent places. Like Paulie's up the road. Decent place. Good burgers.

That story doesn't really go anywhere, so let's move on.

I'm busy right now. New job's going well, but man there's a lot of paperwork. You know how police detectives always talk about how most of the job is sitting at the desk filling out forms? That seems to be a lot of what I do now, when I'm not teaching. Lots and lots of forms.

Also trying to put some different things together for Limelight, in my spare time. A few decent things lined up, if I can convince the kids that a collaborative workshop with The House Theatre is something they need to do.

Lots going on, not much time to write, or read other blogs properly. And no time for outside, or trees, or quiet forest paths. Or a long car trip. I could really use some of that right now.

So. Right. Much to do. Back when I'm able.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (Part One)

The first week of June was spent saying goodbye to students. It was very sad, very emotional, and a lot harder than I imagined.

June 7th was the last day of school. Finished packing up one office sometime around noon.

First rehearsal was that night.

From June 7th until July 16th I didn't have a day off. I worked 12-15 hours every day, for the most part. (Sometimes I was lucky and only had to work 5-7 hours.)

Directed one play, produced another, shepherded a third (from my original from 5 years ago), and more or less watched the fourth. (Although I did get to finally be a filmmaker and direct some film sequences for Singin' in the Rain. I'll post some video later.)

Ate a lot of Caesar salads (not for the irony--there's an excellent Italian restaurant just up the road from the stage), shed some teacher weight, avoided graduate school responsibilities once again, said no to friends over and over (regrettably), and finally made vacation plans (Ireland, of course.)

And I started working on a new play. Heroes and Villains. It's about college.

This is, of course, the short version. I felt a post was needed, though, since I have been horribly neglectful towards this blog for some time now. Thank you, readers, for being patient with me as I direct my creative energies elsewhere for a while. It was very necessary that I get this blog out of my head for a while, so as to focus my attention elsewhere.

More to come soon. The hour is late, and I need some sleep.

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

Regular writing should resume shortly. For now, a few more pictures from the performance:


Lots more pictures here.

Such a kick-ass show. Charmed from the start. Great cast, great ideas, great assistance from everyone. I shall speak more of it later. We still have two more different shows to get through before we're done.

And Ireland awaits!

JC 2007

Two more days, two more performances. We sweated it a bit the last few days, but it's turning into an outstanding show. Catch it while you can, people...

And Happy 30th Birthday to The Duder, to Eric, to a good friend. My sincere apologies for not being able to spend it with you properly. We shall raise a glass to it soon, though.