Friday's Odds and Ends

Another week has flown by, and I keep wondering where the time went. I remember when my grandmother told me how the days and weeks and months seem to shrink as you get older, I didn't believe her. But then, I was just a 12-year-old girl. Days were endless to me then, and I was sure they would always be.

Now I have to often remind myself to stop. Enjoy this moment. Make this moment count. This morning there was another spectacular sunrise. As I was walking with my dog, I stopped and admired the cloud formations, some looking like wisps of cotton pulled so thin the color of the sky could be seen through the threads. Colors that ranged from a deep orange to a light yellow, blending into a pale blue.

Beautiful.

Of course, I did not have my camera. But I do have a picture I took last year that I can share. We do have beautiful sunrises and sunsets here in Texas.

How many of you cheered when news of the settlement between Congress and President Obama was announced? I didn't cheer. I just said, "It's about damn time." Throughout this prolonged mess, all I could think of was two junkyard dogs facing off to protect their part of the domain.

Sad, and enough said.

On Monday I said I would report today on how the book promotion went, offering Boxes For Beds free for a few days. I'm going to put that off until next Friday so I can include some information from a couple of other authors on how their promotional events have worked. I found out that Stacy Juba had a special this past week also, and she has agreed to share some of her results with us.  I first met Stacy when she invited me to write an essay for her book, 25 Years in the Rearview Mirror, a collection of stories from a number of authors looking back to 1985. Stacy is a terrific writer and a great supporter of other authors, and I am looking forward to hearing how her promotional efforts went. She is so good at marketing, too.

 It's been a while since I shared a Literary Lesson, and I thought this one appropriate considering the mess our government is in. This is the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town" speaking. The play was written in 1938, but not much has changed.

"Whenever you come near the human race, there's layers and layers of nonsense."

And lets finish with a joke. Can't end on a downer:

What did the math book say to the other math book? 
Boy do I have problems.

Friday's Odds and Ends

The image of that terrorist standing on the London street and justifying his atrocious attack on the English soldier is hard to shake. I guess that was the first time I saw such hate and such mis-guided religious fervor in real life. I have purposely not watched the many videos uploaded on the Internet over the years by terrorists. I simply do not want to hear what they have to say.

This time, however, the terrorist was on the evening news shouting that he had a right to hack that poor man to death because British soldiers are killing Muslim women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kudos to Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, a cub scout leader and mother of two, who got off a bus and tried to reason with the attackers after she tried to help the victim lying on the street. According to a report on Fox News news, the woman kept talking to the two attackers before police arrived at the scene.  When one of the attackers told her that they wanted to start a war in London, she responded: "It is only you versus many people. You are going to lose."

Speaking of terrorists, I did not know that the man arrested in the Fort Hood shooting spree, Major Nidal Hasan, continues to be paid his salary and has earned more than $278,000 since the shooting in 2009 that resulted in 13 deaths and 32 injuries. I probably should not label him a terrorist because, according to a story in The Lookout, that is a designation that the federal government has not assigned him and the reason he can collect his salary, while the victims and families of victims struggle to pay medical and other bills. Because the government called the shooting an act of workplace violence and not an act of combat or terror, those injured don't receive additional pay or Purple Hearts.


Not only is that an insult, it is a blatant example of injustice and skewed thinking. How could anyone justify the situation?

This has nothing to do with the subject matter. Just thought you would like to see something pretty.

 On a lighter note, here is a cartoon from Baby Blues:  Dad and Hammie are walking down the street. Dad says, "Hammie, you have to learn to pay attention to your school work so you can get a good education. Otherwise you could end up digging ditches."

Hammie says, "Ditches? What kind of ditches? He twirls around. "Big ones? With a bulldozer? Tunnels, too?"

Dad says, "I think you're missing the point."
  

Literary Lesson:  "I guess we're all hunting, like everybody else, for a way the diligent and sensible can rise to the top and the lazy and quarrelsome can sink to the bottom. But it ain't easy to find." Editor Webb in Thornton Wilder's play Our Town. Written in 1938, but still applicable today.

A to Z Challenge - P is for Proscenium

Unless you have had any association with live theatre, you probably have no idea what a proscenium is. I know I did not before I started playing on stage, but simply put it is the area at the front of the stage facing the audience. The arch over that area creates a "window" around the scenery and performers. In Roman theatre there was no arch, and the term proscenium just meant "in front of the scenery".

The interior of the Auditorium Building in Chicago built in 1887. The rectangular frame around the stage is the proscenium "arch".

