HAIR at Stanford

Last night I went to see STAMP's first full show that I had absolutely nothing to do with. So many new, wonderful people- hurrah for STAMP.

The show itself was interesting. Having it on the lawn of Stanford's hippie co-op, Synergy, definitely worked. The residents of the house sitting on the balcony watching added to the communal feeling of the show. However... it has next to no plot. Or at least, not that I was able to pick up on. I got the story of Claude, but were any of the other characters actually important? Did they change at all? The songs and dances were fun, and there was a large assortment of talent- Amanda Gelender was wonderful, as usual, that part was basically written for her. I also really liked watching Lyn and Liesl, although I wish that Lauren Hayes had a bigger part. The set was great, and the cast definitely gelled very well. I think walking away my biggest compliment would be for the ensemble, and the feeling that they really believed in the production. :-)

A bit unrelated, but I just watched the HBO movie Recount with Kevin Spacey and Tom Wilkinson (who are both great). Just thinking about it makes me want to cry, though. It's hard to believe it's been eight whole years. Can we have a democratic president come November? Please???

Both this movie and the new Indiana Jones end with the image of aisles of boxes. Granted Area 51 and boxes of 2000 Florida votes are not exactly the same, but its certainly that feeling of here is the end. I need to figure out how to end shows. It was one of the few really important things that Christopher Jenkins said in my directing class two weeks ago, which rang with me because I had issues with that both on Goliath and In Darfur. But I like the image of boxes. Damn movies for being able to do things like that.

Today I am going to pull out Drunk Enough to Say I Love You (by Caryl Churchill) and see if I can determine a 10 minute scene because that would be fantastic to direct. I wonder what I did with it.

My directing library currently includes:
A Sense of Direction by William Ball (founding artistic director of ACT), a book that I have already read and really enjoyed
On Directing by Harold Clurman, which so far I have read the introduction to
The Stage Director's Handbook from SSDC, which I have thoroughly perused and read all the essays for. Now if I only knew which path I wanted to pursue.
In Contact with the Gods? A collection of interviews with famous directors
The Empty Space by Peter Brook, which one day I will just sit down and read, I promise...
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp, which is really interesting and I've read about a third of
and a couple others that I am forgetting.

The hard part about books on directing is that I don't actually think I can learn from them, but I read them in hope of being inspired. So I have to keep reading. I am resolved today to read more of the reader from my directing class, so that I can go in and sound smart tomorrow. :-) Or at least committed. And tonight I go to see Secrets of the Forest, a solo show by Stanford senior George Wyhinny. I've heard good things.

À bientôt!

In that phase again

I like piecing together my thoughts, but take no time to do it. My journals end up full of lists and random feelings. So here we are, one more blog for the road. A place to collect my thoughts and hopefully learn something about how I feel about theatre.

So here's entry number one.
Last night I saw the first two-thirds of a preview dress for Theatre Q's Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde. Held at the tiny Dragon Theatre in downtown Palo Alto, I thought director George Quick did a fantastic job with as many as (and often) nine actors onstage at once. I loved the muddled line between the characters in the past and the people in the present (or timeless) watching and making judgements, as if questioning whether they too would have drawn the same verdicts. The intimacy of the space lent itself to having the driving action often the most upstage, and onlookers watching from chairs in the downstage corners, almost a part of the audience, but not quite, given their frequent breaks to read from newspapers and other memoirs of the trials. The set was entirely Ikea furniture- 11 chairs and 2 tables. I suppose if you want 11 matching, nondescript chairs, why not?

I loved the portrayal of Oscar Wilde by John Aney, and Kevin Copps (Sir Edward Clarke).
Thomas Azar was my favorite to watch onstage- I would love to meet and/or work with him.
And apparently George Quick is off to Chattanooga, TN- here's the link to his blog!

The play has sat on my shelf partly-read for years, and now I might just have the momentum to pick it up and finish it.

Today I recieved the June/July issue of Theatre Bay Area, which includes Dan Hoyle's Tings Dey Happen and an essay by Dan Hoyle on stretching political theatre. The article is fantastic and really makes me want to go out and explore somewhere exciting and get inspired to do political theatre. And/or just meet director Charlie Varon. I haven't read the show yet, but I have high hopes. I also really enjoyed Brad Erickson (TBA Executive Director)'s note responding to Mike Daisey's show, "How Theater Failed America". Mike Daisey is a good friend of Liz Frankel, who was my supervisor during my literary internship at The Public Theater last summer, so I have met him, and hope to see his show if it's still running when I make it out to New York. For someone who's future is most likely in regional theatre, and having already read the sort of shocked negativism from the critics, I would like to experience first hand what he has to say.

My other goals for said New York trip thusfar are to see In The Heights and Title Of Show. I am to this day not sure where I first stumbled upon TOS; I think my mother may have given it to me for Christmas a couple years ago. If so, she really hit the jackpot, because discovering this wonderful show before it went much of anywhere made an undying fan out of me. You should absolutely check out their [newly updated] website, www.titleofshow.com. And if you're a musical theatre nerd like I am, check out the [tos]words on the page [for fans of show]. I spent many happy hours with them. And if you're in NY after July 5th (when previews start) GO SEE IT ON BROADWAY!!!

That's all for today. Let's see if I can come up with half as much to say tomorrow.