The front of the stage that faces the audience is referred to as the the fourth wall, which places an invisible barrier between the actors and the audience. Most plays respect that fourth wall, never involving the audience in what is going on, other than as spectators. However, there are some, like Thornton Wilder's Our Town that breaks that fourth wall, a process that is sometimes referred to as "breaking the proscenium."

When we staged Our Town recently, I was faced with a number of challenges as a director. First, we have no proscenium, and many of the suggested stage movements called for the character of the Stage Manager to use a proscenium pillar as a resting place when his monologue was finished and action was about to take place. So my assistant director and I had to figure out where the Stage Manager could go and be out of the way.

The talented John Milligan as the Stage Manager. He found a place to stand.

We also have a very small stage, so that presented another challenge in terms of having two homes set up for the Webb's and the Gibb's families, as well as areas for other action to take place without having to do set changes. We did manage to get it all worked out, and it is to the credit of my wonderful cast and crew that we were able to do tribute to Mr. Wilder's fantastic play.

Are you familiar with other staging configurations?  What do you think an "alley" stage is? Have you been to a "Black Box" theatre?

A to Z Challenge - A is for Act One

Before I share my word for today, I want to give a shout out to Arlee Bird at Tossing It Out   From what I understand, it was Arlee's bright idea to start the challenge a few years ago. This is my second time to participate, and I must admit it is a challenge, but it is also fun.

I toyed with a number of possible themes for my posts this month and nothing really energized me, until I thought of trying to find words that are associated with live theatre, acting, and plays. That seemed a natural since I have been in rehearsal for seven weeks for a production of "Our Town" at our local community theatre. I am directing and playing a role, which is especially challenging, and I may never do that again.

"Our Town" is a classic three- act play written by Thornton Wilder in 1938, and theatres across the country are celebrating the 75th anniversary with productions. Set in the fictional American small town of Grover's Corners, it could be the story of any typical small town's citizens in the early twentieth century as depicted through their everyday lives. The story is set between the years of 1901 and 1913 and convey the ordinariness of love, marriage, and death. 

Act One of "Our Town" begins with a monologue by the character of the stage manager, whose role is like that of the chorus in some of Shakespeare's  plays. The stage manager talks directly to the audience, introducing the town, the characters, and the themes of each act.

The play is performed with a minimal set, which suits our small performance space nicely, and the actors do not use props. Instead, they mime their actions, and that adds an extra layer of challenge to any performer. The character of the stage manager acts like the chorus in some of Shakespeare's  plays, talking directly to the audience with narration that moves the story along.

For those of us who like to "play" on stage, mounting a production like this is quite a thrill.

Do you enjoy live theatre? Have you ever had the urge to be on stage?

Friday's Odds and Ends

Kudos to the 89-year-old woman who has been broadcasting for blind listeners for seven years in North Texas. Adell Campbell has a general-interest program, The Eyes of North Texas, that has about 2,000  subscribers. The show,  which is broadcast twice a week, 9 a.m. on Monday and 11 a.m. on Saturday, is on North Texas Radio for the Blind, which is part of a local nonprofit Reading & Radio Resource.

The general programming at the station focuses on reading newspapers and magazines to the subscribers, but Adell likes to add some entertainment. She starts each show by reading a cartoon, usually one that pokes fun at politics. (I knew there was a reason I liked this lady.) Then she will often have a guest. 

She enjoys doing the shows and has no plans to stop any time soon, although she admits that her age is beginning to have an impact. In an interview with  Eden Stiffman in The Dallas Morning News she said, "Getting old is a very humbling process. And I'm not inclined to be humble." 

One of my favorite cartoon characters is Crankshaft from the strip written by Tom Batiuk and Chuck Ayers. He's a curmudgeon, like my husband and I, and we both can relate to his world view. In a recent strip he is looking out the window at the bird feeder in his front yard. "The bird feeder is full of squirrels again," he says. "Maybe I'm going about this all wrong. If I put up a squirrel feeder, I wonder if only birds will come?"

In another strip, Crankshaft is shoveling snow and his neighbor looks over the fence. "Hey there Crankshaft," he says. "Snowy enough for you?"

The last panel shows the neighbor ducking a snow shovel that is flying through the air.

Finally, this from Dilbert. He is walking along the sidewald with Dogbert and says, "Studies show it takes ten thousand hours of practice to be great at anything."

To which Dogbert replies, "I would think a willingness to practice the same thing fro ten thousand hours is a mental disorder."

Dilbert says, "That makes me feel better about my mediocrity."

"You're welcome."

Literary Lessons:  This one is from Thornton Wilder, "You see, imaginative story telling consists of telling a number of lies in order to convey a truth; it is a rearrangement of falsehoods which, if it is done honestly, results in verity."